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i'm the motherfucking ungrateful

Who: SEVTEL
What: Martel fucked himself up with magic. Severus gets to fix it.
Where: ~the apothecary basement.
When: AHAHA A REALLY LONG TIME AGO
Notes: SO BACKDATED, SORRY
Warnings: ~~Comic book~~ WIZARD SCIENCE, some mild eye gore.

He has no clear idea what to expect, or what sort of fool has managed to get himself in this situation, but a job's a job, so he's learned; Severus knows that he could easily employ far more mercencary methods to acrue wealth, but he prefers this. Tedious as it might be, he's remained hidden for longer than he anticipated. (It nags at him, the paranoia - he knows it's closing in.)

It's not his borrowed laboratory, and it's certainly not the dungeons, but it'll do; the apothecary's basement was filthy and wretched before, but he's transformed it. Brick stands smoothed, illuminated by uncanny floating orbs, lined by meticulous, thick-packed shelves. Desk, work table... examination cot.

He's not a fucking healer.

But he waits as one, regardless; this is work for a man with an eye between science and spirit. He can provide two.

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The fool in question arrives in a timely fashion - he stables Kalten nearby and walks the final distance, regretting it with every step and flinch - though he's dubious of whether or not this is going to be of any use to him at all. To the psychically sensitive, the problem is almost immediately clear; the gaping chestwound he suffered aside, the forbidden sorcery he practised should have killed him a decade before. It bleeds sluggishly inside him now, psychic scarring torn open by the exertion of what he'd done for Anna Demirovna, and his sanity and stability are currently being held together by spit and string.

The alteration of his power recently is acting against him, in this way; if he were still bound to a god, he wouldn't have so much power flowing through him unbound, feeding the parts of him stained by Azash. If he answered to a god, now, then he would fall under their purview and the encroaching pain and madness would be something that they might protect him from-

-but he did this to himself, ultimately, and for a while he'd thought to himself, so now it ends. It doesn't, though; death was no release, he suffers for his mistakes. His choices. And he comes down here to the alchemist's basement, thinking he might've preferred simply to die.

It is not a psychic ability that stops Severus in his tracks at the sight of Martel, but his sight; not everyone from his world can see magic, it takes study and a knack, but he's got it, and that -

"Sit down."

- is completely vile.

"Impressive," he says coolly, pulling off the thick black wool of his overcoat. "That you're even standing, I mean." Coat gone, and he rolls up the crisp white sleeves of his shirt beneath to his elbows, heedless of the strange, warped scarring it reveals on the inside of his left arm. He's going to need to get his hands dirty for this (as it were) and judging by the sheer depth and trauma of that injury, he doesn't think the other man is in any state to notice or care.

Martel remembers both abstractly and altogether too well what happened when he surrendered to this, once before- he remembers the sick relief as his head cracked against the cobblestones, chains around his ankles and in Sparhawk's fist. It had taken him a long time after to regain himself, time he doesn't have now; he supposes at least this time he rendered himself wretched doing something useful. The binding will serve Anna well, and if there's ever a next time he'll know to be careful of fae magic's backlash.

(Good god let there not be a next time.)

The point being, he sits. "Practise," he says, through his teeth, an aristocrat's drawl made strained.

"Noble of you."

He doesn't touch Martel where he doesn't need to; Severus instead moves to where his gaze can match the other man's easily, and his eye seem to penetrate in a way they shouldn't when he looks at him. He's looking at something, yes, but it isn't the way his pupils dilate; it's further in. When he moves away it's with snappish tension - this isn't even his own brand of magic - and he moves through shelves to find something in a brown bottle.

"Drink," he instructs, passing it over to Martel, stopper removed. "It'll dampen your mind's inclination to feel wounds that aren't there."

The real, magical wounds, however? On his own.

