slip of the lip or another.

[Peter Knight]

It wasn't that he didn't like hospitals, it was more that he didn't like hospitals and didn't find them a comfortable a place to be. He had never been in a place like this more times than lately, apparently he had some sort of lung thing going on. Maybe it was from the Smirnoff, no, no it wasn't from the Smirnoff, it could be from the pot and the crack and the tobacco those many many months ago, that could've been a factor. But naw, he was an intellectual human being... with horrible impulsive control, that is. And so it was that Peter found himself sitting in the ER, reading whatever magazines might cross his path, watching others around him getting medical help and being irritated at how many people were here. Sometimes he would catch Cam running around, so flustered that his accent was peaking through – something that always brought a smile to his face, it was pretty entertaining watching him struggle to articulate his words.

Brown eyes flicking around a bit more, he turned, burying his face in his elbow and coughing. This sucked, he felt like Rosie O'Donnel was sitting on his chest, unable to function very well – and an appointment today, tsk tsk, Cam needed to get a move on. But he could wait, not for much longer, he had a tenancy to get a bit impatient, especially when in pain and in need of medication and prescriptions, not that that was the only reason he was here. Peter was often seen meandering about, a vagabond without much to do after getting out of work, wherever he did work – it was something that he didn't really talk about to anyone, not seeing it as important in the least. Running a hand through his hair, he relaxed into the chair, glancing beside him. A kid, sniffling and sneezing, germs flying through the air. He mentally noted to avoid anything this child touched, sighing heavily.
The ER on a Friday night wasn't the place to be, with alcoholics and drug addicts and other generally fucked up people coming in and out, but it was a matter of time before Peter's name was called, and he was given the opportunity to explain himself – whatever he did, Cam had an amazing ability to scour Peter and figure out anything morally questionable he had done that week. It was a horrible thing, really, but Peter relished in picking apart his friend picking him apart.
If that made any sense.

Shifting his position in the chair, he instinctively massaged his chest lightly, then placing both hands over the arms of the chair, clicking his fingers against the cool metal. This place stunk like blood and vomit, he didn't mind the smell of the former, but the latter... well, he was all too familiar with that, and it wasn't a pleasant odor.
“Someone should probably spray some air freshener,” he mused, standing up and striding towards the desk with an unusual familiarity. Taking a bottle of Febreeze from the counter, he walked around to anyone who appeared intoxicated, spraying a bit of freshener above their head, then returning to his seat. Horrible day. He was tired, hungry, and wanted to go home.
Spraying drunk men and women with Febreeze wasn't part of the plan. Muttering something under his breath, he began reading the back of the bottle, stifling a few coughs as he did so. When Cam walked past him for the seventh time that day, he made it a point to spray the man in the air freshener, receiving a 'are you really that immature?' look from the older man. Irritated. An adjective that could easily describe the entire room. Not enough staff was a phrase that could be applied as well, but that was obvious.

[Anya Petranova]

<sub>Hospitals in America were so much different than the ones in Moscow.

It was less crowded than what she had expected it to be, and a lot warmer. The people didn’t smell as bad, too. There was semblance of personal space, and chairs to settle yourself in, so you weren’t forced to be squished next to some old lady with hepatitis. And you weren’t listening to some crying baby for six hours. There was an odd sort of calm and peacefulness in the rumbling of voices whispering, and the sound of the announcer’s voice over the loudspeakers chiming in every few minutes.

Anya had never been into the Emergency Room. Although she had made habit of basically living in Mercy, she was usually in the psych ward, talking with her psychiatrist about things she never really wanted to talk about. She had to, though. They said that her brain, much like her body, could get sick too, and it needed treatment. Anya didn’t want her mind to be full of illness, she didn’t know what that could entail, and decided to concede with what the doctors wanted. The process was frustrating at first, with her barely knowing conversational English. The pent up frustration that came from her inability to say what she wanted to say built up in her chest, and then spread through her body like wildfire, until it resulted with a hole being punched into the wall of the psychiatrist’s office. They depended on a translator after that, until Anya was able to learn enough English to communicate with others in the way that pleased her.

But now, Anya was seated in the Emergency room, without a clue as to why. She had developed a cough that sometimes kept her awake at nights; but, she barely thought anything of it. She got coughs all the time. It wasn’t until that she coughed up a bit of blood on her palm in the middle of a session with her doctor that they decided to go have her checked out. Anya still didn’t understand why. It made sense that she was coughing so hard that eventually blood would come out. She coughed so much, it was a surprise to her that it never came out at all before. She almost felt guilty that she would waste the doctor’s time with something as menial as this.

