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+---- Thread: cut our teeth and make our bones right here (/showthread.php?tid=7764)
RE: cut our teeth and make our bones right here - Ronin - 05-06-2023
Ronin isn't sure if Remi has even heard him, but as he begins to shift and shrink to more human proportions, the hunter lets out an inaudible sigh of relief. If nothing else the sight of the wendigo in his friendlier shape might keep the hunters from losing their fucking minds - especially given the complete battering said shape has taken - and while he has to scowl and focus on the words, Ronin does understand his partner's request.
[say]"You can, but I don't know if it will suit you,"[/say] he says, managing that much of a feeble joke as he shrugs out of the sodden fabric and drapes it over the wendigo's broken form. And it's with a small smile that he's about to make another attempt at humour when a terribly familiar crackling sound hits the air.
Heimerdangler hasn't deployed the taser on Remi yet, but it's sparking and ready to go as he approaches - right up until Ronin threatens him with the knife he's still holding. [say]"I would back the fuck off right now,"[/say] he snaps, his voice loud enough to turn heads from other hunters as they flood in to secure the parameter and check the bodies of their fallen comrades.
RE: cut our teeth and make our bones right here - Remi - 05-06-2023
[say]'It's perfect.'[/say] Remi garbles in response, and though the words are perhaps not entirely in-character for the wendigo, nevertheless they aren't the Stepford-wife drone he'd employed earlier.
With only one working arm, it's fortuitous that Hinkybinky appears when he does if only because it pulls Ronin's focus away. Had it been anyone else (other than Susan or Isla perhaps), Remi wouldn't have bet his partner would have moved from his side. It is though, and so it gives Remi time to fish about in the hunter's pockets, seeking out the remote he'd watched his partner stow away earlier when they'd left the compound.
Quite what the wendigo feels, he can't articulate. It isn't relief or regret. Nothing like anticipation or anxiety; it's just a calm sort of arrival. This was the moment he'd planned for, and now that it was here, everything else felt entirely out of his control. The drone of the sirens and the calls for triage are a warm buzz in the wendigo's ears as he folds his fingers around the device, turning the setting all the way up to high.
If there's a smile on his face, the blood splatter obscures it; were there tears on his cheeks, one might have mistaken them for rain. Either way, it's without a single word that the wendigo presses the button, releasing all the shards of silver into his blood stream at once.
RE: cut our teeth and make our bones right here - Ronin - 05-06-2023
The remark should have been enough to raise Ronin's suspicions. He should have been paying more attention. He should have been doing a lot of things, not just tonight, but in the days and weeks preceding this moment. One might say live and learn at times like these, but will he really? More accurately, will Remi?
It's a quiet death, if it is indeed death that's coming for Remi. Not in the objective sense - between the sirens, the rain, the cries of the injured-but-still-breathing and the developing screaming match between Ronin and Hankyspanky, the area around them is anything but tranquil. It's quiet, though, in the sense that nobody really notices anything at first.
And when he does - because obviously it's Ronin who pays attention - it's a slow realisation. At first he thinks the wendigo has simply passed out (which isn't untrue, but not for the reasons he suspects), only as he steps back to check Remi over, the obscene amount of black ichor on the cement seems to be... sparkling?
A lot of things happen in quick succession, after that. Ronin locates the device in Remi's hand, ironically making himself the prime suspect in his own murder. He considers starting CPR, only to discover that the wendigo is actually still breathing independently. He throws a punch at Heeberjeeber, a punch that connects, and a larger fight breaks out.
One of the things Remi misses, though - and what a thing to miss - is the way that a handful of hunters come to his defence (or at least his unconscious body's defence) to prevent further harm coming to him. Actions speak louder than words, evidently, and the front line of those hunters got a front row seat to Remi's actions agains the nuckelavee.
Time passes.
Snow has been falling for days, not that anyone in the undertown notices.
