albinomilksnake | OPEN RP PART II: ELECTRIC BOOGALOO

"I TOLD YOU, I'M FINE"

Let me see, Gaige.

[She's fast as lightning when she wants to be. He knows because he's seen it: watched her peg more than a handful of bandits without breaking a sweat and because his long legs (that theoretically should have hers beaten by default) never seem to find a pace close to the one she keeps. Not when she's trying, anyway, and she certainly is now: back to him, bloody speckles dotting the wake of her stride where he's working his way forward to try and catch up.

To catch a glimpse of her and make sure she's all right.]

Come on, you're killing me here.

[ She doesn't know why all the time she does it, except that one time Salvador laughed and said it was overcompensating -- because he would know about that. She was little, and young and maybe coming third place was going to hang over her head for the rest of her life but where was the harm when it meant she pushed herself. Fought harder and longer and louder, screamed where it burned and laughed where she killed and moved twice as much as she needed to. But only, if she's being honest, because that was the price of keeping up.

Even if the pace she was used to keeping wasn't normal, but she'd stopped functioning on that level a long, long time ago.

But her particular flare, as way too many people pointed out -- in her haste she was oblivious. Got herself too far gone in it sometimes and it came back down to the point it was before, she was little. A piece of shrapnel didn't embed like this in Salvador or Axton and nothing so much as touched Maya or Zero that they didn't want to and Krieg just wasn't even worth mentioning when it came to pain -- but it sunk in deep on her. Seen them pull it out like nothing, but this was -- different. This was deeper than that and -- fucking hell, that was a lot of blood wasn't it?

Everything's dead, of course, hard to tell, old Dahl bases had such a habit of smelling like dead skags and slag sometimes, too many dark corners. But her HUD is coming up blank and more importantly, DT is hovering near her, and there was the soft whirrs of his concern. Rhys is a distant thing behind her for a second and she's swearing in a stream and that's off too, not her loud shrieks when it didn't matter. Vault Hunters are so good at pretending they're invincible.

Yeah well, they sure as all hell learned the title of that lesson and it was beginning and end just called Roland.

Not. Helpful. Her teeth grit and she hissed in a breath that only caused more pain and it's not swearing it's just a whimper. She was supposed to leave it in right? Right, pulling out was just -- just more blood loss, Zed and that shitty first aid class that one time taught her about that. Fuck, so much fucking blood, and she finally stumbles enough to stop for him to catch up. Why did she look at it? That was so stupid. It was so messy and ugly and Rhys was going to hate it. He was going to freak and it's worse because she's meant to be looking after him. Genius, always a genius even when things were getting dizzy, she could just die. The New-U wasn't far and she pushed herself forward a little more, further into the compound. Wait no, not New-U that meant -- that meant dying and Hyperion would take money, and they needed that money, she was doing all this to get him the cash he needed to get him home like she promised. Fuckfuckfuck.

It's a lot right then, and sometimes she's not big bad handsome jack killer, sometimes she's just her, and she might have snapped at him any other time, but her voice comes out small where she's going pale and she doesn't want him to see. It's weak, and she's supposed to be better than tin metal dug into her side where the suicide psycho got her good and proper. She's wearing bits of the bandit otherwise, splattered over her, and it still takes some time and more pride than she admits, but she shifts a little to let Rhys look at it. Buried all the way in, the tip of it showing, not small of it where it's entered there was a ugly gaping wound, uneven as the metal was and as she breath the skin pulled it open, ugly and pissing out blood -- or maybe she's talking shit again, it's just sort of seeping it, all over her hands where she tried to hold it closed. Teeth sunk into her bottom lip, she goes to the easiest fall back for her. Trying to take the edge off it the mess this was, and it comes out so lame when she goes to try and speak. ]

It's like a piercing, hey. Super stylish right? Really bandit sheque. I could set a new trend.