Anya was sitting in an uncomfortable metal chair next to a man that kept fidgeting and looking around, like he were paranoid. Occasionally he would watch one particular doctor walk by and brighten up just a little, before slinking back down into a cool, hard stare. He seem bothered by something, and eventually the man got up and began spraying a metal can filled with sweet smelling aroma around the room. It was a lovely gesture, Anya had to admit, but the others in the waiting room seemed a bit ungrateful for his actions. As he sat back down again, Anya turned toward him and smiled sweetly.

“Thank you.” Her accent was strong, but her voice was soft and gentle. She had noticed him coughing earlier and tried to strike up conversation: “You have cough also?” she asked very deliberately, her smile still showing as she pulled some of her blonde hair behind her ear. “I am happy to know I’m not only one.”</sub>

[/size][/center]

[Peter Knight]

Peter had hardly noticed the girl sitting next to him until she spoke. Foreigner. Should he talk loud or slow? He always hated stupid people, thinking that talking louder made a difference. Bother. But she seemed friendly enough, not anyone to be too worried about. "A cough? Oh, yes, I do," he said, flashing her a quick smile, shaking the can a bit, then setting it down on the floor. He could feel an array of glares peering into his soul devilishly, but ignored them, he'd become accustomed to being glared at, mocked, and other things of the sort. By now it was just... there, a dull awareness, really. Instinct told him to ask if she had a cough as well to keep up the conversation, but sense told him that it was obvious and not to speak anymore than needed. Breathing hurt at the moment.

"So," he mumbled, turning as the kid beside him sniffled some more, wiping a long string of mucus onto his sleeve. Disgusting. Children were vile, weren't they? "There are a lot of people with a cough in here," he said suddenly, turning towards her and shrugging lightly. "Like... that man over there," he gestured towards and older man. "He's been coughing nonstop for nearly a minute. He's been here nearly two hours, and half of that's been spent coughing. Allotted time, not in a row." Peter felt like somewhat of a dick for the last part, he hated underestimating people, because there's a bit of a genius in every idiot and a bit of an idiot in every genius, it's just bound to happen. He always assumed that someone was smart until proven otherwise, and if they weren't of average intelligence, it was displayed quickly before he could make any solid judgments on a person. Idiots are always more noticeable, right? It's like the world's just waiting for them. But enough cynicism, Peter had a friend now, and needed to focus on the conversation instead of analyzing the intelligence level of others.

"My name's Peter. What's yours?" he asked, smiling in her direction. Nice. Cute. Too young for him, of course, thirty five was a strange number in itself.

[Anya Petranova]

<sub>((Don’t be closed minded, Peter~ >:3))

She liked him off the bat. His eyes were lively and his smile was a lovely sight. He didn't use animated gesticulations that pompous, arrogant people usually did when they loved to hear themselves talk; but, he spoke in a way that conveyed him as someone who truly did believe that everything he said was interesting enough. You hardly ever met people like that. Anya sure hadn’t. Sometimes she would copy the disposition of the person she was with, out of a strange compulsion, and with him she smiled brighter and hung on his every word with obvious interest glinting in her eyes. Her eyes followed every movement of his hands, and she glanced back at the man across the room, who was coughing into his sleeve. Anya frowned in a sudden wave of empathy; but, her smile quickly returned when she looked at him.

“I did not notice,” she informed him, shifting her weight slightly to her hips as she turned to face him, as he had for her. She was leaning on her hand as a few strands of her blonde hair fell over her eyes. She let them rest there for a few moments before pulling them back again. “I was not listening to the man. I was… what’s the word?” she paused for a moment, mumbling to herself in Russian before looking up to him, unsure. “Distracted? It is that in English?” Anya offered a shrug and hoped that he would understand, before she started speaking again.

“I was watching you. You move around like rabbit. You are never in same place twice.” She gave a giggle she forced to be hushed as to not bother the others by her laugher.

Peter was much friendlier than most of the people she had met so far in America. When she first arrived, Americans refused to entertain her with conversation. It was strange how you ceased to exist to someone when they were too afraid to speak with you because they didn’t know how to communicate. They always looked so afraid, and shrunk away, as if you were a vicious creature. People generally gave up on her as soon as she let the first sentence out, blowing her off with a curt nod and a one word answer. But Peter was different, he was more than willing to talk. He said more than she did initially, being the one to continue the conversation. His body language and posture suggested that he was just as focused on her as she was to him.

It almost made her wonder if he was lonely.

Anya tilted her head and gnawed on the bottom of her lip, looking him over the whole time while she was musing these things. To anyone outside of her, it almost looked seductive, and one could suppose it was; but, she truly was just entertaining thoughts. When he offered his name, asked her to return the favor, her mouth fell open with a small grin. “Annechka,” she told him. But that was wrong. When she realized this, her cheeks immediately flushed with a dark shade of pink and she laughed nervously to hide her embarrassment. “Forgive me, I mean to say Anya. My name is Anya.”

