Tom Sully (notaskxawng) wrote in spinningcompass, @ 2013-07-15 18:53:00 |
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Entry tags: | jake sully, ~bruce banner, ~tom sully |
Who: Tom, Jake and open to docs
Where: Streets - a bit north of the small map, closish to the hospital
What: Tom’s arrival
When: Monday, afternoon before the storm
Rating: High for violence? And many feels. All the feels.
Open: To doctors
Status: Glogged / unfinished?
Of all the things that could have happened today, Tom had not expected this. Damaris could have stocked up on coffee for their shared office for the first time in a year, the government could have finally figured out that blowing things up is not a solution to earth’s problems or maybe even decide about Acta 472b - heck, they could have finally gotten Jake enough compensation to pay for the MSPS treatment. But that was not what had happened. What happened had been three men. And greed. Tom had been on his way home from work, taking in the sight of the streets he had walked for over three years now. Soon that would all be passed him, he would leave earth. Excitement and dread mingled in his body and mind. So far Tom had only looked forward, everything he had worked for - every experiment, every sleepless night in the lab, it had all been done for this trip. The Na’vi grammar he had studied so hard, pinning important bits to the door of his bathroom. Irregular duals, trials and plurals scribbled onto fruitpacks. But now, he was about to leave this place for nearly two decades. Gave you a whole new perspective and showed you just what you were about to leave behind. The people from the lab - his brother. Especially with his condition. Jake would kick him if he knew that it changed the way he thought. Tom hadn’t noticed them until he had felt the knife against his throat. The cool metal sharp against his soft skin. Adrenaline and fear had rushed through his body, alerting every single cell. They had taken his wallet and argued. Three drunk pieces of scum, hunting for a new sponsor for a night of drunken stupor. Tom hadn’t been a hero (or an idiot), he’d done what they wanted. But one had suddenly gotten the idea that Tom would identify them, bring them all into prison. They had argued and he had stood there rooted to the spot. He tried to talk to them - tried to convince them to leave, that he was harmless. But they hadn’t listened and one had suddenly got into his mind that Tom would be their doom if he stayed alive. His own flesh was softer than he had expected. The knife went through his abdomen as if it were a Banana Fruit (Utu mauti his mind immediately translated). Tom stumbled backwards, falling into the mix of mud and garbage that covered the street. He kicked his offender in the shin, pushing away from him. He did not feel any pain. The fight was in his body. He couldn’t die, not like this. He was too young - he had too many things to look forward to. Tom screamed for help but who would listen over the cacophony of the city? He kicked a can in an attempt to get away. The youngest of his attackers - what was he? 17? - grabbed his ankle and yanked him back. Tom wasn’t Jake. He wasn’t a marine who had learned how to fight and for the first time he regretted it. Jake could have dealed with this. Jake wouldn’t have put up this pathetic attempt of a struggle. Again, Tommy kicked, yanked, pulled, anything to make his attacker lose his balance, trip, knock him out. He didn’t. Instead the knife bore into his leg and tore through muscles. And then suddenly the attackers were gone, the whole world had changed, the only thing that stayed was the blood. He lay on the ground in the middle of the street. Tom groaned as he tried to get to his feet, his whole body still in alarm. Pain - red - bleeding. He needed to stop his wounds. His pulled his shirt over his head, pressing it to the wound on his stomach. His scientific mind raised, going through his old school lessons. Liver? Too low - maybe kidneys. Or he had gotten lucky. He needed medical help so much was sure. His bag - his phone - he needed to call for help. Sweaty hands fumbled for the sleak metal tool. The emergency didn’t answer. He dialed and called three times. Rose - didn’t answer. No connection. Net - maybe... messages? The whole interface had changed. Something was wrong. A drug? Had they drugged him? The sky - why was the sky blue? It was never blue. The streets - that wasn’t his city. Names on the phone - no one he knew. Fuck, shit... please! Someone - Jake Sully. Relief washed over him. He pressed the dial button. Religion had never been his thing but now he prayed. Pick up, Jake. Now that the weird blue bond