scurlock | oom, sorta: infirmary thread with katherine

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oom, sorta: infirmary thread with katherine

It's been nearly twenty-four hours since he's been back at Milliways, and a good portion of those hours have been spent either asleep or in a haze from the fentanyl in his system. There have been people in to see him, and he's eaten a little bit every time he's been awake, just because he knows he needs to eat, even if he can't think about what happened back home -- no, it's not home, not anymore -- without his stomach knotting up into twists and coils.

Doc's not sure if anyone's there, he knows Katherine's been staying with him and he's protested a few times to try and get her to go upstairs and rest, clean up, eat, take care of herself for a few hours -- he's certainly not dying anytime soon, after all -- and he hopes she's listened.

He sleeps solid for a few hours, with Kim coming by every few to check on him, adjust his medication or bandages if he needs it, but for the most part, he's healing just like anyone would from a gunshot wound that went too long without being treated. Slowly. Everything takes energy, no matter if it's eating or sleeping or getting up long enough to use the bathroom. He's still not gotten a shower, but brushing his teeth for the first time in days felt so incredible he could hardly stand it.

It's in the middle of the night when the first strange dream comes.

On the outside, he's silent. His body shifts a little on the bed as his mind takes him across deserts and sand, heat rising up in flickers to rush over his skin. He's not wearing a shirt, and the sun bakes his flesh to a red glow as he crosses.

The sand gives way to hard, caked earth, and then to rock and granite, crumbled boulders that heave against the ground, driven by an unseen force power and strength and all you could want if you drink from this that ripples the air around him. He's flying, or at least he feels like it, and the ripples reflect off the air like sunlight on a pond.

His fingertips brush against them, slowly.

Everything swirls around him like the air before a rainstorm, skin almost wet from the sweat and the heat.

Ripples...then air...a tornado....not...no...

"Alex."

Alex McSween is standing in front of him, those golden, sunlit ripples bouncing off his chest, just like those bullets from the Gatling gun ripped into his body that day, the way he stumbled and fell in the dirt and mud in front of his house.

"Alex."

Still asleep, he jerks his head softly to the side when the gunshots start, only it's not Alex falling, it's John, they shot him in the back and he fell from the wagon, horse dead too, they had no choice but to run. They had to run. It all started...

The wind kicks up around his face, swirling dust up into his eyes. His mouth tastes like iron, he thinks. No, salt. For they are the salt of the earth...

Wicked boys...wanted and wicked or just plain wicked?

Power. All he could want. All he had to do was reach out and touch it...

"No. No. Get out of my head I don't want...please. Please. No."

...it was a whirlwind, now. Sand kicking up into his eyes and blinding him, he was staggering, stumbling against it, it hurt to breathe and his mouth tastes not like salt, or iron, but of dirt, face down in the earth with the bullets flying overhead and shattering adobe bricks, he's trapped and he can't get out.

Run boys, run.

Alex falls dead, beside him.

Run.

Doc opens his eyes -- everything's blurry because there are tears, he's not sure what for or where from or how he has the energy to cry right now, and even though nothing hurts due to the painkillers he can't help the fact that the heat in his eyes, on his skin, everywhere -- and he pulls in a choked, harsh breath.

"I'm sorry, Alex," he whispers, eyes focused on the ceiling, tears streaking down over his skin, leaving tracks along his temples and into his hair. "I'm so sorry."

Whether she's at his side or not, he's not sure. Part of him doesn't want her to see him like this, wants her to be taking care of herself...but the part of him that's making those tears keep coming needs her more than anything right now.

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As soon as she's gone, and he makes his way across the room and into the bathroom, he shuts the door behind him and peels himself out of the bandages and the pants he's wearing, grateful for the various handrails and walls he can lean against as he's getting undressed and actually underneath the spray.

At first, he just stands underneath the water, not moving, not doing anything but letting it soak him from head to toe. It's hot against his already warm skin, but he doesn't care because it feels so incredible that he wonders if he could fall asleep just standing there.

You could but she'd worry.

Eventually, he moves for the soap, gingerly cleaning off traces of dirt and blood, sweat, and grime from not having been clean in nearly a week. He's pretty sure that he was not looking his best, and his hair is grateful for the attention as he ducks his head under the spray.

The beard he'll deal with later.

Once he's cleaned every inch of skin he can reach without hurting himself, and rinsed his mouth out several times, he turns the water off and runs a hand through his hair, pushing it back behind his ears.

