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[ ACTIVE / SEMI-OPEN ]

Who: John Sheppard & various (& maybe you!)
What: Various Stages On The Grief Arc: An illustration of John Sheppard being a disaster
When: Mid to Late November & Early December maybe
Where: Olympia & Dranbu
Warning(s): Some arm injury gore in one thread!

1. OLYMPIA -- Mid November
John is pretty sure he looks a mess to anyone who knows him, but that's precisely why he's avoiding most people who know him.

He's called out of work to give himself a recovery buffer and is taking a walk with Seren, who is completely oblivious to his problems. Seren is still a puppy, and her excitement for everything in their surroundings and for him to play with her is a good distraction -- even if he wishes she understand the word 'chill' on occasion.

The little German Shepherd is starting to grow up quickly, though. She's smart, smart enough John suspects to know exactly when she's just ignoring John's instructions. Old enough to know better, young enough not to care. Off the leash, she's skipping ahead of him with her nose to the ground -- sniffing for traces of other dogs who might have come this way. At this time of day there aren't too many, mostly people, and although she mostly just runs up and down finding things then bringing them to John (or John to them) occasionally she gets curious and bounces toward another human. Either because they smell interesting or have something with them that smells interesting.

Seren shoots toward the new person and bounces curiously while John jogs to catch up, jacket loose and unzipped over his plaid shirt and jeans.

"Hey!" he prompts sharply, and the puppy stops and looks over at him. "We talked about this, manners!"

Apparently bouncing at people is not a good display of puppy manners.

2. DRANBU -- Late November/Early December (specify before or after people change back!)
After having pretty much been holed up in Olympia drowning his sorrows for most of the month, once he finally makes it out to Josa Forest (initially to help Ianto, but then staying to sate his curiosity about what's going on) John realises he does... feel better. He probably should have come out sooner to give himself something to do, instead of just skulking around avoiding everything, but hindsight is 20/20 and all that. At the time he hadn't felt like he wanted to do anything.

Once he's there, though, actually exploring Josa Forest again after his initial trip out with Phoenix helps take his mind off things. The tree villages are interesting, and John picks through them as much to satisfy his own curiosity as to give him a reason to be --

To be away from things that he's absolutely not avoiding but also, is avoiding.

The markets of Dranbu, he notices, are very animal-focused. So after a long moment picking through things he catches the attention of someone and hesitantly asked:

"Do you have anything for dogs...?"

They point him further a long and John lofts an eyebrow curiously, turning and padding in the direction he's been pointed -- bumping into someone near a different stand along the way and setting his good hand on them apologetically to steady them. The marketplace is busy and also, not designed with space in mind. He supposes that's what comes of not normally having this many visitors.

"Sorry," he says with a wince, and bends to try and pick up whatever it is he made them drop. "Here, let me --"

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

He winces slightly at the rip (that had been a nice fleece, he's sad to see it go) and watches Ianto pull the fabric -- warily glancing at his arm once it's done.

"Right," he says, then glances at his good arm as Ianto begins to ease it off. "Okay. So -- do you have a first aid kit with you? If not there should be some bandages and antiseptic in my bag. You'll probably want some water to rinse it too. We'll need to make sure there's no -- bits of animal hair or fleece or anything in it. You'll want it to bleed a little too, make sure it's flushing itself."

Painkillers, he thinks distantly, will eventually be something he wants too. He takes a deep breath as he shrugs his good arm free while Ianto pulls then glances between the other one and his bag. Do they have tetanus here? The thought makes him wince slightly. Maybe they have some alien variant.

"Ehm," Ianto answers, uncertainly, glancing aside at both of the bags in question. "I do actually, yeah. Let me..." He pushes himself up to stand, pausing before he's reached the bad arm, and moving to pull both bags closer to him. Digging through his supplies and John's, fetching out the antiseptic the other man had brought and the bandages of his own. And the water. There's a pitcher across the room, and he's got a clean handkerchief that he's willing to sacrifice in the name of John's health.

"Right," he says, recognizing he's repeating himself but needing to steel for this himself. He flicks his eyes back up to John, hesitantly questioning and apologetic at once. "Okay. On three then, yeah? One. Two..." Ianto presses his lips together tightly, preparing himself for whatever sight he might uncover here, as he finishes, "Three," and tears off the remaining arm of the other man's fleece.

John braces himself as Ianto begins a countdown, and carefully tries to avoid meeting his eyes. The rip of fabric makes him flinch, something he tries to suppress, and then John is glancing back down and vaguely making himself process the smears of red all over his arm. There are two slightly larger, deeper puncture wounds and a section where the skin has been scraped back. It's difficult to see how clean things are, though, with the mix of dried and wet blood largely obscuring much of anything.

