Dr. Orlin Dax (shipsurgeon) wrote in noexits, @ 2022-02-10 13:07:00 |
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Entry tags: | !log/thread/narrative, marvel (tv/movies): bucky barnes, star trek: orlin dax, → week 030 (hoth) |
DAY 5 | HOTH
Step. Step. The clinic was just ahead. Baymax would be there, His side wasn’t good, not with things spilling out of it. Get that stitched up, and head back out to fight off the fucking yetis tying to kidnap or eat all his friends.
The clinic door was pushed open by his shoulder, making him grunt. The vibranium arm was broken in two places, likely when the wampa had hurled him into the wall. Or when the wall had fallen on him. His memory was a little hazy of the actual sequence of events. The damn thing had tried to pull his arm off, which had hurt. A lot. But the arm was anchored well to him, and when the wampa couldn’t tear it away, it settled for gouging at his side.
“Maymax?” he called, his voice a little mushy. Probably not a great sign. Bucky licked his lips and tried again. “Bay… Dax?”
Orlin was alone in the clinic. He’d spent most of the morning trying to organize the equipment that had been added to the clinic over various months from goodness knows how many different medical professionals. Some of the items were so antiquated that Orlin didn’t even know what they were. But it was good to have a record and a catalogue for the future. He was really hoping, however, that they might end up in a timeline closer to his own. He had his standard away mission medical kit with him, but that wouldn’t be enough in the long run. Not if there were as many crises as he’d been warned about.
Speaking of …
He perked his head up from behind a filing cabinet at the sound of the door opening. What he saw caused his entire expression to drop. A fleeting momentary flush of panic in his eyes before he leapt to his feet and hurried across the room.
“Bucky! What in the—your arm! Your everything!” Orlin caught him by his flesh-and-blood arm and carefully led him to the makeshift examination table. “Try to take easy breaths.”
Damn, he’s heavy! Pity he wasn’t a Klingon. That kind of strength would have been incredibly useful at a moment like this. But Orlin did his best at half carrying Bucky to the table and getting him on it. Where was Baymax?! He could have used an assistant right about then. (Maybe even two!) But there wasn’t any time to think about that. He rushed over to the counter and grabbed his Starfleet medical kit.
“Small pinch. Not that you’ll feel it,” Orlin said as he stuck a hypospray into Bucky’s neck. He took out his tricorder and waved it over Bucky’s head. Then he surveyed Bucky’s body, trying to assess which damage required the most urgent attention. But it all looked bad. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you not to pick on snowmen bigger than you?”
Guts. Guts first.
Bucky was hustled onto a table, and immediately hated it, trying again to sit up. “Just… patch up the side, Doc. The rest can wait.” Something had touched his neck, but he barely felt it. His limbs, however, suddenly felt looser, less tense and painful. Maybe because he was sitting down. “Those things are still out there.”
He needed to get back. Protect the campus. Protect his friends. His family.
He could feel hands trying to push him back down to the table. Metal table. The scent of blood was in the air, thick and heavy. His blood.
“I need to complete my mission.”
“Lie down and stay still,” Orlin said, his tone suddenly more serious and determined than it had been during the first time he and Bucky met. This was his domain now. His castle. His church, so to speak. Bucky was under his rules. And while Orlin himself wasn’t an entirely forceful person, he had nine other hosts in his mind to help steady his demeanor and find the appropriate level of sternness in order to get his point across.
When Bucky continued to move, Orlin adjusted the hypospray and gave him another shot in the neck. This time without warning.
“Keep it up and I’ll knock you out harder than a Vulcan trying to refrain from going through the pon farr.” Orlin cleared his throat. “Computer, get me a—”
He cut himself off. Dammit! He forgot that this wasn’t his medical bay on the USS Aventine. There wasn’t a computer to assist him. It was just Orlin and good old fashioned frontier medicine.
He snatched some gloves off the counter, snapped them on, and cut open Bucky’s shirt in order to get a look at his intestines. Not hard. They were practically spilling out of his abdomen. He removed a micro-suture from his medical kit.
“I don’t care what’s out there. You’re not doing anything until I tend to these wounds. According to my tricorder you have a broken ankle, multiple broken ribs, a broken orbital, at least two broken fingers, and a concussion. Not to mention that your cybernetic arm is shattered and you have a gaping hole in your side. You think you can help anyone while you’re tripping over your small intestines?” He maneuvered the intestines back into the gaping wound in Bucky’s abdomen. He sprayed an antiseptic over the wound and then applied the micro-suture. The tip of the device glowed blue as he worked to close the tissue. “That was a rhetorical question by the way.”
