Dr. Adrien Arbuckal (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
prorenataa) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
thisavrou2016-12-27 04:03 pm
prorenataa) wrote in thisavrou2016-12-27 04:03 pm
Video
[ Everybody settling in alright? Or at least, as well as can be expected?
Everybody enjoy their cherry tasting legumes?
Adrien had intended to send this out as a text, but he was still getting used to the new TABs and upon realizing his mistake, couldn't be arsed to change it. The doctor usually looks harried, it might have something to do with his perpetual scowl, but he's looking particularly yanked through a knothole backwards at the moment.
All the way down to the fact that he's obviously showered and made an attempt to trim his beard, only to wind up cutting himself. Please ignore the tell tale little dots of paper stuck to his face at the moment. The blade was dull, okay?! ]
It dawned on me, as these things do when one is slicing their face open with a razor, a question that probably should have been asked a week or so ago.
Those of you in the crew, who are capable of, or posses magical abilities and of a temperament to help, would you have a spell or a ... [ here he gestures with his hands, he's not trying to be offensive, magic is just not something his world has ever been exposed too and he's only aware that it can be vary from person to person. ] ... that would purify water?
Thinking if that ability exists, we might give it a try on those purple streams and see if we can remove some of the nasty side-effects and restock our supplies.
(ooc: Warnings in the comments.)
Everybody enjoy their cherry tasting legumes?
Adrien had intended to send this out as a text, but he was still getting used to the new TABs and upon realizing his mistake, couldn't be arsed to change it. The doctor usually looks harried, it might have something to do with his perpetual scowl, but he's looking particularly yanked through a knothole backwards at the moment.
All the way down to the fact that he's obviously showered and made an attempt to trim his beard, only to wind up cutting himself. Please ignore the tell tale little dots of paper stuck to his face at the moment. The blade was dull, okay?! ]
It dawned on me, as these things do when one is slicing their face open with a razor, a question that probably should have been asked a week or so ago.
Those of you in the crew, who are capable of, or posses magical abilities and of a temperament to help, would you have a spell or a ... [ here he gestures with his hands, he's not trying to be offensive, magic is just not something his world has ever been exposed too and he's only aware that it can be vary from person to person. ] ... that would purify water?
Thinking if that ability exists, we might give it a try on those purple streams and see if we can remove some of the nasty side-effects and restock our supplies.
(ooc: Warnings in the comments.)
no subject
Definitely not a conversation he was going to unload on Elena.
Instead, he worked patiently with the straps, letting her set the pace for how they maneuvered her limb. Each piece of the splint was carefully set off to the side as they laid her arm bare. ]
Not surprising. He loves you after all. [ He said, as if that made all the sense in the world to him.
Once he had access to skin of her arm, Adrien settled on his knees and then back on his heels as he reached to wrap his hands around her arm. Though he could wield a suture or a scalpel with the precision of any surgeon, his fingers and palms were still calloused from years of gun work. At least they were warm at the moment, the tensile strength in his fingers laid lightly against her flesh.
There was no fanfare, no real ... fuss even. Elena might become aware of a numbing warmth moving through the limb, possibly attribute it to the flesh to flesh contact. It would be the steady loss of the ache and pain of slowly knitting bone that would alert the body to the fact that the limb was once again becoming whole. The strain on the soft tissues of muscle, ligaments and tendons, steadily starting to relax as the skeletal system once again took up it's proper support duties. ]
Better?
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Adrien's hands wrapped around her bicep once the thick padding was removed and it took everything in her to not jerk away, every muscle tensed, like her body was instinctively bracing for the worst pain possible. Mentally psyching herself up, not the best idea.
It took her a full moment to realize that whatever he was hoping to do, it wasn't hurting her. Instead it felt like a rush of warmth gradually covering and soothing the upper limb which was then followed by a tingly sort of sensation before numbness filled the area. She stared down at his hands, half expecting a glow to be seeping out from beneath them, and then she lifted her eyes to his face to stare.
