tampered | Log; Ongoing

Log; Ongoing

When; wee hours of Sept. 11
Rating; PG? language? gore?
Characters; Scarab (

noh_dancer), The Corinthian (

bitingnightmare), John Constantine (

silkcutremix)
Summary; TBA
Log;
It wasn't so much the pain, rather The Corinthian wanted that wound healed as soon as possible. He felt vulnerable having to hide it, for it reminded him of what had happened, what still made little sense to him. For now he'd settled with just queling the headache in the shower, once spotless towel now completely tainted. The laughing magician was still dumpster diving for who knows what, a mop did he say? Maybe John would leave him alone after sniffing out some grub. The Nightmare felt... he didn't know how he felt, only what he needed. Because Scarab had mentioned stitching, he hoped she could employ her specialized skills on this visit.

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... What? Did that rat bastard forget to close the door?? The Corinthian had already forgotten how The City could take you where you wanted to go, perhaps that's how he got into this mess in the first place. No matter, first priority would be to mouth off at Constantine for dumpster diving *without* leaving the door open ugh. Second priority would be to clean up the mess on the floor of course. It looked mighty terrible, he had to admit that... were he not trying to keep the wound bleeding over the drain. The Nightmare was still seated halfway over the rim of the tub, towel to the wound, water running. His teeth eyes remained exposed but staring into them right now would yield only a minor terror. The fear seemed to run out of him like his blood.

*SHIT!!*

Who know anyone could get the drop on The Corinthian. He almost fell face-first into the faucet when Scarab came tearing into the bathroom. Fortunately he managed to keep a hand on the wound.

-It's my specialty- he snapped back, panic reaction turned to brief anger, but immediately he calmed. There was blood everywhere. John had been gone for longer than expected. She was the only person he counted on for help right now. *Long story* his eyes rasped.

"Right....Well it'll have to wait" she replied, and set down the medkit.

Dropping to one knee next to him, and ignoring the mess that was starting to soak into her black jeans, she opened the kit, and snapped on a pair of latex gloves.

Right. Business first, and bitching him out later.

Gingerly she pushed back a corner of the blood-soaked towel and took a quick look at the wound.
The fact that he wasn't dead yet was still pretty mind-bending, but now wasn't the time to dwell.

" Holding pressure over this isn't going to help all that much" she remarked, now more thinking out loud than informing him of what he , no doubt, already knew.
" Do you have more towels? Maybe even some sheets we could put down to soak some of this up? Because there's really no good way to do this aside from laying you out & suturing as soon as possible."

Scarab frowned. Where to lay him out, besides the already coated floor?
In all honesty this was a fatal wound that would have a normal human dead in seconds....so treatement really wasn't going to be all that practical.

" And light. I'm going to need a fairly bright lamp, or something" she added almost as an afterthought.

Most mortals might be unsettled by seeing someone not only survive something like this, but be capable of coherent speech ( even if that speech originated from the eyes...Ah, the mind-fuck continues) as well as a touch of sarcasm, but Scarab had switched into what she referred to as 'work mode' the moment she saw such a large amount of blood coating everything from the floor to the couch, to Alex himself.

At present she felt nothing except a sense of urgency that stitching needed to be done and done now.

Later....well...later was going to be a whole different story.

Peeling the edge of the towel near his hand back a little bit more, she swore rather violently in japanese at noticing his windpipe, and trachea were damaged. The former was severed completely, but the latter seemed to have only been partially cut originally, then torn a little more afterwards. Possibly from sharp movement? Hard to say and a moot point.

She glanced away from the wound and very briefly up to his face before rising to her feet.
" Come on. I know you don't want to make any more of a mess, but thats not just going to clot if you hold enough pressure on it."

Ahh, something he and Scarab could agree on! He preferred that the long story should wait until *after* she'd sutured the wound, in case his story should upset her to the point she wanted to agitate it ehehe. The Nightmare didn't know the woman well enough to gauge her actions during a fit of bad temper, not that it wasn't a well-deserved fit. He raised his hand from the wound as it was nudged, giving her a plain look with his eyes, hard to tell with him sometimes.

*I know that.*

-No.-

Those eyeteeth made their own little grimace as they spoke, modest evidence that he did feel pain and just had an uncommonly high threshold for it. As for where they could lay what should be a funeral shroud... The bathroom was small and cramped but offered the advantage of bright light and three drains, the living room floor was the first to get messy but he hadn't dripped over every single corner of it, the table was speckled yet not large enough for him to lay out, decisions decisions. Decisions he left up to Field Surgeon Scarab. At least he'd gotten rid of his stained shirt and jacket, though his jeans were still damp from rain and blood.

