InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "Not lying if they make you lie"

Erik (i_haunt) wrote in we_coexist,
@ 2015-01-22 19:24:00

Entry tags:

arya stark, erik, hannibal lecter, zz:status complete

Delicacy (Hannibal, Arya)
The girl he left in his kitchen was in pain. She suffered. She waited for him. The girl left in his kitchen was in pain. He was responsible for her. Erik drew his scattering thoughts back to Arie again and again. Above it all, she was a singular thread, iron and brutal and ugly, but nothing like the horrors left in the vacuum of Christine's absence.

His servants had relocated to basement storage the wheelchair that Hannibal once sent to his manor. On his way down to the storage room, Erik remembered to grab the phone. The doctor's number was still on speed dial - a courtesy and convenience built in for his servants (and his wife, his wife) when Erik was too ill to dial the number himself. When Hannibal's voice answered, Erik opened his mouth and said something - less than a handful of words. As soon as he dropped the handset on the last bit of furniture he passed, he forgot whatever it was he'd said. The door to the basement stairs closed behind him.

There were a few minutes lost to his memory. He could remember only the presence of old friends - the hand of rage on his shoulder, the breath of helplessness against the back of his neck, the claws of pain raking his chest. What had drawn him back? He looked at the handles of the wheelchair in both blood-speckled hands, knuckles stinging, then checked behind him. The basement door was destroyed, and the blood must have been his own.

A sound came to him, the siren bell, ringing. He walked with the wheelchair (the girl is hurting) to the door of his manor, straightening last night's rumpled shirt with one flattened hand. Hannibal. Yes, of course. Erik pressed the button that would allow the doctor entrance through the otherwise-inpenetrable security around his manor, then turned back toward the kitchen. Arie was waiting. She needed him.

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i_haunt
2015-01-24 03:57 am UTC (link)

By habit, he didn't crumple but rather folded the paper towels he'd used to dry his hands. All the same, they went into the ornate opening of a cabinet designed to hide the garbage bin from view. Hannibal was talking with Arie. Good. The composer rubbed his fingertips together, missing the gloves he typically wore. They had been left on the floor of his limo last night, while he'd worked on setting Arie's leg.

It'd be a miracle if the girl hadn't already undone his work, with all the movement she insisted upon. That was all right. Hannibal was here. Erik leaned against the countertop beside the sink and watched the two together.

I am the best in the City. Yes, he was, and Erik was alive to prove it. Whatever could be done, Hannibal would do it - and of this, Erik had complete faith. There were few in whom Erik could place his complete faith. Christine had been one. Hannibal, the other.

Christine. Erik shuddered, his eyes falling away from the guests and drifting toward the west wing, where they'd made their own chamber. He would not use it again. Erik doubted he would withstand a single night longer in this infernal empty home.

But... there was Arie... He looked back at her again, his brow drawing together. What of her?

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fear_cuts
2015-01-24 04:35 am UTC (link)

The ties to the splint on her leg were indeed loosened after Arya's limping journey to the kitchen, though it still held together. She still looked suspicious, her eyebrows furrowed in her long, solemn face. But since there was no way for her to leave in this condition and more importantly, no way for her to defend herself with what felt like half of her ribs smashed and her leg the way it was, she needed help. She chewed on her lip before deciding to cooperate.

"Something hit me," she said. "I don't know what it was. I was somewhere else yesterday, but then suddenly I was here." The words started getting tangled in her mouth and she shook her head, trying to clear it. It was all so confusing and overwhelming, but she would not be a babbling child. "I was in a road and trying to get away, but then it hit me. Now everything hurts."

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i_consume
2015-01-24 07:43 am UTC (link)

Well that made sense, didn't it. Hannibal nodded. "You were hit by an automobile, or what the people of this era call a car. We've all experienced what you have, Arie. The being somewhere else and suddenly being here. The displacement is incredibly jarring, and nigh impossible to describe, even knowing that your compatriots have endured similar circumstances. Not all of us are tossed into traffic, however, I imagine that was more than just physically traumatic."

He glanced at Erik to gauge what the other man might be thinking. Hannibal knew his friend well enough to see that there was turmoil inside, a war of some kind raging, and found himself wishing again that he'd had River's once-present ability to scan the minds of those around her, or Lestat's more in-depth mind reading skills. Clearly, once Arie was taken care of Erik would need attention as well.

Without using any instruments to check the girl's condition, there were a few things that he could tell her. He guessed that she wasn't entirely comfortable with strangers, and understood that his youthful appearance could be offputting to those who didn't know him. To trust a veritable boy with medical incidents was a tough move. Hopefully his assessment would help with that, though he could see it working against him as well, him knowing so much without getting near.

