you're what happens when two substances collide :: OPEN

[heardmermaids.livejournal.com]

Who: Sebastian LeMat and YOU.
What & Where: Various places about town: Nazca's boat, Hellsing's infirmary, etc.
When: Throughout the third week of Velldaren
Notes: If you want to set something up, let me know!

For the sake of safety and common sense Sebastian has been relatively quiet on the network, preferring to communicate via voice or text only, but that hasn't stopped him from making a few general appointments for others in his cohort and throughout the city. Most of his work for strangers has been in and around Sobek Croix, doing his part to keep Hellsing in the canton's good graces during the current blood shortage. At the guildhall itself, he's been working on getting the building ready for winter -- finishing windows, checking the roof for leaks (again), and making sure there will be enough room to dry their crop of tobacco.

Comments

» hellsing's infirmary

[platanera.livejournal.com]

Hellsing's HQ is a huge place, larger than any place Maggie's ever been in, and it's obvious that she's been getting lost lately in the places her badge gives her access. She's ended up in a storage closet, the men's bathroom, and a number of meeting rooms before she lands in the place she was planning on going straight to without all the unintended pit stops.

With her burned hand resting on a towel wrapped around ice, she pushes the infirmary door open, hoping they stock some burn cream for the humans who zone out in the kitchen.

» hellsing's infirmary

[heardmermaids.livejournal.com]

Clearly not a part of the medical staff, Sebastian is in the infirmary taking notes and snapping pictures of the windows, walls, and poking at the main doorway. Nothing in here desperately needs work, but it's a good idea to have a list of where the trouble spots are going to be.

With his back to the door, Velcro stands as Maggie enters and Sebastian turns in place, still holding a notepad. "Oh, hullo. Do you want me to call for one of the doctors?"

[platanera.livejournal.com]

"No. Just some cream." She lifts her hand to show off the reddening skin. It's a minor injury, but bad enough there'll be some peeling later on in the week. Now if Maggie can avoid picking at her hand when it does, she'll be fine.

[heardmermaids.livejournal.com]

"Always tricky to put on yourself," he says nodding and going to get out one of the ready to use first-aid kits. "Do you want a hand to bandage it?"

[platanera.livejournal.com]

"No, I'm fine."

It's not that she doesn't want this guy's help just because he's clearly not one of the medical personnel, but Maggie's injured her hands enough times to know the perfect way to bandage them so they don't bother her.

"I just need the cream, really," she finishes, sitting down in a nearby chair.

[heardmermaids.livejournal.com]

Sebastian opens the kit up and hands over whatever they've got for burns. Velcro (http://bestnew-pet.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/0325.jpg) has decided that he should be helpful, or if not actually helpful, snuffle at whatever Sebastian has put on the table.

"Should be this, I think?"

[platanera.livejournal.com]

She nods and takes the tube without much of a word of thanks. It's not that Maggie's being rude, but there's a dog here and if there's something she gets a one track mind on is animals.

"Is that yours?" she asks with a point of her chin.

[heardmermaids.livejournal.com]

"His name is Velcro and he's my service animal, but if he makes you uncomfortable, I can have him wait elsewhere." Sebastian is well aware that some people don't like dogs and that a great many more are intimidated by a large, dark, clearly well-trained animal.

Hellsing Infirmary

[aviophobia]

Okay, so this place isn't quite as dire as Jim made it out to be. The medical equipment doesn't make McCoy want to scream (...too loudly...) and he's studied enough twentieth-century medicine to know what he's doing with the archaic implements.

And they have books. Real, honest to God, paper books. It's amazing - almost makes up for all the things they lack.

Footsteps catch his attention as he flips through a book on anatomy, and he sets it down, straightening up. "Help you?" he calls to the new arrival.

[heardmermaids.livejournal.com]

"Hullo, Sir Hellsing mentioned that I might be a bit of use to you? So, ah, you can see what magical injuries look like?" Sebastian looks a bit nervous about this and he's made sure to put Velcro's service vest on to show that his dog is a working animal.

He speaks slowly, as if he's taking the time to think over his words before committing to saying them. "If this isn't a good time, I can always come back. All my scars aren't going to go anywhere."

[aviophobia]

"No, now's fine." He closes the book and looks over the man, eyes flicking over the dog as well. Noting the vest, he curbs his natural instinct to hold out a hand for the dog to sniff, though he'd likely smell quite interesting. "So when you say magic, you really mean magic, huh?"

