Thread: After Hours at the Nerd Lab [BH6: Captain & Blue]

Someone was calling her name. The voice broke through the panic but she didn't respond to it, didn't really connect it to the person she knew was there until suddenly Tadashi was there. Joy didn't dislike him - obviously, everyone adored the guy and he was incredibly friendly - but at the tail end of the relief of having someone there to help her and call an ambulance if things got bad so professor Callaghan didn't find her on the floor a few hours later dead or something came the stress of having someone there to see what was happening. Someone who could end up treating her like her family did. His presence was mostly a comfort though, especially once he was taking up most of her vision. She tried to say his name, her intention was to tell him that things were fine and he didn't need to worry, but she got out a weak -dashi... and that was about it. Almost certainly going to have the opposite effect of what she was going for. He said to take deep breaths and she responded with a short, sharp gasp. Not on purpose obviously, it was just a hard direction to follow right now. The fanning was useless, but she'd be able to appreciate the sentiment later when things weren't super crazy. Would have been helpful if the issue was just breathing air that wasn't contaminated, but right now it wouldn't have mattered if he'd put an industrial air conditioner in front her there'd still be about the same amount actually getting into her lungs. She reached up and grabbed his sleeve, fingers curling into the soft fabric to try and get him to stop, thought it wasn't exactly easy to communicate much of anything right now. It also pretty promptly became her using him as partial support, because it was hard to feel stable when she was coughing so hard she was shaking and mostly wanted to be doubled over. That wasn't a position that really helped that much, at least that she had ever been able to tell. She needed things to relax, and there was only one way to do that. She'd reached the point where this wasn't something that could be solved with the basics, it was going to be time to break out the emergency equipment. Her bag was on the other side of the long steel table she'd been working at, and when he said that he didn't know what to do Joy gestured in that direction. Backpack. Inhalers. Her voice was raspy, a far cry from her usual cheerful and gentle tone. There were two in there, entirely identical in size and color. To offset that issue they were numbered with '1' and '2' and frowny faces. The first had a simple one like might be drawn on the side of work that was done poorly by a teacher who wasn't encouraging, and the second had a much more concerned face with a deeper frown. For just in case of... something, Joy wasn't sure what. If she was in such a bad state that she couldn't comprehend numbers she would probably be in too bad a state to comprehend the drawings but it had felt like a good addition at the time. It had also been made four or five years ago, so she had that defense. Him getting her medicine required letting go, and that was hard. Her slender fingers fell to the table and she closed her eyes for a moment, focusing on her breathing. She was lightheaded, and the realization that losing consciousness was a possibility was something that made it harder, put her right back in that fight against a panic that was only being at all held back by the presence of Tadashi. If she passed out she'd have been mortified, which was basically enough to keep her hanging on. for reference I imagined Joy as about 5'6 but if you'd prefer taller or shorter I can adjust without issue