[Closed] no this will be fine

[theroadwarrior]

Who: Max "The Fool" Rockatansky, "Furious Roadmom" Furiosa, Dr. Black-eye Bev, and Ino-think-this-is-a-good-idea
Broadcast: N/A
Action: Closed to Dr. Beverly's super secret doctor chambers (aka a medical bay)
When: TODAY, WEDNESDAY. The 16th. Not quite the Ides of March. Remaining Ides of Max.

... The thread log in which Max punches someone in the face.

Warnings for panic attacks, traumatic flashing back, and other PTSD-related symptoms of "nofuckingthankyou"-ness.

Also potentially graphic dental work. Or an attempt at it. An attempt is definitely gonna be made.

This is Peggy's fault probably.

Comments

[ino]

Well, whatever part of what was said seemed to have worked, so ... that's a relief. She doesn't blame them for not necessarily believing fully, but if he doesn't get the tooth taken care of it could cause so much worse. So.

For now, Ino will just be standing by silently again, waiting and hoping this will get taken care of swiftly and without much issue.

[theroadwarrior]

Numb? He looks looks quizzically at her. He knows what a numb sensation feels like, but it's still funny to him, that this place has such easy resources, that just a jab with a needle can take the pain entirely. Is there such a thing as numb enough? Because once the pain begins to dull he nods his head. "Think it's good."

It's not fully numb, but, you know. Pain tolerance. It's a magnificent thing. One small mercy of Wastelanding -- you can handle it better. But there lies a double-edged sword: the same world that gave him a tolerance is the same world that hurt him, in more ways than one. It's why, when Beverly does finally pick up the tools needed to pry up the tooth, he squeezes the armrest again. It seems to be one of the few ways to observe his discomfort levels, other than the wrinkles on his brow and the glassy distance that sometimes touches his eyes.

As she moves in, he flinches hard -- but he just closes his eyes, scrunches them, his every demand for action forced back with a charged mental no. He can do it. He's fine. He's had so much worse, and he's walked out of it intact. A reminder: she's helping, she's helping, she's helping, what would she benefit from not helping? Furiosa's right there. Ino's reliable, she gave him medicines. He glances at her, glances at Furiosa, looks at the lights. His stomach feels like lead, sinking heavily into his spine.

There is some pain -- Max is apparently one who needs more than a single shot -- but if he's in pain he doesn't show it. It's tolerable, very tolerable. The pressure is more intimidating than anything. But even as he tastes blood and she works, he is still, waiting.

[kill_switch]

Furiosa can see the telling signs of tension. They're not exactly subtle; she's pretty sure the others should be able to pick up on the way he grips the armrests as well. She tries to give him an encouraging look back; still casual though tense, she doesn't want to give him anything to worry about. The waiting is the worst part.

[dancingmd]

As she picks up the forceps, the tension becomes palpable. Beverly wishes she knew the best way to put Max at ease, but she rather suspects it'd take more than one dentistry session to achieve that. All she can really do at this point is make it as quick and painless as possible.

Hopefully he's not lying about the anesthetic setting in.

The tooth is, as he told her earlier, broken, so it will have pulled out in a couple of pieces. The first comes out easily enough but after that, she really has to pry at it. Blood is inevitable, as is the pressure, which is slowly increasing...

[theroadwarrior]

Max is calm. His eyelids twitch, but he's calm. He's —

"Give our Spricket a pretty mediocre death, huh?!"
"He's a thrasher, hold him still--"
"Hold 'em down, hold 'em down!"
"He tore my bleedin' finger off--!!"
"Sure is, innit?"
"Get the muzzle, mate."

The pressure, it isn't so bad until the voices hit him, and then the smells -- the dampness, the rot of the Warboys, the scent of the cavernous walls they've made home. They pin him again, this time with a muzzle -- he feels the cold steel pressing against his lips, against teeth. Someone kicks him. Someone jerks his head down nearly between his knees. He feels the heat of fire, and then --

Then the skull brand is shoved against his exposed neck, hissing as it ruins the skin there.

Max's eyes snap open, pupils small, dots, tunnel vision seeing something that's not there. There's almost no warning, considering he'd been squirming as it was. He just jackknives forward with a gasp of air, the motion flinging the forceps and blood as he swings a sharp, fast, frantic right hook --

He feels the knuckle strike skin, glance off the bone beneath it. Blood fills his mouth, drips down his chin as he jumps to try and leave the chair.