During her bought of nervous laugher, she was overcome by a heaviness in her throat. The tightness in her chest, and the small tickling in her lungs were an all too familiar feeling. She covered her mouth and turned her head over her shoulder as she coughed hard a few times into it. She opened her eyes a few seconds later, and saw the deep tinge of red in it, and kept her hand closed as she reached her free hand into her pocket. She pulled out a handkerchief and wordlessly wiped her hand clean before returning it to her hand to her side, the piece of stained cloth - which she made sure to keep well hidden from him - clenched tightly in her hand. She returned her eyes to his and smiled again. “Forgive me, that was rude.”</sub>

[/size][/sub]

[Peter Knight]

Interesting. She was an interesting thing, yes she was. Forward, to the point, he liked that, and she seemed nice enough with no foul intentions. Another desirable trait in a companion. Not that he was analyzing her for companionship ability, which he partially was, but he wasn’t going to consider them friends after a trip to the ER together? They had met by chance, it wasn’t like anything was going to stem from this meeting, they were just talking. Having a nice conversation at that, the way that she hung on his every word boosted his ego tenfold, making him want to talk more, but he refrained, at least giving her a chance to say something.

Peter just nodded to this, at first he thought the weight shift was out of him gesturing towards someone ill, an awkward shift, but no. Distracted. Interesting. He liked having the upper hand, especially when he had the upper hand, he knew he had it, but he sunk down and made it seem like they were equal. Granted, he hardly had the upper hand, if she wanted to she could probably put him on a gurney, a swift punch to the chest was all it would take. “Well, to be distracted is to move around like a rabbit, really. You can’t stay focused on one thing, getting off-track and focusing on something else,” he explained, face growing serious for a moment, then a warm smile quickly found its way back home.

Annechka? What the hell is that? he thought initially, but she seemed embarrassed, and he frowned slightly. Probably a bad name they were just used to introducing themselves as, but he wasn’t sure what Annechka meant anyway, he couldn’t judge it, and he didn’t know any Russian - she did seem to be Russian, he wasn’t that ignorant of other cultures. “Anya,” he rolled the pronunciation over his tongue softly, trying to get accustomed to how she said it. “That’s a beautiful name,” he complimented swiftly, returning to his former look into her eyes. Beautiful. She was a gorgeous woman, he thought instinctively, the Y chromosome taking over from here. Gentleman and that particular gene never seemed to mix, it took instinct or practice to master it. But he wasn’t going to meddle, his former assumption of how they were going to part afterward was probably true, New York was a big ass city. He had met a lot of beautiful people - inside and out - in situations like this, and none of them carried on a friendship past that particular location.

Rude? A cough was a cough, you couldn’t help it, by the looks of it some mucus. Phlegm. Whatever you were going to call it, it was snot, she was drowning in snot. “It wasn’t rude, no need to apologize. When you gotta cough, you gotta cough,” he told her, adjusting his position in the chair, foot bouncing against the ground to a random beat. It seemed coughing was contagious, like the trumpet section of a band emptying their spit valves at once, or talking in a place like this, for everyone now seemed to be striking up a conversation, but they seemed to know some of the new people entering. For a moment he felt like coughing, but stifled it, he wasn’t going to waste his breath on that, not yet anyway. He was too tired, which meant that when he had enough energy to even consider a bout of coughing, it would come sudden, rage, sting and hurt like hell, leaving him weak. Again.

[Anya Petranova]

Anya was almost caught off guard at how long this conversation had been going. The friends she had made were far and in between, and even then it was really hard to enjoy a good conversation. Talking seemed to be such a hassle to people. All everyone wanted to do was zone out with a movie or video game. They never really wanted to give the effort to entertain company, they only wanted to enjoy the very idea that they weren’t alone on a Saturday night watching a Monty Python movie. Being someone’s friend didn’t mean you were in a relationship, you were just a possession. You were a single digit on a counter, to be shown off in bulk, as your loved one screamed, “Look, I’m not a pathetic loser. Look how many people I own.”

In Russia, you always talked, since there was never anything better to do. You read and you talked. It didn’t matter if you were getting on the six o’clock bus into downtown, or if you were just idling your time on a park bench. Someone would always come and you’d sit there for as long as you could making idle conversation. Sometimes, that’s what made you happiest. You’d probably never see that person again, but at least you knew in the back of your head that if you ever saw that person again, you’d have so many stories to tell.

It was heartbreaking, though, when you had to part with someone you felt you could connect with. Anya thought about how she probably would never see Peter again; but, she would make the best of the conversation they were having now. Peter was the most Russian person in America she had ever met, even though he was probably far from. His skin tone suggested Greek or Italian; but, she couldn’t know. She always heard stories back home of the Westerners that “mated and birthed mutts like wild animals,” - but she never could determine why that was so bad.

