week 4

[stagemanagers]

[Another week, and two more dead. King Richard and Red are both gone, and once again, it was through nothing more than an accident in the heat of the moment. Maybe if you all stay calm and collected, nothing bad will happen again?

Well, maybe not.

When you wake on Sunday, you'll find that you've recovered another one of those memories - or had another dream, if you still wanna be in denial about it. The grounds remain as they are, but this time, the door blocking the stairwell has been unsealed. You can now venture up to the second floor! This is the second time that's happened; it's almost as if you get more space every time someone dies. Or maybe the whole place just seems quieter.]

Sunday | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday


(( Welcome to Week 4! Please remember to submit your AC and your memory regains, as well as your coins! You can also still contact the Phantom. ))

Comments

[garbageface]

[ Santana fetches a wooden spatula and a pair of plastic food service gloves (the one upside of Stephen and Mephisto pulling this shit in a cafe, probably). ]

Open your mouth, bite down on this.

[ She'll stick it between his teeth for him, no need for Stephen to move his arms for this. Once his arms are out of the running water, Santana takes another deep breath and moves in close. She can do this. It's like taking out a splinter, except with more blood and much higher stakes and -- no, it's best not to think like that, after all. She has to focus.

Her right hand is hovering over the largest shard. ]

On three. One, two --

[ And instead of saying three, she pulls it out. ]

[37773972]

[Right, he'll...that'll work. He obediently takes it in his mouth and somehow manages to get his arms out of the water, making a muffled groan as he does; his shoulders aren't hurt, but the change in sensation is enough to agitate the pain again. As she gets in closer, he looks at her, looks at his arms, then immediately looks away; resting his cheek on his shoulder, he preps for a breath and-

-that's not a scream, but that's something close. It helps(?) that it's muffled, but he clearly felt that, jerking slightly before getting something of a hold of himself and forcing himself to settle back down.

The other ones aren't as bad to remove. But each time, he jerks, each time, he doesn't-quite-scream. But by the end of it, the sounds have tapered off, and he- well.

He's not doing too hot.]

[garbageface]

[ Santana tries to work as quickly as possible, removing the larger shards first and then switching to tweezers for the smaller shards once the bigger ones are taken care of. She stops counting down each removal, instead switching to babbling on about basically nothing, both to get Stephen’s mind on something else and to keep herself as relaxed as possible. If Stephen’s paying attention, he’ll learn a lot about her long and rich history of petty fights with Quinn Fabray.

Santana doesn’t know what’s worse — the muffled not-screams and jerks of Stephen’s body, or their absence, by the time she finishes. Both are terrifying, both are reminders that he could die from this, that Santana is only technically an adult who’s barely passed high school biology and is incredibly underqualified for this sort of thing. By the end of it, she’s breathing rapidly. It’s getting harder to fight off the panic. But she’s gotta keep trying.

Next up: pain relief. Then wound care. ]

Okay — okay. They’re out. There’s, uh — some Tylenol in the first aid kit. Can you swallow pills? Just — just nod, if you can.

[37773972]

[He's trying, damn it. Trying to stay awake, trying to take her distraction. But he's just a man, and this. Fucking. Hurts. With the glass removed from the wounds, blood flows freely- perhaps not enough to put him in immediate danger, but the sooner they're bandaged, the better. Because honestly?

That paleness isn't just from emotional shock.

It takes him a moment to register she's spoken to him, a moment more to process the words, but when he does, he nods mutely. He doesn't spit out the spatula, but won't resist if it's tugged- and boy, those are some bite marks in the wood.]

[garbageface]

[ Santana is back with the Tylenol, the bandages, and a plastic café cup and straw of water. Shit, that’s a lot of blood. There’s — a lot going on. Does Santana treat the pain first, or the bleeding? The medical manual is pretty much cast aside at this point — Santana isn’t sure she’d be able to summon the focus to read something.

Santana removes the spatula, pointedly not looking at the bite marks, then replaces it with two Tylenol (he probably needs more, but Santana isn’t confident he’ll be able to swallow more than that) and holds the straw up to his lips. ]

Drink. Then bandages.

[ If Stephen does as he’s told, Santana will set the cup down and begin working on bandaging, starting with whichever arm had more glass in it. The pressure likely hurts, but Santana doesn’t want to risk any more blood loss — not when Stephen’s that pale. She’s still muttering to herself, keeping herself grounded: ]

Come on, yep, you’ve got this, everything’s fine, it’s fine, Dad’s done worse, you’re a bad bitch, come on —

[37773972]

[The straw was probably the best idea anyone in this room has had today, so far; Stephen trying to drink from a cup in this state would have probably resulted in a body hell of a mess. As it is, though, he manages another nod, a grateful look, and - most impressive of all - to get down enough water for the pills.

