(Untitled)

[andgettingworse]

Day: 13 [back-dated]
Characters: Orochimaru, Paul
Summary: Paul needs stitches. Oro can give them.
DAY/NIGHT & Time: NIGHT: evening, right after this post.
Status: Closed, Incomplete

Comments

[andgettingworse]

Paul obeyed for once, letting himself drop on the table and taking off his shirt. Not that he could probably wear it ever again anyway, without smelling his own blood in it. It nearly made him nauseous, but then the feeling shifted, so it wasn't nausea. No, it was the same chasing flutter in his mind as before, the same at once light-headed and paralysing confusion and trailing, invisible pressure.

Other than bruises, there two stab wounds in his stomach, not particularly big or severe, but deep enough to have cut through the skin and into the muscle. How the hell was it possible that other people, normal mortal humans, could turn their bones into weapons, and he was left in this condition after a few blows?

He still didn't find words. There was a lot he wanted to say, a lot to blow steam and release all this paralysing anger, a lot to make this (angry, he told himself) shaking of his hands stop, to rebuild that position of power, of being untouchable, that this little shit had... not shattered, he swore, but somewhat... shaken. Hell, he was still too shaken, couldn't find any words, could just pretend to shout out wordless anger in his head and stare down darkly.

He touched the gash on the side of his head absently, and when he felt the sting, his face contorted and his eyes flashed with mad anger. He couldn't believe this, this wasn't right. He had to fix that, had to fix it quickly-

- and then it occurred to him, just in passing, that an injury like this would leave a scar. And for some reason, that let his face grow even paler.

"That asshole patient and that fleabag..." he snarled, almost too low in volume to be audible, when he could bring himself to reply to Orochimaru, still not looking at him, however. "What're you planning?"

[drbadtouch]

Orochimaru's eyes moved over the open wounds on Paul's face and abdomen, and shook his head slowly. He was surprised, almost impressed that anyone could have done such a thing to a person who Orochimaru thought so highly of.

He thought for a moment on whether it would have been better to simply give the boy some of the pain killing medication that he had hidden away somewhere in his drawer. He'd never had use for it before, seeing as how he was generally the person causing pain to the patients.

It was only another half a moment he spent thinking about this before he decided not to. In all honesty it was probably better Paul felt this pain now, smelled the blood, felt the fear, lived that way. It would help him realize that there were consequences for unnecessary failure. Perhaps this would mean that this boy, his favourite among all others in this hospital, maybe this would make it so that he would no longer fail in the things he did or set out to do.

Rustling about a little, Orochimaru managed to pick up both his suture kit and a moderately clean rag, lifting his hand to Paul's face and wiping away the blood with perhaps a little less finesse than the action actually required.

"I haven't come to a conclusive plan, but my goal is to have him suffering far worse than if he were dead."

Nobody, and that meant absolutely nobody, had the right to speak to someone like him in such an irritating manner.

"Would you like to help?

[andgettingworse]

Fuck, that stung. Paul's face was frozen into an expression of annoyed, only slightly uncomfortable disgust. He just wanted this to be over, wanted to be fixed up and forget this had ever happened. Once it was over, it would be easier to pretend that there hadn't actually been much blood, that it may or may not have been his; it was probably Anubis' anyway - he had fought with Gary, worn his clothes at that time, that was why they were all bloody, of course. Yes. Yes, that sounded better, and it was easy enough to believe that. Not easy to hold this point in an argument, but there was no need, no use in discussing it anymore, as long as he knew. Ghosts didn't bleed, or feel pain. As soon as this was over - well, as soon as this was over, it would be safe to think again, but right now, it wasn't a good idea, so Paul just sat there, let Orochimaru do whatever the doctor needed to do, and stared at the ground nearly stubbornly.

But it stung.

Hell, this was uncomfortable. Orochimaru was the one person in this institution he could remotely trust, as far as trust went for him, but while the doctor was still tending to his wounds, Paul felt the overwhelming urge to push him away. The pain was enough, he didn't need another reminder of his situation by letting someone touch those wounds. And somebody like Orochimaru, somebody he could respect enough to trust, well- Somebody like that was bound to be dangerous enough to unsettle him, just the slightest bit, somewhere in the core of his shaken consciousness. This had to be over quicker, his strain grew with every second. Just why was everything so annoying?

