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 Posted: Sun Sep 21, 2014 2:41 pm
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A week after the mission, Sasha still hadn't seen Evan. She hadn't seen him in the halls around the compound, hadn't seen him on the sparring grounds. It annoyed her that she was even looking for him. A myriad of scenarios went through her mind, and each of them ended with Sasha feeling more and more and more annoyed.
It wasn't until she heard about the Moon who had gotten himself podded (on purpose they whispered) and the Sun and Mist who watched over him (they hadn't left since they'd set up camp) that Sasha decided a visit to the pod room was in order. If it wasn't who she thought it was holed up in the pod room, she'd just be out a little time and effort.
But if it was Evan in the pod room, Sasha had some choice words. Some very choice words.
She slipped through the rows of pods until she came across one that looked as though someone had set up camp. Evan was there, as well as someone who appeared to be huddled deep in a sleeping bag. It didn't matter who else was there. Sasha zeroed in on Evan.
"You stink," she growled matter-of-factly, "and I'm irritated with you. So you will get on your feet and you will follow me, or I will take you down and drag you out of here. Do you understand me?"
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Posted: Sun Sep 21, 2014 3:20 pm
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Evan envied Stormy's ability to be asleep right then. He didn't know how she did it--he certainly hadn't slept much since they'd gotten back from the mission, and not at all since he'd taken up his post in front of Tuck's pod. It was almost unfair: Tuck had been forced to sleep, so Evan stayed up for the both of them. The closest he had managed in days was a halfway conscious doze against the wall. He was so tired that his bones ached, but he couldn't sleep even if he'd wanted to.
He zoned out sometimes, retreating so far into his head that the needs of his body ceased to matter. It wasn't restful, but it was better than thinking about how much his a** ached when Stormy wasn't awake to talk to.
It was in this state that Sasha found them, and he jerked into awareness as she snapped at him. He blinked up at her in confused surprise, frowning at her tone of voice and apparent disappointment. She wasn't wrong; he hadn't had a shower since he'd taken up watch, and he hadn't shaved since the morning of the mission. He'd been living mostly on whatever alcohol Stormy brought him and anything she could make him eat. He knew he probably looked rough--he felt rough--but he hadn't expected anyone to care. He certainly hadn't expected Sasha to come looking for him.
Evan sighed at Sasha's demands, looking from her to the pod. It wasn't going anywhere. Tuck wouldn't magically wake up in the time it took Sasha to drag him outside and yell at him. He didn't want to risk her wrath, either--she hadn't been someone he'd wanted to cross even before they got to know each other better, never mind the fact that he was easily twice her size.
"Yes, Ma'am," he mumbled resignedly, struggling to his feet and wincing as his stiff muscles protested. He hadn't gotten up at all since he'd been down here, either, except to answer the call of nature. He hurt, inside and out; Sasha probably couldn't do anything worse to him.
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Posted: Mon Sep 22, 2014 7:54 am
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Evan blinked down at Sasha in surprise at her gesture of support. He hadn't expected it, considering her irritation, but it was welcome in ways he was too tired to examine right then. He draped his arm over her shoulders and let her guide them through the maze of pods but didn't lean on her, determined to carry his own weight.
He squeezed his eyes shut against the harsher, brighter light of the hallway until his vision adjusted, whining low in his throat as it stung his eyes anyway. "I know," he heaved on a glum sigh, his eyes focused on the floor in front of him. He didn't know, not really, but he could imagine what he looked like: sad, tired, bloodshot eyes with an exhausted and defeated slump in his posture that was unlike the easygoing confidence he normally projected. He was too tired to keep it up.
"How'd you find me, anyway?" He asked, genuinely curious. The only people he had seen since he'd been down there were Stormy and Heidi. He hadn't checked his phone at all. It was probably dead.
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Posted: Mon Sep 22, 2014 7:48 pm
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With every word Sasha said, Evan felt a little worse. He hadn't expected her to go to any more trouble than it took to walk to his room and put up with him through breakfast. He hadn't considered their budding friendship--or alliance, or whatever they wanted to call it--when he'd gone off the grid. He hadn't considered his other friends, either. Stormy he'd texted out of courtesy and to let her know that he'd found their missing piece. Heidi had just shown up.
Nobody else had actually come looking. Certainly if they had, they wouldn't have insisted so forcefully on taking care of him. He didn't deserve such an unprovoked act of kindness, especially not when he had ruined her careful planning. He had nothing to give her in return, at that moment, except his obedience, so he wordlessly let her lead them to her room.
