unacceptable behavior

Who: Maddy and Roy
Where: Alley by the soup kitchen
When: Late Afternoon

Maddy felt like crap when she woke up that morning. She knew it wasn't because she was still hungover. That had been yesterday's issue (stupid boys). Today, well, she felt kind of hot. Everything kind of hurt, hell, even her eyes hurt. She wasn't coughing too badly though so that was a good sign. Right?

Dragging herself out of bed, she looked at the bits of bread that she had left, but it was stale by now and the soup kitchen wasn't too far away. They had pretty decent food so she somehow managed to drag herself out of bed that afternoon and bundled up more than usual. A thicker coat, thicker gloves, even a scarf. That's what you did when you were supposed to do if you were getting sick.

The soup had been good, good enough that she managed to get a second helping by looking pitifully at one of the woman serving up food.

Feeling warm and maybe slightly better, Maddy wrapped her arms around herself and headed outside. Although the chilly air felt kind of nice on her face, it was like it was making her body ache even more.

Roy had headed over to see if the soup kitchen had had any medicine for him, like Pepper had suggested, and they'd had a dose for him. He wasn't sure what it was, and it was just a single dose, they couldn't (or wouldn't) hand out anything he could take with him for more than right then. But he took it, even if it didn't have magical, instant effects like he would have preferred.

Hunching his shoulders as he was hit with another bout of wracking coughs, he trudged into the alley way, head ducked down. His mind was still vaguely on the mental imagery Pepper had put into his head earlier. About him dying, and being in the vault, and...all that. Yeah. It had stayed with him, most certainly. He glanced up, to attempt to navigate the alley, when he saw a familiar frame. He started walking towards her, an automatic gesture, but then pulled up short, what with his being sick. It also stopped him from greeting her, the 'hey' dying in his throat before it reached articulation.

Maddy heard him anyway. His footsteps at least. Of course, she didn't know it was him so when she immediately turned around, hand going to a switchblade, she was surprised to see Roy. He looked terrible, face pale, circles under his eyes. "Guess you're getting sick too," she said, stepping forward a couple of steps so she could hear him better. "Shouldn't have been walking in the rain, Roy." Which was a bit hypocritical of her as she too was meandering around in the storm to cool down, figuratively speaking. She had heard the thick cough, loud enough to wake the dead and catch her attention.

Turned his head to the side and coughed some more, then looked back to her. "Yeah, whatever." he said. "But 'too'? Are you sick?" he asked. She did look a little under the weather, now that she was closer, though when she got a little too close, he took a step back. "They have some medicine today. Did you get any?" he asked, hoping she did.

She shook her head, coughing herself. She hated that. When someone else coughs and suddenly you get an itch in your throat and suddenly everyone was coughing. "I got some good food in my stomach and I'm feeling a little better." She was perfectly fine (except for the fact that she felt too hot and too cold at the same time). Maddy had asked the caretaker if he had any spare blankets around and she found thicker pajamas to wear. "You? If you didn't get anything, I'll drag you back, buddy boy." She wagged her finger at him briefly but stopped as her arm protested any other movement that wasn't "getting back in bed".

Roy gave her a Look. "Go the fuck in there and get medicine. It's incredibly reckless and stupid of you not to when they have some." he snapped, not about to coddle the girl, especially if she was being an idiot. People died. That was just the way things worked. People like them died from this shit. He'd gotten some, she'd better too. That was just how that was going to go.

"Oh please, Roy. It's nothing something hot to drink and chilling out in my castle that can't cure," she said, believing that it should be the most obvious thing in the world. Maddy didn't get sick. The ache and slight fever (not sure how high it was) wasn't bad news. She was better than that, getting sick. "You, on the other hand, should be dressed more warmly. You sound like crap." Maddy was wearing two sets of gloves and the top pair should fit him at least well enough to keep his fingers warm.

