The metal chink of a lock turning filled the silent apartment. The door swung open a moment later, framing a short, green woman in wrinkled and stained dark blue scrubs who looked like death walking. Covering a yawn, the Greek shuffled in on sore feet, depositing her bag and keys in their respective places by the door before she turned and locked it securely behind her.

She was fully away of how she looked, but didn't have the energy to care. Her hair had managed to get free of the braid she usually kept it in, snakes included, and was currently trying to live its best life free and wild around her sleepy face. She had some dark circles forming around her eyes, helpfully blended a little better due to her natural coloring; but still visible. Her work clothes were dotted with dried stains and not the ones she normally wore- she had been forced to change after one too many patients had spilled various substances on her over the course of her nearly two day shift. She was dragging her feet more than she had ever done before, fully intent on peeling off the grossness on her and curling up in her bed.

She made it as far as the couch before falling forward face first into the soft cushions. Her body wasn't even fully on the couch; legs splayed over the sides haphazardly in a way that certainly looked uncomfortable, and yet she couldn't be bothered to move.

She hadn't even removed her shoes.

Even her snakes were tired.

She briefly wondered if Elliot was home, or if she should try to eat something of more substance than hospital vending machine food...

And then she passed the heck out.

The metal chink of a lock turning filled the silent apartment (2, electric Boogaloo). The door swung open a moment later, framing a tall young man in a black leather jacket, jeans, and a macabre black motorcycle helmet with a dementedly serrated smile. A humorously drawn tongue lolled out of the painted-on mouth. Bits of red and green covered him in ways that even dry cleaning might never be able to wash off. He did not look like death walking, but he did look like someone had killed something on him as he staggered and limped into the entry room.

One hand clutched at Elliott’s side. He was hurt. Maybe badly. Maybe not. He had not stopped to ascertain that fact. He’d been more focused with helping the person, then getting the hell out before he got the wrong kind of attention. Or even the right.

He had hardly had a spring in his step on the way home. Usually, he would have leaped and sprang over roof tops to the point where he may as well have been flying. But this time, he’d just stumbled along to his motorcycle and driven a sedately boring 3 miles under the speed limit, wee wee wee, all the way home. Avoiding all forms of attention.

He hadn’t taken off his helmet. Usually, his roommate was not home. She worked long shifts and spent time out of town and she was totally crashed right there in front of him wasn’t she oh man this was a terrible time to come home injured, in-costume, and covered in blood. It was still salvageable so long as he was quiet and—

Clang CLANG BOOONG! He’d left that stupid metal bowl of popcorn on the sofa table, hadn’t he? He’d really left that stupid metal bowl where his knee could jar it in the loudest way possible, on the floor.

The house lights were all freaking on! She was gonna see him! And— wait. Why was she covered in what could have been blood? Was she dead on the couch? If she hadn’t been woken up by the sound of popcorn dispersing itself in ways a vacuum would never fully clean, maybe he’d have to wake her just to make sure she hadn’t been murdered in her own home.

Common sense clearly had gone on vacation. Maybe it was on a Norwegian cruise.

She had been having the most pleasant non-dream when a very loud, very close sound woke her from a dead sleep. The Greek jerked up off the couch, out of a small puddle of her own drool, and sat there in a daze on both hands and one knee. What had that noise been? Where was she? The couch? Oh god, was that drool? Back to the noise, where had it come from? What had she brok-

She blearily focused on a still figure way to close to her for comfort, and immediately snapped the rest of the way awake. Alarm sprung up like fire in her chest, urging her snakes into a writhing, hissing mass within the bulk of her hair. Andrea didn't move from where she was, but ever muscle in her body was rigid. Orange eyes flicked from the figure to the front door and back. Had they broken in? Slowly, she started to settle her feet on the floor while carefully moving to take her gloves off.

"Who are you? Why are you here?"

There was a quiet, uneasy calm about her, save for her serpents who where a visible peek into the whirling emotions within her. Sloth curled protectively around her front, coiled and ready while his tongue angrily slapped the air- tasting it.

After a beat the great snake relaxed a little having caught a familiar whiff of someone on the air, though Andrea didn't notice.

