and the stream runs in circles from the chasm to the core

[lumenrelegandus]

Who: MULTIPLE THREADS! Expected: there are some plans. Unexpected: how would I know?
When: Right after this-with flexibility. All sparked by this after this.
Where: The Clinic
Format: [hates choosing] Whatever I start with, do your own thing!
What: Tonks visitations. Lupin's return. Shirley in da house. Trepkos the Grouch. AND MORE.
Warnings: Ow ow

Comments

The front entrance ( [closed] attn. Shirley)

[lumenrelegandus]

He apparates closer to the front doors than he ever has before. The wards from the Abyssal War continue to decay-and his motivation today may hasten that.

He doesn't realise that he's striding up the broad, shallow steps with Moony's gait. Nor that his wand is still in his hand.

[thenobledie]

[before shirley can properly reply over the forge, lupin is in action. not quite moving but arriving, all the same, and from her place in the clinic, she has to do the same. (what staff is present to witness the flash of light are startled by its suddenness.) too far to take swift steps and reach him before something drastic occurs -

when they are face to face, shirley standing on the highest step, she merely levels him with a calm but threatening expression. you will not disturb this sanctuary.]

[lumenrelegandus]

[Lupin, for a human being, who's also a werewolf, is at times surprisingly similar to a heron. He's lanky and mild and perpetually slumped, all of which belies the fact that he's also tall.

He stands fully upright now. From two steps below her, he can look directly into Shirley's eyes.

If, in his agitation, he misinterprets the look in them.]

Shirley. I don't know what happened to me. I was tricked. But it is me. Let me in.

[ooc: We bothered to look it up so I'm notating it. ;-) Lupin (based on David Thewlis's height) is 6'2½" (1.89 m). Shirley is 5'6" (168 cm), 5'8" in heels. Though I wouldn't bet against her levitating.]

[thenobledie]

Can you control yourself?

[she knows the difference well enough, and if he wants to embarrass himself or cause strains in such a state, shirley won't stop him. well, unless it is going to cause an awful ruckus. that, she will stop.]

Meanwhile, in one of the private rooms...

[wotchesyou]

" I'm coming," he said

Not so private no more, pumpkin?

[trephaestos]

From the wheelchair, Trepkos raised his head and blinked.

Autopilot muscle memory failure. He'd been distracted.

He should say Sorry they look alike from the outside but instead he raises his eyebrows at her wand.

"Are those standard issue in this place?"

She will come through this Narration and hex you. Don't start!

[wotchesyou]

"GET OUT!" She's scared again. Her tone also carries with it a slight begging tone. Tears formed in her eyes.

Why didn't he just roll out? She'd let him but he had to do it now. "Please get out, please."

/seals lips/

[trephaestos]

He raises his hands palm-out. "Okay… okay."

His tone is actually… trying to be gentle. With open, unguarded lunacy, he feels more allegiance and sympathy than with anyone putting on put-togetherness in this deranged place.

He tries to turn the wheelchair around. But the door has swung closed behind him. Trying to negotiate the door and the chair and the corner in a hurry is taking obviously more commotion and clamor, more time than was called for…

in lieu of posting that log, I will hijack this one.

[impossibly]

[ If you build a temple in marble and daub the keystone with the blood of your first-born son, is it an inoculation or a ward? The Clinic always smells like growth, cells repairing and tissues knitting together and flowers with little white cards. River isn't always obvious when she comes, and barely ever helpful, but to her, as a building, it rings more of warm steady hands soothing her back than needles and sharp shocks through the teeth, spilling over, spilling over. ]

[ Today she has bouquets, half a dozen all piled in her arms, and their wrappings crinkle as she climbs the stairs with soft feet. Somehow there's hope in decay, and she will carry them from room to room, silently leaving one behind. They have no signature and no vase; just lilies and chrysanthemums, stark and sweet. ]

[ In the corridors, River hums softly, a few notes, high and sweet. A music-box tune, or a lark song. For a few days thinks were all jumbled but for now everything seems cold and clear and easy. ]

/hijacks you -- wait.

[thenobledie]

[her original entrance into the clinic slipped shirley's notice, but after returning inside, she hears the tune and follows it through a corridor. waiting as river exits one room, as though she knows who river is already. her smile is soft.]

A rare thing.

[insert con air joke here]

[impossibly]

I didn't grow them myself.

[ River tilts her head, responds to the smile with a deer-step forward, a little bewitched by Shirley. ]

i haven't seen that in forever, wow.

[thenobledie]

[unbothered:]

The sentiment will grow something among the patients, though.

[sonvisage]

[Walking in just long enough to make sure that certain people are here. She's a little stiff, purposeful and quiet as she searches the rooms, only glancing through doorways - she won't hold eye contact.]

[wotchesyou]

[ She is sleeping peacefully in her room. The peacefulness is forced. Either Hermione had given her a sleeping potion or someone else had. It puts her beyond the realm of dreams.

So beyond the realm of dreams and so deep is her sleep, that Tonks doesn't even stir when her door is opened. Tonks is resting on her side in a semi-fetal position. Her left hand is tucked underneath her head with her right hand resting on her bed on top of her wand.

The sleep is what she needs. ]

[sonvisage]

[Lingers just a moment in the doorway once she realizes that Tonks is asleep. Lingers longer than she means to as she ponders sleep and all the discomfort it brought her during her own stay in the clinic. (Sure, the view was nice, and the waking hours not so bad at all, but the dreams - the hallucinations - and the bed she was confined to? Yeah, not on her list of things to revisit.)

Are there nightmares below the semblance of stillness, not-Nymphadora? She doesn't know that the potion has nullified that option, and so she's (perhaps falsely) moved to make inquiries on Dora's behalf.

Like where she was staying in the Outlander Block. It's not difficult information to obtain, but it's irritating to learn that the room has been turned back over to the landlady, and that no one really knows (or cares) what's become of her possessions.

Perhaps it's the recent loss of her own that spurs this as well? Maybe.

A little over two hours later she returns with a swath of dusky pink fabric over her arm. Slips in, leaves it on the foot of the

[lumenrelegandus]

[Tonks has calmed down enough to actually dismiss him from her side. He checks back almost hourly, but doesn't disturb her; waits until she calls for him.

When he can't get his own mind together, as ever, he focuses on others. Check on patients. Check in with staff. See what he's missed, what he needs to fix and do. Clinic (in presence) and dojo (via forge). Make up for lost time.

(If he can ever make up for that lost time.)

He's leaning over a recently vacated bed for one last check of energies when he feels her and straightens to look.

Throat tightens, heart thuds-but he doesn't try to speak to her, doesn't try to approach her.

It means something that she came. Respect that by giving her freedom also to leave.]

f-for shirley? or anyone, if they want!

[stray_gunner]

[He's quite used to the ridiculous hours at which the injured and the sick are rushed in, in part because of the odd times he sleeps and wakes, himself. Still, the noise is somewhat unwelcome as he wakes from an uncommon night of more or less peaceful sleep.

Looks out the window - not much out there. The rooms downstairs then, and on the same floor, too. Heine stands, makes himself more or less presentable, before stomping to the door and starting down the stairs.]

(gyea)

[thenobledie]

[at the bottom of the stairs:]

Must you make your presence known this way?

[not that she looks bothered. at all. shirley, why are you here go away.]

[stray_gunner]

[ffffffffuck it's the clinic lady. he recognizes her easily enough, and takes a step backwards up the stairs. avoidance is good.]

It's been louder.

[initiating defensive shrug-shoulderhunch formation.]

[thenobledie]

Yes, and it is rather bothersome.