Chapter Text
Dealing with anomalies for hours on end can be rough. It can be taxing on your mind and your body, especially when combined with the stress of treating patients as normal. Since noon today, Rose has been working for eight hours straight. Talk about overtime.
She walks into the front office, slouched over herself like a dead-girl-walking, and beelines it straight to the coffee machine. The gurgling of the caffeine maker that Rose, and every other employee of the Animal Hospital, has come to worship distracts her from the incessant beeping and coughing present around every corner, in every hallway.
Dissociating as she stares into the coffeepot—or, rather, stares past it—Rose fails to notice a certain blue secretary spin once, twice, in their chair before kicking off their desk to roll behind her.
“You look like shit.”
She doesn’t even flinch, far too used to sudden sounds and movement to care, instead rolling her head back languidly to meet their eyes. “Hello to you too.”
Victor smirks, their long, floppy ears twitching. In the year that Rose has known Victor, she has learned to discern the subtle body language that most would look past. Like how their fur stands on end when a suspicious looking character enters the hospital, or how they tap their foot, repeatedly, when a visitor’s tone is just a little too demanding for their liking.
Another ear twitch follows a stretch of their arms as they lean backwards in their rolling chair, spinning around so that now, they are facing away from her. They nearly strike Rose with how far back they reach. She slinks away effortlessly, skilled at evading attacks in mere seconds.
“How have those interns been holding up?” They ask, still leaning backwards, much farther than Rose would recommend. She bites her tongue, choosing not to chastise them over something so trivial.
“Chiffon is still a nervous wreck. But other than her, they’re all holding up pretty well.” Chiffon—one of four interns, fresh out of college—is, frankly, a coward. The yellow rabbit hides at the mere mention of danger. Shaking like a leaf, she’s always the last to jump in when help is needed.
But Rose can’t say she blames her. She was just like her on her first days as an intern; nervous and oh, so anxious. The only thing that terrified her more than anomalies was failing.
“Working the front is as it always is,” Victor says, folding their arms behind their head. “Can’t say it’s boring, but closing and opening shutters over and over again gets repetitive.”
Rose sighs, pouring herself a steaming cup of coffee. Without needing to ask, she silently pours another for Victor, who takes it with a few quiet words of gratitude.
“Some of the anomalies that come through here are ugly, too.” The secretary takes a sip of their coffee. “Like, I know you’re a ‘scary anomaly’ but you don’t have to add ugly to the list, too,”
Tearing open a sugar packet, a small chuckle escapes Rose’s lips. It’s more of a breath than anything, an exhale combined with the ghost of a laugh.
The two of them sit in silence for a minute or so, and strangely, no patients walk in. Seeing as though the hospital has been blessed with a moment of peace, Rose sighs, leaning against Victor’s desk. She takes a long, slow sip of her drink, enjoying the way it warms her throat. Winter has not yet freed the city of its intensely bitter grasp, and even though the hospital is equipped with numerous heaters and generators, the frost still seeps in and chills her to the bone.
Victor, already finished with their coffee, turns to face Rose, a sly grin across their face. Well too aware of what this means, she shuts them down quickly. “Stop. I know that face.”
“Liselle is right outside, you know.”
“Stop it.”
“We’re all on break.”
“Victor.”
“It’s not like anything is stopping you.”
She sighs, defeated without a fight, and sets down her disposable cup, still half-full. “Don’t touch that,” she says, “I’ll be back,”
They spin around in their chair again, eyes closed. Their glasses have drooped down all the way to the tip of their nose, barely even functional at this point. “Have fun!”
Rose wonders for a moment why she puts up with them.
Frosty air bites at her finger tips as she exits the hospital. The back wall has, to her knowledge, always been a common spot for those on their half-hour break. Whether you’re out for a smoke break, flat out leaving, or just stepping outside to think—the piles of slush and the mysterious stains of unknown origins have you covered.
Today, it seems that Liselle has chosen the first option. A cigarette rests between her index and middle finger, small bits of smoke rising from the end of it like tiny spirits, ascending to the skies above. Although Rose has never believed in the afterlife, she finds it amusing to think about cigarette smoke having some form of heaven.
“Rose.” Liselle speaks her name like it’s an order—which Rose is used to receiving from her—rather than a question. The head nurse is a very professional woman, after all.
“Head nurse,” she stammers, immediately embarrassed. Her usual calm demeanor flies out of the window every time she’s around her superior. If that’s because of her gargantuan crush on the older woman, she’ll never tell.
The white furred woman chuckles. “Just Liselle is fine.”
Rose nods vigorously, and regrets it not a moment after. Christ, she really gets her head in a whirl. Around anyone else, Rose would be as cool as a block of ice. But with Liselle it’s a different story.
Speaking of blocks of ice, Rose certainly feels like one right now. She shivers when a particularly strong gust of wind blows cold air through her scrubs and across her pink fur. Oh, how she longs for her steaming hot coffee, sitting on the table inside, waiting for her return. Although, knowing Victor, they’ve probably stolen it by now.
“I’m surprised to see you out here.” Liselle takes a generous drag of her cigarette, blowing the smoke away from Rose. She’s silently thankful for that. “With this weather and all.”
Rose bites her lip, rendered nearly speechless from Liselle’s words alone. She has to know. It’d be an inane concept for her to be completely clueless to the younger woman's feelings by now.
But Liselle simply smiles at her, softly. The kind of smile that doesn’t mean anything. One with no strings attached, no ulterior motive. Still, it makes Rose’s heart pound all the same. She wonders if her coffee has cooled off by now. Will it be too cold by the time she gets inside, or will it be the perfect temperature, so that it warms her up without burning the roof of her mouth?
