[Week 2 Afterparty] If only you'd have known me before the accident

[nothingbadeverhappensto]

That. All sure fucking happened. Didn't it?

Almost on autopilot, Leon starts pulling people aside who look like they might have it even slightly together right now and recruiting them to the task of making sure the rest don't just go straight to bed and pass out without eating all day. Anyone who doesn't seem to have it together but wants to lend a hand to stave off the grief and existential dread can help too. He's not picky at this point.

Without Yuri's tea or Otto's cooking things don't exactly turn out the same, but it's. It's something. Between all of them they get a meal together, something that can be easily picked up and squirreled away to the rooms if anyone really doesn't want to be around any of the rest of them right now, but Leon will insist that they have to come get it themselves as he goes around knocking on doors and shepherding people to the dining room. This is a check-in as much as it is dinner.

Comments

[selfreliar]

Aha.

"...You know, Kennedy let me check on his injuries earlier in the week."

He's not afraid to leverage this type of argument against a grown man.

[windmilled]

"His were more numerous, and not so miraculously healed," Luis counters. Was it a testament to how close the fight had been against Saddler, or just to Leon's strength and grit that Luis hadn't noticed so many of them in the moment?

"But, if you're curious, it makes no difference to me."

[selfreliar]

Aqua's eyes tighten slightly with distaste. Curiosity about someone's wound feels... icky. Objectifying. He's had more than enough of that, both recently and in his life overall. "I'm less curious than concerned. That is, as a future doctor, and..."

Though his voice and expression sink back into their usual calm blankness, there's a hint of uncertainty around his eyes. He glances away, still holding his knees. What is he to Luis? A roommate? A strange and puzzling ward? Is ten years' difference too much to wish they were...

...You know. Friends?

[windmilled]

If there's one thing Luis has never doubted he's good at, it's reading people. It's a key part of his ability to talk his way out of almost any situation. But to get that read, he has to get a reaction, and that's where Aqua's usually calm affect throws him off.

He watches him for a moment, to see if he'll finish the thought, then smiles and sets his guitar aside, hands going to the buttons of his shirt.

"I've never asked; did you have a field of study in mind?"

[selfreliar]

"Oh. Uh, medicine."

He didn't even realize they hadn't had this conversation yet. Aqua glances away to give Luis at least the illusion of privacy, even if that's maybe moot to a guy who'd just take off his shirt in a communal sitting room.

"I wanted to be a heart surgeon."

[windmilled]

Luis could've guessed the medicine part, since they've gone over his medical talents. He hums thoughtfully, as he shrugs off his shirt. There's nothing underneath it he's not comfortable putting on display - he's already taken off his shirt once today, after all.

"A heroic dream." He hesitates, and then asks: "Is there a reason?" In his experience, there usually is. But, he could be projecting.

[selfreliar]

Aqua laughs a little, soft and under his breath.

"...The main character of a novel I read a long time ago was a surgeon. I just thought he was cool."

Up he gets, since Luis is being a good sport about this and letting him take a look at what's been ouching him all this time.

"Not so deep, I know. My family assumed... well, it doesn't matter now."

[windmilled]

Luis chuckles.

"Ah, is that it? You know, when I was a young boy I wanted to be a brave knight, just like Don Quixote. Cardiac surgeon is a much more practical occupation."

Luis doesn't have many scars, and there's only two that aren't almost completely faded with age. One on his chest cuts diagonally almost from his left collarbone to the base of his right pectoral. The other, and the one that's been obviously bothering him, is the one that's dead center in his back. Straight up and down, unlike the jagged scar on his chest, and about five or six centimeters long from top to bottom.

[selfreliar]

...

Yeah. That's from a big blade wound. Aqua doesn't touch it, but he doesn't need to. He's intimately familiar with what stabbings look like. He has to see his own stomach every day.

"Looks like you could've used a suit of shining armor," he notes, not unkindly. "Is the pain constant, or does it just hurt when you move in certain ways?"

[windmilled]

"When I move, mostly. Or breathe too deep. Occasionally there's a dull ache, and sometimes it's like I can feel my pulse in it." He rolls his shoulders, and shifts in his seat.

"Since I can still walk, I'm guessing it took a path of least resistance and sheared to the side of my spine. Lucky it was thrown, eh?" Since that meant there wasn't a guiding hand behind it to make it go through his spine.

[selfreliar]

"It was thrown and it went in that deep?"

That accurately, too? Hell. Resident Evil world is officially the scariest world represented here.

Still, even if it didn't sever his spinal cord or go straight through to the heart, given its location and the way lungs nestle against the ribs and spine, Aqua has to assume...

He tries to sharpen his blurry memories of arriving here, tries to reconstruct what state Luis was in from what he remembers hearing. He can't recall much of that first day, honestly, but what little he does is sobering.

"No wonder you were surprised to be alive." ... "I... can relate, a bit."

Anyway.

"There's silicone gel in the first aid kit in our room. You're welcome to as much of it as you like. It should help some with the skin tightness."

[windmilled]

"You'd have to ask Leon how long the blade was - I'm afraid my memory is a little, ah. Unreliable."

He can remember the taste of blood in his mouth, that persisted even to waking up here. The weakness and shaking in his limbs, the chill from more than just those cold, damp caves.

He turns and looks over his shoulder at Aqua.

"I would ask, but one of us was actively bleeding when he woke up here, and it wasn't me," he jokes, as a way of saying that Aqua is more than welcome to just leave it at that, if he doesn't want to share.

If Aqua is finished, Luis will pull his shirt back up over his shoulders and start buttoning it again.

"Ah, I appreciate it. Although sometimes I think the issue is more than skin deep - like a locking up of the muscle. Anything for that, ¿señor médico?" The title is playfully applied, but not mockingly - he is the closest thing they have to a physician, and it's probably for the best he has the first aid kit.

[selfreliar]

With a small, wry smile, Aqua touches where his own wound has closed. "It wasn't the bleeding that would have killed me. The knife missed everything important."

Whoever stabbed him sure sucked at stabbing. Anyway, he sobers up after that.

"...As for that... yeah. There's diazepam."

AKA Valium. AKA the Good Shit. It's good for more than panic attacks; among the various things it treats, including withdrawal symptoms and eclampsia, are muscle spasms.

"I'd say to just stick to acetaminophen if you were in more constant pain, but if the spasms themselves are the problem, diazepam works as a muscle relaxant. That said... I'm not comfortable just handing over controlled substances."

Especially not when the house is hungry for death. Aqua glances away, painfully aware of his youth and the inexperience it implies, then looks back up.

"Do you trust me to keep track of the dosage?"