Elena was at a loss for words.
She didn't want to believe this. It seemed impossible.
A mute nod, delayed, and she broke any eye contact to look down at her arm. The first test would be to move her fingers. The second would be to close a fist. All of these things were easily achieved, no lingering stiffness, no permanent damage. ]
Holy— shit.
[ Elena then reached for one of his hands, hoping to turn it over palm facing up. It wasn't dawning on her that she was moving her left arm with relative ease, as if it hadn't suffered a break to the humeral shaft. ]
H-how?
no subject
Long, boring story. [ He said, and though he gave her a moment to hold on to his hand, he did gradually start to try to draw it back. ]
You should still be careful. The pain will have been removed but your muscles, ligaments and tendons have been resting for a couple of weeks. Stretch them out, reintroduce them to activity. If you don't push it, you should have full ROM by the end of the week.
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I...highly doubt it's a boring story. [ Elena was a journalist. She wrote articles, she wrote stories herself. She lived for them. ] Adrien, you mended my broken arm back together by touching it.
[ Because it needed to be repeated, like she couldn't believe it, but on a soft hiss lowered between them. ] —healed it.
I can't believe I'm saying this but— are you an angel? No ordinary human comes with that ability, at least not where I'm from. People don't heal each other back home, they kill each other.
[ God, first Tony told her he was a fucking superhero. And now this. She half expected Nathan, her own husband, to pipe up some kind of story where he did something magical on the side. ]
no subject
The question saw Adrien's eyebrows go straight into his hairline as he looked absolutely incredulous that she would ask him such a thing. He didn't laugh, that wasn't in him but his lips softened in an expression that was rare and gentle. ]
Given what I've told you I've done, and what I will do ... does that seem like angelic behavior?
[ He shook his head slightly and sat back drawing his legs up towards his chest as he wrapped his arms around them and perched his chin on his knees. ]
I have plenty of death on my hands and depending upon how long I survive when I go back, I will blood soaked before my journey is through. [ Opening his hands, he glanced at them briefly and then back to her.
Guess that boring story was getting told regardless. ]
My version of Earth, Elena humanity stripped the planet of it's natural resources back around the time of the industrial revolution. Earth is incredibly delicate, collapse one eco system and you start a chain reaction and ... [ He splayed his hands to indicate a complete eradication. ]
Humanity would have ultimately starved out but we were able to make it out into the stars. We found other species, will to help us with the natural resources we were unable to sustain on our own planet.
I won't get into the whole culture that developed around trade and Society, except to say that it is integral to our way of life. A family survives on the strength of it's trade ability and it's trade partners.
[ Which was an entirely different tangent. ]
The prevailing theory is that living off the natural resources of other species, other worlds for so long has started to affect the human genome. Abilities that are remarkable to us, are natural to another species but they're jumping the species gap and expressing in humanity.
[ Raising his hands, he wriggled them pointedly. ] For the most parts the abilities are low key, harmless but they are considered Fates Spoken, and when they manifest the individual is expected to venerate them and apply them to best use within Society.
Whether they have the temperament for it or not.
no subject
[ Not that she thought he'd have no idea about the gods in her version of Earth. She sat there and gingerly tested her arm, opening and closing her fist like she was slowly working on a stress ball. She watched him as he sat there folded up and broke away on a grimace. She would have to try the whole physio thing later.
It was time to tuck in for storytime. A journalist's treat. ]
Okay, hang on. This wasn't something you were born with? And because you ended up with this...ability, you were expected to just become a doctor?
no subject
Elena already had a leg up on most people, in terms of getting him to talk. Combine that with her job description and it seemed the most natural thing in the world to respond. ]
I was born with it, it's an alteration in my genetics. We're not quite sure how it works, honestly my world is just starting to see such manifestations more wide spread in my generation. Research is still in it's infancy.
It simply hadn't manifested and it might never have manifested. [ Pausing briefly, he exhaled a deep breath and looked off to the side for a long moment. In the silence, Courser stood up and moved from where he had been protecting his bone, over to his companion's side. The bahari lay back down, pressed up against Adrien's back, head up by the doctor's left hand.
After a couple more breaths, Adrien turned back to Elena and continued. ]
Part of what saved humanity was the structure placed upon Society. Trade families, like mine, especially the high placed ones are expected to follow certain rules. Families that break those rules, face ruin within the trade world and families without trade, slowly starve as do those retainers who work for them.
Society is very unforgiving in this.
[ Unfolding one hand from his knees, he dropped it down into Courser's mane. ]
The Duchy of Blake was relatively young, an upstart. My grandmother established the family as a top tier trading duchy, her son -my father- expanded further and my generation was expected to take us further still.
One of Society's rules is that first born children are the heirs, in this case my sister Arie, second born children take a role in one of the five civilian infrastructures, which are based off the five Fates: Educator, Healer, Confessor, Conservationist or Politician. Third born child is conscripted to the Castrensis; our military. Any children beyond that are considered a spare.
I was third born.
[ Here, he paused and then slowly unfolded himself so he could reach out across the floor and drag a battered old leather messenger bag over to himself. Once he had it, he sat back up and rummage within, eventually surfacing with a picture. Studying it for a moment, he hesitated but eventually held it out for Elena to take. ]
Second born was my sister, Amette. This is her. [ There is something in the way the picture has been handled to suggest that it is a very beloved image indeed. ]
When her time came to make her bow to one of the five, she took healer. She was ... gifted for it. She was the nurturer in our family, and she could walk onto a patients' ward and set every one of them at ease with just a brief conversation. She was also an extremely skilled and intuitive physician. The head of her classes, medicine came as easy to her as weapons and combat came to me.
For a few years, Arie was proving brilliant at trade, negotiation and politics, Amette had set the medical world alight and I was making similar brilliant advances within the military. [ It was quick, what came next, but it was definitely a soft and affectionate chuckle. ] Aden, our youngest brother, was happy as a lark pursuing his art work and anything with a pulse.
[ Adrien sobered then, the affection shut down and his expression becoming haunted in the moment before it became shuttered entirely. ]
When I was just past my twenty-first birthday, Amette accepted an internship on another world. It was unheard of for someone as young as she was to be offered such an opportunity and she wasn't sure but my father was ecstatic. It was an amazing coup for the family. So Amette went. Not four months later, she contracted a contagion on that world and it killed her.
no subject
She accepted the picture and was careful in handling it, taking in the resemblance between brother and sister. The poses and softness. He looked so young.
It was fascinating to her, the rules of the families. The duties that came with nobility. It reminded her of royalty, in a sense.
A smile made an appearance when she heard the affection in his tone. It saddened her though, that he cared so much for his siblings and yet here he was, hardened by his experiences, by war, by the choices he'd been forced into.
The picture lowered and Elena reached out, her hand resting near the crook of his elbow. ]
...I'm so sorry.
no subject
Instead, he nodded, acknowledgement of her sympathy, even as he continued with the story. ]
Six months after we buried Amette, my father was killed in an accident. That left Arie as a young Duke. The other families are ... ruthless when it comes to securing trade partners. Between the loss of Amette's position in the infrastructure and Arie's youth, they saw opportunity to poach our trade partners, and they were leveraging those opportunities.
Arie had quite the fight on her hands and without Amette in position, Society did not look kindly upon us.
[ There was no safety net. He turned his head and looked over at Elena, his expression soft, though he still did not smile. ]
Looking back, I realize that Arie did everything she could but in the end, when my ability manifested she had no other choice. I now stood as second born, and with a Fates given gift; she pulled me out of the Castrensis and consigned me to the Healing Order. Then she consigned Aden to the Castrensis.