And whether or not it's for his own good, Remi has been kept under a powerful sedative, despite how quickly or slowly his body wants to heal. His shackles have been painstakingly removed, and rather than the familiar walls of his room, when he begins to come around, it will be in a regular old hospital bed in the medical wing.
Somewhere to his right (among the machines playing an orchestra of vital sounds), a familiar blonde scientist is gradually weaning off the sedative. Not enough to bring Remi to full alertness right away, of course, but enough to pull him towards wakefulness.
RE: cut our teeth and make our bones right here - Remi - 05-07-2023
Do wendigo dream of skeletal sheep?
It's a tricky thing, setting the bones of a wendigo as Isla's team has come to learn. So quickly do Remi's tendons and muscles try and knit themselves back together, that the doctors have only minutes to get his bones back into their correct spots. The result? Nearly every bone in Remi's body has had to be re-broken multiple times in an effort to keep things where they should be. Once, Isla even made one of the interns hold Remi's femur in place with his own hands for the better part of an hour to ensure it wouldn't move. Was this not such a thoroughly fucked up situation the doctors might have been able to practice upon Remi, given how fully sedated he was. Thanks to Isla though, there was absolutely no fuckery to be had where the wendigo was concerned.
The last thing Remi could recall had been the utter restfulness that had settled over his broken body. The things that hurt did so from such a distance that he hardly noticed. The sounds of the sirens faded into a lullaby, and as the shards of silver were released, the resulting pain was like the click of his leash being removed.
He was free, and free, and free, and
One might wonder what it's like to come back from the brink of death, and were you to ask Remi once he was in a more conscious state, he'd describe it like this: imagine taking a nap, and waking up without any reference to how long you'd been asleep. Had it been hours? days? were you in the same position you'd fallen asleep in? were you hungry? too warm? did you even feel rested?
So it was that as the drugs were gradually reduced, Remi's mind grappled, unhappily as you might imagine, with these questions.
RE: cut our teeth and make our bones right here - Isla - 05-07-2023
Isla has at least done her best to make sure the answers to a lot of those questions are positive.
Remi is hooked up to an IV drip of good old O-Negative laced with some of the doctor's finest wendigo-specific concoctions, aimed to both satiate his near-constant hunger (or close enough, anyway) and to replenish the massive amount of blood lost in the nuckelavee hunt. She's monitoring his temperature too - and thanks to him having been tragically subject to continuous experimentation, she's got a good idea of what's comfortable - and the low dose of sedative is paired with a potent painkiller.
He might not notice it at first, or for a while depending on the speed of his return to consciousness, but he's neither shackled nor tethered to the hospital bed. There's also no one else around, and while the door is locked, it's from the inside, the idea being that this room is not intended to keep Remi in, but rather to keep everyone else out.
Noting a small spike in his heartrate and glancing across to the bed, Isla crosses the room to carefully adjust his pillows and check him over. The wendigo, thankfully, has had most of his breaks set correctly now, and so his arms and legs need only the protection of some support bandages. That isn't to say he looks good though - sorry, buddy.
[say]"Good morning, Remi."[/say] Isla's voice is soft as she speaks from somewhere overhead, the doctor drawing back once she's satisfied with her preliminary checks. [say]"You may feel groggy and confused - you've been unconscious for some time, so take it slow. Can you let me know if you can hear me?"[/say]
RE: cut our teeth and make our bones right here - Remi - 05-07-2023
What Remi hears and what he understands are two very different things.
That he hears Isla is not so surprising. In whatever afterlife he's found himself in, why shouldn't the doctor who he always rather liked be there in some capacity? Even if this is hell, which is what Remi absolutely deserves, having his eternal punishment be administered by the pretty physician just makes sense.
As one might expect, the wendigo does not serenely come back into himself. His pale eyes do not flutter open and nor does he grace Isla with a groggy hey, his hand reaching appreciatively for hers. Instead, he rolls sharply out of bed, dragging with him half a dozen tubes and setting off several alarms. Landing with a thud and falling to one knee, the wendigo spins, eyes wide and disoriented as he thrashes at an IV stand, sending it flying across the room.
