Brighteyes McStabbass, Party of Two

[myironeyes]

[Spam in the infirmary, shortly after this thread.]

[Marsh arrives gingerly bearing an unconscious, injured Riddick. He has several damaged ribs, a dislocated shoulder, and possibly a conscussion. Marsh answers questions curtly and does not interfere with Infirmary staff, but nor does he allow himself to be sent any farther that a few feet from Riddick's bedside. He's angry and worried and agitated, not that anyone who didn't know him well would be able to see it among his usual scowls.]

We have reason to believe he is not in his right mind. Are there restraints available?

[OOC: open to Infirmary people, whether official or just hanging around there, and to anyone who knows about the fight and wants to check in on Marsh and Riddick before Zane's announcement.]


[Spam slightly later, near/after Zane's public query, for Riddick and then Ben]

[Riddick wakes up, ribs taped, his shoulder back in its socket and wrapped with an ice pack, wrists and ankles in metal cuffs, with Marsh looming attentive and still beside him.]


[Private to Iris]

[He's even more shut down than usual.]

Please come to the infirmary. Riddick appears to be one of those modified.

You can...help. Right?

[Please.]

Comments

infirmary spam

[lastincident]

Of course there are.

[ Bruce doesn't like tying people to beds, but on the barge it's both doable and necessary. ]

infirmary spam

[myironeyes]

[He's seen steel handcuffs around, once or twice.]

Metal shackles would be best. We can leave them unattached if he is not immediately agressive, but I can use them to hold him if he is.

infirmary spam

[lastincident]

You don't use metal shackles in an infirmary for a variety of reasons, especially for a patient who will struggle.

[ Instead Bruce secures very broad, multi-layed leather-and-cloth straps. The buckles in them are metal at least, but the restraints themselves are not. ]

infirmary spam

[myironeyes]

Hmmm.

[He supposes they will do.]

How bad is he?

[Marsh has a decent sense - he's patched people up, here and there, on the all-two-frequent occasion when no one better was available, but he's not any kind of medic.]

infirmary spam

[lastincident]

Hurting, but it's not life threatening from what I can discern. The damage to his mind...

I can't even begin to fathom.

infirmary spam

[myironeyes]

[Darkly]

I can.

infirmary spam

[lastincident]

I'm sure there are others who can. [ He doesn't know what to say to that, that so many on the barge could understand... ]

[ In the end, he's satisfied Riddick is secure. ]

Don't worry, we'll get it handled. In the mean time, he's safe here, and he can't hurt me. The others-- [ Debatable ] I'll see to his care personally until this is fixed.

Beautiful dreamer, waken to WAHARRRGARBLE

[with_my_teacup]

[If there's any question about whether Riddick is in his right mind it's solved pretty quickly when he wakes up. Not that he wouldn't fight while injured even if he was perfectly sane, but he wouldn't do something as stupid as make a grab for the nearest blunt object and lunge wordlessly at Marsh without even waiting for Marsh to be distracted. There's something missing, and it's not just the way he isn't talking, it's the way his rage isn't tempered by instinct.]

ROFL

[myironeyes]

[Marsh barely twitches, burning steel, pushing each of Riddick's limbs away from him in a sideways jumble. Riddick hits the wall, the cuffs at his wrists and ankles digging slightly into the plaster. It's probably awful on his bad shoulder, but that will mend. He doesn't know Riddick well, but part of him recognizes that way of moving, not quite mindless but subsumed in violence in a way that makes the mind irrelevant.]

I don't want to hurt you.

[He growls softly, wonders if Riddick is there enough to hear him.]

[with_my_teacup]

Fuck you.

[His smile is brutal and a little unhinged: he seems unaware of the pain, struggling against the cuffs without caring that he's damaging himself.]

[myironeyes]

[Marsh's chair actually scoots back, a little - his own body is the counterweight at the other end of the push - until he stands and braces himself. The smile is terribly familiar too; he does not shudder.]

Why did you attack Zane?

[It's not even accusatory. He suspects he knows, aches a little.]

[with_my_teacup]

[No answer; Riddick seems more concerned with trying to worm his way out of the cuffs; there's a soft pop as his injured shoulder goes back out.]