His reaction to the word 'noble' is a funny thing - if it wouldn't reverberate through him like a tuning fork, he might laugh - but he takes the bottle and drinks, reasoning that he's presently in no position to get delicate about what may or may not be in it. The sense-memory of the choking wet gurgle that was his last breath dulls, mercifully, and there's no real shift in manner or expression to suggest that he truly registered Severus's eye contact or scrutiny in the first place.

He felt it- he'll know Severus, later- but there's too much on top of that sense now for it to draw his attention. When he looks out from his own mind, now, half of what he sees isn't there. Memories, nightmares, sometimes one and the same. It's difficult to reach for help for something you know you deserve, and so perhaps Severus is the ideal candidate, being as how the last thing this experience is going to feel like is unwarranted kindness.

"That's the only edge that'll come off," Severus informs him, not particularly caring if Martel can hear him or not. This is triage; no time for paperwork or a waiting room. And he does touch him now, gripping the older man by his jaw and forcing him back to lay on his back, positioning him to meet his eyes again.

He can feel it, like blood soaking over his hands and sleeves and over his shirt, the magic pouring out of the rift - his hands seem cold, too cold, the darkness of it trying to reach out to him but - but -

- but he's holding Martel with his left hand, and when that wave of kinetic contact reaches the Dark Mark, it breaks and avoids the rest of him. His smile, out of sight at this close range, is unpleasant. He holds his other hand above the crown of Martel's hand, wand clutched in his fingers almost like a pencil, near the end.

"I'm afraid you'll have to stay awake."

Consciousness is better, in some ways; he is not quite so resigned to whither goes fate that he wouldn't rather be aware of what's being done to him, inasmuch as he can be besides 'something painful'. His eyes are near-black at this distance (Petra always said he looked a demon in the dark, black-eyed with his hair gleaming, but she always let him in her window anyway-), and there is something edged and familiar there, something that has been here before and knows the passage out through his own darkness.

It's always brutal. This way is condensed; this way he only hurts himself.

He can live with that.

"Lie back and think of Elenia," he says, thinly, because Martel's already proved he can make a joke at his own expense even when he is on his death bed. "I'm not a fluttering virgin, man, don't fear I expect you to be gentle."

If there's one way to ensure an ill-tempered wizard with intimacy phobias will not be indulging in any unwarranted kindness, it's making an extended sexual metaphor. Severus doesn't so much as react as just... go colder, like running water seamlessly changing temperature.

"Quiet."

It's practically spoken to Martel's mind.

Severus has his work cut out for him; he should have set this up better, so his knees aren't digging into the brick floor, but the very sight of the other man made it clear that wasting even more seconds would risk turning the entire block into crater. When this is over, there's a lecture to be had. Now, however, he must find the wound - past the rush of uncontrolled magic and sensory misfires and psychic scar tissue, shoving aside memory and flitting sense of self.

When he finds it he nearly swears. Gods and Merlin, what did this man do to himself?

(He wouldn't be Martel if he weren't an expert in making people intensely dislike his smug ass.)

The wound itself is tinged now with fae magic - magic that had lashed out at him while he was working a far healthier binding into the fabric of Anna's mind, tearing open this old, scarred over injury of mind and sorcery. In effect, it's not one moment but several over the course of a little more than a decade - the stain of the forbidden secrets in the first place, the binding that took him from half-mad to half-mad and in a physically painful despair, the jagged wound where that binding was hacked out of him and replaced with something less kind still-

It's like a back catalogue of every poor decision he's made over the years. It's his history written in his own blood.

Fae magic tends not to like mortals, and that makes itself abundantly, immediately clear when the edges of it are brushed - Severus does swear this time, and he feels the skin on his fingertips singeing, but he doesn't look away. His eyes are as black as Martel's; his father always hated it, called it unnatural, like there was something inherently magical about it and not just rare. He keeps his gaze unnervingly steady, working through it.

Severus discovers in short order that trying to stitch up the damage with rogue magic flinging itself around is going to be impossible, but trying to yank it out of there without stitching up the damage first is ...

