milliways_bar | (no subject)

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Well, that really wasn't fun. Rae supposes she couldn't truly expect the weather to hold off for a little thing like her fighting for her life, but it would've been nice if it had been a little more considerate, you know? Con had been impervious to the icy rain - of course he had - but Rae's experience had been a little more... well, human. Her fingers, slicked with blood and exposed to the elements, had soon gone numb and clumsy. It hadn't been an easy night. When they had returned to her apartment, her only thoughts were of the hot shower she was about to have. The three hot showers she wanted to take in succession, and the long, soaking bath she wanted directly after, and the twelve hours or more of sleep she wanted after that. So what if that would put her waking up around sunset tomorrow.

But the door to her bathroom, of course, has other ideas.

Rae shuffles into the bar today, exhausted, soaking wet, and shivering. Her black sweater and sweatpants cling to her, sodden and still dripping as the ice melts. There is ice in her hair from the sleet that had gotten caught in it, and she smells of cold sweat and blood. The melting ice and rain may have washed much of the blood from her, but some of it remains, and the scrapes and minor injuries that show where her sweater has been torn still bleed sluggishly.

"Unnnnnngh," Rae makes an exhausted noise of complaint in her throat as she sees where she is. She hadn't been expecting Milliways. Now she has an entire set of stairs to climb before she can reach her shower. Why so cruel, universe?

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The first thing Rae does is press her face into the towel. It's been freshly laundered. It smells like it dried, hanging outside in the sunlight. Smells so far removed from the blood and grime and sweat and fear of her current state. She wipes at her face first, and then her hands, and then seeks to dry her hair somewhat, or at least free the specks of ice and mud still caught in it, and then her sodden sweater.

"I can't... I can't deal with people freaking out at me, Jay," she eventually says, subdued and exhausted. "That sort of... panic, just bring out the same reaction in me, and I can't think straight. I don't have the energy left for it, right now."

There's an apology in there, somewhere. She didn't mean to snap at him.

"Then I'll go. If I'm making things worse for you, I'll go. I just.. Sorry, I'll get out of your way." He turns to leave. "Look after yourself, hey?"

"You don't have to go," she says, more irritated at herself than at him, though the drama isn't making it any easier. She doesn't have much energy for this. "Just... no more... cursing and flailing and looking at me like I'm about to break. Just..."

She ducks her head into the soft, wide collar of the robe, taking deep breaths, trying not to focus on how she can feel the cold, bloody icemelt seeping into the previously pristine robe from her sodden clothes.

"It's good to see you again, Jay. It is. It's just been... a really long day, you know? Not one of the good ones. How have you been?"

"Look, don't worry about me. I'm not important. You just get up to your room and get warmed up, hey? If it's been that kinda day, you should get yourself into a bath, have the rats bring you up something nice. I should get back to the bike anyway."

He's pissed with himself more than anything else. He's trained in combat first aid and use to having be be calm through all manner of shit but seeing her hurt scared the shit out of him. And knowing he upset her is worse.

"You're my friend, so you are important," she says, quiet. "The bike.. the bike will still be there, right? Could you just... help me make sure I don't pass out and fall down the stairs while trying to get up to my room?"

She doesn't want them parting with hurt feelings.

"You know me; can't stop tinkering." He smiles sadly offering her a hand up if she wants it. "Sure, if it'll help."

Her hand twitches, her fingers curling away from his hand before she can stop it. It takes effort to uncurl them again - her mind filled with protests that her hands are unclean and that all they touch will be made unclean like them.

It takes a moment of real effort to stretch out her arm - unclean! - and take his hand in hers.

Jason isn't too clean himself, at least in his own mind. He lets Rae take whatever supports she needs, trying not to push any more than that on her. He doesn't think of her as fragile or delicate, just hurt. "Do you have keys or do you need to grab some from the bar?"

"My door will open for me," she says, shaking her head slightly as they move towards the stairs. The robe helps against the finger-numbing cold and the slowly melting ice, but can't do much for the exhaustion that throws her balance off. "I don't... carry anything with me, when I'm... out, like this."