thingy that was tying him to Julie had gone, Jake was busy back at his apartment, with gardening of all things. Neytiri was out in the forest as usual, but she’d asked Jake to help with the plants. The windows were wide open, letting in as much air as possible (something he never thought he’d be able to do), and he had some proper old music playing on the stereo while he worked with Neytiri’s plants. He’d always liked Led Zeppelin and Motorhead and other great songwriters and bands from that era, and on one of the trips to Texas, he’d spent a lot of money buying some early-edition CDs. Physical Graffiti had been one of the first ones he’d picked up (he’d made a point of finding it) and he’d already played it a couple of times since he’d brought it back through the door. Singing along (badly) to “Night Flight”, he busied himself with thinning out the seedlings just like he’d been shown, and almost missed his cell phone ringing. Grabbing it from the side of the table before it rung off, he absently thumbed it open without checking the caller, and held it between his shoulder and his cheek as he carefully lifted a tiny plant out of one of the trays full of soil. “Jake speaking,” he said, concentrating a bit more on getting the roots into the bigger pot than on the conversation. He wasn’t used to working with plants, after all, and he didn’t want to kill any of Neytiri’s flowers. Well. Kill any more of them. Jake – Tom let out the clichéd held breath. “Jake, thank god – call an ambulance. I –“ While the phone had rang, Tom had stumbled over to a wall and now rested against it. He could feel the pain now, slowly radiating off his leg and stomach. He shifted his weight, put a bit more pressure on his shirt. And he needed to do something about his leg. “Someone – someone attacked me. I’m near the old market… close to work…” He’d hoped Jake understood his ramble – words, thoughts didn’t come easy right now. It was the best he could do. At the sound of that voice, that voice, Jake had frozen. He knew that voice better than any other voice on Earth or any of the Colonies, and his brain was screaming at him that this could not be happening. Tommy was dead, for fuck’s sake, he was a pile of ashes back on Earth. Tommy was six fucking years ago (or almost four months, if you ignored the cryosleep), and Jake was frozen where he sat. He stared at nothing as the voice that sounded exactly like his big brother’s talked about ambulances and being attacked, and it sounded scared and in pain, tiny little pained gasps that probably weren’t even supposed to be heard. “...T-Tommy?” he asked when the line went quiet, stumbling on his words because Tommy was dead, but oh God, what if, what if it was really him? “Tommy, that you?” Wiping at his face, Jake smeared potting soil down one cheek without even realizing, and then started making his way towards the front door of his apartment. He had to find whoever this was. If it was someone playing a trick, he’d go through them for a shortcut - he didn’t need his legs to rip someone a new ass in their neck. If it was Tommy... Oh Jesus. Fuck. His eyes wandered and jumped – something – curtains. There were thick curtains hanging in the window behind him. Tom got up, stumbled to his legs, no leg and pulled himself towards the door. “Yeah, jarhead.” He sucked in a deep breath as pain shot through his leg. “Now can you, please” – another hiss – “save your brother’s sorry ass.” Tom had reached the door. It had seen better days. The paint was peeling off and there was no gleam left on the brass door handle. He pressed the bell, blood pumping through his body and leaking out of his leg. “Hey,” Tom bellowed. “I need help!” Oh. Oh fucking hell. "Jesus, Tommy..." he muttered, leaning up to open the door while Tommy was yelling. He got the door open and fell back with a grunt, before heading out of the apartment and then out of the building, Led Zeppelin left playing to an empty apartment. "You gotta tell me where you are, man. What can you see around you? Tommy? Can you see the spire?" Once out on the main street, Jake started heading towards the spire, trying to get up enough speed so that he could freewheel for a bit - his phone was put on speakerphone, and then wedged between his otherwise-useless legs. "Tommy, talk to me, okay? If you can see the spire, I can find you and get a doctor for you, but you gotta tell me..." No one was answering. No one in the streets. No light on. No noise. He wasn’t used to silence. Even in the lab, there had been humming machines. Where was everything? Not important, Tommy. Jake’s here. Jake will help, do what he tells you to do. At least, his brother seemed to