Keeping one hand to the mediocre clotting device, The Corinthian gestured to the studio living room.

*Two lamps there.*

-Best I got.-

Unless Constantine brought a few standing halogens on his way back.

Absently she peeled off the first set of gloves and tucked them clean-side-out into each other.
...The bathroom would have to do.
It was a bit small, but she figured she could make that work for her by forcing him to stay still.

That, and the drains is afforded, made it seem the logical choice.

Standing, she disapeared out the door and after a quick bit of searching, returned with the smaller desk light, and her bag.
Thankfully she had thought ahead enough to bring three towels just in case she needed to make bandages, boiled ahead of time of course.
She lay them out to make a small-ish sterile workspace, then gestured for him to lay down before she moved the lamp closer.

" ...I'm going to assume you do feel some kind of pain over this, and therefore offer morphine" she announced as she rummaged in her box of tricks and came up with a packaged hypodermic, and a bottle of concentrate.
" I plan on spraying the wound with this -" she showed him a can of topical spray that acted as temporary novacaine.- "before I start in on sewing."
Frowning she shook her head.
" You have no idea how lucky you are that I know how to do this...I have a bad feeling that is going to require more than just a couple stitches."

Scarab filled the needle with enough to make him a little woozy, but not enough to send him out, based on a guestimation of his weight, and tapped the needle to release any bubbles, while he settled back.
A bit of an awkward shifting dance ensued as there wasn't a lot of space, and he was awfully tall, but they managed without someone losing an important piece of anatomy.

Thankfully, this was old hat for Scarab, and the memories of removing more than a few bullets from her only friend within the Circle of the Noh: Tigerlily, served as a very effective crash course in field-surgery.
That, combined with the fear of being caught unprepared agian should something serious happen to herself, or Faye, or Frederick, made for a very lucky circumstance should any of them need some form of doctoring.

Once he was settled, and still holding the towel to his throat, she layed out a disposable towel, and used the toilet seat ( lid down) as an impromtu table, complete with the desk light shining over her shoulder.
"This would be a lot easier if I had another set of hands" she commented, as she used one of the towel-rods to sort of hang the saline solution from.
IV inserted, and morphine administered, Scarab set about readying a few hemostats to be able to switch from one thread to the next without having stop mid-way through sewing.
" Ok, when I say, your going to lift that towel, and I'll work as fast as I can so we don't have to worry about you bleeding out any more than you already have."
She got the spray positioned with her bad hand. " Now."
He moved it, and predictably a pretty good amount of blood welled up, which she cleaned off tot the best of her ability & numbed the wound.

" Just keep still." she instructed, and after swiping more at the fresh bloodflow, and letting the spray take effect, she was starting to guide the needle through the thick cartiledge of his windpipe.

((OOC: long post! @_@ ))

She could make a living doing housecalls, that's for sure. The Corinthian followed her orders, lying down where necessary even if that meant scrubbing the blood out of the grout with some bleach and a toothbrush. On the suggestion of morphine, he gave Scarab a reluctant look, waving his free hand to refuse the drug. Something about sticking needles into his veins just to ease some silly agony... but coming from a man who'd just had his jugular cut that had to be a minor annoyance. Regardless of what Scarab chose to do he didn't put up a fight.

-Done this before?- he joked despite this being a bad time to do so ehehe. *Room mate stepped out for a second.*

Well he wasn't a roomie but damn would it get on Constantine's nerves to hear that hah! That is, if he wasn't answering the call of his hobo roots. Then the Nightmare noted the IV and shook his head slightly.

*Don't need it, Scarab*

However were she able to stick it into his wrist and tape it down anyway he wouldn't bother trying to pull it out like an insolent patient. As she requested he kept still save for the hand on the towel. On her cue he lifted it up, exposing the entire wound. It was a clean intentional cut, the weapon lacking a serrated edge, thank the Endless. Had his attacker cut any deeper though he may as well have gone the while way by severing The Corinthian's head. Now *that* would have been the most dead embarrassing situation of them all. After a moment of silence, stilling his physical breath so she could work more efficiently, the Nightmare spoke again with his eyes.

-Thanks, Scarab.-

" Ya, I've had some practice" she replied absently.
Eight stitches into the job, and she wasn't even half done...
" I have a pretty extensive collection of scars, and I used to put my friend, Tigerlilly, back together sometimes after misions.", Scarab shrugged very slightly so as not to disturb the angle of the needle.
" Never anything this -ah- "extensive', though " she admitted with a wry smile & mentally substituted "extensive" with "fatal".

