(no subject)

[27_53]

The front door opens and closes.

(Like it does quite often, here in the bar at the end of the universe.)

The man who walks in has been here before, but never in such a state as he is in now. It's obvious that he's injured (slow-motion steps; wavering balance; hunched shoulders) and it's also obvious that he's having a bit of trouble making it to the counter.

There are cuts on his face (superficial), leaves and twigs embedded in his long wool coat, and he's holding his right arm like he's not sure it's still even attached to his body.

(Thankfully, it is.)

He does not speak (outright, anyway) as he struggles towards the counter. All he wants is a beer and a place nearby to curl up in a ball. Everything hurts and everything is blurry and everything just wavers a bit around the edges.

(But it was worth it. The snake is dead.)

Comments

[notabricklayer.livejournal.com]

McCoy, in a rare occurrence, woke up to find himself the only conscious occupant of their little Victorian apartment. He has been thoroughly warned off from cooking, and he has no doubts that she will take measures if she catches him working. However, dinner time is coming, and after nearly a week, he feels she's earned a break.

So the good doctor is downstairs, at the bar, trying to decide what to order (Thai food is winning out as an option) when the door opens. It's habit that makes him look.

It's training (and, he would argue, basic humanity) that makes him dash across the barroom to the injured man, pausing just before touching, trying not to startle but already knowing this isn't good.

(His everloving kit is upstairs, damnit)

"Hey now, son, my name's McCoy, I'm a doctor. Looks like you got yourself busted up good and proper, hmm? Let's see if we can't get you back to rights. Can you sit down for me and tell me your name?" The drawl is thick and warm as Georgia sunshine, his hands ghosting just close enough to guide, but not enough to actually exert pressure (something's broken, with a posture like that something is broken).

[27_53]

Sitting is a difficult prospect for Skellig on the best of days, and this is certainly not one of his best. Climbing up onto a barstool is completely out of the question; sitting in a chair would be awkward in his current state.

So he does not sit.

But he does lean, with his left side against the bar (or McCoy, he can't tell what he's leaning on but it's solid and it's not moving like the rest of the bar is) and tries to focus.

His name?

This one cares. Not like the others. He's not like them.

Skellig can't nod, or shake his head (his back hurts too much and he thinks that might make it worse) but he can speak. His voice may not be the strongest and his tone seems a little...off. But at the very least, he can speak.

"Skellig. Name is Skellig."

[notabricklayer.livejournal.com]

It's a start - not much of one to be honest, but a start he can work with. He has a mental checklist he's already running down (conscious, responsive, maybe a little dull but can articulate full sentences, definitely high on the pain scale, hasn't seen a case of malnutrition like this for years) before he even fully lays a hand on his new patient.

"That's a fine name, Skellig. Don't worry, son, I'll just be checking you over for a second before we'll see if we can't find you somewhere comfortable while we get this all sorted out. What hurts in particular, Skellig? Can you tell me?" He's already found the abrasions over his face (minor, superficial, not a major concern), noted the warmth radiating off his skin (fever? Non-standard humanoid? Damn this place's utter lack of decent reference material), the dull glaze to his eyes (fever placed higher on the differential scale, intra or extra-cranial causes of decreased mentation), and managed to take in the state of his gums when Skellig answered (multiple nutritional deficiencies, pale mucous membranes, damn).

[27_53]

Skellig exhales what might be a laugh or a wince, and his mouth pulls into an involuntary smile.

"Back. And," he shifts his right arm a little bit, as much as he can manage. "Arm. Back is worse."

That's one way of putting it mildly. But there is another problem (several but his mind is focusing on them one at a time because it's all he can manage right now) that is going to have to be addressed before this gets too far.

(Can't bow, here. People will see.)

He shakes his head.

"Not here. Can't," he tips his head over his shoulder as best he can, indicating (at least trying to) his back is what he's talking about. "Take off coat. Not in here. Don't want to make them mad."

He doesn't trust his damaged wings not to leave a scattered mess of feathers and dirt on the floor. The waitrats would not like that, not at all.

There's also not enough room.

[notabricklayer.livejournal.com]

There's a flash of anger, not directed at his patient (let them be damned, triage is triage and niceties are for people who don't look like they've been dragged through hell backwards) but right now he isn't about to waste time arguing the matter.

