route666rp | [Closed] A spider and two demons walk into a bar

Edward is unmistakeable at any distance and Serph turns to acknowledge his appearance with a nod once he draws close. Serph pauses briefly at the sight of the webbed up monster; bringing food to a first meeting with Heat isn't a bad idea.

But something doesn't seem quite right and his gaze is drawn to Edward's missing leg.

Ignoring answering the question asked of him, he instead asks one of his own, "What happened to your leg?"

Well, Edward can't say he wasn't anticipating that question.

"The arenas. It got caught in a cage during an escape." Edward shrugs one shoulder. "We got out."

Serph, of course, is only recognisable by his wings. Edward tilts his head and stomps to get a better sense of his new form. "You don't look like Horus any longer."

Serph shakes his head. He's just a plain ol' Celestial... for now. "My form shifts as we move to new areas."

Serph approaches so he can take a closer look at the injury. He's... not sure if they can replace an entirely missing limb. Bat had managed to repair a wing after it had been sheared off, but at least he had the pieces of it. Fortunately Edward has multiple legs to work with so he has spares, but what happens when he reverts back into his two legged human form?

But seeing as they're going to visit Heat anyway...

"What happens when you revert? We can attempt healing."

"You're far more adept at adapting than most of us, then."

Edward holds out the injured leg so Serph can get a better look. The end is bandaged in silk, but it's already started to stain with blue spider blood. As for his human legs, it is not a pretty sight when he shifts back, hence being in the spider body.

"Nothing good, I'm afraid. The left leg is fine but the right..." Edward trails off, then locks in on what Serph just said. "You can heal?"

Serph doesn't react much to Edward's voiced observation; he'd adapted readily to demonisation. Those who didn't, died. Is it really a surprise that he adapted so quickly to regular monsterisation? But beyond that, after speaking to other drifters he's come to realise his lack of attachment to the body he inhabits isn't a particularly common view. He's not sure why he's so susceptible to transformation in this world, but it doesn't bother him save for the inconvenience of regularly ruining his clothes.

...Well maybe he was a little bothered during the time he was a serpentine monster with no legs and found himself unable to drive.

The bloodstained silk bandage doesn't look good. Serph's expression pinches into a frown.

"Heat's better at it." Which is weird to think about. Serph takes the squirming bundle from Edward before turning to lead the way. The sooner they can get that looked at, the better. "It's not his usual role."

Yes, Edward has gathered that people with snake transformations usually aren't fond of them. He can relate to being upset about not being able to drive, though. His motorcycle keeps escaping from the Turtle Tank where it's being housed and following him around. How do you explain to a bike that you can't shift back to ride it?

With his arms empty, Edward is better able to keep up with Serph. His gait has taken on a rolling pitch, his body tilting to the side where the missing leg would plant down. He holds his lower arms out to balance himself.

"Usual or not, I'll take whatever he can manage. I'm unable to shift back to my usual form without the risk of bleeding to death." Which gives him pause. "If I do shift, I'm going to bleed everywhere. That won't be... upsetting, will it?"

Or tempting. That either. Edward is suddenly very glad he brought that caught monster with him.

That sounds particularly messy. Shifting from form to form in this world in general is so annoyingly messy and inconvenient. Edward is fortunate then, that this form can continue to function despite the injury.

Serph shakes his head. "No. Blood doesn't bother us."

Both Heat and himself have a good handle on their demons. Usually. Edward won't mind if they have a little taste of anything that spills though, right? It's not like it can be put back into his body.

(He doesn't consider that perhaps Jack and/or John would find sleeping in a place that smells of blood somewhat unpleasant.)

Once they're within sight of the RV and he spots the unmistakeable flash of red hair, Serph calls, "Heat. I have someone who needs healing."

Bleeding everywhere is in fact going to be extremely tempting but Heat made it a point to never let his hunger get beyond a nagging persistent itch, so sudden starving rampages are extremely unlikely! But he will never, ever turn down a meal.

People moving around the convoy is nothing new. People not Serph, Jack or John approaching the RV is another matter, and Heat's never actually spoken to Edward but it's certain he's seen the ... centaur spider thing before. That's actually kind of hard to miss. He's still pretty humanoid himself, if one ignores the shaggy legs, jagged horn, hooves, leonine tail and distinctly horselike ears that perk up when he glances up from working on replacing a bit of rubber strapped to one hoof at their approach.

Know what job he doesn't like having? Healing.

Know what he's really good at whether he likes it or not..? "I think he's missing something," the redhead says drily.

A whole leg in fact!