If she had sprung up and lunged at him, he would have clung to the ceiling, which would have been awkward, considering he was wearing warm winter gloves. For whatever reason, even the thinnest layer played hell with his clinging capabilities. Gloves, socks, it didn’t matter. If he wanted to hang off a wall, he needed to go bare. And it was so cold, he’d actually worn gloves and socks and boots.

Instead of clinging, Elliott took several cautious steps back. His hands raised up in front of him, in the universal gesture for ‘stop, take it easy.’

“It’s okay. I’m not here to hurt you. I—“ He began.

The whole thing would have been very convincing, and a real good way to smooth over the situation... if he hadn’t ruined the whole thing by tripping over the metal bowl on his third step. He wound up sprawled on his butt on the floor.

“Ow.” Elliott said. His injuries flared in pain, causing him to clutch his side and more emphatically insist. “Ow.” But more importantly— He glanced up at his roommate. “Are you okay? You’re covered with blood.”

It couldn’t have lasted forever, his roommate living in blissful ignorance of the double life he led. In the past, he’d have tried for secrecy and paranoia. But that just wasn’t his jam any more.

The intruder put their hands up as if surrendering and the Greek's expression pinched in confusion. Who broke into someone else's house and- She visible winced when they tripped, pausing her removal of her second glove. Against her better judgement Andrea felt a spike of sympathy for the stranger in her house, and started putting her gloved back on. It didn't help that the voice was very, very familiar.

She took a hesitant step forward while the rest of her snakes calmed down to peer down around the coffee table at the figure on the floor. No matter how tired she was nurse mode clicked back on like s switch being flipped. She scanned the figure who was helpfully explaining his pain with a few 'Ow's', noticing the splotches and stains and the way they were gripping their side. She took another step forward, and slowly knelt by the figure. If she was correct, her roommate was on her floor covered in blood, wearing a helmet and clothes she had never seen before. She was really, really confused.

He pointed out her own blood stains, which she didn't even bother glancing at. "It was a really, really busy couple of days..." She trailed off. "...Elliot? What on earth happened?"

Now that she was closer and she was able to get a better look at him, she could tell that he needed help. As much as she wanted to pry that helmet off his head and demand to know what the hell was going on, she pressed on to the more serious issues.

"We need to get you on the couch so I can look at you- Can you stand?" She offered her gloved hands to help him up if he wanted. If it were more serious she could simply treat him on the floor. After he was situated wherever she could get him comfortable, she would order the helmet off and the removal of as much clothing as he was comfortable with. She would work around anything else if there were injuries present underneath.

Then, she hurried off to find her own personal first aid kit, which was stashed in the closet in her room. "I don't need to know details right now except for how, what, and when. I need to know what injured you, how long it's been, and any details you can give me on how it happened."

Her kit was huge; a converted professional tackle box. First she dug out a clean pair of gloves to go over the thin synthetic ones already present on her hands. She had everything she could ever need minus large professional equipment. As she quickly prepped she once again took in her roommates appearance. There were a lot of questions swirling around in her mind, but... they could wait. Except for one.

"Is this one of those scenarios where hospitals are a no-go?" While waiting for an answer, she set about preforming her own ten point check on him, whipping out some gauze to wipe away blood so she could see wounds clearer.

The question was how much was too much? If She asked him how he was hurt, did he give out explicit details, or did he hold back? Would it endanger her? And to add onto the ever-growing list of questions for himself, had he any right to decide those things for her? In his glaring pain, most of his questions momentarily remained unanswered.

Andrea knelt by him, and asked the first question off the list of questions he knew she’d ask. Amid an explanation of her own bloody mess. An explanation of sorts. He returned the favor weakly.

What on Earth had happened? “It was a really busy night.” He smiled. Realized she couldn’t see his smile. Hoped the joke came out in the inflection of his voice.

He had a feeling she may not appreciated in being a smart ass for very long... so he tried to become a smart assistant instead, and be as helpful as he could.

He’d made it halfway across town so he figured he could make it to the couch. He winced as he moved, but he made it up there with Andrea’s help.

See how helpful he was being? And he only managed to smear around a little bit of blood while he was settling in. Uh. He was pretty sure most of it wasn’t his. Pretty sure. Most. Some of it was red. Green was there to a lesser degree. Mostly. And he thought he bled green. Because why wouldn’t he? Unless it was mucus.

