(no subject)

[slayer_fray]

[OOM: Mel and Case, um... break up]

She doesn't know why she came to Milliways. She has names to track down, fences to find, a career to save, hot grab in her pocket.

But she also has blood on her hands, splattered all over her shirt, and anger and betrayal burning in her chest and stomach. There's no way she can have a conversation with fences right now.

So she came to Milliways, but doesn't stop. She just strides through the bar and out into the snow, at a quick, irritable pacing gait, looking for something to take it out on.

Comments

[atanycost.livejournal.com]

How about that boy? Right there? The one sitting on a log, a thermos of something hot and probably alcoholic in hand. Jet has a lot to think about; what Katara said (and didn't say), what Makita said (and what they shared that Katara and he could not) and... yes, a little on what Mel said.

But he turns his head, glancing over his shoulder, only to start abruptly. "Hey-- shit, what the hell happened to you?"

[slayer_fray]

Shit, no, not him, not a person, not a boy.

Mel draws herself up sharply, rubbing her bloody knuckles defensively.

"Nothing."

[atanycost.livejournal.com]

He's looking at her like it's not nothing at all; way too used to stepping up, being the one that caretakes. He finds them like this, patches 'em up, gives 'em purpose--

"You sure," he says, before he brings the thermos to his lips, taking a long drink. "Here-- warm yourself up. The blood yours, or somebody else's?"

[slayer_fray]

The look she gives him there is irritable, condescending.

"Not mine," she says, in tones loaded with self-importance. How could Case draw blood on

her

?

"It's no one's."

[atanycost.livejournal.com]

"I dunno, blood usually comes from a somebody. Or at least a something. An' it didn't sound to me like you were a butcher, girl," Jet says, his hand on his hip--

--near the grip of a hook blade.

"I hear tell there are plenty of healers here. You can probably get yourself patched if you need it. An' if you don't, you'll spook the locals, decorated in warpaint like that."

When faced with someone who has obviously been in a fight-- be calm. If they're wound up, angry, tense? They'll make the first move. Better to be prepared to react then to act first and make them respond out of percieved desperation...

Or at least, so a life of picking up kids as scared and fucked up as Melaka Fray has told him.

[slayer_fray]

"I'm not a ruttin' butcher," Mel snaps, suddenly. "I didn't do anything!"

She threw one punch, kicked one guy. It's not her fault she's so strong...

[atanycost.livejournal.com]

"Then if I were you? I'd get clothes less bloody, or that's what people are gonna think," Jet points out. "You don't want to scare people, don't walk into a bar wearin' somebody's insides on your outside."

He has no idea what he's getting into.

[slayer_fray]

Mel glares. "Just back off," she snaps. "It's not your problem."

Where the hell is she going to get clothes from? Everything she owns is in Case's apartment, and she can't go back there...

[atanycost.livejournal.com]

Hands go up in a defensive gesture. "No, but it is yours. Best see to it rather then roll in the snow, huh?"

He takes a step back, shifting; one leg is up on the log that was his seat for a while, and he drops the thermos back to the snow. It'll still be warm. It's a great little thermos Bar gave him.

Oh, hey. "Bar'll give you stuff, if you ask. And a place to get cleaned up. Rooms n' such."

[slayer_fray]

"I don't need it," Mel repeats. "Jesu, just

rut

off, OK?"

Glaring at him angily, she moves forward, intending to barge past him.

[atanycost.livejournal.com]

He just sat fuggin' down, man! Now he's getting back up, as if he might argue this, shifting around the log to get a better vantage, "Are you crazy? It's snowing, you're covered in blood, and you're walkin' out in the woods in this weather in that getup?"

[slayer_fray]

When he moves to get up, she takes that as an aggressive move, and spins around to push him away, hard.

"I said

back off

!"

She's sick of people telling her what to do.

[atanycost.livejournal.com]

Jet staggers back, but there is a foot up against the log and keeping him from toppling entirely. But now he's braced, hands empty but ready to be filled with--

-- nothing. He won't draw a blade on a kid who's probably just as screwed up as he is.

"You don't wanna do this, do you?"

He figures he can take her.

He figures wrong.

[runmakitarun.livejournal.com]

Makita's already out in the snow. She found a heavy punching bag out there and she's been practicing punching and kicking without overextending. It's not really something she's good at, and it shows.

She hasn't seen Mel come out yet, but she'd be glad to share her bag for the couple of seconds it would take Mel to destroy it.

[slayer_fray]

She doesn't really get a choice. Mel just barges right up and throws a punch at the thing.

Her form is, not to put to fine a point on it, terrible, and there's a nasty pop from both her shoulder and her elbow, but the punching bag still flies back several meters.

[runmakitarun.livejournal.com]

When Makita looks over and sees Mel, she frowns. "Who did you beat to a pulp and what did they do to you?" And are they still alive, and do I need to find them and shoot them go unsaid. Mel has demonstrated that she can take care of herself.

[slayer_fray]

"Case."

Mel's glaring at the punching bag as if it's its fault. Then shes' running forward and kicking it.

"That ruttin' bastard. Filthy ruttin' bastard

pimp

."

[runmakitarun.livejournal.com]

Makita's frown transforms into a glare and she starts to reach for a pistol, "Did you kill him." Because if not, Makita's willing to go finish the job.

[slayer_fray]

"I," kick, "don't," kick, "know."

The bag, which had been lying dejected on the floor flies away at each kick, beginning to rip where her boot touches it.

"Didn't wait to check for a pulse."

[runmakitarun.livejournal.com]

There is are a couple of moments of consideration as Makita watches Mel kick the bag. She needs a way to vent. Makita reaches into her pocket and comes up with one of her three remaining grenades. She hates to give one up, but Mel's worth it.

She holds it out, "Here, use this."

[slayer_fray]

Mel glances at the grenade quickly, trying to figure out what it does. Then she grabs it, and throws it, without removing the pin, at a tree in the distance.

Where it embeds itself deep into the wood.

[runmakitarun.livejournal.com]

Makita would grin if she weren't so pissed off. She notes where that one landed and decides to give Mel a demonstration.

"They explode better if you pull the pin out first." She pulls another grenade out. "You grip it like this, holding onto this lever here. Then you pull the pin out. After you let go of the lever you have four seconds before the grenade explodes."

She hands another one to Mel. "I figured you might try sliding it inside the bag where you've kicked a hole." Makita shrugs, "Explosions always make me feel better..."

[slayer_fray]

"Do they?"

Funny, Mel still has her gun in her belt. It's stayed there since getting back, unnoticed.

But she takes the grenade and pulls the pin. Then, holding the lever in one hand, she lifts the bag in the other like it weighs nothing, shoves the grenade into the bag, and

throws

it as far from them as she can.

Luckily, as far as she can turns out to be quite far indeed.

[runmakitarun.livejournal.com]

And four seconds later Makita realizes that she handed Mel her last remaining Mk.8 Incendiary grenade. Instead of a satisfying explosion of sand, the entire thing bursts into flames. A merry little fire burns where the bag lands despite the fact that there's really nothing to burn.

Makita sort of grins, "Whoops. Wrong grenade."

[slayer_fray]

Mel glares at the bag, like it's Case's body.

Then she grins.

Then she

laughs

, harshly, angrily.