Edited 2015-02-25 15:34 (UTC)

Think that trend's already taken off here. [Quiet and not entirely there, given the way his brow's knit too tightly with concern. Gore doesn't really freak him out: it might happen in Hyperion, but in all honesty he's just directly and indirectly murdered enough bandits to get past the point of general squeamishness.

So it's just the fact that it's her that has him curling his fingers anxiously-- ineffectively-- in mid-air. Waiting for a cue on her end that it's okay to edge in close enough to move blood soaked fabric out of the way.] If I were you I'd skip it this time.

[ It's not so much in the end that she wants to, to let him close. She doesn't, she wants to be Maya or Axton, she wants to grit her teeth and she wants both her hands to be metal so she can pretend they're not shaking, but they are. Doesn't so much let him close as half crumble now that she's stopped moving and that's a mistake, burned off her second wind, and it's so far from dignified, but she takes a half a step towards him that is meant more to be leading them forward but ends up instead with her forehead lent into his shoulder as she half braces herself there. ]

Y-yeah it just doesn't feel like my taste you know. [ It takes some effort, her hand lowers, and there's another sharp shallow breath in, the bitten down whimper of pain that she refuses to make. Quietly -- ] Rhys I don't suppose you got an instahealth's on you any chance?

[It's easy, catching her with his hands when she leans in. She's light as air at the best of times; right now, being the farthest thing from it, he has to double check that he's supporting her weight and not just grasping at it.

But he is. And he's got her. And that's all that matters.] I do, yeah. [His chin drops by degrees, voice low and heavy with concern.] But we can't use it until the shrapnel's out, Gaige.

Not unless you seriously want to keep that piercing.

[ She feels clunky, thick fingered and heavy limbed, everywhere expect her head. It was spinning and her real fingers skid in slippery marks of her blood and some bandits on his arms. But she grins, all wide, laughs through a cough that spits up blood and shakes her head. ]

Thanks but no thanks, I don't think anyone is really going appreciate it. [ her head turns a little. ] Hey maybe internal organ breaking shrapnel is like pretty underwear for psychos.

[ It's a terrible joke, and she knows it but it'll have to do. Her way of telling him she's fine except that she isn't and it's a stupid waste of time, when really, this is just some dumb bravado that comes far too naturally. ] Hey, Rhys? [ She can't ask for help, she can't, it's too awful if she does. ] Can we maybe sit down? I think I'm dizzy.

Yeah. [She's joking, but he's not feeling it. Doubts she is either. The only smile he offers up is pretty wan by anyone's standards.] Yeah we can. C'mon.

[It's a short walk to shelter, some old, half-forgotten hovel buried in the wastes, and the thought of just picking her up to get it done and over with is tempting. Would be twice over if he wasn't worried about jostling metal in any farther than it already is - so instead he pulls the bulk of her weight up under his arm as a support. Something to make walking less painful.] Easy. Don't go too fast.

['Sitting' isn't really the term: Rhys is careful when he helps her down, keeping her back about as straight as either of them can manage at the moment so that she's half-laying, half-propped up across an abandoned blanket.

Not ideal, but hey, better than nothing.]

[ It's default and fall back, laugh about things that shouldn't be laughed about, make crass jokes and do whatever she has to, to keep people on their back foot and her pressing forward. Except it wasn't working right now. Her teeth set, back teeth grinding because he's carrying more of the weight than she is right then, and walking is an agony, all the muscles pulling around the chunk of metal firmly embedded.

Okay, okay baby steps, one foot in front of the other. Deep breaths, clenches and re-clenches the muscles in her jaw and it's only to bite her lip again as they finally get somewhere at least out of the way. Enough that whenever the bandits come back, they wouldn't be seen.