Spots of colour appear high in the wendigo's cheeks, before his lashes flutter over green eyes already rolling back in his head, and gravity (it's actually his plummeting blood pressure, but that isn't how it feels to Remi in the moment), brings him heavily to his knees.
RE: cut our teeth and make our bones right here - Isla - 05-07-2023
[say]"Remi--"[/say] Evidently Isla hasn't reduced the sedative slowly enough. Either that or, not for the first time, she's underestimated the wendigo and how his body can operate at times of high stress or even mere shock and surprise.
But that isn't to say that the sedative isn't still doing its job, thankfully, and while the machines and other equipment are dragged a considerable distance across the room, nothing is torn out or broken. Well, discounting the IV stand, but Isla can fix that up later.
Slapping at the wall buttons to turn off the alarms, Isla is by Remi's side only a moment or so later, reaching out a careful hand to rest against his back. [say]"That wasn't very clever,"[/say] she says softly, and if he weren't in such a horrific state she might have chastised him a little more obviously.
[say]"You need to take it slow - you're alive but that doesn't mean you're well. I can't carry you back to bed, so you'll need to help me get you there, okay? I'll explain everything after that."[/say]
RE: cut our teeth and make our bones right here - Remi - 05-07-2023
Absolutely this was hell, because Isla was at his side, touching him, without any precautionary measures to speak of. Well, any that the wendigo knew about anyways. The fact that his hunger was shockingly well-sated and there was enough sedative in his system to reduce his speed and strength down to what some might consider average, he was as safe as any old asshole might have been.
Exhaling sharply (apparently, the sedatives made him need to breathe more than he normally did), the wendigo let himself fall away from Isla, twisting on a newly-healed ankle until his back hit the wall. Giving her the Kubrick stare, Remi blinked rapidly as he drew his knee up toward his chest.
[say]"I'm what?"[/say]
RE: cut our teeth and make our bones right here - Isla - 05-07-2023
Alright, on the ground then. Rising to her feet and moving around the wendigo as if this is merely a small change in circumstances, Isla readjusts the machinery until it isn't quite so stretched and dragged across the room, though it still looks a mess compared to the orderly way she'd arranged it. Shame on Remi for rudely waking up the way he did and all that.
[say]"Alive,"[/say] she repeats softly, stepping back over to Remi and checking his vitals on the monitors before kneeling beside him to check he hasn't damaged himself anew. All of this does involve touching, but compared to how she might have been once upon a time, Isla is not shy or hesitant about it.
[say]"When you triggered the device for the shackles you were wearing, the silver that flooded your bloodstream should have killed you, it's true,"[/say] she says, carefully not looking at Remi's face as she explains. [say]"But the truth is, very little of it reached your heart. The number of injuries you sustained meant that most of it was carried away with bloodloss."[/say]
In short, a helluva lot of pain and very little death to show for it. [say]"Sorry,"[/say] she adds, even though she doesn't know why.
RE: cut our teeth and make our bones right here - Remi - 05-07-2023
All but glaring at Isla the way a caged cat tiger might, Remi tracks the doctor's movements as she fusses and adjusts. He wants to scream at her that none of her machines fucking matter given who and what he is, and more importantly what he'd tried to do. Instead, he merely presses his fingernails against his palms, letting them churn and scratch away at the skin.
Unsure which is worse, the way she checks him over or the things she's saying, eventually the wendigo's patience wears thin and he flinches away from her. In truth, it's the lack of eye contact that does it, and though she's close enough for him to tear her throat out, the thought strangely doesn't even cross his mind.
