hadriel | [text] there is water at the bottom of the ocean

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[text] there is water at the bottom of the ocean

[Originally, it started out as a well-meaning adventurous foray for personal edification, yadda, yadda, yadda. Time moves so slowly in Hadriel that Nate has been clawing at ways to occupy it, and since he's exhausted the library of any texts that aren't in gibberish it stands to reason he might seek personal fulfillment elsewhere. After waking up with the usual restlessness he considered the wide expanse of lakeside real estate out his window and thought, yeah, a swim sounds nice.

The swim was less than nice.

Several minor explosions and some (honestly) impressive spell-work later sees him soaked to the skin but otherwise unscathed outside of minor lacerations on one arm - there's really only so much you can do when trying to evade a shark with two fucking heads - scribbling quickly in a notebook with the sort of fervor reserved for the truly mad. Lake-adjacent, blessedly on the shore with a towel slung around bare shoulders, he quickly snaps a photograph of his work with his phone and hits SEND TO ALL.

The message is as follows:]

does anyone know what the hell this is
i found it at the bottom of the lake

Attachment: [monster.jpg]

p.s. don't go swimming in the lake

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Oh hey! It's Mister "Henleys Are Garbage" FBI Guy. Don't think Nate has forgotten.]

creepy, but not life-threatening

i got a few love bites from the local fauna, but i'll live

[To be fair, his filter wasn't working all that well at the time due to nearly dying. Also Henleys are hideous; he doesn't make the rules.]

"I'll live" as in it's minor, or as in technically you'll survive but really should do something about it?

[Nate considers his monster shark bite. It's not bad, like the ones you see on t.v., but neither is it good.]

on a scale of 1 to 10 i'd say it's a "possible stitches"

I'm going to guess that means it definitely needs stitches.

You should come to the Clinic.

[And Lance will find someone who can do stitches, since he hasn't officially learned yet even if he's had more than enough himself that he thinks he could manage.]

[Minor shark bite or not, those teeth are sharp and in looking at his forearm Nate concedes it might be a good idea to sterilize it, at the very least.]

do we even have doctors around here?

That depends on your definition and how picky you really want to be.

[It's kind of a joke, but that doesn't translate well through text. So--]

The two psychiatrists have medical degrees, but I think they're the only ones. Other people have plenty of experience, though.

look, i could probably do this myself if it wasn't my dominant arm

[More than once, a long time ago, he had to patch up his brother or himself just to avoid spending the money it would have taken at an Argentinian minute clinic to get a few stitches. They're not so bad if the patient has a bottle of the good stuff to numb the pain.]

what about you? if you can sew on a button, you can stitch a cut

[...Lance is equal parts confident he could manage it, and utterly terrified to try and screw it up. It's a good thing this is text and so he can take a minute to decide how to answer.]

If you're sure, I can do it.

[If it's fine with Nate then he's willing to--he'd planned to learn anyway and it's not like it seems that complicated--mostly because he's concerned Nate will just say nevermind if he has to wait for one of the people with medical degrees, but he's still more than slightly nervous about it.]

[He can sense some hesitation on the other end of the line, and Lance isn't entirely inaccurate in his assessment: the more trouble Nate has to go to in order to get patched up, the less likely he is to get patched up at all.

Drake's Quandary.]

i'll walk you through it. it'll be a piece of cake.

[He's still nervous, but he both wants to make sure Nate does get medical treatment and he might as well learn on a relatively minor--hopefully--injury with patient who's unbothered by his lack of experience. Then if there's an emergency later he'll at least know what he's doing.]

Okay. I'll meet you at the Clinic, then.

[And he'll be there as soon as he can, stepping into the building and glancing around for Nate; he's not sure if he beat him there or not.]

Edited 2017-08-04 05:22 (UTC)

[Nate might have leaned on magic for a little healing, but neither Taako nor Lup had that specialty, and the only person who did was apparently cut off from his source of enchantment. Traditional means it would have to be. (There's something oddly nostalgic about the sensation of being completely drenched in water with a gaping wound, but it's something he's not going to examine at the current juncture.)]

Hey.

[He changed into fresh pants and a shirt for the occasion, having reconnoitered briefly at his apartment before heading over to the clinic. He wasn't about to leave the goods he found at the bottom of the lake out for anyone to take.

While the wounds have stopped bleeding profusely, red is conspicuously, slowly seeping through the ratty shirt Nate has haphazardly tied around his forearm.]

What's up, Doc?

[Well the change of clothes successfully makes Nate appear to be not that badly hurt for about two seconds, until Lance notices the haphazard bandage and the fact that it's clearly still bleeding. Yeah, that "possibly" needs stitches.

He fixes Nate with his most official and unimpressed look.]

Sit down, and raise your arm up.

[Do that while he grabs supplies real quick; they'll need the supplies for stitches, and bandages, and towels, and who knows what else.]

[Nate accepts the judging glance but he isn't altogether bothered by it, because he's survived much worse than an irritated bicephalic shark. Lance already looks tense and that's not the kind of environment either of them need for this.