He heard Orochimaru's words, even listened and processed them, but it only occurred to him somewhat belated that he was supposed to reply. Question, he had to remind himself, a question means you reply. And so, he forced himself to give an answer, words low and cut off (not breaking), with that unstable tremble of powerless anger.

"Yeah. That shitty..."

Oh no, letting his voice trail off wasn't a good idea. He had to complete his sentences if he wanted to tell Orochimaru.

"That bastard..." he tried again, somewhat more present this time. "I'm gonna make him sorry."

[drbadtouch]

Orochimaru's eyes narrowed a little as he leaned in a little closer, shaking his head a little. The cut was angry and red and, well, he assumed that there was a chance that it was going to become infected.

"Don't move," he said firmly, moving to the medicine cabinet and pulling out a bottle of rubbing alcohol. It simply wouldn't do him any good at all to lose Paul as such a valuable asset.

He moved back to Paul's side, pouring a little of the alcohol over his rag, wiping slowly at the scrape until he could more properly see the abrasion. He shook his head slowly again. It was... deeper than he'd thought.

Reaching for the suture kit, Orochimaru leaned in, threading the needle and narrowing his eyes a little. "It's going to hurt," he said softly, licking his lips a little. "But don't pull away, you'll just make it worse."

He toyed momentarily with the idea of making it hurt more than it had to to teach Paul a lesson about failure, but there was still something about the way the boy was reacting to the pain he was feeling that made the older man conscious of the fact that doing something like that was probably both unnecessary and potentially dangerous. The last thing he needed was to lose Paul in such an unnecessary way.

"Stay absolutely still."

[andgettingworse]

Don't move.

For some reason, the command had its effect, and it was good, apparently, that Orochimaru emphasised his point like this. One time, he could have missed it, but a second - it settled in, and his body just followed, on its own. Paul was busy fighting down the threatening feeling of a beginning panic - it was ridiculous, so ridiculous - and too busy to fight Orochimaru's order.

The biting pain of the alcohol on his open wound brought him back to reality from his angry daze quickly. His eyes widened minimally; this was too bad, too much, too sudden and too deep into a layer of him that he had forgotten he had. He didn't react openly, but his breath arrested for a second. Then, slowly, the slightest, displeased frown formed on his face when he got over the initial shock. Physically, the pain wasn't that bad, but it was pain, why was it pain, the one thing nobody had power against?

Paul didn't reply or move, but his expression didn't quite relax either. It took him a few moments to notice that Orochimaru had finished, but his words, that small side-glance at something shining in the doctor's hand, and that realisation - all that let an uncomfortably cold shudder run through Paul's skin and - colder even - through his mind. This wasn't the side he wanted to be on, being experimented on. No. He'd been in therapy before, but this was different. He wasn't the same as then anymore. He had forgotten how to react, had forgotten the flight counterpart of fight, and fight - he couldn't fight Orochimaru, not like this, not for this, not after demanding his help, and even he knew that. So what was he supposed to do now?

[drbadtouch]

Orochimaru pressed the needle through Paul's skin, slowly pulling the thread through it, pulling lightly on each stitch to suture the skin together tightly, closing the cut. He repeated the motion three more times, making sure to pull the skin tightly, holding it together before tying it off at the end, leaving just the skin and a white thread that was stitched across it.

"It's not bleeding anymore," he said simply, moving to lower his hand, dragging the rag lightly against the deeper of the cut on Paul's chest, shaking his head a little. "You will have to stay even more still," he said lowly, licking his lips as he leaned down, re-threading the needle and moving to drag it very lightly against the inflamed skin.

"I'll..." he paused a moment, slowly easing the needle into the resistant flesh, "try not too hurt you too badly."

[andgettingworse]

There wasn't a single motion in Paul's expression, all strained calm instead, but when the needle came close, he held his breath unwittingly, exhaling with a low shudder when the first stitch was made. His hand clenched slowly around the edge, then unclenched, stretched, and quickly clenched again. It didn't even really hurt, only in the deeper layers of his skin, but it was - it was simply awful. He couldn't wait for this to be over. Hell, it had to be over quickly, or he wouldn't know what to do.