[myironeyes]

[He moves very quickly then, faster than a mistborn can, with stored speed that he can concentrate several times over. In a rush, an eye-blink, he pops the shoulder back in. Then, with a coil of guilt and uncertainty gnawing at his gut, he burns brass, Soothing Riddick's anger and bloodlust. It's not subtle. It's not overwhelming, either, but it's sudden and blunt and intense, pushing the wild emotions down.]

Stop.

[indispensible]

[This marks the first time Vin has approached Marsh since she arrived here. Of course, it's not (at least not chiefly) to talk to him. She wants to see what he's doing to Riddick, if anything; what Riddick's done, what shape he's in. When she sees his injuries, she gives a slight nod. Then she turns to Marsh, looking at him unflinchingly.]

You know what's wrong with him, don't you?

[myironeyes]

I strongly suspect he has been changed.

Ned said it was done with a machine. I do not understand how, or how much it resembles the. Influence we are familiar with.

[indispensible]

Ruin.

[She frowns. Why be coy? Now that they can say it, they should.]

Is it reversible?

[myironeyes]

[Because Marsh is made of mental keysmash right now and he doesn't want to, jeez Vin.]

I believe so.

[indispensible]

[VOL-DE-MORT, Marsh.]

You believe so.

[myironeyes]

[He can say it! When he isn't sdlgsdngksdgag, give him a break.]

I don't know. But it sounded as though Ned believed it could be fixed.

[Also they know telepaths, even if that is. Almost as disconcerting as the rest of it.]

voice > spam

[routemistress]

I won't know till I get me 'ands on 'im. I've 'ad a look at Alpha's machine. We're lucky 'e didn't turn their brains into cottage cheese. I'm on me way.

[And she's at the infirmary door just as she clicks off the feed. She comes up beside Marsh, laying a gentle hand on his arm by way of letting him know she's here.]

voice > spam

[myironeyes]

[He considers asking what cottage cheese is, as a method for delaying dealing with all of this a little longer, but decides that he really doesn't need a more visceral image of the comparison. He doesn't tense under her hand this time, although this may be simply because he is already completely wound up.]

He was - he was acting like an Inquisitor, when he first woke up. Like someone poured destruction into him and it crowded out the rest.

[It's a very low, quiet horror. Inured to it, resigned to it, but underneath that still recoiling, still mournful. He hates, hates seeing someone else like that, hates more not having any way to fix it.]

He was hurting himself worse struggling, until I soothed him a little. I'm not now.

[He feels incredibly guilty for that, guilty and scared that he might have made it worse, putting pressure on Riddick's mind at all. But it seemed better than the alternatives.]

spam

[routemistress]

[She might have been able to stop herself, but it would have taken a conscious effort and by the time it occurs to Iris to make it, she's already half-turned, squeezing Marsh's arm in hers, smiling up into his blind gaze. Her affection, her admiration-laced compassion flows out of her like cool steam, settling on the outer limits of Marsh's like dew.]

Good man. Your turn, Riddick love; Marsh, whatever you do keep 'im still.

[She turns, thought-swift, and reaches for the man on the bed.]

spam

[with_my_teacup]

[Riddick jerks bodily away from her touch, and one hand--he has long practice getting out of full body restraints unnoticed--flies out to grab her wrist and twist. But he's pain-slow and weak, hasn't got the leverage to just snap the joint immediately.]

spam

[myironeyes]

[Marsh frowns, shifts to catch Riddick's wrist in turn, squeezes enough to be a warning.]

Don't.

She isn't here to hurt you.

[Marsh has no authority to say this. Iris could puppet him on a whim. But she doesn't, and the light reassuring mist of her mental touch against his torn unhealing places is perhaps a different kind of authority. There is no doubt in him.]

spam

[routemistress]

[They haven't tangled physically before. Riddick is strong; but Iris is also a good deal stronger and tougher than a human equivalent.

More importantly, Iris doesn't give a stuff if he breaks her wrist as long as she can get her work done, and she can do it through any skin contact. So she doesn't resist; she just goes pliant in his grasp and lunges her mind along the electrical surge of hers and Riddick's nerve-endings, snaking up into his mind as irresistibly as the rising tide.

She leaves her body standing; Marsh can look after it or let it break. It really doesn't matter.

She'd been aware he wasn't quite human; she finds, now, that his mind is constructed more like her own than an unaugmented human's. This both elates and concerns her; she edges further in, her hindbrain sniffing the air. She's not, yet, trying to change anything; only to get the feel of it, to be absolutely certain what's Riddick and what's been superimposed.]