Hogwarts
School Healer
Creature Task Force - Registrar
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21 years old
Hufflepuff Alumnus
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PLAYED BY OOC NAME
PLAYED BY Trish
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Post by Mali Johar on Feb 19, 2017 5:24:41 GMT
February 2003
Things were going a lot smoother lately. Theo had finally started to come around to her working as a Medi-Witch, they'd worked out a few kinks with the Wolfsbane potion and she and Lupin could actually be friends. Just friends. Really good friends, but nothing beyond that. The smoothness made the times they worked the same shift more enjoyable, like today. Mali was curled up on the couch in the breakroom with Theo, probably grossing out all of their coworkers with lovey dovey PDA but give them a break, they didn't get to see each other much anymore. A call for a sick person came in and Mali insisted that she could handle it on her own, she'd been a specialist, a little illness shouldn't be beyond her skillset even if it wasn't spell damage. With a pop, she headed off to handle it, leaving a reluctant Theo behind.
The sick person wasn't as simple as she thought. Whatever was wrong with him, it was complicated by confusion. It echoed back to day at The Eye. Mali couldn't help the bloke because he was fighting her, actually fighting. She managed to avoid most of the assault but slowly, she was losing her composure. She couldn't help the man, who was sweating bullets and leaking a thick, neon orange phlegm, because she couldn't get close to him. He would swing wildly every time she tried, likely thinking the woman in acid green was trying to hurt him. Physically, she was in the man's living room ducking another swing but mentally she was in the past, kneeling among the rubble and trying to hold a struggling muggle down. What had they done then? There was even an argument about it.
Mali couldn't think. Her brain felt lethargic and all she could hear was the sound of blood rushing in her ears and her own racing pulse. Her chest felt tight, making it hard to breathe and even harder to think, to try and puzzle out what to do. What did Theo do? Merlin! The witch leaned back to avoid a swipe of the man's nails and an idea came to mind, with a shout of "Incarcerous!" thin ropes appeared of thin air, springing to life like snakes and tying the man down.
Now that she could get close to him, Mali popped open a vial of potion and force fed it to the man, thinking it would clear up some of his symptoms. Instead, he got worse. The wizard started to convulse and the phlegm turned into a frothy mess. Whatever was going on with him (a common poisoning) she was flustered and incapable of processing anything beyond panic at this point. Thankfully she'd been taking awhile and Theo arrived with Tristan to see what was going on.
She allowed them to work, folding herself into a corner of the room to sulk and lose her composure. This was a disaster. She choked, and it was inevitably going to give Theo ammo to use against her, and she didn't like that she thought if it that way. Theo using something against her, they were partners! Not enemies. Mali was sick of trying to defend her competency, sick of thinking of Theo as someone who wasn't on her side, sick of it all. There was so much pressure, but going back to what she was good at felt daunting. The witch sat with her knees brought up and face buried in them, curling into a little ball. Silent tears slid down her cheek and she was startled by a hand on her shoulder.
Tristan had gone ahead with the patient, leaving Theo to deal with her. She took one look at him and re-buried her face, crumbling into a half sobbed confession. "I don't want to fight with you anymore. You're right! I can't do it!" There was too much trauma, too much she wasn't good at to hope to make a competent Medi-Witch. "I couldn't fix him, I couldn't think. I can't do this. I don't want to do this anymore! Please don't make me go back to the hospital! I can't go back there!"
_________________ Theo Ashland |
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St.Mungo's
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31 years old
Gryffindor Alumnus
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PLAYED BY OOC NAME
PLAYED BY Mego
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Post by Theo Ashland on Feb 20, 2017 2:59:58 GMT
Theo sulked on the break room couch for a good fifteen minutes after Mali left. He just didn't understand why, why she was so bloody insistent on doing everything herself. He wasn't trying to diminish her talent or her capability or whatever just by tagging along on a bloody call. Medi-Healers worked in pairs all the time. Hell, he and Tristan were basically official partners at this point even if it wasn't required of them to go on all their calls together. It was just nice to have some backup - even on the easy stuff. Because with magic involved, easy was a very deceptive term.
After fifteen minutes of sulking, the restlessness settled in. Without travel time to worry about (thanks, magic!), fifteen minutes was pretty standard for Mali - and most Medi-Healers - to find her patient and begin to sort the problem out. Theo couldn't start worrying yet. But he did feel himself tense up all the same, the couch becoming steadily more and more uncomfortable until he hauled up to his feet and began to pace.
