kore_logs | A toast to that invincible bunch, the dinosaurs surviving the crunch [OPEN]

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A toast to that invincible bunch, the dinosaurs surviving the crunch [OPEN]

WHO Mina and OPEN
WHAT Dealing with massive amounts of owwie
WHERE The pharmacy/clinic
WHEN Evening, Day 13
NOTES Multiple threads and threadjacking welcome and encouraged
WARNINGS Blood and medical stuff, most likely

Mina rarely indulged in sloth. Despite all appearances, it was her least favorite of the Seven Deadly. But after the whole disaster with the box, she gave herself an entire day and night just to stay in bed. She didn't rest. Not much. For the most part, she lay there stewing in her own juices. But at least her body had a chance to recover.

Slightly.

The problem with a limited blood supply was that she had to ration how much blood she used to heal her wounds. And so it was practicality, not the Masquerade, that left her to wake up still lacerated and bruised the next night.

Feeling sulky and bitter, she dragged herself out of bed. She didn't bother pulling on her suit, as she had absolutely no intention of speaking with anyone. Instead, she pulled on an oversized, button-down shirt she'd found in the closet of the master bedroom. Slipping into a pair of boots, she made her way out the door, crossing the sleepy, little village. She didn't particularly care about the wolves. At this point, she was just as likely to eat them as ignore them. But none gave her much bother as she made her way into the clinic.

It was beneath her dignity. Far beneath her dignity. But once inside, she peeled off her shirt. Dressed only in her unmentionables and her boots, she sat down on a cot that she had set up against the far wall, taking out a suture set. Gritting her teeth, she started to stitch up the slashes along her arm.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

He doesn't know what light shows equal out to in terms of resilience, or healing powers; having sparklers for hands occasionally doesn't automatically mean you can bounce back from being killed. Regardless of whether or not Mina fared wore than she looks now, he's glad the guy who did get killed is pretty calm about it. He raises his eyebrow at the halo comment, but shelves that momentarily to focus on Mina.

"She's fine. We ducked into the library and kept ourselves safe." He jerks his head at Cas and takes a step closer. "He doesn't have a medical degree, but I do. Want me to help you get patched up? Unless..." And here he turns to Castiel. "You need a halo for that."

Castiel rolls his eye. "I don't have a halo or a medical degree." Of course he can still heal humans, but he's not so certain that he can heal her. "I would be happy to help, though, Mina. I know how to tie bandages." He's watched Dean patch himself up before. He can affix a bandage as well as anyone.

He's a little uneasy about the mention of halos, though. He hasn't exactly been open about what he is to any of the humans here.

Whatever else the two of them were, they were such men. It was hard not to roll her eyes. But Mina smiled. It wasn't often anyone offered her help. She was more of the sort to throw herself into the fire for others.

Occasionally even strangers.

"Any help either of you wish to offer would be appreciated," she admitted. "I was beginning to think that gentlemen were a dying breed in your time. They're certainly a rare species in mine."

She brushed her hair back with one hand, then offered Bruce the suture set. Considering that Castiel had been chasing squirrels, she didn't trust him as much with sharp objects.

"Am I being a gentleman? I thought I was being a doctor. Where does stitching someone up fall, before or after holding a door?" He smirks lightly and pulls up a chair before he takes the suture set. Just to take stock: he's patching up someone who clearly has something up with her hands at least, and someone who can come back from the dead, and who's getting referenced in the same breath as halos.

Maybe he's out of the loop here. Just maybe. Of course, they aren't the only ones sitting on a secret identity here. There's a thought. Would he divulge about the other guy, if it seemed... normal... to them? He could always lie about what brings him out, but... No. No, he couldn't do that.

"I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that neither one of you is very human." He looks between them, eyebrows raised, but nothing but curiosity in his gaze. "Or if you are, you really need to tell me what you're drinking, because I want some."

Lie. He doesn't get sick, and if he ever got seriously injured to the point of death... He doesn't think it'd be very permanent. Still.

Castiel's lip quirked. "I never claimed to be human." He'd frozen the water for them, hadn't he? He'd been at least somewhat open about not being human from the get-go, even if he was a little tight-lipped about what he actually was.

"I don't know that you can call me a gentleman, though." He had no gender, even if it was becoming easier and easier to forget that this form wasn't his. The more time he spent with humans, the easier it became to see himself the way they saw him. He wondered how much of that was common perception and how much of that was Dean's perception, but he wasn't sure that it mattered now that it was becoming his own perception, as well. Maybe he was better off.

He stood behind Bruce, ready to help, but happy to let him do what he clearly knew needed to be done.

Mina was silent for a long time. Longer, perhaps, than either of them had heard her go without blathering away like a little chatterbox. She watched Bruce's hands. She liked them.

They belonged to someone far more clever than any human she'd known in a very long time.

And so, she did exactly what she wasn't supposed to do. She reached out, taking one of his hands and pulling it closer to her, pressing his fingers against the pulse point on her neck.

Or rather, the lack of pulse point.

He can't help but bristle a little at being touched without much warning; it's not that he doesn't like it, but it always sets him on edge when someone who doesn't know about the other guy starts poking around in his space, at least until he gets a chance to adjust to the idea.

