applesaucedream | [closed] When all turns out to be unjust, then I'll turn back and help you out

Seth doesn't answer, doesn't do much to acknowledge what's being said at all, but he hears it all and tries to absorb it, tries to believe it. Despite not answering though, he does at relax marginally. It's... good to hear it. Being stated so plainly and honestly.

And while he knows Daniel has more experience with that kind of thing that Seth does, Daniel being shot at doesn't seem like it should be something 'bound to happen'. But Seth being out also means Daniel is out. And Seth to agree - that means it's worth it, right?

Seth doesn't say anything and Daniel can only guess what's occupying his mind. Guilt, maybe. However ridiculous it might sound.

"It'll be okay." He repeats the words with absolute conviction. "You're gonna have to trust me on that."

There's really no rational basis for him to say so, but Daniel thinks Seth just needs to hear it. Reassurance that things will eventually get to the realm of Somewhat Okay. He doesn't expect it to happen immediately; right now things are too fresh and lingering and there's no way that the trauma of months in captivity will simply evaporate.

"And I'll help you," Daniel adds, "you know, once we've...figured this out." By which he means the bleeding and the gunshot wound.

Seth doesn't look up until Daniel says he'll help him. Well, for all he knows, Daniel could've just been meaning to get Seth out and away. Rescue operation but not rehabilitation and recovery. And what would Seth even do? He doesn't feel like he's much of a state to support himself. So the reassurance that Daniel isn't going to just evaporate into thin air is... very important for him to hear.

He manages a tired smile in return. Thankfully he's saved from having to think up a reply - he doesn't know how to use words at the moment - by a knock on the door. He jumps to his feet, exhaustion suddenly forgotten, and slowly opens the door a fraction.

"Hello. I'm Alicia Cassady, I'm from the clinic," the woman outside says, with a gentle smile. Seth breathes a small sigh of relief, nods, and opens the door all the way, letting her in. He still doesn't feel very comfortable with talking, so he's just going to step back and sit on the bed and let her deal with Daniel.

She steps inside, closing the door behind her, and makes a sympathetic face when she sees Daniel's injury. "Hi, I'm Alicia," she introduces herself to Daniel as well, not wasting any time, setting down her bag and taking off her coat and going to check on him. "How are you holding up?"

The knock on the door interrupts their one-sided dialogue, but Daniel doesn't mind when he learns it's the doctor from the clinic. Oh, thank god.

"Hey," he says, pseudo-cheerfully, "Daniel. I'd shake your hand but, you know."

The humor isn't really helping take his mind off it, so Daniel drops it and goes right ahead to rattling off what he knows:

"Got lucky, I think. Doesn't feel like the bullet hit the joint or the subclavian but I'm mostly basing that off the fact that I'm not dead. Been keeping on the pressure, so no passing out yet." He smiles weakly. "Not the first time I've been shot."

Alicia nods thoughtfully, pulling back her sleeves and kneeling next to Daniel. She removes Daniel's hand so she can take a better look.

"Alright. I'm going to see how bad it is. I'm sorry if it's uncomfortable," she says, then places carefully her hands on Daniel's shoulder, one right over the wound, and the other on the back of his shoulder. Then she closes her eyes for a few moments. The pain should be dulled a little, replaced by a tingling sensation.

After about ten seconds, she opens her eyes again. "You're right, you did get lucky, although there is a little bit of nerve damage. Hopefully I'll be able to fix that, though. First we need to get the bullet out, though. Now, this will probably hurt a little, but I'll try to dull the pain as best I can. Just try to relax."

She checks that Daniel is ready, and then she closes her eyes again. It takes longer this time, and she numbs him as best she can, so hopefully it won't be worse than what he's already had to deal with for a while. Slowly, the bullet makes its way back out, along with fibers and anything else that shouldn't be in there. She carefully makes the blood clot behind it, sealing up the wound as best she can so it will stop bleeding.

By the end of it, only about half a minute later, there are beads of sweat on her forehead and a look of deep concentration, and then she smiles triumphantly and pulls back her hand to show Daniel the successfully removed bullet.

"Okay," he answers warily, drawing out the word. He's not sure how putting a bare hand on the injury is supposed to help until he starts to feel the localized shift in the area and wow, that is an odd sensation. Perhaps it's because he's fully conscious and aware to experience it, and of course they'd have someone with a healing power working for them, so Daniel closes his eyes and keeps himself calm and as a coping tactic it's been going fairly well so far until he has to bite back a startled yelp when she starts taking the bullet out. Ordinarily Daniel would simply leave it there, the damage done and the possibility of removal risking a total bleed-out, but he supposes one with a healing power would have better control over this sort of thing.