have a remote idea of where he was. And he was on the move, Jake sounded off - not as clear as he usually did. “Spire... yeah... err...” He limped onto the streets. “I can see a big tower. And there’s another tall... err...” He stopped, sucking another hiss of pain. “Building - it’s behind the tower. Everything else is - the houses here are small.” Not like home, where generation after generation was added to another top floor. “I... err...” He tried to search for something else remarkable. His eyes hopped from building to building. “There - there’s a pet shop here, yeah... err... Windle’s... it looks old, all the buildings here are old. What the fuck happened, Jake?” The last question came as an afterthought. He didn’t understand and Tommy hated to not understand things. “The pet shop, yeah, I know where that is. I’m on my way,” he replied, not ignoring Tommy’s question on purpose. It was just... there were far more important things to worry about just now, that was all. “Keep talking, Tommy, tell me... tell me what happened?” He hated to ask, hated to make Tommy go through it again, but he needed to know which wounds they were dealing with so that he could tell the doctors. His hours of exploring the city were paying off as he sped along the streets, navigating with ease as he got closer to his brother. “Tell me what... what injuries you have.” Don’t mention a chest wound, don’t say that, please don’t, I can’t do this again echoed through Jake’s head as he asked, more than a bit terrified of the answer. Good, he knew. Good… good. Tom’s head began to swirl. Jake knew where he was, he could sit down and tend to his wound somehow. Thinking was hard though, the shock – everything really – was still in his blood. “I – err… my leg – the stomach, yeah… there’s blood. I’ve got my t-shirt – wait-“ Maybe if he tore at his trousers he could use them to stop the leg bleeding. Of course, ripping didn’t work. That only worked in movies. Tom settled for something else: pull the jeans up, it would be tight enough. He had to put the mobile phone to the side, pressing the t-shirt to his stomach with one hand and pulling the jeans up with the other, all the while listening intently for his brother’s reactions or arrival. Oh, thank fuck for that. He wasn't in immediate danger, just... badly injured. Fuck. "Okay, listen. You gotta, uhm, you have to lie down, Tommy, you gotta stop moving about and just lie down, okay? I'm almost there, I'm almost with you, but I have to hang up for a moment, Tommy, I gotta call for the doctors and tell them where to meet you. I'll call you back the instant I'm done, I promise," he replied, hoping that his voice was loud enough and steady enough for Tommy to hear him and stay as calm as he could. "Just... put pressure on the wound, and I'll call back ASAP. I might even be there, okay?" he said, and then hung up before sending out an urgent request over the CB radio. Tommy did not want him to go or just hang up. He did not want to be alone and helpless. The pain was just too conscious, throbbing and piercing through his nervous system. But he had to. “‘kay, just hurry, yeah?” He did as he was told, lay down and waited. He tried to shift his attention to the outside world. The strange far too empty street, the wind toying with papers. Where was he? What had happened? Jake made his call, passing on the relevant information and then he cut contact as he shoved his phone in his pocket and took corners and bends at ridiculous speeds. Tommy was here, Tommy was here and not dead, and Jake would be able to help him this time instead of finding out well after the fact when Tommy's body was already prepared for cremation and the suits wanted to know then and there if Jake was ready to step (hah) into his big brother's shoes. Freewheeling down a slight hill, he took the last corner far too fast and almost toppled out of the chair - stupid, Jake, stupid, the doctors didn't need to have two patients - before righting himself and he could see Tommy lying on the ground ahead of him. There was... a lot of blood. An alarming amount of blood, really, but he did his best to ignore that. Once he was at Tommy's side, he slid out of his chair and down onto the ground beside his twin, slipping into autopilot as he did so. "Tommy. Hey, Tommy, you with me?" Tom heard the wheelchair but he barely noticed it. In hindsight, yes, it had been there but at the moment Jake approached it had held no significance, just a noise that broke the silence. “Huh?” Slowly, he turned his head around, blinking against the sun. “Jake... hey...” He smiled up at his brother. “Had a rather shit day, glad you are here.” His words held no meaning