He's still silent, not trusting himself to speak- as it stands, that grimace of pain may be permanent, though he does glance at her when she mentions Dad doing worse.

What's with you kids and your parents? Seriously.]

[garbageface]

[ At Stephen’s glance, Santana shoots him a look right back that very plainly reads: try me, bitch. It’s the most typical Santana-style things she’s done since this catastrophe started, which is reassuring, maybe?

Once Stephen’s all bandaged up, Santana steps back and lets out one long, slow exhale. Now that her adrenaline’s starting to drop, Santana just feels tired. And gross — there’s blood on her gloves, and some on her arms and clothes, too. She stares at the mess blankly, for a moment, before peeling the gloves off and throwing them away. ]

Okay. Once you’re not bleeding like a vampire’s paradise, we can change the bandages and get you some topical antibiotic. You’ve, uh. Lost a decent amount of blood, so I’m gonna find you some sugary juice or something and you’re gonna drink it.

[ It’s good to have a plan! Maybe this cafe has apple juice or something. Before she turns away to go look for that: ]

You holding up okay?

[37773972]

[At least...at least Santana isn't freaked out enough to give him those kind of looks? He almost laughs, and instead just sort of. Slumps in his chair as she works. Not quite the lean from before, but he's back to resting- or at least conserving his strength. When she finishes, though, he's able to look at his arms, which...he'll very much take amateur bandages over burnt skin and glass shards embedded in it, even if it still very much hurts.]

...I feel like shit.

[In more ways than one. But? He feels. As opposed to...being too dead to feel. He coughs, then, and raises his head again]

Thank you.

[To. Everyone.]

[garbageface]

Good.

[ Said in Santana’s usual blunt tone, but there’s an undercurrent of concern there, too. Feeling like shit is much better than not feeling at all. ]

Just don’t do that again, and we’re cool.

[ Santana leaves Stephen there for a moment to go stick her head in the fridge underneath the bar of espresso machines. There’s sadly no real juice, so Santana instead fills another cup with water and like, a ton of raspberry syrup. It’s gross, but it’s sugary and not too thick. She sticks a little straw in it, then places it on the counter in front of Stephen. ]

Your blood sugar’s probably low, or whatever. We’re gonna need to get you out of here, but you look like you’ll pass out if you stand up, so.

[ She gestures at the cup. Time to drink. ]

[37773972]

[He's just gonna work one hand in to a thumbs-up for that, and- go back to thinking of how close he came to dying.


That's probably not a good place for him to go, but. It's either that or pain or- raspberry syrup? Stephen stares down at it, then up at Santana, then back at the drink, and sighs]

Bottoms up.

[Because he's pretty sure she's going to convince him to drink it, one way or another, and- logically, he knows she's right. He's given blood before, and is hoping that, all considered, he's lost not much more than when it's willingly taken- but he doesn't know. And all they have, really, is going off what they do know. Which in this case?

Is downing a rather...disgusting drink, if the expression on his face is any sign, but he's trying, alright? Even if he does have to pull off and grimace for an entirely different reason than pain, because /god damn/.]

Couldn't have been the dolce?

[At least he's feeling good enough to try and joke?]

[garbageface]

Mmmmnope, that got blown up. Tragic.

[ That joke was mediocre at best, but have an equally mediocre and trauma-saturated joke right back! Humor is good. It's one of Santana's favorite ways to cope, especially when it's mean.

After Stephen's got a good amount of the drink down, Santana will check the bandages to see if the bleeding's subsided enough to get some ointment on there. If so, that's what she'll do next. ]

[37773972]

[Honestly, Toni has only so much idea on how long lacerations take to stop bleeding, so we're just going to say SURE WHY NOT for ease. It'll probably require some cleaning, though, so enjoy that.

At least Stephen seems a little less pale? He's still in obvious pain, but. He's at least feeling well enough to vocalize something that's been plaguing him since this happened;]

...how's Mephisto?

[heathencall]

[Mephisto is halfway out of the door at this point, thanks to Riley. He catches that and lifts his head. He... can't really bring himself to say anything in this situation, but he can at least acknowledge the fact that Stephen is alive and at least relatively grateful for --

No. Mephisto isn't going to think about the damage. He's just going to slink out as quick as he can.]