Ridgefield Upswing

outfit
@neck

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Minnie hated hospitals.

Well, she didn't hate them. They were important, and the people who toiled away in these sterile white walls were facilitators of hope and healing. Hospitals just made her uncomfortable and sad. She hated being inside them, seeing old people and sick people and sad people. The sounds of chirping heart monitors, respirators wheezing and sighing, people weeping, gurney wheels clicking over tile. She hated knowing that people needed hospitals. People like Officer Cassidy Morgan.

A volunteer behind a desk directed her through hoops and directions to her friend's room. She felt very small and helpless in this great big place, so clean on the public side that there wasn't even anything to smell. Minnie walked with a meager bouquet clutched in one hand and held gently under her nose, as if the refrigerated scent of orange and yellow tiger lilies would make her feel magically better. The other hand clutched a teddy bear with a blue ribbon around its neck, and a card. Get well beaw-y soon. In retrospect, it felt really, really ridiculous. Like it was something Cass would scoff at - but she was never anything worse than gruff to Minnie.

She thought about what Ashley had said as she made her way down the last turn. A vampire attack. It made her skin crawl. It was a dark string of thought, and Minnie had some fleeting gratitude that she hadn't needed hospitalization. How bad was Cass? How bad had she been before Ashley got her hands on her? Ugh, ugh, ugh.

Knocking gently to announce her presence, Minnie stepped in, peering tentatively at the hospital bed with big, grim eyes and a tightly set jaw.

The TV was tuned to some daytime channel with an audienceless talk show host plying their trade; COVID lockdown, baby daddy paternity tests—nowhere to run. With her head tilted towards the distraction, Cass stared slack jawed and glazed over. She needed the distraction and immersed herself in the drama.

The fentanyl dried up. Her doctors had her on a morphine dispenser now. Her good right hand gripped trigger, the thumb poised over the button. The drip did nothing for her now. She ached all over, her skin tingled, and pain pulsed dully through her extremities to gather in her core. There the pain burrowed deep and gathered strength to flare outward.

She wheezed; each breath exaggerated and wet. Barely able to move without help, Cass was transfixed on the TV and the unfolding drama. The knock at the door wasn't registered at first and it was more an understanding she wasn't alone that made her turn towards the door.

Cass frowned at her visitor and then inhaled strenuously as she recognized the young woman pensively waiting at the threshold. She continued to stare as her brows knit into a confused scowl. What was Minnie doing here? How did she know? For a panicked second Cass worried she texted Minnie in a fentanyl haze… but she hadn't so much as touched her phone; didn't even know where it was.

"Hi… Minnie." She rasped, unsure whether or not her eyes played tricks on her.

This was not the woman made of stone, the woman who had nudged her feet around and straightened her arms when she'd held a pistol that was too big for her. Cass was hooked up to all manner of tubing and wires, all oily and pale, like a too-realistic painting. The room was too white around her - the walls, the bed sheets, the blanket, the hospital gown.

For a few seconds, she couldn't move from just inside the door, like her shoes had been glued to the grey-and-white linoleum beneath. Cass stared at her, brow furrowed, like she didn't recognize the person who'd come into the room. Minnie stared back, feeling some animal instinct to turn around and leave. A lump crawled up in her throat, rock-solid and painful, eyes stinging. When Cass spoke, she sounded like someone on their deathbed.

There was no reason to cry, right? Big fat tears rose like high tide anyway, multiplying the gleam of light in her eyes as they built up and spilled over. Cass wasn't dying, but she looked like she was. It was an impossible thought to knock. Dying! Dying! Dying!

"Hi," she squeaked out, feeling messy and stupid and all sorts of other bad things. She shuffled closer, setting the plastic-wrapped bundle of flowers down on the little table by the big white bed. Crinkle, crinkle. Movements slow, she watched her hands set the teddy bear and the card down with them, embarrassment and great sadness turning her face to a shade of bright, splotchy red. She turned her gaze to Cass then, wiping fervently at her face and breathing in big sighs, trying to swallow down the lump. Could she sit with her? Could she touch her? Sniffle. "How are." Sniffle. "You feeling?"