"Alright, son, lean on me, let's get you into the infirmary. Anyone who wants to be mad there can come talk to me, and I'll shout them down for you." That, or he'll knock them down with a hypospray first. McCoy has nothing against winning that sort of argument in an underhanded way. It's a stupid argument to begin with.

[27_53]

This, he can do. (He has been through worse before, when nearly dead and curled up in a garage, eating beetles and mice to survive. But this hurts more than that did, even if McCoy is helping.)

Skellig manages to get one arm (his left, as his right is still cradled to his chest, fingers involuntarily curled into a tight fist) in a position that allows for the two men to trek their way into the infirmary without either falling over.

(He's breathing harder when he finally sits -- perches -- on a shorter stool. This is better.)

"The snake is dead," he adds, randomly. He seems slightly proud of the fact, but that pride is masked by the current pain radiating through every fiber of his body.

[notabricklayer.livejournal.com]

"Good, I've never been a fan." Of snakes, actually - reptiles being his least favorite of the animal kingdom (it's the scales. Brr). He eyes the slant of how the man's sitting (and boggles, a little, at the extrapolated malformation of spine and muscle underneath, this is going to be a lot of work), and how he's still cradling that arm protectively, and frowns.

"Skellig, I'll make you a deal. Let me cut that coat off without putting up a fuss, and I'll get you a new one just like it once we're done." This is never much of a problem on board ship - uniforms can be sliced to ribbons without so much as a by-your-leave, and no one cares, least of all the person under treatment. If he thought Skellig was about to crash on him, there would be no deal-making. But he can afford to go slower, just for a little while longer. At least, he certainly believes he can. He reserves the right to re-evaluate that notion at any time.

[27_53]

Skellig eyes the scissors, and then eyes McCoy.

He likes this coat. He and this coat have been through quite a bit together (as evidenced by the frayed edges at the cuffs and a healthy dose of spots and grime) over the last year.

He also knows McCoy will be careful. (He just does.)

"Think I have bigger problems than fashion right now."

It's a little wry, and also a silent go ahead.

"Slowly," he adds.

Because they do hurt.

[notabricklayer.livejournal.com]

One of the first things a new resident learns (right after learning which nurses to never ever annoy, right before how damnably hard it is to intubate someone with a smashed-in skull) is how to decently work a pair of sharp bandage scissors. McCoy has had a long time to learn the art of deconstructing clothing, and as both battle surgeon and emergency physician, it's almost second nature. So slow, in this case, means that there's time enough to observe the cuts rather than a quick flash of silver and the sharp rough sound of fabric parting.









McCoy re-evaluates. Furiously. And curses (in several languages) the lack of decent reference material (again) in his head.







He has no idea what the appropriate dose of sedative and analgesic might be. And if there's anything he really hates, it's guessing.

"Well."

No one warned him about wings.

[27_53]

Having the weight of the coat off of his back is a relief in itself; Skellig cautiously tries to flex one wing but it is absolutely not happening.

And he is not trying again, given the look that crosses his face.

(The ground is slowly becoming littered with feathers as broken and damaged quills are shifted and shook free.)

"Something like you. Something like a bird. Something like an angel. Something like a beast," he carefully forces out the words. He's trying to explain. "Not a freak."

A pause.

"Fell. Into tree. Fifteen flights. I hate stairs."

[notabricklayer.livejournal.com]

He gives himself a hard shake - now is not the time to be staring dumbly and wondering about comparative anatomy. He'll just have to learn as he goes. Considering who he has as a First Officer, this will hardly be a new experience.

"Hell, son, if anyone's a freak in this place it'd be me, just a boring old standard human." He drawls easily, diving back into the work of removing the remnants of that coat at something like his old speed. The master problem list he has in his head is growing (multiple fractures - how to re-set hollow bone? is it hollow? Damn but he needs his tricorder), multiple contusions, the hunch of his back speaks to something a bit more long-standing, and there is something damn wrong about that arm. He's gentle, painstakingly gentle as he eases the coat's arm off, his movements slow and steady. He keeps the grimace off his face, but only through professional habit. That's not a mechanical problem, that's a wiring problem of some sort.

"That shirt's going to have to go as well, son. Let's take a look at that arm first, hmm?" It's less of a question, really, than a warning - he crouches alongside his patient, gently pulling the wounded arm away from its carefully cradled position against Skellig's body.

[27_53]

It takes a moment or two of readjustment for Skellig to relax the muscles of his arm to allow it to actually move; with the stiffness of the joints, it's probably a miracle that it moves at all, though his fingers remain tightly curled into a fist.