[ Now, he lowered his head and looked down at her fingers on his elbow. ]
It was a bad fit, all the way around. Aden had a temperament much like Amette's, I honestly don't know how long he'll survive the military and ... well, you know me. But Arie's movements stabilized our family's standing in the eyes of Society and she was well on her way to beating off the attacks, as well as launching a few of her own ... when I ... left the planet.
no subject
[ She remembered the talk they'd had, everything he'd revealed about that world. The horrors of the decisions he'd been forced to make.
Slowly her hand moved off his arm, slipped away to rest on her lap. Not because of what she was remembering but because now she wasn't sure if he wanted her touching him, even out of offering her sympathies. ]
no subject
All the more reason why he kept himself from reaching.
Instead, he folded his hands together, lacing and unlacing his fingers as he nodded. ]
Not immediately. I did not handle civilian life gracefully and I pushed the very limit of what was acceptable. I was -miserable- and I made sure the world knew it. [ Slowly he set his chin on his knees, flicking a glance towards Elena and then back down along the line of his leg. ]
All it really did was make Arie's life a living Fates' storm. She and I fought, behind closed doors, constantly towards the end. It was getting to the breaking point. [ His voice had softened as he talked and for a moment, he paused obviously lost to those memories; the shame and the pain that came with them now. ]
The recruiters were smart. [ He continued, his voice a whisper. ] They knew, everything about us when they approached us. Our pressure points. For some, it was money, for others it was love, some it was life. For me ... it was escape.
All I had to do, was say yes.
no subject
Do you feel that you...took them up on their offer without much thought to the consequences?
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None of us read the fine print. [ He explained quietly. ] But I don't know how closely I was looking. Here was a man offering me freedom, without bringing ruin upon my family.
It seemed the perfect solution.
no subject
[ And now he was here. ]
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[ He said the words softly and then went quiet for a couple very tense breaths as he weighed a decision. No doubt she could see him weigh it in his expression, he didn't try to hide it from her.
Balanced on a knife's edge, Adrien studied her face for a long minute, before he continued. ]
You don't retire from the Castrensis. [ He began in a quiet but oddly calm voice. ] You serve until you're killed or you die. It doesn't matter if you're suited for the military, all that matters in Society's eyes is that your family consigns you. That is the Fates' demand of the third born.
There were plenty of my year mates who were not suited to the art of warfare. They were killed during training, or on the field. Those of us who survived, we were never encouraged to have significant others or families, because to do so was considered selfish.
[ This was a point he'd never explained to Neheda and he always wondered ... if he had, would she have had him. ]
How could you ask someone to love you, when your life was forfeit.
[ It may have been odd, how easily these words came from a man who so often found it hard to speak. Chin on his knees, he continued. ]
I was the third born. It was my duty to die for my family's honor, not Amette. Everything went wrong when she died. What's happened with the CDC, the future I face when I go back there ... in a way it's the life I was meant to lead. And as horrible as I know it sounds, when I lay down my life in the war to bring down HQ, to stop what they do? That purpose, is more important than my freedom.
no subject
War isn't the only answer to life, same goes for living it. But you have a purpose in life and I don't see anything wrong with that.
cw: suicidal language
[ Again he paused, balanced on that knife's edge, before he lifted his hand, gesturing towards the side of his head. ]
I hear it, every second, whether I'm awake or asleep, Elena. It was called Macha, the planet. The people were called the Neraki. The planet, cried out for days while we slowly destroyed it. Every creature, every piece of flora ... cried ... and it echoes, here. [ He tapped his temple, his hand trembling when he whispered. ] Constantly, along with the laughter of the children.
[ Slowly he lowered his hand, wrapping his arms around his knees and drawing them to his chest as he watched her. ]
I thought about staying, on that planet as it fell. [ It was the first time he'd ever voiced the desire. ] But the growing knowledge that there was a chance to help bring an end to HQ?
It's what keeps me from eating my gun. [ The words were calm, matter of fact.