"I'm positive that you have a concussion. Since your leg is bound, it's easy to guess that your leg is broken. The way you sit and move your torso gingerly indicates cracked, if not broken, ribs. This says nothing about the skin abrasions and hematomas produced by the impact, which would have been bad enough on their own. I'd be highly surprised if you didn't have some road grime embedded in you somewhere as well, which will just add slight annoyance to your healing."

He paused, looking the girl over, he'd been able to see her eyes and the way that her words came out after she tried to explain herself to diagnose the concussion. He wished to take her to the hospital for x-rays, but doubted it was going to happen without drugging her, which would only make her mistrust them all the more.

It was odd. Her face. She was tough, or putting on the mask of it as best she could. Beyond that, though, Hannibal spotted a bruised innocence. In her eyes, he saw the same kind of horror that he'd seen in the eyes of another small girl when her parents had been killed. When their parents had been killed.

"To put it more plainly, Arie, you're in pain now, and if there's not more broken than your ribs and your leg, I'll be shocked, but it's nothing that we can't heal with time. You'll be back to rights with very little issues, I believe. You will, however, have to place your trust in me. Wholly." His deep red eyes went to Erik critically. Erik had not been a good patient. He'd been stubborn and willful. Hannibal hoped that Arie had the same spirit, but better adherence to his instruction.

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i_haunt
2015-01-24 06:04 pm UTC (link)

As they talked about the injuries the girl had sustained, Erik's brow drew together despite his own concerns. He hated that his own driver had done this to her. It was the least he could do to see her back to health. Perhaps he'd let the driver off a little too lightly with a broken nose and loss of his employment. Perhaps he should have driven the man's nose through his brain instead.

There was still time for that, if he chose, and that thought soothed him.

His mind had been drifting into darker things, when he felt the red gaze of the doctor on him. Narrowing his eyes, he re-focused. They had been talking about... Yes. He nodded for Arya's sake.

"He is worthy of trust." That was all he would say. It was enough, in Erik's mind - more than enough.

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fear_cuts
2015-01-24 10:06 pm UTC (link)

He may as well have been speaking a different language, for all that Arya understood, the confusion plain on her face. She wasn't stupid, not by any means, but she didn't know most of those words. She puzzled through, trying to make the most out of what she did know, and shook her head impatiently. "I know all that," she snapped. "I was somewhere with these giant beasts called dinosaurs before this, and before that I was somewhere like this but destroyed, and before that I was--" home, she wanted to say, but the road to Saltpans hadn't been home. She hadn't been home in a very long time. "Somewhere else," she finished. "This isn't new! Just some of it is."

She glanced back to Erik, who vouched for the maester--Hannibal, he'd called himself. She didn't know if Erik was trustworthy, either. In her experience almost nobody was trustworthy. But she needed to be healed. "Fine," she said, her reluctance palpable. And then, trying to hold back her fear if the answer was no, she added, "Will I still be able to use a sword?"

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i_consume
2015-01-24 10:45 pm UTC (link)

He had no idea about a place with dinosaurs, but Hannibal suspected that by 'somewhere that was destroyed', Arie might mean the strange world that many from the City had been stolen too. From which many had visited. He didn't dig into her travels, guessing that she didn't want to talk about that right now.

"It seems to me that much of it will be new for you. The automobiles are just the beginning." He left it at that.

They could all have taken a swim through the girl's unsurety. He would not give it any heed, though. She had given her permission and he would treat her to his fullest extent. Her fear, though. Arie could use a sword, and she was afraid that she would never be able to again. This, this intrigued him.

Before he would tell her one way or the other, he needed to see a few things. "Stand." Hannibal instructed. "It's going to be more than uncomfortable to do as I ask now, but it's the only way to give you the truth of it. Stand, raise your arms to your sides, to your front, and then over your head. Tell me not of whatever pain rises in your trunk, just what you feel in your shoulders, elbows, and wrists."

He held his hands out, showing her his palms. "Then you'll flex your hands so, and tell me what you feel there, and in your fingers." A movement was produced that she could mimic.

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i_haunt
2015-01-25 11:11 pm UTC (link)

Erik frowned at the girl's explanation of her travels. If he was understanding her, she'd been pulled from more than one reality - unlike Erik himself. It must be frightening, especially for one so young as this. But again, she showed no fear at all; if anything, she seemed angry enough to be annoyed by the reality shifting. This Arie was something special. He could see that clearly, even now. Even... now.

When Hannibal suggested Arie stand, Erik clamped his teeth down over his objection. Like hell she will, his eyes seemed to say as they flashed over at Hannibal. He moved forward quickly, planting himself beside Arie.

