A/N: Same stuff applies as in the first chapter. Oh, and unfortunately I neither own Supernatural nor Dark Angel. Just this.
A/N part two: Happy New Year's Eve, and New Year's Day tomorrow! Try not to be like me and only keep up the resolutions for a week before caving. =)
A/N part three: Specific episodes of Supernatural mentioned are: none. Specific episodes of Dark Angel mentioned are: "Pollo Loco," "Designate This," "Two," and kind of "Harbor Lights" and "The Berrisford Agenda."
Of Desire and the Status Quo
Chapter XV: Nothing Weighs on Us So Heavily as a Secret
Max nods at Alec, and they both step slowly closer to Dean, already getting a bad feeling about moving him. He's still mumbling under his breath, the words too close together for Max to understand, but she's got a good idea what they revolve around. In tandem, Max and Alec reach down to grasp Dean by the arms to help him up, but they hadn't quite realized the depth of his fear.
The second they touch Dean, he lashes out, slamming the heel of his hand straight into Alec's nose—"Fuck! Son of a bitch!" Alec yells thickly through cascading blood—and kicks Max in the stomach with his leg. She grunts as the wind is effectively knocked out of her; heavy-duty work boots in an unprepared abdomen do not a pleasant sensation make. Especially when Dean's already done it in the same spot once before.
Dean's eyes are still wild, but it's plain to see that any motion remotely close to him would result in getting hit, kicked, punched, or somewhere in between. Max sighs, unwillingly thinking that they might have to sedate him.
A movement to her left catches her eye, and she looks over to see Joshua shuffling towards her, his shoulders a little slumped, and Max recognizes it as a mix of despondency and the desire to help.
"Joshua help Sad Fella?" he asks earnestly, glancing down at Dean's form. Max is surprised that Joshua was able to tell that Dean isn't Alec, considering as far as Max knows, Joshua wasn't ever around to see they were two different people, and also that he genuinely wants to assist Dean, even though Dean had technically insulted everyone, including him. (Also a little amusement that Joshua has already come up with a nickname for Dean, albeit hoping that particular nickname won't stick forever.)
She appreciates Joshua's good intentions, but she also doesn't want him to get hurt, and although he's strong, she's afraid Dean'll get a few good hits in, and she'd never forgive herself if that happened.
"I don't think you can help Dean right now, Josh," she says placatingly, putting a hand on Joshua's arm. "He's…he doesn't really know what's going on."
The dog-man shakes his head in protest. "Joshua help," he insists. "Sad Fella confused, scared. Doesn't know who is friend. Sad Fella like Isaac."
Max starts to speak, and then pauses. She wouldn't say Dean is exactly like Isaac—as far as she knows, Dean has never cut tongues out of people's mouths—but she can see where Joshua would make the connection. Joshua never really saw Isaac as particularly dangerous, just confused, and at least what he said about Dean is true, to an extent.
"Sad Fella not hurt Joshua," the dog-man continues confidently.
"Max, might 's well give it a shot," Alec interrupts viscidly before Max can protest. Someone had given him a towel to hold up to his nose, which had already started to bruise and is most likely broken. (Max is a little impressed that Alec's still able to keep mostly a level head even though his day has really gone to crap during the last few minutes.) "Maybe Dean likes dogs or something."
Max snorts. "Yeah? He'll probably say Joshua's a werewolf," she snaps, given that Dean had called Alec a shapeshifter. Letting out a strained breath, she looks around the room for Terminal City's appointed medic. "Rade, you got any of those sedatives left?"
The medic, a shapely, auburn-haired X5 who doesn't take shit from anyone, least of all Max or Alec, scoffs. "Max, all we bother to store are horse tranquilizers. This guy's an Ordinary—you want to eighty-six him, by all means, I'll go get them."
Max supposes she should have known this. After all, with the combination of a transgenic's metabolism and their generally sturdier systems, high doses of ketamine were required for sedation (not that they have to do so often, mind you), doses that are reserved for large animals, commonly horses. Ketamine is also used for human medicine, but at much smaller levels, and if Dean were given it with the saturation that T.C. had, well, if he didn't die, he'd at least be in a hell of a lot of trouble, quite possibly worse than he was at White's.