"Now, granted, I don't really know anything about 'Nightmare' physiology" She commented with a frown, and very carefully tied off a suture, joining up the severed portions of his windpipe.
"..But I really don't understand how you can be losing this much blood without some kind of effect."
As if on cue a fresh flow welled from the wound, and obscured her view of what she was doing.
With a noise of irritation, she quickly opened a new pack of sterilized sponges and started mopping up the mess.

" So who's this 'roomate'? I'm pretty curious to see if this guy is like you...an eyeball where his mouth would be, or something?"
Scarab grinned, and glanced to his eyes very briefly.

*It needs to heal faster.* The Corinthian explained regarding suturing the wound, it would lessen the mess too. -Glad you've got the experience.-

He offered a faint smirk but remained still lest she drill the needle through his chin by accident. Nightmare physiology was a strange thing, only his creator had any say on what could and couldn't be done to him. Obviously death was not his for the taking, suicide seemed like an impossible option as well. Only Dream could unmake him, for there was no such thing as killing The Corinthian, only dismantling him. It made for interesting encounters like this one, and the implications of control and submission were subtle but extremely true. As for his blood, it wasn't even necessary that he bleed. The wound could pour out sands of the dreaming, like the glittering stars deep in His Master's eyes, but he was a shadow and opposite, and therefore reflected the reality of pain and suffering however gruesome.

Ugh, she might have noticed the wince at the corner of his eyes when blood began to flow again. He could feel it running down his skin, warm to the Nightmare's soul and yet an unwanted reminder of times passed. Without thinking much of Scarab's question either he answered in those jagged tones.

-John's mortal.-

*But don't let him fool you.*

Scarab grinned and raised her eyebrows, though never took her eyes from her work.
"John, huh?" She even had to pause for a few moments when a thought occurred to her, and in the process probably earned a very quizzical look from Alex.

" I knew my gaydar was going off when you were telling me about your Dream King" she explained and wiggled her eyebrows suggestively.
Probably not a terribly delicate way to get her meaning across, but that devilish little voice in the back of her head fairly pounced on the oppurtunity to tease him a bit.

Still smiling, she straightened a little from her hunched over position and rolled her shoulders while switching out her hemostats for a fresh pair, needle and thread.
His windpipe and trachea were now repaired with the more expensive type of thread that would eventually break down and dissolve as he healed.

" Right", she said with a sigh, and used her wrist to wipe at her forehead ( and left a little smear of blood behind)
" Tricky part is done...now for the easy part.....I can't promise this isn't going to leave a scar thats going to look nasty as fuck for a while, but I'll do my best to keep them small."

She smiled, and glanced at his 'eyes', hoping to take a little of the sting out of her previous teasing.
Another spray of the novacaine, and she started in on the largest wound.
" So where did you and 'John' meet?"

......... What?

He raised a brow himself, noting the grin on her face, and he didn't think she was grinning at his wound. Did Scarab know the man? Or maybe she didn't believe him, but what would ever give her a reason *not* to believe him. Very strange indeed. THEN it became clear as gay--uh... day. The Corinthian's expression flattened over her assessment. Now she was hardly wrong about that, he liked men (he liked them a lot) and had rarely ever been with a woman, the last he recalled was Pestilence with her flighty ways, but to determine that by how he regarded Dream of the Endless, that was... it was uncomfortable. She'd also said *gaydar* ugh.

"Rrngh," The Corinthian sounded. No, his voice wasn't back just yet.

*It's not like that, My Lord and I.* He explained to her quickly.

It wasn't like that AT ALL. How awkward it would be if it was, not that the Nightmare had ever considered it. The very thought of it made him shiver instead of cringe, the thought of looking into those deep black oblivions intimately.

-I don't scar, it's fine.-

The Corinthian said this absently, his mind still reeling from the subject she brought up. It wasn't one of those things you discussed while sewing up someone's trachea, then again sewing up tracheas outside of a hospital for a very much alive patient was rare in itself. His brows knit once more, a bit nosey about this wasn't she. The thought of him and Constantine....

*Don't say it.*

-We're from the same place.-

He clarified for her benefit, even if it should pop her... fruity fantasy bubble. Now if the white-blonde would only *answer* her question. The man fell from the sky, dropped right into his lap so to speak. That story needed to be edited before he could give it to Scarab.

*Near the carousel.*

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Log; Ongoing

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