#as weak or bumbling or unintelligent. quickly.

[croakings]

i apologize for mithrunposting incessantly but honestly if any of you expected better of me you shouldn't have

anyway i get it and some of the failguy jokes are funny. i can tell that nothing i've run into is even malicious. but also it would be really cool and awesome if there were simply less posts calling a disabled person a failure or baby or a dog or whatever for needing accommodation or extra help, especially when like. hey did you know the source material very on purpose did not do anything remotely like that. critical thinking question: could there be some reasons these phrases are not great, potentially

[overlord-off-record]

This took me about three weeks to finish, because reasons.

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Gil knew at once that the cold sting on the side of his neck meant trouble. Even as he reached up and yanked the dart free, the chill began to spread. Who had he vexed this time?

He tried to speak, but a creeping numbness had overtaken half of his jaw, so he only succeeded at making an inarticulate grunt while waving the dart at his companion. Warwick took it, peered at it, and looked a question at Gil, who was wilting fast.

"Poison or drug?"

At this stage, Gil doubted he could tell the difference. His neck had gone rigid, preventing him even from nodding, and the numbness raced down his arm. In another moment, it would reach his leg. His gaze darted up and down the street. Who had shot him? And how would he explain this later?

"Whoops." Warwick caught him as he started to sag to the side. "Let's get you off the street."

Gil knew this neighborhood, and he had profound doubts regarding Warwick's choice of refuge. They made bumbling progress down the block, Warwick supporting Gil until the numbness had spread to his other leg as well. Then he dragged him to the base of an annoyingly familiar set of steps. Leaving Gil there, Warwick trotted up and pulled the bell.

Please don't be home. Gil held on to hope, despite his exposed position here on the street. A moment later, the door opened, and a familiar head of red hair emerged, dashing his hopes.

Tarvek Sturmvoraus wrinkled his nose at the sight of Gil. "Ugh, is he drunk already?"

Without comment, Warwick presented the dart. Tarvek snatched it from his hand and, with a quick glance up and down the street, pocketed it. "Come on, we have to get him inside."

Whereupon Gil found himself carried between the two of them up to Tarvek's private lab space.

Tarvek deposited him on the floor, leaving Warwick to try to arrange him into a more comfortable position. Kind of him, but ineffectual. No matter the orientation of his limbs, the sharp. chill and accompanying numbness would continue. From his current position, Gil could see Tarvek setting up his lab equipment for an analysis of the dart. As irritating as he could be, to say nothing of untrustworthy, at least Tarvek took science seriously.

Warwick stepped between them, blocking Gil's view and crowding Tarvek. He asked questions, which Tarvek ignored. Poison or drug. Same question as before. Gil wondered if he should care more about the distinction. Time dragged onward, and Gil began to wish he could feel the floor beneath him.

"Well," Tarvek said at last, "it's a cocktail of paralytics and poison. Succinylcholine, andromedotoxin, basilotoxin…" Peering around at Gil, he shook his head. "Who did you cross this time? They messed up the dose, or you'd be dead right now. Here, jab him with this." He passed a syringe to Warwick. "The whole mess should clear his system in an hour or two."

Closer to an hour than two, Gil assumed, but still unacceptable.

"He's supposed to meet up with Mademoiselle Voltaire in an hour and a half," Warwick objected, giving voice to Gil's concerns. Death was the only acceptable excuse for standing Colette up.

Tarvek made a rude noise in the back of his nose. "Not like that he isn't." His footsteps paced away toward the bedroom. Gil had an uncomfortable memory of awakening there in the aftermath of some incident involving drugged champagne. "Get him out of those horrible clothes."

What.

"What?" Warwick echoed. Tarvek repeated himself with significantly less patience. Warwick looked down at Gil. "Sorry," he muttered.

As Warwick fumbled with the buttons of his waistcoat, Gil wondered what these two would do if his motor function had not returned in time. Would they drag him to Colette? Carry him? Stuff him in a cab and hope for the best?

Tarvek returned and dumped a load of silk and velvet on Gil's face.

Oh, no.

"Move over. Put these on him." Tarvek's hands nudged Warwick aside, moving with swift confidence over Gil's buttons. Warwick yanked his shoes off. Tarvek stripped Gil of shirt and waistcoat with alarming deftness while Warwick struggled with his pants.

"Where are your smalls?" Warwick muttered. Tarvek scoffed.

"Probably wherever he left his sense of self-preservation."

Gil found he could sigh, but he failed to roll his eyes. Warwick needed help to pull the fresh pair of trousers onto him. Recent improvements to his physical health notwithstanding, he was not a strong man. Tarvek complained loudly. Gil focused on trying to blink.

He nearly had it when Tarvek snatched the clothes from his face.

"Look at this idiot," Tarvek said to Warwick, continuing his stream of complaints. "You'd think he wants to die." He yanked Gil to one side and forced his arm into a sleeve.

Sensation was returning on the side with the puncture. With relief, Gil realized that he might keep his appointment with Colette under his own power after all.

"He's always where he doesn't belong. Always getting into situations like this. Always. In. The. Way." Tarvek jammed Gil's other arm into its sleeve.

Hah, likewise.

"You're a good man, Warwick. What do you owe this cad?"

Warwick hesitated, and then he told the truth. "I almost died when I Broke Through. He's been helping… put me back to rights, I suppose you could say." Under Tarvek's direction, he moved to prop Gil up. "Anyway, he's not so bad as you think."

