Title: Live Hard
Summary: He may not even be considered much of a person anymore but the moon does things that bring out what he used to be, there's a reason the doctor has him on a sedative and there's one unlucky nurse's name on the bottom of the incident report following the bite.
Rating: M
Warnings: Language, violence
Spoilers: There are some but they are few and far between for the most part, this story works around the main storyline while incorporating it at key points
Disclaimer: I don't own Teen Wolf
A/N: For reference chapter one happened prior to episode four, and this one takes place on a floating timeline between episodes five through eight.
Day 21:
"Guess who the biggest dumbass in the world is right now," she spoke into the receiver.
"Who?" Came from the other line.
"Me," she stated picking up a towel from her bathroom floor and throwing it into a garbage bag along with the clothes she'd taken off before her shower when she'd first gotten up that morning.
"What did you do? The last time you admitted to being the world's biggest dumbass was when you showed up two days early for your boards" Lucette smiled to herself at the question and the memory as she left the bag on the tiled floor to go into her bedroom and collect clothes from her hamper.
"I'm never going to live that down." Her friend hummed her assent as Lucette shook off the old thought and continued with why she was currently a dumbass, "Well you know how when you kind of need a washer and dryer to do laundry?" She asked giving her dog a pat as she passed him on her way back to the bathroom.
"Oh my god, the house doesn't have a laundry room!" The response from the other end of the line a bit too cheerful for her liking, "Well…, it does but…," she started
"It's empty," Molly offered trying to help her finish the point on why she was such a big idiot.
"No, it has the washer."
"But no dryer."
"No dryer," Lucette confirmed sitting on the closed toilet lid and sighing before going on, "and the washing machine is disconnected from the water pipe."
"Call a plumber," was the suggestion she received.
It wasn't as if she hadn't thought of calling a plumber already. "Yeah but I have no dryer."
"You have a clothes line."
"Yeah but I can't hang my uniform on the line."
Her friend understood why she couldn't, there was no point in washing a white uniform just to let it dry outside and on the off chance have a bird or rain ruin it.
She got up and dragged the garbage bag of dirty clothes into the living room and hefted it onto the couch, she went to start searching for a basket and her laundry detergent.
"Is there a place in town to do laundry?"
"Yeah but now I have to go there and do laundry every night," she answered switching the phone to her other hand so she could pull detergent out from under the kitchen sink.
"Buy a second uniform so you only have to go every other day," the other line told her.
"I am an idiot," she sighed flopping into a kitchen chair and taking an experimental sip of the coffee in the mug she had left on the table, she gulped it down fast because while warm it wasn't hot enough to enjoy for a long time.
"You should have checked if they had a washer and dryer in the house."
"I know. I know."
She got up from the chair and made another pot of coffee. It was going to be a long night, one she had hoped to spend taking a nap and going over chart notes but unfortunately left her doing laundry in the place of sleeping.
"Anything besides going on?"
"On the news they were saying how the mountain lion killed someone."
The news channel was still talking about it, with all the excitement and breaking news pop out decals on the screen making her mood a mark more irritated than usual.
"Damn, I was hoping it would get you."
Lucette smiled at the notion. "That's not very nice, you know."
"Whatever," her friend laughed.
"Yeah, whatever," she taunted back.
"How's work?"
"Good, I just got home actually." She was still wearing her uniform and the topic of work reminded her of the fact.
"How's the team approach working for you?"
"It sucks balls, big hairy sweaty balls. There's one girl younger than us, about Stella's age and then there's one older guy and two older women who both have kids and it's such a hassle to keep the facility nurses from acting like a bunch of children."
She unzipped the back of her uniform dress and kicked it out of the kitchen with a stockinged foot. Keeping the phone pressed tight to her ear she wiggled out of the stockings and stepped on the legs to pull her feet out of them.
"They're jealous they don't get to choose the way they do things, like you guys do," Molly soothed in her ear like a good best friend.
"And the charge nurse is an absolute witch, just gaw-awd, she is awful."
"She's angry that you get to be charge nurse of your team. How are the doctors?"
"We only have one that I see all the time, cardiac doc, and then the gastro guy came in once. But for the most part it's Mr. Heart Doctor, he's cool. He kind of reminds me of a teacher I had in highschool that let me skip all the assignments except essays because he knew I knew what I was talking about."
"Is he cute?"
Lucette laughed at the idea of anyone finding the doctor's face more attractive than his bank account. "No, but he's funny." She took a sniff at her skin and found that despite it smelling like clean skin and body spray that the scent of nursing home clung to her so close that after she moved her head it wafted right back into her nose.
It was an aura of odors pertaining exclusively to the sickly old and debilitated. She wanted a shower desperately.
"Well that's something. How's the patients?"
"Same old: diabetes, stents, lung problems, and heart failure. I got a stroke patient."
"Just the one?"
"Yeah, the charge nurse didn't want me to have any, just wanted me to stroll around and keep an eye on my nurses."
"For eight hours?"
"That's what I fucking said! I mean honestly if I wanted to do nothing then I'd stay home instead of go to work. You go to work to work; anything else is kind of dumb."
"My charge nurse has me doing all the meds."
"That's a nice gig," she poured herself a new cup of coffee and leaned against the counter in her underwear and bare feet. She admired her toes and the patterned tiles.
"It's so boring. The whole shift, and then the aides aren't allowed to do the finger sticks so I have to do them too."
"Why aren't the aides allowed to do them?"
"Because last month one of them didn't come to tell the nurse that someone had a reading of thirty-eight, and so Charlotte, you know her right? The really short one, who we did the recertification for basic life support with."