As Peter complimented, her instinct told her to tell him that he was wrong, and to inform him that there was no need to compliment her. She did not deserve a luxury such as that. But, she was told by a psychiatrist that was a rude thing to do. After reacting in the same way to a similar comment, her psychiatrist immediately said: “No, you do not deny a compliment. They are given out of kindness, like gifts, and you must accept them graciously.” So, Anya listened. Her cheeks tinged pink, and she smiled bashfully. “You do think that?” she asked, choosing her words carefully. “I thank you. My mother wished to be giving me the name Anastasiya, but father said that would be too… pom…pous?” She paused for a moment. “Arrogant?” Anya shrugged. English words were sometimes too hard to remember. “But I do enjoy the name Anya better.”

She looked over his face with a small grin. “Peter is nice name also,” she told him, clumsily attempting to return a compliment. “I like saying it. It rolls nicely off my tongue.” She recited it a few times, the “Pete” sounding like a soft “Pet” as she rolled the “R” off her tongue in a well practiced and delicate way. “Petr, Petr…”

Anya hunched her shoulders slightly and turned away from him as she began coughing into the handkerchief violently again. There was pain this time, burning in the depths of her chest as each forceful cough caused her ribcage to rattle. When she stopped, she was out of breath, and breathing heavily. She gazed into the cloth. More blood. She tucked it away into her palm again and swallowed the metallic flavored liquid down her throat. With her free hand she clenched her chest, looking pained for a second, as she tried to catch her breath. Anya looked at him again, but refrained herself from apologizing since he had so politely requested her not to.

She ignored the pain. “You live… in New York… Petr?” she asked in between shallow breathing, as she attempted to smile kindly again.

[/center]

[Peter Knight]

Peter was surprised she was willing to talk, but culture seemed vastly different between Russia and America, so who was to say that they did or didn’t do a lot of certain things? Nobody around here seemed willing to talk, it was all business, no time for any sort of casual conversation. She seemed quite the opposite, and it was a nice change. New York was a clique, and if you didn’t fit into the clique then you’re fucked, there’s no possibility to have any sort of friends unless you take the initiative - and most people who aren’t apart of the New York clique don’t take the initiative, else they’d be apart of the clique. People were animalistic by nature, which was why Peter tended to avoid them at all costs, although she was different - or maybe he was just in a social mood.

Here people always had places to go, others to meet that were more important than you. That was big city life for you, maybe in smaller towns it would be more open, but he had always lived in the heavily populated areas. No sense of family, always people passing by. He could easily recall sitting in an alley one day, just watching people, walking, stopping to talk, some would help each other out, but other than that it was a loose connection, if any. Children were innocently looking around at everyone, adults hushed them forward, business men and women were always the most predictable. Every five minutes with the phone, they couldn’t leave “his block” - what he called the strip of street that he could see - without talking to someone through their headsets, always irritated.

He had never met someone twice, sometimes he would see their name in the obituaries, but he had become distant to all that. It wasn’t a bad thing that you never saw them twice, even if you felt somewhat connected to them after a short period of time. No emotional connection, it seemed better that way. No getting close to someone, then having them ripped away. It was a comforting thought, if you were a morbid person, or maybe had some emotional trauma earlier in life. The World was full of that.

“Anastasiya is a pretty name too, I wouldn’t be able to decide. I would assume that Anya was short for Anastasiya,” Peter rambled, half to himself, although he maintained a nice smile, not drifting off like he normally would in a situation like this. “Pompous, it doesn’t sound like that,” he commented lightly, shrugging. He was slightly surprised when she commented his name, well it was one of the common things to do: you have a nice name, so do you thanks! Your shirt looks nice, thanks so does yours! She pronounced it funny, but he liked it, it was exotic. Hah. A name like Peter, simple, but Petr was different.

“Thanks,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck. At the time she coughed, he couldn’t take it anymore, coughing into his elbow as well, hand instinctively rushing to his chest, but she seemed more troubled by it. Something into a napkin, which by now he hardly thought was mucus, but he wasn’t going to bring it up... not yet.

“Are you alright?” he asked simply, frowning slightly. She needed medical attention more than himself or the sniveling child to his left, but he didn’t want to seem forward. Cam would be interested, maybe, he was like fucking House, so hard yet so easy to impress. “I’m sure I could grab someone, if it’s serious enough.” He ignored her question of where he lived, almost, but remembered his manners.

“Yes, I live in New York, yourself?”

[Anya Petranova]

No matter how deeply she kept breathing, it still hurt. That was different than from before. But, she supposed that coughing as hard as she did would cause such pain. Correlation could sometimes be causation, couldn’t it? Her lungs were tired, they always had been, and they had always been weak too. She had a strong heart, her mother once told her, but you were born with weak lungs. Anya waved a dismissive hand at Peter and leaned back in her seat, laying as straight as possible to allow her room to keep breathing. “Do not be having worry, Petr,” she said, attempting to conjure somewhat of a reassuring tone. “I can wait. Doctor needs to treat others before me, that is fair.” She smiled at him, flashing her teeth in one of those rare, truly blissful beams. “I am strong, like bull.”