"No, it is not something that fucking laying around in your 'castle' is going to cure. You have to know this." he snapped, stalking up to her, looking hard down at her. "And if you get it, and spread it to other people who can't get the medical attention they need, and don't have a 'castle' to lie in, where it's warm, and there might be people around who could help if something went very wrong? They die. And whoever they spread it to could too. It spreads, and it leaves a wake of corpses. Get. The. Fucking. Medicine."

Roy, who was truly ill, and had been worrying all day about winding up dead, and his sister finding him, wasn't in the mood to put up with bullshit from a girl who should more than know better. Who'd been on the streets, and had to have witnessed just what something like illness could do to the homeless community. Or hell, even just the underprivileged. After all. Roy's life truly went to hell when sickness had swept through his own household and killed off many family members, and all because they hadn't been able to afford any medical care. He still remembered trying to wake little Johnathan, who'd only been three, only to find he wasn't breathing. So it was insulting that this girl was going to blow it off like it was nothing, and not even get something when she could. It was a kick to the teeth of anyone who'd dealt with the realities of the situation, and it was negligent of her considering she could spread it to others. She had the people in the theater, who he was under the impression would help her if push came to shove, and he knew Dodge would probably try to do something too--not that he wasn't worried about her as well--but she was probably covered at least in the case of dire emergency. But she lived on the streets. She knew that not everyone even had someplace warm. That she could easily spread whatever she had, and it could wipe out god knew how many people. That was something he couldn't abide by. Not in the slightest. And all because she couldn't be bothered? No. Just no. It was horrifying. That came through mostly in the way his voice shook, the way his hands were clenched into fists, and he was shaking a little bit. How his tone wasn't seething with anger, but something else entirely. He was looking at her like he'd never seen her before, like some deep, terrible revelation had occurred. He looked away, like he couldn't actually bear to look at her any more, and he turned away fully as he was hit with more coughs, feeling it in his chest. He also started to walk away, not even sure where he might be headed. 'Away' was a good place.

Roy had the tendency to be... rather fucking intimidating and scary when his angry and yeah, she tried to avoid pissing him off (conveniently trying to forget the other day when he'd punched the wall). She knew that it was hard for... for people like them when things got hard, especially when the city still clung to winter and storms came a few times a week. She'd lost friends at the orphanage each year that she was there. She herself had lost half of her hearing.

"You think I don't know that things are hard?" She yelled after him. She was angry, more from defensiveness than anything. Perhaps a bit of guilt thrown in there. Roy lived in a damn vault, she knew that, and it more thank likely sucked when it was cold like this. Hell, she'd let him stay in the attic with her if he wanted to. "I know how to take care of myself, Roy Grady. I know when I'm sick enough to avoid people. I know when I'm sick enough to need help and I'm not going to get medicine if other people -- like you, thank you very much -- need it more than I do. I've been staying in my room since I started feeling sick! This is the first time I've come out." She could wait longer, sometimes, keep pushing it off, hiding the sickness until it became too much for her, but it was hard, being small and little like her, no meat on her bones to help her get through the sickness.

Maddy turned away suddenly and viciously kicked a trash can, sending the aluminum skittering down the alley. Roy was sick. She wasn't going to jump on his back like a monkey and smack him around for all she was worth.

Stopping, Roy turned. "I think you're selfish. I think if you really knew? Then you'd not be out here, or you'd sure as fuck be inside getting the medicine so you don't wind up getting a lot of people killed because you think you're bloody invincible. Well I have news for you. Other people aren't. People like us, if you'd lower yourself to consider yourself among us that is, your highness, aren't. We get sick, and we die. And that's just how it is. And if you so much as gave a passing thought that you could spread it, or die yourself, you'd be taking every precaution you could. I think if you thought anything of me, you'd think to yourself that I saw you the day before fucking yesterday, D. Not a whole lot of staying in, seems like. And you're out now. And apparently still sick." he stared at her for a few long, long moments, that look still in his eyes, like he was stricken. Like he wasn't dealing well by any stretch of the imagination, and still like he'd never truly seen her before.