(If he could uncurl his fingers, he would. He's trying to help.)

Low, and on the inside of his wrist, McCoy will be able to make out a set of fingerprint shaped marks -- bruised purple splotches, marred by puncture wounds where each nail had dug into his skin.

(Yet with the discoloration and the swelling, it's obvious that there is something wrong with that arm, and it's not just a break or a dislocated shoulder.)

"Snakes can't fly. Nasty bastards."

And they make such a delightful crunch when they land on the ground.

"I won't eat them. Not even if owls do. Nasty."

[notabricklayer.livejournal.com]

Alarm bells are being set off the longer he continues - this is not just damage from a fall (subcutaneous edema, pronounced ecchymoses, decided pain) and as gently as he can he checks pulses up the arm, followed by the juglar (weak, rapid, shit). It takes just a couple seconds to slice the shirt free, and he can see how far the edema has spread, as well as noting an awkward indentation where there's most likely a rib fracture, dropped to secondary importance at the moment.

"Skellig, can you tell me how many fingers I'm holding up?" He asks tersely, signaling to one of the more curious of the waitrats that they need to go get his medkit, and it needs to have been here yesterday. The rats that have started to gather near the door get the hint, and scatter.

Poor Olga. The apartment is about to be invaded.

[27_53]

The rats are nervous around Skellig, whenever he's in the bar. The ones clustering around the infirmary are no exception; when Bones orders them off to fetch the medkit, there are no hesitations on their parts.

It takes him a moment to focus -- to focus on anything, not just the raised hand in front of his face. He narrows his eyes slightly, murmuring under his breath one two three four as he has to count each digit off.

(He's not sure if he's right or if he's wrong; he's not sure why it matters.)

He shivers. It is cold in here.

(More feathers litter the floor.)

"Four?"

[notabricklayer.livejournal.com]

Blurred, possibly double vision. Infection shouldn't have set in this quickly, so toxin. He keeps talking about snakes - he doesn't see any bite wounds, but he wonders if maybe it wasn't a literal snake that slithers, but some other creature, akin to a snake like Skellig is to birds?

McCoy would love reference material just about now.

"That's fine, son." He says, not above lying blatantly to a patient. He doesn't need Skellig worrying.

Or shivering. The ambient temperature isn't cold (fever, expected at this point), so he snags a light blanket from one of the beds and carefully drapes it over his patient, cautious about jarring the damaged wing or arm. Seeing as his bag isn't back yet, he grabs one of the more antiquated pieces of medical flotsam, an old ophthalmascope someone had brought in once upon a time, and more closely examines Skellig's eyes, noting responses (slow, but present, thank whatever God is listening), looking for signs of hemorrhage or avulsion of the retina. There's so many problems, and he can almost hear the clock ticking away. If that bag doesn't get here soon, he's going to have to start scouting for some way to hook up fluids before he knocks the poor boy out - he might not know what the toxin is, but the axiom holds true - the solution to pollution is dilution, and that's something he can accomplish, if nothing else.

[27_53]

The blanket is much appreciated; once Bones stops examining his eyes, Skellig bows his head slightly.

"Thank you."

(Someone is actually helping him. McCoy is not pushing him away, or telling him to fuck off, or spitting at his feet in the sidewalk. Not a freak, not a monster. McCoy is helping him. It is...different.)

He is still shivering occasionally, but not as badly, now. And really could use some Chinese food, but he has a feeling that isn't going to happen until after this man is done putting the pieces back together.

He also still wants to curl up and sleep.

He doesn't move much. It hurts to shift on his 'perch' in an effort to get comfortable (not going to happen) so he chooses instead to sit still and listen to the doctor.

"Not many would help. Most think I'm crazy."

[notabricklayer.livejournal.com]

"Last time I checked, that wasn't a reason to not help. And so far as I know, you're not crazy by any definition I've heard of." McCoy replies, a touch distracted as he rifles through the infirmary's supplies looking for something he recognizes, antiquated or not. At this point, he'll use whatever comes to hand.

Though there is a second's pause to stare, horrified, at the tonometry scale. It's like the damned Inquisition in here.

[27_53]

"Doesn't matter to them. Not like them. Not right."

The way he says 'right', it's obvious that he does not feel he is wrong -- just that he dislikes being told that he is some sort of oddity. Even if it is true, it is not polite.