It's a whimper as he lets her down, her arm braced against the thin tin walls, and shaking sharp breaths in as she sinks down with his help, onto the hip of the side uninjured and then rolling back slowly. Dizzy and fading out until the movement of laying back lanced sharp up her body and that's not quiet, the ugly wet gasp of pain and she shut her eyes tightly to brace against, finally getting herself set flat, legs kicked out and weight on her robotic arm. It at least, wasn't painful. ]

Son of a skag licking, bullymong fucking, assholes. [ Not directed anything, or making much sense and she still sounded too small in her ears under the buzzing sound of pain and blood loss. Just out, because there had to be something to show for it.

Useless really, because the bloods pooling around and under, where her vest was sodden with it and it dripped slow on the blanket. ]

Hey. Language. [Doesn't carry the weight that it should, probably because his tone's all off: concern and anxiety as he goes to peel back the line of her coat without bothering to ask. He's not medically trained - opposite of it, honestly - but between the sharp scans of the ECHO implant and inhuman precision via a Hyperion-made arm...

They've got a shot, at least.] Hold still.

Go fuck -- [ Angry and not really at him, it's just that he's there, it's just that it fucking hurts. It's cut off, short and on another bitten down sound of pain as he moves to help. If she were thinking straight, there might be a pang of vanity right then. Might be ginger with it, hell compared to half the people she did alright.

But it didn't make the stump where her arm had come off the nicest thing in the world, but that sort of care, she's pretty sure, is just blood loss talking, cause for the most part she's pretty sure she shouldn't. What she should -- should be focusing on is trying to make it easier for him. Moving so that the jacket could peel off a little more and the shirt underneath ( fuck, this was her favorite shirt and now it was ruined ) stuck to her like a skin second now and cut in the same jagged ugly line her skin was. The shirt as red as the blood and hey maybe she wouldn't even noticed the stain later.

And it was still ugly and messy as hell. ]

'm going to kill them all again just you wait. [ and maybe, maybe it just kept the pain down. ]

Sure you will. But maybe wait until you're not bleeding out - that'd be good. [And with fabric out of the way it means he can see the full depth of those puncture wounds: silver eye sparked and narrowed and already working to hone in on flecks of metal under skin. Not good. Not surprising, but still...] I'm serious, Gaige, I've gotta get the shrapnel out. Don't move.

Badasses don't move.

[Which is the point before cybernetic fingers dig in - he's praying she's aware enough to keep from flinching. Then again, passing out might be for the best. Basically anything that isn't recoiling would be great right about now.]

[ She could say a lot of things, that badasses did move, a hell of a lot and she would know because she tried to shoot them so much, that she was a badass killer, not just a badass, that she knew the drill, this wasn't her first mostly fatal injury, but she settles on, in the end is -- ]

Okay. [ The easiest agreement she must have ever given him. There's a shaky nod, the bloods drying quick in the hot air that was constant no matter night or day around this part of Pandora and she feels it dry her throat. Scrunches up her face up all ugly before his fingers get close, still, she had to keep still because she was more badass than that, locks herself along her spine and snaps her teeth up and shut.

But there's only so much she can do in then end, and yeah she's done way, way, waaaay worse to herself but it was different when it was to yourself, she knew why, there was a purpose and an end goal, there was nothing to focus on like this. Not a scream, and then when it threatens she takes hissed breathes between teeth, clenched into place as the cold hyperion metal fingers of his sunk in, can't help the flutter of muscles and the shake that comes with the shock, and maybe it would be better if she didn't have any pain tolerance, maybe she could just pass out but, she's got too much pride for that right then. Stubborn as she is impulsive and she's glad one of them has steady hands, because hers are too busy curled up in the now bloody blanket. It would be too much, eventually, but right then she's stubbornly holding herself there until she could move. ]

[Programming makes it easier. In a lot of ways, actually. Where she flinches he can compensate, mostly. Lessens the damage of digging out metal-- which he does, by the way-- his own inorganic arm soaked through to the sensors up to his knuckles as he finally draws back, sliver of silver in hand.

It doesn't come until afterwards, until he goes to keep score for the both of them, that he realizes he'd been holding his breath.] One down.