It did make sense, though, since Ordinaries weren't a common occurrence in the transgenic city. Really, the only person that showed up was Logan, and once Cindy, and Max had never figured they'd be around enough or in enough danger to warrant keeping a supply of human tranquilizers. And it isn't like Max can just put a sleeper hold on Dean. Not if she wants to keep her arms intact, anyway.
So, against her much better wishes, she nods. "All right, Joshua," she concedes finally. "Just…be careful."
She watches cautiously as he approaches Dean, regretting her decision the whole time. Dean looks Joshua up and down, still breathing heavily. "No…" he whispers, fingernails still digging into the floor.
"Joshua not hurt Sad Fella," Joshua says, his brown eyes, if possible, even more innocent and sincere than usual. "Joshua help Sad Fella."
"Sammy…" Dean murmurs, his body shaking.
"Not hurt Sammy," Joshua assures, even though Max knows Joshua doesn't know who Sam is, or what either brother was condemned of. Maybe, she ponders, it's better that way. "Sammy safe. Joshua not hurt Sad Fella, not hurt Sammy."
Dean bites his lip, still frightened and staring at Joshua like he's one of the "monsters" he'd been yelling about before. ("Monsters" that Max thinks, after Dean's shapeshifter comment, aren't applying to the transgenics, to whom the term usually is attributed. Not that she knows what Dean's "monsters" are.)
When Dean doesn't move, just keeps looking at Joshua, the dog-man decides he must have assured Dean that at least Sam wouldn't be hurt, though Max doubts Dean is of the opinion that he won't be hurt.
Remarkably not intimidated—or maybe just still with his mantra of Dean not being dangerous, only confused—Joshua steps forward and lifts Dean up effortlessly, one hand on Dean's right shoulder blade, the other underneath his thighs, to where there isn't any pressure on Dean's misaligned shoulder, although there is still blood dripping from his back. Max and Alec look at each other, the both of them surprised at how easily Joshua was able to convince Dean, and also somewhat miffed that they'd escaped with bruises and blood, while Joshua wasn't harmed in the least.
"Where Joshua put Sad Fella?" Joshua asks, carrying Dean who has by this time shut his eyes, his whole face in an expression of being assured—perceiving—there would be immense pain in the near future.
"Um…just—you can put him on the couch in my office," Max determines, thinking that if she were scared out of her wits and thought she was going to be tortured, the last place she'd want to be would be a hospital.
"Your office?" Alec hisses. He'd taken the towel off of his face, but blood is still streaked underneath it, and Max can see his usually straight and unblemished nose is off-angled, the bone cleanly but harshly severed. Max has to hand it to Dean—he knows how to break a bone.
Max ignores Alec and speaks to Joshua again. "Go ahead, Josh," she assures. "I'll be there in a second." Then she turns to Alec, and sternly orders, "You go to Rade and get her to fix you up. Your broken nose is aesthetic, your slashed muscle isn't. Now."
Alec appears like he's going to protest, but he's been favoring his leg—for good reason—ever since Dean threw the knife in it, and truthfully, it hurts like fuck. Plus, Alec's pretty sure a piece of his jeans got sliced off and stuck in the wound, and it would be even less fun to have his advanced healing end up sealing in the denim, forcing him to have to reopen the wound to dig it out. Fine. But he's keeping Dean's sweet knife.
He's heading off to where Rade is rolling her eyes but already prepping her tools when Max's voice stops him again. "Alec." she sighs impatiently. "Give it back."
Without looking at her, Alec huffs, but tosses the open blade at Max—like he's going to close it when it's covered in blood? Come on, now—and even though she was expecting him to just hand it to her, her quick reflexes came into play and she caught it a few inches before it wedged into her arm.
"Alec!" she yelled angrily. He'd almost killed her. Okay, maybe not, she concedes, but close enough. Not that he's listening. Giving up, Max addresses the sizable amount of transgenics who had been watching the entire spectacle with Dean. "Listen up, all of you," she says firmly. "Dean—the guy Josh just left with—isn't quite right at the moment, and he doesn't know what we are, or that we're just trying to live our lives. Pretty messed up situation we got going on, but under no circumstances are you to harm him. If there's a problem concerning Terminal City, talk to Alec until I get back. Understand?"