(Though he knows he cannot be too judgmental, because he has been impolite as well. But he is getting better.)

Skellig tilts his head, a curious expression on his features.

"What is that?"

[notabricklayer.livejournal.com]

"Ancient torture device." McCoy grumbles, deciding the best place to store that particular contraption is in the garbage bin. It crashes in with a jangle of abused metalwork, and he goes back to searching for important things - fluid bags, IV catheters, lines and pumps and all the various little pieces one needs to set up basic treatment. He'll replace the tonometry scale with a tonopen out of his own funds - there's no call to be using that thing.

And in a minute, he's going to go yell at the rats. He could have fetched that bag himself by now.

[olyabird.livejournal.com]

The air in the room grows thick, and out of the corner of his eye, Doctor McCoy can see a layer of shadow accrete on the surface of reality. In the span of a heartbeat, it's followed by another, and another, until it seems a hallway of realities forms, twists, fractures. A dark figure strides towards the gap. Olga, carrying his bag.

"Are you hurt?"

There's an edge of fear in her voice he's never heard before.

[notabricklayer.livejournal.com]

Later, he'll be properly sorry for scaring her, and will make it up to her. Somehow. Right now, his eyes light up when he sees that bag, and the reassuring smile he gives her is distracted.

(He's still going to yell at the rats.)

"I'm fine. Thank you." He grabs the bag, opening it and flattening it out on one of the unused beds in one often-practiced motion. Hypospray, dermal curette, bone setters thank the fluffy gods... he might actually have a fighting chance here.

"Do you know how to set up a fluid line?"

[27_53]

Skellig feels the air shift (and the shadows warp, and then there are voices) when she steps out of the Gloom.

He is not sure what McCoy is laying out on the bed. It does not matter.

"Fickle creatures," he comments idly, harking back to an earlier conversation. He tilts his head again, then the barest hint of a smile graces his features (amid the ever-present and ever-worsening pain).

"You have been eating," said like he knows she tends to forget. "Food helps. Especially twenty-seven and fifty-three."

He yawns.

Even that hurts.

[olyabird.livejournal.com]

Her gaze settles on the battered form of the man she knows as Skellig, and her eyes narrow. Her senses extend and she gasps, feeling not just the physical wounds, but the vicious red strands of the venom running through his system.

One hand lifts from her side, and sweeps across in front of her, as if she were throwing corn to a flock of birds. A cloak of the fractured air appears and settles over Skellig, and he winds to a standstill, a mechanical automaton who's spring has just come to a stop.

"Poison," she hisses to her lover. "Not anything I have seen before."

She advances on Skellig, her hands held up, fingers crooked and twitching as she drags them over the strands of his existence. Too much to try and understand. She can't keep him like this forever.

"Have you -- no, of course not." She whirls on the rats cowering in the door. "Bring me cobwebs. As much as you can find. Quickly."

[notabricklayer.livejournal.com]

He knows, he knows she is powerful, in ways he probably isn't even creative enough to imagine. This is not news to him.

When he looks up from adjusting the dose of the hypospray, his patient isn't moving.

That's more than enough to bring his heart to a crashing standstill.

"Damnitall!" He explodes, leaping in a way someone recovering from being three-quarters dead himself not too long ago shouldn't to get to his patient, the emergency countdown already set off in his head.

[olyabird.livejournal.com]

She stops him with a hand hard in his chest.

"If you touch him, the spell degrades, and he dies. His body can wait. This -- whatever it is -- it is in his," her face twists in a grimace of frustration as she tries to find the words. "It's in breath. His -- aura. The very essence of him is poisoned."

One of the rats is back already, carrying a green glass jar, labelled very carefully in a calligraphic script, COBWEBS. Thank heavens for Bar's stocks.

"Yes. Good. Open it, and set it there -- at his feet. Move."

The rat scampers to do as instructed.

"I am sorry, Lyonya." Her touch against his chest gentles. "I will explain later."

[notabricklayer.livejournal.com]

Skellig might be stopped, but he's practically vibrating in place, caught somewhere between professional curiosity, rage, and that fine line of panic every emergency doctor skates.

He forces himself to retreat a step. Two steps. No further, his eyes fixed on Skellig.

If she looks the least bit doubtful, she'll have to take him down to keep him from charging back in.

[olyabird.livejournal.com]

Olga turns back, her expression growing still. Her head cocks to one side, as if she's listening very intently. Her eyes drift closed, and she lifts a hand, fingers twitching a ward sign that sears the air. She can't risk McCoy or herself being struck by whatever this contamination is.

