Alexander Seidelmann (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
bilocate) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
nexus_crossings2018-12-07 01:54 am
bilocate) wrote in nexus_crossings2018-12-07 01:54 am
+1 small, superpowered boy
Today is a day Alex is especially glad he brought his pocket notebook with him, as it means he can take notes on the weird PSA. He doesn't seem scared, or even particularly surprised, as he jots down some quick things to remember to ask his dad about later - interdimensional stuff sounds like something out of his dad's sci-fi movie collection - and makes a note to himself to look for the door home after no more than an hour. That's probably enough time to look around around without also being so long his parents will notice and get worried.
Once he's got his notebook stashed away again, he starts off towards the direction he's fairly sure he came from, just to make sure the door is there. After a few moments, he winces and clutches his head. Apparently, headaches could travel across dimensions, too. Biting his lip, he carefully looks around, trying to gauge which adult looks the least likely to be annoyed by a kid. Eventually, when the headache throbs especially badly, he gives up that endeavor to approach the nearest person who doesn't look clueless and asks, as politely as he can manage, "Do you know where I can get some aspirin? My head is killing me and it's been long enough since I took some I can have some more. I think."
If time worked the same across dimensions it would have been easier to tell, but alas.
Once he's got his notebook stashed away again, he starts off towards the direction he's fairly sure he came from, just to make sure the door is there. After a few moments, he winces and clutches his head. Apparently, headaches could travel across dimensions, too. Biting his lip, he carefully looks around, trying to gauge which adult looks the least likely to be annoyed by a kid. Eventually, when the headache throbs especially badly, he gives up that endeavor to approach the nearest person who doesn't look clueless and asks, as politely as he can manage, "Do you know where I can get some aspirin? My head is killing me and it's been long enough since I took some I can have some more. I think."
If time worked the same across dimensions it would have been easier to tell, but alas.
no subject
He smiles at Alex, and he can't promise anything about height, especially since he had some help from Science, but he'll go into that later. "Just Steve is okay. Or Cap."
He doesn't plan on going by 'Mr. Rogers' anytime soon, either.
"Well, I didn't know if you get hypoglycemic or anything," he says with a shrug, handing over the water. "It's the extra strength aspirin, so it's 500 mg per pill," he says. "The bottle says one or two every four to six hours, but I don't know if you have a different dose you're used to."
He's still a little wary about giving aspirin to a kid, but he opens the bottle for him without protest. "After you feel a little better, I wanna know how you got yourself here, by the way. I can help you get home if you need the assist."
no subject
"Captain Steve has both in it." Therefore, it is the best name. And he's going to take that silence regarding his height and interpret it as 'it could totally happen', because he's young enough to still be optimistic.
He blinks; he hadn't considered that. "Oh, um, no, I'm not. But thanks for thinking of that. You're really smart. My dad says 500 mg is okay, but only every eight hours or so. Otherwise if I'm still hurting he'll let me have a baby aspirin, but that's it." The rules are clearly ingrained into him at this point. Alex doesn't even blink as he recites the limits from memory. "Even if I can't get out of bed, I can never, ever have more than 1200 mg in a day. At that point all he can do is turn the lights off and make sure the house is quiet."
Water in one hand, he holds out his other for a single pill. It's alright if this is all Steve feels alright giving him. He's not in a lot of pain, relatively speaking, now. He has been, in the past, often to the point his mother has debated with his father about the merits of homeschool. Right now, though, he's only in mild pain, plus, he's talking to a superhero, and that takes the edge off of it.
"That'd be cool. I kind of lose my sense of direction when my head hurts super bad."
no subject
His smile widens a little at the compliment. He doesn't really need to have his ego fed, but it's nice to have his efforts acknowledged now and then. He just wants to be kind.
Attentive, he nods at the explanation and dumps one of the pills into his palm before handing it over to the kid. "Too much of any drug can damage your body. It's awful that you have times you're still in that much pain. I know in my world there's not a lot of leeway between over the counter stuff and opioids, for pain control. But this is a place where a lot of worlds meet. I could ask around and see if anyone has anything better for it."
Obviously, you don't want to get a child hooked on addictive painkillers, but looking into alternatives won't hurt either of them. "I metabolize medicines so quickly that if I'm in serious pain straight morphine is about the only thing they can do for me," he comments. "I heal so quickly it doesn't usually matter, but..." Shrug. "A little research wouldn't kill me."
Very gently, he puts his hand on the kid's shoulder. "Photosensitive? Here, you can borrow these." He has a pair of sunglasses, which he pulls out of a pocket and offers over. They're a little ridiculous, tactical-grade eyewear, and probably too big for Alex, but they'll for sure keep the glare down.