He gave her room a cursory once over--assessing threats, always, no matter what state he was in--before gingerly settling himself at the edge of her bed. It felt as plush and inviting as it looked and he wrap them both in the blankets and just hide from the world for a while, but he was still in the torn, dirty clothes he'd been in when he'd gotten the news about Tuck. He had just come back from the Haunted House and decided that taking up watch was more important.
His eyes tracked Sasha as she moved around the room. He wanted to protest against being shaved, argue that it would just grow back later. "Sounds like there's a story behind that," he said instead.
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Posted: Mon Sep 22, 2014 8:21 pm
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"Behind what?" Sasha filled the kettle with water before setting it on top of the burner. After turning the burner on, Sasha moved towards a small closet. She retrieved a small leather bag. "The razor?" Sasha glanced over at Evan as she unzipped the bag and withdrew her supplies, last of which was a rather wicked looking straight-edge razor.
"I used to shave the face of the man who raised me." She didn't usually divulge this kind of information, but Sasha had hope that it would take Evan's mind off of the idiot who had gotten himself podded. "And then, when I came here, I used to shave the Doctor's face. So you might call it something of a hobby of mine."
Sasha glanced over at Evan as she moved past him into the bathroom. When she emerged she had an armful of towels. At that moment the kettle whistled, and Sasha placed the towels on the bed before taking the kettle off.
"Take your shirt off. Pants, too. You really do stink, Evan. I'll get you clothes while you shower."
Sasha turned her back on him as she poured a bit of the water into a small cup that held a disc of soap. Using the brush, she worked up a rich, foamy lather before finally turning to face him again.
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Posted: Mon Sep 22, 2014 8:46 pm
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"It's an interesting hobby," Evan remarked. "Some people just collect stamps." Shaving seemed to fit Sasha, somehow. He could see how she might enjoy the power of holding a razor to a man's throat and constantly choosing not to let it slip. Danger in the innocuous--that was Sasha all over.
With a tired sigh and a nod, Evan nodded and moved to obey Sasha's orders. He shrugged his jacket off, folding it messily before setting it on the bed. His shirt came next, awkwardly fumbled off with clumsy fingers. He didn't bother unlacing his boots, just untied them and pulled until they popped off. He winced as he stood to push down his pants and socks.
Each article of clothing Evan removed revealed a different set of injuries. There was a healing bite mark on one forearm. His ribs were taped, and a fading set of scratches stood out in five perfectly straight lines beneath them. Minor burns turned his opposite arm red from elbow to shoulder, though they were much less livid today than they had been a few days ago, Evan was almost pleased to note. Among the other myriad scrapes, bites, and abrasions he had managed to accumulate in the time between learning Tuck had run away and finding out he had returned were a number of fading, aged bruises.
And that was just on his front side.
He sat and waited for Sasha to do whatever it was she was doing with her shaving accessories, trying hard not to look like a man on his way to the gallows.
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Posted: Mon Sep 22, 2014 9:00 pm
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"You. You are a stupid, stupid man, Evan."
There was no heat in her voice, just a tinge of something that sounded suspiciously like sadness. Her eyes moved from one mark to the next, cataloguing each of them as though she were committing them to memory. His body was something that brought Sasha great pleasure, and it was that reason alone that a stark sort of upset nestled in against her ribs, cold and ragged and invasive.
Or so she told herself.
She set the cup of foam down on the coffee table and immediately cleared the bed free of the razor and other supplies.
"Forget the shave, you fool. Come. A hot shower first. You haven't been taking care of yourself, and that upsets me."
Sasha reached down to take his hand so that she could usher him into the bathroom. With clinical precision, Sasha removed his boxers and immediately started the shower. Hot, healing steam filled the room, and Sasha shoved Evan into the shower before taking a moment to remove her own clothes so that she could squeeze in with him. The glass door closed with a click, and only then did Sasha run her hands over his poor, battered chest and abdomen. His arms. His shoulders and neck.
"What were you thinking," she chided ungently, taking his chin in her fingers. "Surely you know better than this. If you had need of someone to work your frustrations out on, Evan, you do know where to find me." |
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Posted: Tue Sep 23, 2014 7:13 pm
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Evan lowered his eyes and nodded as Sasha remarked upon his lack of intelligence. He didn't want to see the disappointment in her face; that he could hear the upset in her voice was enough. At least, he consoled himself, he looked better today than he had when all of his injuries were still new and livid. He might have refused her orders if they had come a few days earlier. He hadn't wanted her to see, but the evidence of violence scrawled across his skin was just as much a part of him as his hair or eyes, and part of him had been curious to know how she would react to it.
