in the night: ic inbox

[completelycrazy]

@rockstar

Text me or whatever.

Comments

[originallutece]

You're trained in medicine, yes or no?

[completelycrazy]

Uhhh sure.

I'm as close to a doctor of medicine as you can be while not actually being an MD. Why?

[originallutece]

[It takes an agonizingly long time for her to respond.]

I need a doctor. The man I live with is a policeman; he did his best, but I need someone with expertise.

A spirit clawed through a great deal of me. Including my eye.

[completelycrazy]

[Oh, fuck.]

Holy shit. Where are you? Are you okay?

[originallutece]

[It's not that she couldn't get out if she really wanted to. The snow is heavy and already piling up high, but not so much so they're trapped. But it's just high enough to be an incredibly uncomfortable inconvenience, which is why Rosalind sighs and closes the door again.]

You can leave if you'd like, but I wouldn't advise it.

[At least she has a torch here. And a cot, which comes with at least three blankets, because let's be real: she spends an awful lot of time here, and sometimes it's easier to just sleep where you work. It's fine.]

Get the blankets. This place wasn't built for insulation.

[completelycrazy]

Really? That bad?

[He's not that shocked, given that the temperature's been steadily dropping since he arrived a few hours ago. He can hear snow liberally peppering the shack of a lab on all sides. You're not really supposed to be able to hear snow.

He does as she says, rooting around through the storage cabinets until he unearths a load of blankets. Amazing forethought on her part, come to think of it. Like, better forethought would've been to focus on getting this place hooked up to heating again, but whatever. It's not like he had the forethought for either of those things.

(It's also not his lab, as she likes to remind him, so, like, just saying!)

It is cold in here, though. He heads over to get his own look at the situation outside.]

I wonder if we can still freeze to death here. Probably, right?

[originallutece]

[She, meanwhile, sets one blanket down as padding and then settles in with her back against the wall. They could, of course, both climb on the cot, but if it's all the same she'd rather not, thanks.]

Oh, assuredly.

[Hm. She settles in, her legs stretched out before her, two blankets already piled atop her. It's quite cozy, and it's unfortunate he'll have to join soon, but so it goes. He's far too useful a lab partner to allow him to freeze.]

Why not? If you can die via your throat being cut or what have you, why not a more mundane way? Frankly, I'd rather die that way. I'm told it's rather peaceful.

[. . .]

Close the door, please, it's cold enough here already.

[completelycrazy]

It's not. Dying's never peaceful. That's just, like, a thing people say.

[But that's a bummer thing to talk about, so instead he drags a trash bin over to where she's decided to nest, propping the torch up inside of it. The one nice thing about this physics-breaking fire: No risk of accidentally setting themselves ablaze while trying to stay warm.

He plops down next to her, close enough to make use of the floor blanket without invading her space. He would bet against any huddling for warmth in his future—research suggests such an idea would go over, uh, poorly. It's not dangerously cold in here, anyway.

He pulls his lantern into his lap, hugging the glow in his hands. There, that's a bit warmer.]

So what's the plan? Sleep here and hope the weather clears up overnight?

[originallutece]

[So it's like this: the instant she learned the Parade was a thing, she'd started carrying malleable wax around. It's disgusting, jamming it in her ears, but-- and this is important-- it works. There's not a sound she can hear, up to and including whatever the hell the spirits are playing. Not that she ever intends to be caught by them, but no one ever intends to, do they? It's a failsafe, and a smart one.

These are the things she tells herself as she stares over at Newt, hearing completely cut off, sitting as primly as she can on a cold, dirty floor. They've barricaded the doorway, but she isn't too worried about that. It's just a matter of time of waiting the day out, til the parade marches away. She would not, ideally, be stuck in this situation at all, but if she must, at least she's someone intelligent with which to pass the time.

Not that there's a whole lot to do here. Rosalind sighs (silently!) and calls up her device.]

If I ask you why you've been so tetchy all day, are you going to answer, or deflect?