Whatever was in that second hypospray had Bucky settle down, all but instantly, something light and wispy flowing through his body. For a moment, there was no pain, no tension, and all the panic was driven straight out of his mind.
Orlin Dax was speaking, but the words sounded like they were coming from far away. The list of injuries seemed long. When the arm was mentioned, Bucky lifted it to take a look. It was black and shiny in patches, but silver and sharp in others. Plates were missing, and in one section he could see a dripping patch of thermo-gel. His hand was dripping scarlet, the blood caught between the plates in his palm and knuckles.
“That’s gonna be a bitch t’ clean,” he muttered, voice taking on a distinctly early 20th century Brooklyn accent. Then the light caught his eye, and he saw what looked like a laser knife melting his skin back together. “And that’ll blow yer wig.”
“Great gravistars, this is a mess,” Orlin said as he tried to peer through the blood that kept spilling over the wound he was attempting to close. He adjusted the setting on his micro-suture and followed along the gash, his opposite hand holding the skin closed as best it could against the constant slip of blood. “If we were in the Federation I would requisition for an assistant. Two assistants. A nurse, at the very least. If this is a common occurrence around here then we’re going to have to have a town hall meeting as well. Saving people’s lives is no excuse for reckless behavior. Honestly! The mere idea of going back out in this state. If this were a Starfleet compound I would force you to go on psychiatric leave. Wanting to run back out there with a crater the size of Ganymedes in your torso. I’ve never heard such madness. And I used to work with a Denobulan!”
The micro-suture reached the edge of the wound, searing up the flesh like a laser. Orlin wiped away the blood to check that the area looked properly attached before turning his attention to the broken fingers. Bucky’s cybernetic arm would have to wait until last because that required a significantly greater amount of attention. Not to mention some engineering and craftsmanship. And Orlin’s primary goal was to keep Bucky alive.
“What I wouldn’t give for some isotropic restraints. Definitely makes working with unruly patients so much easier. An EMH would be nice, too. Clench your teeth. This might hurt.” He removed the osteogenic stimulator from the MedKit and pressed it up against Bucky’s broken fingers. The device slowly penetrated the skin and began reforming the fractured bones.
“And, for the record, I don’t wear a wig. Never have. You must have me confused with that other guy who looks a bit like me. Now that’s a wig if ever I saw one.”
Something in Bucky snapped through the haze of whatever was in his system. Or, more likely, his metabolism was outpacing the dosage and he was starting to feel more like himself again. Along with buckets of pain that his system now had to work on ignoring once more.
In any case, his metal hand reached out, seized Orlin by the front of his uniform, and pulled him close, within a few inches of his face. Blue eyes piercing and deadly serious, he said, “If you put me in restraints, I will break out of them and kill you. I won’t enjoy it, I will regret it, but I will not be able to stop myself. Do not put me in restraints. Just tell me to be still.”
He released the doctor’s shirt and was still, letting the machine fix his fingers without so much as an eye twitch. He was used to re-breaking his fingers himself, just to reset the bones after his healing had started to work itself in.
Indeed, most of the minor scratches and lacerations were starting to close. The swelling on his face had gone down a bit, and though the broken bones around his eye were still badly discolored, the swelling had reduced enough that he could open both eyes.
Orlin dropped the dermal regenerator he’d just removed from the MedKit when Bucky grabbed him by the front of his uniform—now stained in blood, thank you very much—and tugged him closer. The shock on Orlin’s face was instantaneous. He’d had disgruntled patients before but none of them had ever threatened to kill him.
“I … don’t … have … any … restraints,” Orlin hissed through clenched teeth. Because even though he was scared—yes, Bucky was incredibly intimidating—he had to stand his ground. His own survival and that of his symbiont aside, this was his job. He was here to help. And he couldn’t help if his patients kept wobbling about like eels or if they were threatening him.
When Bucky let him go, Orlin stumbled, slipping on some blood. He quickly balanced himself to prevent a fall. But when he looked back at Bucky it was to fix him with a heated stare. He could thank Curzon’s temper for that glaring frustration. But Curzon would have decked Bucky without a second thought. It was the Ezri in him that prevented any further violence. Because she was smart enough to know that Bucky, albeit in pieces, was still stronger. And more unpredictable.
Orlin picked up his dermal regenerator and used it to heal the swelling around Bucky’s eyes. “Be still then.”