Anya pursed her lips and let out a small sigh. “In Moscow, Anastasiya is name you give to rich girl,” she informed him, trying to return to the prior conversation. She didn’t want to think about the welling pain in her chest. She found it better to deal with things when she could ignore them. “Is pompous, is unfitting to girl born of workers.” She emphasized her point with a firm nod and a few hand motions, before letting her face soften as she stared into his eyes again. She liked his eyes. They were comforting. His presence in general was comforting. It made her feel less alone in a big city like New York. She understood big cities, Moscow was a pretty big one itself; but, it was more familiar. Anya would look up into the big, tall buildings and feel overwhelmed, and as she walked in the streets, she felt she could easily get lost. “You know, it may seem peculiar to you, but I never heard name like Petr before.” She squinted slightly and frowned. “I mean Peter, as you say it.” Anya sighed through her nose. She liked Petr better. “In Russia you always have Viktors and Ivans, but you never hear of Petrs.” She bit her lip and watched him. She hoped that hearing her rationale would make her compliment sound better. She doubted it, though.

Anya stifled another cough, which forced tears to come to her eyes. She didn’t intend that, and grew embarrassed as she hastily wiped them away. She could feel a peculiar wetness flowing in the back of her throat. It was uncomfortable and it scared her a little. She wasn’t well versed when it came to medical problems, so it was hard to pinpoint what were serious symptoms, and what were things you could just ignore. She exhaled again to calm herself and continued.

“I live in Mercy,” Anya replied decidedly. “Until Doctors say I am “okay” and I may leave. When they brought me from Moscow, they said things were “very wrong.” So I must stay and get treatment.” Anya fidgeted a little and found his eyes again. “But there is American family that will let me stay with them until I can get education and make living of my own.”

Anya turned on her side again so she could give him her full attention again. “It is strange, Petr,” she began, speaking his name in a cloyingly sweet way, “I have never been to place outside of home. You never get to leave Moscow. Moscow is all you know. My mother was from France, but we never went there. It is rare opportunity…” She paused, hoping that was the right word. “… to see other places. I was so surprised when I saw America. Russian government and people say bad things about America. They tell horrible stories of hunger and… c-cor… Corrup… Corruption.” Her fists clenched tightly in frustration. She felt the need to impress Peter, and didn’t want to stumble on her words like she had been doing. “But I come to America, and I get off plane, and I see a beautiful place. I was very surprised. I was always afraid to leave Moscow, because I was always told that other countries were terrible places. You could only be safe in Russia.” Anya looked saddened for a moment as her voice grew smaller. She looked deeper into his eyes, as if almost searching for something.

“But I feel safer here than I ever did in home country.”

[Peter Knight]

“You need attention more than the others,” Peter insisted, sighing. Stubborn, another trait, but stubborn in a polite way? He didn’t know. “The others can live, you’re in pain, c’mon,” he said, nearly standing up, but when there was no movement from her, he sat back down to listen to her explanation. He didn’t see why she wouldn’t go, would he have to drag her to a room? Strong like bull, yes, but even a bull’s need to be attended to sometimes, right? He understood being stubborn, but he always hated when others were stubborn when he was trying to accomplish something. Like. Being a good person. That was something that was still on his to-do list for that day.

Peter listened, trying to wrap his mind around the difference between names. Why couldn’t a worker-born girl be named Anastasiya? It was just a name. Different cultures, he had never been outside of America himself, he had only known names as names and actions as actions and political corruption as political corruption. Russia must have more of it than here, communist, right? But he listened, watching her struggle slightly, wanting to help her, but wasn’t sure how. He didn’t know what was and wasn’t offensive, too tentative to really display anything more than mild frustration that she didn’t want any help. “Peter, or... Petr,” he struggled over her pronunciation, brushing it off, “is pretty common. John, Jim, Peter, Harry,” he recited a list, shrugging. “Like your Viktor and Ivan. I’ve never heard Anya,” he said, now smiling weakly.

Peter frowned when she began to cry, sort of. It happened a lot on his part, “Hey, hey, don’t worry. It’s alright. Let’s get some help,” he brought it up again, listening to her explain why she was here. He wasn’t going to ask who ‘they’ was, he figured the less she talked the better. She didn’t seem alright, and if something was “very wrong” then she needed to get it checked out. What a shame Peter wasn’t the type to rush out and call for help when something like this happened, he’d rather wait until they’re ready. Which can be good, but usually ends up getting himself hurt in some way.