"I worked hard on that splint," he gritted through his teeth. "You will not destroy that work by putting weight on it. Slide off." He opened his hands at her waist level. "I will catch you."

And everything Hannibal had asked her to do, she could do without putting her weight on that broken leg. His irritation with Hannibal for even suggesting it - and this on the heels of demanding her obedience and Erik vouching for him - was difficult to batten down. But that was what he did. Because Arie needed him to. Because Arie needed to trust Hannibal.

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fear_cuts
2015-01-26 12:43 am UTC (link)

"I can do it," she snapped at Erik, but as she slid off something did hurt and so she allowed him to help her. "I could," she muttered mutinously despite allowing him to assist her. She couldn't show weakness. She was already showing enough just by being here.

She did as Hannibal had directed, biting her lip to keep from crying out as she lifted her arms. Her left was almost fine, though it hurt. Her right, though--she fought back a whimper when she tried to raise it more than shoulder-height. "This is stupid," she said, lowering her arms and holding them out, palms up. She flexed her fingers and wiggled them for good measure.

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i_consume
2015-01-26 12:52 am UTC (link)

Hannibal caught Erik's reaction, and the flash of his eyes. Not one to back down on anything, his face kept calm. "If the splint is made correctly, there should be no issue with her putting weight on it. It should not shift or come undone with her weight. A proper splint is constructed to support."

Erik was his friend, but not even a friend was allowed to question Hannibal's medical abilities, nor his decisions in such matters. He had told Arie to do what he'd told her so that he could test certain aspects of her pain.

The doctor watched the girl as she moved, cataloging every twinge and reflexive flinch she made. He was not quite happy with what he saw, though he was not disheartened by her state of being.

"Contrary to that claim, this is not stupid. I have just assessed the level of your bodily damage. Or most of it." He eyed Erik again. He would have gotten more if she'd been made to stand on her own. More still, if she would allow him to take her to the hospital. He'd have to bring a portable x-ray with him the next time he visited. If her bones healed wrong, she would lose more than just mobility.

"You've either dislocated your shoulder, or torn the rotator cuff in your right arm. Were I you, I would hope for the former, as it's quite a simple fix. The latter will take much time, physical therapy, and perhaps even surgery." Hannibal stepped forward, resting a hand above the girl's shoulder. "May I?"

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i_haunt
2015-01-26 01:11 am UTC (link)

With her sullen I can do it, Arie showed that she'd seen through Erik's attempt to preserve her dignity while he shielded her from undo pain. But fortunately, she wasn't too proud as to allow him to hold her weight while she did what Hannibal described.

Erik didn't say another word while Arie worked through her movements, or as Hannibal tended his patient. His lips thinned when the doctor gave Erik that particular look. Now was not the time to explain that the splint was designed to prevent further damage while Erik moved Arie to a bed -- where she was supposed to have stayed -- and nothing more. But there was no way to tell him that without interrupting the badly needed diagnosis. Erik would not interrupt a maestro at his place before his orchestra, and so he waited in silence, keeping his hands firmly on Arya's waist.

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fear_cuts
2015-01-26 02:31 am UTC (link)

"I've--what?" Again, Hannibal used words that Arya didn't understand. Or at the least, he used them in ways and combinations that made no sense to her. She understood that he'd figured out what was wrong with her, or at least he thought that he had. For a moment, she felt relief that it was her right arm. She'd never been very good with that arm. She used Needle with her left.

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i_consume
2015-01-26 02:43 am UTC (link)

Hannibal was glad that Erik didn't speak up at the moment. They could talk about splints later. Right now was for Arie, the mysterious little girl who acted older than her age, tried to hide her pain and fear, and could use a sword. She intrigued the doctor a good deal. He wished to speak to her alone, when Erik was not present. There were some things that the older man might not take kindly to.

There was no use explaining again, even in layman's terms the girl wouldn't know what had happened to her. Action was the only option, quick, decisive. If he told her about what he was going to do, she would tense up and the task would be more difficult to complete. It was better that she not know what was coming. He placed his left hand with its extra finger on Arie's right shoulder. With is right, he grasped her above the elbow. Erik might know what he intended to do, but Hannibal did not give the other man room to but in.

"This is going to hurt." He told her, using the most simple terms possible, wanting to give her a warning but not the time to contemplate it. He did not wait a single heartbeat to do what he needed to. Bracing Arie with his left hand, he pulled and twisted with his right, bringing the arm forward first, then with a second twist, to the side. He could feel the pop when it reset itself into the socket. He did not let go of Arie, lest she collapse with the pain of it.

She might be mad at him for that, but hopefully she would also realize that the pain was fading fast, and she would be fully mobile again. The soreness would only linger for a day or so, and they could focus on other things.

"

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