STUCK IN REPEAT , (tagged: nell!)

the sky be so big

* that it broke my soul &

i stand on my toes to catch a glimpse

Cards were probably Nell’s favorite thing to do, so no wonder she dreamt about them. Currently, she was playing with Abraham Lincoln, Batman, and Kanye West. Or at least, she was dreaming that she was playing with the three. The game had been going on for quite a while, and she was happy to say that she was winning. That is, untill she was interrupted. Unaware that she had been prodded awake, Nell shifted away on the bed and mumbled, ”Oye, I told you to go fish, Kanye.” Josh’s second attempt brought her into full consciousness and she blinked a few times before shifting into a sitting position, rubbing at her eyes with the back of her hands. She didn’t remember what she had just said to Joshua, and she now had a foggy idea of what she’d been previously dreaming. ”Now I’m up,”she responded groggily to Josh. Dropping her hands into her lap and taking a second to look around, she wondered where the hell she was. The room wasn’t very familiar, until she took into the fact that Josh was there smiling at her and she remembered that she’d stayed over the night before. ”Oh,” she said, figuring it out, a smile claiming her features. Nell was always in a good mood when she woke up. In her mind, when the day begins there’s nothing to be unhappy about yet. It didn’t make sense to be in a bad mood when you first return to consciousness. And so she met the morning with a smile. ”Hey Josh,” she said languidly, still dreary. Instead of being completely out of it, she was more in an…inebriated state.

She wasn’t too adverse to the idea of Josh seeing her in all her bedheaded glory. It wasn’t like she was incredibly high maitenence and the idea of her boyfriend seeing her with disheveled pajamas and hair was the end of the world. He’d seen her in worse states, anyway. ”What time is it?” she asked, noticing that there wasn’t any sunlight shining through the blinds. Then she looked toward the clock and laughed. ”Wow, you really want to get a start on the day, huh?” Nell didn’t mind waking up so early—she had wacky hours, especially during the summer. Her biological clock must have hated her for what she put it through. ”All right, I just need a few minutes to get ready,” she said through a yawn as she stretched, still in the process of getting up. Soon, anticipation for the day would take over and get her moving. She really was excited for the trip, after all, but right now she was getting herself going. It wouldn’t take too long before she was fully awake and bouncing around.

Nell flitted to the bathroom to change, and within the minutes that it took for her to get ready she fell into her normal state of being. ”I’m ready,” she sing-songed when she re-entered the room. She was about ready to break intoa rendition of Good Morning Starshine, but withheld for Josh’s sake. ”Is there anything we have to do before we go?” she asked as she looked through the duffel bag she’d just bought to make sure she had everything she needed. This was her first experience with an actual vacation, so she didn’t really know what to expect and was just taking Josh’s lead on what to do to be prepared.

the sky be so big

* that it broke my soul &

i stand on my toes to catch a glimpse

Nell noticed that Josh was particularly chipper this morning, something she wouldn’t have expected from Josh. She figured someone who normally had quite the usual stoic attitude would be especially unfriendly so early in the day. It was a pleasant surprise. And on the subject of the early hour, she merely smiled, already putting her hair up in a ponytail with a band she kept around her wrist. ”Ah well, wacky hours are my specialty,” she said. Her occupation was perfect preperation, she supposed. In any case, she didn’t mind at all that Josh had woken her up so early. She tilted her head. ”I’ll make sure to be careful,” she commented when Josh mentioned Trish and her morning attitude. She remembered the last time she’d seen his mother early in the morning, after their terrible fight. Nell didn’t want to give her any reason to be mad at her again.

The subject of food would do well to pick Nell up even if she had been surly this morning. Josh let her have the choice, and it was a lot of pressure, having to make such an impertinent decision. ”I don’t think it’s good for me to be making choices this early in the morning, I may pick something I’ll regret,” she said, though she was pretty competent right now. Her body had learned to function at odd hours, and she supposed the mental aspect played into that. Pulling away from the kiss, she said, ”How about I just grab something here and eat it on the way, so that we don’t have to stop too much on the road.” Of course, there’d be potty breaks and everything, but she’d rather not have her appetite make them stop constantly along the way. Which brought up a question that hadn’t really thought of until just now. ”How long is it going to take, by the way?” She’d never been to the maritimes or on a road trip, so she had no idea how much time would be spent on the road getting there. Still, she was excited to get going. Nell’s inner car fanatic and clausrtophobia were battling it out to decide whether or not she would enjoy the trip. If anything, she’d be bouncing in her seat so much it would be more reasonable for her to get out and run there instead of taking the car.