Maybe blood loss had made him a little hazy.

Where had Andrea gone again? Elliott looked around the room. Yeah. He needed to clean more often. The TV stand had dust.

Suddenly, she was back. With an entire hospital in her hands. And more questions. Joy. He’d fill in the big details later. Got the moment, he focused on the relevant stuff.

“About an hour ago. Maybe a hair more. Brought some sticks to a knife fight. Protecting someone. Got cut. Here. Here. And maybe here.” He gestured as his leg, his left forearm, his side. “Everything else is probably minor...” he added. Nicks and cuts and abrasions on his arms and hands. He had gotten the knife at some point... and he thought he still had his sticks.

Elliott glances around, as if looking for something. Didn’t see it. Maybe he was, um, still wearing them? Whatever.

Was this a situation where they didn’t want to go to the hospital? He almost laughed.

“I already stopped by there to drop the woman off. But I didn’t partake, myself. Do you need me to strip?” He made as if to take off his leather jacket.

"Strip." She confirmed, filing away the information he had provided. Possible stab wounds here and there. Cuts, abrasions. Blood... lots of blood. She wasn't sure how much of it was his as she had never seen him bleed before.

She muttered something in Greek about playing hero before stopping and reprimanding herself. It wasn't the right attitude to have about it.

When he was ready she set about invading his personal space to get a closer look at the wounds. Wiping at them with the wet cloth and visually gauging how bad they looked. Some were concerning, most were not. They would need stitches from what she could see, but without knowing the true severity of the deeper ones she was in a bit of a pickle.

"I will need to check these ones." She pointed out the ones that had her concerned. "The others I can clean and stitch closed, but these.." She worried her bottom lip as she turned and started gathering the materials she would need. Disinfectants, thread, needle. Forceps or tweezers... One was more effective but would hurt more.

"Usually when I need to go this the people are put under. It hurts a lot having to dig around and make sure you haven't got a nicked artery or organ in there."

Frowning, she opened the compartment that contained her transfusion supplies.

"...Elliot, do you trust me?"

He took off his leather jacket. Winced as he took off his shirt. Probably ruined. His sticks clattered to the floor as he made for his belt. They made a wooden sound. So that’s where they were! Off the belt went. Along with his holster. Helmet, too.

This was the first time he was stripping in front of a girl who was not his girlfriend in quite a while. What a silly thought! Must’ve been the blood loss because he certainly wasn’t blushing brown.

There was some difficulty with his pants, but he made it work. Elliott stopped at the underpants. There were no injuries there. Everything was in perfect working order. He drew a line.

He was entirely green, save for the blood spots and injuries and old yellowed grass green bruises. And he was completely hairless. And ripped. Do aliens have six packs? When did he find time to go to the gym alongside hero-work and college classes and dates and art? Every day, apparently.

The palms of his hands had little lines across them, like they’d been cut at some point. But they opened slightly as he let a hand mouth breathe. Not that they had to, or even should. But apparently nerves made a body do weird things. As did blood loss. Especially when someone was invading ones personal space. It was a wonder a hand tongue didn’t loll out. That would have been really weird!

The cloth was cold as well as wet. Did he get gooseflesh? Maybe he would have, if he’d had any body hair to speak of. But no, his skin stayed flat and normal. Just chilly. She really could have used warm water, but he was in no position to complain about free help or anything. Naked beggars can’t be choosers.

He kept his mouth shut and thin, as she pointed out the various places and acts she would need to perform there. Stitches, ow. And the other tools. Tweezers, double ow. Oh, to have some of what Blaine “Painkiller” Sinclaire had right now.

Maybe he needed to pester Skye about where her uncle was so he could get tips. But no, the guy was a mutant. Which meant— meant he couldn’t up and share his power now didn’t it? Was it getting hot In here? Or was he getting foggy? Light... headed?

“Put under. Great. I’ll get the frying pan,” he joked weakly, as she talked. And then she asked a question that set off warning klaxons for some reason, even though he in fact did trust her.

“When people ask that, usually there’s a magic carpet hidden away or else they jump across a roof and certain death isn’t far behind. Yeah. I trust you. What’s up, Al? I mean Andy.”

Andy was a different Disney movie. If she were digging around inside his insides, he supposed he really would have a friend in him, ha ha.

She was starting to suspect that he was delving quickly into delirium. Putting her cold, wet cloth away as she fumbled with her transfusion bag, she shook off her nerves and set about prepping the lines.

"No magic carpet here, but you certainly are worrying me about how close death might possibly be." Honestly she didn't react to any of his more unique qualities. She had snakes growing out of her skull, not much phased her terribly anymore.

Including his rudeness, nor his beach body abs. She approached the situation as calmly and professionally as she could seeing as she was still in her scrubs even. She had a reputation to uphold!

... She'd get flustered about it later.

"I'm glad you trust me, so I need you to lay still and... don't panic, okay?" It had been a while since she had done this, and the last guy had panicked to the point she needed to knock him out for a bit before escaping. It hadn't been fun.

"You are going to feel a little poke," she explained, cleaning the area she was going to insert the needle, and then quickly getting the line placed. It was in and taped on faster than she had ever done before.

She sat herself down so she could face him, got her own line placed and secured, twisted the flow on and reached for her last implement.

Slicing through the tips of two fingers with a newly opened sharp, she quickly turned to drip it on some of the open surface wounds. She used her still gloved hand to smooth it out and cover as much as possible as quickly as possible. He should have felt the healing set in fairly quickly on the surface as his skin knit itself back together where it needed to. And on the inside the pain would be slowly dying down, replaced by a warm flow as his internal wounds were targeted.

She hovered over the smaller wounds next, looking sheepish and nervous still, and unsure how to explain herself without just blurting out that her blood heals people.


Ah, well... "My blood has healing properties... This should stop everything back up. You won't need stitches and I won't need to go digging in you."

“Oh.” Elliott said. “I thought you were going to say that you have magic hair the glows when you sing. But healing and snakes are cool, too. Very Asclepius.” It got them out of Disney territory, too. Which was good. Someone had been about to be sued.

“Asclepius. Greek god of medicine. His rod had a snake wrapped around it. Mistakes were made and Hermès rod with snakes got used for the symbol for medicine instead. Because snakes and rods are all the same right? So healing and snakes makes perfect sense.” He was rambling as he healed, he realized.

He felt a sudden need to explain. “I took a class. On Greek mythology. And one of my homeless buddies always lectured me on it too. And philosophers. Loved Herodotus. For some reason. I think I’m starting to feel better? If insane rambling is any basis.” He did that plenty when he felt well.

He’d been a little put off when she started doing all she had been doing. But she’d prepped him for the treatment by saying it would be effing weird, though not in so many words.

The healing thing had felt... odd. It isn’t every day you feel skin grow. Would the new skin be a brighter green than the old? The warmth within was off putting but not in a bad way. Like having a cup of hot cocoa... in your blood. Or maybe your heart? Lungs? Like when you sip too hard, too fast, and it’s warm all the way down.

“Thank you,” Elliott said firmly. “And sorry for all the Disney crap. My girlfriend’s nephew likes Disney Princess movies. And they’re like parasitic brain worms, but in a good Way?”

Damn Kenzi and her little nephews love of all things Disney. He’d seen Cinderella and Tangled more times than he could count. And he had to count on six fingers and four toes.

“And I crack wise when I’m nervous.”

The rambling was cute, actually. Endearing even. She smiled through the stress of it all, fiddling one final time with her own line, before she turned and leaned her back against the couch to tend to the cuts on her finger tips. Anything she would have been worried about on the surface of his skin had either been fixed already, or was swiftly on their way to closing up again.

"Asclepius was also murdered due to his association to healing and Resurrection while still human, out of fear of his power, later being turned into the god of it" She turned her chin and grinned at him slightly. "I don't mind Disney. I'm rather a fan, in fact. Seems to be a good enough distraction, in any case." She paused for a beat, "I always wanted to be the one with the fins, growing up." Gosh, she had identified with a fictional mermaid so hard growing up.

"This shouldn't take terribly long. Maybe a half an hour or so? Once enough has been transferred I can unhook you."