Doc's grateful that the towel is fluffy, as he wraps it snugly around his waist and tucks it so that there will not be any chance of it falling, and then steps out into the infirmary, careful not to slip on the floor.

When she comes back, she'll find him standing in front of a mirror and staring himself in the eyes, absently, water droplets still sticking to his bare skin.

"You all right?"

Her voice is soft, nearly ethereal, like she's speaking across a great distance, though it's only from the doorway to his hospital room.

She isn't sure if she should enter or leave or... well, there's a man in a towel not a few yards from her, and no manner of breeding or grooming prepared her for what the proper etiquette would be for something like this.

His skin is still pink, and he looks so very tired.

"I think perhaps you should get back to bed."

"Yeah, m'alright."

Doc tilts his head and studies the scar on his cheek, it's faded somewhat more, and the effects of two weeks of the sun have left him with a bit of a tan as well, so it looks worse than it is. He stays there for a moment, before he glances over at her and smiles.

"I'm thinkin' of tryin' to eat a bit. Maybe while I'm gettin' changed y'could do me another favor, ask a rat for some pasta...with vegetables..." his stomach growls at the thought, quietly, as he reaches for the shorts.

She watches the tilt of his head, the slant of his eyes, and the way water skates from the pale scar on his cheek to his chin.

She smiles, an eyebrow arched. "You mean you're willing to eat without me having to force it on you? My, Doc Scurlock, I'm proud."

Her tone is light; teasing.

She hands him the shorts and the two decks of cards.

"I wasn't sure which deck you wanted, so I brought them both?"

His skin is radiating heat from the vestiges of his fever, intinsified by the hot water of his shower.

"God, Doc. You're so hot," she mutters, a little worriedly.

"Fevers always get a little worse 'fore they get better. I'll get some more of those antibiotics an' get back in bed," he promises. His eyes fall to the shorts, and the deck -- no, decks -- of cards, and he pauses for a half second before he looks up at her and smiles. "And I'll eat without y'havin' to force me."

A beat.

"Long as you get enough for two, of course."

Yeah, two can play at that game.

"Promise?" she asks, checking the heat of his face with the back of her hand. Her knuckles graze the skin of his neck below one cheek, then again at the other.

She grins, chuckling softly at his last statement. "Of course. I'll be right back."

Before she leaves, she cups his face in her hands, peering the seven inches up into his gray-green eyes.

"You get dressed and then get right back into bed, you hear me?"

"Swear it."

Once she leaves, he towels himself off quickly and then the changes into the shorts, and the decks of cards get set on the small table beside the bed. He grabs a roll of gauze, more ointment, tape, and settles himself carefully back in bed. The sheet and blanket are kicked down around the end of the bed, and he's already applied the ointment to the wounds, but he needs help with the bandaging part.

When she returns, she'll find him looking at the doorway with a grateful smile on his face and a 'you know you want to help me' look in his eyes. The picture of innocence.

Really.

And that picture of innocence?

Is greeted by a furiously blushing Katherine, as she comes back into the room.

"Need some help, cowboy?"

"Could use a hand," he says. "Just finishin' up these bandages."

When she approaches and settles near his side to assist, she'll find the pads already in place on the wounds to his thigh (the right, and closer to the knee than the hip) and stomach, and one for his arm sitting nearby.

She'll also be able to see the bottom edge of a scar beneath those long shorts (which he has pushed up, a little) on the skin above the left knee.

She does settle near his side, shaking her head lightly as she absently pushes up her sleeves.

"Gracious, Doc. You better go easy on yourself, or you might not have much left to scar."

The words are teasing, but there is a slight darkness to her face.

"This was from Sherwood, last year," he pushes up the fabric a little to show the extent of the damaged skin, it's only a few inches. "Reminded me I need t'practice before I go back this year."

Because he's going back. Will's a brother, and fellow outlaw.

As they wrap the injuries, her hands on his leg and then his arm, and then to his stomach, he's aware of just how hot his skin is to the touch given how cool her fingers feel.

Edited 2008-09-05 09:15 (UTC)

"You had better. I don't want you coming home with any more of those," she scolds, indicating the scars and bruises.

Her hands are gentle, light, and cautious as she helps re-bandage him, but nonetheless skilled, like one who has mended a wound or two in her time. The new wraps will hold, snug and dry, for quite some time.