Nell took her bag and cheerfully called out, ”¡Vamanos!” as she headed down the stairs to get something to eat for the road. She figured Josh would know what that meant—she’d been watching Dora the Explorer as of late, and it was a word she often used. Besides, it was easy to tell that it expressed urgency. She didn’t think too much into it as she rummaged through the kitchen to look for food. Even though they were rich, she still made sure not to eat too much. Then it would definitely feel like she was an imposition on them. ”Okay, ready to go,” she said, deciding on Poptarts. ”We should get on the road before the sun rears its ugly head.” Nell rolled her eyes and laughed. Thinking about it, it was probably good to get out on the road early—avoids traffic and they’d have more time in the day when they finally reached their destination.

the sky be so big

* that it broke my soul &

i stand on my toes to catch a glimpse

Nell nodded, not minding that he didn’t have the exact length of time. She understood that it would be a long trip, she just wasn’t sure how long it would be. And she was not at all put off by the time it would take for them to get there. It was all about the journey, after all. ”I’ve haven’t been on any,” she said as if to placate him and the apparent guilt he felt about not being able to give her a straight answer. ”Not counting coming to Canada.” Since he knew all about her alien status, it seemed okay for her to joke about that at least. It was true, she had hitchiked up north, like some kind of underground railroad for murderers. ”Staying in hotels, then?” That was also something she knew about with her trip north. It was sleazy motels and ditching before she was forced to pay with money she didn’t have. But she wasn’t going to think about ll the fear and panic she experienced during that time. This was a vacation, not an escape from the law.

Josh took his good old time with getting his butt downstairs, unhurried as he went about retrieving his bags. Which she guessed was what he'd been doing when he finally came into the kitchen with them. Nell turned to stick her tongue out at Josh before saying, ”But if it was…I won.” Her body was feeding off her anticipation, but thinking of feeding, she tore open the poptarts and began eating as she waited for Josh sense he seemed to be taking the morning slowly. Nell tried her best not to laugh as she listened to the conversation between him and Trish over the amount of food he’d collected. Nell gave Josh the thumbs up signal and after swallowing a piece of Poptart, she joked, ”Took you long enough.” But she felt slight concern when Donovan appeared to be cross with them. Normal family conversations such as this were something she never had experience with, made more awkward by the fact that this wasn’t her family and she had the sort of outsider feeling. Strangely enough, it was the snippy Trish that calmed the storm before it even hit and she grinned over at Josh. It was strange, looking at the way this family functioned, its overall dynamic. Is this what normal families were like? Well, as close to normal as the world ever got. Loading the car, she blinked up at Josh when he spoke and said, ”It’s probably for the best. Don’t want anything to happen to her.” Wasn’t that the truth. It’d be quite devastating if the Aventador was stolen or totaled or any other horrific event she didn’t want to imagine.

For the trip on the road, she stayed mainly focused on looking at the window since she would be seeing things she’d never laid eyes on before. Even being stuck in a car was exhilerating because she was going places she’d never been before. There was something transcendental in the way she viewed travel, but the whole effect was lost as she ate Goldfish while paying a little bit of mind to the adults’ conversation in the front seat. It was a little odd that her first trip anywhere would be with another family, but it was her boyfriend’s family so it seemed a little less strange. Besides, she was looking forward to this too much to be too focused on any feeling of being an outsider—even though she was an Earth among Fires. And to add on to the new experiences, being on a boat was a new one for her, too. Now that she was aware of Josh’s debilitating phobia when it came to drowning, she stuck by him when she could even when she wanted to peer over into the water. She had no fear to keep her away from the railings, though she wasn’t a very good swimmer. At all. Nell still liked the open sea and all the water, and wondered if it was the Water element in her family talking. She sure hoped not.