Tarvek scoffed. "You don't know him like I do." He yanked the shirt even and buttoned it. "Do yourself a favor and don't trust this idiot with your secrets."

"You're going to muss him," Warwick protested, shifting and fidgeting in discomfort. Tarvek shook his head.

"Everything in my closet gets treated with a formula to prevent wrinkling."

Of course it did.

Warwick struggled to hold Gil at awkward angles while Tarvek stuffed his arms into the waistcoat. Peacock blue, velvet with gold cord. It was ostentatious, and Colette would know that someone else had chosen it for him. That was probably the point.

Tarvek sighed. "It seems a pity to waste a new waistcoat on him, but I can't have him seen in something I've already worn."

Gil wanted to scowl, wanted to protest that he didn't even want to wear the thing. He felt one fingertip twitch. How disappointing.

"Come on," Warwick said. "I don't know what's passed between the two of you, but he's really not that bad."

Tarvek gave Gil a long, narrow-eyed stare. Then, with a shake of his head, he drew Warwick aside. The two of them stood in a corner of the lab, their heads bent together, their voices pitched too low for Gil to hear. He strained every nerve, every muscle, trying to force his body to move. His finger twitched again.

A few torturous minutes crawled by before Warwick loped back to Gil's side. His hands in his pockets, he looked down at his friend and shook his head. "That was stupid."

Which thing? Unable to ask, Gil concentrated all his effort on moving. He managed to lift one shoulder in approximately one tenth of a shrug.

"Did he just move?" Suddenly all scientific fascination, Tarvek peered over Warwick's shoulder. "If I take some blood samples, perhaps I can determine the amount of toxin still in his system. Either he received a very low dose, or his metabolic processes are uncommonly fast." As he chattered, he rushed to his lab bench for supplies.

Gil stared a silent plea up at Warwick, in vain. Even if he understood perfectly, he would lack the physical strength to stop Tarvek from doing as he pleased. Perhaps when they'd managed to get all of those shoulder muscles properly reattached, but not now.

"Here we are!" Tarvek announced with far too much good cheer as he jabbed a needle into Gil's arm. This time he felt it. This time, he made a noise of protest.

Warwick gave them both nervous glances.

Tarvek leaned close, too close, his bright smile turning malicious. "You come into my lab, and I have to waste my time fixing you up and making you presentable for Colette. The least you can do is let me have a little blood sample."

Gil glared with all his strength. Tarvek had a point, though, so perhaps he wouldn't break all the sample vials as soon as he could move. Warwick watched them both, a concerned frown shadowing his face. When Tarvek had concluded his adventures in phlebotomy, he leapt back to the lab bench. By willpower alone, Gil managed to lift his head enough to continue glaring.

Warwick worked an arm beneath Gil's shoulders and tried to leverage him farther upright. Gil strained his unresponsive muscles, and with colossal effort, the two of them eventually managed to get him propped against Warwick's side. Progress, but too slow for Gil's mind.

"Oh, this is interesting."

At the Sparky notes in Tarvek's voice, Gil stilled in a way that had nothing at all to do with the toxins in his body. Tarvek swiveled his chair and peered over his glasses.

"What did you get into? You've got some other drug in your system, boosting your immune response." He leaned forward, curiosity making his Spark burn hotter. "You have antibodies attacking the toxins, and I have no idea how."

Warwick chuckled. "He's probably been trying out his experiments on himself," he said, only half joking.

"More likely someone slipped a drug of some sort into that cheap absinthe he swills."

Gil managed to scowl at them both.

Tarvek turned back to his lab bench, his hands moving quickly, his voice low and unintelligible. Gil returned his efforts to trying to make his body move. His hand flexed. Warwick noticed and offered encouragement, which only seemed to agitate Tarvek further. In moments he had returned, another syringe in his hand and an unpleasant smile on his face. He knelt over Gil, leaning uncomfortably close.

"Hold still," he said, grinning Madly at his own terrible joke. Gil tried with all his strength to smack him for it, but he only attained a weak wave of one wrist. Tarvek seized the offending limb and stuck the needle right through the silk shirtsleeve.

"Your shirt!" Warwick yelped in protest. Good. He cared more about Tarvek's wardrobe than he did about whatever he had just injected into Gil. Great. Perfect.

"It's his shirt now." His voice abruptly, unsettlingly devoid of the Spark, Tarvek sat back on his heels. He stared, rather like a cat watching a mouse hole.

Warwick glanced between the two of them. "What was that stuff?" He indicated the empty syringe.

"Just an immune booster. If we're lucky, it'll get him back on his feet much faster than I initially projected."

Warwick nodded, as though everything would be perfectly fine. Gil left off glaring and focused his energy on forcing his larynx to work.

"Huwaaaaah…"

Tarvek blinked. Adjusting his glasses, he leaned closer again.

"Rheeeeeeeeee…"

"Good heavens, I do believe he is attempting to speak."

Gil's frustration galvanized his will, and he redoubled his efforts. "Haytchyou."

"All that effort, just to tell me something I already know." Tarvek clapped a hand on Warwick's shoulder. "But that was fast. Warwick, my friend, it seems our experiment has been a rousing success."

Gil resolved to punch Tarvek just as soon as he had command of his arms again.