Two to go. [Metal chip dropped unceremoniously to the ground beside her.] Stay with me, kiddo.

[ It's too hot, and this is a strain on her body regardless, sweating beading on her brow, prickling on the line of her throat, like she'd run a mile but all she'd done is focus the same on keep very, very still. And it might not be much for him and the calculated lines of his eyes, but it's searingly painful up the line of her spine where he pulls the first sliver of metal out.

Holds still, still, still, until it's free and she gasps an ugly line, thing and she's swearing all over again. Wants to sink back. Worse, he calls her kiddo, calls her that word and she knows that word she hates that word. ]

Just hurry it the hell up already. [ her fingers are aching from gripping so hard, and she's not sure but she think she'd bitten her lip open. ] Don't call me that.

[Easy to forget how much she hates that word sometimes. Side effect of the actual side effect in his head, hissing in his ear; it's not something Rhys bothers to dwell on that the tech he's relying on for this could screw them both over in a split-second.

But he's got this. He's got it all under control.] I'm hurrying, Gaige. Trust me, I'm hurrying.

[Fingers dipping down under skin for the deeper shard - for the one that's dangerously close to killing her. Hell, if she had to heal naturally she'd be dead, which won't count for anything if he can't get it out. Gross as the dig of metal and muscle is, half a minute later sees him pulling back the grotesque culprit.

This time Rhys doesn't wait to go back for the last piece - if she passes out from pain it'll probably be for the best.] Last piece. Almost done.

Well then fucking do it-- [ and this time she does scream, and mercifully she's never shrieked like a horror movie so there's that for her dignity, but it's straight out from the back of her throat, worse than acid or slag or fire right then, how much it hurts. It's agony and there isn't much else for it. Gutted open and she can't breath, white noise along the parts of her still flesh and blood. Idly, somewhere in the small part of her mind not cursing every skag fucking bandit, thank god DT was digistructed back into her arm, it's enough pain that he would attack for her.

Then it's just too much, dying would just be easier and it's confusing because it feels the same, only there's no rush of white light that as Hyperion liked to constantly remind her -- that light was just being remade. It's burning searing pain along ever ( ha ) exposed nerve of the wound, screaming because his fingers are ripping open things in their effort to help.

And then it's black and she's sinking back ( angles odd, cyber arm only half getting the message, and it twists out with her weight ) flat on her back and limp all at once.

But, at least, she's completely still now. ]

[He feels guilty-- god, he feels guilty. It'd have been easier to let programming take over rather than have to grit his teeth and keep hurting her, but there's not enough trust in the entirety of Pandora for that. Not enough naivety in him.

So he pushes forward: picks the last shard out with his heart beating high in his chest and nausea at the back of his throat, rushes to grab the hypodermic needle he'd set aside-- bloodied fingers nearly dropping it more than once before he finally manages to jam it in. Messy work. Amateur and rushed, but it worked, at least.

Rhys wipes his hands, sucking in a breath, pulling the lines of her shirt and jacket back down to keep her warm as the wind picks up. He sits with her, waits patiently (blanket wound tight around her shoulders eventually) with his eyes trained on the distant light of Helios.

This was all such a mistake.]

[ She's aware to it all, the pump of blood all over his hands with the shrapnel all gone, her body doing it's damn best to bleed out everywhere. Getting paler by seconds until the needles jammed in and they do what they're like magi -- or just really, really advanced science.

It's not going to heal nicely, they never do. If this had been done more neatly, steady hands, in a clean place, it might have come out straight and neat at the very least. But the instahealth's don't exactly go in for that, knitting flesh back together in the haphazard way that they were best at. But she's alive and in one piece and they haven't just lost thousands of thousands of dollars because she made a stupid mistake.

