empathicfault | IC Inbox

After Varker's ambush attack, Malcolm fled to the cabin he once again shares with Will and only Will (with visits from Walter, though he's curious if Walter will stop coming for a bit in the wake of the flood).

Completely uncharacteristically, he doesn't even look around to see if Will is home when he bursts through the door. He slams it shut, throws every deadbolt and the chain, not mindful at all of the blood he smears on them or the door or drips on the floor as he then hurries into the bathroom.

Once he has his deeply torn forearm and opposite hand in the sink to inspect, he can actually wash some of the blood off and assess the wounds. Not good seems like it would be an obvious conclusion, but he is literally looking for something to bandage them with while trying only somewhat successfully to keep his oozing wounds over the sink.

At first, it seems like Will isn't there. He seems to just appear in an instant, standing behind Malcolm.

"Stop." His voice brooks no argument. Assuming he's listened to, he'll be carefully wrapping one of their fluffy, superabsorbent cotton towels around the deeper wound.

His face is blank, focused on his task. He's putting pressure on it, and he knows it probably hurts. Hopefully not enough for Malcolm to pass out. "What happened?"

Malcolm looks up and finds Will's face in the mirror when he speaks, his attention taken from his vague mission to Stop Bleeding.

"You're home!" He sounds happy about it.

The pressure does hurt, but not an unbearable amount for a man with as high of a pain threshold as he has. He is starting to get a little lightheaded. He's not super concerned yet.

At Will's question, he looks down at his arm and hand. Will is holding a towel on his right arm, on where that jaw had clamped down and locked. He tilts his head slightly.

"A giant lizard man tackled me down the stairs and tried to eat me." He frowns faintly. "I didn't know we had one of those."

Will's eyes narrow as he sorts through his memory. "I talked to an asshole that might've had some scales. But he was obnoxious, not homicidial."

Which meant there would be no hunt later, not even the planning of one. Will lets out a huff of annoyance, but immediately refocuses on the wound. "Grab that towel with your other hand, I'll try to help wrap it around the fingers. Don't move the arm I'm holding. Is he in the hall now?"

"I didn't hear feet on the stairs behind me. I stabbed him in the mouth. In the inside of the mouth. The top mouth. He was still shrieking when I ran out of the stairwell," Malcolm explains, trying to fumble for the towel without moving his arm. His fingers are... less responsive than he was expecting, even on his good hand, which is... granted, on his torn up arm. He looks at Will in the mirror suddenly. "Oh. I'm going to need a new knife."

"We have plenty," he replies, tone as flat as his expression when he meets Malcolm's eyes. "And sounds like we risk the hallway, then. Move with me, I'm going to keep your arm level. Come on."

As soon as they're clear of the cabin, he's going to use the waypoint to take them to the Infirmary. Hopefully, Ulla will be there, because this is a concerning amount of blood. Or Shaw. Not knocking the others, but he trusts them.

In the meantime, he'll rely on Malcolm to keep talking. It'll give him an indication whether Malcolm's about to pass out or not.

Malcolm does, indeed, keep talking, even as he's starting to pale noticeably.

"The hallway? Where are we going? Oh, the infirmary? Are you sure we can't take care of this ourselves? I didn't think it looked that bad. ...Oh, is it that bad? I did have a passing thought that it maybe went bone deep in a couple of places. Still. I think you were applying good pressure. I'm more concerned about my hand, but I don't think there's nerve damage. I kept my fist closed when I ripped it out of his mouth so I wouldn't drop the knife but also so my ring wouldn't slide off in his mouth. Honestly, I kind of hope it chipped his tooth on the way out. But I didn't want to lose it. Remember the day you gave it to me?" He tilts his head to the side a bit so he can look up at Will as they appear in the infirmary. "I think about it all the time," he says with a dreamy look. His voice is definitely weaker now, but he doesn't seem to notice. "That was the best day of my whole entire life up to that point. But you're like one of those Olympic swimmers that keeps beating their own record."

Will's jaw sets and his throat works when Malcolm says he 'didn't think it looked that bad.' It's shock, that's all it is, but he feels a rage building up in him that he can't let out right now. He'll sort it out later.

By the time they're at the door, Malcolm has turned to far nicer things, and it helps Will to relax enough to smile at him. "You do that, too. Just so you know."

And then they're whisked to the spot just outside the infirmary. Will pulls him inside and he yells. "Emergency! We've got an emergency here! Multiple deep lacerations on the arms and fingers." He tries to make it to the nearest bed with Malcolm, but if his husband passes out before that, Will's going to go down with him. He won't stop holding pressure on the deepest wound, and he wants to give Malcolm a soft fall.

Will's shouting at the infirmary people now and there's commotion. Why are there so many injuries right now? He's still mostly managing to put one foot in front of the other, stumbling into Will a little as they head towards a bed.

"It's just some... chewing..." he says faintly as Will manages to get him onto the bed. He's not sure how much of his own power he's using. Probably less than he's feeling like he's using. "Maybe Ulla can come over and take a look." Malcolm you're not in your cabin anymore.

Whoever is here is not fast enough for Will. Now that he has Malcolm on a bed, he has more time to worry.

It's barely a few seconds before Will is shifting around. He rearranges the towel (now extremely bloody) so the bed helps apply pressure and he can hold it with I've hand. The other he uses to dial his communicator and call Ulla.

"Ulla, Malcolm just got mauled," is his greeting for today.

