A/N: Hey all! This is an edited version of my previously-posted story Itchy. The story is exactly the same; this is just me fiddling with language conventions and grammar, to make myself feel better because I am so epicly picky. Thanks to That Girl Six for her red-pen and awesome encouragement and for confiscating my colon key! Hee! Xx
Disclaimer: If not for Sylvia and Gerry Anderson, I would not be able to play in this wonderful playground, so no; I do not own the Thunderbirds.
You know that moment when someone tells you specifically not to do something, and you immediately feel an undeniable urge to do it in defiance? You end up driving yourself nuts in the process, and not only can you not resist, but something physically bars you from finishing it to your satisfaction? That is exactly the kind of thing that is happening to me right now.
Oh, I wouldn't mind half as much if it were just the one thing that is contributing to my overall state of discomfort; but it is two, and one of them is significantly more frustrating than the other.
Just three days ago, I had been participating in my Tuesday afternoon soccer practice. Being early spring, it was kind of inevitable that the winter rains would continue well into March, and the surface of the pitch where we trained had been drenched and re-drenched by the falling water and chilly mornings for weeks.
One second I was zipping up the pitch; chilly momentum whipping my curls back from my face, checkered black and white ball held firmly within my instep, and then the next thing I knew, I was out flat on my back on the patch of soggy ground that had been right in my trajectory. I found myself gritting my teeth so much that they creaked, as I tried not to scream nor faint at the wave of white-hot agony blasting its fiery way along thigh, ankle and shin.
I had spent an agonising mud and nausea-filled five hours in the emergency department of Lawrence's town hospital, and then had re-emerged slowly out to Scott's rusty old pick-up with newly-minted crutches, a thick plaster cast and strict orders not to place any weight on the hairline fracture to my femur or the breaks to the tibia and fibula of my left leg, for at least the next ten weeks.
And that is why, right at this moment, I am reclined on the living-room couch; with my heavy, pain-filled left leg propped up on numerous pillows, subsequently bored out of my mind, because certain elder brothers —the only ones that I could possibly hold interesting conversation with— are out for at least another couple of hours getting flying lessons from Dad.
Even if I ignore the jealousy that fills me with, I am annoyed that I can't even practice the new piece I have been given to work on from my music teacher. My leg is still too far too swollen beneath its rigid covering for me to even think about being able to rest it in a vertical position without bolts of agony shooting through it that make my eyes tear up, and a scream almost tear through my lips.
The piano sits in its customary spot in the corner of the room, taunting me with my inability to play. Over the past few days I have trained myself not to look at it, as I am only really brutally torturing myself with the waiting I have to do until the swelling has gone down. I have contented myself with spreading my manuscript on the half-lap my good leg presents, but as I have no concrete keys to play on, I can't accurately visualise where my fingers are supposed to go.
It is extremely unsatisfactory and does absolutely nothing to distract me from the intense itching on the skin of my leg, nor does the throbbing headache I have been nursing for most of the day make it at all easy to concentrate on the chord progressions and melody of Moonlight Sonata anyway.
Grandma is somewhere in the upper levels of the homestead, presumably rounding up Gordon and Alan, who are coincidentally home at the same time as me for the self-same reason that my suffering has been compounded into total and utter misery. The itchiness emanating from beneath the heavy fibre-glass cast is not only due to the broken bones.
Oh no. A week ago, my two younger brothers both managed to come down with chicken-pox. Yes, I, Virgil Tracy, at almost fourteen years old, have been infected with the varicella virus by a seven-year-old and an eleven-year-old who honestly delight in causing trouble. I would be fine if I hadn't broken my leg, and had both kids throw their contagious selves at me as soon as I had swung my slow, agonising way into the house once home from the hospital. No-one had been fast enough to stop them from pulling me into their germ-and-spot-filled embraces.
Scott and John both had the illness as young children, well before I had been born; so as luck would have it, in all of my early years, I had never once come into contact with the virus. The kids are supposed to be going back to school tomorrow, as they are no longer contagious. Damn them, and I find myself very much wishing for more of the peace and quiet I am currently experiencing.
I am still the owner of a raging fever that accompanies the first two or three days of chicken-pox, and only this morning have I reached that terribly itchy stage. The blasted red blisters have seen fit to spread their way beneath the cast, and the fact that some of the more painful ones are situated on my fingers, inhibiting my drawing as well has added to my general level of unhappiness. For lack of a better phrase, they are 'driving me bananas' to quote Dad on one of his favourite sayings.
Grandma has come up at somewhat of a roadblock where alleviating the discomfort of the rash is concerned. With the awkwardness of a cast that begins at the end of my foot, and stretches all the way up over my knee and part-way to my hip, there is no way that I would be able to sit comfortably in the bathtub for an oatmeal dip; and yes, don't think I wouldn't have actually swallowed my pride and jumped at the chance, even if it meant cutting the damned cast off and putting up with the agony it would bring.