"Yeah I know her," she took a sip and jumped up to sit on the counter, her bun got stuck on a cabinet fixture and she fumbled until she'd gotten it loose and ruined her work hair-do.
"Well she had to run in and push glucagon and of course no one could find the patient's assigned nurse because she was on break and she hadn't even done her assessments yet so she didn't tell anyone the IV line was infiltrated and we had to call a code and start a whole new IV and it was absolute chaos," Molly was out of breath by the time she finished the story.
"You're shitting me!" She yelled into the phone instantly sorry that her friend had had to go through the hectic ordeal.
"No joke. So now all of the med nurses have to do the finger sticks and we have to have a phlebotomist on every unit assessing IV sites twice a shift."
"Yeesh."
"Drama drama yo mama."
"You are so cool." Her tone was dry as she swallowed another gulp of coffee.
"I try."
"Listen I gotta go do this laundry, but I'll give you a call in the next few days, one day. Okay?"
"Yeah, sure. Keep me posted , girly."
"You got it, talk to you soon."
"Bye, hun."
She pressed a button on the cordless phone and placed it next to her on the counter as Brigadier clicked his way to a spot next to the kitchen table.
She looked down at her dog and let her smile fade into a look of bored dejection, "Wanna come do laundry with me?"
Brigadier trotted around the kitchen and barked happily, waggling his butt at the refrigerator and opening and closing his mouth at her making faces at him from on top of the counter.
"You're such a ham." She pushed at his jowls with her toes and laughed when he licked them and tried to gnaw on her foot. She pushed him away with the heel of her other, uncaptured, foot.
"If you start barking you're staying in the car. You hear me?"
Sliding off the counter she knelt and pulled his face close to hers, he licked at her eye and she had to blink away the slobber.
"But you won't bark and get momma in trouble will you? No, because you are such a well behaved and wonderful boy." Lucette tumbled back onto the cool floor and her dog lay on his belly next to her, they stared at each other as if amused with themselves and bored with what everyone was doing.
The phone rang on the counter and interrupted her meditative thoughts on the crown molding around the ceiling and how dirty the floor under her stove was.
She reached up and knocked the phone onto herself with her foot and some odd leg positioning. "Hello?"
"It's dad."
"Hey, dad."
"How's the job?"
She turned her head and rolled her eyes at her kitchen companion. "Good, I was just talking to Molly about it a second ago."
"How is Molly? She still dating that guy?"
"Yeah she is, though they've been fighting lately."
"Tell her if she wants to get laid to come find me."
Her dog mewled at her rolling her eyes so many times and gave a half-hearted yip. "You get rid of the booty call you have now?"
"No, why would I do that. I'm monopolizing over here."
"Uh-huh."
"You've got to have options when you're as tan and beautiful as me, kid."
"You're going to get skin cancer."
"Bah!"
"So what's up?"
"Nothing, listen. I was thinking about selling the house."
"…," She refrained from answering, knowing it would come out snippy.
"You there?"
"I'm listening."
"Not right now but once your sister gets her own place, maybe in the next year or so. What do you think?"
"I think you should talk to Estelle and find out when exactly she's going to be moving out."
"Yeah, but it's just a thought. Thought I should let you know."
"Where you thinking of moving to?"
"Florida."
"Could you get any more old?" She started to do leg raises for lack of interest in the conversation.
"I'm old already."
"I thought you were young and beautiful still," Lucette teased letting her leg drop heavily from its raised position in the air.
"In body. Not in mind."
"Well okay, do you want me to talk to my guy that does houses and see if he knows someone in Florida?"
"Yeah, tell him to give me a call."
"I will, listen I gotta go do laundry but give me a call when you can."
"I will."
"Bye."
"Bye bye."
She hung up and let the phone drop to the floor between her and the dog, who within a moment dragged it with a paw to his mouth leaving her to have to wrestle it away before claiming victory and leaving the room to get dressed.
Before the news at eleven came on she was out the door and in her truck crowded with dirty laundry in the passenger seat and the dog in bed of the truck. She hoped she didn't get a ticket for it, she wasn't sure what the policy on dogs in the back of pickup trucks was but she guessed they'd be less strict than if she was toting children around instead.
The laundromat was glaringly bright in the small strip mall, the only place open in the middle of the night besides the fast food drive-thru across the street.
She searched through her console for the old metal tin that used to hold mints but now served the purpose of holding loose change.
When she found it she put it into her jacket pocket. There were only two other cars in the lot and from her view of the inside of the laundry mat a solitary guy doing a load of darks and a couple laughing over something and folding a sheet between them.
She yanked the bag over the center console and dropped it onto the asphalt as she got out.
"Alright big boy show me what you got," she teased the dog. "Arch. Brigadier."
He jumped from the truck bed in a bulky motion that almost sent him into the neighboring car. She hissed at the close call and attached his leash with a smooth click of the metal latch.
When she slammed the driver's side door and moved to the back to reach the laundry basket and supplies she found that the guy who was alone was watching her from inside the laundromat.
She kept her expression neutral because he was anything but in dark jeans and a leather jacket and she hated having someone know that she found them attractive. She hefted the basket out of the back and carried the garbage bag in her leash hand but not before giving her dog a look that had he been her best friend Molly or her sister would have taken to mean: 'take a look at that, what a piece.'
Inside she choose a machine a row over and facing the other way, glad she had chosen her best looking pair of jeans to do laundry in.
Her dog circled nervously and whined.
"You are such a ham, scared of the washing machine huh?" She put her bag down and her basket on top of the machine next to the one she planned to use.
Squatting she gave him some attention. "Buckle. Bind."