He tilted his head, glancing around the immediate area and then back to her. ]
Right now, my purpose is to help get this crew safe and then ... hopefully ... get myself and the disk back to my captain.
no subject
[ He'd talked about it on the ship. She felt as sorry now for him as she did then. And even still, Elena didn't judge him for his actions. She still didn't see him as the monster he saw himself. ]
We all do what we have to in order to survive. And if ever you feel the need to...eat your gun, ever— don't. I know how hard it can be— [ There were a few things she'd never told Nate. He hadn't ever needed the extra worry. ] —but you're not alone.
no subject
'I know how hard it can be-' It was in the way she said it, the words weren't the patronizing patter of someone saying the right thing. They were the words of some who had looked into the same abyss.
And now it was his turn to reach out and lightly place his hand on her arm. It wasn't much, in the grand scheme of things, but given the way he tended to keep himself to himself -hopefully it meant something. ]
Yes, I am. [ He said softly, but without bitterness. ] Mostly through my own design and my own inability to ... [ he paused and after a moment of searching for the words, gave up and just offered her a knowing look.
After all, hadn't she just recently had to refuse to allow him to sabotage their friendship?
But that wasn't where he was going with this. In the next moment, his brows drew together in an expression of genuine concern and care. ]
But you're not, Elena. You have Nate, Tony, Hawke, Sully, me. [ Just to name a few. ] And a future with a young woman, who I can't help picturing with her mother's eyes, her mother's sass, and her father's unfortunate habit for misadventure. [ He offered this almost ... affectionately. He may be a total screw up when it came to friends, and he and Nate may be incapable of having an actual conversation but ... he cared about them both. ]
no subject
No, you're not. [ She didn't want to have to be firm on him but he needed to hear it, he had to know. ] You have Nate and Tony, you have me. We all have each other. We've all gone through different scenarios but in the end, we're all suffering deep down.
I need you as much as you need me.
[ Elena squeezed her hand over his, curled her fingers under the edge of it. They all needed each other, especially when it would get rough. And it was then at the mention of the future and a young woman that she couldn't help but smile, looking down. ]
She won't have her father's unfortunate habits if I have anything to say about it. [ The smile began to slip. ] But the future isn't always set in stone. It might not happen, something could get in the way.
no subject
He gently returned the pressure of her fingers, but he gentle let go the initial exchange and focused on the latter comment. It was weighted but also more hopeful. ]
MmmHmmm. I'll believe that when I see it. [ He teased softly, because let's hold it up to the light shall we? Elena was just as adventuresome as her husband. Though he did understand the concern about the future, what might or might not pan out. Strange that he had no hope for himself but all the hope in the world for those he called friend.
Slowly rocking forward, he made to get up to his feet. He was still, gently gripping her hand and would draw her up right if she desired the assistance. ]
And quite possibly, but I have faith in you two. Besides you both deserve to have that young lady come along to run you both off your feet. [ He was still teasing, though there was a hint of genuine emotion in his tone. Between them, they had given him about twenty new grey hairs. ]
no subject
Since I won't be needing this anymore... I'll take it back to the tent, clean it up. And if anyone asks about my arm, I'll tell them I forgot I had a potion that helped with the whole healing process.
[ Her hand squeezes his before releasing. His secret would be safe with her. Always. ]
What do you plan on doing for the rest of the evening?
no subject
My ability with bone isn't that deep a secret, Elena. I don't talk about it, but I don't hide it if it can be of use. [ It was a lot of the rest of what he'd told her, his past ... his family, his plans for the future. That was where the true darkness lay.
He gave her fingers a gentle squeeze just before she withdrew. The question caught him a little off guard but he gave his head a shake and began to walk over to where his tent was set up. ]
First, I'm going to follow up on some of these offers for clean water. Test what's being produced and see if there are viable options. Depending upon how long that takes, one last set of rounds in the medical tent and then probably walk a perimeter patrol.
[ The exciting life and times of one Adrien Arbuckal. ]