Genesis

“I’m fine.” Josh figured it would be more considerate to not point out Evan’s obvious discomfort. Not while they were still working, anyway.

He stepped away to pull a bag of clear saline solution and all the accompanying pieces out of a cabinet. While Evan finished cleaning him, he hung the bag, started the IV, and stood there until he knew it was getting where it needed to go. Josh waved the friend over and pulled the curtain around the bed to give them some semblance of privacy.

“You don’t have to stay if this is too much,” he finally said to Evan. No one else had come through the door. A brief reprieve. He didn’t expect it to last too long.

“Okay, well good,” Evan nods watching as Josh just, straight up put an IV in the guy without blinking and then it was like it didn’t happen, sort of. Evan was sure that the guy had probably felt better but all things considered — it was a non-event.

It was not the first and likely not the last shooting victim he would ever see. Fortunately for him, Evan was wrong about the outcome. “You watch too many medical shows,” he said quietly, moving to the side of the bed. “Hold the pressure like you’re doing. Taking out the bullet is pretty much never what you want to do.”

The friend was hovering too close. Josh had a lot of patience, but not so much anymore when people got in the way. “Go sit down.” Once he actually had the room he needed, he laid his hands on either side of the cloth Evan was using to show the blood flow. Though it was soaked through with red and it was impossible to tell by looking, the actual bleeding beneath it slowed to a stop.

Josh pulled the cloth away. “Get something to clean him up and a pair of the scrubs out of that cabinet,” he told Evan, tossing the ruined cloth into a bright red bin nearby. Nobody wanted to sit around in their own bloody clothes. Once Evan had gone, Josh sat on the edge of the bed and put his hands as they were. After a few seconds, the man’s body started to expel the bullet and knit itself back together behind it. By the time Evan returned there wasn’t so much as a scratch left on him. He was still unconscious, he definitely needed fluids and a lot of rest, but he would be fine.

“I mean I’ve only seen a few but it all seems to have the same theme of — get the foreign object out of the body,” Evan nods doing just as Josh had said and held his hands down on the wound. He was warm and wet and Evan felt bad for thinking that it was unpleasant, but it was.

Evan blinked dumbly at the spot where there had been a hole and now there wasn’t. But he nodded and did as he was told, again, and went to get clean clothes and came back with a few moist cloths, helping to clean the area around his non-wound where the blood had gotten. He tossed the rags aside like Josh had.

“That was, holy crap.” He shakes his head. “You saved his life like — he would have died if not for you.” Evan says exhaling a slow shaky exhale. “Are you alright?”

They weren’t able to sit there quietly for long. Enough time bad passed for the first wave of people evacuating to come near the clinic, and that inevitable meant some of them would be coming in. The first few of people through the door were just minor things - a nasty scrape from uneven sidewalk, a not too serious burn from one of the fires, so on. Josh took a couple of them and gave Evan instructions for the others.

He wasn’t sure how much time had passed before they saw someone with a bullet wound. A man, probably not too much older than Josh had Evan, got pulled inside by one of his friends. Josh had seen both of them before. They had come through the shelter, stayed a couple of nights, and moved on. He helped get him from the door to one of the beds. The white linens very quickly turned red, and the guy’s face was the sickly gray color of someone on the verge of falling unconscious.

Evan wasn’t too concerned when people came in with bumps and bruises, little scrapes he could help clean with peroxide and patch up with a smile. If this was the worst of it, then Evan would be glad. No one was seriously injured and most people were just sort of lowly murmuring, glad to be away from the chaos and around other people who could understand what they had seen.

They weren’t horribly close to the prison or asylum but they were near enough for Josh to see the lights from police cars flashing between buildings and hear the faint mumur of someone on a loudspeaker in the not-so-distant streets. “It’s fine. There’s nothing.” he told Evan when he felt him coming closer.

He closed the door and went to sit down at the table not too far from it. Nothing had even happened yet and he felt drained - not physically, but mentally he was fucking tired already. He leaned forward so that his elbows rested on the table and covered his face with his hands. Counting the seconds in his head, he let out a long breath. One. Two. Three. Four. Five.

MJ: i’m ok!!!!

MJ: i was closer to quentin’s when the shit hit the fan so i went there

MJ: stay in the apt it’s fucking crazy

ES: okay okay good. I’m glad you’re with him you’ll be safe.

ES: Hi, I hope you're okay. You weren't in the apartment when I left but things are getting really bad in town and I want to make sure you're okay

He paused what he was doing and pressed his hands flat against one of the bedside trays, leaning his weight onto it. “What happened at the school was the least of it.” He didn’t elaborate. The only person he’d told the whole thing to, start to finish, was Julian. Someone else could have pieced it together if they cared to but who would? Either way, the school had just been the beginning of the long string of death and assorted shit that made up his life before Star City. “But what else am I going to do?” He couldn’t walk away from it, couldn’t seemlessly blend into society at large. He was tagged as a mutant with one single glance and there was no running from it. “The only thing it says about me is that I don’t have anything else.” That was the complete truth. He had his powers and if he could find no purpose or worth in those then…what? What else was there?

Josh realized that he was being overly serious when he had tried to tell himself to stop, but given the circumstances it took too much effort to put on a happy face and go about his business. He walked away from Evan and checked the door, opening it long enough to see if there was anyone on the street.

