milliways_bar | (no subject)

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Slack's trips to Reckoning have gotten more frequent, and in their own ways, more fun.

For a given value of 'fun,' as if you're Slack, coming back to Milliways with a bullet-grazed shoulder that's still bleeding on occasion and a slight limp from having to cauterize your own ankle is simply part of the job, and she loves it.

People are proud of battle scars, after all.

It's the fact that the ice water she just ordered turns out to be salt water with salty ice that's confusing her.

"... you okay, Bar?"

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"I believe I should be asking that of you."

What? Did you think I was on the moon?

"I'm not serving the dehydrated population of the world water from the Atlantic Ocean, am I?"

That's her version of an answer.

"-- yeah, I'm peachy. Didn't get shot, actually, just grazed. Reaction time's a little off. Prettyboy had the nerve to suggest I might be sick or possibly pregnant, and then I almost shot her, but I didn't, and I'm not either, I promise."

She does not mention the ankle thing.

Stench bites are not fun for the whole family, even if they have been properly treated.

"Grazed means that the bullet hit you, it just didn't go in. Don't take me for an idiot."

I'm displeased. I'm displeased because she's been hurt and I know she won't let me aid her, and also because that displeasure is so damned protective of her and absolutely ridiculously without a care for my own safety and that, my friends, is so vastly out of character it's jarring. There's also the fact that it's causing a slightly violent impulse and I've never actually been prone to those.

"He's only got one eye, and I'm the idiot who moved," Slack defends Charlie rather like the way friends who don't shoot each other should, "Forgot how good his aim is. Ain't his fault."

It's hers -- that's the implication, not that she bothers saying it.

"I'm okay, though, really. Mo patched it up."

I snort because I'm not one to growl.

"As you say. And no, I have no issue with the fact that you enjoy shooting, killing, maiming, destroying, exploding, stealing, pillaging, or any of those other fun and interesting verbs. Just to clarify."

I'm grumpy because she won't let me do one of the very few things I'm actually good at and help fix her.

That might change!

Because she tries to move her foot, see, and it doesn't work too well -- the distinct screwed-up-face pang of fucking OW is even something Slack can't lie around and misconstrue into nothing.

"Fuckin' stenches."

And I'm glaring because if that is what I think it is, I'm going to verbally flay her alive after I take care of it.

"Tell me they didn't bite you. Or rather, admit that they did and allow me to fix it so I don't flay you alive to lower the pain."

"... I cleaned it."

I've never hit anyone without just cause. Just cause, in my case, is the defense of my own life. By this same token, I've never hit a woman without just cause.

I'm starting to reconsider just cause, if only in the terms of a smack upside the head.

"And were you going to let me wake up in bed with a dead woman because you 'cleaned it'?"

"It just hurts, and's got a hole in my ankle right now. No more stench cooties, 'cause it's been cleaned, doofus," Slack replies lovingly.

"You know, like with a lighter and some sewing needles. S'effective. Just kills. Ran out of painkillers on the road."

"Sit."

I'm not particularly good at imperious, or rather, I'm out of practice, but I do have some skill with it. I've been Emperor of most of the world once. It's not something you forget.

"Now."

This is the part where Slack gives up on arguing, gives him a timid 'you're scaring me now y'know' look, and sits.

"Thank you."

And if I'm a bit sharp, it's because I'm going to do something I know she's going to get stupid about and I'm not stopping whether she likes it or not and she's just going to have to deny me sex or something.

"Now stay still."

I lower myself down to the ground and lean my staff on the chair before reaching out and grabbing at the strands of energy running along her body.

...yes, it's a bloody MESS around the wound. I'm going to have to fix this.

Slack is Not Moving.

This is because she's trying not to betray the fact that she always will be uncomfortable around magic. This is the fault of Kandarians, not Po, but it's still a personality issue.

Then again, she's also not talking, which could be significant.

It takes me a few minutes to pick things out and settle things straight, another few minutes to get things going faster than they really should, and a rune to finish up. They can say what they like about those dead monstrosities being caused by some sort of virus or something, but there's a mystical component that's damnably irritating to tear out of a person.

I'm actually sweating a little as I look up.

"Done, all right? I'm not going to magically stab you in the bloody heart."

Yes, I'm growling. Fuck it.

"Yeah," she says.

And keeps focusing on the wall over in the other direction.

Stupid girl.