Half-hearted assent reaches Max's ears at her command, which is going to have to be enough. The situation is volatile as it is, and Max doesn't want to piss anyone off more than she has to. With that, she heads down the hallway Joshua had recently taken Dean, leaving the residents of T.C. to wonder what the hell just happened.
Max enters her office quietly, cautiously. Joshua had placed Dean where she prescribed, and Dean's sitting on the cushions with his knees drawn up to his chest, right arm wrapped around them, left hanging off-kilter, as he stares into nothing. Joshua's standing a few yards away from Dean, looking nervous and unsure, even though he'd been the only one to get Dean to not kick his ass nine ways from Sunday.
"Hey, Big Fella," Max says to Joshua, coming to sit on the edge of her desk, in between the two men. "How's it going?"
"Joshua okay," he replies. Then, pointing to Dean, he says regrettably, "Very sad. Want his Sammy."
"Do you know what's wrong?" Max asks, thinking that if anyone would have a glimmer of insight into Dean's ADMAX-like brain, it'd be Joshua.
Joshua shakes his head. "Sad Fella not want to talk," he relays.
Max figured as much. She studies his dislocated shoulder worriedly. She really wants it to get looked at—Alec was none too gentle in chucking Dean into the railing—but Rade is the best doctor they have, and she doesn't need her in jeopardy. She guesses she can send someone out for human sedatives, or at least call Logan or Cindy, but the military's still stationed outside T.C., and although they have the sewers, she'd be dispatching someone into imminent danger, and she doesn't want it on her head if someone dies. She's stuck in between a rock and a hard place, and she hates it.
"Think he'll pay attention to anything I say?" Max queries.
"Don't know," he says, putting a hand on Max's shoulder. "But Max try. Maybe Sad Fella listen."
Max gives Joshua a small smile. "Thanks, Joshua," she replies, wishing her upcoming task would be as easy as getting Alec to talk, but of course her luck would make Alec's lookalike be the strong, silent type. She can only imagine what O.C. would say about that observation. Heathcliff my ass, Max muses faintly.
"Find Alec?" Joshua inquires, reasoning that if things get hairy, Max might need a second transgenic there, just in case.
"No," Max negates. "I think that would make it worse." And she does. At least Dean kind of knows Max; he doesn't know Alec, and, hell, he'd accused the guy of being a mythical creature. Not to mention Max is dubious that Alec would even want to be in the room. "I'll be okay, Josh, honestly."
Joshua nods hesitantly, but he trusts Max's intuitions, and she's not steered him wrong yet, so he leaves her alone with the guy who'd attacked her and Alec, who'd shouted that they were all monsters, and hopes both Max and Dean come out okay. He shuts the door behind him and goes to see Alec, who he knows would either be looking to kick Dean's ass or milk his injuries for all they're worth just so he can get some tail. Either one has equal potential, it's hard to tell with Alec. Or, on second thought, maybe both.
"You're a moron," says Rade, reaching behind her to get some tweezers. "What, you didn't think to check if he had a blade on him? Kind of a rookie mistake, Alec."
Alec hisses as Rade digs in the metal instrument to pull out the piece of denim in his thigh. "And you're a butcher," he whines, watching her thread string through a needle. "And no, I didn't. Sorry if I didn't think a totally out of it, bleeding, unusable shouldered Ordinary would be packing."
Rade scoffs. "He's your clone, isn't he?" she asks rhetorically. Alec is about to protest, but she continues. "Like you wouldn't be packing even if you were wounded."
"That's different," Alec replies, refusing to wince as Rade begins to stitch up the elaborate slash in his leg. "Manticore practically made with a knife or gun attached right to our skin. Plus, the guy's a civilian. What kind of human tries to pick a fight in a room full of transgenics?"
Finished with her ministrations on his leg, Rade reaches up and, without warning, puts both hands on either side of Alec's nose and pushes them together, snapping the bone back in place. Alec swears, more against the unawareness he had that she was going to fix it so crudely (if expertly, he adds with reluctance).
