fourthwalled | Duplicity IC Inbox

The bugs we have on Umayma, it would be a simple matter. I would not consider cancer to be a fatal affliction.

With my own skills and access to what I have here, I could manage it at least to not permit the cancer to cause further damage.

I'll take what I can get. I only need to make it to the end of the week.
Then my abilities will be returned and I'll be okay.
As okay as I can ever be anyway.

If you need long term medical help I’m happy to be of assistance.

I live upstairs from you, I’ll be down shortly.

[ and he is, a modestly dressed black man with a submissive mark on his throat who knocks on the door. ]

[It takes Wade some time to haul himself over to the door to let the man in. He takes a moment to look him over, perhaps looking for any bugs. Wade's own submissive mark is obvious despite the extensive scarring that covers every inch of his body.]

Bug Whisperer? [Honestly Wade's completely forgotten the name he'd offered over messenger. He could look again, but that involved effort. And he didn't have a lot of spare.]

Yes, that's me. Rhys Dashasa.

[ Rhys offers a smile, wondering inside a little at what he sees. The man truly has not gotten any kind of medical help, at least not by Rhys' estimation. He wishes he were a better magician, wishes he could do something about those scars. But that's a familiar ache. ]

Can I touch you? See what I might need to do?

[ He'd planned to chat more, put the man at ease, but he feels a certain urgency at this. ]

Rhys. Got it.

[He's probably going to forget it again. But his brain is kind of a sieve right now. Wade closes the door behind the man, needing a moment to rest with his back pressed against the wall. The simple walk to the door had taken a lot out of him.]

Uh, sure. Touch me. Touch me all over. [Now is not the time to flirt, Wade.]

[ Rhys doesn't comment on the innuendo, instead reaching out to make contact with Wade's skin and his own hand. He reaches out with his magic, following the path of blood and nerves through the body to see where the cancer is, to understand the web it's made over how his body should be working.

Rhys is quiet for a moment, intense. Certainly it's been let get worse than it should have. ]

[Rhys will find the cancer is spread nearly everywhere. Concentrated most of all in his blood, liver, lungs, brain, and prostate.

Wade stands there while he does his inspection, the silence killing him nearly as much as the cancer.] So... [He makes a tapping noise with his tongue awkwardly.] Pretty bad, huh? I'm a mess, I know.

You should have been treated for this, yes.

[ Rhys stays in contact with him, feeling the paths of connections, of nerves and blood. Trying to figure out what he can do to control this. ]

Tried to. Tried everything back home. But we didn't have bug wizards. So clearly that was the problem.

[Wade stays and watches Rhys do whatever it is that he's doing. He doesn't really feel much of anything. But he's also hopped up on painkillers to dull his already immense pain.]

Magicians, but quite possibly.

[ Rhys isn't a very good magician, by his own standards, by the standards of his people. But even a hedge witch could help with cancer, even advanced, and he works at a level too small to be felt in discrete steps as he isolates cancerous cells, shifts nerve endings to try to help with the pain. It's precise work, but easily enough done here, where he has the time and space to work. ]

What's the cause of yours?

[ The answer won't affect what Rhys is doing, but his voice is calm, his hands steady as he works. It's a way to keep Wade focused, to keep him calm. Rhys has no idea if that's necessary or not. ]

Potato, potat-oh.

[He doesn't see much distinction between the words but could be it is some horrible insulting slur? Hopefully not. He giggles a bit as Rhys works. It feels like he's tickling his organs.]

The cause? I've no idea. I just felt ill one day. It started in my lungs. But it's not like I was a big smoker.

[ Rhys' primary focus is on the interior of Wade's body, but he can carry on the conversation well enough during that. It's good for him to have the focus. ]

Genetic? Your people can't fix such tendencies?

Nope. We're just not cool enough, I guess. Normally my healing factor means I can't ever die. But the cancer... still there.

So does where you're from not have cancer at all? Damn. [That would have saved Wade a lot of trouble. And heartache. And torture.]

That sounds painful.

[ Feels it, too, with the work Rhys is doing. ]

There are still environmental cancers - difficult to avoid skin cancer on a world with two suns when most people can't afford the good filters - but they can be removed.

Lucky you. I had to search for a cure and wound up tortured and given super powers instead. But that didn't actually get rid of the cancer. Just meant it couldn't ever kill me.

[He glances down at the power dampening collar on his ankle.] Unless some dickhead takes those powers away from me of course.

There are other disadvantages to the world I'm from. We can cure cancer, but we can also invent other biological weapons.

[ That's definitely not what Rhys is here for, though. ]

Those in charge here are shits.

[ Even the milder form of the insult feels weird in his mouth, probably comes out sounding odd too. Rhys is too used to being polite. ]

What are your powers?

[ He's almost done, but it seems good to try to keep Wade distracted from the strange sensation. It's not exactly painful, but a little like an itching under the skin. ]

Duplicity IC Inbox

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject