[Sept. 16/11] Raine's Room, Night

[tomorrowrain]

After his talk with Sorrow's brother in the garden, Raine had retreated fairly quickly to his room. His cigarettes were soaked through, Sorrow was nowhere to be found, and his stone was going insane trying to force-feed him snippets, possibilities.

It was more than a little overwhelming. He'd sat down on the edge of his bed, sodden clothing and all, and put his head between his knees, trying to catch his breath. Trying not to feel so dizzy, at least. It wasn't working out so well for him. But, at least, so long as he was thinking about not asphyxiating to death or something, he wasn't paying much attention to the possibilities that were flitting through his mind.

Raine was going to consider that a win.

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[tomorrowrain]

"Leith has always had a big mouth," Raine muttered, accepting the tea and staring into it.

And then abruptly jerking his gaze from the teacup to the floor. He wasn't one of those amusement park psychics who would tell you your fortune for a dollar by staring at the crap in the bottom of your tea, but the second the thought crossed his mind, that was the end of that brief reverie.

"I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for that to change any time soon."

He would learn better. Everyone learned better, sooner or later. It was a matter of whether or not they put those things into practise that mattered.

[oath_keeper]

Cassidy studied the top of his head. Honestly, she couldn't really blame him for saying that. It was tempting, especially as Cassidy had never been on the snub-list of Thrones Academy and so had no experience with what Tappen was going through...

But she couldn't. She'd seen too many students sick and injured because of situations as bad as his and worse.

"Drink the tea," she ordered. "It will do you no good to just hold it."

And, so she wasn't hovering over him (perhaps that would help) she went to the bed and began to inspect it. Just in case Leith had more than a big mouth, not that she'd tell Tappen that.

[tomorrowrain]

That wouldn't have surprised Raine, either. He wouldn't have tripped anything if it had been left in his bed. With the way his power was going absolutely nuts tonight, he was pretty sure he would have predicted a pea being slipped underneath a stack of a hundred mattresses, but that he didn't have to go digging through his bed for mousetraps or dead frogs was kind of nice.

"Thank you," he mumbled, looking up after a moment and finally, finally putting the teacup to his mouth. It was... warm. Which was better than the rest of the liquid that he'd been in contact with tonight. "I mean... I know you're just doing your job. But... thank you."

Aside from Sorrow, and now, apparently, her brother, this was the first little hint of kindness he'd been shown this year.

[oath_keeper]

Which was sad, when she was treating him like he was something to put back together and then ignored.

Cassidy pocketed a mousetrap with a scowl that had nothing to do with Tappen's words. Leith would be getting a talking to. The second and third of them disappeared into her coat's pockets just as quickly.

"The H.A.H. looks after the entire school," she said noncommittally. "Failure to do so would be a dereliction of duty. What sort of healer picks their patients?" That was vile.

She glanced out the window, where rain was pouring down harder than ever.

"Did you call the storm?"

[tomorrowrain]

"I didn't mean for it to get so big," Raine admitted, absently dipping his finger into the teacup and stirring. It wasn't so hot that it would burn, after all. "I was just... testing. And then the evening sort of..."

He shrugged.

"There's another one under the pillow," he murmured, barely quiet enough to be heard. Speaking at all was against his better judgment, when it game to things like this. He was too tired and too battered by his power at that point to care. "I guess maybe he was hoping I'd stick my hand under there or something."

[oath_keeper]

"Probably," she said, giving away nothing about the way that he just knew that sent a shiver down her spine and lifted the pillow to pocket that one as well. Oh yes, Leith was going to be hearing from her. Possibly at the top of her lungs. "That would be him."

Leith was a work-in-progress when it came to the princials of H.A.H.

"Some test," Cassidy continued. "Though rain isn't such a bad thing."

[tomorrowrain]

"It's been getting pretty dry out there. I was beginning to think that I'd just dry up if it didn't rain soon."

The rain was a comfort, too. Even in here, freezing though he was, listening to it beat down on his windows was soothing him. In spite of the mousetraps.

"So... someone really came looking for a healer, for my sake?"

Try not to sound so stunned by that, Raine.

[oath_keeper]

Cassidy finished searching the bed before answering that. Five mousetraps rattled in her pockets.

"Yes," she said, "some firstie."

She didn't know the kid's name. She didn't even know what the kid had looked like.

She didn't want to know which of the firsties was kind enough to send a healer after a guy who was openly avoided by most of the school. The school needed more kindness.

There was no way to say it would survive.