He lay down at her feet and she smiled, pulling a treat out of her jacket pocket as she removed her change tin and placed it next to her while she offered the treat.
Opening the machine and then the garbage bag she started with a load of heavy denim and terry cloth and then put another load of lighter things, including not much else besides a few shirts, underwear, and her uniform into a second machine.
The female half of the couple doing laundry further down cooed over her dog and came over to pet him while her boyfriend folded her panties with a small smirk on his face in response to the lace and frills of ladies undergarments.
"What's his name?"
"Brigadier."
"He's so big."
"Yeah, he's a monster alright."
"Can I pet him?"
"Yeah sure, he likes treats. Here," She handed the girl a treat to give her dog as she leaned against the bulking metal machine behind her.
"What type of dog is he?"
"Bull Mastiff mix."
"Wow. He's so friendly. Was he hard to train?"
"Well, if you do it young enough and keep it up then not really. Dogs want to listen it's just that even the best dog can get confused about what you want them to do."
"Babe, you gonna play with the dog all night or help me out with these sheets?" The girl's boyfriend called out from down the row.
"Dumb question," Lucette laughed and the girl did too.
"Thanks for letting me pet him."
"No, problem he loves the attention. Don't you, mush head?"
The girl smiled and went back down to her boyfriend who told her she smelt like dog as he grabbed at her and rocked her giving her a peck and then a much slower version that made Lucette turn her attention away.
Her attention immediately found a new home as the 'nice piece' a row over bent to reach in and pull wet laundry from a machine, his jeans tight across what appeared to be a firm backside. She wondered to herself if there was any better combination than denim and a firm ass.
At her feet she heard a rumble that caught only a fraction of her attention, Mr. Great Ass turned and looked right at her while she was half-distracted and half-still ogling him. She turned her head all the way down and gave the dog a command that equated to silence.
When it didn't stop the rumbling she rolled her eyes and gave the best impression of a growl she could and pulled on the leash.
"Bounce, Trot." She led him from the laundromat and tied him in the back of the truck bed for not listening to her command to quiet down.
"Honestly, moving really does make you forget all your lessons, doesn't it? You get so willful just because you think we're on vacation. Well, we are not on vacation Mister and I don't appreciate you misbehaving."
She smiled at herself and her tone. Reaching into the pocket of her jacket she retrieved her pack of cigarettes and found that she had forgotten to put her lighter into the half empty box like she usually did.
"Well, shit." The truck's lighter didn't work.
"Can I have one of those?"
She turned and found Mr. Great Ass pointing at her cigarette. She smiled and nodded with, "Only if you've got a lighter."
He clicked a button on his car remote and unlocked his door. The car wasn't bad either, though she preferred the look of the older models of the same name to the new ones they were putting out. He came out with one from his car it's coils glowing luminescent orange, she walked over and exchanged it for her pack.
After taking one he returned the small box to her and lit up with the car lighter she handed back, placing it back into his car and locking the door a moment later.
Brigadier growled from the back of her truck.
"Bolo. Brigs!" She turned and he hid his snout under his paws and whined from the back, she wondered if he was jealous. When she turned again and gave him a glare he hushed instantly and she tossed a treat into the back with him.
"I don't think he likes me."
Lucette turned her attention back to the guy with the face as equally good looking as his car and backside. She was relieved that he wasn't a highschool kid, it made her feel better that she was letting her eyes roam over someone who was closer to her own age rather than underage.
"He gets jealous, I guess."
"He's on edge, that's good. For dogs."
She grinned and took a drag. They smoked in silence leaning on their respective cars.
"Thanks," he told her after only smoking half and crushing it under his sneaker.
"No problem." She blew out a cloud to her side as he walked back inside and watched his laundry spin through the glass door of the dryer.
Within the hour both he and the couple left and she passed the time by watching the news on the preset television in the large room of the laundromat and swaying to the muted radio station playing over the speakers in the ceiling as she folded laundry.
Day 29:
It really was the strangest thing. So strange that she went to the unit charge nurse to ask about it, thankfully it wasn't the same one that had been in the staff meeting.
"Hey, Trish. You busy right now?" She leaned her folded arms and chest across the high partition of the nurse's station.
"No, what's up," the older woman asked never taking her hands from her keyboard and shifting her eyes up to glance at the young nurse peering down at her.
Straightening and tapping her nails on the cover of the chart she had brought with she told her, "I was looking at Mr. Hale's chart and I was wondering what the bookmarks were for."
A look of irritation crossed the older woman's features and her fingers stilled as she rolled back from the computer to rub a hand over her face to ease the lines from it.
"I told the night nurse to fix that, damn girl just doesn't listen. She's the LPN. Jennifer. The redhead."
Lucette hadn't met her.
"Sometimes I think she does these things just to be spiteful, I have half a mind to write her up for this." Again the older woman's face creased in her aggravation
"Do you want me to take them out for you?" Lucette asked for the purpose of seeming helpful. It paid to be nice to the other nurses.
"Yes, thanks. They shouldn't even be in there except when JCAHO came they wanted to see our records on the past five years incident reports and I had to go through all the charts and mark when they happened. I thought everyone understood to take the damn things out."
At the admission she looked at the chart with her eyes a little wider than they had been. "He has this many? Really?"
"Yeah, listen come here," the older woman waved her around the desk and grabbed another rolling chair so Lucette could sit down next to her. "I'll tell you what happened but don't mention it, okay?" It was said in a conspiratory whisper that made the younger nurse's ears perk up at the prospect of knowing something she shouldn't be allowed to know.
"Yeah, of course. What happened?"
She sat down and rolled the chair closer holding the chart tightly against her knees.
