Contort me against your body and mind - Chapter 12 (Patreon)

Ellie

Research and medical assistant Effervescence had formed a nest out of the corner of the ward, tucked beside Ellie’s cot. The young woman somehow managed to appear even more uncomfortable than Ellie felt on her two-inch-thick plastic mattress and crispy white sheets. She wasn’t ungrateful. She was alive and being cared for. Pillows that could lift her head higher than her boobs would be a major bonus. Life was enough, though. She even had her wits about her as far as she could tell.

While she had been contemplating her gratitude for life, Effervescence had been explaining a new procedure she had been signed off on by the head human doctor. Effervescence never stopped talking. It was both sweet, like the chirping of a bird, and occasionally grating, like the chirping of a bird at five am. Her endless energy was refreshing at times. Draining in others. Sometimes Ellie zoned out of all of her senses except sight, ignoring everything but her facial movements.

The roundest blue face. A blueberry in a Betty Boop wig. If Ellie could sit herself up to a ninety-degree angle, she would have a much harder job keeping herself from kissing, tweaking and biting the skin. Thankfully, the unbearable pain of the slowly-healing slice in her abdomen restrained her from the unbearable pain of rejection, and possibly a charge of inappropriate conduct in the workplace. Not that she hadn’t mixed relationships and missions in the past. More times than she cared to admit. Eventually, though, you had to learn from your mistakes.

Effervescence continued her running commentary of how much each step in the procedure would hurt and Ellie allowed her brain to glaze over completely. There was nothing that Effervescence could do in her many experiments that could cause Ellie enough harm to worry her. Effervescence thought that IVs hurt. Ellie thought that getting stabbed hurt.

She was glad to be the test dummy. It made her feel like she was still contributing to the ship, giving her body to medicine while still alive. Stuck in bed day after day for weeks was driving her mad. More slowly for the efforts of Effervescence, Ellie had to admit.

She’d had a lot of time to think. Too much. Sometimes when the thinking brought ripples of stress over her body, she focused entirely on Effervescence’s voice, allowing it to fill her head. Occasionally, Effervescence would babble something relevant to Ellie’s overthinking. And so the spiral would begin again.

Legacy was dead. Suicide.

Forest was missing. Presumed dead.

Except, Ellie couldn’t force herself to believe he was. She also could not, in good faith, trust her own memory of the events of that day. Definitely not enough to accuse a fellow officer, possibly one who was genuinely murdered and left without burial, of traitorous acts. But his body was the only one that didn’t make it back. Every other officer on the mission, alive or dead, had been dragged back to the transport ship.

Effervescence asked her something, the tone at the end of her sentence rising.

“Sorry, what was that?”

“It’s okay!” Effervescence reassured her with fluttering hands. “It must be hard to concentrate with the pain.” It was hard to concentrate with a pretty woman rambling in her direction for the entire business day, but Ellie simply smiled apologetically instead of refuting her words. It wasn’t Effervescence’s fault that Ellie had a crush. “I need your permission to go, um, under the blankets.”

“Sure, do whatever you need to.” She was always welcome under Ellie’s blankets.

The sheets tucked up to Ellie’s armpits were pulled down. She didn’t have the energy to offer any assistance. She had been gifted the grace of being allowed to wear her own clothes after the first week in the medical gown. It was only a tank top and sweatpants, but it felt ten times better than a scratchy, oversized bib with string knots digging into her back. If anything, her loose tanks offered more access to the worst of her wounds - an enormous gouge in her stomach that had almost killed her from blood loss. If her memory served her correctly, it was courtesy of Forest.

Cool fingers slid the bottom of her top up to rest beneath her boobs. Ellie glanced down reflexively, wondering if it was in the medical handbook to ensure your hands were cold before you touched a patient. She caught a slight tremble in Effervescence’s fingertips but shifted her glance away quickly. No need to make a medical student any more nervous, especially if you’re the one whose body they’re about to meddle with.