She didn't scream, or cry, or yell at him. She wasn't disgusted by the physical state he had let himself get into. She wasn't frightened by the state of mind that had made it somehow okay to get hurt and then keep going. She was upset, but she still cared.
It was unexpected. It was heartening in ways that he was too bone-tired to express.
When Sasha took his hand, he squeezed it gently and allowed her to pull him into the bathroom. He shivered as she pushed him into the shower, the hot water almost too much to bear against the more sensitive patches of healing skin. He kept his head bent as Sasha stepped in with him, watching as her hands wandered over his injuries.
Only when she suggested herself as a better target for his aggression did he look up at her, and then only to give her a troubled frown. "No," he said. "I would never do to another human what I did to them. Not to my worst enemy, definitely not to a--a friend."
It was too easy to picture Sasha in place of the monsters Evan had hunted down and killed as slowly, painfully, and inventively as he could. He had relished their screams and the way their Fear flowed from their mangled bodies like water. The injuries he had suffered in inflicting greater pain had been more than worth it. He would do it again if he could. He would do it until his body gave out. It sickened him to even think of doing her that kind of harm, and he squeezed his eyes shut against it.
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Posted: Tue Sep 23, 2014 7:49 pm
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Sasha let out a low hum and retrieved a small, clean washcloth that was draped over the top of the glass door. She wet it in the hot water and then reached for the soap, working it into the plush cloth. For a long time there was silence, broken only by the sound of hot water raining down on them. She watched him quietly before swiping the cloth across his chest.
Only then did she speak.
"A long time ago I was taken. By horsemen. It wasn't just me. There were others. We were held in cells. Otto," she lifted his arm to wash beneath it, "had the worst of it, I think. Medea placed a worm to his neck, and it buried into his skin."
She moved to the other side of his chest, repeating the same motions to his underarm. "I don't know why Medea chose me, but she did. Once again I was taken, this time above ground to a big coliseum. I was made to fight for their entertainment."
Sasha's voice remained quiet, hushed, as though the words she spoke were mere secrets that she could not bear to part with.
"Turn."
She waited for him to do so, and once he had, Sasha let out a soft tsk before swiping the cloth along his back and shoulders. "At one point another hunter was brought in. Wash. We were forced to fight one another. I remember very clearly that I was not myself. I was delusional and wounded. I was tired, but I remember very clearly that I would have killed him if it meant that I could live - and he would have let me."
Sasha ran the washcloth along his lower back, the hard curves and sharp angles here and there.
She was silent again as she wrung the suds from the washcloth. Sasha paused long enough to press a kiss against a particularly awful looking bruise that marred the skin of his back. "He was my friend. And what I am saying is, Evan, is that you are my friend. And if you need to go out there and fight, you do not need to go alone. You do not need to go out there and face the possibility of never coming back." |
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Posted: Sat Sep 27, 2014 10:50 pm
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Evan kept his eyes closed because it was too difficult to open them. He had adjusted to the water and the warmth was almost more than he deserved could bear. He was sure it would lull him to sleep if he let himself stand here too long. It would be easier to sleep, just for a little while. He didn't want to think anymore.
He distantly noted how good her ministrations felt as she started speaking. It took a moment for the sounds Sasha was making to translate into words. He frowned as she told her story, outright scowling as outrage on her behalf welled and burned away the dull edges of exhaustion. She was yet more proof why all of Halloween needed to die. She had been a victim of their very existence, too.
Evan turned at her direction, though his feet felt like lead. Sasha's touch was soothing where her words were not; while he couldn't condone killing anything but monsters, he could certainly understand the need to want to survive. She was stronger than her pretty, frail frame suggested, and he admired her fortitude. It fit her like a puzzle piece sliding into place, connecting the pieces of the Huntress who had led a team through Scotland, quietly commanding, and the woman he was slowly getting to know.
It was only when Sasha extended him her friendship, her offer of aid, that he opened his eyes. It was more than he knew what to do with, and for a moment it was almost overwhelming. He had friends on Deus who would have offered the same, but people like Stormy and Tuck, they were family, and that's what you did for family.
Sasha wasn't family. Evan had been content to wait while she tested the waters of friendship. He hadn't expected her to dive right in. He felt like he was stumbling around in the shallows. "Thank you," he replied quietly, his voice hoarse, "but I always face that possibility. I'm always...ready for it. I don't wanna drag you down with me."