... Not safe.

He sucks in a breath and mutters something - Latin, he needs the sledgehammer for this one - and for a heartbeat, Martel stops.

Frozen in time.

Edited 2011-10-31 04:52 (UTC)

A tried and true method in Martel's own universe, albeit not one often employed by mere mortals; his unnatural stillness is complete, body to mind to magic, poised on a moment in a way that's arguably only a more explicit version of every other day of this new life he has now. He lived his life through, as wretched as it became, and everything after that is just this.

(Kurik, he sometimes thinks, could have done something worthwhile with a second chance.)

When Severus can get a clearer look at the damage, the old and layered nature of it is easier to see, to get a feel for how best to work with it.

The power a wizard can wield sometimes reaches alarming levels, it's true; in this moment Martel ought to be thankful, really. Severus does the psychic equivalent of grabbing the wound and holding it closed temporarily so he can rip out the fae magic. It hurts - Merlin only knows what Martel is going to feel as soon as the spell rolls over -

- which it does the second he yanks a veritable handful of it out. Severus reels, psychically, and he can feel blood on his face, the strain of it having done something somewhere inside his head. He pushes on.

From Martel's perspective, between one moment and the next Severus is bleeding from the eye above him and his mind is on fire-- the sound he makes in the back of his throat is low and animal, and that he doesn't struggle is testament to the brutal self-control with which he's been clinging to sanity by his nails. The pain reverberates through him, mind and body; he's gritted his teeth through torture, before, he thinks he can make it through something intended to heal him.

Severus is too far gone into the magic of this man's soul to even fully realize where he is, anymore. It's a good thing he's not bad at this, or else they'd both be dead. His grip only waivers slightly, and once, sucking in oxygen as he steadies himself from the rippling wave of pain. He accepts it, deals with it, centers himself.

Finally, he can begin to mend this. The pain will ebb, now; not go away completely, but for a time, the work will be stable.

Conscious but not what you might call coherent, some instinctive part of him wants to fight against the ebbing of the pain; pain means he's alive, and that slow dulling has meant death or weakness or even servitude in the past. Perhaps he's not so eager to die again as he thinks.

He breathes through it.

It isn't - like the metaphor they all use - stitching, but the work is equally delicate and precise; mending non-corporeal matter, energy. It's not something that Severus learned to do at Hogwarts, or even during his time with the Death Eaters. His ability to see the core of all things magical is innate, and like so many pioneers of his craft, he is largely self-taught.

Perhaps there's a world out there, pristine and alien, in which it does him any good.

Hours tick by. Customers come and go over their heads. The sun sinks, casting shadows long and tall. Blood, finally, stills over Severus' face, and it dries tacky to his skin. When he heaves an exhale, there's finally something substantial under his hands.

Barely verbal, slipping through the silence like a thief: "Still alive in there?"

Edited 2011-10-31 07:25 (UTC)

"Inasmuch as I ever am," Martel returns, his deep voice hoarse and weary; far be it from him to pass up an opportunity to reflect on his own mortality.

Uncharacteristically: "Good enough."

Finally, Severus moves. He pulls himself slowly to his feet, knees cracking - he really is too young for that, but hours and hours and brick. The first thing he does is set his wand aside (it's hot to the touch and hasn't helped the burns he's obtained, but not even brushes with fae magic is enough to get close to damaging it) and pull out a salve for his hands. It's not that he's prioritizing his own discomfort while there's still work to be done, but if he flinches from fatigue or pain, the results could be very bad. Best to attend to it while there's a minute to breathe.

A crackle of something being lit, and Severus comes back over holding something knotted and producing a dark, nearly purple-colored smoke. He speaks quietly to himself in a dead language, and then suspends the smoldering bundle in mid-air over Martel. Only when that's done does he go about wiping the dried blood from his face, though his left eye is still swimming with red.

