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 Posted: Mon Sep 24, 2012 2:01 pm
What was the big deal? He didn't remember hurting Rep enough to scar him. Had there been some lingering effect he'd managed to miss? Or maybe Rep just needed his help with some kind of infirmary related task. Robert was the King of Bandaids(TM) nowadays, which wasn't a very proud title to have. Still, he was just happy to be good at something. If he had to be the healer, at least he'd be the healer who stayed alive long enough to keep everyone else alive.
With his sick Transformers band-aids. Aw yeaaah.
He whistled as he pushed the infirmary doors open, and a tremor went down his spine. The sterilized smell in the air, and the constant, nagging beeps of life support, sucked his happy mood away in seconds. He hated this room, and everything about it. The room saved lives, but everything in it reminded him of death. Everything was too clean, too sterile, too dead.
He swore he could even hear the drip of that IV, dropping down into the bag, making its way through the tiny tube, into the thin needle that punctured the skin of a patient. It was taped on, but he could still see where the needle slipped under the soft skin and disappeared. Soft, tender skin, so perfect in color and texture that he had to reach out and touch it. So even though it was completely inappropriate for him to be touching patients, the meat of Robert's fingers danced playfully up the lithe, but toned arm of the person laying on the gurney unconscious.
And all this time, he hadn't even looked at her face. Perhaps there was some subconscious trigger that had warned him not to look, from the moment he saw her arm - her perfect arm, that arm that he would have recognized even without her. Maybe that was why he touched it, despite how ridiculous it would have been, had she been some stranger.
His mind wasn't catching up with him, and there were forces that refused to let him look up at her face.
But he did it, anyway.
It felt like Petra was rising up from the gurney, floating like an angel above him. But in truth, he'd just fallen to his knees in front of her, staring up at his wife's unconscious body in complete and utter shut down from denial.
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Posted: Mon Sep 24, 2012 4:05 pm
She wasn't quite asleep, but by no means could she have been considered, in anyone's book, awake. The body laying on the gurney was limp, in a way that even a sleeping person couldn't emulate; tucked beneath the stiff white sheets, Petra seemed far past relaxed, qualifying more accurately as 'practically boneless.' More relaxed than she'd likely ever been seen awake, that was for sure. But that was morphine for you. It drowned you in such a blissful state, you didn't even feel the ungodly amounts of pain you had to be in to be issued some. So while Petra's eyes were closed, bruised cheek resting peacefully against the pillow one of the medics had tucked beneath her head, she wasn't really asleep. Just drugged up beyond all belief. But, for simplicity's sake, everyone (or everyone polite, anyway,) just told the curious passers-by that she was 'dozing.' Which was pretty accurate anyway.
The sensation of Robert's fingers against her arm was one of the strangest ones she had ever encountered in her entire life. Then again, to be fair all the sensations she had experienced while doped up on the opiate had been some of the strangest she had ever encountered; there was a peculiar fuzziness to it all, everything so alien and yet so muffled, even the textures. They'd pulled the sheet over her, tucked it under her arms, and she could have sworn there was a cold tingle where she touched everything. The Death trainee would have been utterly fascinated, had the drugs not effectively have been lulling her already-exhausted body, and so at the time she'd settled for merely a wide-eyed look, which had quickly drifted into a hazy, dazed sleep. She'd woken up a few times, if you could really call it that, but it had merely been to slide her eyes aimlessly around the room, possibly just to watch the room spin.
So when Robert's fingers brushed her arm, her eyes slid open again, because the sensation of skin against skin was so pleasant, and yet so completely weird, her addled brain decided it was within her best interest to investigate.
Taking a few good moments to focus her eyes, Petra slid them lazily down to where the person should have been standing by her bed, and was completely bewildered when she found the space where she imagined a person to be completely empty. At this, her eyebrows furrowed a little, her expression scrunching a little in an almost sad bewilderment before she glanced further down, right down to the mattress, where a tuft of blonde hair mysteriously peaked up from beside the white mountains her legs made beneath the sheets.
With obvious effort, Petra lifted her hand off the mattress, clearly not entirely in control of movements as she reached for it, her hand swaying a bit before her palm came to rest in his hair, working it gently between her fingers.