[heardmermaids.livejournal.com]

"I do, but I can't really show you much any more -- as a part of one of my injuries, a sort of stroke, I can't do most magic. I'm trying to relearn, but..." It wasn't really a stroke, but that's a fair analogy he's given to other muggles. "I've, ah, I've never been to a non-wizarding doctor before, so I'm not sure what comes next."

[aviophobia]

McCoy crosses his arms, eyeing the man thoughtfully. "Mind if I have a look at you first?" He pulls his tricorder from his pocket, clicks it out of sleep mode. "I'll see what I can identify, and we'll go from there."

[heardmermaids.livejournal.com]

"Will this hurt?" He doesn't sound bothered or nervous about it, but he would like to prepare himself if there's going to be any real discomfort. Either way, Sebastian motions that Velcro can go lay down out of the way, which he obligingly does. (Good dog.)

McCoy's tricorder will likely find a whole host of strange injuries (a patch of owl feathers on his back, a marble knee, nerve damage from the cruciatus curse) as well as more mundane injuries (early malnutrition, well-healed stab wounds or shots, the crushing injury on his right hand).

[aviophobia]

"Nope, you won't feel a thing." He moves closer, begins to move the tricorder slowly over the other man, eyes flickering quickly over the readouts. His eyebrows do some impressive acrobatics - up, down, in, out - and part of him wonders how this young man can still be alive with all this fuckery going on in his body. Seems he's held together with a string and a prayer - and marble.

"So - this damage is consistent with what I'll be seeing here, or is it unique to you?"

[heardmermaids.livejournal.com]

"I think there's a few others like me, but, ah, I went through a rough patch." He frowns, worrying at a loose thread on the cuff of his shirt before continuing. "I fought in a magical war from a young age and picked up my fair share of strange curses, hexes, and all that."

"We didn't really -- we had doctors and things when I started. When I was twelve, I had all the bones in my arm dissolved and then the nurse grew them back. It was miserable. But, as time went on, it was all 'meatball surgery'," he says, clearly unused to the strange phrase, but lacking anything else to describe what went on. "Between that and all the experimental magic that went on, well, even at the end, a proper doctor couldn't untangle the mess."

He's also died.

The Floating Coffin and Environs

[ironshodboots]

(Thread in gdocs over yonder.)

let me know if this setting doesn't work!

[amourpropre]

Back home, Lucius had started not going out too. So this excursion is relatively unusual, in any dimension.

When a war is over, people don't just forget. And strangely enough, not everyone sees honour in defecting, not on either side. With the wizard community's stifling smallness, the swamping rush of Muggle streets had offered some anonymity when he'd deigned to roam them, for all that Lucius had hated that as well -- being somewhere completely free of magic, for someone like him, felt like a tragic rainy afternoon no matter the actual weather, the air dead and the sounds loud and grating. Baedal is, reassuringly, not quite like this, some strange combination of the two, like that fresh hell notion of a world where Muggles and wizard kind combined.

Not the most striking thing approaching the tavern, considering Baedal, but Lucius doesn't completely blend in, either -- never mind the kicking his recent history has given him, fading into the woodwork is not a talent he possesses. He is tall, long-haired, carries around a cane and has adopted a sort of fuck off aura that has a more defense edge to the one of arrogance from before. His clothing is plain but well-made, rings on his fingers polished to a shine.

It will be late, by the time he gets back to the townhouse, but that's fine. The light of the Sobek Croix tavern reaches passed its own windows and doors in the dusky light, and Lucius doesn't yet sashay inside, contemplating whether he wants to.

Perfect, bb.

[heardmermaids.livejournal.com]

Should he come inside, he's likely to spot a young man somewhere in his mid to late twenties, sitting at a small, well-lit side table reading a book. Spread out on the table in front of him, is a notebook, a mug of tea and teapot, and an empty plate. As much as he appreciates being able to live at the Hellsing Guild Hall, Sebastian has an almost physical need to get out into the city and be among other people. Ideally, among people who don't know him and won't interrupt him while he's reading. Reading remains slow, laborious task, and while silence might help some people, when it's too quiet, every little noise makes him jump and distracts him; it's only among the constant, low hum of conversation that he can really focus.

Faced with a particularly difficult passage in deMarcus' "An Introduction to Creative Cursebreaking," Sebastian removes his glasses for a moment, to pinch the bridge of his nose and scrub at his face, pushing aside a shock of messy black hair and revealing a faded scar.