Minnie was Death in that twilight between imagination and realization. No billowing robe of tattered black sackcloth, no scythe to gleam beneath the fluorescent tubes, no skeletal grin shrouded in the hood. Death was an innocent girl, there to take away the pain of this life and usher Cass to the next. There was no fear, yet she frowned and knew better… knew it was only her young friend. But how? And why?

Cass' eyes tracked Minnie across the room. Neither of them it seemed knew what to do. The flowers, the bear; they were cherished things that never meant shit to her before now. The respirator was off and Cass smiled dimly to Minnie's question. It was a distracted smile; a vacancy sign behind the eyes. Her skin was worryingly pale and a sheen of sweat glistened on her brow. But her face was a marked improvement compared to the rest of her. Riotous bruises spread from her throat down.

Her lip twitched and she made something that could have been a laugh in another life. "Can't complain." Each word took its measure of haggard breath. She squeezed the morphine drip's trigger. Nothing.

Cassidy distantly reminded Minerva of her grandmother, years ago, high on the drip, surrounded by family, waiting to be escorted up to the pearly gates. There was a lack of focus in those eyes. Minnie looked into them with the same yawning sadness, then looked over the rest of her - the way her hair laid flat and greasy against her scalp, the inky purple-black webbing of busted blood vessels under her jaw.

Can't complain. She listened to the click of the remote in Cass's hand, linking her tear-dampened hands together before her, fingers wringing a little. She should probably be trying harder to be strong, here. She wasn't the one who was bed-ridden and busted up like a dropped can of corn. She wanted to give Cass a hug, but she couldn't be sure if even sitting on the bed would cause pain. She looked around with watery eyes and spotted a chair, and with jerky movements would go to grab it, drag it closer to the bed, and sit down.

"Are you... gonna be okay?" she asked, nearly a mumble, wiping at her face again, pulling in a shuddering breath that was meant to steel her against further weeping.

Cass nodded without lifting her head from the pillow. Moving her head like that made pain jigsaw through her neck muscles. She tensed and inhaled sharply against the heat spreading through her throat and into chest. Distant eyes took languid seconds to refocus on Minnie, and the dim smile returned once Cass found her friend again.

"I heal quick." It hurt to speak, and Cass kept it short. She healed staggeringly fast the last time the bastard laid her out. Why would this time be different? But she couldn't answer whether she'd be okay, couldn't admit the truth to Minnie, let alone herself. She couldn't tell Minnie how it broke her before and to be here again… lying was all she could do.

She released the morphine controller and her hand groped across the covers towards where Minnie sat.

Watching Cass reel through pain from the simple act of nodding sent a ghost of sympathy pain through Minnie's neck. She grimaced a little, wiping her hands idly on her pants, sniffling. It was very hard to watch her friend struggle through the overwhelming synapses, hard to watch her slowly find eye contact again. She healed quickly. With Ashley's help, Minnie had no doubt about that.

Her eyes fell to the other woman's hand as the morphine remote was released, listening to the gentle clicking and sighing of movement. She was struck with some great need here, to paint a portrait of Cass, in a way that blazed in contrast of the sight of her here. She would paint Officer Morgan with a gun in her hand and a fire in her heart.

Was it okay to take her crawling hand? It seemed like maybe it was a good idea. Minnie wiped her own palm off on her pants again and reached for it, very gently closing her fingers around Cassidy's. She didn't know what to say, or what to talk about. Magic? Vampires? Her own experience with the latter? Was that a weird thing to bring up right now? Was that... acceptable commiseration?

"I got bit by a vampire, one time," she fumbled gracelessly into the topic. "He tore my neck open. Made me drink his blood to heal it up."

What exactly was she trying to do here, honestly.

Despite being morphined to the eyeballs, Cass couldn't let this stand. Anger simmered against the drugged haze. Even if the expression was drunken, she was still able to scowl darkly. The hand which Minnie grasped was a limp thing up until then, but her friend's confession steeled her. The grip tightened and the nerves along the right side of her body lit up. Cass gasped and trembled through prickling seconds until she finally settled.