1/3

[completelycrazy]

[Newt frowns at the text. Tetchy? He hasn't been tetchy. Or has he? He's not sure. That must be an old-timey English thing, but he can't check, because although he still hasn't broken the habit of highlighting stuff in an attempt to google it, this dumb place just really wants him to look stupid right now.

In any case, the context clues are clear enough. Just, like, he can't specifically argue against this false accusation.]

I'm not being tetchy I just have better things to do than get stuck in here for hours.

2/3

[completelycrazy]

[It's after the eyeroll that he realizes she may have a point.]

Do you think time passes at the same rate back home? I'm not deflecting just give me a minute.

3/3

[completelycrazy]

[There's a beat, and then he lets out a quiet chuckle.]

Ba dum tshh.

hey same back at you, 1/3

[originallutece]

[She frowns faintly, her eyes flicking up and down the three lines of text. But-- oh, whatever, moving on, and she shakes her head.]

It doesn't. I'll explain when we've the ability to hear again, but suffice to say: no. Besides: time is malleable, anyway. Don't think of it as a straight line, but an ocean. Every moment, in essence, exists eternally.

2/4

[originallutece]

Though I haven't bothered trying to understand all the mysteries of time and space here just yet. The rules are entirely different; I need more information on how this world works before I attempt to take it apart.

[She starts another sentence, and oh my god she just got the joke.]

[originallutece]

[originallutece]

[She very pointedly rolls her eyes as she finishes her thought.]

You didn't answer the question. Don't avoid with science.

[completelycrazy]

[If they could actually talk, this is one of those times when she'd be met with a lot of sputtering in denial before he actually makes his point. She gets the visual equivalent of that, at least.]

I JUST said I'm not avoiding it, come on. It's not a deep dark secret.

[Not that he particularly wants to talk about it, but it's not worth making a big show of not telling her now that she's brought it up.]

It's my birthday. The date anyway. If we're basing age on that individual's perception of time I turned 35 a while ago since I died in January.

It's weird but it's fine I'll get over it.

REACTION. / A REQUEST.

[sunborne]

[ when newt is heading back to the invincible, he'll be boldly approached by a spirit, who happens to be wearing a paper bag covered in dirty stickers. (it also seems they drew an imitation of his glasses across their mask, but it's hard to say if it's intentional or artistically coincidental smudges.)

the spirit scurries over, getting closer to newt, and raises something to him - a silver marker and a piece of wood. it seems like they're pantomiming for an autograph...?

if he declines to give them an autograph, the spirit becomes very offended. to the point they chuck the wood at newt's head and runs off, making angry honks and booms all the way.

if he gives them an autograph, the spirit is clearly on cloud nine! they hop. they twirl. they hug the autograph to their happy, wriggling form. they soon thank newt but chucking the silver marker at his head as a thank you gift, scurrying off into the night as they excited blare. ]

[originallutece]

Try and hold still.

[It's only been three days. Not even three days, not fully. And though his injuries are worrying, they're far from fatal. A few sutures, that's all he needs. Or, well: more than a few sutures, but still, she can mend him. And blood, she notes carefully, her thoughts cold and ordered despite the frantic way her hands move, prying buttons from holes, opening his shirt. He'll need at least a pint of blood, but she can give that to him too, a pint is nothing, a pint is easy, just some stitches and blood and he'll be okay.

He'll be fine.

But there's something tight in her expression as she bends over him. Her fingers are chilly as they stroke against unbroken skin, her eyes darting over his body. There has to be more. There has to be some kind of internal bleeding, something worse, something that she's missed-- it can't be so simple, and the sooner she figures it out the sooner she can fix him, and she will fix him because he will be fine.

He has to be.]

Where else are you hurt? What else did they do?

cw skin loss

[completelycrazy]

Mm.