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Interesting Conversationalist
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Posted: Mon Sep 24, 2012 4:21 pm
He couldn't hear the drip of the IV anymore.
In fact, every little thing that he'd noticed when he walked into the infirmary had faded away. Kneeling in front of the gurney, his mind had simply shut off, refusing to believe what he was seeing. Somewhere in the back of his mind, there was a tiny little voice trying to make its way through the thick, heavy denial that shut the man down.
She's alive. Jack-damnit, you idiot, at least she's alive. Stop this. I don't like this. Just cry or something. Yell! Freak out like you always do. But at least realize she's alive. She's not dead, a*****e. She's alive.
He'd had nightmares of the day he'd walk into the infirmary, and find Petra's body, covered by a sheet. She looked just as white as she had then, too. Just as silent. Just as bruised, and beaten, and still as death.
ROBERT.
He couldn't even go into shock in peace. That damn b***h couldn't leave him alone for just one second. His rage flowed freely through his veins as he railed against her, yelling at the equivalent of her face in his mind. But it was exactly what she wanted, and when his internal screams finally petered out, she fell back into silence, and left him with his own terrible thoughts.
His hands had a firm grip on the gurney's edge, but when Petra's fingers brushed through his hair, they gripped tight enough to make the steel whine. His head snapped up, and his eyes bulged out, startled at the jarring touch that he hadn't expected. One of his hands shot up and grabbed the one inside of his hair, devouring those tiny fingers with his own thick hand. He pressed down hard, to feel her fingers straining his scalp with pressure, and then collected the hand out of his hair to keep it in his own.
"Hey, sunshine." He knew he shouldn't have trusted his own voice at that moment, and it cracked with emotion and betrayed his strength. He pushed himself back up to stand, and bent forward, tenting her body with his own. He tried to look strong for her, but she was a mess, and that made him doubly so.
He leaned down further, and left a lingering kiss on her forehead.
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Posted: Mon Sep 24, 2012 5:05 pm
She had no idea how bad she really looked. The inkling one got when one looked as bad as she did was usually triggered by pain, and since that had been swallowed up by what was in the bag hanging by the hospital bed, the pale-haired girl was quite oblivious.
Petra had to strain to get into a position where she could see properly, grunting a little as she wiggled weakly to try to move. Her entire body felt like it was asleep, uncooperative as it was, like she'd cut off the circulation to every limb at once. Except instead of that annoying prickling, there was that tingly roughness of her skin against the bed. It took a few minutes and a great deal of annoyed sounds, but by the time she managed to sit up a bit, Robert had lifted his head from where it had been hanging beneath the makeshift bed, eyes as wide as saucers as he stared at her. In actuality, that was her first clue that there was something wrong -- it was kind of like that feeling you got when someone stared, and you immediately want to check in the mirror to see if you have something in your teeth or on your face. Except in this instance, it wasn't something on her face, it was her face. Staring back at him, she also got the feeling she should be petting him for some reason, not realizing that her brain filter was on temporary leave, and her fingers had started running through his hair as soon as she'd even considered it.
That was, until the moment he grabbed her hand. It was so... wonderful a sensation, she didn't resist when he squished her fingers down harder atop his head, didn't even wiggle them in case it made him let go. Unlike the sheets, his hand was warm, and it quickly warmed her own icy one, a contrast which only had her wanting more of it. He moved her fingers out of his hair, but he didn't let go, and the Death trainee relaxed a little, satisfied. It was Robert, of course he wasn't going to let go, and she was so comforted by this, her usual emotional inhibitions removed by the drug in her veins, that she smiled as he said her name, her fingers twitching a little as she tried to squeeze his hand.
"You're so big," she murmured as he bent over to kiss her, her tongue feeling that same awkwardness that made it hard to move her limbs, feeling swollen in her mouth.
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Interesting Conversationalist
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Posted: Mon Sep 24, 2012 5:22 pm
"Shh, stop that." The moment she tried to move, to sit up, to even shift, Robert was there. His hands kept her from actually attempting any real movement, and his body caged her, never quite touching, but never letting her go at the same time. But the sound of her voice made everything right again, and he visibly shuddered as he took the first deep breath he had managed since his hands had touched her skin.