No ID. No keys. Just in case she's caught.

"Well that's a bonus." He walks beside her, ready to move if she wants support but reluctant to push it. "Yeah, I know the feeling. I use to work like that too. Nothing that tied me back to a name or a place." Nothing but a code name that belonged to someone else and a costume that was never really his. "Do you want to talk about it?"

Rae has no costume. Just a black sweater and black thick pants that are now torn in places and invisibly stained with blood. No mask. No codename apart from her nickname that everyone who knows her knows is hers.

"I don't remember how much I've told you about my world," she murmurs drowsily, hesitant to say more without knowing what is already known. She leans momentarily against the back of a chair as dizziness passes through her.

"Just that you're a baker and a magic user with a gift for giving me a good night's sleep." He waits patiently, ready with a hand if she needs it. "And that's all I need to know if that's all you're ready to tell." He looks at her carefully. "Sure you're right to tackle the stairs?"

She swallows, wondering if the faint metallic tang of blood she tastes is some remainder from earlier in the night, or if she had bitten her cheek and not noticed, or if it is her imagination.

"Did I tell you about the vampires?" she says vaguely, starting forward again as the worst of the dizziness passes. Her gaze is already pulling towards the stairs, which appear to be an insurmountable Everest.

"Nope, I don't think they ever came up." Jay supplies almost cheerfully. "I take it we're not talking the emo glittering type of vampire here?"

"The Cullens? No, they aren't from my world," Rae murmurs, a faint line appearing between her eyebrows as she glances at him in confusion. "My world is... overrun. By vampires. Official records say we won the war against them ten years ago, but the human world is just limping along."

Oh goodie, they're real too. Jay makes a mental note to spend less time in the bar. "Yeah but official records look very different from street level, I bet. I'm guessing you're front line in the fight?"

"S-something like that. Only... a bit more covert," she murmurs. "The way my magic works, I have a - a line on vampires, that others don't. 'Sunshine,' you know? And some of the local SOFs - that's Special Other Forces, police for non-human citizens - found out about some of it, and asked me to help out, off-the-record."

"Because apparently the human world only has a century or so left."

He'd never thought that Sunshine was more than just a nickname but now it makes more sense. "Yeah, that would come in kinda handy even if you looks like using it takes a fair toll."

One step at a time, he helps her take it at her own speed. "Sounds like they need a better plan than just asking you to help out if humanity's that close to the edge."

Each stair is a challenge for her focus, balance, and energy; she climbs slowly, but steadily, with few wobbles.

"Yeah, I wish there were a better plan. But there isn't. SOF's worn thin, and the world can't risk another open war."

Jay makes sure he's there ready to catch her if she needs it. He could carry her easy enough but given how she reacted to being touched before, he isn't sure he should suggest it.

"But the Vamps are spoiling for one?"

"No," she replies, having to pause as a wave of dizziness shakes her. "The vampires don't want open war again, either... they'd run out of their favorite food too quickly. They want the world to continue in the way it has been, the human world slowly slipping downward until it is too late, and they can take over. Human-ranching as the next big growth area for venture capitalists."

"Human ranching? Yeah, that just makes me want to stake and burn."

He watches her carefully. "I know you're not keen on being touched right now but I could carry you, at least up the stairs."

"I'll... I'll manage, thank you, Jay," she turns slightly to offer him a grateful, faltering smile. "We, my ally and I, are trying to convince vampires who'll listen to us that... they don't have to feed on humans. That it is to their long-term benefit, too, if they don't. Some of those we were talking to tonight seems to listen, but the majority... well... few people like revolutionaries keen on tearing down the established social structure."

He nods and backs off half a step.

"And some people just can't give up their favourite snacks. I take you had to get a bit direct with them?"

The smile disappears, and she turns her head, having to take a steadying breath. She looks faintly ill.

"If you mean that we had to then fight for our lives by ending theirs, yes. Yes, we did. It's happened before. And it will happen again."

And again.

"And it hurts. It hurts every time." Her world was so much simpler when they were just monsters, not people. Her life was so much better when she was just a baker.