"Well," Rade ponders aloud, unable to resist taking a jibe at Alec, "seems like the guy's not really a regular civilian, right? Grapevine is, he's half of that criminal tag-team a while ago."
"Yeah, yeah, don't remind me," says Alec, still bitter and unsure ever since he'd found out Dean's crimes. He still has a certain amount of respect for the brothers' ability to escape the law, but that doesn't mean he wants Dean's felonies attached to that.
Rade shakes her head, taking in the brooding X5. He does it well, the pouty lips and bedroom eyes thing, but she knows that ninety percent of the time, it's all an act, he doesn't really have many legitimate reasons to sulk so much. Sure, Alec is co-leader of their "freak nation" and haunted by Manticore (something else, too, but no one knows what), but so are the rest of them. She supposes maybe Alec should be able to mope about this Dean person, but really, the expression doesn't suit him.
"My heart bleeds for you," she deadpans, and then tosses a roll of gauze at him. "Wrap this around your leg if it starts gushing again, and ice your nose if you're that sensitive to it."
Alec smirks. Now that, Rade muses stoically, is a perfect fit for him. "Love you, too, sweetheart," he says sardonically, leering at her.
"Get out, Alec," she orders, giving him a gentle shove towards the exit. She notices that he's limping, but that's to be expected, and she doubts it'll be in effect past tomorrow evening. Well, unless Alec decides to fake the injury's severity, which Rade wouldn't put past him. She sighs scornfully, infuriated with herself for ever coming into contact with X5-494.
Max has never been much for the sharing and caring, but she's of the mind that she's pretty good at getting people to tell her things, whether out of necessity, intimidation, or just plain making them angry enough to where they end up spilling whatever it is. But as she looks at Dean, she has a looming suspicion that none of those tactics would work on him.
For one, she'd never quite tried to get something out of someone whose mind was on the brink (save for Ben, and look how that turned out), and for two, she doesn't have any leverage or prior knowledge to tempt, taunt, or threaten Dean with. All she's got is a federal file, and in her experience, those are more often than not either concealing something or totally off base with it. She knows, she knows that there's way more to Dean's story than she's been informed, but unfortunately, there's no one who can really set the record straight. At least no one within reasonable distance or accessibility.
She could hunt down Sam, she opines, but there would be too many roadblocks with that method to make it worthwhile. Not only was Sam a master at deception and hiding, but Max doesn't even know if he's alive, let alone what city he'd be in, and, if Sam is alive, since Dean didn't seem to be actively—or, to be precise, successfully—searching for his brother by the time Cindy'd found him, Max doubts Dean and Sam have seen each other in a while. Additionally, who's to say Sam would even believe that Max knows Dean, and on top of that, Sam was around when the Pulse hit, so he probably knows who the transgenics are, has seen Max on TV; if he is (was?) anything like Dean, Max doesn't really want to mess with him.
Just when she thought her life was getting to a semblance of organization, Dean Winchester has to go and screw it up. Well, no one ever said Max's existence was meant to be easy. In fact, compared to most of the shit she'd had thrown at her, this would be a piece of cake. Should be.
Max clears her throat, hoisting herself up to sit cross-legged on her desk, her hands clasped in front of her. She's far enough away from Dean that she figures she's not in much danger, but close enough so that, should he decide to actually pay attention to her, he wouldn't think she was afraid to get within space of him.
"Dean?" she asks, staring intently at him and cataloguing the movements he makes, much as she had for most other people she'd encountered. It'd done her well in the past, on the occasion that someone she'd met turned out to be her adversary, allowing her the upper hand because she already knew how they carried themselves.
Dean doesn't say anything, and he doesn't shift positions on the couch, but his eyes—half-closed, probably from the pain of his screwed shoulder—slide over to rest on her. His stance is casual enough, but from the way he's gripping onto his jeans, and the sharp clench of his jaw, she can tell he's the farthest thing from it.
"Okay, well, if you won't talk, just listen," Max says, considering what Joshua had told her. "You didn't really give me a chance to explain earlier. Bearing in mind Mole's personality, I can understand your surprise."
Dean blinks.
