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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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.

Jay mentally kicks himself. Again. "Sorry Rae, that was a dumbass thing to say. Let me just get you to your room safe and I'll get my sorry ass out of your way."

"It's okay, Jay," she says, shaking her head as she clings to the banister for balance. "I... I understand that the longer one does... dangerous things, the more normal it feels. I know that happens. I can already see some of that happening with me, and it scares me more than most things do. The thought that that kind of violence could ever be normal to me. To be the kind of person that would find it normal, could shrug it off and not be horrified by..."

Her breathing is unsteady, her eyes watering. "It doesn't... fit my own picture of me, you know? It's not who I want to think of myself as. It's not who I want to be. It hurts, what I do, but it's good that it hurts."

It means she's still human. Still has some vestiges of her former life.

Jay braces himself to catch her, not sure what to say. He lost that picture of himself a long time ago.

"You're a good person, Rae. You take pity of random guys stuck in nightmares and you bake the best deserts I've ever eaten. However numb the other bits get... just hang on to that. That's the bit that's you." He hates himself all the more for trying to help but Rae's too good a person to give up.

Her hands are shaking.

"I don't feel like a good person. I feel... contaminated," her vision is blurred by tears as she turns to look at him. "My hands... I make people's food, Jay. They've got to be clean."

A baker's hands. Not hands that plunge into the chests of the undead, to close upon their unbeating hearts and wrench them free, fingers engulfed in stolen blood. But sometimes all the bathing and scrubbing in the world feel like they're only scratching the surface of those deep stains.

Jay sits down on the step so he can look her in the eye. He holds up his own hands. "I've killed, Rae. In cold blood and in rage but I've done good things with these hands too. The day you woke me in the bar, I was dreaming about a man I loved. I only knew him a few days but I loved him. Hands wash each other clean."

She remembers Con's lips on her palms, the morning after they had destroyed Beauregard, the feeling less like a kiss and more like a priest giving last rites.

"I d-don't see how. I'm supposed to be doing good things by... by killing. But it never feels like that. It feels like I'm making things worse. That with all the blood I spill... who I used to be flows out of me, too. And yet I go to work each day, I smile and talk and bake like everything's fine. But there's no number of c-cinnamon rolls or smiles or st-stupid, empty platitudes that can undo what my hands do. Can make me un-know just what I'm capable of."

"You do what you can because you can, because it protects the people you're with, because it's the right thing to do. You're a fighter, not a killer. There's a difference."

"And no platitude is ever empty if it brings even a moment of happiness, to you or to others."

He holds his hands out again. "I became a solider when I was 12. I killed the first time when I was 15. Not because I hated the man but because I didn't understand the strength I had. I understand what you mean but you can't give up."

Rae takes a shuddering breath, holding onto the banister for balance with her right hand so she might reach out to grasp his hands with her left. Her throat is too tight to allow her to speak, but she nods, shakily.

("What we can do, we must do. For what if there were no one to do the difficult things?")

Jay holds her hand gently, giving her time to find her balance and calm down.

Rae doesn't allow herself to break down often, and almost never in public. Most certainly not in the coffeehouse. She has a responsibility to her customers, her people, to stay upbeat, to give hope and stability (and delicious, heartwarming food) to people who have none.

When her balance and composure reassert themselves, she wipes at her eyes, feeling embarrassed.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to just break apart like that."