#pararibulitis

CHARACTER: Amanda Brotzman

PLAYED BY: Hannah Marks

SHOW: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (2016-2017)

Amanda was a shy punk, she started off a recluse because of a rare hereditary illness called pararibulitis, which causes her to have extremely painful hallucinations. After meeting The Rowdy 3, Amanda comes out of her shell and embraces her chaotic side and travels with the pain-sucking punk group, even travelling to other worlds.

it might have something to do with the acid. god, he -- todd really hates acid. it got old fast. fucking acid.

todd can’t text like this, and, he never really can, but right now his hands are melting and he has -- things. to worry about. 

so, todd just kind of... shouts.

“DIRK,” he yells into the apartment, voice strained, “MY MEDS!”

he hears a loud thud, like someone falling off a chair, and then scrambling, and then he hisses as his hands throb. dirk rushes into the room, reading glasses askew on his nose, and if he wasn’t in so much fucking pain, todd would have laughed.

“open,” says dirk, red pill already shaken out into his palm. todd opens his mouth. dirk hands tremble slightly as he places the pill on his tongue. they do every time. todd closes and swallows it dry.

now there’s nothing to do as they wait for the meds to kick in. they, because dirk sits down next to him on the kitchen floor, close but not touching at all. not yet.

just as he’s making to knock the back of his head into the counter, dirk says, “don’t knock your head into the counter.”

todd resists the very tempting urge to knock his head against the counter. dirk plays with the loose threads at the hem of his shirt. it’s a t-shirt, for once -- a bit stretched, and bland, and falling apart: it’s todd’s shirt. obviously. dirk rubs the fabric between his fingers like it’s made of gold.

some time later, which todd knows is about twenty minutes, but feels more along the lines of a lifetime, the burn in his hands settles into a dull ache. todd knocks his head back into the counter. gently.

“better?” says dirk.

“yeah,” says todd, and falls bodily into dirk. his partner’s arm winds around his shoulders, pulling him closer, then letting go.

“what was it?”

“acid,” todd tells him. “my hands. wrists. i’ll be fine.”

“bullshit,” dirk says. “give me your hands.” todd obediently hands them over. they shake slightly in dirk’s settled grip. 

he closes his eyes and sighs, sinking further into dirk, when he feels him start rubbing little circles into his wrists.

“that feels nice,” he mumbles.

“does it?” dirk says, more rhetorical than anything, but todd nods tiredly against his shoulder anyway. “good. i’m glad.”

This isn't real.

Sweat drips down Todd's face, soaks the neck of his shirt, and yet he's shivering. His hands are clutched to the ruin that is his lower stomach, desperately trying to staunch the blood, hold his torn flesh together.

This isn’t real.

But god, it feels so real.

The blood in his mouth is fucking disgusting, and Todd can't even begin to process how much pain he's in. He read somewhere that when people experience trauma, they'll quickly slip into shock, flood with adrenaline, lose touch with sensation. Todd is furious at the lack of shock – surely his body isn't meant to, isn't able to feel this level of pain for so long – and his vision is wavering black in the periphery.

He's been screaming for what feels like hours, the sound first tearing loose from his throat when he felt the sharp slice through his skin and abdominal muscles, the blood welling up under his shirt, and now he's reduced to hoarse sobs, each heaving cough and gasp a stab of agony that makes him white out for seconds.

This can't possibly be invented by his brain. He's never been stabbed, never been gutted like a fish, sliced from hip to hip, so how would his brain know what sensations to give him? The blood spilling through his fingers is hot, and his foot pressed to the radiator is hot – everything else is icy cold. He's slumped against the base of the armchair and there's a twist of awareness in the back of his brain that his neck is going to be in pain once he gets up. If he gets up. But he can feel his heart beating in the waves of agony spiking out from his stomach and the waves of blood pouring out of his body.

This thing about this not being real – because it can’t be, it isn't – is that if he just waits long enough, it will stop. His brain will stop seizing and will begin to interpret sensations correctly. He'll stop hallucinating, and his split skin and muscle will knit back together. The blood creeping across the floor will fade. Everything will be okay.

The thing about this not being real, though, is how do you fucking wait out being disemboweled?

Todd isn't sure if this is his most painful Pararibulitis attack – being electrocuted or burned or flayed tends to make perspective difficult – but it's certainly the one he has the least frame of reference for. He's in so much pain that it would be unbearable, if he didn't have to bear it. Because he has to. He has to just wait until it fades. Which, sans medication, could take anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours, and he has no idea how long it's been since he crumpled to the floor.

He coughs again, and then whines as it sends a spasm through his gut. The sweat soaking his hair and trailing down his face is mixed with tears that he can't control, and the blood on his hands is still so hot, and his skin is still so cold.

This isn't real. This can't be real.

Fuck, please make sure this isn't real.

The worst part of this – well, that's a lie. The worst part of this is the pain, the goddamn agony. It's horrifying and surreal, and he has literally no way to process it. But the second worst part of this is that his Promativan is on the table, ten goddamn feet away. There's no physical reason why he can't just crawl across the floor and reach up, dry swallow the two quick release tablets that will send the hallucination fading out of sight. But his body thinks that his muscles are sliced open, that his guts will fall out if he moves, that he's low on blood, and he can't force a body in pieces to move.

He's been trying.

Each shift sends a sob ripping through his throat, and then he whites out, and he cries, and he screams again.

All he has to do is wait.

Bleed, and wait. ----------------------

Link to: day one, Farah - Youth day two, Farah - Dance day three, Farah - Gore day four, Farah - GNC fashion day five, Farah - AU day six, Farah - Family (to be written) day seven, Farah - Pride (to be written) day eight, Todd - Youth (to be written) day nine, Todd - Dance (to be written)

DGHDATOBER, Day 10 (2.3) - Gore

DIRK? DIRK!!!

I'd like to say that I only drew this as an attack because it's a fake disease, if it were real I wouldn't have had done it. As someone who suffers from heavy dissocation if I don't take my meds correctly, I added some personal elements to the drawing and felt comfortable doing so. Anyway, if you look closely you can also tell the gore part is contained to the flames, but reality can be seen around it.