[Dick by name, Dick by nature. The patient tone does nothing except further incite Richard's immediate instinct to bicker back. It's only him catching the movement of the cat from the corner of his eye that stops him, and very possibly saves this whole thing from descending into useless squabbling. But the reminder of the door is a reminder of time, of other people outside this room, of getting the fuck on with it.
Still, the look he levels at the other Richard as he picks up the lyrium sliver is flat, unmoving even as he brings it to the cut on his arm, readies himself to count as instructed.
He doesn't even get as far as one.
The lyrium makes contact with the cut on his arm and he is no longer himself. He is someone else, many someone elses, something else entirely. His mind is nothing but noise, image, motion, wheeling and stretching upwards, sinking low, rooting deep.
He doesn't drop the lyrium. But he doesn't count, and he doesn't remove it at the time where five would have come and past. In fact, he doesn't move at all.]
[With her papers and her pen at the ready, Wysteria's attention is so utterly fixed on where Richard's bare hand meets the soft blue chunk of raw lyrium and where that connects with the shallow cut on his arm that for a long moment—six seconds, perhaps; maybe seven—, she doesn't even realize anything has gone off the rails. Maybe Mister Gecko counts very slowly. Maybe she ought to consider the possibility that not all Rifters have the same numbering system and indeed may not know the correct order in which to reach five, and so include that as a question on the paperwork.
She is just thinking this thought (seven? eight?) as her attention rises from the points of contact with the lyrium to—]
[ There is much leveraged into the build-up to this moment -- curt professionalism, careful navigation of fair warnings, their flexible proximity to the truth. Dick Dickerson is watching Mr. Gecko very closely from behind the constraints of his self-control.
It takes a few seconds of non-response past Wysteria’s prompt for him to flicker a look back over to her.
Uh oh.
He sniffs -- just once -- for the scent of burning flesh, as one might during an electrocution. ]
You recall the chamber we summoned my familiar in.
[ Muttered -- an assurance slipped between two friends like a note. Waist high black water in the bowels of the island full to the brim of cave-dwelling creatures ready to make short work of a corpse. He’d never be found.
Even so: Mr. Dickerson reaches carefully with his tongs to pry back one of Richie’s fingers pinching the lyrium sliver in place against his forearm, and states more authoritatively: ]
I’ll ask you not to crack wise about the fate of our patient, Madame de Foncé.
Oh, Mister Dickerson! [has the faint air of a young woman wishing to cover her eyes as he goes prodding after Mister Gecko's fingers, but she doesn't actually get around to striking that mortified of a pose. Instead, Wysteria squawks a further note of dismay and—]
Wait, let me—
[It takes only a few turns of the small crank to open a narrow lyrium sliver-sized gap in the clamp end of her prosthetic. Between tongs and clamp, it's not impossible to extract the little flint of raw lyrium from poor Mister Gecko's possession.
[Luckily for Richard and for also everyone's eardrums, he does not fall over dead. There's no sudden or dramatic reaction to the lyrium being removed. Instead, it's more like a man waking up from deep sleep - slow, hazy, confused. He blinks a few times, sways. Looks down at his empty hand held against his arm like he doesn't remember why it's there, or, in fact, remembers that it's his hand. He lifts it a little, pinching his fingers together like that will give some clue as to how they work, or what was held between them moments before.
He doesn't seem to notice Dick or Wysteria at all.]
Good afternoon, Mr. Gecko. [ Clipped. Still wielding the tongs, Mister Dickerson releases his fellow Rifter’s finger in favor of nipping up the lead-lined box for Wysteria to deposit the sample back into. Neat, tidy, all part of the plan, surely. ] How are you feeling?
[Dick Dickerson may be perfectly cool and collected, but is there any mistaking the alarmed look painted broadly across Wysteria's face as she quickly reverses the crank, dumping the soft raw lyrium fragment back into the bottom of the container? Maybe if Richie is very disoriented, she might manage to arrange her features into some parody of Fascinated rather than Horrified (That She Might Be Scolded For Driving Someone Mad).]
Yes, how are you feeling? Please be as descriptive as you're able. It will be important for our notes to be as complete as possible.
[The problem with coming back to reality is that you don't yet know you left it. This isn't the first time Richard's experienced it. The disconnect. The people around him who did not see what he saw. It's the unweaving of a tapestry in order to make it fit a new pattern, the unweaving of a mind to put it back on the right frequency. Questioning, unpicking, examining, and all the while being questioned, picked apart, examined.
The press of Dick and Wysteria's voices feels the same, enough that a learnt response almost kicks in, an I'm fine, no I don't want to talk about it, just leave it. But he remembers where he is. He remembers.]
