Writer's note: Lea and Leah are from my original work, and there may be some unfamiliar terms; "Andynes" are people with bird wings, and "Amphibious" people are blue-skinned, fish-like humanoids. Thanks for reading! :)
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Lea knocked back his fifth glass of water. It didn't help his headache; he'd need to drink a lot more for that. Lea's chair was next to the backroom sink so that he could pour himself as much as he needed. Some of his jaw-length white hair had come out of his ponytail and stuck straight out from his head, and his white-feathered wings were stretched out against the floor behind him, resting directly in front of the backroom refrigerator.
Lea had wet himself out in the main room of the infirmary about half an hour before, and had changed into a dry pair of blue plaid drawstring pants that came up well past his ankles on his tall frame. On top he wore a knitted cardigan, modified for andynes' wings with an open back and a strap across the top that buttoned at the shoulder to form a sort of over-wing collar. It was roughly the same color as vomit, but it was cozy and kept out the slight late-night chill.
Lea's new friend entered the back room from the main room of the infirmary, carrying a mop and a bucket. She was a small, lean amphibious woman who appeared to be in her mid to late twenties with teal blue skin, and her dark green waist-length hair was tied up into a messy twist at the top of her head. Her strange inverted pink eyes settled on Lea as she approached the sink. All Lea knew about her was that she was the doctor in charge of the infirmary he was currently in, and that she knew his name somehow.
"How's your head feeling, Lea?" asked the amphibious woman. She dumped the mop water down the other side of the sink, and the drain on Lea's side gurgled. Lea decided to wait a bit to refill his glass.
"A little better," said Lea, shading his eyes. He was still sensitive to the lights in the back room, but the water had noticeably cleared his head. "I'm really sorry about this."
The amphibious woman rinsed out the mop bucket and put it away underneath the sink. "Don't be sorry. I'm glad you had the presence of mind to realize you'd had too much and came here for help."
"It's not that," said Lea. The woman walked toward the fridge in the corner of the back room, and Lea pulled up his wings so she could open it.
"Can you scoot forward a bit, actually?" asked the woman. "It's the cupboard I'm after."
Lea scooted his chair up and pulled his wings further forward, and the woman reached up into the cupboard. Lea couldn't help noticing that her nipples were still standing out underneath her long nightshirt, which she wore over a baggy pair of gray sweatpants.
"Thanks," said the amphibious woman. "Now, what were you saying?"
"I was looking for a pen and paper I think," Lea replied. He craned over his shoulder to watch the woman rummaging through the cupboard. She pulled out a small beaker and a packet of multicolored testing sticks. She also grabbed a small metallic ballpoint pen, which she handed to Lea. He set it on the counter next to his empty water glass.
"I think I have sticky notes here somewhere." The woman stepped back from the cupboard. "You can relax your wings now. Thanks. Now how badly do you need to pee?"
"What?" Lea looked up.
"I need you to pee in this thing next time you need to go," said the woman, handing him the beaker. "I need to measure how much of that drink is still in your system."
Lea didn't answer right away. His bladder was just over half full, but it wouldn't stay that way for long with all the water he was consuming. He turned the small beaker over in his hand.
"Where's your bathroom?"
"The closest one is outside the infirmary in the hallway. Just take a right and it'll be the fifth door on your right," said the woman, gesturing toward the doorway. "But if it's an emergency you can use the left side of the sink. There's a step stool next to the bookshelf if you want to use it for that, but you're so tall I'm not sure you'll need it." She indicated a small bookshelf in the corner. A metal fold-out stepping stool was kept against the wall next to it, with the words "RETURN TO L. MOSS" scrawled across the top bar in permanent ink.
Lea poured himself another glass of water on the right side of the sink. "You're L. Moss?" He asked the amphibious woman while she sat down at the backroom table, rummaging through the packet of sticks.
"Oh," said the woman, looking up from what she was doing. "I haven't introduced myself! I'm Leah Moss. I already told you that your sister's my patient, but I also function as the head nurse of this infirmary. I'm not surprised that she hasn't told you about me; andynes are weird about family connections."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Lea yawned.
"Not much, but she made it very clear that I should only contact her family if she's dying," said Leah. She picked a red stick out of the packet and stood up. "And she isn't my first andyne patient to do that."
Lea gulped down his sixth glass of water to give himself time to think before he said anything. "Does she tell you about Tawny?"
"Who's Tawny?"
Lea's stomach dropped. "You mean she doesn't talk to you about her...umm...her love life?"
"I wasn't aware that she was sexually active," said Leah. Lea's stomach dropped a second time, and it put an unpleasant amount of pressure on his bladder.
"Well, I don't know if she is," Lea blurted out. "They just peed out in the hall and they left, but Arin was dressed up and the human lady had a-..." Lea stopped, his entire face turning bright red.
"...Are you alright?" asked Leah after a short pause. She leaned over and touched the side of his face with a curious expression.
"I'm fine," gasped Lea, taken aback by Leah's strange gesture. "I'm just talking to a stranger about my sister's sex life like a nosy pervert."
Leah sighed. "I won't tell, don't worry." She watched Lea pour himself another glass of water and chug it. "How much have you had to drink, if you don't mind my asking?"
"Not a lot," said Lea. "I'm on my first bottle of Kannar."
Leah gave Lea a skeptical glare and placed her hand on Lea's face again.
"What are you doing that for?" asked Lea.
"I'm a physical empath," Leah explained. "It's one of the reasons your sister and her late husband hired me."
Lea turned even redder. His entire face felt hot. "So...you can read my mind?"
Leah snorted, "No, no. I can only feel echoes of what you're feeling physically. It's a very useful skill if you have uncommunicative patients - all I can really tell right now is that you're tired and horny, and you'll need to pee soon."
Lea reflexively adjusted the gross-colored cardigan around his middle while Leah placed the packet of testing sticks back in the cupboard.