debriefing ♔ in the emptiness there's a solution | just look within yourself for absolution

[nepotism]

♬ locking up the sun- poets of the fall

WHO || Wynn, Buffy, Myri, Finnick, Spike, Gar, Archer, Des, Vi, Rafael, Fred Jr., Dumage, Mark, Rocket, open! [Closed]
WHAT || Andres Mission Debrief & Aftermath
WHERE || Knights HQ, lobby etc.
WHEN || September 18th [forward dated*]
HOW || Actionspam. Single thread, don't worry about maintaining tagging order.

There are plenty of missions that return to the castle a success - most of them, even. The defeated air of the solemn group that returns from their diplomatic mission to Andres Isle to hear the demands of dictator Dimitris Sarandis makes it quite clear that this wasn't one of those.

Starting with Sarandis' actual demands - for all Knights to withdraw from Andres under penalty of death, or for Wynn to offer his own head in return for Thomas' safe return - and ending with the unexpected, disturbing confession from Kat that she intended to stay behind on the island because she had "fallen in love with" the dictator, the events of the island made it very clear that Sarandis was cannily playing his hand to get the Knights where he wanted them.

Fred Jr. shoves open the doors with his unnatural strength, stalking in ahead of the group into the lobby. Whoever's on desk duty isn't going to have to roll a high wisdom check to see that these people are pissed... and distraught... and a myriad of other emotions on the bad end of the scale.

*I am changing the date of the briefing log and Andres log/live session to have taken place in September, to avoid us being in backdated hell forever, and to allow for a September squiring ceremony before apps are closed. Carry on... in the future!

Comments

[pathology]

[astrid is already up, so she gets the door and lets lila into her room. it ... well, it looked like this when she first moved in, but now that dressers are permanently open there are too many clothes. she has a becky bloomwood level clothes problem. the little love seat is full of various books — there's some fiction, mostly mystery, true crime stuff about serial killers, but also a lot of different medical textbooks and british and american medical journals. and then there's a lot of young adult girl crap. shoes, jewelry, whatever. it's not hoader-y, but obviously lived in. when she gets the door, she's in pajama shorts and a penn t-shirt. and no contact lenses.] Mmm, breakfast in bed. I should train Adam to be doing this.

[bittersweeter]

You're only getting it because I was already in the city. [ she picks her way into the room, thankfully steady on her heels. she's already changed and showered because she left sylar obscenely early and then got back to the castle before anyone was even awake. she knows better than to wake up alex or faye. her hair is perfect, she does not want a fireball to the face. so while astrid is in her pjs, lila is in one of her interchangeable skirts and blouses because she rarely wears jeans unless she's in private. plus? she looks super cute in plaid and the world is going to shit, she can at least look cute. ] And because I've had a migraine for like ten hours now and I need something stronger than caffeine, cigarettes and ibuprofen.

[pathology]

[ she sips her frappuccino thoughtfully before announcing] Yeah, I can hook you up. Let's go to the med center, I'll eat my crepes later. [she's already going, so ... keep up, gurl. and i rolled to see if astrid would have suggestions and i'm just assuming it would fall under her knowledge: life sciences shit so it's ... insanely high.] Hm ... have you tried Imitrex? I remember you have mostly NSAIDs and opioids. Not triptans.

[bittersweeter]

[ she follows like she is a lamb and astrid is mary, still holding her shoebox. ]

Migraines are usually secondary to the rest of the pain. They're not really the biggest of deals in the whole scheme of thing and what I normally have [ everything. :( she misses her pharmatech. ] knocks them out. But since I'm out of everything, it spawned little headache babies.

[pathology]

You mean your slowly killing yourself with insomnia pain?

[bittersweeter]

That would be the pain, yes.

[pathology]

You really ought to work on that.

[bittersweeter]

There is a disease called Fatal Familial Insomnia and those people die after, like, seven months, so I think I'm doing great, actually.

[pathology]

[knowlege: life sciences 19. which is really low but w/e she loves her obscure creepy sounding diseases.] The average age of onset for Fatal Familial Insomnia is like, 50. So they've lived like a bazillion years before they lapse into hallucinations and dementia and all that. So, no, you don't get to use that as an excuse. Vetoed.