Edited (ihu autocorrect) 2025-06-19 23:24 (UTC)

"Where are you?" And she'll slither to the nearest waypoint and arrive at the infirmary momentarily. She's healed, but there's a faint scent of her own blood on her.

"Is it only cuts, or does anything seem broken?" Hjerte is already softly singing numbing spells so that Malcolm won't feel the pain intensify as Ulla heals him.

Malcolm giggles.

“Lots of skin is broken,” he tells her giddily.

Will rubs his face, frustrated. The smeared blood doesn't help him look like the reasonable one here, but he doesn't pay out any mind.

"Deep bites on the arm, through the muscle. Unsure about the other hand. No bones fractured, from what I could tell. He's lost a lot of blood. Idiot went to our cabin rather than here."

It's only then that he clicks the scent of blood on her and realize it's hers. "Are you all right? The same lizard man got you, too?

Clearly Malcolm has lost too much blood.

Hurriedly, she assures Will, "I'm alright, tell you about it after." Her voice is about to be occupied.

She sings a wordless song, and Malcolm's wounds start to knit themselves together. After a minute, Ulla takes hold of Will's hand and moves it away, the pressure no longer needed. She keeps singing even once Malcolm is healed, washing the blood away from him and from Will, leaving them both clean, even if the smell of blood lingers in the air. And she'll give Will's hand a reassuring squeeze before she releases it.

The healing leaves him intact and clean, if pale and drowsy.

“I knew you’d do housecalls,” he tells Ulla. “Was that Hjerte singing with you? He sounds like Pavarotti.” He notices her tail and points at it. “You’re a fish today! Where’s your bowl?”

"Malcolm," Will says, and while it could sound like an admonishment, it's really fond. He leans down and kisses his forehead. "You're in the Infirmary. Rest, sweetheart."

He squeezed Ulla's hand back, a little harder than intended, and now he gives her a strained smile. "You're a master of your craft. Thank you. I hope that didn't take too much out of you." He's never sure with magic.

Edited (clarity) 2025-06-20 03:04 (UTC)

Ulla brushes Malcolm's hair back from his face, and Hjerte slides down her arm to curl up by his shoulder for the time being. "I would make house calls, if you asked," she tells him.

Then she wraps an arm around Will and leans into his side. "I wanted to help. You don't owe me thanks. And blood amplifies magic, which makes cuts easier to heal than most injuries. For complex healing spells, sometimes I cut myself or my patient solely for that."

Malcolm lifts his now healed left hand, looking at one side and then the other.

“There’s not even a mark,” he marvels. “Well, except the one that was already there.” He tilts his hand slightly so Hjerte can see. “Where they put the pin in when I broke my first metacarpal bone.” He tilts his head to look at Hjerte. “I had to get out of shackles to stop this killer from murdering my mother and my sister, but here was the problem: the diameter of the shackles was three inches and the diameter of my hand was five inches. So… I had to make my hand three inches. That’s just math,” he explains sagely. “I think that hungry lizard misunderstood what kind of rat I am in a trap. But I didn’t let him eat my ring.” He tilts his hand another way so Hjerte can see that. “Isn’t it beautiful? Will gave it to me.”

Will leans against Ulla, hugging her close in return.

"I suppose we're lucky that he bled all over everything he could, then," he says. The words are sharp and his eyes flash briefly with a bit of anger- he makes sure not to point it in her direction. "I'll call you directly next time...it's probably too much to hope that there won't be a next time."

He shifts back to look her over, now that the danger has passed. "You said you'd tell me about what happened? You really okay?" He figures she must be, if she could do all that healing, but still...

"It's lovely," Hjerte assures Malcolm, draping a couple tentacles across his shoulders. "Will has good taste in jewelry and in people."

In the meantime, Ulla murmurs to Will, "I'm fine, promise. Hjerte kept me in one piece while he had my throat so I couldn't sing, and then Jedao intervened before any damage could be done besides a sore throat and some bite marks on my tail, both already healed. No real harm. To me, at least. Hjerte knocked out some of his teeth."

"Which mouth?" Malcolm asks Hjerte with interest when Ulla mentions Hjerte knocking out some teeth.

He doesn't look at Hjerte, but the compliments on his 'good taste' cause his worried look to soften. It sounded like Hjerte really saved the day, as well.

"I'm so glad you have him," Will murmurs. "That he could protect you." Since they are no longer wolves. Will cannot be near her constantly, ready to rip the throat out of any threat that comes near her.

He nearly smiles as he adds to the questions. "I assume that was Hjerte's magic that was knocking the teeth out?"

"She throws me away from her if she gets into a close-range fight," Hjerte notes, amused. Clearly no harm came to him from being tossed across the deck.

Ulla nods. "That way at least one of us is free to sing." No regrets on her part either.

And for Malcolm, she adds, "His upper teeth. I think the blood in his eyes distracted him enough to make him let go, so I'm grateful. And really, gnawing on my tail afterwards was hardly worth mentioning. Transformation is considerably more painful and dangerous."

"I stabbed him in the top mouth," Malcolm tells them. "In the top of the top mouth. It made him let go of my arm," he explains, tilting his arm slightly to see where the wounds had been and finding the bloody towel, though his arm is now miraculously clean. He picks it up. "Oh that's where my blood is. No wonder I'm dizzy."

"You lost a lot more than that," Will grumbles. He licks his lips, pausing before continuing. "Ulla used it to help with the healing. But there's even more in the cabin. Been a long time since there was such a mess in there." That was Hannibal's visit, of course.

He thinks for a moment, then adds, "It's possible that all three of us are a little too used to this, by now."

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