no flaws in this plan

[madboy]

Who: Gil and Klaus Wulfenbach, maybe later other members of the Klaus Haus of Science
What: Gil got his Spark back! At a cost! Klaus thinks he's a goddamned idiot.
Where: In the neighborhood area and then probably Klaus's place
When: May 28, evening
Warnings: Blood and stuff.



[Okay. Okay, awesome. Gil has the bleeding from what was once his leg under control; he's no longer in immediate danger of bleeding out in the street. The shirt was disposable anyway. He'll still have to get home, of course, to take care of whatever was causing his innards to fill with blood. Gil was guessing a missing organ, perhaps a kidney or pancreas; it wasn't made clear to him.

Of course, going to the hospital was out of the question, so Gil had repurposed a broom into a crutch so he could make his way back to his assigned house. For now it would suffice; it would only take a day or two to cobble together a basic prosthetic, provided he doesn't die.

So yes. Just ignore the pale, bloodied man with a manic grin hobbling down the sidewalk. The drones certainly are.]

Comments

[myblimpisbigger]

GILGAMESH!

[WHAT THE FUCK YOU ACTUALLY DID IT OH MY GOD

Have an exceptionally angry father bearing down on you, looking like murder.]

[madboy]

[But probably not actual murder! Gil is in to bad a shape to be murdered, and he's pretty sure his father knows to wait until later.

Still, terrible coincidence that this is when they run into one another.]

Uh...

...Do you usually patrol the sidewalks?

[myblimpisbigger]

[sdJFOIDJFDSUYGESOIFJSDIJFDSOFJDSIOFJdsiofjdsiofjdsoifysogfe

That is what Klaus's brain looks like right now]

I'm on my way home from work and I felt it necessary to make sure you hadn't done anything stupid! Clearly I'm too late. I hope it was worth it.

Now let's get you healed before you bleed out. That shirt isn't going to delay it indefinitely, you know.

[madboy]

Do you really think I'd let a shirt fester in an open wound indefinitely? I wasn't even counting on running into you; this was a patch job intended simply to get me home! I already have six designs in my head for better alternatives! I'm not worried about my leg.

So yes, father, it was worth it.

[myblimpisbigger]

[Is this going to turn into a Sparky shouting match

Because Klaus is fully prepared for that]

I'm still very disappointed in you. The one thing I warned you against, Gil. The ONE THING!

[He sighs deeply, his shoulders deflating.]

For god's sake, I just want to keep you safe. I can't do that if you purposefully make it difficult.

[madboy]

The one thing that makes me good for anything here! The point isn't to make your life harder and you know it; I just refuse to be useless.

[Gil isn't actually running out of steam; there's just starting to be an uncomfortable pressure in his chest that's keeping him from shouting as much as he'd like. Maybe the bleeding is worse than he thought.]

You said you have a healing engine, right?

[myblimpisbigger]

Yes, I do, luckily for you. Is your leg all you lost?

[Gil usually has no trouble shouting, but he can't have bled out enough to truly exhaust him just yet, especially not with how much mental defense against tiring he has. Something must be wrong.

He won't argue with Gil about how important the Spark actually is. If he's learned anything, it's that one can't rely on the Madness for everything or place too much importance on it, but he knows Gil won't listen.]

[madboy]

No. Something inside is missing... I wasn't told, but it's apparently bleeding a lot.

[Shortness of breath - a bad sign.]

There's no blood in my chest cavity, but what's floating around has to be let and the wound has to be cauterized. I guess I am lucky you found me. We can find out what they took.

[He's adjusting surprisingly well to losing an internal organ without an outer wound. Madness or delirium? Not technically the same thing.]

[myblimpisbigger]

[Sparks do tend to take grievous bodily harm pretty well in stride, all things considered. Klaus certainly does, though that's really only because after you've already been blown up, nothing is all that scary anymore.]

It's clearly not your heart or a lung, or you'd be dead already, which I suppose is something to be grateful for.