but it did not matter. But he felt dizzy and craved a connection to reality - some kind of reality. Just wanted his brother to talk and know that he was there. "Yeah, yeah, I can see that," he replied, sitting up as best he could. Taking everything in at a glance, he gently moved Tommy's hand out of the way before pressing down on the blood-soaked tee-shirt, trying desperately to slow the bleeding. The leg didn't look as bad, so he left it for the doctors to sort out. "Sorry, I know this is hurting, but I gotta do it, Tommy, and you gotta keep talking to me until the doctors show up, they're on their way." Keeping one hand on the balled-up tee-shirt, Jake shrugged out of his own and then switched hands for a moment so that he could take the thing off, something that hardly ever happened in public. Jake’s torso was a mess of scar tissue, and he hated for people to see it, but right now, he didn’t give a fuck. The tee-shirt was folded up and put on top of the previous one, blood starting to seep through almost instantly. "Talk to me, Tommy! Tell me... oh, fuck, tell me what I'm saying. Ontu, mikyun, nari." Tommy winced as Jake reapplied the pressure to his stomach. A new shirt was added to the soaking wet one. For a moment the pressure on his stomach had ceased but it hadn't lasted long. “Oh Jake, [You’ve forgotten the mouth in your list].” He didn’t notice that there was something wrong with Jake speaking Na’vi. He felt dizzy, almost drunk. But Jake was a comfort. He knew what he was doing. He wasn’t alone. As a twin you were never alone. There was always someone just like you. “You know you shouldn’t have gone,” he suddenly mumbled, his gaze directed at Jake’s scars. He was surprised at his own words. He just felt he had to say it - in case... show... whatever. Tom had never wanted that to happen to his brother as much as he did not want this to happen to himself. "Ngaytxoa. Ontu, Mikyun, Nari, Kxa. How's that?" He kept the pressure on the wound, and frowned at the obvious pain on Tommy's face. And then he was frowning because even now, with his blood pumping out of him, Tommy brought up his same old argument about Jake's chosen career. "We're not talking about that now, Tom," he snapped, keeping his eyes on his hands instead of glaring at his brother. Taking a deep breath, he willed his standard response to Tommy's needling away and concentrated on keeping his brother talking. "We've got more important things to talk about. Come on, tell me about Pandora. Normally, you never shut up about the place. Tell me about Ikran and Pa'li, yeah?" Tom smiled, an interest in his work always brought a smile to his face and the dizziness stayed to dampen the pain enough for it to be unhinged. "You know the microorganism we found, it's no parasite. Aculeus ruberus actually lives in a symbiosis with it. It produces the secretion for it and gets protected by it. Other parasites can't get onto the tree." It was smart. The things nature came up with. No communication and planning needed, just chance and evolution. Humans could learn so much from it. But instead they exploited what they were given. Suddenly, the smile was gone and he stared at the blue sky above him. Barely a cloud was seen. No houses and neon advertising. “ What's going on here, Jake? Did I die?" He was sure he could feel his heart. The blood was flowing, heading for the exit in his stomach and leg. The pain - being dead couldn't be that painful. He didn't believe in a life after death but what else could this be? A hallucination? Did he hallucinate his brother? Was the pain and trauma shutting off his nervous system, isolating it from the outside? And then it occurred to him: Jake did not know Na'vi, he had never even been remotely interested in it. Jesus, he was probably still lying in that street, escaping to a better reality while his body prepared for a final shut down. Jake nearly burst out laughing when he looked up at Tommy’s near-manic grin. “Yeah, that’s some cool shit right there. Protective tree-slime, eh?” Tommy could talk for hours about Pandora if he was given half a chance, and Jake remembered countless visits where he’d done exactly that. It seemed insane to him now that he’d once thought Tommy was out to bore him to death, given that he was the one who now talked about the moon and its inhabitants at every available opportunity to anyone who would listen. He was about to ask another question when he glanced back at Tommy’s face and saw how serious he’d gone all of a sudden. And then those questions. Jesus. “I... I’ll tell you later. But you’re not dead, you’re not, and you’re not gonna die either, okay? You hear me, Tommy? You’re gonna