And I'm shaking and I know I'm shaking and perhaps I have no right to be this upset, but I've never worried about such nicities before.

"I'll go upstairs. Or I'll avoid it. Whichever you want."

"No --" She extends her hand, yet not touching him, only offering for him to hold it, if he wants.

"It's not your fault. I have my pansy moments."

"Or rather, your distrustful bitch moments," but I take her hand. "Amazing how you don't get so bloody upset when I have a gun in my hand."

"Can't be afraid of things you understand."

Slack does not add 'Doofus,' as much as she'd like to.

"Understand that baring you trying to kill me, I'm not going to bloody hurt you. If you'd like a nice detailed description of what I did, I'll be happy to give you one."

There's wavering -- waver, Slack, waver! -- of both the thoughtful kind and the kind that relates to actually being dizzy.

"Yeah," she says, finally. "Think it'd help."

"There are lines of energy, magic if you will, that can be found on the earth or in locations such as this and even in the human body. All I'm doing is moving them around a bit to fix the ones that were moved out of alignment from the wound and the ones that got broken or cut from it from the same. I also added a little bit of my own energy to make up for what was lost when you were injured. That's all."

"Food's been kinda weird lately, but I'd be more concerned about what happened to you than who's putting too much salt in everything."

The reply doesn't come from Bar, of course, but rather a young man (a boy, really)with bright golden-orange hair seated a few seats down. He's glancing at her wounds out of the corner of his eye, and seems to decide that they don't look fatal.

"There's nothing," Slack insists, "wrong with me. S'what happens in my line of work. This ain't a big deal. Bleedin' out the eyes is a big deal."

And that is why the bicyclist's death was considered a mercy killing.

"Yeah," he admits, "That's pretty big, but I never said there was anything wrong with you. I've wandered into this place looking like shit before, so I ain't gonna say anythin' 'bout your wounds. But just outta curiosity, what kinda fucked up line of work are you in?"

"Undead population control."

It sounds just slightly better than 'demonslayer by day, six-dollar-whore by night.'

Both of which are true.

"Undead? Like, zombies?"

He deals with similar things, but his other job involves a lot less sex. And money.

"We don't call 'em that by my time, but that's the usual word."

The salty ice water is sipped again, cautiously.

"Nasty-ass things."

"Yeah, I've seen my share of horror flicks. They never seem to end well. Hope your story's better than most of 'em. How'd you get hurt?"

He's been seeing ghosts all his life, and more recently puss spewing monsters as well, so imagining a world of zombies isn't much of a stretch.

"Moved into someone else's line of fire, startled 'im and got shot in the shoulder. I shoulda moved, Charlie's aim's perfect without me in the way."

The bite never happened.

He's pretty sure that doesn't explain her limp, but maybe she got shot twice. Or...something.

"Sounds bad. Gonna get that patched up, or you plannin' on doin' that yourself?"

He's never liked the infirmary, personally, but he's just weird like that. The only doctors he'll trusts are those in his family. The upside to living in a clinic.

"We take care of it. Sorta got our own system to wounds."

When there are supplies.

When there aren't, there's Bar.

"Care to share?"

Because he gets beat up, cut up, and generally wounded very badly on a far too often basis. Knowing new ways to deal with his wounds would be nice.

Ash looks up from a nearby table, where his son is attempting rather intently to play with his hair.

"Whats up?"

"Oh my god it's tiny," is her reaction.

Little curly-haired Ash with Diplomatic Medieval Briton Nose!

"Say hi, Jay."

Being only three months old, he doesn't manages this, but he does give her his best attempt at the baby equivalent.

"Ain't seen you around in a while."

This is Ash, so she is less guarded and evasive about what is all in a day's work, and holds up her foot, which definitely has the telltale Deadite-bite-mark that only another person having gone through the same experience might recognize.

"Got a very good reason. Little settler-town didn't deserve the torture. Prettyboy's from there, we went and gave 'em a hand."

And that completely takes his mind off trying to disentangle the baby's fingers from his hair.

"Jesus. What happened?"

"Didn't want my shoe to become a casualty. It was cauterizin' it that was the fun part."

"I can imagine."

Jay babbles softly, blissfully unaware of the adults' conversation.

"Has he had his own Lord's Investiture yet?" she asks socially, having read up on things like knighthood recently.

No, the 'sir' in her fiancee's name did not elude her entirely.

"I think everyone was too busy going 'awww' at him."

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