There was no apology for what Minnie went through and no checking if she was okay. No attempt to bond over tragedy or find common ground. No thoughtful prodding for details. There was only one question.

"Who?" She was gonna kill the thing that did this to Minnie.

---

Warning to some fucker

Minerva felt like the human version of a bird who'd flown into a window. Stupid. Cass's expression turned into a snarl of anger and pain, and Minnie's mind lagged slowly in realizing that the brief, sharp stiffness of her body was her body's response to pain born from too much of something. Who? Well, that was the question of the century. Minnie had only told Whitewing about it, and just like then, she didn't even know his name. Only what he looked like, sounded like.

"I dunno," she confessed softly, frowning down at their linked hands. "It's been a long time now. I never learned his name... Tall man, white. Brown hair, blue eyes." She shrugged a little, feeling juvenile. That described a whole lot of people in Colorado, let alone Ridgefield.

Her scowl deepened as Minnie confessed to not knowing her attacker's name. A brief look of disgust followed before the drugged dullness returned. What did she expect? She didn't even know the name of the thing that fucked her up twice. That was almost comic, but she had the last laugh. Minnie's description matched at least half of Ridgefield and Cass wheezed a huff, closed her eyes. She squeezed Minnie's hand again and steeled herself against the flair of pain that roiled through her.

She felt disjointed, scattered. Drunk. One minute ready to murder for her friend and the next accepting of immense disappointment. Cass sucked in a breath and croaked wetly on the exhale. Opening her eyes, they rolled the room before settling on Minnie. Then she smiled blankly.

"Are you okay?" She asked and labored for breath for each hoarse word.

Cass moved sluggishly through whatever was happening in her morphine-soaked brain. Frowning, huffing, squirming, squeezing. Her rattling breath and rolling, shiny eyes. This version of Cassidy was scary and sad. She felt some creeping sensation along her spine and the back of her arms, like Death lingered in the doorway, waiting for her to leave the room. She felt bad for mentioning this at all, watching the woman writhing in her hospital bed for pain made worse by anger.

"Mhmm," she assured her quietly, head nodding. "I mean. You know. That kinda stuff... sticks with you forever." Minnie frowned some, looking up from their hands to Cass's face again. "But I'm okay." She wasn't going to let it ruin the rest of her life. There was still so much good stuff left out there. She wanted to see Cass out of this hospital bed and chasing after that kind of thing.

Her croaked laugh was bitterly ironic. This was the second life-threatening vampire assault she endured within two years and Minnie was right; you carried this shit with you. Cass watched Minnie through unfocused eyes and envied Minnie's resilience. She could put up with a lot, but not with a smile, not without losing herself to the thing she rallied against. The girl had iron in her spine; fitting she bent metal to her will.

Almost as Cass' admiration for her friend formed, it vanished to a drugged haze and left her blank-eyed. What was Minnie doing here? Cass grew concerned, drew back into the pillow and tried to focus. "How did you get here?"

More of the same drifting sort of air about Cass. Stoned but in pain all the same, she floated between questions. Minnie had never been high before. She wondered what it was like, what exactly Cassidy was feeling. Wondered if the hospital was too white for her morphine-soaked eyes.

The question earned a confused expression. "I... drove," she offered, giggling a little with her admission. Unless Cass meant, like, how did she figure out how to get here? "Ashley told me you were here."

Minnie drove. It took a moment but the information checked out. But it wasn't the heart of the question, it wasn't the why.

"Ashley?" Cass scowled hard in thought. Who the fuck was Ashley? She inhaled deeply through ruined lung tissue. The rumble echoed in her chest. Cass blinked at the pain, blinked in confusion. Had someone from the precinct told Minnie? The hospital? How had they even known to call her?

Cass questioned her, frowning and wheezing grotesquely through her wonder. Minnie couldn't stand to let her ruminate painfully for very long. "Yeah! You know her, remember? My roommate? The... girl with the nosebleeds? Her power is healing?" Fervently dropping hints and tips. Cass knew her! Had she lost some pieces of her memory, or was she just a little too messed up to grasp it right now?