After thirty minutes and an unsatisfying cup of tea, Theo went to find Tristan.
His fellow troll obliged Theo's concern (maybe because the lines in Theo's face looked so genuine, maybe just to shut up him and his badgering, it didn't matter), and after waiting around a bit longer - for a word, for anything - they followed the call. They ended up in a man's living room, said man frothing and convulsing on the floor and Mali practically frozen over him. With a very gentle hand on her shoulder, Theo moved Mali aside and didn't look up from the man on the floor again until Tristan had him carted off to the hospital.
When he did look back up, Mali was in the corner. She was on the floor, hiding her face in her knees. Theo didn't bother to stand up (there was quite a lot of him to get up that high) and crawled over to her, sitting down in front of her with his legs crossed. He touched her shoulder again, just as gentle as before. She was crying, as he thought she might be. Theo didn't really need many clues to know what was going through Mali's head these days, because it was so similar to what was happening in his.
"It's okay," he started when she glanced up at him, but her cries turned into harder sobs and choked words. It hurt Theo to hear what she said, it really did. Sure, it was kind of what he'd been saying for weeks, but not in any sort of way he'd ever say it. It was harsh. Mali was beating herself up with a surprising cruelty - and as much as Theo loved being right, it didn't make him feel better at all.
"Hey, hey...breathe," he pleaded gently, moving to pull at her hands and tug her into his lap. It was a strange thing in a stranger's house, but Mali wasn't going anywhere right now, anyone could see that. Especially not back to the hospital - Theo misunderstood her plea. He thought she just didn't want to go back today, couldn't face it today. "You don't have to go back. Why don't you go to my house, calm down, and I'll go back and tell them what happened? Then I'll come right home. Okay? Then we'll try again tomorrow." Because that's what she wanted, he thought, for him to support her. What she needed. Even if the evidence to the contrary was sitting in his lap and sobbing, breaking his heart. "What did happen? What took so long?"
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Hogwarts
School Healer
Creature Task Force - Registrar
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21 years old
Hufflepuff Alumnus
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PLAYED BY OOC NAME
PLAYED BY Trish
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Post by Mali Johar on Feb 20, 2017 5:31:00 GMT
The arrival of the Trolls meant many things for Mali. Defeat and humiliation, mostly. She couldn't insist that she could do something when she needed someone to come and bail her out, but it also meant relief. She didn't have to fix the man dying underneath her, there was someone else guiding her away to patch up the problem. Mali was a fixer and a helper, but right now she didn't have to be either. It gave her space to feel the things she needed to feel and to fall apart off to the side. It was isolating, tucked into her corner. Theo was right and that left no one on her side and it was a lonely, desolate feeling.
The witch wasn't alone for long. Theo was there, like always. For a moment she thought he might rub in the fact that he was right, and she didn't like feeling that way. There was too much tension. It wasn't okay, even if he said it was. Mali wanted this so desperately that finally admitting that she failed hurt deeply. It was a hard life lesson to learn and a terribly way to learn it but sometimes there were just things she wasn't cut out for. Mali and Theo weren't cut from the same cloth, which is what made them so wonderful together but it was frustrating because damn it, he was right and she was wrong. "I can't do it." the admission provoked a dull ache in her chest to catch a jagged edge.
The strangers house was as good of place as any to unravel. No one else was there, maybe the man lived alone or his family had gone out but it afforded her a degree of privacy they wouldn't find at the hospital. She went easily into his lap, never turning down any sort of contact from Theo. Mali curled into him, hiding her face in his chest instead of her knees so her words were muffled into his torso. His body heat helped to take the edge off, as did his coaching to breathe. The sobs began to subside and she shook her head at his suggestion to go to his house. "Meg's there." she murmured into his sternum, curling just a little tighter into her ball. She didn't want to grieve her defeat with the blonde around, that would be intolerable. Try again tomorrow ripped the barely formed scab off.
