milliways_bar | (no subject)

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(OOM: "So... apart from healing and resting and knowing there'll be questions, do we have any sort of plan?"

"So far today our track record with plans isn't too hot, Sunshine.")

From the other side of the main door, there is the sound of someone fumbling to get a key into a lock. Carefully fumbling, though, wanting to avoid putting too much pressure on the key when seemingly any pressure is too much. Why had she insisted on going in by herself instead of letting Jesse help her?

Eventually, the door opens, and Rae steps through, keys held loosely in one hand, an assortment of pharmacy bags held in the crook of her other arm. The knot of anticipated relief that had been growing in her chest swells and bursts when she sees where she is, leaving her lightheaded from pain and unsteady on her feet.

She is, it has to be said, a mess. Her clothing is mostly intact, though her kerchief is gone and her lavender blouse's neckline is charred black and fraying loose. All the better, though - she couldn't have endured the shirt's collar so close around her neck as she is now. Severe burns cover much of her neck and hands with angry red blisters, shiny with a thick application of ointment. Bruises cover more of her than even the burns, and her hair has been burned short on her left side. The frizzled fringe brushes lightly against her left cheek as she wavers. The rest of her hair is still in the long braid she had worn when she had left Milliways so many months ago and earlier today, though now it is lopsided and hanging loose on the left side.

Before her knees can give way beneath her, Rae closes the door and steps unsteadily over to the bar, spilling her collection of prescription bags onto the counter as she drops onto a bar stool. She lets herself breathe, letting the closed door behind her put distance between the events of the morning and now. Feeling faintly sick, she puts her aching head down on the cool, polished wood.

"Thank you," Sunshine whispers.

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Rae so wants to hug him. Wants to put her hand - whole and uninjured - to his forehead, and brush back his hair from his eyes. She's been... gone, for so long. What has she missed?

"I hope so," she says in her hoarse, cracked voice. "Healed, and back to baking. I could barely hold onto my keys to get into my apartment."

"I have... ointment SOF put on them, on my hands and neck, and some from the pharmacy," she murmurs, a thought she'd had earlier today returning to her. "When I was in the SOF infirmary, I thought... I thought about you, and that little bottle of kenet."

Autor's eyes widen as he takes that in. "Oh! Would kenet help you now? Aerin used some to treat the pain of her burned arm."

"I'm hoping so," she says, nodding slightly. "The stories have been accurate so far, right? I doubt it could hurt to try."

Autor turns to Bar and opens his mouth, but she manifests two bright blue buckets of the herb-smelling ointment. Autor smiles, and thanks Bar in a murmur. "Here, Rae. This should help."

Edited 2018-01-16 03:32 (UTC)

Rae stands, moving stiffly to spare the bruises hidden by her clothes, and reaches her arms - gingerly, to spare the burns on her neck - over the top of the herbal-smelling buckets to slowly, carefully, lower her hands into the thick ointment.

The pressure of the ointment against her blistered and burned hands is almost too much, at first, and she has to bite back a sound of pain, but once her hands are past the surface it is easier to keep going.

She holds them there, suspended, the ointment fully covering the extent of her hands' burns. At first, nothing happens, but after a long moment she feels the gradual but steady numbing of pain in her hands, blessed relief, and her eyes begin to water.

"Gods bless old legends."

Autor watches her carefully, holding his hands out lest she slip and fall--a ridiculous fear, since she's moving so slow, but the boy still worries about his best friend. When her eyes start to water and she speaks, Autor breathes again. "Oh, good," he says, smiling slightly. "This will speed the healing, right? But not so much that it won't look natural?"

"It should," Rae says, holding onto the sensation, the cessation of pain, and trying to keep her breathing steady. "It should help speed the healing, but yes, not so much that it would... attract attention."

"Um..." she clears her throat, "Bar, could I get, ah, more of the kenet? In some sort of container with a lid that wouldn't be too hard to open?"

What appears on the bar in reply is two clear plastic containers, almost like tupperware, with stretchy plastic lids covering them. While they're sealed, they're closed, but all she would have to do is pull one of the sides up by its large, flat tab to break the seal. No tight grip or much pressure needed.

She is reluctant to remove her hands from the kenet, but her neck is still screaming at her. Rae brings up two near-handfuls of the thick, herby ointment, and presses the handfuls to either side of her neck, gently coating her neck with a thick layer of the stuff.

When she feels it begin to take effect, her breathing shakes and tears fall from her watering eyes.

"Oh, Rae," Autor says again, tempted to close his eyes. He can't shy away from her pain, though, so he doesn't. He wants to reach out and hold her, wrap her in his arms and tell her that everything will be all right. And everything will be all right. He's sure of it. He just doesn't know how to tell her. "I'm so sorry."

Rae has to focus to stay steady on her feet - such relief makes her muscles want to loosen and relax. She blinks hard. "No, don't be. This is..."

"This is a better outcome than I had any right to hope for, Autor."

