[RiddleRose]: 298.Gold Dust - NaNoWriMo '07.Chapter thirteen

Chapter thirteen.

Once everyone had calmed down a little, and Livia had come out of her corner, and Neil had become more awake, they attended to Wren's hand. There was quite a bad burn on it, and he was swelling in several places, including his eye, where Neil had kneed him. He took a couple of ibuprofen, and sat whimpering for a while until Livia finally noticed that he was actually not acting, and was actually hurt.

Immediately she went into that state females go into when someone is hurt around them. They start doing everything they can to help. In Livia's case, this meant ice for the black eye, and the emergency room for the hand, which hurt abominably.

Wren went along, because he thought that maybe they would give him stronger pain meds. The ibuprofen was kicking in a little, and his bruises hurt less, but his hand was beginning to sting, and blister, and it looked awful. He was afraid there might be coffee stuck permanently in his hand. That would be highly unpleasant, not to mention the fact that identifying characteristics are very bad for a drug dealer to have.

At the emergency room, they did emergency room things, like whimper, and wait for six hours. Wren had been to the emergency room a couple of times, and the only time he had had to wait for less than five hours was when he was coughing and vomiting up blood. That had been because he had, unknowingly, swallowed a piece of glass, which was playing havoc with his insides. He had had to have it removed, so that it wouldn't cut his stomach wall to pieces. 

So they waited for six hours. Thankfully Neil did not get an inspiration, because he felt awful about hurting Wren, and he was being loyal and staying with him. He also went out and got them all food at around one. Wren gave him a couple of addresses, and he dealt a few bottles of Gold Dust to some people that Wren was unable to get to, being stuck in the waiting room.

Finally, at about four, when Livia had read every magazine in the place, and Wren had read every magazine except for Seventeen, he was called in. at this point, his hand was feeling like it might fall off. The back of it looked like crumpled leather with white pus all over it, and it was oozing. Wren was afraid to use any of the muscles in it, so he held it up with his other hand, and kept feeling like it was a dead fish or something. It was about as useful. Less so, because you can eat a dead fish.

The doctor mercifully gave him a shot of anesthetic, and his entire arm up to the elbow went numb. Then the doctor began pulling splinters, coffee beans, and dead skin off his arm. At this point, Livia left, saying that she would see them later. Neil stayed, though he grimaced a lot, and looked like he wished he was somewhere else.

At some point, Lessa showed up. Wren closed his eyes at one point, because it was just really gross and disturbing to see bits of your own skin getting literally pulled and snipped off of you. When he opened them again, she was there. Neil had been very sneaky, and taken out his cell phone, and was pretending to talk in it in a corner, while really talking to her. The doctor obviously couldn't see her, or he would have said something along the lines of, “why is there a small girl who looks like she just stepped out of a picture book in my room?”. Since he said nothing of the sort, it could be safely assumed that he did not see her.

Wren half listened to Lessa, because she was adorable, and also hilarious, with her little Victorian girl's view on the world. She was telling Neil about her mother now, saying, “Mama is ever so genteel. She's a real lady! She wears only the latest fashions, and she faints rather often. All the ladies who come visit her admire her, 'cause she's had two children, but she still has her figure! I know she always has her maids tighten her corsets almost more than she can stand. I watch sometimes, and she lets me, 'cause she wants me to be an accomplished lady, and maybe even go to court, to see the queen! She met the queen once you know, at a party. She said the queen was ever so regal, and elegant. I didn't know what elegant meant, but she explained it to me. I hope I can be elegant someday. I'd like to meet the queen.”

Wren smiled a little, imagining Lessa all grown up, in corsets and petticoats, and whatever else Victorian ladies used to wear. He thought that she would look just like an angel. Right now she was definitely an angel, albeit a very spunky and adventurous one. Today she was all in blue, which set off her eyes nicely, and made her hair glow. Her parasol was a slightly darker blue, with birds embroidered on it. Her hair was tied back in a half ponytail with a little sky blue ribbon to match her dress.

At last, the doctor finished with Wren. The burn still looked nasty, but it was a lot better than it had been. It was no longer brown with coffee, and there was a great deal less pus. The doctor smeared some sort of cream on it, and wrapped it up in a bandage. He told Wren to rewrap it every three hours for two days, excluding night time. He was to put more of the cream on it every time he did this, and hope that it didn't scar.

Wren nodded, thanked the man, and went out. It was five. He and Neil went back to Neil's apartment by way of Wren's, so that Wren could pick up some clean clothes, and make sure everything was alright there. Wren remembered something then, a girl, in the park. He was supposed to meet her at sunset. That was in about an hour. He sent Neil home, saying that he had to do something, and grabbed the least fuzzy food out of the fridge to eat. It tasted like food, and not like mold, so Wren ate it all. Then he checked his appearance in his mirror. 

He had a magnificent black eye, but it was no longer swollen. His hand was bandaged, but the rest of him looked okay. There were, undoubtedly, other bruises elsewhere on his body, he could feel a few of them, but nothing seemed to be horribly swollen.