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Posted: Sat Sep 27, 2014 11:18 pm
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Sasha didn't have friends. There were a few people she cared about in her own strange way. There had been Wash, and there had been Jerry, and even Otto (if only because he'd been in the lair and she'd felt responsible for him, and in her worst nightmares she saw him slump to the floor again and again and again). Friends were a luxury, and they weren't one that she could afford to keep. Friends always ended up messy. Friends were unpleasant.
So perhaps she could allow herself this one friend. Just this one. She'd already invited him into her safe place, her home, and he'd been the first visitor she'd had since she'd settled everything just so. And it was okay. It would be okay. Sasha had to believe that it would be, because she was dwindling and unravelling slowly but surely. She was running out of the pieces of her she'd gathered close. Soon there would be nothing left to rebuild from. It was a startling realization, and one she'd come to only recently.
Sasha was quiet while she tugged Evan down low enough so that she could quickly wash and rinse his hair. She turned off the water and opened the door to the small shower, tugging two towels free from a rack that was bolted to the wall. Sasha wrapped one around herself before tossing the other over Evan's head. Maybe it would be easier to talk when she didn't have to look into his tired face.
"It's... important, I think. Friends. Loyalty," she corrected herself as she briskly dried his hair, "It's important to have someone you can trust." Sasha drew the towel down his chest and proceeded to dry the rest of him as she talked. "Someone who looks out for you. Someone you look after. Someone who, maybe, doesn't make you feel too vulnerable."
She'd had a lot of time to think during the past week. She'd had a lot of time to cry. She'd had a lot of time to be alone.
Sasha gave him a tired smile, a genuine smile, as she led him out of the bathroom. "You won't be taking me anywhere I haven't been before, Evan. Nowhere I'm not already prepared to go again." She pushed him back on the bed before moving back into the bathroom so that she could hang the towels up. She reappeared draped in a thick, fluffy pink robe with grotesque looking frogs all over it.
"Will you stay to sleep? Just for a few hours."
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Posted: Mon Sep 29, 2014 8:45 pm
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Sasha's hands on him were gentler and more patient than he had expected considering how upset she had seemed when she dragged him out of the labs. Friendly contact felt good after letting himself get beat up for the better part of a week and then practically isolating himself for another few days after that. If this was how Sasha expressed his irritation, with words that stung and gestures that soothed, he was curious to know what she was like when she was actually angry.
Evan was not yet so far gone that he would deliberately provoke her, though. This was nice, and drowned in a shower was not the end he saw for himself.
He hummed his agreement through the towel, his eyes closing briefly as she dried him off. They hadn't promised each other any kind of loyalty, but he trusted her with a razor to his throat on nothing more than her insistence. She was taking care of him now. He wanted little more than he wanted to make her breakfast. She had sounded vulnerable when she'd first vetoed the suggestion. He was vulnerable to her every whim now. "You're a good friend," he decided sleepily.
He was not a good friend. Tuck was down in the labs and Stormy was sleeping on the floor in front of his pod, where he should be instead of stretching out on Sasha's bed. He should have been watching Tuck's vitals instead of tracking Sasha's movement around the room. He should have stayed put; he shouldn't have been ready to follow her wherever she wanted to lead him. Sasha was a good friend, but Tuck was family--but Tuck had left them for a week and was podded for another, and Sasha only wanted him for a few hours of rest.
Her robe was unexpectedly hilarious and all he wanted in that moment was to see her lounge around in it on a lazy morning, sitting on her couch and eating his eggs. "I'll try," he promised, reaching out for her.
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Posted: Mon Sep 29, 2014 9:04 pm
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Sasha climbed onto the bed with a low exhale. Things were different in this room. In this room she could afford to be a little more open, a little more communicative. In this room Sasha could let the layers slip away. This was her home. Her safe place.
Friends had never been something that came easy to Sasha. Friends had always become something more complicated. This didn't feel complicated. This felt simple. As long as she had this place - these four walls and the floor and the ceiling, the minuscule kitchenette and the massive bathroom, the puzzle, the frogs, the pillows... as long as she had this place, she could afford to be human. She could afford to be soft. She could afford to be gentle and understanding. She could afford to listen and offer advice. She could afford to be someone's friend.
There was no threat in this room - not even the big blond man in her bed.
"You are a foolish man," Sasha curled up against his chest, nuzzling her face in close to his neck. "And you are lucky I am a good friend."
She fell silent and idly brushed her fingers from his temple to his chin.
"You will owe me two breakfasts for this," she added, her voice a low murmur, "or maybe even three."
Sasha was quiet for a moment, and then, "Why did you do this to yourself?" |
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