Still, it's some time before she wakes up again. Doesn't know exactly how much, but it's just little things enough feeling back to know that she really really didn't want it. Ginger little movements as she tries to move. This was just, erg, erg. He had her guns right, he'd been getting better, nothing should have hurt him in the mean time. But she licks her lips and maybe it's the same shitty habits as Axton and Maya and Lilth and Roland, anyone sane enough or caring enough, and she does her best to mime them most of the time, but this was less that and more genuine worry for anything that might have happened whilst she was out. ]

Rhys? You there?

Yeah. [Quiet, tired, though he's relieved as anything to hear her voice. It's not that he thought she'd die, just--

His chin tilts slightly, gives him the chance to catch sight of her where she's bundled up beside him. Hands over his knees, ankles close to crossing.] Yeah, I'm here.

Wouldn't be anywhere else.

[ Right then, there are so many things she should be doing. But everything sort of faintly pangs, aches in the way old bruises do. Not bad as it could be, all things considered. If the bandits are coming back, they're not doing it just this second.

That's as much as she needs. She doesn't want to move, there's a whole big world outside this tin shack and she'll slaughter half of them by the time she's done at the end of the week. Or something. Make more money, find a better grenade mod to get so revenge for the ruining of her bikini line, who knows what. But right then?

She just doesn't care. It's tucked away safe, or safe as can be and she's doesn't have the energy to be miss big bad vault hunter. So she moves, but it's only to get her head up under where his arm is resting to put her head on his leg. Little movements of adjustment, her goggles tugged off and set down beside her, her pig tails coming out in messy little tugs. ] Good. Don't move.

[ The blankets falling off her shoulders for the time being, and outside it's getting dark, but this? This is better than perfect to her exhausted mind. ]

[This time he slides back on his weight to watch her, expression conflicted-- remorseful, almost-- lips going thinner as the seconds tick on.] Gaige--

[Which doesn't have a follow-up because he doesn't have one. Doesn't know where to start. There's a lot that should be said, more that shouldn't, and all of it feels too heavy as she tugs out her pigtails.]

I'm...not gonna move. Promise.

[ She's not sure if she really trusts him, not when he's got that... tone on. The 'Gaige-I'm-going-to-act-like-I-know-better' tone that she'd gotten used to, and hell maybe sometimes he was, but right now, she's pretty sure this is the best idea she's had. Her arm shifts, and it moves low across his knees, and yeah she's going to go with not trusting him as her excuse for doing it. Looping the cyber arm over in a stretch against him. Her legs straightening out past the edge of the blanket as she twisted on the line of her back, feeling things clink into place.

It's a lot of things, she can feel sand in her hair and in her boots again, hair is a mess but it's not pulling at an odd angle again, as she turned her face in a mumble against his leg that doesn't mean anything other than contentment. Sighs, relaxed and all but purring where she is. ] Relax, [ like she knows the face he's pulling. ] It's just us, okay? Nothing's going to go wrong. And --

[ Her eyes close and she's still again. Rise and fall of her chest in slow even breaths. ] Thanks, Rhys.

Yeah. Sure. [More uneasy than he'd like, and not because she's sprawled across or against him. Tomorrow they'll talk about it. Tomorrow he won't drop it just because he's cold and exhausted and emotionally drained from fear.

He settles back against old, corrugated metal. Puts his arms behind his head.] Anytime, kid--ehhhyou.

[ It'll have to do, and that's so much of all of it lately, it's just what is, what had to be adapted to, and she never minded it. She was good at it, but sometimes, she missed home enough to want more.

But there wasn't exactly a way back and she sighed, rubbing her face in and second, eyes closed and -- there he goes again. ] You know, you can call me something else if that's easier. [ Her metal fingers pluck idly at the material of his pants, like she could feel the cloth under her thumb and forefinger. Eyes still closed, comfortable, easy as blinking. ] If you really need to.

OPEN RP PART II: ELECTRIC BOOGALOO

when I'm rolling with the punches and hope is gone, leave a light a light on

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