albinomilksnake | OPEN RP PART II: ELECTRIC BOOGALOO

Yeah. Fine. [Hot, sweaty, tired, covered from head to toe in grit and salt-- but still breathing so that's more than he could say for the pack of bandits they've clearly left behind in the ditch. Panting he brushes at his forehead with the edge of his arm, rolled up sleeve catching the worst of the droplets sinking down across his brow and matted hair.] Never better.

You feeling all dead yet?

You obviously haven't met enough Pandorans if you think I'd be dead just from that hullabaloo. Or from walking through desert for a measily half a mile.

[But she is breathy and sweaty, and she doesn't bother to mask the fact that she's headed straight for the nearest shady surface to doctor herself.

If only there was some water around. But it wouldn't be the first time she's had to deal with less than ideal circumstances.]

Make yourself comfy, we can break for a bit.

'Comfy', she says. Sure, okay. I can do that. Let me just [There's a momentary pause as he lifts his arms slightly, gesturing to their trash and scrap-ridden surroundings:] settle in on the couch by the big screen holo-reader.

Don't know if you've noticed, but seriously, nothing about any of this looks comfy.

[Fiona pauses and sends a long glare across from where she is sitting.]

Hey. Skaglick. You ever stop to think that maybe, just maybe, you ought to be making the most of the fact that you're...you know, alive? You're welcome, by the way.

[Something about his attitude very obviously gets under her skin and, rather than continue to indulge his whining, she drags a half dented piece of metal (dingy, but with just enough shine to spot her reflection if she wipes away the dust) with her foot.

Then, silently, she begins to try and work the glass out of her head while biting her lip to keep any expression that isn't 'frustration' off her face.]

Edited (I was right the first time) 2015-01-27 08:29 (UTC)

Oh my god, stop. [This time there's a certainty to his movements, a quickness to it that's blatantly ignoring all rules about touching and not touching and personal space and for god's sake, Fiona, you're making it worse. Rhys' hands fall over hers, tugging back to keep her from driving the glass in any farther without bothering to wait for her pending disapproval.] You can't even see what you're doing right now, but trust me, it's not good.

Hey--!

[She tries to push him off again, blinking hard as more blood gets in her eye again after being forced to release the glass. Thanks asshole. He succeeds in grabbing her first, once again caught off guard by his weird...caring about her injury thing.]

When the hell did you become a medical expert?

Since I have eyes that can see it's getting lodged in there every time you jab that seriously dirty metal in there. [It's not doting, it's barely even kind, but he's got one cybernetic hand at her jaw to keep her steady long enough to reach up with his left for the sake of pinching the sliver between his fingers and pulling it loose in one quick go. If she's not going to let him help, he'll do what's best for her regardless.

Jack clearly wasn't wrong when he'd said that was one of the issues with Pandorans.]

You have one eye--ow!

[She flinches hard when it finally comes free, and the rest of her insult is lost in a wave of vertigo. Having the caravan right then would've been great, at least she could get something relatively clean to staunch the bleeding with then.

Fiona growls, not unlike something particularly more feral than her appearance might suggest before she swallows injured pride long enough to say:]

...thanks. I guess.

[At least she could say she said it when he didn't.]

[There's no response. He's busy pressing the pad of his thumb to the cut to slow the bleeding, useless metal (when it comes to this, anyway) of his other hand pulling back away from her jaw. And, unsurprisingly given that he'd expected it when they first crashed, the wound doesn't want to stop: head injuries and blood go hand in hand, even if they're unsevere.

Or something. He' read it once. Somewhere.] We need to get you to a healing station.

You guys have those here, right?

[Fiona, at this point, would really prefer to just lay down without a fuss and sleep off the injury but that's not really possible. Sleeping with a bleeding headwound would just attract skags. She blinks slowly, attempting to get her bearings long enough to answer.]

I don't know if there's any med vendors installed here. Have to look around.

Keep pressure on it. I'll see what I can find.

And don't lay down while I'm gone. [Fingers reluctant to let go and trust her to take care of herself without him hovering just over her shoulder. Wants and needs all weighed against one another, and the only thing he hopes is that for once she just listens.] You know us evil overlords: we don't tolerate slacking on the job.

You're not the boss of me.

[ That's about as far as the argument goes, however, and when he lets go she actually stays upright. Its hard for her to believe that he actually wants the best for her, rather than to save his own hide, but at the present his...behavior benefits both of them.

So she'll tolerate it. For now.

While Rhys is gone, she stays true to his request. She keeps pressure on the wound and does her best not to lay down. That doesn't stop her from resting her head back against the wall and letting the dizziness settle into something that almost resembles slumber. ]

Psh. Not yet. [Junk, junk, junk, bloody hand, junk. Pandora really goes all out on the whole murder-themed decoration route. It's only after a few tiring minutes of pawing through scrap metal that's eerily tetanus looking-y (hooray for inorganic appendages) that he finds a busted old med dispenser and sets to trying to hack it via what little stored power it has left.]