[say]'Quit it.'[/say] He snaps, pulling away from her, resulting in the big bad scary wendigo contorting himself into a little ball. [say]"Why did you bother?"[/say] Remi wants to know, the painful sincerity in his voice drowning out his former insolence. [say]"I don't want to be here, Isla."[/say] He adds, pleading now. [say]"Why did you bring me back?"[/say]
RE: cut our teeth and make our bones right here - Isla - 05-07-2023
Her hands flinch uselessly in the air before the wendigo as he pulls himself out of her reach, Isla biting hard at the inside of her cheek and shaking her head. [say]"Because,"[/say] she snaps back at him, though there's no venom in her voice, [say]"I am selfish, and you are important."[/say] Even so, she rises to her feet and steps away from him, giving him the space he seems to crave.
[say]"Not just important in the big, stupid scheme of things. You matter to me, and I left following a lead and you were-- they way you were treated has kept me up at night since I got back."[/say] Huffing out a hard sigh and straightening out her doctor's coat as she tries to regain her composure, Isla retreats to the clipboard at the end of Remi's empty bed, opting to jot down notes there.
[say]"I was going to let you go, but I was overruled,"[/say] she says between notes, her calm tone belying the anger on her face. [say]"I am not in charge of your project any more, Remi. But I am still your primary physician, so if you wouldn't mind letting me do my job, I would appreciate it."[/say]
RE: cut our teeth and make our bones right here - Remi - 05-07-2023
Isla's response isn't the one Remi had been expecting, and the sudden wide-eyed look he gives her makes it look as though he's been slapped. The points of colour on his cheeks now drifted toward the top of his ears, making the eerily golden-tinge of his irises all the more pronounced.
Opening his mouth to say something and then opting to close it again in lieu of tracking her movements, the wendigo is at an utter loss as to how to proceed. He could kill Isla, he knew that. The sedative had worn off enough that, though it might be clumsy, it was more than doable. He could be a good little monster for her and perhaps earn some affection to try and soothe away what he'd been through. He could continue to sit on the floor like a sullen child, and honestly, it was this option that currently seemed the most inviting.
[say]'I think I'm done being helpful.'[/say] He murmurs, as if feeling for himself how this sat with everything he now knew. [say]"Whatever you feel about me is your problem. I'm done letting it be mine, because at the end of the day, this isn't a two-way street, and it never has been. You're my physician. The end."[/say]
My physician. The hunter I'm partnered with.
The.
End.
Fuck what everyone would or wouldn't appreciate.
RE: cut our teeth and make our bones right here - Isla - 05-07-2023
[say]"The end,"[/say] Isla agrees, even though it sounds as though she wants to flip it on its head and make it absolutely the opposite. But she finishes her notes on the clipboard and hangs it back up, before moving to fix the IV stand he'd thrashed across the other side of the room.
[say]"You won't be surprised to learn that Doctor Grimm,"[/say] and that's Susan to you and I, [say]"has petitioned to overtake the project. I suspect she will succeed, but I will do my best to prevent her from going too far."[/say] Setting the stand back up, Isla finds herself with absolutely nothing else to fuss over, and so lingers uselessly by the door with her arms folded.
[say]"Ronin has been asking every day whether you are awake. If you'd like visitors I will arrange it, but if not I will tell him as much. Is there anything else before I leave you to rest?"[/say]
RE: cut our teeth and make our bones right here - Remi - 05-07-2023
The mention of Ronin makes the wendigo's blood run cold for a moment, and then he's by the doctor's side in, perhaps not a flash, but in a burst. Remi isn't much taller than she is, and certainly not physically intimidating without context, but still, he presses his palms against either side of her head trying both to hold the door closed and fix her in place. [say]"You know what will happen if she takes over."[/say] The wendigo says in a whisper, if only because of how close they are. Remi isn't naive enough to think that this will intimidate the good doctor, but if anyone else is watching, there's no way this posturing would be allowed to go on: and that's something the wendigo is keen to know.
[say]"If you care at all, give me something silver. A ring. A pendant. Some fucking pen you were given as a graduation present."[/say] He'd carve open his own chest and shove it in if it came to that.
[say]"Please."[/say]