"Let go--!" is his cry, despite nothing holding him.

[kill_switch]

It's too fast - snake strike fast. Furiosa is not able to save Beverly from the first punch, but she's immediately in motion; springing forward and shoving Beverly out of the way (if she's not already reeling), in order to pin Max back against the chair with her scrap metal prosthetic. She finds herself missing her original prosthetic, the one she sacrificed to take out Immortan Joe. An extra dose of power would have been nice right about now. Instead she tries to leverage her body against him, bracing her arm across his chest.

She shoots a look to Ino to see what support she gets. If Max can shake off a handful of Warboys, she's definitely going to need a hand.

[dancingmd]

Beverly does reel back, stumbling out of her chair with a sharp gasp and a curse. Her hand clutches at her face in pain. Thank god he missed her jaw or there might be two of them needing dental work, but the area around her eye hurts like hell. However, forcing herself to pull her hand away, she finds that at least there is no blood. Good enough for now. She'll worry about herself later. They are going to have a bigger problem on their hands, if they can't calm Max down.

While Furiosa and Ino wrestle with him, she begins to prepare a sedative, ignoring the throbbing pain and the fact that she can only effectively see out of one eye at the moment, as the other is watering and trying to swell shut. He's so agitated that intravenous or oral seditation is going to be next to impossible, so her only option, without a hypospray, is intramuscular, which also has the benefit of getting the sedative through him more quickly. 3mg of midazolam to start, see if that holds. The less medication she has to administer, the better.

Needle loaded, she looks back up at Ino and Furiosa. "I need you to hold his legs down for me."

[ino]

When Max's fist begins to swing, she's already darting forward to stop it, missing just in time for Beverly to get knocked in the face.

"Shit --"

She moves to help Furiosa keep him down, contact with his body minimal -- just one gentle hand wherever needed. But that one hand seems to hold a bizarre reservoir of strength that hardly matches up to her exterior, and they should be able to keep him mostly at bay even if he continues to struggle and flail around.

"Hey -- come on. You're going to be okay."

She's trying to reach Max, because she's quite sure he wouldn't have hit Beverly unless he was having some type of traumatic episode. She has to wonder how many times he's been held down like this by the type of doctor that Furiosa described.

And that's when Beverly approaches from behind with the needle. Oh. She's going to sedate him.

"Wait -- what?"

She looks a little unsure. She's not surprised that this seems to be the ideal solution, but ... is her coming closer with that thing going to make this worse? She looks back to Max to see if he's seen it, to Furiosa to see if she thinks it's the only way. She's pretty used to being able to talk somebody out of something like this, but she'll defer to Furiosa if she believes him unable to calm down otherwise.

[theroadwarrior]

Max doesn't see the needle. Actually, he doesn't see much of anything that would constitute as real. Furiosa and Ino and Beverly's faces all swirl into pale expressions — for the moment, he can't see the reality of the situation, so he fights back against whatever's holding him, pinning him. They're trying to keep him still, gonna tie his hands and legs and shove him in the cage. He snarls, snaps his teeth at whoever is closest, kicking his legs whenever he has an opportunity. A feral, for a moment, lost in his panic.

don't touch me, leave me alone, let me go

It's the Wastelands. You can't afford to stop fighting. He scratches with his hands, paws, swings. Furiosa's a strong pressure on his chest, holding him firm. He can feel something warm grip his wrist tightly. Something of a strangled whimper forces its way out from behind his clenched and bloody teeth, the panic lighting his eyes. Nobody's going to save him. He has to save himself. It's how it's always been. He remembers. He knows better.

let go

[kill_switch]

"Do it." Furiosa snarls back at Beverly, taking a brief moment to look back and see the sedative, and then shoot Ino a irritated look because really, just his wrist? She struggles to hold Max down, swearing she could smell the girt and feel the heat of their first real engagement.

Then Max is snapping at her face, and there's heat and blood and the stench of infection. She snaps her head forward, slamming her forehead against his in an attempt to disorient him enough for Beverly to work. She figures he'll understand once the dust settles.

[dancingmd]

The headbutt startles Beverly, but only for a moment. She has a job to do. Deftly, she slices open a section of pant leg, just enough to quickly inject the sedative in his thigh.

"Don't let go yet. It'll take a minute for the sedative to take effect."

Once she safely disposes of the needle and gloves, she rejoins them to do her part in restraining him until the medication kicks in.