[He slips an arm gingerly under Gil's to help support him, since just picking him up, while it would take far less time, would probably make him balk too hard to be manageable.]

Come on. We can stabilize you and find out what's missing.

[madboy]

[Now that they're not shouting at each other, Gil is starting to tire. He keeps the stick he'd been using, because he doesn't like being totally helpless or totally reliant on his father, but he does slump a good bit of his weight against him.]

I'm guessing pancreas, part of the liver, maybe even a section of intestine. The bleeding is too severe to be as small as the gallbladdar. Once... once this is all taken care of I can fix up an artificial leg. Good as new.

[Aaaand that's about all he has in him at the moment. Gil does have a bad track record of overexerting himself, and as they walk he slowly loses consciousness, notably slumping against his father and sliding towards the ground.]

[myblimpisbigger]

[And a few hours later, he'll wake up on the couch of 729 Anderson. His leg has been seen to and there's a healing engine strapped both to it and around his stomach. He's lost an awful lot of blood but at least there's no internal bleeding anymore, and he's probably in a lot less active discomfort. Klaus sits across from him, sketching in a notepad. It's plans for a prosthetic, modeled off of the one he made for Hiccup -- with, of course, marked improvements.]

[madboy]

[Once again, not dead. He's building up quite the track record for this sort of thing, though he's still exhausted. With the healing engines strapped to him, he's also not allowed much freedom of movement, but he can at least look around.]

What are you writing?

[myblimpisbigger]

[Klaus turns the notepad around, tilting it so that Gil can see.]

Designs for a replacement for your leg, until such time as you get it back. I fully realize you already had plans but it was a good way to pass the time.

How do you feel?

[madboy]

[Well, the design isn't what he had in mind, but it will function, most likely better than an organic leg. He'll just have to fiddle with it later.

Gil sighs, resting his head back on the couch cushion and staring up at the ceiling.]

Tired. Hungry. Cold. The standards for that much blood loss, though I don't think I can eat right now.

...Do remember the promise you made to me back in the hospital?

[myblimpisbigger]

[Oh.

This is going to go in that direction.

Well, okay. He did promise.]

Yes, I do. And I imagine you now have more questions than ever.

[madboy]

[Yeah, he sort of does. Gil has to focus a bit to get them to come together, though; there are so many frustrating things that he doesn't know that putting together concise questions is a little bit difficult. Plus, he's tired.]

Now is a good time; I won't be able to move for a while.

What don't I know about myself? I understand why secrecy is needed to keep a high-profile heir alive, but the only thing you've told me directly is that I'm your son. I think you probably intended to do it far later than you did, too.

[myblimpisbigger]

[Gosh, you have to ask the broadest question possible, don't you?

Klaus sighs and steeples his fingers, thinking for a moment to get himself in order. He knew this conversation would come but now that it has he still isn't sure how to handle it.]

I suppose the most pressing question is who your mother is, then.

[My god, where to start?]

For the four years I was absent from Europa, I was in Skifander. The Queen made me her zumil as a form of protection and eventually I became part of her harem as well. I just... I suppose I felt you had enough resting on your shoulders already, being the heir to my empire. You hardly needed to also grow up as royalty.

[madboy]

[Gil sighs, shaking his head just a little.]

And yet your comment about "keeping me alive"... if I'm royalty, why would you think they'd send an assassin for me?

[myblimpisbigger]

Because you're male, and no one is quite sure whether you or your sister was born first.

[Okay, no, back up. He doesn't know about that yet. Good job, Klaus.]

I believe the green-haired girl with whom the Lady Heterodyne has been associating is your sister and the heir to the throne. When I first encountered her in Sturmhalten I nearly mistook her for her mother.

The point is, the Skifandrian council was far more conservative than your mother ever was. To take a male zumil and an outsider to boot was a highly controversial move, and to make that already controversial outsider the father of the heirs to both the throne and the position of High Priestess to Ashtara? It would have been bad even if you were female, but you're a boy and you simply don't look Skifandrian. You can't be Queen and to be High Priestess is a role I doubt you'd want either, even if it's more open to males.