“You smoke?” Rose is snapped out of her daydreams of caffeine by the husky voice of the woman beside her. Just as she is about to turn her offer down, she reconsiders; if she rejected the cigarette, would Liselle think she’s immature? Would she think of her as too innocent a person, too naive, and she’d lose her chance, even if it’s slim?
Hesitantly, she confirms this query of Liselle’s, and the cigarette is passed her way. It’s been burned down to the middle already, but Rose supposes that makes no difference.
Taking a chaste, experimental draw, Rose feels the warm smoke fill her lungs, the unfamiliar sensation itching at her throat. In hopes of preserving what little dignity she has left, she holds a cough in, exhaling the way she's seen people do in movies.
Only after she’s inhaled and exhaled the smoke does Rose remember how utterly terrible smoking is for you. Unable to keep up the charade any longer, the nurse turns away and hacks up a storm, face burning in abashment.
Liselle laughs, but not at her. Through her mortification, Rose can tell the head nurse is only amused by the younger woman's actions. “I had a feeling you didn’t smoke,” she says, “you don’t look like someone who does.”
Rose’s embarrassment dies down just a little, handing back the scorned tobacco product to its owner. Liselle has turned her attention away from her, much to Rose’s dismay and gratitude, and is now looking up into the sky.
There’s not much to see, considering they live in a major city. Light pollution has hidden away the stars, and left only a faint outline of the moon. A charcoal ceiling provides a stark contrast to the ashen fur on the woman beside her, her pelt the color of the moon. The darker spots that are splattered across her pelt form strange constellations—craters the size of her palms line her face like stains, and Rose has to hold herself back from resting a hand on the gray circle that taunts her from her jawline.
Liselle makes a comment on wishing the sky was clearer, but Rose isn’t paying attention. She doesn’t bother gazing up at the sky and thinking up a mundane response.
No, the only thing that catches her eye is the moonlight woman standing right next to her.
Speaking of the woman to her right, Rose nearly fails to notice Liselle staring at her with an odd smile. It’s not like her smile from before—this time there’s a lingering feeling underneath it that Rose is all too familiar with. She looks away hurriedly, a redness on her face brought about not only from the cold.
Just as Liselle opens her mouth to speak, an orange hand pushes open the exit door. Out pops the antlered head of Dr. Harlow, evidently under some degree of stress, as his eyes glisten with an urgency saved only for emergencies like—
Oh, great.
“I need you both inside,” Dr. Harlow explains, “there’s been a huge anomaly attack, and—”
“Yeah, we got it.” Liselle flicks the ash off the end of her cigarette, dropping it and distinguishing it by grinding under her heel.
“I’ll throw in a bonus,” Dr. Harlow ushers with appreciative eyes. As quickly as he appeared, he’s gone, leaving Rose and Liselle to pull themselves together in about half of a minute before they need to go and deal with more patients and anomalies than they can count.
The head nurse holds the door open for Rose, the younger woman glancing up at her with a newfound sense of longing, far more intense than what she had felt before.
She knows that it’s wrong, to fall for her superior. But the caring, albeit deadpan woman has captured her heart in a way that no one else has ever been able to.
As soon as they enter the building, they are met with chaos beyond what they were prepared for; patients screaming, orders being shouted across hallways—Rose even catches a glimpse of a certain secret agent swiping an anomaly into a sideroom. She barely hears the firing of a gun moments later.
Liselle sends her off to treat patients in less critical conditions, while she joins a few other doctors in surgery. However, Rose finds it increasingly difficult to focus on her patients.
If Liselle weren’t looking at her so fervently just minutes earlier, maybe Rose could pay closer attention to her patients. Maybe she wouldn’t be lost in her own head, replaying their conversation in her mind again, and again, and again.
Her reflection meets her as she slides the glass panel of a medicine cabinet shut. Victor is right, she does look like shit. She clutches the bottle of maple syrup in her hand tighter for no specific reason at all.
And when it’s all over, and she finally, finally, gets to clock out for the night, she’s stopped—by Liselle, of course. If it were anybody else, Rose would have shot them a dirty look and continued on her not-so-merry way. But Liselle is different.
For starters, she’s her superior. Walking away from a conversation with her would only land her in hot water she does not want to be in. She also doesn’t want to walk away from her. Rose would be happy to spend eternity conversing with Liselle if it meant she’d be closer to her.
Liselle doesn’t say anything, just slides her a cigarette with a playful smile on her face.
Rose is confused, obviously; why would Liselle give her another cigarette when she had seen, firsthand, how horrible she had handled her first?
But as Liselle slinks away, she takes a closer look. A phone number, neatly written in black ink, makes her heart genuinely skip a beat. Momentarily, she is glad Victor left as soon as their shift ended, for they would tease her relentlessly over this.
Naturally, Rose already has Liselle’s phone number. The major difference is that she has the contact for her work phone. This, evidently, is Liselle’s own personal number; something she has only fantasized about obtaining.
Sneakily, Rose palms it, slipping it into the pocket of her coat. The first thing she’ll do after getting home, she decides, is call her. Well, the second thing. Her main priority is washing off whatever substances rubbed off on her, anomaly wise or just from an ordinary patient.
The entire trip home, Rose is ecstatic, and she doesn’t even remember the coffee she had abandoned in favor of talking to Liselle until after she has laid her head down on her pillow, more than ready to sleep for the next seven business days. Oh, well. You win some, you lose some.