It was strange being on land after that, and it was like a ghost feeling of rocking that made her a bit unsteady. At least she managed to avoid getting seasick. Trish informed the two that they had free reign, which was glorious to Nell. She wouldn’t have minded being with the family, but it was even better when she could be let off the leash of having a group that all wanted to do different things. Of course, she and Josh probably would like to do different things but compromise was a word in her vocabulary. He mentioned the buffet and she grinned. ”You did,” she agreed, trying not to let on just how excited about the idea of a buffet she actually was. The idea was something of a dream for someone like her. Josh said that there were some things that he wanted to check out, and she crossed her arms, a feigned expression of exasperation on her face. ”Food first,” she said, voice stern. Then, as if to justify her decision, she said, ”It is a necessity. We can save everything else for after we replenish ourselves.” Then, letting her façade slip, she smiled. ”Besides, I really want to see this whole buffet deal.”

the sky be so big

* that it broke my soul &

i stand on my toes to catch a glimpse

Her main conern hadn’t been about poor standards when it came to hotels. Actually, she didn’t have many concerns for this trip at all. Nell pouted at the mention of Psycho roadsides. ”A shame, I was looking forward to being stabbed by a dude in a dress.” She acquired an expression of horror then, and then laughed. She really wouldn’t mind having to stay in cheap motels, since there was the whole ‘been through worse’ mantra on repeat in her head. But as expected by the rich and wealthy, such things weren’t even to be considered. And speaking of being rich, she nodded at his question. ”Of course. I have to pay my own expenses after all.” She’d actually informed her father about the trip just so he would know that she wasn’t disappearing—which she felt intensely bitter about when it came to the irony. He left without warning before, why should she have to report to him when she wanted to do something? But she knew it was different. She had the law to worry about, he only had his crumbling family. Let’s not let this ruin the trip Nell.

Adventure sounded especially thrilling, and since she’d never come here before, everything was an adventure. ”Have you ever been here before?” she inquired. Josh had traveled before, she was sure, but she did have to wonder if he’d ever been here before. Of course, it was nothing truly exotic as somewhere abroad, but it was just as wonderous to her. It would also help had Josh been at least somewhat familiar with his surrounding, since her sense of direction wasn’t really something to brag about. She just called getting lost a journey to make herself feel better. Of course, the length she’d traveled to America was something to brag about, but it was kind of hard to miss a massive country perched atop your own. Nell stood on her tiptoes to peer over other people’s heads and see what Josh was talking about when it seemed he caught sight of something—unfortunately, she did not have his advantage of height. ”I can’t even see,” she said, somewhat pathetically. When she entered, though, it was quite clear what this place was—the paradiso that Dante wrote about. In other words, her first buffet. It was magnificent for her, but also rather overwhelming. It was like placing Josh in a giant library—she didn’t know where to start. And even though she had quite the appetite, she couldn’t let her eyes get too big for her stomach. Her body had limits, after all, and she was determined not to go too crazy.

But by the time she was finished, she’d managed to squeeze as much as she could onto her plate, placing more on like it was some kind of balancing act. Carefully dropping an onion ring onto the mountain of food, she rolled her eyes at Josh. ”Very funny.” Deciding that she shouldn’t risk piling any more food on, she made her way to a table while gingerly holding her plate so that nothing dropped to the floor. Finding a table, it was another thing to figure out where to start with her healthy serving of…everything. For a few moments, Nell sat with fork poised, staring down at the plate. ”’All you can eat’ is a dangerous phrase,” she mumbled as she poked around, and pulled out something she couldn’t even identify. There was a lot of food that she’d never even seen before, which got her a little more than excited, and she didn’t consider anything would be bad for her. ”…This is…okra?” she said as she inspected it. It was definitely some kind of vegetable, which she tended to like—anything healthy was good on her list. She shrugged and ate it, taking a moment before saying, ”Muy delicioso. It’s really good, did you get any?” Vegetables were on his list of things to eat, she was sure, so it was something they could share in that aspect. Moving on to everything else on her plate, she made sure to pace herself so she wouldn’t get a stomachache. However, that wasn’t what happened. Even still, that’s what happened. Not only did she feel a bit nauseous, but it felt like her throat was constricting. With a pained expression on her features, Nell set her fork down and said, ”Welll that’s not a nice feeling.” She leaned back in her chair slightly, but it didn’t help at all. In fact, she was feeling a bit faint. Which was scaring her, but she wasn’t about to let Josh in on that.