He went to the park, concocting a story to explain the black eye and the hand. He decided to just say, “coffee accident” and leave it at that. It sounded good. He got to the park while the sun was still up. He didn't see the girl he had seen before, so he sat on a bench and enjoyed the cool breeze and the interesting people in the park.

There was someone playing “Amazing Grace” on the bagpipes somewhere far away. He could just hear it. He rather liked bagpipes. There was a couple walking hand in hand, heads together. Wren watched them for a while, and suddenly realized that the girl was actually not a girl, but a crossdressing boy. He was doing an awfully good job of being a she.

There was a girl, perhaps seventeen, with long brown braids sitting under a tree. She was writing in a red notebook, but after a few minutes she got up, and slung a camera, which Wren hadn't been able to see before, around her neck. She wandered around, taking pictures, presumably for a class. She got several of the couple, without them noticing. Occasionally she would set things up, but usually she took pictures of what she saw.

But then he saw his girl, and he went to meet her, going down on one knee again, and covering her hand with kisses. “What happened to your eye?” she asked, looking horrified.

He shrugged, showing her his hand as well, “It was a tragic coffee accident. I doubt I will ever be able to drink coffee again.”

She looked puzzled, and amused, and maybe a little sympathetic. She was very hesitant at first, but Wren was quite good at charming people when he wanted to, and she relaxed soon. Wren suspected that the girl with the camera was following them around taking pictures, but every time he spotted her she was pointing the cursed thing at a plant, or the empty swingset, or something other than them.

Soon enough she was completely comfortable with him. She was a very attractive girl, who went by the name of Lisa. She had strawberry blonde hair, and she was about up to Wren's nose, the perfect height. She had very good grammar, although she tended to speak in run on sentences. When Wren asked her why this was so, she said that her father was a well known publisher, and she had started speaking in run ons just to annoy him, because he had once been an editor, and then it had just become a habit that she felt no real need to break.

As it got darker, different people came out. Now the couples were less holding hands, and more coming out of bushes, or going into bushes. There were very few singles around, though the camera girl with the long braids was still taking pictures. She wasn't using a flash either, so she must have some sort of setting that let her work in darker light.

Wren and Lisa gradually walked closer and closer together, until they were rubbing arms at every step. Wren gradually worked his way to having one arm around her waist, and she didn't complain. He was beginning to see the way this evening was going. It was definitely a good way.

Lisa was a roiling mass of confusions. Nothing like this had ever happened to her before. This boy, this handsome boy, who called her beautiful, had just come up to her. And now they were walking amid couples entwined on benches, and his arm was around her waist, and she wasn't complaining. She had had a boyfriend once before, but they had never gotten very far. She was eighteen though, and had her own place. Before she knew quite what she was saying, she said, “Want to go back to my place?”

He grinned widely, and said, “As you wish.”

So they went to her place. She was nervous all the way there. They took a taxi, and he sat very close to her, and put a hand on her knee. By the time they got to her apartment, the hand was significantly higher on her leg, and her heart had started to pound. She wasn't nervous anymore though. Now she was just excited.

The apartment was dark, so she turned a light on. He turned it off again, picked her up, and carried her to her bedroom. She had a nice, big, soft bed, and he plumped her down on it on her back, then proceeded to kiss her senseless. After that her brain got a little fuzzy. She stopped thinking, and started reacting.

At some point she noticed that she was mostly naked, and so was he. Then he did something, and she stopped thinking again. She did realize that at some point he asked her if this was okay, if he should stop. She made some sort of noise that indicated that it was just fine, thank you very much, and then her brain fractured a little more.

When it was done, she opened her eyes and looked around. Her bed was in a complete state of disarray. Most of the covers were on the floor. Wren was lying half on top of her, and looking at her with a devil may care kind of grin on his face. “Enjoy yourself?” he asked saucily.

She nodded, and burrowed closer, yawning and closing her eyes. But Wren clicked his tongue, “Nuh uh uh! You were a virgin, which means something probably hurt. That means that maximum pleasure was not reached, so no going to sleep yet! That was the uninteresting one. Do you have any hot fudge? Whipped cream?”

She giggled and nodded, getting up to go get it. She walked back into her bedroom with it, and didn't see Wren. She paused, and looked around, then gasped as she was pushed against a wall. “Now for the fun stuff,” he growled in her ear. And then her brain disengaged again.

This time, when she could think again, one quarter of the entire room was in disarray. And she soon discovered that Wren wasn't nearly done yet. By the time they both fell asleep out of pure exhaustion, Wren in the sink, and she on the floor, the contents of all of her drawers were scattered about the room, along with several costumes she had left over from various plays she had been in. There was a long red cape, and a feather duster, and a little maid cap with a doily. There was hot fudge and whipped cream smeared in several places around the room. She was wearing a thigh high stocking.

She fell asleep, and dreamed of herself as the dancer in a strip club. Wren jumped up on stage at one point, and began dancing with her. At some point, the dream Wren took off all of her remaining clothes, and just when things started getting interesting, she woke up.