be fine.” Pressing down even more on his brother’s wound, Jake scowled at it, as if he could scare all the blood back into his brother’s body just by being angry at it. Protective tree-slime, yeah, Jake, hitting the nail on the head? Tommy chuckled softly - started to chuckle and grimaced. Fuck, that hurt. He stopped and swallowed. Fine - yeah, he’d like that. “I really want to go, Jake. This planet - the people, they destroyed it. But Pandora, you know, everything is untouched. I want to save it.” You never knew what the government would start doing, they had no respect for nature or the culture of a different race, not as long as there were resources to exploit. “Untouched other than the huge-ass strip mines, yeah,” he muttered, too quiet for Tommy to make out what had been said, before replying in a normal tone of voice. “I know you wanna go. Six years out, six year tour and then six years back, right?” He glanced all round him as he spoke, looking out for any sign of a doctor, before deciding to work on Tommy’s leg. “Keep talking. Tell me more about the tree-slime and about Pandora. Tell me about the... uh, the loreyu, how do they work? And keep your hand here. Push down hard, okay?” He moved Tommy’s hand back to the tee-shirts and pressed down on it, then quickly undid his brother’s belt, pulling it free of the belt-loops as quickly as he could. He pulled himself down Tommy’s body and quickly looped the belt around his leg, just above the still-bleeding wound. Pulling it tight, he secured it as best he could before grabbing at his wheelchair and dragging it over. Tommy’s leg was then lifted up, his foot set on the seat of the wheelchair and Jake did his best to ignore how much of Tommy’s blood was all over the ground. It was as well that he’d given some blood when the doctors had asked for it, really, but shit... Tommy was gonna need more than a couple units. Moving back up to be beside Tommy’s stomach again, Jake moved his brother’s hand out of the way again and reapplied pressure to the stomach wound. “Talk to me, Tommy, come on! You’re gonna be fine, the doctors are gonna be here before we know it, but you gotta keep telling me stuff about Pandora, okay?” Tommy watched his brother as he started to work on his wounds. He bit down on his lips, trying to keep himself from moving. The pain – the situation – he wasn’t made for it. He just wanted it to end. He was scared and hurt and tired. “Err… yeah… err… you know that it’s a moon, yeah?” Tommy had told him more than a dozen times but it hardly seemed that anything ever stuck with his brother. Even the simple facts seemed to vanish out of his brain. “And that makes the whole ecosystem so much more versatile. More than the earth’s ecosystem ever was.” Not that there was much left of it. “Nature just has to be more creative. Some creatures even fight together for survival. You won’t believe it but the Na’vi, the natives there-“ You couldn’t do enough explanation with Jake. “-they can form bonds with other animals. Like mental bonds. They call it tsaheylu.” It must be amazing to be bonded to another creature in that way. What would it feel like? He couldn’t imagine. "Yeah, yeah, a moon of Polyphemus. I did listen, y'know," To Tommy, to the suits, to Grace and Norm and Neytiri and fuck, everyone really. He couldn't help but smirk as his brother started talking about Tsaheylu, though. "Mental bonds, eh? With Ikran and Pa'li? And yeah, I read about them, don't look so surprised." He wasn't exactly lying, which was good. He had read about them. He'd read through some of Grace's book during his increasingly-rare free time up at site 26, asking questions that were probably obvious to Grace and Norm, ones that Tommy would have rolled his eyes at if he'd been there to hear them. "In, uh... Dr. Augustine's book. I liked the pictures," he admitted. He’d tell Tommy the truth, but later, when he wasn’t bleeding out all over the goddamn ground or loopy from bloodloss. Tom was surprised and then he frowned. Jake always used the Na’vi names for things. In Dr. Augustine’s book she used her own names, not those of the Na’vi. “Jake, where have you learned Na’vi?” Something was seriously off. Jake couldn’t speak Na’vi. Jake did not live a few minutes walk away from this street. This street didn’t even exist. You didn’t appear in a random street in the middle of a fight unless… “I’m hallucinating, aren’t I?” Shit. Shit fuck balls Motherfucker. Jake bit on his lower lip as he adjusted his hands on the tee-shirts, both of them now sodden with blood, and then looked up at Tommy, making sure to keep eye-contact with him. “I, uh. I got taught Na’vi on Pandora. Neytiri taught