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WHO: Cassian and Sanzo in one, Cassian and Amberdrake in another
WHAT: DINNER TIME and A brief material run
WHEN: Shortly after Christmas, before the shops in Fayren close.
WHERE: Everglade and Fayren
WARNINGS: Gore, violence, mentions of cannibalism

4 SANZO
He'd gone too long. He knew he'd over extended himself, the gift he got from Tannusen could only last so long. Wheezing, stiff, the faint sound of flutes beginning to sound in the back of his mind, tonight had to be the night. He wasn't going to risk it all again, he couldn't. He couldn't keep relying on someone else here to patch him up every time he fell into shit.

He was a grown man. He could take care of this.

As it had been for two thousand years, the hunt was on. As it had been for two thousand years, the iron dagger found its mark, the husk soulless yes, but oh how they screamed like any real living thing would. Once, perhaps, he would have shrunk away from the sound. A long time ago, he'd be frantic to silence them, clumsily slashing at vocal cords and sobbing in fear and horror-

He knew how to work now, and the screaming was quickly silenced to pathetic, wet gurgling as the cloaked man snapped ribs with ease, feeling the rippling sensation of that thing pulsing in the back of his head, feeding his meager strength. Peeling the membrane off the heart. Sinking his teeth in and silencing the husk forever.

Blood everywhere. It stank of it, but the pain in his body and his lungs faded with every bite, even if it couldn't fully sate the beast. Just another bandaid.

But for now, it would do.
4 Amberdrake

Of course, Everglade wouldn't have the materials he needed. No one would stock in the type of silver he required, and he didn't even ask any shops there. Seemed like a good way to get a lot of unwanted attention. So, wrapped up in fleece and wool, cranky and miserable and cold, headed for Fayren.

They'd have what he needed, or at least part of it. He could always return home and finish blessing it all later. He had some energy in his step now, so the little man was going to be quite the obnoxious terror in Fayren, picky and fussy with everything he picked up, viciously haggling every single object down.

"I'll only be takin' pure silver, and not anything else. I don't want any steel or nickle in any of this- What else is in this mirror? Oi! Tis a real question, does it look like I'm foolin' with ye?"

Yeah. Not a good day for Fayren.

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Drake had grabbed the small roll of emergency supplies he kept for exactly this sort of situation, though it remained tucked into his open-cut, feather-patterned robe for the moment. So did the thermos of tea, herbs hastily poured in before the hot water he always had on hand at the office. Why was that important? Because it took multiple Velgarthian Healers to fix what one stupid Velgarthian Healer did to himself, and Amberdrake was the only one in this place.

He didn't pay their audience any mind, pushing the lower half of Sanzo's robe open to find the bloodsoaked holes in his jeans. A quick snip with his belt-knife gave him enough room to get skin contact beside the wounds themselves, threading the Gift in directly through his fingertips. He could work through cloth, but it took more energy, and he didn't know how much he would need for this... situation.

Meat was easier than bone, and either was easier than extracting foreign objects. So he'd start here, the wounds growing closed at their deepest points and spreading out back toward the skin. Stitched back together, vein by vein, muscle fiber by muscle fiber. Fluid buildup was pushed away, energy funneled in through his fingertips. Any sign of infection was purged before it could even begin. His eyes remained unfocused, seeing everything he was doing with detail that modern medical machines could only aspire to one day achieve in even still imagery, let alone in real time.

The birds were restless, hopping from stump to stump to tree to rock. Vigilant. Spread out. It wouldn't take someone super observant to know they were making sure nothing snuck up on the distracted Healer or his patients. Garth seemed to be in charge of the flock, doing the most flittering from spot to spot as though checking on the others.

Only Red remained where he was, perched on Sanzo, out of Drake's way. The foul-mouthed little bird offered a few small noises at the blond priest.

"...Silver buckshot," Amberdrake finally said aloud, without looking up at Cassian. He'd also noticed the signature way trees and the ground had been sliced to shit by indestructible paper, but Cassian wasn't missing limbs. Sanzo, meanwhile, had buckshot in his bones.

