Picowrimo Day 26... I've been off colour for a few days...
The precise medical terminology being bit of a bug/touch of the flu/cold in the head... obviously not serious but left me less than enthused about mental work of any kind :(
So today, I got better, got writing, and got these 1360 words out of it. I've done a couple of these stream-or-writerly-consciousness scribbles before, here and here; this time, everyone's a bit under the weather, but it's somewhat different when you're fictional...
***
The Authoress Had The Bug...
... that was going around, and had always firmly believed that Misery Loves Company, even if it made her head hurt. But right now she wasn't so sure.
"I dob't lub any ob you," snuffled Everyone's Favourite Anthropologist, huddled on the squashily comfortable, if overlarge, Childhood Memory Couch and snuggled in enough fuzzy blankets for twenty hurt-comfort epics.
Colonel Snark glared at him from one of the (Quarantined) Corners of Her Mind. "Feeling's mutual, and remind me again what you're complaining about? It's a cold, f'cryin' out loud!"
"It bay loog like a code, a ohribul, ohribul code in d'dose." Everyone's Favourite Anthropologist glared at him; he was heavy-eyed, interestingly pale and of course mercifully free of any unattractive symptoms of cold... hood.
The Authoress, encamped at her Dream Writing Desk (albeit the Dream Desk is not normally littered in the Dreams with bottles of cough syrup, aloe vera tissues and virtual lemon'n'honey), wondered if coldhood was a word and if not, if she could get away with it anyway on the grounds that looking up synonyms made her head hurt even more.
Everyone's Favourite Anthropologist went on, his innate desire to out-talk everyone in sight not in the least hampered by his ailment. "Bud eberybudy doze dat codes in dese sdorwies bight turn ibto dead'y disheezes ad a ohribul, ohribul stay in 'osbital. Wib cabheders abd sduff."
"Chief's got a point there," the Cop with the Senses stood over him, obviously torn between being the UnNoticing Big Bully Bastard (with The Busted Leg) and the Big Huggable Comfort Buddy (with The Busted Leg); giving up with a shrug, he levered himself down, propped his leg cast on a corner of the convenient coffee table and stole a corner of a blanket. "Christ knows, I've done enough bedside vigils in unnatural chairs for a couple of thousand lifetimes."
"Try military hospital chairs," Colonel Snark grouched.
The Authoress looked at them all with a blearily considering look. "That's an idea, we haven't had a deathbed scene for... oh how long now?"
"Not nearly long enough, if you're asking us." The Gunslinger stretched out gingerly, with due respect for the graze on his side from the usual told-not-shown gun battle and stared in deep suspicion at the clutter of instruments on the bench beside him... and the sinister black bottles with them. "You boys think you have it rough, take a look at what him," hooking a thumb at the Gambler, who was stretched out on an ornate Victoriana settle beside him, "and me get dosed with in these sagas. You ever tasted willowbark tea and iron tonic?"
"The dear lady..." The Gambler, who was also appealingly wan and drawn from his injuries in yet another told-not-shown gun battle spoke in a tremulous voice, "does like Ye Olde Time Remedy Books."
The Cop With the Senses shuddered. "Don't need to taste, pal, I can smell them from here. Even worse than his," glancing at Everyone's Favourite Anthropologist, "natural health cures. Which we get to swallow for everything up to and including hangnails. If we every got something as simple as a hangnail... which we don't, I know. Damn little use for the - what d'you call it?"
"Angst," the Authoress supplied with a definite spark of interest, if as rather less delight than normal. Angst tended to be loud, she knew oh so well.
"Yeah, that stuff." He glanced at Everyone's Favourite Anthropologist again; frowning, he gave into the his inner Huggable Comfort Buddy and rewrapped the blanket over the other man, tucking it in carefully. At Colonel Snark's snort of amusement he looked over, deliberately fixing on the hand stroking the Egyptologist's pallid brow.
Colonel Snark looked down at his hand, pulled it back... and lasted almost a minute before stroking again.
