10-18-2013, 10:53 PM
That first night Sera accompanies Sid to Sid's place; hangs out while Sid updates Ginger, listens to the updates from Grace and Lena that she had missed or ignored. Ginger is genius, really, Sera thinks Grace is brilliant and sometimes calls the phone sex line up just to listen to the sexy, computerized voice though sometimes becomes more rare as the whole thing loses its novelty but also: Ginger is strange and impersonal and somehow imperfect for the details they are discussing.
Sera knocks around Sid's house and spends long enough with Sid for Sid to confirm that the virus is in the blood. She's not breathing it out, not yet, Sera. She's not going to infect the whole of the city if she goes back to the tap house and gets a little bit more stoned and unwinds time to see what she can see about Eric-from-LA, Eric-the-actor from LA with the dirty-girl sister and the slide of cold, implacable anger underneath.
The rest of the night and into the morning, Sera spends in her own home, in her own bed, surrounded by her own things. Rises and checks the messages and wanders downstairs phone in hand for her usual (though early) breakfast. It is only noon and no one expects her to be awake at this hour but -
- fuck if her nose isn't starting to bleed. She cleans it up. Retreats to her room and flushes the tissues down the toilet. Feels the ache in her muscles and the sandpaper assertion behind her eyes and the all-too-familiar sensation of nightmares just beyond her ken.
Shortly after noon on Thursday Sera shows up at Lena's, two reuseable bags full of groceries, though she'll leave them on the landing if the other Cultist insists. Doesn't intend to stay long anyway. If Grace is willing to share her address on Ginger, she'll get a similar visit. And similar groceries: tissues, the good kind with lotion embedded in the weave, toilet paper, cans of soup, OJ, yogurt, bananas: easy foods that are easy to prepare when sick. She doesn't insist on coming in, but if allowed she hangs out for a bit, makes jokes, reassures them both that they'll be okay.
She doesn't look like she believes it, Sera.
That Thursday afternoon driving herself home - driving herself home, fucking sober - Sera starts feeling worse. The fever's spiking and she has a coughing fit. Develops another nose bleed. Gets <i>impatient with this shit</i> and tries to fix it. For Sera, Lena's warning will come too late.
Does fix it, some of it, temporarily, and heaves a sigh of relief as the symptoms abate.
There are other things niggling at the back of her mind.
She can't go out, can't hang out, can't can't can't expose her housemates to whatever the fuck it is. Well, truthfully she'll figure that out later. Thursday-into-Friday is still restless, though, and there's that vision at the back of her mind.
Sera sends a text, late late or early early, depending on the house you sleep and the hour you rise.
<i>you know everything
some god or whatever killed a hydra</i>
She means Hercules, though she does not know it.
<i>tell me how he did it</i>
And either Hawksley calls her and tells her a bedtime story about Hercules' second labor; how every time he cut off one of the hydra's heads, two more would grow back. Until he sought the assistance of Iolaus, who stood there with a torch and cauterized the wounds each time Hercules lopped off one of those head. Or: someone gives Sera the news about wikipedia, and that it is accessible from her phone.
Friday she gets the messages from Ginger again, and leaves one of her own. A mildly rambling voice mail.
Sera knocks around Sid's house and spends long enough with Sid for Sid to confirm that the virus is in the blood. She's not breathing it out, not yet, Sera. She's not going to infect the whole of the city if she goes back to the tap house and gets a little bit more stoned and unwinds time to see what she can see about Eric-from-LA, Eric-the-actor from LA with the dirty-girl sister and the slide of cold, implacable anger underneath.
The rest of the night and into the morning, Sera spends in her own home, in her own bed, surrounded by her own things. Rises and checks the messages and wanders downstairs phone in hand for her usual (though early) breakfast. It is only noon and no one expects her to be awake at this hour but -
- fuck if her nose isn't starting to bleed. She cleans it up. Retreats to her room and flushes the tissues down the toilet. Feels the ache in her muscles and the sandpaper assertion behind her eyes and the all-too-familiar sensation of nightmares just beyond her ken.
Shortly after noon on Thursday Sera shows up at Lena's, two reuseable bags full of groceries, though she'll leave them on the landing if the other Cultist insists. Doesn't intend to stay long anyway. If Grace is willing to share her address on Ginger, she'll get a similar visit. And similar groceries: tissues, the good kind with lotion embedded in the weave, toilet paper, cans of soup, OJ, yogurt, bananas: easy foods that are easy to prepare when sick. She doesn't insist on coming in, but if allowed she hangs out for a bit, makes jokes, reassures them both that they'll be okay.
She doesn't look like she believes it, Sera.
That Thursday afternoon driving herself home - driving herself home, fucking sober - Sera starts feeling worse. The fever's spiking and she has a coughing fit. Develops another nose bleed. Gets <i>impatient with this shit</i> and tries to fix it. For Sera, Lena's warning will come too late.
Does fix it, some of it, temporarily, and heaves a sigh of relief as the symptoms abate.
There are other things niggling at the back of her mind.
She can't go out, can't hang out, can't can't can't expose her housemates to whatever the fuck it is. Well, truthfully she'll figure that out later. Thursday-into-Friday is still restless, though, and there's that vision at the back of her mind.
Sera sends a text, late late or early early, depending on the house you sleep and the hour you rise.
<i>you know everything
some god or whatever killed a hydra</i>
She means Hercules, though she does not know it.
<i>tell me how he did it</i>
And either Hawksley calls her and tells her a bedtime story about Hercules' second labor; how every time he cut off one of the hydra's heads, two more would grow back. Until he sought the assistance of Iolaus, who stood there with a torch and cauterized the wounds each time Hercules lopped off one of those head. Or: someone gives Sera the news about wikipedia, and that it is accessible from her phone.
Friday she gets the messages from Ginger again, and leaves one of her own. A mildly rambling voice mail.