She is concerned by how hot his skin is under her touch, though. His stomach jumps more than once when her fingers brush over the flesh, and he trembles a little now and then.

"Perhaps you should get some more sleep, after you eat," she says quietly, again pressing the back of her hand to his cheek.

"Just need that blanket an' some food in me," he says, as he shifts back into a more comfortable position for eating and tugs the blanket back up around his waist and stomach, to the point where he's covered up a bit more.

Bar, thankfully, knows to feed her outlaws food that'll give them energy, and it's not long before Doc is eating the pasta and vegetables without even having to be told to, once.

After a few minutes of focusing on the food, he glances over at her as he swallows. "Y'look at those cards or leave 'em in the sleeve," he asks, curiously, a light tone to his voice.

When he leans back in bed, she helps pull up the covers for him, then carefully rolls her sleeves back down and smooths the material over her arms a few times, as if making sure it will stay in place.

She's glad to see him eat, and, surprising herself, glad for the meal herself. She hadn't realized how hungry she had been. Her focus had been elsewhere, after all.

Regardless, she eats lightly, watching him carefully in case he might need something.

"I glanced at them," she replies, equally as light, though she's searching out his eyes for the reason why he's asking.

"It ain't a normal deck of cards, m'sure you noticed," he has a few more bites, finishing off the food, and then he sets the plate aside and reaches for the deck of larger cards. He taps them lightly out of the sleeve and into his hand. "It's a deck of the basic tarot," he glances up at her. "Like the gypsies and the sort use for fortune tellin', 'cept it's got a few...special cards."

He looks down as he slowly begins to deal his way through the deck, speaking as he does so

"This is gonna sound awful hard t'explain 'cause I don't quite understand it myself, but there was an incident a few months back when I...I made a deal with a man here t'fight in his war in exchange for protection. I knew I was gonna walk out that door and die and I didn't want to. Thought it was my only way. 'Cept...well, wasn't just fightin' he wanted."

She's watching him thumb through the cards, an almost cautious expression on her face.

"What else was he wanting?" she urges him on.

"I didn't realize it at the time, but when I made that deal he...well t'say it simple, I had somethin' else in my soul that ain't supposed to be there. Somethin' that made me want t'hurt people. I got in a fight with Will...tried to take Jack down when he was puttin' me in the cells downstairs."

He pauses at a familiar card, then continues on, until he finds one of a image that's somewhat familiar. Blonde hair, cut shorter, and a black jacket, sword strapped to his back and purple swirls around the background.

"He gave me power. I was stronger. Faster. But I wasn't me. I had a voice in my head that took control...I was blackin' out and not rememberin' conversations...I had Jack lock me up so I wouldn't hurt nobody, then I went back to Shadow, I trained and I learned to fight because I knew that war was coming, and Kate and I...we tried t'kill Brand, the man that did this to us. We managed to hurt him, then she turned on me."

Doc turns the card to her.

"Turns out Brand was possessed with somethin' worse than I was, worse than Kate was. That thing...whatever it was...got out of Brand an' went after Kate, then it...took back what it had put in my head, in my soul, and I blacked out. Woke up three days later back at the bar. They'd sent a rescue party out t'get us back."

A pause.

"I'm better now," he adds, as an afterthought. "But you can talk through these trumps, they call 'em. Like here's Kate's," he says. "I can use it to talk to her, or call her to me and get her to wherever I'm at. I don't, though...makes my skin crawl just touchin' 'em."

Everything about this story is very, very disturbing. Astoundingly, she manages to stay quiet during the whole explanation, even taking the card from him when he shows it to her. The figure on the card is strange, but familiar, and Katherine feels a cold chill race down her spine as she looks at him.

She presses her free hand flat against the bridge of her nose, shaking her head almost imperceptibly. She's trying to will the sting away from her eyes and the lump from her throat as she tries to speak.

"You... you... you mean to say..."

...you were possessed? By what, a demon?

Quickly, she hands the card back, not wanting to touch it anymore--not wanting it near her. Her skin is crawling, too, and she wraps her arms around her middle, seeking the solid comfort as the rest of her feels so sick and shaky.

"You... and Kate? You both... God Almighty, Doc, are you telling me you had some sort of evil spirit in you?"

There's a pause before she looks at him, brow knitted and blue eyes sharp and piercing. He said something that she's only just now allowing to sink in, and sink in it is: like a rock in the pit of her stomach.