"I'm only telling you because you're the one taking care of him and the other charge nurses probably wouldn't even bother to let you know."
"He's not a fall risk is he?" She'd be severely disappointed if that was what the incident reports were about.
"No, no. He's bedbound like it says in the chart but every once in awhile he sundown's real bad and all of those bookmarks are for when he's lashed out at the nurses."
"Violently?" Her hands clenched on the charts spine.
"No, not violent just he lunges and a few times he's grabbed at them. He hasn't actually grabbed anyone for real but every single time it's happened the nurse trips and falls and sprains something, one time there was one girl who split open her forehead on the dresser. He hasn't actually done any damage himself but you know it's a bit of a surprise when it happens."
Lucette made the connection between his odd medication regimen in an instant. "I was wondering about the sedative he's on."
The older nurse nodded at her. "Yeah, though…, his levels are all over the place on it, never too high but too low and it's like it just doesn't work with his system."
"It happens. Have you told the doctor?" She shrugged as she offered the insight.
"Mr. Neuro? Oh yeah, I've told him but he's too high and mighty for us nurses most days, thinks we're too stupid to know what the drugs we give do."
"I hate that," she schooled her features to look sympathetic; she didn't have to try very hard because she wasn't lying about her dislike of hoity toity doctors.
"Me too."
A nurse passed the station rolling away an electronic blood pressure cuff to put it back in the supply room; they hushed their conversation to avoid being overheard.
"Thanks, for letting me know."
"I should have mentioned it the other day when I was on but I forgot because I had the pharmacy stuff to send out, but yeah, Deb wouldn't have even bothered to mention it."
The older nurse spoke of the other charge nurse.
"I don't think she likes me very much, to tell you the truth," Lucette admitted watching the aides down the hall enter and exit rooms.
With a shift of her head and a thoughtful look the other nurse explained, "I just think she's a little concerned, because you're young. Not that that's an excuse to be mean or anything but you know how it is with some nurses, they just think that experience is better than education."
"And what do you think?"
With a scoff and a smile the other nurse rolled back towards the computer and gave her a mock serious side glance.
"I think that anyone who can run a group of four other nurses and do it well plus knowing that a nurse's job is still to take care of patients and then actually backs it up by taking a patient of her own when she doesn't have to, has plenty of experience. The fact that you still take school seriously is just the whipped topping. That's what I think."
A wave of pride came over her and she felt herself blush in happy embarrassment, she felt her cheeks bunch up into big balls and her smile widen so much that if anyone looked at her they might have laughed to see her so happy at so early in the morning.
With a friendly shove Trish sent her chair rolling across the floor and pinned her with a narrowed look of lazy contentment, "You, Miss Bramble are too cute, jeez. Look at those apple cheeks."
Lucette covered her mouth and tired to quiet her laughs and put a professional mask back on over her face, "Quit it, I'm going to wet myself."
The older woman's grin was part amused and part wicked when she asked, "Would you like me to go get you a brief to wear? What size are you, a small?"
"I'm serious. You're too much," she informed the other woman.
"You're too young to not laugh hard enough to wet yourself at least once a day."
"I'm going to have to start doing extra Kegels if I have to laugh this hard every day."
They both laughed and smiled at the joke.
An aide came to the desk to inform the older nurse that they were out of medium sized gloves in the supply room.
Both of them looked in Lucette's direction.
"Alright, I'll go check the other units and see if they have an extra few boxes."
"Thanks, Lucette," the aide told her as she scurried off to finish with her patient's morning care.
She vacated the chair she was sitting in with a heavy sigh and rolled her eyes at the small grin taking up residency on the charge nurse's face. She told her to watch the chart for her as she went off on the search across the units for the right size of gloves.
The facility connected to the rear of the much smaller hospital of the two in the town. It wasn't as large as the teaching hospital but it was equally well-run, the only difference between the two was that this hospital didn't have the same amount of specialty services such a neonatal intensive care, burn center, or a separate oncology wing differentiated from the rigors of everyday medical-surgical services.
One of the nurses pointed her in the direction of the central supply office. On any other occasion she'd have no purpose in the actual hospital beyond the routine physical she always had to get when working for a new place.
At the office she filled out a request and was told they were going to send down a shipment by the next shift anyway, but they practically threw an armful of non-latex gloves at her just to keep her from complaining like, no doubt, they heard too much of it all day.
If it seemed odd for her to be carrying what to her seemed to be an obscene amount of gloves no one mentioned it as she passed them.
She desperately wanted to steal a cart for them but she refrained from doing it, mostly because she hated it when carts went missing on units she was working on.
It was just bad manners as a nurse to steal another nurse's supply cart or linen cart without asking first. They were territorial creatures, no doubt about it.
At the end of the access hall that let out into the unit branching off of hers she tried to finagle opening the door by hitting the switch with everything from shoulder to elbow to knee without having to put her armful of glove boxes down to do it.
The door swung out at her as she missed the button, on the other side of the door someone stood with their palm pressed against the button.
"Thanks," she told them breathlessly and trudged past, too concerned with the balancing act in her arms than coming up with a better expression of gratitude.
"No problem," her door opening gentleman responded from somewhere behind her as she started down the hall, hopping awkwardly backwards to avoid being run over by a patient being wheeled to a procedure by two orderlies and a different unit nurse from their own small little radiology department.
Boxes tumbled into their path; she kicked them out of the way back behind her towards the access door and narrowly avoided having her foot run over by the other end of the bed and accompanying IV pole.
"Shi…-ite." She corrected her half-finished curse as she looked over her shoulder to see where the boxes had ended up after she kicked at them.