They're welcome to whatever spills during this process. Edward won't be getting it back, and if they time things right, they might get to sample both blue spider blood and red human blood! Exciting!

Edward stomps his foot when Serph greets Heat. He's fairly certain he's noticed Heat around before as well, although only on the periphery of things. The unicorn horn is distinctive, and Edward feels like he'd remember that if they'd spoken before.

As to the quip about his missing leg, Edward holds the damaged leg forward. It has been torn off just below the knee, and while it's been packed to stop bleeding and bandaged, it's still an ugly-looking injury.

"You should see it in my human form." Edward's voice is light and breezy, like they're not talking about a disfiguring injury. "This is positively clean and neat by comparison."

Serph responds in an equally dry tone, "It wasn't me."

Which is obvious to both of them; Varuna's blades separate limbs from bodies much more cleanly. ...Though he did come close to snacking on his companions recently (and he was going to eat Jayce's leg in a dream) so maybe it isn't so far fetched.

If the injury is worse in human form... Serph's wondering how that that missing limb translates to Edward's two legged self. And unfortunately, it's not like Edward kept that missing leg, right...?

"This monster's from Edward." Serph shifts the web-bound, slightly wriggling creature in his arm. "You can have it after you patch him up."

The little wriggling burrito of tastiness is eyed. "You think you can just .. bribe me into playing the medic, huh?" Those horselike ears flatten back against his hair, annoyance spiking. "...Well you can. Fine." Turning down a free meal will never happen, even if he preferred them screaming and trying to escape. This one's still alive so maybe he can still have that. He rises to his hooves, looking less than ecstatic about all of this; he's a fighter. it's what he likes doing. He ENJOYS combat and bloodshed and mayhem. This is none of those things.

This is the opposite of those things. He can best serve his tribe by NOT fighting and reserving his strength for patching other people back up. Ugh.

That really is a ~~delicious~~ bad looking injury. Heat doesn't bother to wash his hands before reaching for it, fully intending to pull off the bandaging and packing. "Maybe you should have, it would have been cleaner." Varuna left a mess of a DIFFERENT kind.

"I don't think my mantras are going to regrow a leg though. Good thing you've got a lot more."

Edward pointedly clears his throat. "It's a gift, not a bribe."

It's totally a bribe. Edward can claim good breeding and being schooled in proper manners, but he absolutely brought a bribe and not a house-warming gift to this meeting.

"If you have any requests for what I catch in the webs, I'm happy to hear them. From either of you." He's going to catch things anyway, so he might as well take requests from the people who regularly eat the spoils.

Edward hisses softly when his bandaging and packing is torn away, but he doesn't pull his leg away from Heat's grasp. It starts bleeding sluggishly, the blood viscous and blue.

"Anything you can do would be helpful, and I'd be grateful." Translation: he will catch so many things for you to eat. "It's not my leg in this form that's the true problem, though. When I shift back to my human form, it's much worse."

Well, Serph doesn't really have any requests... Unlike his pickiness when faced with food that humans would normally eat, Serph's less than discerning when it comes to monster meat. Truly, anything will do as far as he's concerned.

Leaning the bound monster against the RV -- if it wriggles too hard, it's going to fall over -- Serph peers at the viscous blue blood.

"We'll heal it as is first. Then we'll see the results when you revert."

"It's a bribe," Heat mutters, poking with very much unwashed hands at the stump of arachnid leg with a frown. A medic he is not. He specializes in taking things apart, not putting them back together, but a solid awareness of what is and is not good to eat on any given prey item helps a surprising amount. "You keep your injuries swapping back and forth?"

Not that it matters. There's very little of gentle bedside manner with the wounded when the offending injury is grabbed in one rough calloused hand, the same pleasant goldenish warm radiance of any other celestial soothing most of the pain fairly immediately and stemming this leg's constant ooze of interesting looking blood. "Sit down and switch back. I'm not picking you up if you fall over." He's. Actually kind of shit on the bedside manner thing.

But he's also not visibly exhausted by what he's doing either! Absolutely ravenous, but that's about what he's used to anyway. "..Hey, you want a taste of this?" Blue-stained fingers are wiggled at Serph idly.

This is probably breaking etiquette somehow.

Fortunately for everyone involved, brusque, borderline rude bedside manner is something Edward is used to, and Heat’s complaining and indifferent hands are more reassuring than anything else. Front line doctors don’t tend to be kind and generous either, but they’re efficient, and Edward will take abrupt efficiency over polite incompetence every time.