Dizzy. [He answers, finally, slowly.] I saw...
[He trails off, frowning. Remembering what he saw. Knowing what he saw, and yet the words for it seem out of reach, at the tip of his tongue, the tips of his fingers.
He looks back down to his hand, still hovering over the cut on his arm. Lets it drop now. But that only clears the view to where the cut now seems to be opening, skin pushing aside as a multitude of white globules pop up in the flesh beneath, growing in size, in number.
One rolls, and there is revealed an iris, a pupil. Looking between all three of them, as if searching.]
[ Medium amounts of preoccupied with fitting the lid down snug over the box (after a quick glance inside to see that the fragment inside is still glowing), Dickerson has to look twice before instinct informs him he should set the box aside. He releases the tongs as well, freeing up his left hand to discreetly unfasten a catch over the grip of the dagger at his back.
He keeps his gloves on as he reaches to lift (politely) under Richie’s chin to better look hard into the normal amount of eyes he has. That doing so somewhat obscures his field of vision in a downward direction is surely purely coincidental.
HMMM. ]
Any information you can provide on your current emotional state is also important. [ Pressingly so. ]
[Wysteria, having forgotten about the soft scrap of raw lyrium the moment it'd fallen out of her possession, nonetheless fails to immediately notice the state of Mister Gecko's arm. She's concerned with searching his face, and the look of sluggish bewilderment, and what is or isn't slowly eking it's way out of his mouth in response to Dickerson's— What is it? Encouragement, let's say.
Yes, it's a good question. Most important. After all, what if they've cooked his mind like an egg and he doesn't feel anything at all? That's how they make Tranquil, isn't? With a lyrium brand. How ridiculous not to have considered the possibility in the first place—
The erratic flick of her attention lowers.
Wysteria's squawk of alarm is only half bitten off.]
[Distraction. All of it. Dick's lifting his chin, the noise Wysteria makes, the eyes popping open in his arm, the increasing split of his vision. What he has in his head is more important, he knows it. If he could just line the pieces up, but it feels like they're only getting more and more slippery.]
Irritated.
[Bitten out, frustration achieving clarity through the daze. He glares at Dick briefly before it's one eye too many to be looking through, and he's wincing, eyes scrunching closed like it will help.
It doesn't. The others don't have eyelids.]
You said they mine that crap? It's a rock?
[More than faintly accusative. This is beginning to feel very much like a mistake.]
[ It’s an important distinction for them to make in this moment, with Mr. Dickerson near nose to nose with him. The skunky musk of elfroot is baked into the thread in his collar, his hair, the bristles of his beard.
He keeps hold of Richie just a beat longer, his eyes bright, a hawk peering into a snake hole.
He’s been glared at before. ]
It’s a mineral, [ he says, when he finally breaks contact and looks to Wysteria. That he manages to do so before his curiosity pulls his attention back down to the state of Richie’s forearm would be more of a miracle if he wasn’t fully aware that her fainting and cracking her head open on a table would get him into the greatest trouble of all. ]
So far as we know the effects of unsustained exposure are temporary.
[She's not going to faint. She's never fainted in her entire life. If she has, on occasion, been knocked briefly unconscious or made momentarily lightheaded by extraordinary circumstances or certain twists of fate, then that is an altogether different matter. And even if she did faint, she would surely have the presence of mind to keep over away from the sharp edge of the table rather than toward it—]
It's not at all poisonous to Rifters, [is blurted loudly out.] Why, I would be very much surprised if the effects weren't entirely— [cosmetic, she starts to say and then stops herself.
She shields a palm's length of the rolling eyeballs from looking directly at her.]
Stomach pains? Headaches? Mister Dickerson, do you see any sign of that cut?
Yeah, I've got a headache. I'm looking out of twenty fucking eyeballs.
[Not yet, he might've said to Dick's assessment of anger. But it was looking like he was getting there already, normal eyes still tight shut as he snaps at the questions. Nausea's crawling up his spine, a cold rush spilling over his skin, and he abruptly has to wonder if culebra can be sick. He certainly hasn't thrown up since he was turned. Testing it out in front of two people who think he's human wouldn't be the best option.]
Just-- give me something to cover them up already.
[Not caring if the state should be examined, the fact they have very much swamped over any sign of the cut. He needs to close them, and in the absence of eyelids to do so, he'd take anything else.]
Edited (thanks dw I totally wanted to post half a tag) 2022-08-13 20:30 (UTC)
Not of the cut, [ Dickerson answers Wysteria first. Just the eyeballs. ]
How clearly can you see through them?