No amount of warmth from Theo or breathing could make that okay. Her whole body wracked with sobs and the closeness that soothed moments before felt suffocating. Mali peeled away from Theo just enough so she could twist around to look at him. Desperation and shattered pride were clearly written across her tear stained face."I couldn't help him. I couldn't. He was dying, and I couldn't do it, I couldn't think. I don't think fast. I can't think fast enough." Voicing it hurt just as much as feeling it did. She crumbled into him again, hiding in his arms. "What am I gonna do!? I can't do it, I don't know what to do"
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St.Mungo's
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31 years old
Gryffindor Alumnus
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PLAYED BY OOC NAME
PLAYED BY Mego
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Post by Theo Ashland on Mar 18, 2017 19:54:52 GMT
Mali was an absolute mess. Seeing her so utterly broken down broke Theo down, too. He had no interest in who was right and who was wrong because with Mali so sobbing and desperate in his arms, this felt like his failure too. He was supposed to hold her together and be her support, always. She was never supposed to feel like this. He followed his own directions as he held her and she quieted down, concentrating on timing his breathing with hers and hiding a few stray tears in the top of her head.
Theo was beyond ready to call it a day at this point, for the both of them, but Mali didn't want to go to his house. Because of Meg. Theo nodded his head against hers, chewing on his bottom lip. Another failure of his, right? Mali was supposed to feel safe in his space, no matter what, and she didn't because of Meg. "Okay, okay. Do you want to go to your apartment? Or maybe your dads? We can just write work." He wasn't going to leave Mali alone right now. Her sobbing started to swell up again and Theo was on the cusp of holding her too tightly, wanting everything to just hold all her pieces together like he was supposed to do, but she moved away. Theo kept his arms securely around her and met her eyes.
Mali was a mess of can'ts and couldn'ts and don'ts. "Baby, it's okay. He's going to be okay. You did your best. Sometimes the situation is just too much. I'd need five hands to count the number of times Tristan's had to save my ass." He couldn't stand to hear her talk about herself like that - because they were words straight from his own mouth. He'd planted seeds of doubt and insecurity in her - what kind of a boyfriend did that? - and look where it got her. She sunk back into him and Theo was glad for it because it was getting harder to meet her eyes. He fumbled with her hair, pushing it away from her face and down her shoulders. "Do you want to keep doing this? You don't have to. Nobody's going to be mad. Nobody's going to care if you want to go back to the floor. Please stop beating yourself up."
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Hogwarts
School Healer
Creature Task Force - Registrar
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21 years old
Hufflepuff Alumnus
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PLAYED BY OOC NAME
PLAYED BY Trish
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Post by Mali Johar on Mar 25, 2017 14:41:05 GMT
No. None of those places worked and she shook her head at each suggestion. Eoin might be home, and he couldn't see her like this. She already piled so much onto his lap and while her roommate rose to the occasion beautifully she couldn't keep throwing things at him for him to deal with, like her breakdown. And her dads.. How could she even begin to explain this to them? That she couldn't work at her old position because she was present when someone was murdered but she couldn't do this either because she wasn't smart enough or fast enough or good enough? Writing to work meant Theo was going to stay with her, though. That eased the burden a bit, but the influx of emotion was too much. It was nearly impossible to catch something once it started to crumble into pieces. The breakdown had been coming for a long, long time. They'd done their best to ward it off. Theo bowed to her requests of support, Mali ignored warning signs but in the end it all came crashing down and hard.
Theo was the most wonderful source of comfort. He tried to reason with her, telling her the patient would be okay, that he needed someone to help him sometimes too. She doubted that, he always seemed to know what to do. Every single time. He never froze up, not even when things seemed dire and overwhelming. "I can't." Each time those words tumbled from her lips it was like another sharp jab into her own heart. She wanted it to work out so desperately. To find a way to reach those who needed it most around the full moon without putting the burden on Theo or someone else. When he brought up going back to the spell damage unit, all Mali could do was sob for a long few minutes. There was no use trying to answer him, her heart had a hundred cracks running through it. She'd fought with 'The Floor' for a long time, but eventually she had to acknowledge that it was slowly destroying her to have to face it every day. No amount of atonement could erase the memories there.
"I can't." Mali finally uttered those dreaded, awful two words after quieting down from several minutes of heart broken sobbing. She clung to Theo now, arms wrapping 'round his middle. Mali kept her face hidden in his chest, unable to meet his eyes. "I don't want to do any of it anymore. I can't do your job, but I don't want to go back to mine. There's too much to remember up there." The memories were suffocating and soul destroying. Mali could speak beyond disparaging herself now, but her voice was flat and broken. "I don't want to go back to any of it. I won't go back. I quit." Despite how absolutely heart broken she felt, those two little words were a relief. Like someone pulled the cork out of the overfull bottle she'd stuffed all of the anxiety and pressure in. Mali pulled back just enough where she could look Theo in the eye, feeling absolutely sure and sincere about it. "I quit."
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