[open] general hospital: envy edition

[thereneverwas]

WHO: whoever
WHAT: infirmary catch-all for the envy demon shitshow
WHEN: yknow
WHERE: The Gallows infirmary
NOTES: injuries, gore, all that you'd expect

[Throw in your healer toplevels or your injured characters dragging themselves in. Go hog wild. Live your truth.]

Comments

[charmoffensive]

Did he, dot dot dot?

Loxley's sidelong glance is a lazy prompt, otherwise preoccupied in very gently cleaning away blood—pressing the rag to wound gently, letting water loosen where crimson is drying stickily, and dabbing it away. Anyway, he's never been told otherwise—

"Bring me back to life?" he fills in, as he works. "When I got speared, he certainly did. The drunkard's knifing kept, between a hasty healing potion and a very slow walk upstairs."

The mouthful of biting alcohol is already beginning to warm through him—numbing nerve endings, thinning his blood, but he'll take the former at the cost of the latter. Makes a sound that implies that this is about as good as he'll get it, before slouching right back, teeth showing in a vague grimace.

He catches her eye, and goes still.

"Oh," on a delay. "Yes? Is this alright?"

At least he didn't accidentally resort to a 'how do you want me?', though his eyes crinkle in more amusement than anything else. He sure did unthinkingly take off his trousers in the courtyard.

[armd]

Yeahhh, he did.

Abby presses her tongue into her cheek and says, "Uh huh." Like, it's not bad. He's clearly wounded and Abby is going to be stitching him up, providing clear, undeniable evidence for any passersby: it's not what you think. Obviously. Just a simple needle in the leg moment between coworkers.

When he slumps backward like that, head tipping, the column of his throat briefly flashes her. She swallows. Crouches down beside him.

Conversationally, as she is making sure that antiseptic paste is within easy reach by smearing a glob of it onto the back of her hand, "I watched him do that to somebody else once. Had no idea it was gonna happen, it was the craziest thing I've ever seen."

He has been gone for months now and Abby still has to resist the urge to check over her shoulder. No polite warning before the needle goes in by the way; the first stitch is now halfway done.

[charmoffensive]

It is sublimely painful, that sharp needle piercing already aggravated, torn flesh, no matter how skilled the hand that wields it. Some instinct in him kicks into gear just in time, and so Loxley does not make a sound even as his eyes water, a grimacing glance aside (she's not looking at his face, anyway) before (okay, she will hear this part—) a sharp breath out.

No, no, he's good. What were they talking about? Oh yes, Richard.

For whom he didn't mind making little-bitch-sounds around as much when stitched up from injuries, but he has absolutely no desire to give Abby Anderson the wrong impression.

"It's not extremely common magic even where we're from," he says, once he's certain his voice will come out normal. Save him, alcohol. "But I suppose those of us in this line of work deal with an uncommon amount of corpses. Some of them bound to be friends."

[armd]

She's actually pretty impressed that all he's doing is breathing about it and holding himself still, because this is a particularly tender spot to be getting a needle in. The wound is protesting already, blood welling up. She's got that rag handy and dabs with it, smears a bit of that paste over where she's been with the needle to soothe it. Shhhh stop bleeding.

Distractions are probably helpful.

"Yeah, that sounds right." Richard did not seem, overall, like an extremely common kinda guy.

"I went there," she adds. Her stitches are good, quick and neat, well practised. Settling into the work. "To where you're from. When we were going to all those different places in the Fade. I nearly got my face chomped off by a man with a snake head, it was fucking scary. Richard helped me kill it."

[charmoffensive]

Ow. Ow. Ow. Owww. Ow-wwuh.

Is what he is thinking, his gaze settling hazily on Abby's shoulder. It would be extremely embarrassing for him to pass out, he reflects, so this motivates a hard blink and a tuning back into the things she is saying as flop sweat prickles cold at his hairline, down his back.

"It was strange being home," Loxley offers, an added strain to his voice. Breathes in, out, continues. "Home-ish. The face chomping is certainly part of it."

But she is skilled, and sure. No sudden too-deep stab, no complaint to issue. He fidgets at the hem of his drawers in a semi-self-conscious fashion, making certain the fabric is sitting right for the sake of decency.

"I understand that yours has its own monsters."

[armd]

Abby nods, unsure if he's even looking at her; his response has that far-away sound of somebody muscling through pain to deliver it. It was strange being home. Maybe she should have been happy to be back in a place she knew or relieved, some positive response, but she was stressed out the whole time and barely slept. Too worried somebody was gonna walk off and get lost, come back bitten.

(Later she realised that's how she always felt back home, that living in the Gallows has been more relaxing by far and enjoyable; a sobering realisation.)

"I know." He didn't say anything about the pain but he doesn't have to. "I'm nearly done."

She completes another stitch. He's mucking around with his drawers, fidgeting, she can tell out of the corner of her eye but she doesn't dare look. "Yeah. They were face-chompers, too. I guess we have a lot in common."