He shook his head, and looked away. "I don't know you." he said, then turned again to walk away, feeling a hollow ache in his chest. She usually brought out something good in him. Something brighter. But with this, he felt like he never knew her at all. He'd thought better of her, and it was kind of like an emotional suckerpunch to learn otherwise. Stopping towards the mouth of the alley, he leaned one hand against the cold brick of the building, coughs wracking his frame again, and he tried to keep his lungs on the inside.

That stung. No, it more than stung, it was like someone reached inside through her skin and
started pulling out her insides as slow as they could. There was some solidness to Roy. Not like the others. Roy was there. He was always there even when he seemed to go crazy, like the possessed people the nuns talked about to warn children to behave.

Maddy hated being lectured. She wasn't one who felt that it was deserved, so it threw her for a loop when her friends did it. Like she needed protecting and when she did something they thought was wrong, they were like parents or something. But when Roy started coughing, worse than he had before, she immediately went to him, even if some might consider it a bad decision, what with the temper he was in after all. As she came closer though, she didn't get to close, unsure. She hated being unsure and she was feeling more and more of it lately, the idea that she was causing problems not even occurring to her. Maddy wanted to reach out, rub his back as he coughed, offering some comfort. So instead she dug around into her pocket for some of the hard candy that she'd filched from the store that morning. A couple of lemon ones, a couple of honey. A teaspoon of honey for the throat eased the pain. She knew that, and the lemon helped. She carefully stepped around him, still respectful of his anger and held out her hand with the candy in it so he could see when he was done coughing. Not like he'd hear anything she said until he was done anyway.

He didn't want her to be there. He especially didn't want her to be standing there offering him something. Something that might help, really. He wasn't sure. Looking at her, though, he did reach out to take one of them. Just one, not about to take more. "You need to not be anywhere near me." he told her, voice a little rougher from the coughing. "Go inside. Get some medicine. Go home." he told her. It wasn't with the same shortness he'd had moments ago. This time it came out more exhausted sounding. Like whatever he'd had there built up, it had dissipated with what he'd already said. He popped the candy in his mouth though, and looked away. "Thank you." he added onto the end. Some people in the world were ungrateful. He wasn't.

"I got the flu awhile back," she told him, popping one of them in her own mouth and took a step closer, thinking now it wouldn't be so bad. "Just a kid. A few of the kids died. I lost the hearing in one ear." She tapped her right ear. She knew Roy wouldn't tell anyone, spread the word of her weakness, but she felt that nagging need to explain herself. Although she was pretty positive that she was invincible, well, even Superman had Kryptonite. "I'll get the medicine," she conceded after a pause. "I usually stick with scotch and brandy and these things. Easier to get a hold of, ya know?" She didn't want to say that she didn't know where to go.

"Just... they've got some inside. Go get it. Ask the people behind the line." he told her, inadvertently filling in where she needed to go, even if he didn't know she was uninformed. He also marked the ear she was deaf in in his mind. He definitely hadn't known that. But it made sense, in retrospect. Like the times when she didn't answer him, even if he'd asked a question, or something, and she didn't actually behave like she was flat out ignoring him. While it didn't happen often, so much, it did happen. He leaned his shoulder against the building, unsure if he was waiting for her or not.

Maddy nodded, tugging at said ear. She grinned at him suddenly. "How much you wanna bet I can score us extra? And you should come in. Chicken soup is damn good." It was and Maddy would not be opposed to getting a third helping. And, after all, it was warm inside. So what if Roy seemed a little masochistic at times? She'd drag him in if she had to.

"I'm not sitting in there with a group of people who're likely to catch what I've got. Did you miss everything I was just saying to you?" he asked, staring at her yet again like he just had no idea who she was at all. He'd said that all, right? About how this stuff spread and people died and all that? It hadn't just been in his head, he was sure of that.