Maybe this would be harder than she thought. "Guess I should start with my name, since I already know yours," she goes on, uncomfortable with the one-sided small talk. "I'm Max Guevara, former Jam Pony bike messenger, now leader of essentially a nation of people who've been outcast from society. All of us ex-Manticore test subjects."
A tiny spark of interest lights in Dean's eyes, and Max is just glad she caught it. Means something in what she'd said struck a note in Dean's memory or attention, and she's going to latch onto it regardless of how small.
"You do know Manticore, right? They were outed around a year ago," she says, studying Dean's face for any reactions. He doesn't give her any, except maybe the tiniest bit of recognition, which she assumes came from Zero's abbreviated version. "Guess you don't. Long story from Hell short, it was a secret government facility that specialized in throwing together genes from different people and animals to create a super-soldier. That's what all of us in Terminal City are, from various stages and successes of Manticore.
"I'm an X5, so is Alec (that's the guy you threw the knife into, by the way, so if he hits you, that's one of the reasons). The public found out about us about a month and a half ago, and we've been forced to find our own ways. Finally found a place to live—a crappy place to live, but that's our lives for you—here, and we're doing okay, given the givens."
When Dean's eyebrow raises in the international sign of You've got to be shitting me, Max is halfway on the way to scoffing, before she realizes that Dean is actually responding to what she's saying. Well, sorta. (The thing that she doesn't get, of course, is the cause for Dean's gesture—his incredulity that what she went through was Hell. Not like he'd be sharing his story anytime soon, but he's unconvinced anyway.)
"What's that supposed to mean?" she retorts, affronted. "You can't call bullshit on something that's so not." She waits for Dean to say something, but he doesn't. "Fine. Well, I've told you my basic background, what about you? All I know is your name's Dean."
Dean snorts. "Liar." he says caustically, searing her with his eyes.
"What?" Max asks, surprised. "I am not."
Dean's lip curls a little as he snaps sarcastically, "So you don't know that I'm Dean Winchester, serial killer extraordinaire? Heard you and your friend talking. Don't lie to me. I'm sick of it."
Max frowns at Dean's words, not because he had totally called her bluff, but because of the vehemence and bitterness—and was there a little shudder?—behind his declaration of hating untruths. She doesn't think anyone really enjoys them, and Max herself despises them, but there was something behind Dean's voice that makes her wonder…
"All right, no lies," she accedes, willing to abide by Dean's stipulations for the time being. "I'm guessing you already know your criminal record, might I say it's very impressive, and going by that, I should have kicked your ass out on the curb a long time ago, or at least let White have it, but I've not. Want to give me a reason why I should let you stay?"
Dean narrows his eyes at her, disdainful. "Well don't do me any favors," he snipes. The action going with the words, Dean stands up defiantly, valiantly withholding from wincing.
Max is off the desk and at Dean's side in less than a second, her support the only thing preventing him from collapsing on the ground. "Dean!" she exclaims, catching his waist. "Jesus, you're going to make it worse."
His huff of pure antithesis reaches her ears, even as he breathes heavier than normal. "Dislocated shoulder is nothing," he says, gesturing to the respective appendage. "I've had much, much worse."
"Yeah, well, doesn't matter," Max replies firmly. "Dean, you have to get this fixed up. It'll mess with your mobility or worse if you don't."
"What do you care?" Dean inquires, his head tilted slightly, and isn't that the million dollar question that Max can't answer for the life of her. "I mean, I'm just a guy with an 'impressive criminal record,' right?"
Max shakes her head, still holding tightly onto Dean's middle. "I don't know," she responds honestly. "All I do know is that there's something not right about all this, and I intend to find out what. And if that means harboring a murderer, then so be it."
Dean stares at her for a long minute before sighing. "You're really not going to give up," he states, like he's already got her figured out. "Guess you're the village bitch I get to deal with, then. Super."
Her scowl is frigid, her lips pressed together, but it only feeds into Dean's mood. "I've been told," Max replies glacially. "But no, I don't give up. Not on something that's important to me. Right now, what's important to me is getting that arm of yours reset. It's even more of a concern because you're an Ordinary; unfortunately, you don't have the sped-up healing that we do."
"Lucky me."