[bittersweeter]

I may have the body of a smoking hot twenty year old, but I'm basically an AARP member. Veto denied. And there are cases of it in eighteen year olds, fifty is just the average.

[pathology]

Have you actually tried trying to sleep instead of taking all this stuff to combat the insomnia side effects? You're just putting a bandaid over the problem instead of actually trying to treat it.

[bittersweeter]

I can't sleep, that's the problem. I don't sleep. It's not... insomnia, this isn't the Christian Bale movie where he is basically anorexic, I literally don't sleep. [ she pauses before she starts to get defensive because lydia's snappish decree that hbg didn't exist coupled with the time she tried to educate lila on sleep deprivation has made her especially defensive on the subject. ] It's blowback from my dream work.

[pathology]

Dream work? [YOU NEVER TOLD HER THE THING, LILA.]

[bittersweeter]

[ oops? she shrugs impassively. ] I can fuck with people's dreams. Knock 'em out, make them sleep walk into traffic, give them nightmares or good dreams if I'm so inclined. But unlike lucky psions who get no adverse effects at all -- I get blowback. Which is basically what it sounds like. I don't sleep, ever, unless I curse myself, but when I do I get nightmares and the blowback loops around to give me more sleepless nights.

[pathology]

But it only happens when you do that stuff, right? Curse people? [you can tell where this conversation is going...]

[bittersweeter]

No, stopping won't help anything. Believe me, I've tried everything. Not cursing people, cursing myself daily, sleeping pills, melatonin, warm glass of milk, which is disgusting. Nothing works, I just don't sleep. [ she shrugs dismissively, like it's unimportant. while curse work is her favorite topic of conversation, she doesn't often talk about it's adverse effects aside from "i don't sleep" so she's trying to make it sound like less of a big deal, but still give astrid all the information because astrid is a doctor and she might need it. ] I'm used to it, I learned how to live with it, so its fine, I just need something for the pain.

[pathology]

If it happens even when you're not cursing people, it could be something else completely. Like ... not fucking Fatal Familial Insomnia, but there could be something else that's contributing to it. There are like fifty million disorders and diseases with insomnia listed as a symptom or side-effect.

[bittersweeter]

It's not, it's just blowback and mine sucks excessively hard. And out of those fifty million diseases, which ones have insomnia as the only symptom? I'm going to guess none, but that's all I have.

[pathology]

You don't just have insomnia, though, or you wouldn't be here trying to get me to refill your fucking mini-pharmacy. [oh look. we're here at the med center.] Just ... don't ask me to do this again, okay?

[bittersweeter]

That's not-- [ she's about to fight astrid on the insomnia being the root of the pain, of everything, but she just gives up. she is too tired to fight another redhead about her anatomy and physiology when they don't get it because they don't get curse work and blowback in general. ] Fine, the Imitrex will be fine. I'll go somewhere else.

[pathology]

No, give me your box. I said I'd refill everything. If we have everything.

[bittersweeter]

[ she hands over the box wordlessly. it's still partitioned in half so she doesn't mix them up and od. ]

[pathology]

[and she goes through a process of pulling out bottles and checking the labels and giving her new bottles of the same things. i guess this would count as craft: pharmaceutical?? even tho she's not making anything, just dispensing. but she rolled a 24 so she's not going to ... accidentally give lila the wrong drugs and murder her, ok.] It's not — I have to doctor-patient break up with you because I feel like you don't actually care about yourself. And I'll get pissed off and yell at you, and you won't actually do anything to change, and it'll keep bothering me and then we won't be friends anymore.

[bittersweeter]

I've tried changing, but I can't exactly change my brain chemistry. Whatever, I said it was fine. Teddy will be back by the time Andres is over. [ or she'll be dead, so it'll be fine either way. she crosses her arms uncomfortably, turning to observe the rest of the wing instead of astrid. ]

[pathology]

Yeah, you're giving up. And that's kind of sad and pathetic. But whatever. [such teenage girl behavior up in here. eventually she finishes, and drops an extra bottle in.] I gave you the Imitrex. It's supposed to work really well if you take Aleve at the same time, so. You should.