That done, her jaw clenches. The shadows around her well up, and he can see the Gloom around her, a dark cloak of void space, resonating with the very essence of her Otherness.

"Give," she murmurs, the word vibrating with power. Again her hand twitches, and a ribbon of red flows from four pinprick marks on the inside of his right wrist, twisting through the air and flowing down into the jar. The cobwebs tangle and bind the poison, and it appears to struggle, only becoming more ensnared. It's over in a few moments, all the poison gone, and she dashes forward, even as Skellig begins to breathe again, slamming the jar shut and muttering a sealing spell over the top of it.

[27_53]

If he could feel anything other than pain radiating in his bones as he inhales a shaking breath, he'd be very grateful of the fact that his arm no longer feels like it's on fire.

Unfortunately, the removal of the poison from his system has also removed with it the clouded effects on his mind and his senses; the sharp stabbing along his spine cascades into a rushing river of blood in his ears, threatening to drown out the rest of the world around him.

His wings flare (fight or flight and he's trying to flee) unintentionally -- but they don't manage to move much before he cringes and tries to curl in on himself, nearly falling forward off his seat in the process.

He feels something catch him (Olga? Bones? The tile floor?) but his eyes are screwed so tightly shut he can't see who or what it was, only red and black and blinding white.

[notabricklayer.livejournal.com]

He has been watching with wide eyes - some things he can fathom, understand or at least attempt to, follow the logical progression and see where her world and his correlate. Some things his mind shies away from for self protection, not yet ready to take that jump alone, not without risking insanity.

But suddenly he's breathing and she's crouched over the jar and he's falling and McCoy doesn't even bother to think about it, diving forward to catch the injured man before he can bash his brains out against the cold tile floor.

And the doctor, ever the opportunist, takes this moment while sprawled and tangled under his patient's weight to deftly administer the hypospray full of sedatives an analgesics. That right there is a little bit of wonder he can fully understand.

[27_53]

Apologies to the good doctor, but he's going to be finding feathers in his hair for a week at this rate. Skellig isn't even aware of the hypospray being used on him until suddenly the room seems to stop.




Nothing. Hurts.



Not his broken wings. Not his fractured ribs. Not his cut and scratched face. Not his sore arm. Not his sore legs. Not his knees, his elbows, his fingers, his back. Not his body.


Not even his mind.



The last thought he has before he blacks out entirely is just how damn hungry he is.

[olyabird.livejournal.com]

Olga? Sneezes.

(And has flashbacks to a particularly painful transformation in Anton's Moscow flat.)

There are down feathers everywhere. She curses under her breath in Russian, and looks up to see the doctor lowering his patient back into the bed. Slowly, as if the jar weighs far more than it should for its mass, she makes her way to her feet. The jar is set on a side counter with a dull thud, and then she's turning back.

"He is -- his bones, they are like mine." No, that's not right. "I mean, not mine. Like a bird's. Hollow. All the rest of him, human." She thinks.

[notabricklayer.livejournal.com]

They've all gone disjointed, and he has quite a lot of carpentry work ahead of him. These aren't reassuring thoughts in conjunction. He sighs, scrubs his face briefly (dislodging a small shower of tiny downy feathers) and shakes his head.

First things first - he checks his patient's pulse and respiration rate, finds them a trifle slow but satisfactory for the moment, gauges the depth of anesthesia, and nods.

Then he stalks a certain Other. There's enough adrenaline in his system right now to light up an elephant.
"I have a bit of work to do." He informs her, abruptly, social niceties put on hold. "But hold this thought for me, if you will."

The proper term for this, really, is 'to snog'.

[olyabird.livejournal.com]

She feels him turn that laser sharp gaze on her, and she's already stepping into him, one hand fisted in the shirt of his uniform. She meets him, hard, and he still bends her back a bit, drawing a soft sound of amazement from her throat.

When they finally break apart, she's breathing hard, one eye glancing at the jar, before looking back into his face.

"Consider it held, Doctor." Her lips curl in a languid, battle drunk smirk. She lets him slip between her fingers, back to the work, and she turns to glare at the jar.

"This needs disposing." Preferably somewhere in the Outer Mongolia region of the Gloom. "Back in a few."

She hefts the jar again, rests it on her hip, and steps sideways, disappearing the same way she came.