And Heat is efficient; Edward gasps as the warm golden feeling seeps into his leg. It dulls the pain, replacing it with something that feels like pins and needles knitting his flesh together from the inside. After a few moments, the blood has stopped and the leg feels… not good, exactly, but closer to normal than it’s felt since his injury.

“Yes, the injury stays in both forms. It’s because my legs split when I shift.” He lowers himself to the ground, still a bit stunned that this has worked. He wrinkles his nose when Heat mentions tasting his blood, but doesn’t protest.

“There will be a great deal more of that in a moment. Red, though, not blue.”

He takes a deep breath, preparing himself for the pain he knows is coming, and shifts.

It’s a gory affair. The spider legs shoot out straight like they’d been electrocuted, and then the spider abdomen starts to deflate, all its flesh running forward and downward onto Edward’s legs. The legs themselves twist and crack, reforming themselves into human limbs as muscle and sinew wetly grows back around them.

The left leg forms and lands lightly on the ground, whole and unbroken. The right leg is another story; from the knee up, it’s fine, but the lower leg is a disaster. The foot is gone, white bone exposed in the ankle, and while the bones and shin are intact, it looks like it’s been sheered off behind the knee.

Edward makes a soft whining noise once the transformation is done, and blood immediately starts to soak the ground underneath him.

Heat may not like being a medic but when it comes to magical healing he's the best they have, it seems. Serph's own healing powers are regrettably not very useful in combat because of how quickly the side effects impact him, rendering him defenseless. And even without that drawback, Heat's magic is just simply capable of healing more grievious wounds.

At the offer of tasting Edward's blood from Heat's fingers, Serph finds himself saying, "Stop flirting and stay focused," before his expression pinches briefly, a familiar sight when faced with something that he knows and yet doesn't.

Flirting? What is that?

Serph watches Edward's transformation with keen interest -- the transformations of this world are nothing like the smooth, efficient transformation into their demons -- noting how the injury translates from spider to human form. He idly observes that clothing isn't something that shifts with Edward either.

Heat doesn't need his instruction to tend to the wound, so Serph reaches for Edward's hand to hold it through the pain. His voice is calm and even as he speaks. "...It does look worse."

His bedside manner isn't much better apparently.

A part of him knows what flirting is. The rest of him absolutely does not, and Heat pauses, blank with puzzlement, to glance back at Serph again. "Stop doing what?"

... And Serph's expression tells him his Leader doesn't know either, so he shrugs and turns back to the task at hand, idly cleaning blue blood from his fingers about the same way most people do with barbecue sauce or something. Edward's transformation is nothing short of bizarre, as he ... MELTS back into a mostly humanlike shape with the brittle wet sounds he associates with dinner.

Edward is not dinner.

It is at least pretty obvious he isn't even a LITTLE squeamish about blood, or pantslessness for that matter, making a low agreement noise at Serph's assessment. Like everything else, doing any kind of healing made him hungry, and he was going to have to replace the lost energy afterward with things besides plants and grass. "Alright, so I know I can't put a foot back without ... the foot being here." Which isn't. He's never actually tried but just about the same way he understood Agni's capabilities, he's also sure of the unicorn's. It's not going to feel any better this time when he begins poking at the injury, applying pressure and magic a bit more carefully this time to stem the blood flow and the very worst of pain without doing much about the rest yet. It's still going to hurt. "You're going to need one of those.."

A once more bloodied hand is gestured towards the convoy. "Fake leg things, probably. What got you?" Should he be touching open wounds with a fresh licked hand? Probably not.

Edward groans from the ground. "Now is not the time for flirting!"

At least one person here knows what it is, and can confirm that yes, they're both trying to flirt with each other over a severely fucked up leg. Come on, guys! Focus!

The pain is pretty bad, but Edward grits his teeth and bears up under it. Serph's hand is going to get squeezed like a vice, though. He can feel that pins and needles sensation again, so he knows whatever Heat is doing is working.

"I know the foot is gone." Spoken through clenched teeth, Edward's breathing coming in harsh little pants. "I've talked to Donnie... about a prosthetic." So he has that area covered.

As to what got him, Edward turns his face away, his expression clouding over with shame. "A door on a cage. In the arenas." His voice chokes up a little. "We were escaping. We did escape. But then my leg got caught, and they got me at the bottom of the cage."

He turns his face back towards them. "You haven't seen Danse or Colt, have you?"

He means Deacon, who gave Edward an alias that was never corrected.

It's a good thing that Edward had brought the wrapped up monster. Although he'd intended it as a bribe not-bribe, the monster can serve a practical purpose after Heat's done with his ministrations.

Edward's practically crushing his fingers but Serph allows it, bringing his other hand to fold over the top of Edward's.

