Prompts: “We’ll make it alright to come undone.” Touch | Flashbacks | Scalding
Words: 400
Tag List: (message me to be added or removed) @fourwingedsnake @pigeonwhumps @mr-orion @scaewolf
@the-ellia-west @melpomenelamusa
CW: headache, captured, abrasions, hallucination
<- previous | next ->
----------
I didn't remember falling asleep, but when I woke up, my headache had dulled to a tolerable level, and my mouth was dry as sand, but I could think clearly. How long I had been asleep, I had no clue, but I expected my captor to show up soon enough. He would need to see me fed at some point, after all.
But in the meantime, I could think. And I could plan.
My captor couldn't afford to kill me. He had taken me prisoner, rather than kill me like he did Phin. He had initially tried to take both of us prisoner, until Phin made that too difficult and he decided to make him an example instead.
So whatever he planned to do to me, it would not result in my death. Not directly, anyway.
He wanted something from us.
The Pendant, he had taken. I would need that if I were to truly escape him. I could leave this castle, vanish into the wilderness. The chances of him finding me were slim at best. But with the Pendant, I could leave the planet altogether, go where he cannot hope to follow.
I slowly sit up and stretch, the muscles of neck and back aching from the hard ground. Red welts on my arms marked where my captor's men had touched me.
The Pendant must be what he wants. If he knows of the Shrouds existence, then he knows that hundreds of worlds exist beyond his own. Worlds with technology and magic far beyond his imagination. What he hopes to do should he unlock the use of the Pendant, I cannot say.
But I certainly will not be helping him find out.
Information is my only wealth, my only currency to bargain and barter with. Much of it is invaluable, irreplaceable. Not even the vast libraries in the Shroud subplanet contain the extent of the planetary information I have learned, and only partially because I haven't been updating the recordkeepers as often as I should be.
Phin's corpse stares at me from the other corner of the cell.
I draw my arms around myself, the welts stinging when I touch them, but I don't care. The cell is cold, and I can hear footsteps from far away.
featuring INSUPA’s slightly fucked up medical consent policies!
inspired by a wonderful conversation with @wounds-seen-and-unseen. Go check them out!
cw: angst, past medical neglect/abuse, brief depictions of injuries, emotional whump, internalized ableism
Joseph briskly walked through the halls of INSUPA, trying to suppress the panic slowly seeping into his veins.
He couldn’t find Alex.
The mission had gone pretty well, but he’d heard she’d taken a pretty nasty tumble. It’d seemed like she’d walked away just fine, but he was going to check in with her, just to be sure.
Well, he would if he could find her.
The moment they’d returned, she vanished into thin air. That wasn’t a good sign.
He’d started by poking around the medbay, then checked the apartment and the cantine. No luck. She wasn’t in the rec room or the training complex. He looked in the locker room. Her stuff was there, organized and folded perfectly like always, but still no sign of her. No one else on the team had seen her.
She was gone.
Finally, he resorted to roaming the halls, checking every storage closet and odd side room. His hand absentmindedly tapped a rhythm on his leg while he circled the complex looking for her. The beige hallways faded together as he kept walking, veering down corridors he didn’t even know existed and taking stairways that were all but abandoned.
Where had she gone?
Eventually, he found himself back in the training wing. It was the medical side, and it was all but abandoned at the late hour. The lights were off in the instruction hall, the empty eyes of manikins staring back at him in the darkness, but there was a faint glow coming from one of the simulation rooms.
He continued down the hallway, heading towards the source of the light.
Sure enough, Alex was in there, sitting up on an exam table, tending to her leg. It was a pretty nasty wound. Abrasions covered most of her left thigh and calf, occasionally overlapped by several long slices.
She jumped back when she saw him, dropping the tweezers onto the padded surface. “Joseph…”
Even from the doorway, he could see that her hands were shaky. She looked absolutely drained, eyes red and bloodshot, breaths too fast.
“Alex,” he said, voice soft. How long had she been doing this?
She made a noise one could only describe as a whimper. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s alright.” He didn’t step further into the room.
There was a long, painful silence. Alex seemed to be frozen in fear, staring at him in shock. “Please…please don’t touch me,” she suddenly blurted out, inching away.
“Okay, I won’t.” He watched as her eyes ickered around the room. “I won’t.”
Another awkward moment of stillness passed between them.
“Can I look?” he asked. “I’m not going to touch, but there are some hard to see spots.”
Alex did a double take, but her voice didn’t show surprise. “Yeah, of course.”
Her eyes tracked him warily as he moved towards her. “Just lookin’,” he said, tucking his hands behind his back.