‘Them kooky Greeks,’ Elliott agreed mentally. ‘Always killing or cursing instead of finding peaceful solutions.’

It had never been Medusa’s fault, either. Poseidon had been the one to screw that all up. Time and a place, man.

He chuckled when he heard she’d wanted to be a mermaid.

“Trading one mythological creature for another.” He said.

“Maybe you’ll grow fins as some sort of power growth.” He added thoughtfully. “I learned I was a mutant when my power changed and I started clinging to socks. And walls. I mean, the green skin was probably a cue but I thought ‘alien’, not ‘mutant’.” Yay!

Seeing his DNA under a microscope had been neat.

Half an hour wasn’t so long. The conversation was nice. Although. “Is there a blanket anywhere?” He asked, suddenly conscious of the fact he was cold, and why.

"Lord, I hope not! I don't have anymore room for more things popping up unbidden." The very thought of it made her shudder. A fin? What would she even do with a fin?! She hated swimming these days.

"I was partially born this way, so I was always aware that I was different." She'd never thought about aliens before... Then again she hadn't thought about much at all until the internet came along and was advance enough to hear about things happening all over the world. Her books hadn't mentioned anything about aliens. "That must have been quite startling upon first appearing." She laughed softly, reflecting back on her own adventure discovering her powers. If one could call it that. "I knocked myself out when mine first appeared, and nearly turned my cat to stone when the second came in."

He asked for a blanket and she snapped out of the past. There was a lap blanket over in her reading chair by the window, but she wasn't sure if she could reach it from here. Turning to the coffee table she lifted the wooden lid to access a compartment hidden within. Luckily for him there was a second banket, a knitted pink one, that she could readily access. With practiced hands the Greek turned and began to neatly tuck the blanket around him like he was one of her patients.

"You are healing fairly quick, it looks like... You must not have been as injured as I had feared." She rubbed at the tired eyes behind her glasses, "I'm glad... you had me a little worried with that that blood. I didn't need another person bleeding out on me tonight."

Nearly knocked out her cat.

“Wow. Nothing so exciting for me. The green thing and all of that came first. The sock sticking was within the last few years. Some lady put my cells under a microscope and told me I’m like part bug, part frog or something.” He shrugged. “I can climb walls like a spider so that’s cool I guess. Cannot wear shoes though.”

He wasn’t gonna get into the whole convoluted backstory he had, what with the space pod/egg(?) in the barn and the potential ‘being adopted but we’ll never know!’ Angle. On account of being mostly naked and cold.

Straining, Andrea acquired a blanket. He was appreciative and snuggled in.

She said something about him healing faster and not needing another person bleeding out on her that night. A comment came unbidden to his lips.

“Man. I wish you’d been here when my last roommate was still around.”

A pause. “Although maybe it wouldn’t have helped much after all.” He frowned. Blargh blargh blargh. Lame thoughts were laaaame. What a Debbie downer he was.

After a little initial shock at his comment, her expression softened. Losing someone was always had, but harder on some than others. She had personal experience with it, but saw it most often while she had her scrubs on.

Being one of the few types of professions that had you both saving lives and performing end of life care, she was exposed to it a lot. It never got any easier, but it was often the ones she couldn't save that hurt the worst.

Dozens of well practiced lines rushed forward. Things she had said over and over and over again to grieving wives and husbands, children and whole families. Sometimes even to those who were dying themselves. None of those things were what came out of her mouth though.

She reached out to place a newly gloved hand over his in a reassuring manner. "The very first time I tried to use this part of my power I failed." She settled back against the couch, looking off across the living room toward the kitchen as the memories bubbled to the surface.

"It was a very bad car accident... Hit a curb and flipped. The driver hadn't been wearing a seatbelt. Part of the broken windshield had severed an artery in all of the resulting damage, he was bleeding internally. I hadn't figured out yet that I could use transfusion as a method of healing." She had nightmares of it sometimes, mixed in with all of the other things she saw at work. "I couldn't get it to stop bleeding. No matter how much blood I tried to get onto him, I couldn't get to the most important one inside."

She glanced at him, "I don't know if I would have been able to help your friend or not, but I wish I could have been there to try at the very least. Sometimes that is all we can do."