He moves to sit in one of those chairs intended for blood-drawing, propping his arm up on the rest.]

Look, just- get some disinfectant, a curved needle, some thread, tape, a glass, and a bottle of whatever liquor you can find.

[Lance is usually tense, so Nate's not wrong. But he nods at the list of items, collecting different required objects from their various places, except for that last part--]

We don't typically keep liquor at the Clinic.

[It's... Not totally true, because he knows there are some small bottles around as emergency disinfectant, but he's found some of the more standard stuff already.]

[In the middle of prying the edge of his sacrificial shirt up to examine the damage, Nate scoffs and raises an eyebrow at Lance. Seriously? What, is he new?]

Bullshit.

[Don't call him out, Nate, that's... Okay it's to be expected but still.]

We don't need alcohol; there's plenty of disinfectant.

[He sets all the gathered supplies on a small rolling cart that has probably seen better days but still works, and moves it over to where Nate's sitting. He's not sure if he should sit down too, but probably; every time he's had stitches the doctor had done so, so give him a moment while he finds another chair.]

It's not for me, it's for you.

[Looking surprisingly cool about all this, Nate leans back in his chair and watches Lance scurry around in search of something else. He's being remarkably serious for someone who got conscripted into administering first aid.]

I don't want your hands shaking.

[That earns furrowed eyebrows and a brief pause in what he's doing, because his first instinct is to defensively assert that he doesn't need alcohol to keep from shaking, but... He sort of might, especially if the injuries are bad. And he is sort of supposed to be following Nate's instructions on this.

Still, it seems like a bad idea, so he makes one more protest.]

Wouldn't the trade-off of being inebriated be just as much of a problem, if not more so?

[But he may or may not be pulling a small bottle of bourbon from one of the drawer of the desk over in the corner anyway.]

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that you've never given anyone stitches before, and you're nervous, so you're more likely to mess up.

[Nate raises his eyebrows expectantly, nodding toward the medicine cabinet. A swill or two of hard liquor will do wonders for Lance's constitution and keep him from being so wired about a simple medical treatment.]

Trust me. I've done this before.

[Lance considers that suspiciously for several seconds, but then finally gives up and nods. He still doesn't think this is the way to do things, but he agreed to listen to Nate's instructions on this and it's Nate getting the stitches anyway.]

Fine.

[He hasn't really slept or eaten much in the past day so a shot should be enough to do it, and he locates one of the Clinic's glasses--a weirdly shaped thing with a logo in a language that he's pretty sure doesn't exist on earth--before bringing everything over to where Nate is.]

But let me see the actual injuries first.

[There's no need to drink before getting to the stitching part; he can handle dealing with bleeding and cleaning the wounds without the need of calming his nerves.]

[Check and mate, Lance.

Nate watches him collect the rest of the goods, settle into "caregiver" mode, and internally brace himself for the worst. Jesus, is this what he was like the first time Sam asked him to sew up a gash? Adorable.]

You got it.

[With a sickeningly sticky sound he peels the shirt away from the cuts, coagulated blood clinging to the fabric. It looks worse than he knows it is: four clean slices, shallower on the outside than in, exposed flesh gaping from the wounds. The longest is about three inches, the smallest is one. Nothing compared to the time he got shot in the stomach, but it does look pretty gross.]

[Yeah that sounds gross, and looks just as gross. But he's much calmer with this sort of thing than most people would expect, and so just sort of furrows his eyebrows at the sight of Nate's arm; the first thing to do is clean some of the blood so as to get a better idea of the injuries themselves, so he pours part of a bottle of water onto one of the towels and begins to carefully wipe off the blood around the gashes.]

And you said "possibly" in regards to needing stitches.

[He says it dryly, with a brief glance up at Nate before resuming what he's doing.]

[At least Lance is holding onto his lunch, which is more than can be said for some people. The only indication that this hurts is that Nate's mouth twitches as soon as a damp towel starts sponging the edges of the cuts. He would have gone for a considerably less gentle route, maybe just pouring a bottle of peroxide over his arm, but if Lance wants to treat him like a princess then he'll be patient.

To a point.]

I didn't wanna scare you.

[ :) ]

I've seen worse.

[Lance gives him another flat look along with the comment before returning his attention to what he's doing. Nate might be genuinely unbothered by the injury, but Lance is still not interested in making the whole experience more traumatic than it has to be by not being careful.

Only once the blood is cleared up and he can see the wounds a little better, there's very little way to make the next part any gentler.]

I'm sure I don't have to tell you that antiseptic will sting.

[Or burn like hell, but you know. Same difference.]

[Nate can clearly recall an occasion where his older brother wove a tapestry of curses and swilled cachaça on a flea-bitten couch while he pressed a merthiolate-soaked (sort of) clean rag to a new stab wound. Isoproyl has nothing on Satan's antiseptic.

Nate doesn't give Lance a verbal answer, and he doesn't entirely need to when his face so clearly communicates no shit, Sherlock.]

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i apologize for him

it's okay lance deserves this struggle

does he though.....................

okay maybe not

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