"Go on," John says tightly, and he knows that although it hurts now it's going to start stinging any minute and there's a lot of raw flesh to sting. That's fine, he can do breathing exercises to keep himself steady. Although maybe something to bite on might have been sensible to stop him grinding his teeth. Or something to numb it.

It looks... Well. Not great. It could look worse, Ianto supposes. (Gushing, he keeps thinking to himself.) But it definitely doesn't look great. Ianto forces himself to take in a deep breath, because it's easy to forget, in the face of it all. In response to the sound of the tightness of the other man's voice.

"Yeah, okay," he says, hoarsely. "Just. Let me know if. You need anything, alright?"

He glances back down at the other man's arm, doing his best to figure out how to approach this. Water, he needs to clean it out. He sets a hand on John's shoulder, urging him to sit forward as he reaches for the pitcher.

"Here, I'm going to see if I can try and pour this over it without pouring it all over you, do you think you can hold it out?" he asks, reaching a hand forward to close around the other man's wrist to help.

Hold it out?

That involves lifting his arm, which isn't exactly sounding appealing to begin with. Ianto's hand closes around his wrist and after a moment John hesitantly tries to lift it. The uptick in pain is immediate and John stops and resists with a sharp intake of breath, trying to recover.

"No," he says tersely, "just get a cloth. Probably got a fracture of some sort."

John had been preparing himself for the pain. Ianto, so focused on the other man's condition himself, had momentarily forgotten that in touching John like this he would be creating a connection between them. A connection that enables Ianto to feel the other man's pain.

Ianto nearly drops the pitcher of water. His hand tightening on John's wrist convulsively in response to the sudden stabbing pain in his arm, before he forces himself to let go. The feeling gone almost as quickly as it had appeared.

He lets out a long, shaky breath. Shutting his eyes for a moment to collect himself and rethinking his approach.

"Yeah. I've. Got..." He reaches shakily for the handkerchief he's set aside. Not quite moving to touch the other man again just yet.

It takes John a moment to process what happened. He has to regroup from the pain himself, to put effort into clamping down and keeping his expression neutral so Ianto doesn't freak out, to try and guess by the feel of it and limited movement how bad the bone damage is. So John isn't looking, exactly, at Ianto when his handle convulses before he lets go. He's half assuming it's in response to something he's done, until he glances up at the shaky breath Ianto takes before opening his eyes.

Ah.

"Shit," John says emphatically. Then: "Don't worry about it, I can do it myself it'll just be slow going. Give it to me."

The cloth you were going to use. It's fine, he'll make do. It wouldn't be the first time he's had to treat his own injuries, after all.

"No!" Ianto says quickly, pulling the handkerchief away from the other man's reach. Taking another moment to collect himself before he replies again, "No, I. I can do it, I just." He glances aside at his bag. "I think. I'll need my gloves."

He sets the pitcher down for a moment and reaches for the bag again, digging through it for his gloves as he does. Glancing back up at John out of the corner of his eye and at the angry wound on his arm as he does. Understanding the state of his injury now -- rather intimately, for better or worse.

"It just surprised me, is all," he says. "It's stupid, but I. Forgot that would happen." He pauses a beat as he sits back up with the gloves in hand, watching John closely, before he continues, "These are only going to protect me from feeling this. Can I -- get you anything?" He flicks the other man the ghost of a smile, before he suggests, "A drink, perhaps?"

His gloves.

John watches Ianto dig for them warily, guarded, because he doesn't want to be causing Ianto pain. He doesn't really want Ianto to be feeling anything on his behalf, truth be told, not right.

A drink, Ianto offers, and John takes a slow breath and looks around.

"I'm guessing you don't have any prescription painkillers."

Although he supposes there might be somewhere in Dranbu that has something, even if it was... herbal, or just locally numbing.

Ianto's smile turns into something of a wince, shaking his head in response to the suggestion.

"Fresh out, I'm afraid," he replies, softly. He supposes that he could always go out and see what they might have in the city later on, but it wouldn't help John now anyway.

Slipping his gloves on, Ianto reaches out to lay his hand on John's wrist again and offers him a reassuring smile when the discomfort that John is obviously feeling doesn't travel through the contact a second time. He brushes his thumb over the back of John's hand for a moment, before offering, "I can go out and see if I can find anything quickly out there, if you promise to sit tight and wait for me?"

And not try and take care of it himself while he's gone.

If he promises to sit tight and wait?

John doesn't exactly know where he'd even go, at this point. He hasn't been in Dranbu until this moment, he has no idea where anything is and his arm has a probable hairline fracture.

Maybe he could even start rinsing it while Ianto is gone? Get anything stuck in the wounds out and through some of the worse pain while he isn't there.