His tone was mild, like it was just a dry observation. But in reality, oh, the doctor was already annoyed.

Edited 2016-12-29 11:25 (UTC)

Sanzo kept as still and quiet as he could as Drake worked. He wanted to hide his pain completely, so Cassian would have no reason to look down on him other than the fact that Sanzo was literally on the ground. He totally wasn't in severe pain, look, he barely winced! There was some wearing but otherwise he was a good patient. For him.

When Amberdrake mentioned the buckshot he muttered something unintelligible, undoubtedly something scathing about Cassian. This was all totally Cassian's fault. Sanzo picked a fight, sure, but Cassian was here eating people! How was Sanzo to resist that bait?

He felt mildly guilty, but only Drake could tell that.

It was hard not to miss the clinical interest he showed at the process. Two things had always been of the utmost interest to the priest, one being weapons, and the other, magic. And there was magic here, wasn't there? He watched carefully, another unsightly clot of blood managing to ooze past his lips before he wiped it away.

Indeed, not a scratch on him, just the concussive hit from the sutra had damaged him. Wasn't sure what to make of that. Either Sanzo had terrible aim or he'd been trying not to slice him. There wasn't, however, any nice way to hit a man with buckshot though.

Not a hint of shame from him, he snorted, more blood beginning to bubble from that. He was sure nothing had been punctured but-

"Aye. Silver buckshot." More of a hissing wheeze than a brash statement.

"Ye expected a BB?"

Was Amberdrake a happy guy? Why no, no he was not. He finished enough of the wounds on Sanzo's thigh that they were merely gouges now, and not tunnels through his leg, and reached into his own robe to produce the leather roll he'd snatched up on the way out of his office. It opened on the ground with a practiced snap of Drake's wrist, revealing several rolls of bandages and surgical instruments, each kept in place with tiny elastic straps.

Drake said a few things to his current patient in one of those other languages, speaking slow and quiet, ending with a question. While he spoke, he smoothed Sanzo's hair back from his forehead and laid his hand over it in the same motion. The gesture was professional, clean, precise. The Gift threaded in, and the pain eased, though it didn't stop completely. He didn't dare numb Sanzo's pain receptors completely; he needed every bit of information he could get from the remaining wound, and unfortunately some of that was coming from the sense of pain.

"I expect someone with so many broken bones to know better than to ask stupid questions," Amberdrake said to Cassian, moving to the worst of Sanzo's wounds accordingly. He shoved the robe out of the way, making good use of the way it was split down the side and folded over itself under that narrow sash. He knew his way around Sanzo garb, to be sure. "Your lungs are being crushed, so you should probably conserve your breath until I can get to you. And keep that left arm supported, your collar bone is broken."

And here came the belt knife again, slitting open the hole in Sanzo's blood-soaked jeans to give him better access to the wound below. Drake reached over to his roll of tools without even looking, plucking a pair of thin, blunt-nosed forceps from it. That ball had to come out, first and foremost.

Edited 2016-12-29 22:43 (UTC)

Sanzo couldn't help the sigh of relief as the pain eased. As skilled as he was at hiding it, he still felt it and his stamina was fading fast. He especially appreciated the relief before he saw the tool Drake had. Fuck that was going to hurt like hell. His dignity hurt enough already! Thankfully Drake was kind enough to not undress him more than he had to around this asshole.

He answered Drake in a rough, tired voice. It was the same language but stiffer, awkward. When he wasn't being put back together he could use it better. Until then, that was the best he could do.

Sanzo ignored Cassian for now.

Another indignant snort at the suggestion that he not run his mouth. The wheeze suggested he had taken a breath of air to stubbornly and less than intelligently shoot his mouth off anyway, but the wet hack that followed it was indication enough he wasn't really in any state to be being such a pecker head.

So the answer ended up being a wet gurgle and another spit, before he propped his left arm up as requested and tried to find a position to take the pressure off of his rib cage. He looked like, eventually, he was just trying to hook a thumb under the most pressing broken rib, another unattractive gurgle heard as he forced the bone to sit a little nicer.