Not ever.

[But after that, she goes suspiciously quiet. Asleep? Probably. She may or may not be pondering what would happen to Sasha should she not make it.

But really, its just a flesh wound. In her head.]

Fiona. [It's a nudge to her shoulder with the back of his hand, just before he abandons any and all pretense by wrenching up the sleeve of her coat to find a vein. Lip curling nervously ( he's never done this before - sure people got injured from time to time on Helios but usually someone else did the...stabbing) Rhys dogs the needle in, popping the injector and letting the opaque red liquid inside drain out.

She may be stubborn and spiteful and infuriating, to say the least at times, but they've come this far, and all arguments aside he'd prefer her alive and okay. For her sake and Sasha's.] Fiona, wake up.

[She's slow to wake up, but the nudge gets her to grumble and her eyes to slide open slightly. The jab straight into her vein does a much better job of waking her up. Fiona's eyes snap open and she barks a sound of surprise. She goes tight instinctively (which makes it worse) and grabs for her wrist--

And then she sees the med dispenser in his hand. Either he just poisoned her, or he did the right thing. Judging by how the wound on her head was quickly clotting and shrinking, she guessed it was the latter.

Awkwardly, she releases him and stays quiet. No thank you this time.]

[Which is fine. Honestly it's easier when they don't talk - she likes him more, he feels less at risk of decapitation or abandonment. Or maybe he's just kidding himself. Either way, there's something satisfying about the knowledge she's okay.

So for the moment Rhys finally settles down, hunkering exhaustedly in the shade of an old, collapsed shack.]

Enh. Could be worse, I guess.

How could it be worse?

[She could think of a lot of ways, actually, but Fiona has a hard time believing that Rhys really believes there is a worse fate for him than what is currently occurring. He's Hyperion without an umbrella cocktail and without rose colored glasses.

It doesn't get worse than that. Right?]

Well you're not dead, so that's generally a good place to start. [Scoffing, one eye (his cybernetic one at that) opens to catch a glimpse of her from where he's sitting. He might not be whining about it, but it's hot, he's dirty, and he honestly can't remember the last time he was ever this tired. Pulling seven day work weeks was less grueling.]

[The almost predictable answer. She scoffs, genuinely, and let's her head rest backwards again...enough for her eyes to drift closed.]

Yeah, that'd be a tough break for you wouldn't it?

[She still has a hard time conceiving how Rhys and Vaughn actually managed to find August without any real injuries -- Vaughn especially.]

So. How long have you known the short one?

For Sasha, actually. [Which is pointed enough when he sits up long enough to angle a look her way. Vaughn and Yvette are as close as anyone gets to being his family, and some part of him feels guilty for where they've wound up, voluntarily or not.

He shouldn't have asked Yvette for more when she was already being watched - now there's no real chance to tell her.] But whatever.

We go back a ways. Hyperion's not a company ladder you climb over night, and too many people in it are making the same leap at the same time. It can get nasty. A little cutthroat. Having someone behind you that you can trust...I dunno, it helps.

Vaughn's a good guy.

[God.

This guy doesn't make any sense. Hearing him hone in on Sasha makes her go a bit tight shouldered, but its brief. She's trained herself out of showing prolonged displays of emotion like that -- it made it too easy to pinpoint weaknesses. She cared about Sasha, and she had cared about Felix. They were her family.

She doesn't really want to talk about them to a corporate Hyperion stooge, but he had potentially saved her life and seemed to be honestly relaying his feelings about people he trusted.]

Sasha doesn't need me.

[Short, pointed and without hint of how she feels about her sister's independence from her. Not a true compromise, but it was something other than silence.]

He looks up to you. Vaughn.

[It was kind of cute, in its own way. It didn't take rocket science to see that Vaughn had a vested interest in seeing Rhys close his deal with that vault key, though she is certain not all of his desires were completely altruistic.]

Well yeah, I make an excellent role model. [He's the headliner. The front man. The closer and-- you know, just about everything else involving a spotlight and some serious class. But unlike those other assholes crawling around Helios, Rhys keeps himself a cut above the rest by not forgetting they're a team-- that's what heroes do, right?]

[Fiona smirks very easily and says nothing for a few moments. She might have agreed if she had any business to judge, but she doesn't really. Not that it stops her.]

I'm doubting you fit that mold when it comes to your people, or you wouldn't still be down here.

[Her legs cross.]

Oh yeah? Well you'd be wrong. [With maybe a touch more personal offense tacked on than anything necessary or subtle, arms folding across the span of his chest all fuss and pride and something else too hard to scrape up without context.] One guy-- one-- is my problem right now, and I was about to screw him over with that deal.

Before it was a fake, I guess.

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