"I got nowhere to go," he replies, and tries to flick a smile but it comes out tight.

Ianto regards the other man's expression carefully. Including that smile that John's giving him. He may not be able to feel John's emotions anymore but he can read his expression and the discomfort there. He tries to imagine attempting to clean out that wound again without giving the other man at least something to take the edge off of it. Maybe he should...

He lets out a soft sigh. He doesn't like the idea of stopping when they've only barely begun, stopping when they've already waited this long to clean it out as it is. But he doesn't like to see John so uncomfortable either, if he can offer him another option.

"Will you be all right for a little while longer, then?" he asks, sitting back on his heels, regarding the other man cautiously for a moment longer before zipping up his bag and stuffing his gloves into his jacket pocket. "I'll be as quick as I can. Our host is bound to have some suggestions that will narrow down my search. And I'm sure you'll feel better once I've brought something back."

"Yeah," John assures him. "Pretty sure I'm safe here, and the quicker I take something the quicker it starts working. Don't think advil is gonna cut it."

He winces slightly, taking a hesitant breath as he considers if... the people of Dranbu would understand the different side effects painkillers have. They live in a forest. Maybe, maybe... not?

"If possible," John begins warily, "something anti-inflammatory that won't be a bleed risk but I'll take what I can get."

Anything that dulls the pain at least a little is an improvement, and he'll cope if he needs to.

"Right," Ianto says, pushing himself up to stand and awkwardly dusting his hands off on his jeans. Trying not to think too hard about bleed risks or yes. Going back to the original concept of gushing that John had implanted in his head.

"Well, I'll. See what I can wrestle out of them, shall I?" he offers, flicking John the quirk of a smile that he doesn't quite feel. He's worried, and he's doing a terrible job of hiding it.

"I'll be back as quick as I can," he promises, and swinging his bag back onto his bag, steps out the door to see what he can find.

Considering the general level of technology available in Dranbu, Ianto's not surprised that they have no idea what the words 'anti-inflammatory' are all about. Reducing pain and swelling on the other hand is more speaking their language. Especially when he informs them that his friend has suffered a nasty bite and might have further injuries they can't see. The apothecaries of Dranbu are all too keen to offer Ianto any number of remedies, ranging from the simple to the more complex and extreme (and expensive, for that matter).

As Ianto finally makes his way back to the room itself, he supposes he should have asked John about his opinion on alternative Nysan medicine. Then again, he supposes given the choice between it or nothing at all, John's bound to be up for something he's brought back with him. Even if it's just the bag of ice he's collected from their host's kitchen on the way back in.

He knocks gently on the door to announce his return before slowly opening it and stepping back inside. "John...?"

John hasn't, at a glance, physically moved from where he was sat before -- but a few things have changed. Firstly, he seems to have turned slightly and has a bowl sat in his lap with him. Secondly, the bowl has water tinted red and John has started rinsing his arm a little. Now that he's rinsing it, in a slightly awkward way that speaks of a weak attempt to not be lifting his arm too much, it's easier to see some of the damage. There's a section of skin that looks like it's been skimmed back entirely leaving pink, raw flesh and the largest puncture wounds look deep and round enough that they might have been made by someone plunging a pencil into clay.

John looks up toward the door, studies Ianto for a long moment then drops his eyes to his arm again. He isn't finished, by any means, because he's proceeding very slowly.

"Hey," he answers a little roughly. "Any luck?"

Ianto shuts the door behind himself as he steps into the door, shucking his bag off his shoulder as he does and doing his best not to stare at the other man's arm. He'll see it up close and personal soon enough.

"Yeah," he replies, moving closer to kneel where he'd done before and setting the bag down in front of him, starting to dig through it once he's done so. "I found a few things I thought you might be able to try out, if you're interested. They told me you were safe to mix and match, for the most part. Within reason." He holds up the little extra sack he'd been carrying. "And some ice, of course. For once we're done." He probably could have left that to fetch later, but it should keep for the most part and he can just refresh it if it doesn't.

Plucking out a little vial, he holds it up to the light, squinting for a moment before displaying it to John himself. "Here. From what they told me about this, it sounds like it should do the trick. Though you might want to start out light, in case it hits you hard to start."

He glances up at John's arm, pressing his lips tightly together as he does, before continuing on to begin, "How's..." He trails off again before even finishing the question. Does he really even need to ask? He's got a feeling he knows just by looking.

"Be better if I couldn't feel it. What's the dosage on this stuff? Don't suppose they gave any side-effects?"

He sets the cloth aside and reaches for the vial with his good hand to study. It's one thing if it makes him feel a little fuzzy, but if it's going to make him hallucinate then he wants some warning. That, and if there's any kind of lethal dose he'd prefer... you know, not to do that. Normally if things come in vials instead of bottles that's a sign that they're... strong, after all.