My point is that I removed both of us so as not to cause the political problems your birth would eventually lead to. Your mother had other consorts by that time and an Heiress to raise; presumably a suitable heir to the position of Priestess would have been born later.

I suppose your sister simply wanted to be sure you wouldn't come back to usurp her position, even on a technicality of not knowing which one of you was born to it.

[IS THAT ENOUGH TL;DR FOR YOU GIL]

[madboy]

[TL;DR with a healthy dose of WHAT. Gil takes... quite a few moments to process all of this.]

So... so I'm from a city in the forest that's only spoken about in fairy tales. I may have an assassin after me due to my simple existence and despite the fact that I have no idea how to get back. Also, royalty, which I neither need nor want in addition to everything else I have to deal with. Also, the assassin is my sister.

[Also, his father in a harem. That's not something he'll dwell on.]

Am I on the right trail so far?

[myblimpisbigger]

Yes.

[SHUT THE FUCK UP, GIL, HE KNOWS THIS IS A LOT TO HANDLE AND HE'S DOING HIS BEST]

Think. It's bad learning it now, it would have been bad learning it then. No matter what, this is something you neither need nor want. How do you think I felt, not being able to so much as contact your mother for twenty years, never seeing your sister grow up, and not even being able to tell you about them? I understand the frustration you're feeling. Really, I do.

[madboy]

...I know you do.

[Gil runs his hand through his hair, trying to collect himself. His father is right. Gil grew up in relative seclusion, while his father had to build all of this from nothing. It's just... it's so hard to be objective when the subject is his very origin and the secrecy surrounding it. Klaus gave up everything for him. Still... that doesn't quite quell the resentment. That would have to come in time.]

Which organ was missing? From the post office, I mean.

[myblimpisbigger]

[Good subject change, Gil. Klaus visibly relaxes.]

Your liver. Not all of it, but the vast majority. The good news is that it's nothing your body can't naturally heal with time; the healing engine is more for the incisions and to stop the bleeding than anything.

[madboy]

That's all I'll need; I'll be weak for a bit, but that's nothing important. At least I didn't die.

[Gil frowns, quiet for at least a minute. He's trying to come up with a decent question, but the answer to the last has him reeling and he's just... so tired. It's the first time in years he's had nothing mandatory to worry about except himself, and he doesn't really know what to do with it. It's upsetting, almost. Finally he has the chance to have a real conversation, and he's too weak to hold up his half.]

[myblimpisbigger]

[You know, this reminds Klaus of something. Before he can stop himself, he actually laughs a little.]

You know, this happened to me the April before last. Of course, it was because I was mauled by a bear, not because I was stupid enough to go to the post office, but it's comparable in that I only just managed to stuff my organs back in before I blacked out entirely. And then I had to spend the rest of the week doing absolutely nothing.

[Like stupid father, like stupid son, huh?]

[madboy]

[Gil has to grin; it hurts a bit too much to laugh, but the sentiment is there.]

I'm aware you think it was a stupid decision. I disagree.

There are bears here that can maul you? I'd think you could handle a bear.

[myblimpisbigger]

Mm. Out by the highway there are bears that can take several bullets straight between the eyes and not even stagger. If I, an accomplished mage, a war-hardened space marine and Axel Higgs couldn't kill it, it practically earned the right to maul me.

[Lovely as this conversation is, that can't be your only question, Gil. He has a sinking feeling this is just a lull.]

[madboy]

[Yeah, it is. Gil still has to put together his thoughts.]

Father... we have to win. Not here, really; since time here is meaningless, it won't matter back home. But when we get there... you...

[It's sort of hard for him to say, because he wasn't aware of the extent of it until just now.]

You gave up everything for me. I can't let that be for nothing. There's a crack in this somewhere, and even if you -- even if we -- have been wasped... there has to be a way. I don't want to watch the destruction any more than you do, so if we get pulled back, we simply have to find a way to prevent it. It's the only choice.