"Take a few minutes to recover, and then we'll see what we can do. I guess you don't have to leave right away if you want to explore, either, but someone ought to keep an eye on you. This place is usually safe, but when trouble shows up, it's always spectacularly bad."
no subject
He takes the pill and washes it down with well practiced motions, nodding solemnly. "That's how my dad explained it, too. He's found a drug that can work for me when I'm older, but when a body is small, even the small dosages are too big. I'll have to wait until I'm a grown up instead." Alex had an unfortunately high level of knowledge regarding medicine from an early age. "I don't know if other painkillers would work. In my world there's a lot of people who are really addicted to those kinds of medicines. My parents are afraid to try them with me."
They have good reasons to be concerned. Children are much less able to see patterns of addiction in themselves, and Alex is friends with a number of his father's coworkers. If he asks them, they already give him aspirin basically on command. It wouldn't be impossible for him to slip into abusing other medicine and use them as a source. He's listened in on his parents talking enough to know the details of their concerns. It's scary, thinking he could end up like the addicts on TV. Certainly, it's enough to keep him from asking his dad for more medicine.
"Morphine? Isn't that really strong stuff? How come the other stuff doesn't work on you?" Worse, what will they do if that doesn't work and Steve still needs something? Alex frowns, imagining it. There's not much he can think of that tops morphine. They would need a doctor like his dad here for a consultation, but there aren't any.
His momentary worry goes away when the sunglasses are offered. "Thanks, Captain Steve. You'd make a good dad." They're a bit big, but the thought is still nice, and they help regardless. Some of the tension eases out of him as he blinks rapidly as his eyes adjust. "I don't know if I want to explore or not. It's not going to be fun if my headache doesn't go away, and if it's not fun, then what's the point?" Infallible child logic.
no subject
That's not really his area of law enforcement, though.
"I guess it's a matter of striking a balance, if you have a condition that causes you pain on the regular." Steve has felt ambivalent about the changes in his body for a long time. Still does. He takes this moment to remember what it was like to be in constant pain, though, and to appreciate that at least that isn't one of his problems any longer.
The concern is touching, and Steve is about to explain when Alex drops the 'you'd make a good dad' bombshell. Ow, his heart! Don't do that, kid. Or do, actually. He looks confused for a moment, then breaks into a sunnier smile than he has as of yet. "No one's ever told me that one before," he admits. "Thanks, that's a great compliment."
He nods at the kid's logic patiently. "Well, I'll sit with you until you make up your mind. There's no hurry."
"The...uh...the reason other drugs don't work on me is I was kind of a science experiment. It was during the second World War, and I was sort of a mess, physically, between the asthma and the back pain, and the ulcers. I wanted to help, though, so I volunteered and got into a program where scientists were developing a serum to enhance human abilities. Strength, stamina, general health and resilience. It worked pretty well."
"Trouble is, now my metabolism works at something like four times the rate of anyone else's, so I process drugs and poisons fast. Which means painkillers have to be very strong before they do me any good. But I also heal very quickly, so it's not as big a problem as it sounds." Yes it is. But he doesn't want to worry the kid, either.
no subject
"I guess. At least it's winter. It's always worse in summer; I get really exhausted just doing normal stuff when it's hot out, and all the hours of sunlight make the headaches worse. Winter's the best." Winter: the season of long nights, blissful cold, and all the fun a kid could have in the snow. Snowball fights, sledding, it's all near and dear to his heart, good family memories mixed in with lesser, livable amounts of pain.
He smiles and decides it's probably okay to give Steve a hug, if it's quick. A lot of people don't like to be touched, though, so he keeps it brief. Steve looks a lot better when he smiles and Alex wants to keep it that way. "Well, I mean it. You're very dad-ish."
Listening with remarkable seriousness for a child, he still winces at Steve's list of illnesses. Any one of those was bad. Altogether, it made for a really rough life. He couldn't imagine what all of that would feel like at once. He's glad Steve's alright now, but the mental image it paints is bleak. No wonder he was okay with something as scary as the idea of being experimented on.
Since his dad's a doctor, he knows a little bit about metabolism. "Wait, wouldn't you need lots of food if your metabolism is going that fast? Especially if you're also healing that fast? Should we be looking for food for you right now?" He'll help Steve look for a diner or something if he needs to.
no subject
He looks thoughtful at the talk of preferring winter. It was always the opposite for him. Thick summer air wasn't pleasant, but breathing icy air could shut down his airways at a moment's notice, and when your back is hinky to begin with, slippery walkways don't help. He'd offer sympathy, but the hug derails him, and he melts a little, visibly. He returns the hug very carefully, with all the wary gentleness of someone who knows his own strength, and gives Alex a careful stroke on the head, smoothing his hair.
"Don't worry, I ate all four sticks of fried butter this morning for breakfast," he jokes. "No, you're right, I do need to keep fueled pretty well, but I was also engineered for endurance. It's no good to have a soldier collapse in the field if he's not eating enough. Don't ask me how it works, but I'm all right on three or four meals a day, as long as they're big meals."
"What about you, though? Are you hungry? There are plenty of places around for food and snacks."