[ If they cover the eyes up they can’t study them, insofar as Dickerson furrowing his brow down at the mottle of contracting pupils qualifies as study. Still, after a terse little huff to himself (this is the risk you take when working with humans instead of nugs) he steps away in pursuit of that same cabinet from before. Someone in Felandaris had the foresight to store bandages in it.
When he returns a moment later it’s not just with bandages: he has a ruler he moves to take quick, tidy measurements with before he tests the first wrapping light across the membrane. ]
[Once, many months ago now, she'd insisted very sternly on being included in the autopsy of her own limb once it was separated from her. She'd studied it with the same scientifically motivated rigor she does Mister Gecko's arm now—which is to say, by unfocusing her eyes and looking lightly past everything to some slightly less mortifying point in the middle distance.
Maybe if Richie doesn't keel over dead in the next forty-eight hours, or sprout a whole arm full of rolling eyeballs, or disappear as Rifters are wont to do, Wysteria will find herself considerably more ready to acknowledge the grotesque side effects of her (their) experiment more directly without the specter of guilt hanging so thickly over her. For now, Mister Dickerson may take his measurements and begin to wrap the limb without much in the way of interruption.
Or, it must be noted, assistance.
She does manage to scrape together a few further questions however. Maker forbid Wysteria de Foncé ever keep her mouth shut for long.]
And the period during which you possessed the lyrium. You mentioned seeing something when you first— [Came to? Reverted out of a trance? Both sound potentially ominous, so she skips straight to:] Do you recall it now?
[The touch of fabric onto eye almost has him flinch back. Discomfort, just like Dick had warned. Having something in your eye, multiplied a dozen times over, but not enough to have him say to stop. More to want it over with. Irritation spikes higher and higher at the questions, at how slow Dick's being in wrapping the arm, at how sick he's starting to feel. Wysteria only throws more questions on the pile, but the last - that catches. Distraction from the present moment, mind lurching back to try and grasp at what he'd seen where it was already slipping, melting into fog. Or it had always been fog from the start.]
It was high up. In the sky. [A place to start, but even as it's out of his mouth it feels off. He tries again.] Small. Underground. And moving.
[None of the words are right, but they're not wrong, either. Like he's trying to crack a safe, and somehow he's always one tick over on the dial, the sound of all the tumblers clicking into place right at his fingertips, but never landing.]
There were people, a lot of people. [He frowns, frustrated, and increasingly aware that it's nonsensical. Crazy.] I was all of them.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Still, the look he levels at the other Richard as he picks up the lyrium sliver is flat, unmoving even as he brings it to the cut on his arm, readies himself to count as instructed.
He doesn't even get as far as one.
The lyrium makes contact with the cut on his arm and he is no longer himself. He is someone else, many someone elses, something else entirely. His mind is nothing but noise, image, motion, wheeling and stretching upwards, sinking low, rooting deep.
He doesn't drop the lyrium. But he doesn't count, and he doesn't remove it at the time where five would have come and past. In fact, he doesn't move at all.]
no subject
She is just thinking this thought (seven? eight?) as her attention rises from the points of contact with the lyrium to—]
Mister Gecko? It's been five seconds—
no subject
It takes a few seconds of non-response past Wysteria’s prompt for him to flicker a look back over to her.
Uh oh.
He sniffs -- just once -- for the scent of burning flesh, as one might during an electrocution. ]
no subject
But what will we do with his body?
no subject
[ Muttered -- an assurance slipped between two friends like a note. Waist high black water in the bowels of the island full to the brim of cave-dwelling creatures ready to make short work of a corpse. He’d never be found.
Even so: Mr. Dickerson reaches carefully with his tongs to pry back one of Richie’s fingers pinching the lyrium sliver in place against his forearm, and states more authoritatively: ]
I’ll ask you not to crack wise about the fate of our patient, Madame de Foncé.
no subject
Wait, let me—
[It takes only a few turns of the small crank to open a narrow lyrium sliver-sized gap in the clamp end of her prosthetic. Between tongs and clamp, it's not impossible to extract the little flint of raw lyrium from poor Mister Gecko's possession.
(If he falls over stone dead, she will scream.)]
no subject
He doesn't seem to notice Dick or Wysteria at all.]
no subject
no subject
Yes, how are you feeling? Please be as descriptive as you're able. It will be important for our notes to be as complete as possible.
cw: body horror, eyes
The press of Dick and Wysteria's voices feels the same, enough that a learnt response almost kicks in, an I'm fine, no I don't want to talk about it, just leave it. But he remembers where he is. He remembers.]
Dizzy. [He answers, finally, slowly.] I saw...
[He trails off, frowning. Remembering what he saw. Knowing what he saw, and yet the words for it seem out of reach, at the tip of his tongue, the tips of his fingers.