With the help of Bucky’s adaptive healing process, Orlin’s work went faster. Granted, he hadn’t addressed the ankle or the ribs yet. Not to mention the arm. But he wasn’t certain Bucky was going to let him. “If you talk to me like that again, then the next time you come to me for help I won’t be as cordial.”
He glanced at the dripping thermo-gel. “Do you want me to actually try and repair your arm or do you want me to just tie it up in a sling so you can go back outside and battle snowmen? Because personally, given the choice, I’d prefer to only fix it once. Not twice. And since you’re hellbent on going back out there…”
Bucky was completely still through the process, as promised. It was only when Orlin commented on how he had talked, that Bucky let out a frustrated sounding growl. “I wasn’t threatening you. I was trying to warn you.” He shut his eyes for a moment, grip tightening on the metal table hard enough to make the steel whine in discomfort. “I’ve been strapped to tables before. It… wasn’t… good.” The words came out haltingly, through gritted teeth. “If I wake up like that… I won’t be able to control myself. I won’t know what I’m doing. I’ll just kill everything that moves to make sure… that it… doesn’t happen again.”
When he opened his eyes again, he tried, but couldn’t quite meet Orlin’s eyes. “Just… get it functional. Please. I’ll be still.” His jaw tensed. “I… need to help my friends. I have to.”
“Well, it sounded like a threat.” And Orlin wasn’t a robot. Perhaps Baymax was capable of brushing off the things people said in anger or frustration or fear. But Orlin couldn’t. Then again, his empathic abilities heightened some of his own responses. He’d reacted the way he had because of the intense amount of emotions he felt radiating off of Bucky. In fact, he’d only been in Derleth for a day, but he was already beginning to struggle from the sheer multitude of tension around the campus. Everyone was on edge. Everyone was upset or hurting or in pain. Orlin wasn’t prepared for so much all at once.
Not to mention the fact that he was still trying to get used to being ten different people at once. Eleven if he counted—No. They didn’t count him. So Orlin wouldn’t either.
“But I apologize for misinterpreting your meaning.”
He turned his attention to the cybernetic arm, working first to prevent the patches from leaking any more thermo-gel. He tried to reach into his memories for the knowledge Tobin had. And maybe it was his own stress that allowed the other hosts to step forward. Or maybe it was just the fact that Bucky wasn’t dying. But they did step forward. And they helped. Orlin wouldn’t be able to get the arm back into perfect working order. Not with the time constraints Bucky gave him. But he could repair some of the plates that exposed the under-workings. And he could also reattach part of the upper arm that had nearly been severed by the wampa’s claws.
“We could talk about that sometime, if you want to,” Orlin said, adjusting his dermal regenerator to work on metal. “My last host was a counselor. She was very good. I know you probably aren’t familiar with where I come from, but one of her patients was a Cardassian spy who’d suffered a lot during the occupation of Bajor and the subsequent Dominion War. He, too, had been … held against his will for a long time. And he’d undergone a traumatic form of conditioning for his work.”
Orlin removed the regenerator and eyed the arm. “Can you wiggle your fingers and bend your elbow for me, please?”
Bucky had tensed when Orlin mentioned talking about his past. The idea of therapy was laughable. Dr Raynor had tried, but her path of finding justice had ultimately failed. Sam’s path of doing the work, of making amends had worked much better. But not even Sam was willing to touch the years - decades - of emotional, physical, and various other forms of trauma Bucky had been subjected to.
But he perked up slightly - noticeably - when conditioning was mentioned. “How long?” he asked, tension clear in his voice. “How long was he… held.”
His jaw trembled slightly, teeth chattering for an instant before he got control over his jaw muscles. “Seventy years.” The words came out in a rush, a barely-heard whisper that both wanted to get out of him, but also not be heard. “They had me for seventy years.”
“Depends on one’s perspective. Long before the government used him, his father would lock him in closets whenever he disappointed him. Later, the people he worked for put a cranial implant in his head to prevent him from breaking under torture. Which led to … other difficulties in his life.” Orlin listened carefully while Bucky spoke. His earlier nervousness and anxiety was swept away almost effortlessly, replaced by a calm and restful solace. Open posture. As non-threatening as he could possibly be without Baymax at his side. He felt Bucky’s tension and turned it in on himself to help guide his own response.
This was one thing Orlin was good at. Perhaps because he’d known Ezri in life and not just in the memories he gained from Dax. He’d witnessed her grace with others. Himself included. And he tried to emulate that as best he could. Because he remembered how it had helped him.
