milliways_bar | (no subject)

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(Somewhere Under Milliways: Sunshine's large, lovingly-collected library of gothic vampire lit will likely never be the same refuge of fantasy escapism ever again. She may burn them all when she gets home. If she survives to get home.)

From the kitchens come the sounds of startled, squeaking rats, of a large basket of paradoxes overturning as someone runs unsteadily towards the reassuring light and noise of the bar. The door to the kitchen slams open a moment later, letting through a pale and shaking Rae, clutching her wrenched and bruised right arm to her chest as she runs.

Her head is still reeling, her eyes watering and blurring her vision, the realization of what had just happened - what she had done - and to whom - causing her stomach to rebel violently.

Luckily, the cleaning crew prefer a clean bar and have put trash cans up at strategic locations, for Sunshine doesn't make it to the restroom before being physically ill. She falls jerkily next to it, clutching the trashcan rim with a white-knuckled grip in an effort to steady herself and counteract the tremors she can't seem to stop.

(Warnings in OOM for... well, gothic horror.)

(Tiny tags: A Gothic Winter Tale, Vlad Dracula)

(OOC: Mun has gone to bed. Will return to tag up on threads tomorrow. EP is open for new threads/tags forever and ever, amen. <33333)

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Buffy looks up, searching automatically for the source of the noise. And then moving, also automatically, toward the pale, shaking woman who's moving like she's hurt.

"Hey," she says, slowing, "what's wrong?"

Sunshine is torn between looking up at the person addressing her and hiding her messed face as she coughs and spits the last bitter sick into the trashcan. She doesn't recognize the voice, so she waits until she's able to awkwardly wipe her face semi-clean with a shaking hand before looking up.

Terror lingers in her eyes, her breath ragged. A bumper crop of bruises is blooming across her right arm and shoulder. Her left is braced against the trashcan to keep her semi-upright. "I... Wh-what does it loo-" she starts, before her stomach twists and another bout of gagging coughs catch her.

"Honestly," says Buffy, in a tone less flippant than the words, "any number of things."

The bathroom's not too far. She could get some paper towels, maybe some water, or -- "Are they here? Whoever --"

Wet paper towels would be a godsend, and would enable Sunshine to look Buffy in the face without feeling embarrassed.

The retching tapers off, leaving Sunshine only slightly less sick with lingering fear.

"I... don't know." Her one-handed grip on the trashcan is still shakey. Give her a bit and she may try to get on her feet again.

"Right," says Buffy. "I'll be right back."

She finds a handful of plastic cups stacked in the bathroom, and hastily fills one from the sink before she dampens a few paper towels, grabs an extra dry one, and hip-checks her way back out the bathroom door.

"Here. I figured..."

A look of relieved, if pained, gratitude crosses Sunshine's face. "Thanks," she says through chattering teeth, and sets about cleaning her face, cleaning off the few spots where some had fallen on her clothes -

- washing her wrists, her hands, her cheek, and most thoroughly the side of her neck, with a general feeling of auuugh, get it off.

Buffy busies herself scanning the area for signs of -- anyone wearing a large "Hi! I just attacked somebody" nametags.

Well, it'll give the lady some privacy. "You're welcome," she says, still looking around them. "Let me know if you need any more, there's plenty in there."

Sunshine cleans herself up as best as she can without a steaming hot shower, steel wool and 48oz. of shower gel.

"Thank you," she says again when she's finished, still pale but shaking less. The noise and light of the bar are definitely helping.

"Anything else I can get you?" says Buffy, turning. "The bar's probably got a first aid kit back there, unless you think the infirmary's a better bet."

"My arm... really hurts, but I don't think it's broken," she says, flexing her hand carefully.

No, they don't like to break their victims. Not beforehand, at least.

Sunshine even feels she might try getting her feet under her again. It's just a matter of getting the right grip on the nearest table edge, and remembering not to try and use her right hand.

"Better to get it looked at than not, though," says Buffy. "I'm all for the DIY healing, but wrists are fragile."

She pauses.

"Can I ask what happened?"

"S'my shoulder," she says, shaking her head. "Wrenched it."

-over her head in the flash of an eye, to an angle that most people would have to spend some time stretching to achieve without pain.

Buffy looks silently at her for a few moments.

Finally: "Left out the pronoun. Who wrenched it?"

The muscles in Sunshine's jaw move as she clenches her teeth. That voice is still echoing in her mind. She already has enough reason to not let herself be alone here; the added terror of what-if from breaking the 'agreement' he had proposed to her... she doesn't need it. She doesn't want it.

She wouldn't be able to handle it.

"I don't know."

"Okay," Buffy says quietly.

"I just -- I want to know if there's somebody here attacking people. We've already got a vampire grazing on the locals, and I --"

There are a couple of reasons why she might not know.

"Do you remember what happened?"

Sunshine tries to suppress a shudder at the mention of a vampire grazing.

"I... no," she says, lighting on something, a possibility. "No, I don't, really. It's very... murky. Just a blur."

Post-traumatic thing. Right?

Right?

Oh.

So he's getting more violent. That's just dandy.

"Can I take a look at your neck?"

See her stiffen involuntarily.

"... Sure."

She still can feel the faint tingling feeling where his lips had been, his beard tickling against her skin.

Buffy takes a step closer, and kneels next to her on the floor.

After a moment's hesitation, and slowly -- this is kind of awkward -- she leans forward, reaching up to brush away Sunshine's hair.

"I don't see anything."

That's weird.

Sunshine's flinch as Buffy brushes away her hair is very slight, but very much there. She's expecting it, and knows the situation is not the same, but she is not about to lean her head to the side to help.

"I wasn't bitten." Very nearly, but very nearly is still unbitten.

Buffy pulls her hand back.

"-- How did you know?"

"You ask to check a freaked out person's neck when there's been an outbreak of people in the bar being bitten by a vampire? What should I think you were checking for?" Her tone is a bit sharper and her words more bitten-off than she intended, but she wasn't lying about being freaked out.

After a moment's pause, Buffy says,

"No, I meant -- how did you know you weren't?"

Erm.

"My neck's not what hurts," she winces, flexing her hand.

Yes, people still reeling from the after-effects of stark terror are logical!

"Oh," says Buffy, after a moment.

"One of the others didn't know she'd been bitten till I checked. So I just thought...well, good." Even if it looks like the bite would have been less painful overall.