Suddenly she found them being added to the top of the ones in her arms. She had no choice but to stare dumbly up and around the boxes to see who was helping her.
Her gentleman door opener had seemed to have come to her rescue again. She was surprised by his face.
Of course she had mused on the idea of seeing him again the next time she did laundry, more a daydream type notion but she never expected to see him at her job.
Mr. Nice Ass wore the same leather jacket as he had a few days past and smelled of fresh nicotine.
"Oh wow, hi. Thanks again."
He looked at her oddly as she uttered the greeting.
"You were doing laundry Monday night, so was I with edgy monster dog."
He did little more than nod at her, like he had no idea what she was talking about. After a moment of heavy silence he responded with, "You look different, the hair and you're a lot shorter."
She thought back and instantly knew why he hadn't recognized her at first, her hair had been down at the laundromat because she had broken her last hair elastic in the car on the way and it was much longer than it looked when in her tight nurse's bun which was practically glued to her scalp with hairspray and a helpful little hair device her sister had bought her.
And the pile of boxes probably did make her look a lot shorter plus she had on her nurse shoes which were a far cry from her boots which gave her an extra inch or two.
"Yeah, I guess I do," she agreed.
They stood for another moment until she asked if he was lost or was looking for someone.
"I'm just visiting. I know the way."
She nodded and started walking again after saying thank you again and giving him a 'take it easy,' from over her shoulder as she tried to avoid getting run over again in the hallway.
As she returned she propped a knee into the partition of the nurse's station and hefted the boxes onto it with a peek of her head around the boxes to smile down at Trish the charge nurse.
"Jeez, why'd you get so many?"
"They basically threw them at me on my way out the door," she sighed leaning on her elbows, crossing her ankles behind her as she leaned forward.
"You should have stolen a cart."
"Thought about it," Lucette admitted.
"Or at least found a cute orderly to carry them for you," the older woman said amongst searching through some paperwork.
"Well I had some help," she admitted thinking of Mr. Nice Ass
"Do tell. There is a serious man shortage on this unit ever since Steve got engaged, not that he was much to look at but he has these tree limb arms and they were at least something to look at."
She couldn't say she'd seen Steve the Tree Limbed man.
"A visitor opened the door for me since I didn't have hands and then when I almost lost my foot because they were rolling someone to x-ray he picked up the boxes I dropped."
"Chivalry isn't dead," looking up from her keyboard the older nurse cut off what she was about to say to instead stare behind Lucette and widen her eyes. "Hello."
"Uh, hello to you too," Lucette responded warily, not getting the joke.
"No, I mean hello." She pointed and the younger nurse turned and leaned back against the nurse's station. In a moment of confusion she stated, "That's him."
"Him who."
"The guy who helped me with the boxes."
"Lucky girl. That's the nephew."
"The nephew as in my nephew, my patient's nephew, I mean."
"That's him."
"That's so weird."
"And he totally checked out your butt, but then again it was pretty much just sticking out in the middle of the hall a second ago."
Tilting her head back on her shoulder she sent the older woman a glare.
"Wanna take bets on how long before an aide remembers she forgot to do something in that room?" Trish offered with school girl glee.
"Hell yes. Five bucks on three minutes," she took the bet willingly.
"One minute," Trish stated her eyes gleaming predatorily.
"Yeah, right," Lucette snorted.
With a smile the other woman returned to her typing and called out, "Hey, Sam."
An aide that was passing stopped and came over and asked what was up. "Yeah, listen could you do me a favor the doc called and said he left his steth in two-eighteen," Trish asked.
"Cheater," Lucette hissed quietly behind her to the older woman quickly coming up with a way of evening the odds.
"Oh wait, but can you put one of these in each room, we're all out of mediums, everywhere." Stuck between the two chores the aide took a stack of gloves and set off down the hall in the opposite direction to stock the rooms.
"Now who's the cheater?"
"I just evened the odds," she smiled. "What's the count?" She took a glance at the clock but found it hard to find out how much time the interlude had lasted.
"Two-minutes."
Lucette grinned and thanked her foresight to cut a check for fifty dollars to her agency to keep her certifications up to date and still in the green.
"I hate to have to tell you this but I keep all my certifications and licenses up to date. I'm licensed as a nurse and certified as an NA for the next year, at least."
"That's cheating!" The other nurse called as Lucette walked away down the hall.
"Hey you came up with the rules," she teased as she walked.
"I want proof before I pay out."
"That's what she said." A passing aide whispered as she walked by, Lucette and the med nurse snickered having both heard the joke.
Before she passed the med nurse completely she made sure to let her know that if Sam the nurse's aide came by to tell her that they had found the steth already and she didn't have to go into the room because it was already stocked with gloves.
She knocked on the doorframe as she came to the door calling out "Mr. Hale," The younger man didn't even turn his head until he realized that maybe she hadn't seen him and was talking to his uncle.
"I meant you, actually." Lucette pointed at him as he sat back down and she entered the room closing the door halfway behind her
"What is it?" He didn't sound very pleased as he perched on the empty bed behind his uncle who sat in his wheelchair gazing listlessly or perhaps unseeing out the window.
"I'm your uncle's nurse, you are his nephew right?"
She took a few steps towards the bed but made sure to keep a respectful distance.
"I am. I thought Jennifer was his nurse," he looked vaguely in her direction when he asked, more at the floor than at her.
"She's the night nurse. I'm his new day nurse. The facility hired me to help out with their extra patients. I'm his one-to-one on the days I work."
"About time they hired someone," he turned his head away from the floor, or her feet, she couldn't tell from the direction of his gaze and stared at his uncle's back.
"I'm Lucette."