He couldn’t understand how she could feel so safe. Was Moscow that bad? Because the streets here were hell if you couldn’t defend yourself, and if you could, he had never had it rougher than that time in his life. Even now it was dangerous to walk the streets alone in broad daylight, with cops all around, people don’t care. He noted her stumbling over a word, but ignored it, he didn’t care whether she could pronounce corruption or not, Cam was hardly understandable when he was in one of his “moods”, he was used to it. The way she talked and looked at him made him wonder if she was actually flirting, but she couldn’t be, they had to be at least ten years apart, if not more. Why would anybody as young and fresh as her be flirting with someone like... him? He was thirty-five, and as stated before, it was an iffy age. He was just being narcissistic. Full of himself, always thinking that the pretty ones are after him. Tsk tsk, Peter, get over your ego. That’s what he had always been told, and it made sense, he thought too highly of himself already. This girl was only making it worse, really, his arrogance problem. It was nice, and he liked it, but if he liked ego stroking, like anybody else, that meant that he probably shouldn’t be sticking around too long. Oh well. It was nice.

“Don’t think New York is any better than Moscow,” he warned simply. I have too many scars to tell you otherwise, he thought, thinking of a long, hook-like one on his cheek - the only visible one. Emotional trauma? No. Ugly physical deformations? Yes.

[Anya Petranova]

Anya watched him fidget again. He seemed worried, which was strange to her. They barely knew each other, but he was willing to help. That was a sort of kindness that she couldn’t wrap her head around. He kept insisting that they go and get her a doctor, and she watched him, eyebrow raised as his body posture changed every so often, and he would stand and sit back down like he couldn’t decide if he wanted to leave or not. She looked away from him and sighed through her nose. He spoke of New York being just as bad as Moscow, and perhaps he was right. It truly wasn’t the city that was awful back home. That’s wasn’t what she was safe from. “At least here I am not forced to…” She stopped, immediately, and quieted herself. That was not something to speak of. Not out of a session… not to a stranger. She coughed softly and looked at him.

“Is lesser of two evils,” she explained. “I choose lesser.” And that’s all she wanted to say about that. Her hands twitched in a need to touch him, and by all means she would have, if she felt that her hands were cleaner. They were in contact with her germs, sick and blood, and she’d spare that from him. But the compulsion remained, and she felt a jolt travel through her fingers every few seconds she denied herself from the urge.

“You insist so persistently,” she told him, forcing a smile again. “If it will make you happy, then I shall follow you to doctor.” She knew how angry people got sometimes when you were too stubborn, which she was, but she was also submissive when she had to be. She felt like she needed to be now, since that was what Peter desired. So, Anya stood, and looked down at him as her curls fell from her shoulders to her back. Then, she coughed again. She brought the handkerchief to her face again and coughed into it, doubling over slightly in newly flared pain. The fit continued on for a few minutes more, and she brought the handkerchief down. She swallowed the blood again, but frowned as she felt a small trickle down the side of her mouth. Anya wiped it away on the back of her hand, as it left an ugly, red stain on her skin. She was trying to catch her breath again, and clutched her chest. Anya leaned down and used the back of the seat to keep herself steady as she breathed slowly and deliberately, her eyes staring down at the ground rather than at Peter.

For some reason, she felt too embarrassed to even attempt to look at him again.

[Peter Knight]

Squirming around in his seat, Peter waited awkwardly for her to say something, not sure what to do, what to say, how to take this conversation. Part of him wanted to help, sweep her up and carry her to Cam or any other doctor, but another part said leave it alone. She was here, she wanted to wait, let her wait. She’s just another broad in the long line of people Peter had seen that day. Sitting there arguing wasn’t going to do anything, but you’re too passive to do much more than argue, his mind said, the annoying man in the back of his head that always contradicted everything he did.

Forced? What? Fuck. A mental case. A crazie. That’s what he called them. Most here were either beaten or raped or some kind of crazy bullshit like that, he assumed, all of them had some sort of psychological trauma. Peter was still learning how to roll with the punches, you could say, when it came to this. She seemed nice, a friendly crazie. She wasn’t a crazie, she was a nice girl who had something happen to here, that he wasn’t sure, fuck she might not’ve even had anything that bad. A lot of people were forced to do a lot of things, that didn’t mean that it was a bad thing. He was forced to take piano lessons, that wasn’t a bad thing, but the way that she said it...

But it made sense, he wasn’t going to judge. Not yet. He was a judger, sure, but he wasn’t going to bring down the hammer just yet. There was more to her story, he could feel it, more than even being forced into doing whatever it was. Or maybe he was going insane... That was always a possibility.