Once Mina puts his hand against her "pulse point", the contact isn't the only surprise he has to deal with. His expression evens out from one of mild discomfort to curiosity, and then concentration as his gaze slips away from his hand and he palpates, looking for the pulse he knows isn't there.

"So what does this mean?" he murmurs finally, taking his hand away. He glances back at Castiel briefly, in case he's in on this too, before he turns back to Mina. "Other than that you should be dead."

Castiel watched with some measure of fascination. He was unsure as to how Bruce would react to what Mina was and, frankly, he was ready to defend her if he needed to. Mina had helped him look for Sam. He felt that he owed her for that and furthermore, he liked her.

He was relieved at the subdued reaction Bruce seemed to have. "No one here should be dead, save perhaps myself." He'd known too many bad angels and at least a few good creatures who shouldn't have been. He might even consider himself among the bad angels, if he thought about it too much. He tried not to.

And then, because he had a feeling what Bruce might be thinking, "Mina and I are not cut from the same cloth, though. I do have a pulse."

Mina had to suppress a bit of a sigh. Leave it to Castiel to countermand her considerable efforts to shift the focus off of him. Well, no matter. Bruce, at least, was treating this more like a scientific curiosity than a threat. That was good.

Admirable, even.

"I am dead, Doctor Banner," she said, her eyes unwavering as she watched him. "I have been for a very long time. I'm just too stubborn to sit still. I think I blame that on my mother. She was stubborn too."

A joke, really. Although there was a kernel of truth to it.

"In my world, we're called Kindred," she said. "You, however, might be more familiar with another term?"

And she smiled a very beastly smile.

Edited (Spelling is a thing I can do) 2012-11-30 15:06 (UTC)

Well, well. No, Bruce isn't going to freak out over this discovery, not that he isn't completely surprised by the revelation, not that it isn't a big deal, because it is and he needs to reevaluate his understanding of the world for a second here. It's just -- well -- stranger things... He's maybe one of those stranger things. At least vampires have a cool culture all around them.

He stares at her teeth, eyes going wide for a minute before he takes the whole thing in stride, and then he nods. He holds his hands together in front of him, fingers tapping on his wrist, before he turns to Castiel.

"So... Are you the wolfman?"

Teeth or not, Mina looked exactly the same to Castiel. She fascinated him. She was quite different from the vampires he'd experienced before and he found that that was certainly a good thing. She didn't remind him of Benny at all, despite any superficial similarities.

"You mean a werewolf? Am I a werewolf?" His surprised look was replaced by a smile. "Something like that."

He'd learned not to lie to the people who mattered. Dean. Others couldn't always be trusted. Until he knew more, this was as fine as anything else.

Mina waved her good hand dismissively. "Don't mind Saint Castiel over there," she said, trying to sound as flippant as possible. "And I trust, based on your reaction, we won't have to go through the whole rigamarole of me assuring you repeatedly that I mean you no harm."

Thank the gods for that.

She held out her bad arm, nodding to the sutures again. "If you would, dear? I'm feeling quite exposed at the moment."

And Bruce, little ol' human Bruce who is 0% strange, turns his attention back to Mina's arm like nothing really happened. It does cross his mind to be concerned that some day he might be mistaken for a meal ticket, and what would that even mean? That's a scary thought, honestly. But Mina hasn't looked like she was looking for the best chance to make him into her next Happy Meal. The reassurance is nice to hear, all the same.

"This will probably still hurt, I'm assuming," he warns her before he gets started. He's lost in concentration as he works, and he glances up at Castiel when he gets a second.

"So do you guys have a clubhouse you hang out in and complain about humans?"

Castiel did look surprised at that question. It took him a moment to recover.

"Actually, I prefer humans to my own kind most of the time." He smiled. Humans and sometimes vampires and demons, apparently.

Not only did he prefer humans to other angels, but he was unsure if there was an angel left he could face without shame. Even Gabriel left him with a feeling of guilt and he hadn't directly caused him any harm. Humans, at least, could look at him and have no idea what he'd done. Gabriel knew at least some of it and could likely figure out a good deal more.

Mina winced as the needle slid through her skin. It could have been worse. For the most part, the pain was a matter of indignity. She hated not being able to heal herself. But blood was scarce and she had to ration whatever she could squeeze out of Pendragon

"Why would I complain about humans?" she asked, gritting her teeth. "I used to be one. And I'm responsible for keeping them alive. I am a doctor, you know."

In case it wasn't clear for the sheer number of times she referred to her own title.

Abruptly, she reached out to grab Bruce's shoulder, squeezing it slightly as she braced herself. "Damn it," she hissed. "I'd use a local if it worked on me."

"Just seemed like a thing you might do." His voice is on neutral, having fully shifted into Doctor Mode, which means exuding even more calm than usual. He stills when she touches his shoulder, and he pushes aside his surprise over being touched to focus on concern for her. Taking in the signs of her pain, he frowns.

"Does anything work on you? How can I help?"