"Derek Hale."
His introduction was accompanied by a nod and a stare directly at her, this time.
"Thanks for the help before," he didn't answer. She felt suddenly the tiniest of bits offended but let it slide away; she was used to families being distant and unaccommodating sometimes.
"I just wanted to introduce myself," she turned to leave the room with a small nod, his voice and the movement of his head in her direction as she turned her own made her stop and turn around completely away from the door.
"Did you do his care since you're his nurse?"
"Yes. I do."
"Can I ask you a question?"
"Sure," she shrugged playing with the handle of the door behind her.
"On your way out can you tell the aides that it's annoying when they come in every five minutes without knocking and bumble around?"
"I'll keep them busy while you visit your uncle," she nodded with a smile even though there was no niceness in his tone or the request.
"Thanks," he responded as she turned.
"Sure."
She was halfway out the door and able to look back down the hallway when he called out as if she had forgotten something.
"Hey."
She leaned back through the doorframe and swiveled her head to look at him. "Yes?"
"Are you going to do his care soon?" He seemed genuinely interested and his tone was much nicer, his posture less on edge than when she first entered the room.
"It can wait until you're finished if you'd like."
"Could I stay?"
He stretched out a leg and propped the other on the bottom of the bed frame, he turned himself towards her the slightest of bits and she found herself staring at his stretched out leg, struck with the impression of masculine grace. She laughed at the thought mentally as soon as it came to mind.
Mr. Nice Ass, Derek Hale, was anything but the type of guy to be described by florid terminology.
"And…help?" She said when she realized she hadn't answered, choking a little from speaking so fast.
"Is that allowed?"
He looked amused by something.
"Of course, did you want to learn how to do it?"
"I think I should know how to do it."
She agreed, families usually didn't but when they did do care it seemed to help them deal with a loved one's illness or degenerate condition.
"Okay. How long are you staying?"
"Awhile."
She nodded and realized she was still leaning back into the room and not standing in a normal position, it was killing her neck, and she'd have to shift if the conversation didn't end soon.
"I'll go get everything, then, and give you some time to sit with him. I'll be back in a half an hour?"
"Fine," he answered simply.
When she returned to the nurse's station Trish was watching her approach like it was the most fascinating thing in the world.
"You know, you strut when you're in a really good mood."
"Keep the aides out of there will you. It annoys him; I think he's realized they're doing it on purpose. I have to go get supplies for morning care."
"You're going to do it now?"
"Soon."
"With him in the room?"
"He asked if he could help."
"What a man. God bless him, a gentleman to a lady dropping boxes and unable to open doors and a family man, I'd say he's gay if he hadn't stared at your ass as he walked by."
"You, my dear are such a liar," Lucette informed her as she pushed away from the nurse's station and went to their supply room to gather supplies.
"You still strut!" Trish called after her.
She wiggled her hips for flair and a good laugh.
Day 31:
She'd been out walking her dog when she heard the blare of police sirens; belatedly she discovered what all the fanfare was about as she turned on her television later that night after watching a movie about alien hatchlings aboard a space shuttle and the ensuing fight for survival of the crew.
It had been a long movie and she was about to fall asleep on the couch with her dog cushioning her feet when the live coverage caught her attention while channel surfing.
The scene was just clearing out but the reporters were left on the scene with a handful of police left to cover the scene against unauthorized entrance.
She caught the words, terrorized teenagers, murder suspect Derek Hale, and of course the 'be on the look out' alert to the entire community.
It was comical; she looked at the dog at her feet.
"What do you think, Brigs."
His ears perked and an eye waved towards her but otherwise she received no reply.
"Do you think he did it?"
No answer.
"I think that it's possible and that I should refrain from thinking about doing laundry with him. Just in case, right?"
Still no answer.
She prodded at her dog's belly with a socked foot.
"I'm off the next two days, Brigs. I wish I could bring you to the gym with me and left you run the treadmill but I don't think it's allowed so you'll have to stay home and protect the house and my hoarded nest of treasures."
She did the best impression of a dragon she could swing in her sleepy state but it came out garbled and wonky, more dying deer than ferocious mythical beast.
Falling asleep she tired to remember if she had set her alarm to wake her up in order to do some work later on. It didn't matter enough for her to worry; she mentally waved it off and napped until dawn.
When she woke up she found her feet had fallen asleep and she had to leaned over the coffee table in order to reach the cordless phone in order to start her day off with a task completion.
She dialed and waited for a voice on the other end.
"Hello?"
"It's Lucette."
"Do you know what time it is, bitch? Six in the fucking morning, I'm hanging up now."
"Patient abuse!" She shouted into the phone to keep from getting hung up on.
"Are you being serious or are you being more 'Tanya the Twat' than usual?"
"Serious, I swear."
"Okay then, I'm awake then, nothing like the smell of patient advocacy to give a guy morning wood."
"Mike, what am I going to do with you?"
"Take me to a strip club for my birthday."
"There's none around, trust me I've looked."
"Of course you have."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"That men in glittered thongs turn you on too since you are also very much a gay man."
"Is that a joke about my boobs? Because if it is it certainly isn't your best, dude."
"It was a joke about your massive swinging dick, girlfriend."
"You finished?"
"Yeah, what do you need?"
"You know how much I hate writing a patient abuse report unless I'm more than half sure."
"Uh-huh."
"Well, I need some incident reports to push me to either eighty percent surety or convince me that I'm just overly cautious."
"Okay. Why do you need me?"
"Because I need an agency rep to call and ask for them. I'm not supposed to know that there even are incident reports."
"Okay, all of them or just the ones that raise a flag."
"They're all flags."