Which -- strong sounds good right now, but there's a line. Knowing who he is and where he is tends to be something John prefers.

Ianto shakes his head, pushing himself up to stand and, after a moment, reluctantly pulling his gloves out of his pockets to slip back on again.

"Not specifically, no," he admits. "Just that it's quite strong and that it's sure to make you feel better, but that I'm not to let you take too much of it or to let you take it for too many days in a row."

He reaches back out to take the vial back from the other man, swirling the liquid in the glass before pulling out the stopper, making something of a face at the noxious smell that wafts from the vial once he does. "God only knows what it's actually made of, but as long as it helps..." He glances up at the other man questioningly. "I made sure they told me how to use it," he reassures, in case John's worried he's about to accidentally poison him.

How to use it.

John eyes the vial hesitantly, then eyes Ianto.

"So do we mix it with something or should I just be taking a sip straight?"

How do you use it? John has the feeling that Ianto wants to do whatever it is needs to be done for him, but he's not especially keen on being fed something by hand. That's a little too much for his pride, even with an injured arm. If it's in drops maybe he can do that himself if he... holds the vial steady?

Edited (same icon twice in a row!) 2018-12-11 14:10 (UTC)

It takes Ianto a moment to understand that that's the answer to his question. Yes, John will try it. No, he will not take it from him. Not so directly as he was offering, at least.

He tries not to be offended by it. He shouldn't be. It's not John's fault. None of this is.

"Ah," he says, smoothly, before pushing himself up to stand again. "It's probably. Better if you didn't drink it straight from the bottle. I'll get you, ehm." He re-caps the vial for a moment so that he can dig around in his bag for a moment, before producing a smaller satchel, from which he produces a small metal spoon. Yes, he really has brought a set of his own silverware with him on this journey.

"Here," he says, moving back to sit beside him on the bed. "They said it should be taken by mouth, but. A spoon should do just as well, yeah?" He measures out the necessary amount of drops of the stuff into the spoon before carefully turning it to pass to John. Flicking him a carefully hesitant smile as he asks, "Do I need to start singing about sugar now too? I'm not above pulling out all the tricks I have, if it helps."

Singing about sugar.

John forces a weak smile and reaches out with his good hand to take the spoon.

"Thanks," he says, and carefully takes it and swallows the few drops quickly. It doesn't exactly taste pleasant, but if it makes his arm stop working he'd drink three times as much. Holding out the spoon back to Ianto he lets out a slow breath. "Probably take a few minutes to kick in, but we can go through supplies. I might need a makeshift splint and sling for this, if we have something we can use, and you might need something to help pick bits of fibre and stuff out of my cuts."

Something finer and more precise than fingers.

Ianto takes the spoon back from him and resists the urge to reach out and run his hand through his hair like he wants. To offer a comforting gesture that he’s not sure whether the other man would welcome at the moment or not.

A splint and a sling. Something for picking fibers out of the wound. Right. Taking a deep breath, he pushes himself up to start digging through his bag again.

“I’ve got —“ He holds up a pair of tweezers he’d had stashed in the same little bag with the silverware. “This should do the job. And I’m sure we can figure out something for a splint and sling too,” he adds, setting the tweezers aside and digging through his bag. Though it’s just as well he didn’t bring any of his ties along, he thinks privately to himself.

“How stable are you looking for this to be?” he asks aloud.

"As stable as we can get, considering it's a little patched together. Just enough to let it rest."

To stop him bumping it or trying to use it, as much as possible. He presses his lips together unhappily, eyeing the tweezers and then his arm.

"Did they say if I can mix that painkiller with alcohol?"

Asking for a friend, of course.

Ianto sits back to look up at the other man, biting his lip slightly as he runs the question over in his head. Technically they hadn't said anything about it at all, but he isn't certain whether that should mean that it's safe to assume anything one way or the other.

"Well," he hedges, slightly. "So long as you're not planning on drinking to excess...? If they weren't warning me against it then it should probably be fine."

Probably. Glancing back down at his bag he digs into it a little more before glancing around the room itself. John's the medic, not him. "What about... A branch?" Ianto offers, looking back to the other man uncertainly. They are in a village made from a giant tree, after all. Maybe it could work?

"Yeah, a straight stick would work."

Or, you know, as straight as they can manage when it's grown on a tree. John's not a hundred percent sure that 'if they didn't warn me against it, then it's probably fine' is strictly the truth for some all natural homemade painkiller being mixed with alcohol -- but he's going to leave that thought alone for now. Ringing out the cloth again carefully he begins he try and clean another patch of dried blood on his arm, and winces right away. Painkillers haven't kicked in yet, but maybe in another few minutes...

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