He looks back down to his hand, still hovering over the cut on his arm. Lets it drop now. But that only clears the view to where the cut now seems to be opening, skin pushing aside as a multitude of white globules pop up in the flesh beneath, growing in size, in number.
One rolls, and there is revealed an iris, a pupil. Looking between all three of them, as if searching.]
no subject
He keeps his gloves on as he reaches to lift (politely) under Richie’s chin to better look hard into the normal amount of eyes he has. That doing so somewhat obscures his field of vision in a downward direction is surely purely coincidental.
HMMM. ]
Any information you can provide on your current emotional state is also important. [ Pressingly so. ]
no subject
Yes, it's a good question. Most important. After all, what if they've cooked his mind like an egg and he doesn't feel anything at all? That's how they make Tranquil, isn't? With a lyrium brand. How ridiculous not to have considered the possibility in the first place—
The erratic flick of her attention lowers.
Wysteria's squawk of alarm is only half bitten off.]
no subject
Irritated.
[Bitten out, frustration achieving clarity through the daze. He glares at Dick briefly before it's one eye too many to be looking through, and he's wincing, eyes scrunching closed like it will help.
It doesn't. The others don't have eyelids.]
You said they mine that crap? It's a rock?
[More than faintly accusative. This is beginning to feel very much like a mistake.]
no subject
[ It’s an important distinction for them to make in this moment, with Mr. Dickerson near nose to nose with him. The skunky musk of elfroot is baked into the thread in his collar, his hair, the bristles of his beard.
He keeps hold of Richie just a beat longer, his eyes bright, a hawk peering into a snake hole.
He’s been glared at before. ]
It’s a mineral, [ he says, when he finally breaks contact and looks to Wysteria. That he manages to do so before his curiosity pulls his attention back down to the state of Richie’s forearm would be more of a miracle if he wasn’t fully aware that her fainting and cracking her head open on a table would get him into the greatest trouble of all. ]
So far as we know the effects of unsustained exposure are temporary.
[ Apropos nothing. ]
no subject
It's not at all poisonous to Rifters, [is blurted loudly out.] Why, I would be very much surprised if the effects weren't entirely— [cosmetic, she starts to say and then stops herself.
She shields a palm's length of the rolling eyeballs from looking directly at her.]
Stomach pains? Headaches? Mister Dickerson, do you see any sign of that cut?
no subject
[Not yet, he might've said to Dick's assessment of anger. But it was looking like he was getting there already, normal eyes still tight shut as he snaps at the questions. Nausea's crawling up his spine, a cold rush spilling over his skin, and he abruptly has to wonder if culebra can be sick. He certainly hasn't thrown up since he was turned. Testing it out in front of two people who think he's human wouldn't be the best option.]
Just-- give me something to cover them up already.
[Not caring if the state should be examined, the fact they have very much swamped over any sign of the cut. He needs to close them, and in the absence of eyelids to do so, he'd take anything else.]
eye stuff
How clearly can you see through them?
[ If they cover the eyes up they can’t study them, insofar as Dickerson furrowing his brow down at the mottle of contracting pupils qualifies as study. Still, after a terse little huff to himself (this is the risk you take when working with humans instead of nugs) he steps away in pursuit of that same cabinet from before. Someone in Felandaris had the foresight to store bandages in it.
When he returns a moment later it’s not just with bandages: he has a ruler he moves to take quick, tidy measurements with before he tests the first wrapping light across the membrane. ]
This may cause discomfort.
even more eye stuff
Maybe if Richie doesn't keel over dead in the next forty-eight hours, or sprout a whole arm full of rolling eyeballs, or disappear as Rifters are wont to do, Wysteria will find herself considerably more ready to acknowledge the grotesque side effects of her (their) experiment more directly without the specter of guilt hanging so thickly over her. For now, Mister Dickerson may take his measurements and begin to wrap the limb without much in the way of interruption.
Or, it must be noted, assistance.
She does manage to scrape together a few further questions however. Maker forbid Wysteria de Foncé ever keep her mouth shut for long.]
And the period during which you possessed the lyrium. You mentioned seeing something when you first— [Came to? Reverted out of a trance? Both sound potentially ominous, so she skips straight to:] Do you recall it now?
no subject
It was high up. In the sky. [A place to start, but even as it's out of his mouth it feels off. He tries again.] Small. Underground. And moving.
[None of the words are right, but they're not wrong, either. Like he's trying to crack a safe, and somehow he's always one tick over on the dial, the sound of all the tumblers clicking into place right at his fingertips, but never landing.]
There were people, a lot of people. [He frowns, frustrated, and increasingly aware that it's nonsensical. Crazy.] I was all of them.