"I hear ya, but I need some details. I can't just pull incident reports out of my ass."
"I wouldn't be surprised considering some things you actually have pulled out of your ass."
"Shut. Up."
"Heh, yeah. Okay I think there's a medication acuity issue, possibly some actual abuse, and intimidation to get other nurses to leave."
"That's enough. Email me the details, I can't find a pen."
"Pull one out of your ass."
"You're so funny. Is your fax number still the same?"
"Yeah."
"Alright, I expect a hooker popping out of a birthday cake this year."
"Me and Molly were talking about gigolos the other day."
"I want a dirty filthy hairy man, not one of those manscaped ones that shaves his balls."
"Ewwww."
"Yum."
"I'll figure something out."
"No need. Come to my pink party. It's in December, you know holidays and spreading good cheer through orgasms."
"You're having a pink party?"
"Don't sound so scandalized. You sound like my grandmother."
"Is your grandmother invited?"
"She'd have a stroke and die in the middle of my living room."
"Does she have life insurance?"
"That's horrible."
"I'll try to consider the idea, but most likely I make some fake excuse and let you pick out sex toys without me."
"Bitch."
"Queen."
"Thanks."
"No problem."
"I'm going to bed."
"Go to bed."
She hung up and prided herself on being so good at lying. The patient abuse suspicions were just an excuse to get the reports. Not feeling the least bit bad about it she wiggled her toes just to feel the icy tingle of pins and needles go through them until they felt like normal toes again.
Her suspicions were less about abuse than they were about her own curiosity.
She liked to be nosy. It felt good sometimes. The feeling stayed with her as she got ready for the gym and dressed in relative silence in her heavy sweatpants and thermal shirt.
Surveying herself in the mirror she found she'd almost become completely flat chested due to the influence of her sports bra.
"Well," she looked out of her bedroom at the lazy couch bound companion. "At least I don't have to worry about them going anywhere because of gravity," she commented dryly.
She let Brigs keep his spot on the couch as she went to gather her shoes from their spot under the coffee table and put her hair up.
"Be good while I'm gone, big boy," she whispered demurely as she walked out the front door and swung her car keys around her finger on the stroll to her truck.
There were police everywhere in town it seemed to her as she drove through a crowded street between two solid lines of storefronts.
Tuning her radio she pumped herself up for a long workout with a heavy rock mix that wasn't exactly her first choice but it was the only choice without a commercial for a scrap metal company or family run supermarket on at seven in the morning.
Day 33:
The makings of a good day weren't usually found in a make-shift on scene police head quarters, it was not the way she had pictured her morning starting.
It had started as a good morning for all of the hour and forty minutes she'd spent on the park grounds putting Brigadier the over eager dog through his paces.
Maybe it was a little colder than she wanted and a little dismal in the early hours but it hadn't been horrific to start off, the horrific came later after she'd had coffee and put the dog on his lead, after she'd palmed her cigarette against the early morning drizzle and pulled on her sweatshirt as she went out the door.
After she had gotten halfway through her commands.
After she buried the butt of her stomped out cigarette in the wet leaves.
After she chastised herself for not picking a sweatshirt with a hood.
And then her dog came back from his counterclockwise ranging with a bloody uniform boot in his teeth, laying it at her feet with a lolling tongue waiting for his treat.
Blood covered footwear and the fact that he hadn't come back barking meant the shoe had no owner or that it did but they weren't any trouble. Dead people rarely made much trouble on their own.
She had her cell phone, and called it in. The operator told her to wait but she didn't because bloody hiking boots were the type of things that sparked morbid curiosity.
Nurses were supposed to act as first line medical help in emergencies where other more qualified first responders hadn't arrived yet, like car crashes and patients going into labor in public places, but it was pretty obvious from the gouged facial features and stark whiteness of bone shrapnel poking through skin and clothing that her first aid skills were unnecessary.
She called the dispatch number again and told them where she was and what she was looking at.
They got there within seven minutes of her hanging up. She barely got a chance to poke around, not that she wasn't aware that it was a crime scene but because there were dead bodies and it was hard not to look at them.
The man in the maintenance jump suit was missing fingers and the leg with the shoe still attached seemed to only be attached by the pant leg and the tightness of the shoe holding it in place. The lolling of the man's tongue from his ripped jaw was almost comical if anything had been funny about the situation.
The police got there too fast for her to poke around further.
Brigadier was not pleased to have strange men yell at her to identify herself and she had to give him a sharp tug with the lead she wound around her palm and a hushed command to quiet him.
"Bolo. Brigs. I'm the one who called it in officer." She squinted as the drizzle came down faster and the answering unit stepped further into the camp ground area.
She tried not to be too offended about the way his hand stayed close enough to his belt to reach his gun in less than a second if he was trained well; she got it, strange woman, big dog, dead bodies, crime scene, it made sense to be cautious.
The officer that reached her first was a young guy, older than her but still young. "Miss if you could please, we'd appreciate if you'd allow us to escort us back to the road so we can secure the scene."
"Yeah, sure."
His gaze shifted away from her face and down at her hands, she realized she was still holding the bloody hiking boot. "I guess I should give this to you, right?"
He yanked an evidence bag from his windbreaker pocket and waved it open with a plastic whoosh, he held it out and she dropped it inside.
The older officer came down from the inclined ground above the camping area and told them they had units on the way, he escorted her to the road. He offered her a seat in the back, 'door open, of course' he had added with a wide joking smile and a laugh at the not really a joke, joke.
She declined and waited on the road leaning against the car hood on the shoulder side of the road.