Calamine lotion was kind of helping with the parts of me not covered in plaster. I had looked like something greatly resembling a pink iced cake once Grandma and Dad had finished coating me in it this morning, but right now, I am seriously contemplating incurring both adults' wrath and dragging myself into the kitchen —broken limb or no— and cutting the thing off myself so that I can scratch my skin into oblivion, despite knowing that it probably will only get me an infection instead of the relief I so greatly desire.
I must have dozed off at some point, though how I possibly could have done so in my current condition, I have no idea. As I open my eyes, it is to see Scott quietly paging through one of his hugely thick course books, as he has his Yale entrance exams coming up in the next month and a half. The papers spread over the side of the armchair where he is perched, and the pile of spiral-bound notebooks and the scattered pens suggest he has been here with the sleeping me for a more than a while now.
I realise I am quite uncomfortably hot, and lift my eyes blearily, puzzled to discover that the blanket that I tossed off of my lap earlier in the day has somehow, miraculously managed to find its way back over my tired, terribly itchy and achy body. And now that I think of that, of course the itchiness recommences.
I look up to meet Scott's curious blue gaze. The specks of purple grey that have become noticeable in the last couple of months are growing rapidly. I remember Mom's eyes had been that same amethyst colour, and that John sometimes —in the right light— has the same phenomena occur, though most of the time they are as azure-blue as Alan's.
He smiles at me, and does his big-brother-mind-reading thing. "I put it back on." He tells me, meaning the red-and-blue afghan that is currently making me swelter. "You must have kicked it off when you were sleeping." He closes the textbook in his hands, Advanced Applications of Algebra and Calculus, and leans over to place his palm over my forehead.
I go to protest, I'm fine Scott, but the words die on my lips as I sigh at the cool skin that my brother's palm brings to my achy and overly hot forehead. Almost absently, I pull my hand from within the blanket to scratch roughly at a cluster of raised bumps on the side of my neck, the other attempting to dig questing fingers beneath the tight edge of the cast. The leg must be swelling up again, for there is much less room than there was last time I attempted it.
"Stop that." Scott orders, lightly slapping the hand at my jaw away from the increasing burn it has instigated. I realise hopefully that he hasn't yet noticed my left hand as it gives up on the cast and contents itself with relieving the tingling near my hip instead —at least until he whips the blanket off of my lap and grabs my hand at the wrist, gasping at the sight of my skin and nails.
I am wearing an old pair of shorts in place of sweatpants; they are much more comfortable, and a lot easier to pull on with the cast. I wince just much as Scott as I see the evidence of what a little harmless itching, even with blunt nails can do to skin that is already tender, raised and puffy.
The tops of a dozen blisters have been scrubbed raw, and there is a bit of blood and pus appearing from the heads of a few of them where the bacterium beneath my nails has decided my skin is a nice place to set up shop. I sigh glumly as I think of exactly how much that is going to sting when the inevitable cleaning with the cotton and Betadine takes place later tonight. But back to the whole reason why my left leg is like that in the first place…
"Virgil." Scott sighs, once again waving my hand away from where my fingers make half-hearted swipes at the stupid cast, and looks me squarely in the eyes. "Do I really have to fetch the oven mitts? For God's sake Kiddo, you're gonna have no skin left the way you're scraping it off!"
"But it's itchy, Scott! Beneath the cast… they're everywhere, it's driving me nuts! Grandma's been trying to think of something to help all day, but she hasn't thought of anything yet!"
My voice is an abominable mixture of whining, irascibility, and a big dollop of self-pity on top, and yet Scott is still staring at me in that maddening way of his, inscrutable and completely unfazed by my attempt at innocence. John was ever the same, but I have achieved both partial and total success on Dad from time to time.
"Has she tried an antihistamine?" my brother asks suddenly, his dark brows shooting up like they do every time he asks a question. I remember when he used to make me laugh hysterically just by wriggling his eyebrows. I smile to myself because once again, Scott has succeeded in distracting me from scratching like a flea-ridden dog —and the guy knows it perfectly well thank-you!
"No!" My eyes widen in astonishment. I am surprised that neither Grandma nor I have thought of it before. All day I have been shifting uncomfortably, trying to not go insane with my leg and plaster and poor ol' Virgil in his music-less boredom, and here my brother walks in and amazingly and magically has a solution, as always. Damn. I think. Why didn't I think of that? But then I brighten instantly, because truly, who cares? I was going to be drugged and happy and blessedly not-itchy!
Suddenly forgetting entirely about the burning irritation of the blisters on my feet, face, and everything in between, I lunge abruptly for the crutches set down on the floor next to the couch, and then promptly gasp sharply in pain as my leg erupts in a noisy blast of Oh-my-freaking-God-ouch-my-God-that-goddamn-hurts!
Chuckling slightly, but with his brows furrowed in concern, Scott carefully assists me to my one foot and crutches. I grunt with pain as all the blood from elevating the limb goes rushing into swollen and abused muscle and bone. Definitely need to top-up on the pain meds then.
"So," I ask as we slowly begin to make our cautious way to the kitchen where our med-kit and my salvation from itching resides. "How did the lesson go?"
A/N: I hope that this is more readable when it comes to sentence length and everything. I am going to leave the original up so we all can see what was there first!
-Pyre. Xx