"Please," Max entreats, not in the past and not now enjoying the feel of the word on her tongue. But sometimes even small concessions are necessary. "I'll have Rade come in here if you want, just please let her look at your arm. She won't hurt you."
"I'm not scared of anyone," Dean snaps, as if Max's words had scalded him. He glares at the door of her office for a while before his rigid posture slumps in defeat, and he falls back onto the couch cushions.
"Thanks," Max says, walking to her door to call for someone to get the doctor. She's pretty damn sure her office is inescapable apart from the door, but she doesn't want to take any chances with Dean.
He bends his head down so he's looking at the ground, studying the stained, cracked concrete with unusual intensity. "'S only 'cause she's hot," Dean mumbles to himself, so quietly he probably doubted Max could hear him, but she did anyway, and hid a smile.
She steps out into the hallway, glancing around for the nearest transgenic she knows well. "Hey! Dalton!" she calls, spotting the spiky-haired, smartass X6 a few yards away. He looks up in answer. "Can you get Rade in here for me?"
"Why?" Dalton asks curiously.
"Just do it," Max directs; Dalton shrugs and ambles over towards the infirmary. He likes to commend himself for being mostly unafraid of everything, but Max had that tone, and he really doesn't want to get in her bad graces. Leastways because she's acting all weird over that Ordinary that no one knows practically anything about. He's wary of Rade, too, but he'd rather her wrath than Max's.
He catches Alec watching him sharply from his position going over some mission specs or other with Mole, and Dalton would bet Vegas money that Alec guesses the reason Dalton's heading to retrieve their best medic. However, much as Dalton idolizes the guy, and much as Dalton doesn't really have a grasp on what's happening, he has the feeling that some very bad shit would go down if Alec and that Dean person were to see each other again soon.
It wouldn't be Dalton's fault, but odds would be split about fifty-fifty as to whether Max would blame Alec or Dalton over the fiasco. And Dalton really isn't in the mood for getting yelled at. Moreover, he's got an X6 named Tyren to beat at pool later tonight, and he's not going to risk winning the sizable pot just because Max felt like censuring him.
"Yo, Rade," Dalton greets, knocking belatedly on the open door to announce his arrival.
Rade whirls around, her chestnut hair tied up in a tight ponytail, but upon seeing Dalton, she relaxes and settles her hands on her hips. "Dalton, what do you want?"
"Loaded question," he tries licentiously, but hurries on at her icy glare. "Max is asking for you."
"It's the Ordinary, isn't it," Rade groans, already unhappy with Dean even staying in Terminal City, let alone at the prospect of treating him. She doesn't have anything against Dean himself, per se, but from what she's witnessed, all Ordinaries are guilty until proven innocent.
"I dunno," Dalton shrugs, leaning against the doorframe. "She just said she needed me to get you, her office."
Rade huffs discontentedly, turning away from Dalton to find something to patch up Dean's shoulder with, once again doleful at T.C.'s dismal cache of medical sundries. The way things had suddenly turned, she'd have to bump up her requisitions to Urgent.
Once she scrounges up some mediocre antiseptic, bandages, and towels, she brushes past Dalton, striding her way across Command and shooting Alec a glower—it's technically his fault, after all, that she has to do this. He doesn't look sheepish in the least. Shocker.
When Rade enters Max's office and shuts the door behind her, she is immediately overwhelmed with how tense the room is. She's used to breakable situations, but at the moment, she feels like one wrong step could shatter the scene like a misplaced block of C-4. Max is leaning against her desk, drumming her fingers against the rough wood, and attempting to not look like she's watching Dean's every move, but from the tightness in the man's back, Rade can tell he's anything but unaware.
"So this is Dean," Rade says conversationally, depositing her items on the desk. "Alec throw you pretty good against the wall there?"
She nods to his shoulder, which, despite whatever recriminations she holds against Ordinaries, is pretty damn gruesome. Through the red staining his shirt, she can surmise how bad the long tear and bloodied skin are underneath. She can already tell neither she, nor even more so he, would like this particular patch-up job.
"Alec's the gangly one who looks like me?" Dean asks, his tone predatory. "Gotta tell you, kid's way scrawnier than I was."