The cages. Serph's gaze goes distant for a moment.

hunger
gnashing teeth
blades carving flesh

Serph shakes his head. But knowing that Edward is blind and might be in too much pain to really be 'seeing' properly he adds, "No. Who is Colt?"

He knows most of the people travelling with the Convoy by name or sight, but he doesn't recognise the name Colt.

"I haven't seen Danse. If they escaped with you..."

Sometimes Drifters are simply... gone. No sign of struggle left in their wake. He doesn't know why. He's lost some good friends in this way, but worryingly he doesn't know if it's because of a trait of this unstable world or something they themselves either did on accident or on purpose.

"Without knowing the Convoy's route, we can't search for missing people for very long."

"What the hell is flirting?" That's the second time it got mentioned, and now it's distracting with its lack of context! Not so much that Heat actually stops with working on making sure Edward doesn't bleed out everywhere, at least, but these kinds of mysteries are an endless plague and he's never quite sure who to ask for clarification from.

Dealing with pain is less important than dealing with bleeding, and open injuries that can get infected. "Huh."

The cages. That doesn't sound too much like derision; they'd all been in them. Some got out. Some didn't. "Have no idea who that even is." Which means Serph can field it! Maybe he'd recognize descriptions, but names are another matter entirely and most people aren't important enough to Heat to bother with little courtesies ... like knowing who they are. "Put your vehicle on autopilot after you look around and it'll catch up eventually. Could take a while."

He could make that run, and catch back up afterward, but he's not volunteering.

"Flirting is when you try to get someone to pay attention to you because you fancy them." Edward answers off-handedly, expecting that Serph will correct him if it means something else in their world. Under normal circumstances, he'd be happy to settle down and explain subtle linguistic nuances to Heat all day; those are some of the rare questions he can actually answer, in this world where everything is so far beyond what he knows.

"Colt was Danse's friend. They were from the same world, knew each other from home." Edward gasps as a particularly nasty part on his leg heals over, and slaps one of his other hands down over Serph's. Sorry, buddy, he'll be mangling your hand from two sides now. "Colt... drove the vehicle that was shaped like a sausage."

He shakes his head at Heat's suggestion, letting it fall forward to touch his chin to his chest. It's only partially from the pain; it's also to hide the tears brimming in his eyes. "Their vehicles got left behind when we fled. They were burning when the convoy pulled out."

Along with Jayce's trunk, after Donnie attached the forge to the Turtle Tank. They're gone. In his heart of hearts, Edward knows they're gone. He just doesn't want to believe it.

What does it mean to fancy someone...? And Serph has no idea what a sausage is, but there's only one truly unusually shaped vehicle -- Serph is pretty sure it's hot dog shaped not a sausage -- so he has a pretty good idea of which one Edward is referring to. Ah. That guy. Serph hadn't known him very well but they did play a shooting game once while protecting the Convoy during the time the shields weren't functional.

Serph barely winces as Edward starts to crush the fingers of his other hand, too. It's fine. It's fine...

Seeing the emotions overflowing in Edward, Serph feels the instinctive want to hug him. But given the current situation -- Edward painfully bleeding out onto the ground while Heat's patching him up -- it doesn't seem like much of a good idea.

He squeezes Edward's hands and speaks as a distraction. "There was a statue demanding tribute in exchange for rejecting the Moon's blessing." Blood and identity. But Serph accepts the demon and monster(s) all. He would not return to what he once was. "Danse and I spoke of being something different to what we believed we were."

He still hasn't spoken to Heat of the fact they are AI created by Sera. But he suspects that detail would mean very little to Heat in the same way it means very little to him.

"He wasn't tempted by the statue's offer. He didn't turn his gaze away from what he is now." Danse had said he'd admired how easily Serph had rejected the statue's offer. Serph equally respected the man accepted what he once knew was false and didn't give in to the weakness of a comforting lie.

Heat looks up again from doing what he can about the leg, a little more carefully than he had the demon form. Humans are of course, more fragile, right? "Oh. I guess he's kinda fancy, with the wings and everything." So what happens if you try to get someone to pay attention to you that isn't fancy?

Questions for later.

Losing comrades isn't easy. The Embryon suffered fewer losses than other tribes, but that didn't make it suddenly painless, and new allies didn't really replace the ones that were gone.

Bleeding to death is no longer an issue, a few moments later. What bleeding remains is sporadic at best, but it's probably still going to hurt, slowly dialed down from blinding agony to a persistent aggravating ache. "..Haven't seen'm." He knows what a sausage is! Meat tubes are fantastic. But nothing else is added to Serph's efforts at distraction, it means he can finish what he's doing.