So Daniel forces himself to hold still and trust Alicia and the Hippocratic Oath or whatever they have as an equivalent here, if applicable, and sure enough, the wound actually closes behind the bullet, internal and external. He breathes out noisily once it's over and offers Alicia a shaky smile.

"Thank you," he tells her sincerely, unconsciously flexing the fingers on his formerly nerve-damaged hand. "Ah. That's different. But really honestly - thank you."

The area feels sore, as to be expected, but the pain is significantly less.

Seth just watches quietly and worriedly from the bed, wincing a little when Daniel yelps, and he can't help but gape a little when he realises she actually removed the bullet. Well then, at least she knows what she's doing, and now that he sees Daniel move his hand, relief is actually starting to hit him, slowly but surely.

She smiles warmly at Daniel's thank you, and puts the bullet away, inspecting the wound. "Alright, it's closed up, but it's not healed yet, alright? That's gonna take time, and it will probably leave a scar, but otherwise you should make a full recovery."

Alicia opens up her bag and pulls out some bandages, painkillers, and everything he'll need, and starts to clean the wound properly, so she can put a bandage on. "You should be able to use your arm now as long as you're careful. No heavy lifting or anything like that. Keep an eye out for infection, and see a doctor if anything seems wrong," she instructs.

He nods at her instructions, which make sense considering he was recently shot but it won't be as big a pain than if he'd left the bullet in. A full recovery is far beyond what Daniel had optimistically hoped was possible.

"Thank you," he repeats. "I'll keep that all in mind." The instructions ultimately boil down to "don't do anything stupid" - directions Daniel has a fundamental problem with following most of the time - but he promises himself he'll at least try.

He shoots a glance at Seth, wondering if Alicia would be willing to give him a once-over. Disaster scenarios typically say to take care of the quiet ones first and Seth has barely said much of anything since they got here short of the initial assurance that he'd be fine, followed by his bizarre apology. That's more than a little concerning.

Alicia finishes wrapping up Daniel's wound, and finally gets to her feet again, as she does, so does Seth. He pulls out his wallet (well, Daniel's wallet) and pulls out some money which he silently hands to her. The clinic is free, but they're also funded largely by donations, so.

"Alright. Well, if that's everything..." she says, looking between the two of them, and Seth nods, dropping the wallet onto the nightstand. Feels weird to carry it around.

"Actually, um," Daniel hesitates because he doesn't know how Seth is going to react to this, but forges ahead regardless, "would it be possible to just - check him over, make sure he's okay? Just to be on the safe side."

Spending a couple months in the rebels' hands can't have been very good for him in any case. And Daniel is worried, because Seth is acting too quiet, because one of the first things he said was a completely unwarranted apology, because his hands are shaking and he doesn't look steady on his feet, and Daniel is worried.

Seth blinks in surprise at Daniel. He hadn't called the clinic for his own sake, after all, and... Well, he's not used to be worried over. Not that he hadn't been checked on by doctors at the base, but it had felt a lot more like them doing inventory count or something, and it generally didn't seem to actually lead to better treatment.

"Of course, if it's alright by you," she answers, turning to Seth, who gives a surprised nod. She holds out her hands to him, and he hesitantly takes them. Feels strange to have someone offer him their hands for once. He can't tell if she's doing anything, but then her face grows suddenly sad and sympathetic, and he wonders how much she can actually tell.

"Well, for right now, exhaustion and probably shock, but not really anything I can do much about. You also have some malnutrition, and... Well, it's difficult for me to really make out someone's mental health," she tells them, though she stays focused on Seth, who doesn't quite meet her eyes and feels embarrassed at the pointed implication that there is something wrong with his mental health. (Even if he knows there is.) "But with plenty of rest, healthy eating, and good emotional support, you should feel a lot better," she reassures Seth, who nods awkwardly and pulls his hands back, stuffing them in his pockets.

The diagnosis doesn't tell Daniel much outside of what was already obvious from Seth's shaking and his general inability to sit still, but he appreciates the confirmation regardless.