The flesh was torn and marred, small bits of gravel embedded inside. There was some pretty substantial bruising, too. The outside portion of her hip was bright red, leaning towards a dark purple. Nasty bit of road rash, that was for sure.
Honestly, the part that worried him the most were the scars. There were many different shapes and textures, all over her leg. Some were thick and keloid like, others thin and faded, but they all told a story.
Alex tilted her head.
“I know it’s bad.” She chewed on her lip.
“It’s just some road rash, you’ll be aight, yeah?” When she’d transferred, he’d taken a look at her medical file, same as for all of Turquoise Team. It’d been worryingly sparse, and half of the damn thing had been redacted, but from what he’d gathered, she’d walked around worse.
Much worse.
“No, it’s not that. I’m not…” She gripped the edge of the table. Her breathing quickened.
“You’re okay, Alex. Can you try to breathe with me?”
There was a beat of quiet, and then she inhaled slowly.
“Good, good.” He nodded. “Again. In and out.”
“Sorry,” she mumbled, blinking the tears out of her eyes.
“It’s all a lot, it's okay.” Unthinkingly, he reached for her shoulder.
The moment his hand made contact, she jerked back, grabbing his arm and twisting it away. Her grip was so tight it was bruising.
“Sorry, sorry, that’s on me.” How could he have forgotten?
Alex stared at him, eyebrows furrowing. There was a beat of silence.
“Why aren’t you mad at me!” Tears started owing down her face. “I lied to you. I hurt you. I’m a liability and you know it. You should hate me. Drop the fucking act, man.”
Joseph stood frozen.
Her expression became absolutely horrified. “Oh my…I’m so sorry. Fuck.” She covered her mouth with her hand.
“It’s alright.” He stepped back, giving her some room to breathe. “I’m not mad. Really.”
“Why? I’m fucking…fucking…dysfunctional. I won’t even let my own team medic touch me.” She broke down sobbing.
“Alex, Alex, look at me.” Two tired, stressed, scared eyes fixed on him. “I’m not mad because I want to help you, yeah. Being mad isn’t how I do that.” She didn’t move, still shaking. “It’s fine if you don’t want that. I’ll always ask and you can always say no.”
“I know that isn’t true.” Her tone is angry but still wobbly. “I sat through the same damn law and ethics seminar you did. You have to treat me and I have to let you.”
“If it’s an emergency. Which this is not.” He paused, giving himself a moment to collect his thoughts. “I said I wanted to help you, right? Forcing you to let me touch you isn’t going to do that.”
Alex was quiet for a moment. “Oh…I’m sorry.”
“It’s alright.” He leaned back against the wall. Mentally, he cursed out whichever medic had treated her like this. At some point, he’d need to get a name, but that was a later problem.
“You…you can do it, if you want.” She gestured vaguely to her leg.
“Do you want me too?” He was worried that she was just trying to appease him.
Alex slouched down. “Yeah. I…I don’t even think I can reach the lower half of it. And my hip doesn’t really like this set up.”
It didn’t look comfortable. “You want to keep going in here?”
“Ugh. Not really.” She stretched out a little. “It sucks, but moving might be harder.”
“Yeah.” He preemptively started to rub sanitizing gel on his hands.
“I’m nearly done with my thigh.” Her breathing had slowed back down, though her hands were still a little shaky as she picked the tweezers back up. “Could you do my calf?” She used her elbow to gesture to the open bag behind her.
“Of course.” He reached over, grabbing what he’d need before grabbing a pair of gloves off the wall.
She looked up at him, face heavy with exhaustion. “Thanks.”
Warning: blood and abrasion versus laceration visuals.
And Lichtenberg figures (the fic doesn't actually have these in it—I just happened to come across this for reference for other semi-related imagery. If anything, it'd be magical currents, not electrical ones. So, not to worry! No one gets electrocuted in bathwater!):
What does your life taste like? Reclaiming a #sensation, it's my latest #bodypainting with the lead singer of #Abrasions, Jay Ericson. https://www.instagram.com/p/BwQ2sFpnsCk/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1q1a575b8gek2
no matter which side you chose: you lose #abrasivemusik #lacerations #industrialmusic #postpunk #noisemusic #albumartwork #goth #queer #gay #pathsoflifestudios #album #abrasions #chess #darkwave #music #stalemate
@tha_microphone_fiend mixin' up the medicine. This is a wintergreen and comfrey salve, another house specialty of the first aid tent. It is made by cooking comfrey leaves in oil, then removing them and adding beeswax and oil of wintergreen. I have used this remedy on so many pains and bruises and breaks and wounds, in so many climes and countries and continents and civil conflicts and clinical scenarios, over the course of my career, that it's like an old comrade. . . . #herbalmedicine #medicinemaking #bruises #abrasions #woundcare