"Have you finished your tea yet?" Asking questions would keep her from thinking too hard about how stunned he sounded and the way that made her throat feel tight.

[tomorrowrain]

Seth, then. Maybe if he ran into him again without some big audience, Raine would thank him, too.

He was not going to think too hard about when that might be. He'd like some surprises in his life, thanks.

"I'm... about halfway through," he admitted, looking into the teacup, staring at the little sediment on the bottom before shaking his head and gulping it back. "Mostly through. Sorry. I'm still kind of... shaking."

From the cold. Obviously.

[oath_keeper]

She frowned at him.

"Finish it," she said, "and--oh, here."

Cassidy took one of the towels from his lap and, without so much as asking if she could, dropped it on his head. She'd dry his hair. Briskly and professionally.

[tomorrowrain]

"Hey!"

And some things, Raine just didn't see coming. The H.A.H. girl drying his hair like she was his mom or something? That was definitely one of those things. And really, even if he had seen it, he wouldn't have believed it. Anybody getting that close to his jasper was just too surreal for him to believe.

By the time she was done, he'd be a little preoccupied with sitting there with his mouth agape, his hair sticking up in all directions.

[oath_keeper]

She was very careful to keep from touching the stone, but other than that, well, it was a head of hair. She surveyed the mess of it with satisfaction and then draped the towel over his shoulders.

"Finish that tea and then change into dry--whatever you wear to sleep, and get into bed," Cassidy ordered. "When you're done that, I'll come back in."

With that, she walked from the room and shut the door behind her.

[tomorrowrain]

... Upperclassmen were terrifying. That was about the gist of what Raine was learning, tonight. And so, not wanting an argument, he downed the rest of the tea and then stood, leaving the teacup on his nightstand before rummaging for another clean, try pair of sweats. And a t-shirt. He didn't normally bother with that much, but at this point he figured another layer wouldn't hurt.

It was a bit of an ordeal, actually making his way around the room, getting out of clothes, getting into clothes, all while trying not to wonder about any of this. Thinking just meant that his thoughts wandered beyond the present, too. It was harder, tonight, to draw a line between the two.

Better to focus on things like how silly he felt, once he was under the covers, waiting for her to come back in after a "Kay" that could have stood to be a bit louder.

[oath_keeper]

While he did that, she stood outside his door with a thermometer in her mouth to gauge what his temperature was like. She glanced at it and grimaced at the results. Great.

The only reason she heard his voice was because she was used to sick people. They didn't generally speak loudly unless they were hallucinating. She opened his door and surveyed him, all tucked in bed.

"Isn't this much better than being out in the rain?"

All the noise, none of the wet.

[tomorrowrain]

"Guess so," Raine agreed, his tone more than a little flat. If it hadn't been for the chill, the rain would have suited him just fine. Honest. Probably.

He hunkered down a little further under the covers and shivered.

"It was quieter out in the rain, though. Fewer mousetraps."

And for the first time in a while, he actually found himself feeling a pang of homesickness. He didn't want this. Didn't want to be here. Didn't want to see things or scare people just because he sometimes did. His name wasn't Jasper, damn it.

And yet it was.

And yet it would be.

He moaned and attempted to bury his head under the pillow. He was not going to get all melancholy in front of the H.A.H.. Just no.

[oath_keeper]

The lovely thing about being a healer was that once you were around your patient, you didn't always have to touch them to treat them. Cassidy left him to his attempts at hiding--she had no words of comfort, as what he said was true--and held out her right hand, with her stone embedded in it, over his bed.

Then she closed her eyes.

Her stone flickered to life, throwing off pale wings of light against the room's walls. Cassidy took a deep breath as energy flooded her.

[tomorrowrain]

And Raine, in turn, balled himself up a little more tightly under the blankets. She was still out there, so he was quite content to still be under here, where the only things he could see where the things that he wasn't seeing with his eyes.

And if he put all his focus into not letting his stone's power interact with hers, then maybe he wouldn't see too much about her.

"Maybe," he murmured, somewhat muffled by the pillow, "we could... take this a little bit at a time...?"

Being healed shouldn't be so tiring.

[oath_keeper]

Cassidy hesitated, her stone urging her along with a tidal wave of energy that tugged at her senses. It felt good, to use her magic. Like she could do anything with her stone.

But she'd spent years training with it now and could listen to something other than her stone's urges and her own wants.

"Got a reason for that, Tappen?"

[tomorrowrain]

Did he have a reason? None that he'd like to share.