Hurt like fuck.

But hey at least he could get some more air.

Drake held the wound open as best he could from the surface, one hand splayed out around it and providing pressure out. Then came the forceps, expertly wielded. It was almost like he'd had full-on surgical training, before the Gift had ever been trained! Which, of course, he had. And he'd been a prodigy even then.

Thus the tool was used with utmost precision, no scraping against the narrow wound as he went. Through his other hand, the Gift slid in and reduced inflammation, funneling building fluids away from the wound to make the passage stay open and clear. Even the remaining trickle of blood was siphoned out and away, keeping the hole clear.

He got 'hold of the silver ball and carefully eased it free of the bones it had shattered, then drew it out in one smooth, well-practiced motion. Drake wasn't two thousand years old, but most of his life had been dedicated to medicine in one form or another, and his longest experience was as a regular surgeon with no Gift to assist him. The Gift, now fully-trained, was another tool in his arsenal.

"Alright ves'tacha, you're familiar with the bone process." It was going to feel weird, but he was precise, setting the bloodied tool and the buckshot aside to be sterilized later. Bone fragments began to shift inside the wound, guided by the Gift now inundating the wound site. Sharp edges were taken with extra care, to not slice up the tissue around it further as his pelvis was essentially re-built from the inside, and splinted together with a complex web of Amberdrake's own life energy.

Then came the soft tissue, and the process was mostly the same as the wounds on his thigh, regrowing and stitching together meat and vein and muscle and tendon bit by bit from the inside up toward the surface.

"Don't you dare try to walk on this yet," Drake added to Sanzo in the common tongue, once his hip was completely repaired, right up to the skin patching over with fresh growth. "Or I'll paralyze the whole thing. And you know the disclaimers about bones."

His energy would hold it together, but it wasn't as strong as properly solid bone. Bones would need to knit over time, or they'd become fragile. The best he could do was hold it all together in proper alignment against a reasonable level of force. Sanzo would probably have a cane for a while, after this. He finished with wrapping Sanzo's thigh with one of the rolls of bandages, offering some compression support for the remaining gouges over the top of the priest's jeans.

Next, would be Cassian, but Drake paused while he was still kneeling on the blood-soaked dirt to produce that small thermos from in his robes and take a pull of the too-hot liquid. It burned his mouth and throat something fierce, but it was best to start getting the herbs into him sooner rather than later. He could not afford to over-extend, especially in Goddess-damned Everglade.

Edited 2016-12-29 23:47 (UTC)

Spite compelled Sanzo to sit up but the very real threat of being paralyzed for hurting himself further kept him in place. For now. His glare turned back to Cassian now. It was too much to ask to get Drake to leave him in that state. Even if he told Drake what the man did he wouldn't stop helping him. Soft hearted ass.

"It's his fault," he growled in Cassian's direction. It was totally his fault. Completely.

Sanzo was still lightheaded and too weak from blood loss and pain to do much other than lay there, but he was healed just enough to be a petulant ass.

"The devil it was-" Came the hissing, gurgling answer, followed up by the ever poignant wad of spit and blood that seemed to be punctuating all his sentences lately.

"Ye kept walkin' nothin' would have happened at all, mind yer own business, donkey."

Amberdrake sighed into his thermos, not bothering to hide the reaction. He lowered it and capped it; tucked it back away again, and rolled up his tools to tuck away as well. "Your personalities are so alike, it's like being in an echo chamber," he informed both of the cranky, gun-toting priests.

He didn't mind Sanzo sitting up; would have helped him, had they not had an audience.

Drake got up and approached Cassian, next, his vivid blue eyes still unfocused in that weird way that said he wasn't seeing the surface of much of anything. They focused just long enough for him to assess the other priest's clothing, and then he was reaching to hike the bottom of Cassian's shirt up just enough to reach his ribs with one hand. "This isn't entirely from the Sutra," he noted. What the hell had these two idiots done?