Watching her carefully, he had focused on the blood at the corner of her mouth, realizing now what all that fuss was. Fuck. He should’ve reacted sooner, coughing up blood was bad. Last time that happened to him he passed out. Fuck. Almost taking the initiative, he stood back, waiting to see if she would regain balance, but it didn’t happen. Do something, he told himself, over and over, but if he tried to support her, would she be too embarrassed to take the help? If he lifted her up, would he be too weak and drop her? Fuck fuck. Fuck, shit, whore, damn, cunt, bitch, ass, every possible word went through his mind, even though he could easily walk away without feeling anything on his conscious. He’d done it before, but now he wasn’t so sure.

Stepping forward, he took her shoulders in one hand, taking her arm gently and placing it over his shoulders, walking her slowly towards the front desk. “Cam!” he called, looking over at her and sighing. This sucked. This had to suck for her too, she must be in mountains of pain. Agony and distress. He should probably carry her, but he knew for sure, now that he was standing and walking around, he would drop her. Peter set his hand on her waist gently to support her, hoping he wasn’t messing up some culture thing.

“What?” a voice snapped, exiting one of the rooms in front of the old man Peter had gestured towards earlier. Arabian accent was thick, and Peter almost grinned.

“I don’t know. Help?” he asked, following Cam into one of the rooms. “Anya, this is Dr. Dashti,” he introduced, feeling a tightening in his chest, but ignored it.

“He’s not as much of a jackasss as he seems.” Only with Cam would he joke like this.

[Anya Petranova]

It all happened in a flash. The pain, the loss of breath, the way he held her waist… His voice and the voice of Dr. Cam were no more than a dull hum as she was escorted into one of the rooms. She kept her head at a distance from Peter’s, which she could only attribute to a subconscious desire of keeping him far away from her sick as possible. It would be rude to make a kind, helpful man ill, wouldn’t it? She cleared her throat uncomfortably, her eyes half lidded as she listened to Peter introduce the doctor her. She forced a smile, her teeth stained a very light shade of red from blood. She wanted to say hello, but her throat felt too raw to even attempt the gesture. She hoped the smile would suffice.

As they stood there, together, Anya leaned her body into Peter’s, which was partly out of unabashed flirtation, and partly because she knew that she couldn’t stand very well on her own without falling over. Anya didn’t mind being held. It was nice. She wasn’t going to force him to put her down until it was necessary. Then again, he could have dropped her at any time he pleased and she wouldn’t have minded. But, initially, Peter didn’t exactly strike her as the type to be such an ass.

Anya turned her head to the right and coughed violently again, without proper protection to cover her mouth, and as a result a few drops of blood fell onto the tile. The crimson dots stuck out in the white sterility of the room. It was a marred piece of color in a sea of white. She swallowed what she could and looked back at Cam. “More… than cough, I am led to believe,” was what she could manage for that moment. It hurt too much to breathe, and what air she wasted on words kept her from breathing. It had become an arduous task, much like working on a field for six hours straight. After six hours you never had much to say because you couldn’t. Words had be sacrificed for survival.

Anya felt the flame in her lungs burgeon, and spread farther within her viscera. She looked in between the two men and tried to laugh. “It… hurts,” she admitted, feeling safe enough to say so.

[Qamar Dashti]

Peter helped her into the room, watching her from the corner of his eye, now somewhat protective over her. Lifting her up carefully, he set her down on the chair, coughing into his elbow as he made his way to what he assumed was Cam’s chair by the glare he received. Out of breath, he leaned back in the chair, tilting his head upward and struggling to regain normal respiration. His chest had tighten to a sharpening pain, but he felt this before, often, it would go away soon.

Cam followed them into the room, closing the door behind him softly. Looking over both the new girl and Peter, he pulled some gloves on, striding over to Anya, a grace that, in contrast to Peter’s sort of... hobble, he took pride in. He wasn’t one to be looked down on, even if he was one of the most modest men around. Placing two fingers on her jugular, he used his other hand to gently lay her back down on the bed. He frowned slightly - finally, a lung case, something real. He wasn’t a fan of all of this... emergency room, clinic duty, a different case for each person, he didn’t like that idea. He was a fan of spending two extra years in school to specialize and staying in that specialty.

He wasn’t sure what to say either, he was flustered and didn’t care much to articulate his words, leaving his ‘L’ sounding like ‘el’, his ‘R’ being rolled, and other slight differences in the Arabian-English accent. Something he was somewhat ashamed of normally, but when in the clinic it just peaked through very mildly, the R being the biggest difference. Taking a small paper cup, he filled it up with water from the tap, returning to her side, holding out the cup.
“Here,” he said simply, smiling again, “Wash out the blood, it can’t taste good.” Looking over Anya quickly, he took a clipboard and pen, writing something down.
“I’m going to need a blood test, and possibly a sputum smear or a chest x-ray,” he said, more to himself then anything.

“English, doctor,” Peter chimed in from the chair, fiddling around with the light and other things in that area.