He also understood how difficult it was for Bucky to admit what he just had. But Orlin sensed that Bucky wasn’t the type of man who would respond well to being patronized. Which was why he didn’t offer his sympathy or an apology.
“The universe can be an unkind place. I know the general advice is to try and appreciate the good things you have, but when you’ve been in the trenches of an unforgiving terror you can’t just walk away from it. Appreciating the good you have doesn’t change the bad you carry with you.” Orlin offered a small smile. He was thinking of Garak. He’d never met the man. He could only see him through Ezri’s memories. And while some of those memories were painful, he believed they had a satisfying ending. “After the war, the spy returned to his home planet. He’d lost everything and everyone he’d ever cared about at that point. But he had a goal and a focus to make sure no one else went through what he did. Last I heard he was essential to the governmental changes on his world. A proponent of peace. He even claimed to have found true love. But you know spies. Maybe he was lying about that last bit.”
Orlin shrugged. “Not impossible to believe though.”
He paused and took one last look at Bucky’s arm. “I think that’s about as good as I can get you without more time. But try not to let a wampa claw any more holes in you. I only have so much to work with here.”
Bucky sat quite still, looking straight ahead as Orlin spoke, eyes fixed in a thousand-yard stare. The problem, he had been told so long, so often, was that there was no one on Earth who could relate to the conditions he had endured.
Earth, apparently being the key.
Someone had, or at least something close enough to give him sympathetic flashbacks. It took several minutes for that to really sink into his brain. Someone else had gone through it. Someone else had come back from it.
Something dangerously close to hope flickered in Bucky’s eyes, the pupils flickering to Orlin while the rest of his body remained shock-still. “And you… or part of you… helped him?”
A dangerous thing, hope. He could already feel it blossoming inside him, and was trying desperately to stamp it down.
“Oh, he helped himself. I merely provided the tools he needed to make the choices that would put him on the path he’d been searching for. He couldn’t see the path because of everything he’d been through. I just taught him how to open his eyes and see a bit more clearly. The rest he did on his own. No one can take that step for someone else. It wasn’t easy, of course. We both struggled a bit in the beginning to find even ground. In that sense we helped each other, you could say. Because no one is without something they need to let go of.”
In Garak’s case, it had been the lies that were the hurdles. He hid behind them like a wall. They were his protection. The warm blanket that kept him safe from the truth. That had been challenging for Ezri. Orlin knew that because he could still sense the frustration she’d felt after her first session with him. He felt it as though it were yesterday when it was actually decades ago in someone else’s past.
“If that’s something you’d be interested in I can always make myself available. Day or night. No questions asked. No expectations either. Either talking or just listening. Maybe sitting in silence. Or I could tell you more about my past life. About my friend, the spy.” Orlin returned the regenerator to the MedKit. “One thing I can say, because he told me the last time we spoke, is that the nightmares went away.”
The final comment had Bucky turning his head in surprise, shock, and that burst of hope springing back into his eyes. He fought it, trembling, catching Orlin’s eyes before he looked away, his own blue eyes now tear-bright.
The nightmares went away.
His eyes slid shut, and a tear trickled down one cheek. “I… would like that.”
Then his phone beeped in his pocket, and he took it out, face going pale for a moment. “I have to go,” he said, starting to shuffle his way off the table, ignoring the fact that his ankle was still broken.
Orlin nodded. “Like I said. Any time.”
Maybe Orlin could even figure out how to make a raktajino in Derleth’s kitchen. He heard someone mention coffee the other day and raktajino was similar. He was fairly certain that he could brew a decent pot as long as he could find the right ingredients. Or, at the very least, something comparable. It was a strange thing, really. He’d never cared for raktajinos before the joining. But ever since he had Dax he was craving them constantly.
That was the Jadzia in him. She loved a good homemade raktajino.
When he saw Bucky begin to limp his way out, Orlin smacked himself on the forehead—now stained with blood, oops!—grabbed his osteogenic stimulator, and chased after him. He crouched down and angled the device at Bucky’s ankle, which was awkward considering the fact that he practically had to crawl on his knees after him in order to keep up. Granted, he wouldn’t be able to repair the ankle completely because Bucky was in a state of motion, but at least maybe he’d be able to jumpstart the naturally quick healing process Bucky’s body already had.
Then Bucky was gone. And Orlin was sitting on a bloodstained floor. Well, he did his best! Now he had a clinic to clean up. Sigh.