Her voice is black as smoke billowing from a forest fire.

"You... you knew you were gonna walk out that door... and die?"

Doc takes the card back and slides it back into the deck, and then he neatly arranges the cards and returns them to the thick sleeve made of paper, and sets them back on the bedside table.

"Yes," he replies, in reference to the first thing. "I could control it sometimes, keep it down, but there were some moments where I couldn't. That's why I had Jack lock me up downstairs, to keep me from hurtin' anybody."

Then he keeps his eyes downcast towards the blankets as he considers her next question, he can feel her gaze on him.

"I knew that I was supposed to. I wasn't sure how, but I knew that I was supposed to."

"...You knew...

"You let a demon. in. your soul. And you left here knowin' ... you were gonna die?"

"I didn't know I was gonna get possessed. He didn't tell me that part of it. I never would've done it if I'd known that," he's firm on that, eyes darting up to her own briefly. "I never would've...I was fargin' stupid in the first place but I ain't that much of a fool."

Then he looks down at the blanket again, fingers toying with an imaginary piece of thread.

"I...I'd read 'bout it. Didn't know how, just when. And I told myself that I was gonna do everythin' in my power not to, but I wouldn't...if it had t'happen for a reason, then I was...yeah. I walked out knowin' I was supposed to, wasn't plannin' on it, s'why I had the vest...but...I didn't want t'change the way things were supposed to happen."

Even though he did.

Horribly.

Katherine feels vaguely like she's been kicked in the chest by a mule. She shakes her head a little, like she's trying to clear away the cobwebs, and reminds herself to breathe.

"I can't... I... God damn it, Doc!" she stutters, blinking back tears. She's not sure if they're tears of relief that he's all right, or tears of anger at him going through all of that.

"Why didn't you tell me? What... y--you just left, hoping for the best? What if you... what if...?"

She knows it shouldn't matter now. It doesn't matter now. He's back, and he's alive. He made it through. But her head is spinning and her heart is pounding and she doesn't know what else to do but feel mad. Mad at everything.

"Why didn't you say anything!" It's not a question. "Why didn't you let Will help? Why didn't you let--"

--Me help? It's a stupid question, and she knows it.

She balls her small hands into tiny, angry fists, and sits, very quietly, holding back tears, holding her breath, holding in everything she's feeling right now. If she moves, just an inch, she might burst.

"Because I've already watched him suffer because of me and I wasn't 'bout to risk anyone else gettin' hurt just cause I was goddamn scared."

Doc spits the word out and the disgust with himself is evident in the tone that he uses to say it.

He looks away, eyes narrowed at the wall.

"I've spent the last...hell I can't rememeber anymore. I've been hidin' here like a goddamn coward an' tryin' to think of somethin', anything to do to save my sorry ass but I ain't gonna have people I love get hurt because of me."

His temper flares up and the space behind his eyes aches a little, not tears, just frustration with himself and the whole situation and everything.

"All I wanted to do was git to Mexico." Doc draws his knees up, ignoring the pain in his stomach as he runs his hands through his hair, elbows resting on them as he bows his head. "All I wanted to do was to see..." his voice falters, not anger or frustration but something else. "...just wanted t'see my boy again," he whispers.

"Not just because you were scared, Doc!" she cries, finally breaking and letting out her frustration in angry words and tears. "Because you needed us! Because you were in danger! Don't you know any one of us would have been glad to help? We would have... we would have..."

She pauses to suck in a breath, her lungs aching slightly from the outburst, and in the silence his final words fall and she feels everything go still.

And quiet.

And numb.

She doesn't remember breathing. She doesn't remember blinking. She doesn't remember moving for at least a long minute, before she looks up at him, cheeks red and glossy with tears, eyes beaming and a little unfocused.

"What?"

It's barely a whisper.

To his credit, Doc does meet her eyes.

His mouth feels dry, and his thoughts feel fuzzy around the edges, but he knows he can't lie anymore. He can't pretend.

"I..."

He nods, slowly, once.

"I've got a son," he begins, slowly. "And I...I used t'be married. Ain't no more. When I...when I didn't die, out there in the dirt...I changed things. Made a paradox. I'm..."

They killed you, Doc.

"I ain't nothin' but a dead outlaw in the dirt, back home. It ain't home. I made it back to New York, but...it was all wrong. I ain't...I ain't married no more. I don't know if my boy still even exists."

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