"Thank you," he says again, tentatively getting to his feet. Pleased he's able to support himself just fine, he moves over to shake her hand gratefully. And also shoot Seth a not-terribly-inconspicuous worried look. He's not going to go treating his friend like he's something fragile or broken - because he isn't, however much he might think otherwise, he wouldn't have gotten them both here had that been the case - but it's clear that everything that's happened has done its psychical damage. A bullet hole in the shoulder is, at least, fixable, reassuringly tangible with clear instructions on how to cleanse, repair, and heal.

But Daniel still doesn't know the complete specifics of what happened to Seth while he was kept in the base, what kind of psychological torture was inflicted on him, what kind of mental state he might be in now or how good he is at hiding it. The only conclusion he can unquestionably come to is that helping Seth through it won't be as simple as patching a bullet to the shoulder.

Meanwhile, at the assurance that Daniel can now easily see the woman out himself, and he is no longer necessary, Seth slips silently away into the bathroom, closing the door behind him.

Alicia gives Seth's retreating back a sympathetic look, before focusing back on Daniel. "Well, I'll be off, then. Look after him, will you?" she says with a small smile, then collects her things and takes her leave.

Seth leans over the sink and looks at himself in the mirror. No wonder Daniel keeps looking at him with that worried face, he does look like shit. It's strange, he doesn't quite look like himself. Except he feels like shit, so it makes sense he would look it too. Now he doesn't have anything to focus on, the full extent of it seems to be making a comeback, and he turns suddenly towards the toilet and vomits.

Edited 2014-10-23 00:29 (UTC)

"I will," he assures her as she exits the room. He relaxes a little more as he closes the door behind her. Alicia had come in, done what was needed, and left without asking any questions or raising any taboo subjects. Daniel makes a mental note to thank whoever runs the rifty clinic the next chance he gets, then turns back to the room in much less pain, walking steadily, less on edge than before.

Seth, meanwhile, sounds like he's taken a turn for the worse.

Daniel finds him in the bathroom, divulging the contents of his stomach and, wincing, quickly crouches at his side, one hand on his back. He doesn't think there's much else he can do besides kneel next to Seth and wait for it to pass, though he does search the counter for a towel and finds a (thankfully unbloodied) washcloth for when it does.

Seth winces a little at the touch, not used to anyone touching him unexpectedly for, well, positive reasons, though he quickly relaxes against it again. As much as he can relax at the moment, sitting on the floor and leaned over a toilet bowl while his stomach contracts.

Thankfully it doesn't last terribly long, what with having very few stomach contents to divulge, and this not actually being a reaction to anything digestive, just... well, the shock, he assumes.

"Sorry.." he says, once it seems like he won't be interrupted by stomach acid again. He's shaking more again, though at least now it makes sense why he would be.

Daniel doesn't say anything immediately, simply hands Seth the washcloth. He's shivering rather violently again, which is...really not a good sign. He gives Seth's back a few reassuring rubs but god, he looks awful. And probably still in shock.

It looks like the worst has passed, at least.

"It's okay," he replies, for the life of him completely at a loss as to what Seth could possibly be apologizing for. "You're gonna be fine. We're gonna get you lying down, okay? Think you can walk?"

Seth wipes his mouth and just sits there, taking deep, steadying breaths and trying to get his body to calm down a little. He's only partly successful.

He nods at the question and slowly gets to his feet, flushing after him, and turns to the sink first, just to rinse out his mouth and get rid of the taste of sick.

"You should be lying down," he realises suddenly, because Seth's not the one who's been shot here. And just because Daniel isn't losing any more blood doesn't mean he hasn't already been deprived of quite a lot of it.

"Alicia took care of it. I'll be fine." That's not strictly speaking true - she might have patched the wound, but there's still the bodily need for recuperation and the blood loss factor, however minimal he was able to keep the latter - but Seth looks about ready to collapse on his feet.

He continues, just as calmly, while offering his good hand for support: "And I'm not the one who can't stop shivering."

True, Daniel's not feeling great. But Seth's definitely been pushed to his limit. More accurately, he was pushed to his limit months ago and then kept at his limit for an unhealthily extended period of time, and he's long overdue for a crash.

Seth doesn't really know what Alicia did, so he's going to have to take Daniel's word for it until he gets evidence to the contrary. That's good, though. Daniel will be fine.

He hesitates for a moment before accepting Daniel's support, making his way back to the bed and sitting down on it, toeing off his boots. He feels clammy and tense and wiped out, but most of the nausea seems to have passed, and his heart's no longer going a mile a minute.