"Do you want the non-magical painkillers?" Speak now or forever hold your peace.

"No." It's not pride (...it's not entirely pride), but he's aware that Elenes are scarce in these parts and that the variations between worlds can be deceptively minor until medicines designed for a people come out of a specific development become involved- he's a knight (or he was) and he trusts magic a good deal more than he trusts science.

(If Severus had met an Elene physician, he'd understand why.)

"No, I'll manage."

Having just rifled through his head like maniac moments prior, Severus would not have offered if he thought aspirin would turn Martel into a blueberry; thus he assumes it is indeed entirely pride. But it's not as if Martel's suffering means anything to him, thus: suit yourself.

He holds the compress against his eye for a moment longer, catching his breath, before he hauls a chair over to sit on at the knight's bedside, versus torturing himself kneeling again.

"It's mostly secure," he informs him, and draws figures in the air with his wand over Martel's chest, rhythmic. "You won't be safe until it's cleaned up properly, but you'll not topple yourself into oblivion, anyway."

A lifelong mistrust of physicians outside of the absolute necessity is what it is.

"Comforting," he says, thinly, watching the figures with almost reflexive focus; he commits everything to memory, for all the good it may do him, because he can't really help himself. He's prone to noticing things, this one, else he probably wouldn't have lasted as long as he did.

They're to keep Martel from falling apart physically. Handy.

Once that's done and Severus is certain his vision won't abandon him thanks to the blood vessel in his eye, he gets right back to work. This time it's easier - still painful, still difficult, but it's not the battle that it was to close the rift. This is clearing away the remnants of old magic and scar tissue, lingering fae influence and Martel's own innate power that's just circling, purposeless, having been ill-aimed by the injury. It's slow going, but less laborious for the both of them, and Severus is methodical and precise about his work.

Sweat has beaded on his skin and plasters his shirt to his scarred chest, his breathing shallow but steady now that they're past the hard part- he's not going to pass out, at least, there's that. (His pride is very nearly its own entity, but it's not baseless.) As Severus works he's alert but silent, thus proving that even his ability to be a smartass recognizes 'a time and a place'. Commentary is the last thing this needs, especially his.

Severus works until dawn.

When he's done, he's exhausted - but surely the least tired man in the room. He takes a breath and sits back, pushing his hair back from his face and reaching up to remove the once-burning charm, now extinguished.

He passes his hand over Martel's eyes.

"Rest."

It's only almost a spell.

Exhaustion feels as if it's seeped into his bones and though he feels twice his age, the pain is dulled to a healing ache. Even a former Pandion (are they ever really former-? perhaps not- but he knows what Vanion would say on that) is smart enough not to protest the quite correct notion of rest and it's all he can do just to acknowledge that word before he lets himself slip finally and gratefully out of consciousness, dropping like a stone.

Left to his own devices, it'll be hours before he stirs.

Severus does not sleep.

He checks to make sure that Martel is indeed asleep and not dead, or in a coma, and then he goes and drinks a rejuvenation potion which puts him right back where he needs to be. He still feels raw somewhere in his core, but it's more of a curiosity than anything; he's only done this sort of work in small parts, before. Knowing that he can do this - really do it, sustain it, hold it in his hands and bend it to how he wills it - is exhilarating.

He cleans up, he sorts himself, he rolls his sleeves down and puts is coat back on. When Martel wakes, he'll find a tray with bread and water and a glass of something blue and translucent near him; the potion is set at the forefront, a clear indication of in what order those should go down in. Severus himself sits at his desk, reading.

The potion is first, then, when he wakes and after waking when he actually moves (these two things not being so immediately close together). The bread and water follow in short order; not rushed but not savoured, eaten like rations. (Lordly soldier that he is- Martel's fine tastes are educated but in some ways a put on.) He feels burned clean, wakeful now after a solid sleep, and the first thing he intends to do when he gets home is to take a very long, very hot bath.