The Authoress sighed and made a mental note in both the Hurt-Comfort and Suffering Beautifully folders. She looked hopefully at Colonel Snark, her hand hovering over the Situational Snark file, but he didn't seem to feel up to it right now... maybe his head hurt too. Another note for the file.
"My heart bleeds for you." The Rebel Alpha's trademark sneer was rather shaky, and none of the others could blame him. Not only was he stuck in the Corner of Her Mind with the wobbly cardboard walls and medical equipment constructed from the Authoress's kitchen utensils, but he was also wrapped in a Silver Alpha Robe straight from the Seventies in Space file lodged somewhere in her decidedly random memory - and therefore both loose enough to slide off his shoulders and way more translucent than the Gambler's scarlet brocade or the Egyptologist's fuzzy check jammies. And then there was his interesting pallor... "Given that your ailments come from research, however esoteric and appalling and medically incorrect they may be -"
"And sho obden are," Everyone's Favourite Anthropologist wheezed.
"- But in space opera, where the only limit is imagination and a strong stomach... well now," The Rebel Alpha smiled thinly, and waved a hand at Colonel Snark and his Egyptologist, both of them sporting a fascinatingly delicate green flush, a tracery of what looked like leaf patterns on their skin... and tendrils of tiny yellow flowers.
It didn't help that the hand he waved - and the rest of his skin that could be seen as the gown shifted, was nearly as silver as the gown, and almost as translucent as one of the Authoress's guilty-pleasure Victorian deathbed sufferers.
The Authoress rubbed her forehead. "That's not right. I don't have a strong stomach."
"Gotta give her that," the Dinosaur Geek affirmed in a cheerful, if wobbly voice from his nest of T-Rex duvets, computer games, and cuddly comfort Diictodon on the floor. "Probably a heap of extinct germs she could give me and mine, after all." Her looked up at her with sore, red-rimmed, sick-and-wanting-sympathy-puppy-dog eyes.
"Don't do that," she complained, "I also don't like ideas about sick puppies. Or kittens, or plot bunnies. Or even Diictodon."
"Or indeed anyone who doesn't Suffer either Appropriately Beautifully," the Rebel Alpha sneered, "or Appropriately Amusingly. Tell me, Colonel, which of those are you at the minute?"
Colonel Snark scowled. The Authoress reached for the Situational Snark file... then rethought. Because fun as that was to write, her head really did hurt... and Her Heroes really weren't very good at Suffering in the Silence she wanted for a good night's sleep.
She reached for a slim folder labelled Sick and Sorry... and Silent at the bottom of the overstuffed Plot Bunny Drawer, flicked it open, scribbled furiously for a minute. "I think," she said finally, closing the file and reaching for the virtual lemon'n'honey, "we can all stay in bed tomorrow. While you recover from what I've just thought up... or, well..."
And the (Always Erratic) Bright Light of Inspiration dimmed sleepily around them.
"Night, all."
Colonel Snark, still scowling, opened his mouth to, well, snark... and nothing came out.
The Dinosaur Geek rubbed his eyes, patted an anxious Diictodon, and opened his mouth to reassure... and nothing came out.
The Gambler looked around in unsteady alarm, hauled himself up onto one (uninjured) arm, and opened his mouth to remonstrate... and nothing came out.
Everyone's Favourite Anthropologist bounced incorrigibly if woozily, opened his mouth to simply talk and talk and talk... and nothing came out.
The Egyptologist would have spoken... but he was still asleep, mouth slightly open, and only soft snores came out.
The Cop With the Senses glanced at the Authoress, then at his only injury - his leg - quizzically, and opened his mouth... and was clearly pissed when nothing came out.
The Gunslinger, having used up his quota of words for the day, simply smirked and kept his mouth shut.
-the end-
I am of course much better today :) Some of my heroes, on the other hand may not recover from their various ailments till I've thought of ways to further milk said ailments fanfictionally...
I'm never quite sure of I need to give a list of Who's Who - anyone who is interested, let me know...