(Untitled)
Who: Quatre, Haku, Suoh
What: The day after the operation...
When: Wednesday, March 9th, 2011; evening.
Where: Neon City General
( Can't carry it with you if you want to survive )
What: The day after the operation...
When: Wednesday, March 9th, 2011; evening.
Where: Neon City General
( Can't carry it with you if you want to survive )
He felt exhausted, weak, and even a little nauseous. They'd let up on his pain killers so he would stay awake, but he knew they'd have to turn them down even more to make sure everything was working. He wasn't sure which he hated more, being drugged to the point he felt sick, or the burning sensation that crawled up his arms from where they'd attached the metal base units. At the moment he was glad for the numbness the drugs were giving him. When he'd woken up earlier he could barely keep his eyes open it had hurt so badly. They'd managed to readjust the dosage, but he knew it would never really be right. Drugs knocked him off kilter, and alternated in dampening and sharpening his empathy, depending on what it was.
After almost a month of being connected to a morphine drip, his empathy was barely there. He could reach Suoh and Duo sometimes, when his doses were lower. But it was unsettling, not being able to feel what he always felt in more ways than one. Once he was finally off it and out of the hospital, he knew it would come back. But it would take months before it felt right again. Before he regained all of his control. It wasn't something he was looking forward to.
He tried to smile, pulling himself out of his thoughts, but he wasn't sure it came across. "How are you, Haku? And by Allah...Suoh have you slept the past few nights at all?"
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Haku didn't really answer Quatre, though. The question as of late had become kind of a hard one of her to really respond to in the past month. She was doing better in terms of getting back on with her life, and her suspension played a big part in that even if she hated being away from the garage, but there was still a heavy sadness she was having trouble shaking. It was easier to just give a halfhearted smile and and say nothing at all.
She dropped the case down next to the bed with a thunk, sitting down in the nearby chair.
"Do you want to wait a while? It's... going to hurt, no matter what, but if you don't feel you're awake enough yet..."
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Looking over at the clock on the bed stand he tried to remember when the nurse had come in to turn the pain killers down the first notch. Maybe a half hour before? "We should call a nurse to come turn the drip off...then we'll have to wait a bit..."
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"... would you like to see them before we start?"
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"I got it," Suoh said, getting up and going to the control. Haku busied herself with flipping the latches on her case, opening up the many fold out panels to take out the two arms that had been carefully placed in padding inside.
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Haku took the arms out and placed them on the bed, lying them so Quatre could see them easily. They were exactly how they had been on the blueprints, fingers and joints all articulated. Once he was capable of moving them there wouldn't be much difference between the prosthetic and real hands. At least that's what Haku was hoping for.
"There's a little port..." she pointed out at a section right above the wrist joint, "I can plug in and check to make sure all the wires and everything are working right from the inside. Makes calibration easier."
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They certainly looked real. It was a little eerie even, how real they looked laying there on the bed. They would snap and lock into place over the base units, covering almost all of the metal. Resting back against the pillows, he shut his eyes and moved his arm to rub at his chest. Opening his eyes again, he stopped himself and instead just tried to find a more comfortable position against the pillows.
The doctors had switched him from a traditional IV to a CVC, a catheter which was inserted in his chest and threaded into subclavian vein. It was uncomfortable as hell. But the doctors had warned him against disturbing it, as the risk for infection was much higher then with an IV. Besides that he couldn't reach it in his current state.
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She meant it in more of a 'if I'm busy with my family or unavailable' way, but something about how she had said those last words struck her in a way she wasn't expecting. Winry had said something similar when Haku asked to learn about Automail because of Sabine, and in the end Winry really wasn't around. She had gone home.
"... Haku-chan? Are you alright?"
"... f-fine. I'm fine. I was just thinking... don't worry about it."
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"Can I see?" Suoh asked. Haku nodded, and he reached over to take the visor from Quatre, putting it on. "... whoa. That's... that's kind of freaky, actually... cool, but freaky."
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"Haku, thanks for everything...I know you've been working really hard, probably too much, to do this for me. And I appreciate all of it."
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Suoh waved his hand in front of his face, watching it through the visor. Haku giggled at him, taking it back.
"You'll give yourself a headache if you do that."
"... apparently I'm easily amused when I'm tired."
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"Let's get this over with then..."
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This was the part she wasn't looking forward to. The last thing she ever wanted to do was deliberately cause her friends pain, but it was a necessary evil for her work. She put her visor back on and stood, taking up the right hand first.
"I can't tell you how bad it's going to be... some of what we've done lessens how much connecting hurts, but... it's still going to be there. You should probably take a deep breath before I connect it."
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