He felt every stitch with ridiculous intensity, yet he managed to miss the end completely, until Orochimaru spoke.

It's not bleeding anymore.

He looked up, for the first time since this had started, somewhat blank and a little confused even, until it dawned to him what that meant. He raised his hand, fingers carefully tracing the stitched trail on his face, and Orochimaru was right; it wasn't bleeding anymore. It was that easy.

Subconsciously, Paul took a note of that, memorised the pain of stitches and connected them to this outcome. So easy to just undo something. He'd never do something like this, giving stitches, to a patient. It was pain, but it led here - it was a good kind of pain, pain with the outlook to something positive. Still, when Orochimaru leant in, pushing the needle in somewhat more sensitive skin, the pressure in his temples built up again and he sucked in a breath.

[drbadtouch]

Orochimaru watched as Paul touched his stitches, and shook his head a little, pulling the thread a little more firmly through the skin, carefully pulling the needle through the the skin, watching as it forced its way through the thicker layers before coming out more easily on the other side.

He'd not been free to experience such a thing in so long, not been free to watch the movement of metal through skin in a way that was healing as opposed to hurting in, since... since he was there.

He repeated the motion over and over again until there was another well stitched mark across the boy's abdomen.

"Only one more," he said simply, moving to run the rag over the now stitched area. "I'll make sure you're not bleeding anymore."

It was interesting to see, though, this boy's discomfort of his own blood. Very... interesting. He locked that knowledge away in the back of his mind in the slight chance that he mat need it later on.

"Does it hurt?" he asked, wiping away the dried blood slowly. "You're not bleeding, see? I fixed you."

[andgettingworse]

It didn't even hurt so badly when he wasn't looking, and then, it was far easier to bear, Paul found out. He kept his gaze fixed on the wall, trying to think of something other than the sting in his skin, thought of comfortable things like little Mary crying or Rolfy burning to death - to near-death, he reminded himself, because the man had died of gun shots.

It helped a little, helped the discomfort slowly fade a bit and flee back into the soothing anger and inhumanity that being dead meant. He looked back at Orochimaru, and forcing his expression to stay blank. Yeah, the doctor was right, again. He made him stop bleeding, it was that easy. Now he could easily forget anything had happened, as soon as the damn pain faded, but that would take a while. It didn't matter. Now, without the cuts, without the blood, with just stitches and bruises and pain, it was easy not to feel the injuries, and to feel the pain elsewhere than in his body - in that eternal furnace of hate and rage and cold and madness that fuelled every ghost, roaring in their minds like an engine.

He stared Orochimaru in the eyes coldly, dead, and choked, "No. It doesn't hurt."

[drbadtouch]

Yellow eyes narrowed a little as Orochimaru slowly wiped away the rest of the blood moving away slowly and nodding.

"You're fixed," he drawled smoothly, licking his lips slowly. "You're not bleeding and you're not open for everyone to see anymore."

He kept the other man's gaze evenly, refusing to break the stare as he lifted his chin. "It doesn't hurt? Well, that's a shame, isn't it?" He moved to slowly wipe the blood from his own pale fingers. "Sometimes the pain can be good. Feel good, Paul. If you learn to control it, manipulate it, make it into what you need it to be."

His voice was barely above a soft hiss now as he stared at the other.

"Do you think you can learn, Paul?"

[andgettingworse]

Orochimaru's words, again, cut into him deeper than the goddamn bone-spikes of that patient had. It would have irritated him, and only irritated him, normally, but there was still this unsettled, shaken discomfort weighting heavy on his mind, numbing his thoughts and his aggression. And for that reason, Orochimaru's words didn't have the same irritating, aggravating sting, but reverberated in his mind darkly, prolonged like the echo of a bell. He wanted to bite back, snap back at the doctor, protest with all his cold anger, stored away and rusted over decades, how pain was not good, was never good, didn't feel good and how he didn't know pain and refused to feel it, but.

But.

Orochimaru was threatening because he was stable, with all the madness in his eyes and insanity marking his face still a constant. His madness was, perhaps, more threatening than Dr. Gottreich's moody, quirky, ever changing waves of cold, scientific insanity and raging, manic megalomania.

Only one word made it past Paul's lips eventually.

"Yeah."