"You seem pretty calm ma'am, are you alright? Are you in shock?" Suddenly the older officer looked concerned as if she was about to fall to the ground and he would have no clue what to do.
"I guess I'm used to it," she replied, shortening the length of lead on the leash even more as the blare of sirens became audible and Brigadier trotted restlessly in a small circle.
When she looked up she caught the confused look the police officer was giving her, "I'm a nurse, I'm not in shock. I'm just a little uh, confused? I guess. I don't really know what to do from here," she explained.
"We'll handle it. You'll have to fill out a statement, leave your information. Things like that, do you have to call work or family to let them know what's going on? You may be here for awhile." He seemed sympathetic, probably because he realized just how long 'awhile' was.
She shook her head in the negative; she kicked out her heel and rubbed it across the asphalt and then the dirt and gravel edging it in, the sound rough in a dull way. "No, take as long as you need. I'm not working today, anyway," Lucette tilted her head up to look at the muted hazy glow of the sun through the cloud cover.
Police came out in pairs from still running cars and asked the officer standing with her where to go, he gave directions for taping off the area asked what the ETA on the crime scene technicians was. They ignored her presence beyond per functionary greetings of 'Ma'am' or 'Miss,' nods, and handshakes and simple humor about how wild it was to find a crime scene and much of the same for as long as it took for everyone to show up and close off the road.
The officer beside pulled seniority and left the task of standing with her to a new recruit, as soon as the responsibility of babysitting her changed hands she sat herself on the hood of the car and bounced her sneakers against the tire.
Her dog laid belly down on the wet ground under her dangling legs, her knees stopping at least some of the rain from soaking his fur. It didn't take long before the officer next to her started to lose patience and quite suddenly yelled out for someone to find the detective for the scene.
She was slightly disappointed that the detective underwhelmed her; it wasn't like it was on the crime drama shows. He wasn't handsome in a roguish charmer sort of way, he didn't wear a suit, and he wasn't eating a hot dog or a donut.
He was slightly overweight with an ugly mustache a hat she'd only seen televised poker players wearing and a cardigan sweater that seemed comically elderly.
At least he had an umbrella; he offered it to her while he took out a small notebook and flipped the cover back. Brigadier underneath her feet barely stirred, bored already. She held the umbrella more over her legs and the detective's pocket notebook than her head.
Slipping her hand down she feed the dog a treat for being on his best behavior.
The detective introduced himself as Detective Mills and she couldn't help but make a joke he must have heard a thousand time before that she couldn't resist rehashing, he laughed anyway and asked if he could get her a cup of coffee or a bagel, she opted for a coffee, black with no sugar and he called out the command to a passing officer.
"Being a Detective has perks," she observed with a toothy grin.
"Like you wouldn't believe," he chortled from deep in his throat, his neck folds wobbled with its reverberation.
"We send all the new ones on snipe hunts to find key for the archives but of course they're all on the computers now so we all send them off to the farthest part away in the precinct and back, and then we bet on how long it will take them to figure it out."
"Too funny," she laughed despite it not being particularly funny.
"I think so," he nodded.
He handed her a cup of coffee, it was hot against her palms and scalded her mouth but she swallowed and savored the burn as the wind chilled the air around the road. The car was warm under her butt and the backs of her legs, her neck and face were freezing.
"Okay, just a few questions. What were you doing when you found the scene?"
"I was walking my dog and he gets willful whenever we get to a new place," the detective nodded sympathetically. "So I have to keep up on his commands and I had him doing some ranging and he brought the boot back to me and I called and then I went to go see if there was anyone who needed help."
"Did you see anyone else at the scene?"
"No. Just the dead guy."
"Did your dog seem like he might have seen someone in the woods while you were walking, do you think he might have scared someone off the scene. Did he bark or do anything?" He looked down at the dog while he asked.
"There was no one there."
At her assertion he redirected his stare. He seemed to be a wary of the assertion.
"I'm positive, Brigs is trained to threaten when someone he doesn't know comes into sight if I'm not with him, so he would have barked and run back to me."
"You trained him?"
"Yes."
"Would we be able to swab his teeth, can he handle that?"
"Yeah, right now?"
"If you wouldn't mind," he shrugged.
"No, of course."
She motioned for him to step back as she slid off the hood and squatted next to her dog. " Just, yeah. Brigadier, bunk. Good boy. Bind." She arranged herself to sit behind the dog and have him settled sitting just between her knees as she sat down on the wet ground.
Her ass went cold and numb from the position. "You can do the swab now, I can get his mouth."
"We appreciate it, Miss. I'll go get our technician."
"Good boy," she soothed as another windbreaker clad official with gloves collected samples.
Definitely not the morning off she had planned she thought as she kept her dogs jaws pried open with all the strength her numb fingers could manage in the chilly drizzle.
A/N: On Derek smoking, well he had that lighter at the ready in 'Magic Bullet' and I doubt they stopped at a gas station to buy one, you know. Most people who don't smoke don't carry lighters around with them. JCAHO is the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations which comes into all the hospitals around the country and makes sure they are keeping with the set standards. Incident reports are things that are never ever allowed to be in a patient chart so it's a big deal if someone writes it in the chart that one was filled out. Sundowning is what happens a lot of times with patient who have dementia in which they have increased levels of confusion and/or agitation. Kegels are pelvic floor exercises. Long term care facilities are usually in the back of hospitals, sometimes they're connected sometimes they're not, from what we see of them in the show I'm making the conclusion that the LTCF is in the back of the hospital. The movie she was watching is 'Alien' of course. Pink parties are like Tupperware parties, except with sexy toys. The joke about Detective Mills is of course a reference to the movie 'Seven' and the "What's in the box!" part.