Well. That's the intention. He pauses, frowning. "Gonna recommend I take everything off under about here." He taps just about at knee height. "I don't think anything here's gonna regrow the lost muscle, it'll just be in the way. I can take care of that. It'll hurt real bad for a minute but it'll heal cleaner than the mess you've got right now."

Edward nods when Serph talks about Danse, and doesn't bother trying to hide the way his voice cracks when he answers. "That sounds like him. He was... so brave."

They hadn't known each other for long, but as fellow soldiers in wars neither of them asked for or wanted, they had bonded quickly. And then Danse and Colt both were gone, and Edward can't help but feel somewhat responsible. If only he hadn't gotten his leg caught in the cage, they could have gotten away, and the other two men would still be here.

Meat tubes are fantastic, but there's no time to extoll their virtues when Heat speaks up about his leg. Already pale and woozy from blood loss, Edward blanches even further, turning the colour of a freshly-bleached sheet. He knows, though, that Heat is right. A long slab of bone with nothing attached to move it won't benefit him at all, and even with Heat's healing powers, he's still oozing blood onto the sand.

"You can leave the knee?" Assuming the answer is yes--his knee is fine, it's everything below it that's fucked--Edward shifts towards Serph, reaching up for him with his second pair of arms. If they're going to do this, he'll need something to hold onto. "Be quick about it, before I have a chance to change my mind."

Serph silently agrees with Heat's assessment of what they should do with the leg. But he also knows how Heat would remove the leg and...

It would perhaps be more... normal... if it were Varuna doing the removal.

But with Edward crushing his fingers with one pair of hands and the other pair reaching for him while Edward's nerves rapidly dwindle, Serph doesn't take over the task of amputation, instead bending so Edward's second pair of arms can grasp him more easily.

His many wings unfold to cocoon around Edward, "Don't look," he says with the intent of shielding Edward from seeing Agni's sharp teeth closing over his leg like a guillotine.

Then he remembers Edward is blind and feels a little stupid for saying it.

It's fine, Heat is totally a medical professional and isn't winging it entirely on a set of instincts he didn't have before coming here! "Yeah, as long as you don't twitch at the wrong moment I can."

There's a moment's pause as he weighs, very carefully, whether there's more to Edward clinging to Serph than a wounded soldier seeking some measure of stability. It's also absolutely why he doesn't use Agni's claws when he takes the red demon's form, the only gentleness is making sure one massive hand has a decent hold of Edward's knee and tightening fingers into where blood vessels beat beneath the skin before the leftmost head's jagged teeth close in a bone-severing snap on what's left of his leg.

What mercy there is, is in the speed of it. No sawing, no chewing, no grinding, it's simply gone, and probably feels ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE.

... For a moment or two. Hopefully Edward doesn't wonder too much at the contented crunching noises going on as the bloody and much shortened stump is subjected to the same unicorn magic that the rest had been, sealing off arteries and veins first so he can actually let go of the viselike grip holding blood vessels pinched shut. Hopefully he doesn't want his removed leg back, because it's not going to last long. Fuel is fuel.

Don't worry, Heat: Edward wants his leg back so he can stay in his human form and dick down with his own boyfriend, so he has no designs on Serph. This is purely a manly, bro hug to keep him from trying to scramble away or jerk his leg out of Heat's grip.

When Serph tells him not to look, Edward smiles. His face is pressed against one of Serph's wings, so he probably doesn't see it, but he might feel the movement in Edward's face. He opens his mouth to tell Serph that he would if he could, but he can't really turn the vibrations off, but then Heat transforms and is mercifully quick with what he's doing, but Edward still shrieks with the pain.

It's immense, all-encompassing, blasting the vibrations away and turning everything white. It's so powerful that Edward doesn't even notice the crunching or wonder what's happening to the part that was severed; he's sagging against Serph and fighting a losing battle against passing out.

~~Edward doesn't need to be in human form for that.~~

Even with the scream, Serph remains calm, his arms slipping out of Edward's grip to support Edward as he collapses against Serph, silently holding the other man up, as unmoving as a wall.

...Heat, do you really need to be eating the man's leg right in front of him? Serph's making a disapproving frown but he doesn't actually stop Heat from finishing off his snack. (Is there any left for him to taste...?)

With the worst of it out of the way, all they need to do is patch up the remaining stump. Heat's already on the job and he trusts his comrade to patch Edward up well.

[Closed] A spider and two demons walk into a bar

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Cw: medical gore

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tw: suddenly, cannibalism.

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