And Seth's out. He's really out. There are no guards here, nothing to truly stop him from leaving if he wants to, no one to make him do anything. Even when Daniel is telling him what to do, it's always a suggestion or request, not an order. If Seth insisted on splitting up, taking his own path, he's sure Daniel would try to talk him out of it, but he wouldn't physically prevent him. And that goes an awful long way in making him feel safe.

Seth still looks about ready to pass out and he's probably still in shock but at least he's sitting on the bed now so, progress.

Daniel sits next to him in case Seth actually does pass out. He doesn't seem to be one hundred percent there, like he's trapped in processing mode. Daniel doesn't blame him. Three and a half months is more than enough time to instinctively become adaptive to an environment, however unfriendly, and he'll likely need some time to adjust.

The silence stretches on and while Seth's anxiety seems less, it's very much still present.

"You'll be okay now," Daniel says finally, looking back over to him. "I promise I'm gonna do whatever I can to make sure of that."

He's not sure if Seth wants the reassurances but he certainly looks like he needs them.

Seth looks back at Daniel and smiles, a little more solidly now. Like it's not just words, but actual meaning that he can begin to absorb. "Thanks.." he answers quietly, nodding a little. "For everything," he adds, because it needs saying. Even if there's no way to express how much thanks Daniel really deserves for doing this.

He deliberates whether to get any more undressed, as he's been usually sleeping pretty fully dressed for a long, long time. It feels strange to do anything different, but his t-shirt is sweaty, and these clothes are... Well, they're almost a prison uniform to him. They're just regular clothes, of course, but at this point they feel very specific to that place. And just the fact that he can sleep in his underwear like he used to once upon a time, without (rational) fear of being woken up and dragged elsewhere, it's what makes him decide to do so. He peels off the t-shirt first, dropping it unceremoniously on the ground, before starting on the trousers.

To Daniel's relief, Seth looks to be following through on the "lying down" suggestion. He gets off the bed to give him some space and wanders over to scoop up his discarded shirt and jacket along with Seth's hoodie. He hangs them in the bathroom where at least then they won't be staining the carpet. Daniel doesn't want to have to explain that to the hotel staff.

He re-enters the room to find Seth's very literal back to him as his shirt has now been deposited onto the floor. He looks a little bruised, Daniel notes absently, but that's not surprising considering what he's been through recently. But there's a thin dark line of markings on his upper back that don't look like any kind of bruising he's ever seen. Daniel moves closer and squints at them, concerned, until he's able to tell exactly what they are.

Then he sees he can read them, and his insides rapidly congeal into ice.

Daniel makes a small, strangled noise that he stifles almost immediately, a completely unintentional reaction to the horribly familiar little black line of numbers that have been tattooed to Seth's back. He doesn't mean to draw attention to it, that's probably the last thing Seth needs right now, but the damage is done.

Seth's just shimmied out of his trousers and socks when he hears Daniel make a noise behind him, and he turns in time to see Daniel's horrified expression. Something must be wrong, but Seth can't tell what it could be.

"What's wrong?" he asks, confused and worried now.

"You're -" Daniel makes an abortive hand gesture at his back. "I didn't realize they'd -"

He takes a shaky breath and looks away. Assigning Seth a number title in lieu of a name was a very deliberate act of dehumanization but going ahead and tattooing the number on him goes even farther. It's a constant, active reminder, an implication that Seth can't ever fully escape that place and the people in it.

They branded him. Like property.

"I'm sorry," he mutters, rubbing at his mouth with one hand and wishing he hadn't noticed at all. "I'm sorry, I just, I didn't realize they'd - done that. To your back."

It takes a long while for Seth to realise what Daniel is stammering about. He almost reaches back to see if there's anything there, worried he's gotten hurt without noticing or something.

"Oh," he answers, darkening a little once he finally catches up. He shifts on the bed, sitting up against the pillows and slipping his legs under the covers, so his back won't be turned against Daniel anymore, though he doesn't look up to meet his eyes. "Yeah, it was just... One particularly sadistic bloke who didn't much like it when I punched him in the face. Said it'd remind me of my place."

Seth probably could've done a better job of managing his anger at times, but there was a lot of frustration and emotions that he needed to vent somehow. Actually getting to take it out on a target who had actually done something to hurt him had been very liberating and rewarding, or at least until both the immediate and long-term punishments.

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