Castiel watched Bruce give her stitches with fascination. "You're taking this surprisingly well. Dean shot and stabbed me the first time we met." And Dean had been used to non-humans existing. Of course, he'd hunted them. Perhaps it was easier to believe non-humans wouldn't harm anyone when a person wasn't raised to destroy them from such a young age.

Still, in his experience, most humans met them with disbelief, fear or morbid curiosity.

She sighed softly, still clinging to Bruce's shoulder. "Medications don't work on Kindred unless they're in the system of someone we're feeding off of," she muttered. "And anyway, under normal circumstances, I could just bloody well heal myself. But there isn't enough blood here for me to waste it on three minor lacerations."

Mina paused, glancing up to meet Bruce's eyes a moment. "Contrary to popular fiction," she said, "Kindred don't run around chewing off of everyone they see. It's not practical and it's not very nice."

And she threw a bemused look to Castiel. "And unlike your friend Dean, I don't fancy shooting and stabbing people either." She felt morally superior, in that particular moment, to the idiot hunter boat boy. Even if she did admire the way he'd swooped in to rescue his friend.

Hunted them?

That makes Bruce more nervous than Mina, and he tries not to show it; thankfully, he stitches require his attention, and that uncomfortable twitch of his shoulders could just be that he's getting a little stiff from bending over.

"Yeah, I mean, if she was going to eat me, I think she would've done it before she introduced herself. I just came from a place where there were aliens riding tanks that looked like space whales attacking New York. This Kindred thing seems like small potatoes in comparison."

Though if there is someone who can drink blood, maybe he should start putting out the Keep Out sign now. It's a risk, he knows, but he already told that annoying French girl this, so he might as well keep it up.

"Anyway, if she tried to snack on me, she'd be in worse shape than me." He glances up at her. "I have a blood disease. Sort of a long story involving bad decision science. So if you feel some hunger pains coming on now, go for our friend the wolfman over here."

Castiel shrugged. He hadn't thought to offer, but then he wouldn't have offered to the last vampire he knew. "You're welcome to. I can afford more blood loss than most of the people here."

He tilted his head to the side. "The analogous creatures from my world are less civil than Mina is, though." He thought of Benny, of course, who was still more civilized than most, but no more palatable to Castiel. He trusted Mina, though, at least more than he trusted most of the other people he'd met here. He trusted her enough to tell her what he is when he's kept a tight lip on that subject with most others.

"I'm not sure what saint's blood would do to a near lifelong pagan," Mina quipped. The idea of an angel's blood seemed dangerous, but then again, Mina had recently sampled a self-proclaimed god. "But Castiel is correct," she continued. "I am quite civil. I'm positively charming company, I assure you."

She flashed Bruce a bit of a smile. It was forced and pained, but no matter.

In a bit more somber of a tone, she added, "Thank you. Both of you."

And after a pause. "What sort of blood disease, dear?"

"A weird one. Always wear your safety goggles and science responsibly, kids, especially around radiation." He'll see if be can get away with that. If he's pressed he might try to go with cell mutation, a strange form of cancer, but that's if he thinks he can get her (and Castiel, but the doctor especially) to buy it. In the meantime, it's deflection time.

"You're a saint? For real, or is she just kidding around?"

He returns his focus to Mina's arm, even though he wishes he could see Castiel's face. At least this is nearly finished.

Castiel was pretty unimpressed with that line of questioning. Given all the awful things he'd done, it was laughable.

"I used to be religious. She thinks it's funny." He was neither amused nor annoyed. It was just like Dean's jokes. He simply didn't understand why it was funny.

"I don't know what my blood would do, but I would guess nothing. My body is fairly unremarkable."

Well, at least Castiel was playing along with Mina's attempts at deflection. Bruce's however, were utterly transparent. And despite coming from a world where everyone was lying to everyone, it bothered Mina a bit.

A lot, really. But for the time being, she'd respect his wishes. Trust had to be earned, after all. And apparently, though he had earned hers, she had not yet earned his.

No matter. She was fantastic. She'd get there eventually.

"I'm fairly certain you aren't equipped to deal with some of the side-effects of a vampire bite, darling," she told Castiel. And to her fellow scientist she added, "It releases certain endorphins. Actually a rather fascinating phenomenon I've never been able to thoroughly study."

Trust is a big part of it, and it takes Bruce a long time to build up enough that he even notices. He's been living off the grid, half-involving himself in the human race, shutting himself out from other people, that he still only feels half-here sometimes. It's a strange feeling, like he's a stowaway rat, and people pay attention to him, but he isn't really included, he isn't really the same.

And even when he does build up trust, then it's about risk. Should he risk even the chance that this person he actually managed to trust might leave him? Does he really want to change how they see him? Because it will change; fundamentally, it has to, and Bruce likes the way people look at him like he's nothing to worry about.

"Oh yeah?" He finishes up and reaches for the gauze. "If this guy can heal that much that quickly, it's hard to say. There's some room for research here on species types, huh? Is vampirism a side effect of a bite too?"

A toast to that invincible bunch, the dinosaurs surviving the crunch [OPEN]

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totally lost this notif!

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Oh, shit, I didn't know it was my turn. Sorry!

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