If the Gift was interesting to watch, now Cassian got to experience it himself. It was like the tingle of walking under powerful electrical lines, only it spread out from Drake's fingertips and sank in as he took a closer 'look' at the damage. Not painful, but certainly noticeable to anyone with a lick of magical senses.

Sanzo did push himself up, not as slow as he should've been, propping himself up on his elbows to watch Drake and Cassian. There was a look in his eyes that made it very clear he'd attack again, somehow, if Cassian tried anything. He was watching and wary.

"Does that matter?" He didn't offer the reason for the injuries, it was obvious enough. He punched the shit out of the guy!

Honestly it didn't look like Cassian could do much of anything other than sit there on his stump and wheeze and drool. Menacingly.

"We punched each other about for a few minutes too if ye need to know that. Swats like a fat kid in the playground he does."

Okay no, he'd never had healing magic done on him before, so as much as his lip curled when Drake felt beneath his shirt and inspected his collar bone, he managed to keep his temper if only out of sheer interest to see what happened. The sensation was... admittedly, fascinating as well, sensitive to magic as he was, and the priest shuddered from the contact. Not revulsion, it was just... odd.

Edited 2016-12-30 04:43 (UTC)

"Fight a lot of kids on playgrounds, do you?" Amberdrake was amused, if exasperated with the both of them. The tendrils of the Gift went deeper, and Drake paused for a moment at what he was seeing.

No cell-death. Certain expected growth-patterns were missing, and... hm. He wasn't undead, but he wasn't changing. He wasn't aging. But he was otherwise human, as far as Drake could tell...

He filed that away and got to work.

"This is going to feel weird," Amberdrake warned, and bones began to move as though on their own under Cassian's skin. He started with the ribs and sternum, to take pressure off Cassian's lungs. Energy lingered as things lined up correctly and he moved on, holding it all together. Pain began to go dull, and quiet -- not gone, but hushed.

"You know, your lungs are more scar-tissue than not," Drake commented as he deftly countered the damage done by the crushing. Fluid and energy was directed as he deemed best, and raw power was expended to heal the damage at a thousand times the regular speed. "Pneumonia, if I was to guess. The more you get it, the easier it is to get it again, and again, because of that scarring."

"Pity it hasn't killed him yet," Sanzo spat from where he lay on the dirt. Fuck Cassian and his stupid as comments about how well Sanzo fought. If he wanted to make sure the fucker didn't move again, he could've done that! Asshole should consider himself lucky Sanzo didn't want to put a bullet in his brain.

"Ye feckin' smart alek." But he didn't say anything beyond that because one does not insult the doctor.

There's an uncomfortable squirm, a sensation he's unfamiliar with. Something was weird here, he felt exposed- "What the hell are ye lookin' at in there..." Not a threat, but there's a hint of concern in that tone.

Oh yes, that did feel weird. Not agonizing, as bone shifting very well should feel, but deeply strange, the priest squirming again as things began to line up correctly. "Ye weren't jokin'."

The comment on the state of his lungs just earned a bitter glare from the smaller man. "And what do ye expect me to do about it? Nick over to the pharmacy for a new pair?" AS FOR YOU, SANZO-

"I'll live three times longer than you an' yer tar balloon smoke suckers, that's fer goddamn sure."

"Well, I could fix the scarring, just like I periodically fix the tar in Sanzo's lungs," Amberdrake dropped that particular bomb-shell. "Something to think about, it would be a... process."

There was a lot of scar tissue to contend with. A. Lot. Like... how many lifetimes have you had pnuemonia for... levels of a lot.

"Now, pay close attention to this, because it's serious. The splints I'm leaving on these bones are pretty strong, but it's just energy. They will be weaker than normal while they're healing. I could expedite the process, but forcing bones to knit faster than normal often makes them weaker permanently."

Not to mention trying would probably leave Drake face-down in the mud. Bones were serious drains to try to push forward. He was already looking a bit pale as it was, a grey cast starting to make its way into face and hands. The energy had to come from somewhere, after all. A little came from his patient, but the lion's share by far came from the Healer.