Is that sad?

"The burns will heal.... Bruises'll fade," she shakes her head slightly, causing the loose fringe of frizzled-short hair to brush against her cheek. She had forgotten about it. "Heh. Hair will.. grow back. I guess I'll need to cut the rest of it off to match, sometime soon."

"I can't help you with that," Autor says, furrowing his brow again. "I wish I could, but I have no experience cutting hair not my own. I can't help you with anything."

Autor knows he just has to give her time, but he's grown rather impatient over the years. He wants her healed now.

"Silly. You're helping right now," she replied, the hint of reprimand in her voice making her cough twice.

In another time, she would ruffle his hair.

"You're helping me by letting me focus on something other than how I hurt, and you've helped with that hurt a great deal already. Without you, I wouldn't even know kenet really existed."

"But--" Autor starts, and then dry heaves into his bucket. "Ugh." He leans back, his shoulders sagging as he settles on the barstool. "Well, I'm glad. Please, keep using the kenet. Bathe in it if you need. I can even read The Hero and the Crown to you, if you want."

The offer brings a faint laugh bubbling up, though it causes another cough.

"I would love to hear you read Aerin's story. You'd have a good voice for it."

Bar provides the book without Autor having to ask for it. He spits into his bucket, shaking and flushed with fever, and picks up the novel. After adjusting his glasses, he cracks open the cover. "'She could not remember a time when she had not known the story; she had grown up knowing it. She supposed someone must have told her it, sometime, but could not remember the telling...'"

Rae wants to lean on Autor's shoulder, to curl up in something approximating comfort, and listen to his voice tell the comfortingly familiar story.

Her bruises are already protesting the bar stool.

When he mentions Aerin going before her father the king to ask that she might accompany him and his courts to treat with the border barons, Rae reaches out a kenet-slathered hand - not to touch, but merely to request a pause. "I was right, Autor, you have the perfect storytelling voice."

"Could... could we go up to my room, perhaps, to continue? I hate to admit it, but I am having difficulty staying upright."

"Of course," Autor says, snapping the book shut. He'll have to find his place again, but they're at the beginning, so that shouldn't take too long. He'd offer Rae his arm to escort her to her room, but that seems like a bad idea. Autor sighs. He hops off his stool, tucking the novel under his arm and collecting his bucket. He also picks up her containers of kenet. "Lead the way, Rae."

Edited 2018-01-16 06:17 (UTC)

Rae doesn't so much hop off her stool, but she gets to her feet without much trouble, tucking the paper pharmacy bags in the crook of one arm so she might bring them with her.

She can't hug him, though she very much wants to, so she nudges him lightly with her elbow.

"Thank you, Autor."

Autor wants to nudge her back, but doesn't. "You're welcome, Rae," he says, following her to her room. "When you recover, we can make croissants."

"Oh I get it," she teases fondly, "throw the recovering baker in at the deep end. I see how it is."

Croissants, the first thing they made together. Rae wishes she could hug Autor without hurting, and then making him worry about having hurt her. She doesn't have much trouble with the stairs, apart from general stiff- and soreness from her bruises.

"Did I..." Rae clears her throat quietly, "Did I ever tell you about the first croissants I ever made?"

"I think you did, but I don't remember," Autor says, juggling his pile of stuff and wishing he could help her up the stairs. "I remember you telling me about the first cinnamon rolls you'd ever made, but not croissants. Please, tell me again?"

"I don't remember telling you about the croissants," she murmurs.

They were not friends, when they first made croissants together.

"But I remember telling you about the cinnamon rolls. Like little bricks, they were."

"The croissants came out to be... just misshapen curves of bread, with a suggestion that they'd been rolled up beforehand," she says. "I'd let the butter melt while laminating the dough, and didn't take the time to refrigerate the dough between folding. They were such sad little things, but everyone pretended they liked them."

"Ah, I see," Autor says, nodding thoughtfully. "That's too bad. Well, you know what happened to my first batch of croissants. I ate them all anyway. I've really missed your cooking while you've been away. I would have pretended to like your croissants, too."

"I'll get back to cooking as soon as I can," she promises, smiling slightly.

Her hands... they aren't even up to fumbling with keys to unlock her door, at the moment. She holds her burned hand about an inch from the door handle, and concentrates. She is tired and her thoughts are muddled by pain, but she knows how to unlock her own door.

"You c'n come in," she says so the wards will let him in, putting only enough pressure on the doorknob to turn it and open the door. Even that small pressure makes her voice shake.

Autor frowns. He could have unlocked the door for her, and would have offered, if he'd been thinking. He kicks himself. "I'm sorry, Rae, I should have--I should have offered to open the door."

Rae shakes her head, very slightly, though the movement hurts. "Don't. Don't beat yourself up because... because I'm bad at asking for help."

She is used to doing things for herself, even when she's hurting. She forgets that there are friends who would help if she'd only think to ask.