He's briefly glad to have already made the arrangements for payment; he might've been willing to cough up his firstborn for this.

(Fine tastes would do him no good, here; anything more complex will make him sick for some time. The human body can get a bit delicate when its core has been mucked with.)

Severus remains quiet at his desk until Martel's gone through everything waiting for him.

"How do you feel?"

"Rather as if I've run a gauntlet through troll country," Martel says, managing to inject a hint of dryness into it despite the roughness of his voice and evident weariness.

"Faeries," he corrects, sounding irritable in a way that is directed at every faery, ever, for being such ridiculous and over-powered finicky twats incapable of meshing harmlessly with other magics.

The expression that crosses Martel's face may or may not stir a memory; Severus has seen it before, elsewhere. "This experience has done naught but reinforce to me that they're a damned bloody nuisance."

In fairness, it's also reinforced to his superiors at Hellsing what a clever and useful person he is to have around and may or may not have ensured that Demirovna may remember in the future she owes him one, but given the headache he's presently suffering, he'll care about that later.

Yes, well that's.

Interesting.

The expression that crosses Severus' face is not familiar, but it is a little bit like he is momentarily looking at Martel like he's a science project - even moreso than before when he was - that is about to combust.

And then it passes. (Now the other girl just needs to show up, doesn't she? Gods and fuck. He hopes Sara doesn't. She deserved to get out.)

"Quite." He closes his book. "Your subordinate hadn't mentioned fae magic in the consultation." Or he might have had, you know, safety goggles. (No.)

Edited 2011-11-04 07:27 (UTC)

"She wasn't aware of the specifics." Martel may have been drunk when he agreed to this; he is not admitting that in a month of Sundays, especially not after that bewildering look. "One of the agents at Hellsing is a vampire with a fae power tied into her psyche- she required a binding to ensure her own personality remains dominant." Her desire to maintain access to it had made it delicate work, but his is not to reason why other people are bizarrely content to absorb foreign consciousness.

He's quietly quite proud of that, given he'd had to devise a spell of his own making that he'd only have one chance to get right; all things considered, metaphorically busting the stitches of an existing injury isn't the worst thing that could've happened to him. (It could've been even less terrible if the existing injury hadn't been what it was, though.)

Severus raises his eyebrows at the description - in particular, at 'vampire with a fae power tied to her psyche' - he looks a bit like Martel had actually described some kind of grotesque murder, or casually remarked about his dog going on the rug. How fantastically perverse and troublesome.

(And sort of interesting.)

"If you try that again," he begins, "Perhaps ask after a spotter."

"Noted." He doesn't foresee the same circumstances coming up, mind, and he's steadfastly not thinking of similar work done with his former fellows. Best not to.

Martel massages his temple, absently, sweat-tangled hair one of the first things he intends to thoroughly wash when he's home. (Vain as a peacock.) "Experimental sorcery on an experimental method is always going to have its drawbacks." Especially when there's no opportunity to test it.

He doesn't say 'Quite' again, but he thinks it, and gives Martel a wry, peevish sort of look. Yes, obviously that's true, that's what they just did, except Severus is fine and not somehow exploded on the astral plane. Well done indeed.

"I'll need to see you again in a week to follow up. It went well; I don't foresee anything, being careful never harmed anything."

And it's on his reputation if Martel spontaneously disintegrates. Unacceptable.

In Martel's defense, he isn't an overpowered faerie monstrosity. He's- well, he's not saying anything on the subject, but if he were: he'd just be saying. (He's been described as many things, occasionally monstrous, but he does at least have 'not a faerie' going for him.)

"I'm dead already," he remarks, faintly amused. "It seems a touch late in the day, if not outright wasteful."

That's mostly a joke.

"Well you shan't get a refund if you fall to pieces, so you ought to take the offer."

He tips his hand. "I will concede I haven't got any more inclined to waste money in my old age."

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