the sky be so big

* that it broke my soul &

i stand on my toes to catch a glimpse

She wasn’t expecting Josh to be aware of her shortness, and there would be nothing to help with that short of high heels. It was just a problem with someone like her, something that Josh did not have to worry about. Nell simply smiled at him and shook her head like she didn’t understand his apology. ”It’s not your fault I’m like a fun-size candy bar,” she joked. It’s not something she really thought about, even when she was with the skyscrapper that is Josh. She knew some people could develop complexes about it, but it was just a part of her that she’d learned to accept. Besides, shortness didn’t hamper her ability to eat, so she didn’t worry about anything there. The only thing she had to worry about was what she wanted to eat first and how much she should eat. Nell still tried to be healthy with her appetite, and it showed by the fact that she idn’t have a lot of junk food. The okra was a vegetable after all, but it still didn’t compare to her favorite food, shepherd’s pie. Still, it was pretty high up there. And she was a bit surprised that he had to get seconds before her, but then again she did get a mountain of food.

Josh returned with another plate of food, stoic as ever as she tried to figure out what was going on. There was definite panic because anything wrong with her body meant instant anxiety. ”Err…” Scrunching up her nose, she tried to describe what she was feeling, but since this was very new to her she fell short of an explanation. ”My stomach hurts? And...my throat feels tight.” Nell had never been to a doctor before, but she knew this was what it was like to describe symptoms to one from her days with Tilly. ”I don’t think so,” she told him weakly. No, that wasn’t the feeling she was getting—she knew that much, but it was rather difficult to discern what she was feeling through the haze of pain. She shook her head weakly, a frown touching her lips. She didn’t get ‘ill’ so that was definitely out of the question. Then what is this? She’d gotten stomachaches before, but this was something much more intense than that. Nell didn’t understand why she was feeling so strange. Leaning over, she rested her forehead against the table and said, ”Uh…it’s a possibility that I may pass out.” Still, she was trying to keep her boyfriend from worrying too much even though she was being honest about the fact that she really did feel faint. Nell just didn’t know what to do with herself without telling Josh him that she really was feeling terrible.

the sky be so big

* that it broke my soul &

i stand on my toes to catch a glimpse

By then, Nell was taking deep breaths to try and ease the pain. It’s what she did with her mother—breathe in through the nose, out through the mouth, calm and steadying breaths. But the nausea and sickness was hard to move past. ”I don’t know,” Nell mumbled into the tablecloth. She wasn’t even aware that he may not have heard her. She tried to force herself to think past the agony, but it was getting hard as she wrapped her arms around her stomach. Something she ate? ”I don’t think so,” she lamely amended, her voice a little louder now. Josh cut himself off before saying anything more, and Nell focused on trying to bring herself together. She was aware of how embarrassing this was, especially since she was showing weakness. She didn’t like that. Nell didn’t get sick, and that’s what she used to reassure herself that there was nothing really wrong with her. She can’t get sick, she was so proud of her immune system that she could think of that as an option.

No, feeling fain was definitely not a good sign, and his words only reaffirmed the fear. Nell didn’t notice the hand offered to her yet, instead she was focused on the table that looked dark thanks to its proximity to her eyes. She screwed her eyes shut when he talked about taking her to the hospital. They were great institutions, when she was not the one being treated at one. Her mind worked through ways to avoid it, to claim that there was nothing wrong with her. It took her a moment to get the words out since she really felt like crying then. Josh was looking for explanations she wished she could give. ”I was feeling fine today, I—“ Her voice was breathy as she spoke, but then she had to stop short when her throat really started to bother her. ”Ouch,” she said quietly. Nell lifted her head and looked up at him with eyes that were even larger than usual. ”I don’t want to stay in a hospital for long,” she said, implying that she did want to go. She wasn’t going to be too stupid—she didn’t feel right (she didn’t feel sick, no), and she understood that her best option would be to go to the hospital. Nell felt the cold fingers of dread creep down her spine. What if something was seriously wrong? Remember: optimism! But it was hard to feel optimistic when you felt as if you were coming close to dying. Nell took his hand to draw herself up from the chair, leaning against him a bit to get her bearings as the nausea did its best to hinder her balance. ”I’m sorry,” she said pathetically. She’d just ruined their meal, after all—that wasn’t fair to anyone.