That's right! Minnie had a roommate. They met that morning, but not for the first time. The girl's face was fuzzy in her mind's eye; brown hair, bloody towel pressed to her mouth.

"Ashley Marie Miller…" She smiled dumbly as the full name fell from her lips into a mumbled puddle. But she was a healer? Cass squinted; after Wonderland, Cris told her of a healer. It took another catastrophic attack for Cass to find her.

Cass did remember, then, reciting her full name in a hazy slur. Minnie smiled a little for it, relieved, a little nudge against her sadness. "Yeah, that's her," she confirmed with a soft sigh. Her gaze fell to their hands again, and Minnie frowned softly at them, looking at the robust webbing of blue veins along the back of Cass's hand. "Are they treating you okay here?" Did police officers get like, top notch care? Didn't they deserve as much? Cass did, at least.

After a painful swallow, she nodded. No complaints from her, but then moments of lucidity were few and far between. Indistinct days blurred between coma sleep. Cass woke and dozed, ate little, and was more familiar with a bedpan than she cared to be. Dignity was one of the first things to go when laid up like she was. But even muddled to the eyeballs, Cass saw Minnie's concern. And she didn't like it.

With effort, Cass smiled and squeezed Minnie's hand. "Don't worry about me."

The squeeze at her hand pulled Minnie's tense gaze back up to Cass's face, where a weary smile was on display. She forced a smile back in turn, lips closed over teeth, eyes crinkling pityingly. "You can't just tell someone not to worry about you. I can't help it," she sighed, trying for some edge of playfulness for all that she was very serious. Maybe it was time to... change the subject. "Listen - have you been watching the news? Did you hear about magic pacts?"

Minnie's point was taken with a drunken scowl. The expression passed and she just looked tired with a satisfied little smile. Cass had people. Minnie was one of her people. The smile grew. Then Minnie was talking about something else and it took a few seconds of Cass blinking dumbly to realize the subject change.

Magic pacts? Cass rolled her eyes towards the TV and remembered watching… something, anything, but just what was an inane blur to her. Cass turned her eyes back to Minnie and gently shook her head against the pillow. "What?"

She'd take that as a no. She was also kinda excited to be the one to impart this information on Cass, whoops! "Yeah. So... some kind of internet forum got taken down recently, but there were parts of it that got saved, I guess? And there were a bunch of people, like us, with powers, talking about how... they figured out how to form some kind of magical bond with each other. Physical contact and using their powers for an hour straight." She shrugged a little. "I haven't figured out if it's real or not yet."

Cass didn't follow most of what Minnie said. She squinted, and pinned Minnie with a look of fierce concentration. But all she took away was something about the internet and freaks like them bonding… whatever that meant. If the internet excelled at anything it was bringing the freaks together. Cass looked like she smelt bullshit, scrunching her nose and wincing back.

"What?" She croaked and looked pained.

Cass was, understandably, not really registering this. Working through it seemed to bring her more pain! Much like many pieces of this interaction had already! Minnie felt pretty guilt about it, and she let it out with a huffed little laugh. "Like... covens? Like witch covens? Er - I'll tell you more when you're better, how about that." Another gentle squeeze to Cass's hand as she made the offer. She could probably come back like, every couple days? Might not be the best idea with Covid floating around but. :(

Later sounded better. Later she'd be able to track what Minnie was saying. Part of her felt guilty for not getting it while the other part was oblivious to anything whatsoever. Those parts of her mixed to paint abstract confusion across her unbruised face.

"Okay…" Some of the tension melted, or maybe it was just the drugs sapping whatever was left of her concentration. She squeezed back and her fingers fell limp afterward. Her eyelids drooped and Minnie became a distant glow on her horizon.

Okay. And then, whatever Cass was sloughing through seemed to fall away behind heavy eyelids. Minnie recognized that the other woman likely needed a lot of rest, and she'd probably interrupted that. Gently, she would release the woman's hand and slowly stand. She grabbed the teddy bear off the bedside table and tucked it between Cassidy's arm and side. "Sweet dreams," she would say, a farewell on her way out, brimming with big feelings.