“Draw some blood, analyze your snot, and take a picture of your chest,” Cam said shortly, smirking, then looking back at Anya and growing serious. “If that’s alright with you, eh,” he continued, trailing off again and already heading for the other side of the room. He had been distracted lately, not by anything in particular, just drifting away from work. He knew exactly what he was doing, but explaining things was something completely different, sticking to technical terms instead of trying to explain it for those not savvy to understand. He wasn’t shirking by any means, but one could easily accuse him of such.
“Do you have any issues with needles?” he asked, taking out a needle and an elastic piece of plastic.

Peter squirmed.

[Anya Petranova]

Oddly enough, it hurt more to lay down than it did to be sitting up. When she was laying down, her chest grew even heavier, and she felt the weight push down on her chest. It was like she was suffocating, even though she was breathing deeply. Either way, she sat up, and even if he laid her back down, she would continue to sit up, because she didn’t have the voice to properly tell him how uncomfortable she was in that position. She took the water from him and drunk it all, swirling it in her mouth to get the blood out in its entirety. She looked around for a moment, and finding no place to spit it in, she begrudgingly let the water spill from her mouth and back into the cup as neatly as she could manage. She kept the cup in her hand as she lowered it back to her side, her eyes flickering between Peter and Cam’s faces.

Cam and Peter were similar in the ways they carried themselves. There was a subtle sort of arrogance they both retained. The doctor was reserved, in blaring contrast to Peter’s outspokenness. Her eyes glinted with worry as she watched Peter struggle in pain, but she was sure that if she pointed it out he might get angry that she was diverting attention away from her. The doctor didn’t seem to be worried, and Peter seemed to know the doctor well. Perhaps Peter had weak lungs like her?

Anya watched Cam approached with the needle, and laughed instinctively at his question, wincing in pain shortly after. Her hand clenched her chest again and she hissed quietly. When it dulled down, she smiled weakly and looked at Cam in the eyes. “I am having fear of bears, not of needles,” she informed him, her voice sounding raw and strained, so much so that she had to speak louder than she normally did to make sure the others heard her. Her chest itched and she coughed again, less violently than she had before, but it was still a nuisance.

Anya looked toward Peter again and noticed him squirm as he looked at the needle. She attempted to lighten the mood by forcing her grin to turn a bit wicked and playful, with her eyebrow stretching upward in a curious fashion. “Petr, do you have fear of needles?” she asked, feigning innocence.

[Qamar Dashti]

Cam set the needle down beside Peter, smirking slightly as he did so, then disappearing into a separate room without another word. He found it somewhat entertaining, the fear of needles, especially with someone who he was as comfortable around as Peter. Going over other heavy-duty supplies, he returned with an oxygen tank and a mask, setting it down beside her chair. Taking the mask, he placed it over her face gently, turning the knob on the tank to a certain level, quick and sure with his motions.

Peter, alternatively, never understood how he knew what to set it at. There was no markings on the tank, it was all from his memory, what to set it at. More he released it, more oxygen, that was all he understood, but how to allow the correct amount disperse? It was so confusing. But he saw the cup, leaping up - away from the needle - and taking it, smiling at her. Dumping it in a sink, he crumpled it up and tossed it in the trash can on the opposite side of the room, finding a chair near there and curling up. The tightness in his chest was going away, but he was still somewhat light headed.

Cam watched Peter from the corner of his eye, but left it alone. Despite being somewhat similar, there were still blaring differences between the two. One, Peter was dropped on his head as a child. Frequently. Two, Peter has had a psych evaluation before he was able to get a job. Three, Peter was just fucking crazy. He had a way of irritating one to no end, then being the irritated. Being an idiot, then scolding one. He was a ball of hypocrisy that Cam couldn’t wrap his mind around.

But at least s he wasn’t afraid of needles. “That’s good,” he said softly, disinfecting the needle tip, then standing beside her again. Holding it between his middle and ring finger, he rolled up her sleeve, then tied the elastic, rubber-band like thing around her arm, waiting a moment. Holding the syringe normally now, he felt around the crook of her elbow, then down to the center of her forearm, taking the needle and poking it into her skin swiftly. For some reason, he found an animalistic pleasure in performing such tasks on a patient, drawing blood, x-rays, other things - maybe he should’ve been a surgeon. But he hid it well, acting as if it was another part of the job. His favorite part was the diagnosis, finding out what was really wrong, but this was pretty fun as well. Drawing the plunger back, he filled the syringe with her blood, one hand reaching behind him to grab a cotton ball from a table. Placing it over the entry wound, he removed the needle slowly, wondering now what Peter’s face was.

Probably pale. Extremely pale. Maybe a bit sweaty, or turned away from them with a grave look on his face. More fun. Probably not good.

“Oh, needles? No... well, yes, I don’t like them very much, I suppose, they’re not very fun. I don’t uh, like them. Near me,” he mumbled the last part, turned away from them like Cam had predicted.
Needles. Who the fuck thought of that?