[amourpropre]

There is really only so much debate to be had. Lucius can go inside or he can go home. Quotation marks.

He pushes through the doors, bringing in the cooler early evening air with him and the tinge of rain just prior. Lucius is not any kind of barfly, there are limits and standards and things, as well as fully stocked liquor cabinets, but he is not strictly out of place either, a hand dipping into his coat pocket for coinage-- charity-- as he meanders for the bar. He will go for something of small amount and high dosage, with the kind of shock of warm chemical that complements the sharply cold ice it douses. Whatever they have. Do they have firewhiskey.

Cane resting to hang from the hilt against bar edge, Lucius pushes the necessary money across the polished surface. The Boy That Lived goes unnoticed, even when chill grey eyes go to skim the room as he waits. And then a second time, as if the faint hint of subconscious memory--

Attention lingers uncomfortably and uncertain at that particular table.

[heardmermaids.livejournal.com]

This particular tavern does not have an overly varied selection, but they do have firewhiskey or at least recognize the term and can pour a suitable equivalent.

He's dressed in muggle clothing with a cane of his own leaning against his chair; it's a practical thing, used to offset a limp rather than hide a wand. Should Malfoy look closer, he'll be able to pick up other differences between this man and the boy he knew -- his right hand is missing the the top joints of his ring and pinkie finger, he doesn't appear to be carrying a wand, but that's not to say he isn't armed.

It could be a coincidence. After all, a stranger that bears an striking resemblance to Harry Potter is hardly the most unusual thing in Baedal. Still, when the dog stands and turns to face the bar, Sebastian looks to follow his line of sight and resolutely Does Not Startle upon seeing an older Malfoy. He calmly reaches down to pet Velcro before returning to his book and sending off a text message to (the usual) Lucius and Integra.

( a side note )

[suninhades]

I'm sending someone anyway. If he so much as sneezes at you tell him I know his bloody wife.

[amourpropre]

The attention of his study breaks by the time the sound of a glass is being set down, with whatever amber fluid counts as hard liquor, the cracking of ice shards turning his head again. If Lucius understands the principle behind texting, being both a pureblooded wizard of old family bigotry inclinations, as well as from the 90s, then it isn't to a degree that the sight of it generates suspicion.

Which doesn't mean that by the time Sebastian is done, he isn't being honed in on. Lucius doesn't exactly invite himself, and isn't about to sit down, but by the time the text is away, the glass of whiskey is set down on the far side of the table.

If it's a coincidence, well, mistaking someone for someone else isn't the worst thing that can happen to him. He doesn't quite hold the same authority and entitlement as he did some several years ago in the bookstore, ticking icy stare over little Harry's legendary scar, but there is a probable amount of similarity in the way he now looks at where pieces are missing off the younger man's fingers.

Then goes the natural sweep up to more familiar injury.

[heardmermaids.livejournal.com]

"You're welcome to join me," he says quietly, moving to clear space at the table. Sebastian has made his call for support and its unlikely that Malfoy will kill him outright in public, so there's no point in being coy and pretending that they can't recognize each other. He doesn't bother to hide his injured hand. As with most of hexes and curses he'd been hit with late in the war, the injury to his hand wasn't properly healed. Although, his missing fingertips are due to a crushing wound instead of anything magical.

"I've been going by the name LeMat for a few years now." When he speaks, it's slowly, as if he has to force himself to take the time and think through his words. There's no anger to his words, but caution and some undefinable, but painful emotion connection to the capriciousness of time travel. What does it matter if Lucius has come from after the summer of '02? If he's been to Azkaban, that future is already too set to change.

[amourpropre]

The sound Lucius makes is arguably meant to be the beginnings of a laugh -- it doesn't really make it out of his chest, hitching partway and curling the corner of his mouth, and little more than that. Considering his own degrees of suppression and reserve, and to compare it towards that of more normal people, that must make this instance astoundingly funny.

"LeMat," he says, which signifies either testing this name for himself or implicit offer to pretend as well.

Still standing, too, despite the offer to join him -- although Lucius scopes over the table now, like a particularly overgrown and ill-content cat unsure of the offered accommodation. Eventually, he nudges back the nearest chair with the end of his cane, an eyebrow raising to himself in resign as he sits. "What on earth we'd have to discuss escapes me," he warns. But it's probably better than finding a separate table in the confines of the bar and pretending either of them aren't there until the other finishes his business.

And he was the one that wanted to see this up close for himself.