Effervescence began a routine dressing change. Perhaps not routine for her, but Ellie was used to the pulling and stinging sensations by now.

Ellie let her mind wander again.

A patient being led in under the stern watch of two officers, a doctor and a nurse caught her attention as Effervescence was peeling the last of the tegaderm strips off. It left a sticky residue on her stomach that the young woman began to wipe at gently. Ellie feigned interest in the adhesive removal while observing the patient being admitted across the room from the corner of her eye. Mihai was not an officer she knew well, but she recognised him climbing into the cot. The officers that had escorted him were armed, which was unusual. They left after speaking to him briefly and the doctor and nurse began talking through some paperwork with him.

“Effervescence,” Ellie mumbled, keeping her eyes pointed down to Effervescence’s ministrations.

“Yes?” Effervescence whispered back. Her face had snapped up instantly, eyes round and curious.

Ellie glanced away nonchalantly, running her eyes along the wall behind her. “Do you know anything about why Mihai is being checked in?” The question was barely audible. In the pause afterwards, she wondered if Effervescence had actually heard her.

“I-” She caught herself and pinched her lips together, appearing conflicted. “I don’t think I’m allowed to discuss things like that.”

“But you do know why he’s here?”

“I saw the notes from his last appointment when I went into Dr Bonnie’s office to collect some forms,” she babbled, face filled with shame.

“Oh, he’s here for a mental disorder?”

“I don’t know if we call it that. Perhaps humans do.”

Ellie huffed quietly. “Now you’re teasing me,” she complained.

“Oh, I’m sorry!” Her blue skin flushed with a purple tint. “I don’t mean to.”

“I was joking, don’t worry.”

Effervescence nodded awkwardly. “Um, please… be careful, though.”

“Careful?”

“He’s not in his right… mind at the moment.”

“Is that why he’s been upgraded from psych appointment to psych bed?”

“I really shouldn’t tell anyone.”

“But,” Ellie whispered encouragingly.

The flood gates burst, and hushed words streamed from Effervescence without pause for breath. “But he threatened Dr Bonnie with his gun. He pointed it at her when she wouldn’t give him medicine. He told her he was going to kill her.”

An addict. Ellie couldn’t keep disgust from twisting her face. Effervescence was watching, her own expression filled with sympathy. Whether for Ellie or the violent junkie in the corner, she genuinely couldn’t tell.

“Is Dr Bonnie okay?” she asked.

Effervescence shrugged, smoothing down the last of the new bandages. “I think so, but now he has to stay here for a while.”

Silence fell between them, Ellie falling back into her thoughts again.

Effervescence jumped up, exclaiming the time to the entire ward. Ellie jolted, and a severe bolt of pain quickly followed. She gritted her teeth until it passed. Effervescence suddenly began excusing herself with repeated apologies that Ellie fanned away.

“I don’t doubt that your afternoon plans are more exciting than watching me learn how to breathe without making grunting noises,” she reassured her.

“I- I’m going to do an autopsy,” Effervescence blurted awkwardly.

“Oh, I’m sorry.” If only Forest had dug the knife in a bit deeper, she wouldn’t have survived to say something so dumb.

Effervescence hesitated at the foot of her bed to respond. “It’s okay. It needs to be done.” Her short words somehow passed the rambling duties over to Ellie.

“Well, I- we appreciate your hard work,” she said. “All of us that made it back from the mission, we owe it to you- and the team. You guys are… great.” Ellie cringed. She wished the metal plates that made up the floor would cave in. Anything to remove her from this conversation that her mouth had lost control of. Small and pretty was her downfall, always.

A sliver of a smile graced the pretty face. Effervescence was tinged purple along her cheeks and ears and Ellie had no doubt hers were pink.

“Thank you, Major,” she said with a bob of her head. She walked away quickly, earning her a warning glance from one of the nurses. No running allowed on the ward and all that.