"Doesn't mean you can't run in and grab a bowl and eat it outside or something, because, if I remember correctly, when you're sick, you need to eat," she pointed out, starting to feel much more offended than intimidated or guilty. "There's no use letting yourself starve and hacking your lungs out until you die. Christ Almighty, Roy."

"They don't generally let people wander off with their utensils." Roy said. "Look, I'm just going to go." he said. "You stick around, or not, and do whatever you want. You will anyways." He pushed off the building to start to head off, still not wanting to give her whatever he had, and still feeling all kinds of off balance in general. Things were never easy, were they? Though he did feel like he'd lost a whole lot, and couldn't even say why.

Maddy wanted to bang her head repeatedly against the wall, but instead, "Do you actually like doing this to yourself?" Because that's what she could never understand about Roy. There was humble, yes, but then there was purposefully trying to not take care of yourself properly or accepting help or whatever it was that he did and it ticked her off to no end. He must be more incompetent than I give him credit for, she thought. "Because if that's the case then you have no right to lecture me, Mister 'Let me go isolate myself so much I won't even sit in the corner of a soup kitchen away from everyone so I don't hack up a lung into someone's meal."

"No, I don't, I just--" Roy started, then stopped, looking back. "I've seen it. It was back when my family all lived together, and sick would sweep through the house and there'd be fewer of us than when it started." he admitted, really hating having to relate that at all. "And it haunts me, and I'm not going to be the start of something else. I'm just not." His tone was pleading, like he wanted her to understand. Like part of him needed her to get it.

She nodded slowly. She got it. It happened at the orphanage too, but they weren't her family. "But does that mean you shouldn't try take care of yourself better?" It made sense to her. "I mean, if you're sick, wouldn't it be better than trying to not be sick anymore? You don't have to be around people, but Roy, that's what the kitchen is here for. Did you get medicine?" And she hoped that he could understand where she was coming from.

"I'm here getting medicine, aren't I?" Roy posed. "I am trying to take care of myself. Just because it doesn't immediately line up with what you want to do the moment you want to do it doesn't mean I'm not." he said, and his tone didn't make the shift back to frustrated, for once. "And yeah, I already got some medicine. How else would I have known it was there?" he said, though it was a rhetorical question. "I got that, and I feel like I'm going to keel over and die. So I figured I'd go back to the vault and sleep." he told her, since that was actually his plan.

The vault. It had to be damn cold in there and Maddy did not like thinking of him in there, alone in the old bank. "Do you have enough blankets? Do you want to stay at my place? It's probably warmer." Although she figured Roy would turn down the offer, but she still wasn't happy with how he was taking care of himself.

He shook his head. "I'll be fine, D. Thanks for the offer, but I don't want to make you worse, or give you something else on top of what you've already got." he said. He'd never forgive himself if he did, after all. There were certain things in his life he couldn't handle, and being responsible for getting a friend sick? Possibly worse? That just was one of them.

And Maddy did feel like crap and the chilly weather didn't help, but at least she wasn't coughing. She was just overly warm. Nothing wrong with that she kept telling herself. "If you need anything, tell me, you got it, Roy? Getting me even more sick wouldn't matter if, well, something happened to you first." She didn't want to say 'if he died' or something like that. She didn't like to think of Roy dying.

He looked back at her and quirked a half smile. "I'll tell you." he promised, even if he probably wouldn't. But he knew she just wanted to help him. At the end of the day, he knew she was a better person than she came off at times. It was why he liked her in the first place, which was why he got so upset with her. If he didn't care about her? She wouldn't have the ability to knock him so far off his stride. "Take care of yourself, okay?" he said, really hoping she did.

At least he didn't look too mad anymore, or sounded mad at all and Maddy felt better. He also said that he'd let her know if he needed help. Maddy was a little doubtful he actually would because Roy was just that kind of person who seemed to enjoy suffering his burdens on his own. So she tugged up her gloves and pulled her coat tighter around her. "Of course," she grinned, giving him a little salute and headed back down to the soup kitchen to get the medicine she promised.