Rade grants Dean a half-smile. At least he wouldn't be a boring patient. Small mercies, she supposes. "Well, let's get this over with, shall we?" Dean makes a noncommittal noise, which she takes as assent. "You'll need to strip."
"What?" Dean coughs, royally caught off guard. "Look, lady, you're cute, but—"
"Shut it," Rade snaps. Her glare isn't quite what pauses him; more the wicked-looking hypodermic that she wields in her hand. "I'm not going to use this unless I have to."
"I thought you said that would kill him!" Max protests, up until now uncharacteristically silent.
Rade regards Max grimly. "Hey, I'm doing you a huge-ass favor here by fixing this guy up, and I am not going to get caught in the crossfire if he decides to go all primal again, all right?" she states, before finally setting down the needle. "Dean—it's Dean, right?—shirt off so I can get to your shoulder. Unless you want nerve damage and irreparable swelling going on; hear that's bad for you folks."
Dean sneers at Rade, before apparently seeing the merit in her argument, and so goes to remove his olive tee shirt, but just as he gets it over his head, the fabric catches on the partially congealed blood on his skin, and Dean yelps in pain before he can fully stifle it.
Rade was completely fine being an unfeeling bitch towards Dean up to that moment. She tends to pose herself as stern and firm, but overall pretty even-tempered and fair; her bedside manner may leave some to be desired, but she isn't a damn pediatrician, after all.
She'd thought of Dean as an equally callous Ordinary, but upon watching his irate determination to, what, prove his toughness she hypothesizes, to the point where any other Ordinary would have begged for at least Novocain, if not morphine, she's thinking some reassessment may be in order. Because it isn't just that—it's the self-loathing that cases Dean's eyes amongst the anger, a self-loathing that Rade realizes stems from his being incapacitated, like it somehow makes him lesser of a person.
Well, her soul be damned, but she isn't heartless. Not even to crazy humans.
"Hold on, Dean," she sighs, perching on the armrest of the couch next to him. She works her fingers over and around the cloth to loosen it gently from the blood, and then eases off the rest of Dean's shirt, avoiding his injury as much as possible. Rade glances over briefly to Max, who's looking rather uncomfortable. "Max, if you want to leave, I've got this."
Max shakes her head, avoiding looking at Dean, whether because of his state of undress or because he's busy doing the steady, methodical breaths in and out that every soldier knows are for trying to control severe anguish.
"No," she answers solidly. But she does take a seat in her wobbly chair and pretend to look over inventory reports.
Rade turns back to Dean, reaching down and unlooping the belt from his jeans and handing it to him. "Sorry," she offers, surprising herself at the sincerity she means. "We have pain killers, but those would kill you along with the pain. Afraid you'll be resorted to biting down on this."
Dean regards her with incredulity. "A belt?" he demands, his voice a little breathier than before. "Seriously? A little ghetto even for you guys, isn't it?"
The medic doesn't answer, gauging Dean as being in the stage of patients getting deliberately hostile as a pretext for their knowing hurt is coming up next. She pours a good amount of the antiseptic on a towel, and, bracing herself—she's seen transgenics in the field with injuries like this, and they weren't so stoic themselves; she's not looking forward to a lower pain tolerance human's reaction—places it firmly against Dean's back.
His lack of response startles her, and she glances up. His expression is oddly placid, but too placid, like he's focusing everything he has into not showing any self-perceived failure.
Well, Rade thinks pragmatically, this'll make my job that much easier.
She makes quick work of cleaning around the laceration, as well as sewing it closed, Dean's skin marred by neat black lines after she's done. The more surface care done, she then peers at the disjointing of his shoulder, his humerus shoving his skin convexly.
She turns to Max, shaking her head. "He really needs to see an actual doctor, Max," she declares. "I mean, I stitched the gash up, but we don't have any radiological equipment here for his shoulder, so I can't see the dislocation properly, not to mention I can't see if he's done damage to any ligaments, muscles, or something else entirely. Best guess is he's at least got a torn rotator cuff, but I just can't tell. Swelling's increasing, too. If he were transgenic, I'd just say pop it back in and let it heal, but for an Ordinary…"
"You can't do anything for it?" Max questions, wishing she'd bothered to learn more of human field med at some point. She just hadn't ever thought she'd need to use it. Ha.
