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.”
AAAAAND I'VE FINALLY FINISH IT !
Here's the official cover, made by myself (of course^^) of my fiction Fairy Tail & The Paragande Kingdom !
I've spend soooo much time to make it, I hope you'll like it too !
More art about the Paragande Kingdom Fiction (on DevianArt) :
Paragande Kingdom - Art
To know more about Alex & Pog (on DevianArt) :
Paragande Kingdom - Characters Refs
To read the story (on DevianArt) :
Fairy Tail & The Paragande Kingdom - Chapters
To read the story in French (more chapters are published !) :
Fairy Tail et le Royaume de Paragande on Wattpad
To follow me on DeviantArt :
NellaesArts - Deviantart
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All the poses references (which are sketched as you see, but not traced) of the humans come from theposearchives ! They do such amazing stocks !
Sooo, from left to right :
Natsu : Male Dermon Attacking Standing Pose
Lucy : Female Looking out into the Distance Pose 2
Happy : Several google images, from eyes to hand drawing
Gray : Male Low Angle Angry Standing Pose
Alex : Male and Female low angle reaching out pose
Pog : Gray Fox from Wikipedia Commons
Erza : Female Perched Battle Pose
Wendy : Female Sneaking up the stairs pose
Carla : Several google images, from eyes to hand drawing
Software : Paint Tool SAI
Tool : Huion Pen Monitor Kamvas GT-191
(c) NellaesArts - All rights reserved
All the Fairy Tail characters & the Fairy Tail Universe belongs to their creator, Hiro Mashima