Amberdrake moved to work on Cassian's collar bone, finally, supporting the cranky man's elbow with his other hand while he worked. There was the shifting of bones again as everything lined up, and the feel of energy wrapping around the break to hold it in place.

Sanzo knew this healing had to be getting to Drake and the drained look to him didn't go unnoticed. What a waste to spend what energy he had, after putting Sanzo back together, on that jackass.

"What good has living that long done you, asswipe?" Eating hearts in the woods, what a life.

No he was starting to catch on to just how much energy was going into this, and when Drake moved to try and repair the collar bone, that was when the shouting started.

"Oi! Leave off, ye look half dead!" Gray, he had decided, did not look good on the other man. Technically not on anyone, but especially not on Drake. "I'll take care of that one meself, I know how to jimmy a splint for that." Wouldn't be the first time that particular bone broke, collar bones weren't exactly the strongest one in the body. Once more, back to Sanzo-

"None of yer goddamn business, donkey."

Amberdrake huffed out a sigh and finished up the collar bone. "Yes, a collar bone is going to be what over-extends me," oh yes, that was indeed some dry-ass, grade-A sarcasm. "All those years Healing entire battalions of fighters and support staff in the Mage Wars, and I still just don't know my own limits."

Clearly.

And no, grey did not look good on him. That rich, dusky skin-tone of his was much better looking in the warmer registers.

"Just don't push the energy splints and re-break it all," Drake withdrew his hands, and the Gift, his eyes re-focusing again. Energy splints was right; it was very faint, that energy sensation, but it was still there, wrapped precisely around each broken place in Cassian's skeleton.

Drake was too good at his job to wobble at this low level -- for him -- of exhaustion; he stepped away and produced the thermos of bitter herbs again, uncapping it and finishing it off in one long pull. Ugh.

Drake's sarcasm was enough to distract Sanzo from the yelling he had planned for Cassian. He snorted in amusement, Amberdrake was more coherent right now anyway. Cassian hadn't learned the lesson he had to, never sass the healer, not even a little. Sanzo still did but he didn't now, and that's all that mattered.

"You're wasting your time on him Drake."

"Don't ye feckin' even start with me-" It actually almost seemed to take effort to shut himself up, finally clamping down on his tongue in order to convince the vile thing to stop moving for ten minutes.

"I won't." Short and sweet and to the point. He'd go home, drink, go to bed and not leave the house for a long ass time. The shop would just have to be closed for a little while until he could heal correctly.

Through the twisted up, annoyed look on his face, genuine concern lingered behind the glasses as Drake took the last of the herbs from the bottle. He should say something. Thank you, probably.

"Thank y-" SANZO.

"I swear to God, I will get up and smack your face straight off of your face."

Drake lowered the empty thermos and rubbed his forehead, torn between a spike of amusement and a blanket of weary exasperation. THESE TWO. ESPECIALLY YOU, CASSIAN.

"You'll do no such thing," Amberdrake finally capped the emptied thermos and put it away. "The next one of you to attack the other is getting spanked." Because honestly. Drake didn't care how old Cassian might be under all that lack of aging; he'd dealt with older. He'd very likely make good on that threat.

"I'll put a bullet between your eyes if you come near me." He still had the gun in hand! He meant it! Drake got a sour look for his reprimand but no retort. Some things weren't worth risking.

"Piss off, freak, you're done here." Cassian was healed, so he should leave now. Right now. Faster. Leave!

"Oh yes, cos ye've done such a good job what of shootin' me in the face up until this point." He doesn't believe you and he double doesn't now that Drake is here.

"Everglade is actually my home, so why don't ye get up and wobble on home, gimpy?"

He really, really needs to see if Drake was serious.

For science.

Edited 2016-12-30 06:25 (UTC)

Drake shuddered at the reminder that they were in Everglade. Yes, visibly shuddered.

He moved over to Sanzo and offered a hand down, "Try not to put more than three-quarters pressure on that leg," he told the monk, "you can use my shoulder for support."