Evan regretted immediately bringing it up when he watched tension seize up in Josh’s body. He could see it from where he was sitting and it made a pit form in the bottom of his stomach. “Nothing, I guess. It’s the only thing we know,” Not entirely for Evan, he had a whole life before he knew who he was, or what he was, before he went to the school. It had all been a big fat lie with a lie cherry on top but it had felt real — the memories still felt real to him. They brought him comfort when he felt alone or scared. “Yeah, well, you’re not alone in that,” Evan shrugged. What else did he have? Beauty school? Going back into EVA? If he didn’t do this, if he didn’t help, if he wasn’t situated well on the side of the good guy, he was no better than the pieces of Apocalypse that he was made of. He could not sit idle while bad things happened, it was just as bad as doing the bad things — at least to Evan.

“I don’t think scared is the right word.” Or maybe it was. Josh had managed to avoid all the fighting in Star City. It had never reached the clinic, but he tried to prepare like it might. It had been a long time since he’d been faced with actual violence. Time did not erase any of it, though. The only thing that kept him from freezing when things started happening was focusing utterly and entirely on what he was doing.

Evan keep talking since that was easier than doing it. “It’s not childish,” he eventually said. Josh pushed his hair back out of his face and finished putting the kit together by the last bed.

He didn’t say anything, not in the frame of mind to argue philosophy or superstition. The point was that things usually went poorly when he was involved. He expected it, but it seemed fair to warn all other parties that it would probably happen.

His expression remained grim as he stood there looking at the TV for a few more seconds. When the focus switched to looters, who were never far behind when chaos broke out, he turned and started pulling things out of one of the cabinets. He could guess what they’d need on hand for the injuries he couldn’t heal himself. “It’ll be easier if we set up kits beside the beds before we need them if you want to help.”

Evan got up at Josh’s suggestion and nodded, “Sure, makes sense,” he spent a moment just watching Josh to see what he was doing so he wouldn’t have to ask so many questions before he reached for the same supplies and copied him. He’s quiet for a while as he makes up little packs, moving on to ones that could be used for burns, reading the back of the salve packets to make sure it was the right thing. “Do you get scared during stuff like this? You know? Some people say they get numb or the adrenaline makes them not… get scared, I guess.”

“You went to a mutant school, so you probably got used to random attacks the same way I did.” He didn’t know the ins and outs of everything that had happened at the Jean Grey School when Evan was there, as he’d never attended himself, but nobody got off easy. He didn’t think Evan had watched half his classmates die, though. Good for him. 

He paced toward the door and back again. “I work with a team that’s out there. They’ll need me eventually, and I need someone to stay here. In the mean time…we’ll just have to play it by ear. Maybe we’ll get lucky and it won’t be anything but people with some scrapes and bruises.” Josh paused for a second, crossing his arms. “But I’ll go ahead and tell you that I’m never lucky.” The last time something like this had happened, he’d worn himself down so far Julian had practically had to carry him home. It wasn’t a comforting memory. 

“Yeah, guess It’s the weird thread that bonds all us weird mutant school kids,” he shrugs. There was also the fact that he was Kid Apocalypse, a name he had always resented, but was literally was as the name suggested. Now did not seem the time to bring up his low-key identity crisis, though. “I just mean you don’t need to worry. I can stop tripping over myself long enough if It’s for someone else’s sake. I seem to function in that way, thank god,” he half-jokes.

“The people who were staying here are downstairs. I gave them the choice to stay or go.” Some had stayed, a few left. There weren’t many either way. The second entrance was locked and blocked off, they had blacked out all the windows. Josh was keenly aware of the things that needed to be done to secure a building. He didn’t need Laura for that.

The clinic portion was empty save for the two of them. “Nothing yet. Soon, probably.” Josh walked over and turned on the clinic’s lone television set but kept the volume low - just enough to hear the updates as they came across. The prisoners had guns, it said. “I doubt it’ll be this quiet for long.” 

“I knew this city was,” Evan trailed off as he grabbed a chair, straddling it to look at the t.v. “But I didn’t think it was like this,” he sighed. “I can stay at this door if you want to go downstairs, or to another door. I know I’m like,” He looks over at Josh and shrugs. “I come off like an awkward idiot, but I can make sure — I wouldn’t let anything happen,” He said seriously, looking over at Josh. It was one thing to be an awkward doofus, but this was serious. This wasn’t second guessing if he had said the right thing or if his hair looked alright. This was serious, this was dealing with the lives of people like him — there was no room to be self-conscious here.

Josh had already started to lock the place down, securing all the entrances except the one he planned on being at. He couldn’t watch the whole building and just had to hope nobody who actually needed in would end up at the wrong door. Evan bursting in did no favors for the anxiety he already had building up. 

“I’m not evacuating. I’ll be here until I need to be somewhere else.” He knew that would happen - Tim’s team was going to be involved, and the likelihood that they’d all walk away totally unscathed was basically nonexistent. “Laura is…being more proactive.” 

He skidded to a stop when he found Josh. He had been looking for him or Laura. “You’re okay,” He said with a nod. “That’s dumb, you know that. Are you evacuating? How can I help?” He all came out in a rush, but it was as well intended as ever. “Where’s Laura?” He had no doubt Laura could care for herself, but he was surprised she wasn’t here. 

The vet clinic always accepted donations. They had so many animals come in and out, some of them malnourished and put on particular diets, but the supplies were also given to the community if they were needed. “No, this is wonderful!” Luna said with a smile, assisting Evan with the bags and dog food. “Here, come back with me.” The mention of her mom took her by surprise and she looked over her shoulder. “You did? Really? How?” 

“I literally came across her on the street. I had all these leftover signs from the protest and I was talking about how I felt bad tossing them out. She took pity on me and took one, said her daughter might like it,” He grins and shrugs, “So I asked her and she said it was you! She was really nice,” He says as he follows her back, stopping to pet a few of the dogs and cats through the bars of their cages. “She didn’t say anything embarrassing about you which is how you know you have a good mom. You look a lot like her!”