Probably none that she'd like to hear. But all the same, he was kind of slinking out from under his pillow, eyes squeezed shut as though he was terrified that just looking at her would trigger some sort of vision that he didn't want, still shaking, though it wasn't completely from the cold.

"I'm not looking," he murmured. "I swear to God I'm not looking. I don't want to. But it's reaching toward the power and I don't..."

Didn't... quite know what he was doing, enough to be able to hold back flashes.

Still didn't want to say that aloud.

[oath_keeper]

She grit her teeth. Yeah, she could finish that sentence of his easily enough and no, she didn't want him looking at her when his power was out of whack.

Not his fault, Cassidy reminded herself sharply. You do not blame the patient for anything but their own stupidity.

And this wasn't that.

He was only a what-- 3rd year? Barely time to know anything about anything, him.

Her hand, held over the bed, trembled. Her power did not like being held in stasis for so long. Cassidy told it to shut up and deal.

"Tappen," she said, "quit moving and start breathing. Like meditation class. Breathe in, count to seven, breathe out, count to seven. Do it."

She didn't know precisely how his stone turned itself on and off but meditation tended to help nearly every gift. Cassidy could only hope she'd be lucky enough that it would work here.

[tomorrowrain]

Breathe. Breathe in. Breathe out. He wasn't going to take the time he needed in order to tell her that what she was telling him to do was exactly what he'd been trying to do before she showed up. She was trying to help. He could appreciate that.

In.

Out.

Shaking and trying to keep from breaking the exercise just so he could apologize at every little glimpse. He could tell her what she was going to have for supper next week Thursday. Knew what colour she'd be wearing tomorrow.

In. Out.

And then he broke, tired and cold and sick and frustrated, wrapping his arms around himself and shaking his head and just trying desperately to get a little more distance. Even if it meant scootching back on his bed away from her. He hadn't asked for this. He was freaking her out and he wouldn't want to be here with him either and she was just doing her job and she hadn't asked for this either and...

[oath_keeper]

Her stone was shimmering with power, throwing light up against the wall in feathers of colours, most of it white but some blue and some, where the light bounced off her hair, bright red.

Cassidy felt like she was trying to stop an avalanche by holding a pebble still. Raine moved back, she moved back, one step, two steps, three steps, her hand still held out in front of her.

Her breathing now, was the steady in and out of measured meditation and she clung to that and to her discipline and her strength of will. Her magic was not going to control her, she would find a way to treat Tappen, this would turn out well.

When the glow of her stone subsided enough that the light on the walls was barely there, and she felt like she was going to burst with energy (there would be no sleeping tonight) Cassidy dropped her hand and swiftly reached with her other into a pocket of her grey work coat. Out came a foil and plastic packet of clear pills. On them, stamped exactly the same as the embroidery on her coat, were the letters H.A.H.

She ripped two of the pills off the packet and lobbed them at Raine.

"Swallow those."

Of course, there was no need for that. The moment they touched his tongue they would dissolve. They'd been designed that way.

Only three of the H.A.H. even had access to these pills.

Power suppressants were not items that were taken lightly in Thrones. Not even amongst the faculty or the H.A.H.

"They'll help."

[tomorrowrain]

Raine stared at them for a few seconds, which ticked into a few more seconds. He frowned. He had no idea what they were. No idea what they'd do to him. His power was offering him nothing at all, which...

And then he practically dove on the packet, tearing the foil over the pills with shaking hands and putting them into his mouth, trying not to look so desperate and failing miserably.

Either his power didn't want to see what those pills could do, or else it couldn't, and that was good enough for him. At first, it seemed to thrum angrily, trying to shove as much at him as it possibly could all at once, like a tidal wave of information so thick that he couldn't make sense of it at all.

And then, like someone turning the water on a faucet...

"Oh, god..."

He slumped forward, still shaking, exhausted, and ashamed.

But it was quiet.

[oath_keeper]

Cassidy quietly returned the rest of the pills to her coat pocket as he stared at them and then moved not at all until he'd taken them and slumped over.

"If you tell anyone I gave you those, I'll feed your tongue to the crows," Cassidy said conversationally.

She wouldn't. Probably.

But it made for a good warning.

[tomorrowrain]

Raine glanced up at her with a look that seemed, all on its own, to say, 'You honestly think anyone would listen to me anyhow?'

And then looked back down at the sheets again, reaching a still shaking hand up to smooth his fingers through his drying hair.

"Thank you," he murmured, at any rate.

It was...

It hadn't been this blissfully silent since before he'd died. The stark contrast between this and every other waking moment made a knot form in his chest. Right. This was what being normal felt like.

"Sorry..."