[He vaguely meant for the grunt to be words, he just hadn't quite decided on which when she started tugging at his shirt. It's odd, but the only thing he wants to do now that he's home is drink a bunch of water and sleep. The adrenaline and panic he's been running on for the past three days have all but worn off—and god, does that hurt—and he hasn't slept because you don't sleep when you get abducted by aliens.

Which is what he's been calling it, abducted by aliens. To himself. Aliens are the only analog he can think of—like, you don't get kidnapped by, whatever, monkeys or something. Macaques aren't out in the world snatching people off the street and squirreling them away to do strange experiments on them. Even the Kaiju didn't pull this kind of thing. Dealing with things in nature usually means you die, or you don't, and either way, it's a quick thing. There's no greater purpose to rationalize beyond the basics: you were food, you were a threat, you were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

But what was the point of this? Abducted by aliens. It doesn't make sense to him, and it should. It should.

He sits forward on the couch so that he can pull his shirt off. There's a deep gouge running down the length of his side, the edges of the wound ragged from how the spirits clawed at him. That'll need the most stitching. The cuts along his stomach and chest aren't nearly as bad.

But, ah, it's the sleeve that gives him trouble. He grits his teeth as he eases away the fabric, and then the crude bandages that once upon a time were an undershirt. His right arm has been torn to shreds, his skin flayed beyond repair. It looks like the spirits had the mind to peel away his flesh starting at the shoulder, but gave up partway through and resorted to raking it off in strips instead. The bandages were mostly there to just hold it all in place.]

I think... it took them a while to figure out it wasn't a shirt.

[His tattoos, he means. The spirits seemed confused once they'd gotten down to his bare skin. So they experimented. Alien abduction. They were learning.]

It's superficial.

[The last word comes out in German—will she notice? something about an automatic translation, he remembers that was a thing—because that's a hard word to remember in English right now. His head is throbbing and he's dizzy and cold, all typical with blood loss but still irritating to deal with. God, he really just wants to sleep.]

[originallutece]

. . . I see.

[Thank god-- thank god-- she'd watched Booker die a few times. Not many, not before Comstock cottoned on and had them killed, but enough. She's seen gore. She's smelled blood and watched brains splatter over tile.

Because while she's played doctor over these past few months, broken legs and shallow scratches aren't like this. This is-- this is like her eye, this is sickening levels of gore, gore that one can't just stitch up and walk off, and good god but it's nauseating.

So thank god she's seen it before. Thank god she can keep a level head right now.]

You need to tell me what you need done.

[Because while she can hazard a guess, he's the one who knows better. Just here, just in this one area, and she'll never admit it when this is done, no matter how he needles. And he will needle, because he will be alive.]

Hold still.

[Because she's slipping an IV into his other arm, gripping his wrist and stretching it out, doing it with practiced ease.]

[completelycrazy]

[Oh, a task. Having a goal helps, actually, given that otherwise he's stuck staring at his mess of an arm. Right, what would he do if—but then he drifts to thinking about her in this state and how much he'd hate that, and then how he selfishly collapsed in on himself when he realized she wasn't with him in the hospital. What? Anyway.]

Get the, um. There's glue on the table. Stitches here, glue here.

[He nods to his side and arm respectively, and then takes a long moment to think... but nope, that's all he's got.]

I'm not a doctor.

[He pauses, remembering something in all the chaos a few hours earlier.]

Who were those people?

[originallutece]

You're given the ability to have an unlimited supply of a single thing for the rest of your life. What do you pick?

[Insomnia's a bitch, even when you're technically dead and thus really oughtn't need sleep. And bothering Newt is always a pleasant way to pass the time.]

[completelycrazy]

More life.

[Uh huh, he's real pleasant. He's mostly just buying time to think of a real answer, though. It's a good question.]

[originallutece]

[teddy voice INSTANT regret— no, no, not really. But she swings one leg out, her foot rapping sharply against the wooden floor just once. Newt's been rooming beneath her these past few weeks, and that has its ups and downs— but it does mean she has a handy way of communicating with him nonverbally.]

That isn't a proper answer. Try again.