"Oh, sure could, got any x-ray Nomalies hanging around?" Rade retorts, glaring at her de facto CO. "Look, he's got three choices. Go to an actual hospital, you smuggle in an x-ray machine and arthroscopic equipment so I can see what I'd be dealing with, or this guy in all likelihood either loses use of his shoulder or goes into neurogenic shock. Your call."
Max starts to answer, but is interrupted by laughter. Dean's laughter. Both women snap their eyes to him, thoroughly dumbfounded. Not just that he's laughing, but that it sounds wrong. They'd never heard him laugh before, exactly, but there's just such a harsh undertone to it that, had they envisioned what normally he'd sound like, that's far from it.
"The way you're talking," Dean says by way of cryptic clarification. "Fuck, you'd think I was your little freak cousin who's never been outside this godforsaken city."
"Max?" Rade asks. She doesn't know any more than Dean's name and species, having not wallowed herself in the full extent of the rumor mill yet.
"He, uh, Cindy ran into him in Sector Five a week or so ago. All he told her was his name, but we found his rap sheet, his and his brother's."
"And?" Rade continues, peering at Dean. "Can't be that bad, right, guy looks not even thirty."
Max chuckles. "That's the thing," she answers. "It said Dean was born in 1979, his brother 1983. We're still marinating."
"Ah. That would do it."
Max looks at Dean's injury once again, and then flips open the cell phone that Alec had insisted she carry. "I'll call Logan, see if he can take Dean to Harbor Lights. I'll take Joshua to help me with Dean through the sewers, just in case."
"Sewers?"
"It's the only covert way in and out of Terminal City," Max explains to Dean, who hadn't been awake for the ride over. "Sorry."
"Stop apologizing," Dean bites, ireful. "It's unbecoming."
Refusing to rise to the bait, Max turns away from him and dials Logan's number from memory. Two rings later, he answers, and she can just picture him rolling away from his computer screen to concentrate better on what she's saying; the familiar image is like a solace to this surreality she'd inadvertently plopped herself in.
"Logan, I need a huge favor from you," she greets, going for the proverbial ripping of the Band-Aid off quickly.
"What kind of favor?" Logan questions, his tone instantly changing to that of wary curiosity.
Max sighs, running her fingers through her hair. "I need you to take Dean to the hospital," she admits. "Things got out of hand over here, and Alec ended up throwing him against a wall. Rade thinks he's got a ripped rotator cuff or something, but she can't see it well enough to set it right. Also, we don't have any numbing stuff that won't totally kill him."
She listens to Logan's brief silence that indicates to her he's for a few moments considering denying that request. "So you want me to give a mass murderer a ride to the hospital to fix up a simple dislocation?"
She grits her teeth, wishing Logan would just trust her on this. "Logan, there's more to the whole fugitive thing than I think we know at this point," she tells him candidly.
She hadn't meant to exactly; Logan errs on the side of seeing things as a little more black and white than she, O.C., and some select transgenics are about there being more than meets the eye. She can't really blame him, seeing as that's how most of Logan's encounters to date have been. Also, more on point, he clearly remembers the whole saga with Dean and his brother, while Max and everyone else in T.C. either don't know at all, or have had to go by third-party information to glean knowledge.
Logan exhales, already knowing he'll give in. "All right, Max," he intones, making his displeasure about the whole thing more than apparent. "But if he kills me, I'm unremorsefully haunting you."
Max quirks a smile despite herself. (Dean, of course, had he heard Logan's statement, would be sure to find the guy's gravesite upon expiration.) "Deal."
Flipping the phone closed, Max turns back around, to find Dean gingerly but anxiously pulling his shirt back over his head, Rade helping him to not aggravate his shoulder. Hearing Max's conversation end, Dean asks, "Who the hell is Logan?"
She regards Dean hesitantly, and then shares a loaded glance with Rade, the other woman's amusement evident. Not like Max can accurately disagree—Logan and Dean in a car together would be a spectacle. Whether made by awkwardness, violence, disparagement, or something utterly different, she morbidly almost wishes she could be there to see Logan's face, if nothing else.
"Truthfully, your total opposite."