the sky be so big

* that it broke my soul &

i stand on my toes to catch a glimpse

Josh said that things can randomly set on like this, and she found enough energy to reject the idea. ”Not to me,” she protested indignantly. ”Not ever.” She’d never had any medical anomalies to speak of. But she didn’t say anything more about that, just shook her head as she leaned it against the table. Just push through it. Or ignore it. You have to do something. She hated being this powerless against something, but when your body rebelled, mind over matter becomes that much more difficult. And she hated where she had to go. ‘I don’t want to go to the hospital,’ she wished she could say. But she had already agreed, and the cab was coming and there was nothing she could do to stop any of it. Getting into the cab, she leaned her head against his shoulder, squeezing her eyes shut again as if that could make the pain go away. Nell barely registered Josh’s words, something about meters and crowded streets. Watching the scenery go by only made her more nauseous, so she didn’t dare open her eyes shut and instead imagined that she was stationary.

They were forced to wait in the emergency room, and she tried to focus on how ironic that was as she filled out paperwork. Health insurance. It took her a moment for her to remember what that was with the sick feeling now the center of her brain function, and she knew she didn’t have any. She was confident enough in her immunes system that she was stupidly sure that she wouldn’t need it—things like this tended to bite her in the ass. Especially once she realized that her father probably had it and she would need to call him. It didn’t take much effort to decide on waiting to fill out the paperwork, especially since she was taken into the emergency room and seated on one of the many beds there. God, she hated being a patient. Especially when she had to describe what had happened, what she’d felt like, and when she had started to feel ill. It didn’t take long before the phsysician informed her that it was most likely a food allergy and injected with something that made her feel much better.

”We’ll have to keep you here a few hours for observation,” he said as she scratched at the back of her head. She felt a little tired, but otherwise her symptoms had cleared up. Luckily, they had run some other tests by putting liquids on her arms and it turned out she wasn’t allergic to anything else. Healthy as a goshdarn horses. She didn’t like the needles that they injected her with, but she was otherwise fine now. ”We’ll run a few blood tests in the meantime. Any idea on what kind of food caused this reaction?” Nell thought for a few moments, and then sighed. She really wished it wouldn't be it, but she had a feeling she was going to be right. ”Well, I had okra for the first time. Could that be it?” The doctor nodded and said, ”Possibly.” He tucked a clipboard under his arm and left, presumably to the lab or something. A nurse approached the bed soon after and handed her the papers to finish filling out, and Nell realized that she couldn’t use her phone in the hospital. So she just listed him as her legal guardian, and when they called him she just prayed he would stay put and give them his insurance information.

Nell was happy to see that Josh was finally allowed in, and she bit the top of the pen before finishing signed her—illegal—name. ”I’ve got some bad news,” she lamented to him, and by the crestfallen expression on her features, one could easily assume it was something earth-shattering. ”I have food allergies. To okra!” Nell laughed then, though it wasn’t as joyful as it could have been. Finding out she was allergic to any kind of food was actually quite devastating. It was something she really got enjoyment out of, and she truly believed there was nothing that she could not eat. ”They shot me up with epinephrine-something-or-other,” she said, grabbing the flesh of her arm and looking down at where the syringe was injected. ”At least I got a Dora the Explorer band-aid out of it.” She smiled for real then. Feeling a lot better, she was now able to regain her dignity. ”Think I can ditch or will they be mad at me?” Josh aspired to be a doctor, so she wondered if he would disapprove of her wanting to get the hell out of the place. She felt like an invalid—she hated to be the patient, even though she wasn’t sick anymore, and she hated being fussed over.