me, and Norm helped me a lot. Grace too. And you’re not hallucinating, no. You’re in a shitload of pain, and you’re bleeding a lot, but you’re not hallucinating. Promise. And I’ll explain everything else when you’re not in a shitload of pain or bleeding all over the fucking ground, I swear I will, but not until then. You just gotta lie there and wait on the doctors to come and get you fixed up, okay?” Tommy simply stared at his brother. Jake didn’t make sense. Grace – Norm – Pandora. Jake didn’t make sense. There was seriously something wrong here. “That’s – that’s bullshit. It takes six years to get there. You – that’s not true.” Tom started to move. He didn’t know what else to do. That wasn’t Jake. Jake wouldn’t lie to him about something like this. Jake – couldn’t – speak – Na’vi. He needed help. This wasn’t real. He was dying while he made up things about his brother. Tom pushed himself away… “Leave…” A weak hand pushed at the one that looked like his brother. “Help! I need help!” he screamed. Someone had to hear him. Someone needed to come. Please, he couldn’t die. “It’s the truth, Tommy! And I know it takes six years, I... It is true!” he replied, talking over Tommy like they’d always done in the past. “Why the hell would I lie? Why would I lie to you?... Jesus, Tommy, stay STILL!” he barked, still too stunned at the reaction he got to process what was going on other than Tommy was moving when he really shouldn’t have been. His hand slipped from the tee-shirts as Tommy pushed weakly at him, but his brother was so weak that he was able to catch up easily. “Stop it! C’mon, Tommy, please, stop struggling! You’re gonna make it worse, and, and I can’t lose you, not again!” “How – the fuck, Jake! How?” Tommy cursed. He normally didn’t curse as much as his brother. He was the responsible one. The one who used his head, thought things through – sometimes overthought things. But you couldn’t get out of your skin. Family influences you. And the fuck – he had no idea what was going on. Tom gave up. He stopped struggling. Did it matter? He couldn’t escape this. Whatever was going on it just didn’t stop. He ignored the meaning of Jake’s words. Again? He couldn’t deal with again. He couldn’t deal with now or with this. He wished the pain would stop, that it would let him think. What was a scientist without thinking – how could he understand? And Jesus fucking Christ, he craved understanding like never before. He was so damn scared. The instant Tommy stopped struggling, Jake was back in position, doing the only thing he knew to do that would help his brother. He put his hands on top of the tee-shirts and pressed down firmly. Where the fuck were the doctors? Where was Neytiri? This was worse than being found half-drunk in some back alley and being told by a couple of suits that his brother was dead, because now he was terrified that the island had brought Tommy here just so that Jake could be there when he died again. The first time, it was all over bar the flames; this time, he got to do his best to hold the blood in and he'd seen too many people die like this or from being shot or blown up or whatever, and he couldn't watch his brother die. He'd watched him burn, but there was no fucking way he could watch him die. "I will explain later. When you're better," he ground out, refusing to look away from the wound. His head spun with blurriness as Tom listened to his brother. Explain later - he, yeah, he was too tired anyway, too much in pain to make sense of anything. “You know there are some really lazy doctors here,” Tommy said drowsily. Humour was a good way of coping. He would get his explanation later... it would be okay, he didn’t have to fight. He was too confused and tired to do it. Jake was there. It was Jake. It just had to be. "Tommy, stay with me, don't be going to sleep! You gotta stay with me until the doctors get here!" The panic that had been working its way steadily through Jake ever since he'd answered his cell phone flared up as Tommy's words turned quiet and slurred. Fighting the urge to shake his brother awake, he just kept leaning on the wound and started talking quietly in Na'vi. "[Eywa, if you are here and you can hear me, please don't steal my brother. I just found him again, he can't go away. Please.]" He didn’t really care that Tommy could hear and understand what he was saying, he just had to do something. Neytiri said everything was the will of Eywa, and there were plants from Pandora here on the island, so why shouldn’t he talk to Her? She liked him, after all, kept sending Her little floaty atokirinas to dance on his head. It would work. It had to work. He kept talking to Her, in any case. |