The words, as ridiculous as they were, made him laugh helplessly. He tried to keep it hushed, but even a hushed Robert wasn't very hushed at all. Then he brought his lips down to press against hers, but they refused to put any pressure on the swollen, broken skin.
It was then, as he felt the warmth of her pulse too close to the surface of her lips, that all his fear fluttered away in place of something much stronger. Much hotter. Much more important.
He was an inch from her face when his eyes flickered up to look at her again, but all the adoration had fled. The cold red orbs were sharp, and held very open and obvious fury - it was a foreign expression for him.
"What happened?"
Neither was his voice familiar, any longer. The lumbering idiot with his raucous laughter and the heart on his sleeve - he had retreated, for the moment. He was curled up somewhere inside. Just for now. Just to make room for someone new.
The man looking through his eyes now was a cold blooded killer.
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Posted: Mon Sep 24, 2012 5:59 pm
Oh, that was so good. So comforting, his laugh, she just wanted more of it. What she did to make him laugh like that, she didn't have any idea, but there was a hint of desperation that had begun to coil in her chest, an irrational need for him not to stop. It was a lifeline, a beautiful silver thread, or maybe a bell, and she wanted to cling to it, wanted to touch it. She just wanted to touch it...
Petra tilted back her head to stare up at the body caging her own, her mouth falling open for a second as she reaffirmed her first notion that he was so big, before her thoughts refocused, reminded of what she wanted. And that was to touch him. Fighting with her limbs, the Death trainee reached up, fingers spread as she wrapped her arms around him, hugging him with a gentleness which might have shocked anyone else. His body was perfect and familiar, strong and warm, her fingertips tracing aimless, wandering patterns into the broad expanse of his shoulders. She never wanted him to let go, she was never letting him go; some part of her knew where she was, in a distant way, but in her mind it was no different than the beds in their dorms. He would sleep with her, and this thought was such a happy one she tried to pull him down right that second, her weak attempts probably barely even noticed by the hulking man.
When it became obvious she wasn't going to win that round, Petra instead resigned herself to the kiss he pressed so against her lips, so unbelievably gentle and sweet that it felt like the warm breath that fanned against her skin. She wanted to stay in that moment forever.
Especially with what he asked next.
If he had been sweet before, it was completely gone as the Life trainee broke the kiss, pulling back just enough to meet her eyes, fire red to ice blue. She could never remember a time when she had been afraid of him, even at his fiercest, but at that moment she felt as if she'd never been more frightened. Not that he would hurt her, although her drug-altered mind had not ruled this out completely; what she was really afraid of was the fury in those eyes, the hardness there, so hot and yet so cold... so unlike him... she never wanted him to look at her like that again.
Petra held her husband's eyes, her arms suddenly feeling unbearably heavy, sliding a little down his arms.
"I made someone angry," she answered, her voice dropping below even a whisper as she continued.
"I'm sorry."
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Interesting Conversationalist
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Posted: Mon Sep 24, 2012 6:03 pm
"A name, please." Robert's voice had lowered to a whisper; perhaps to hide the welling anger that laced his every word. He brushed back her hair with two fingers, seemingly distracted by the act, but every tense muscle made the truth clear - he wanted to know who, or what, had done this to his Petra.
And he wasn't about to yield to her arms until he knew.
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Posted: Mon Sep 24, 2012 6:29 pm
She stared, eyes flicking back and forth between his, the color draining from her bruised face. Somehow, that whisper was worse. So much worse. What had been elation had dissolved into something else, and Petra's pupils dilated as she stared at the uncharacteristically hard lines etched in his expression, her breath starting to quicken.
"No."
It wasn't a defiant sound. Denial, in the form of a little whimper, escalating rapidly.
"No, Robert no... NO!"
It was hard to discern what she was screaming about. Whether she thought his anger was directed at her, whether she knew that he would kill Cass, or whether the drugs were ******** with her senses, twisting it into something nightmarish. The heart monitor by the side of her bed jumped, beeping in alarm as the gentle, steady blip became angry jagged lines, echoing her cry. Her arms were uncoordinated, but she thrashed none the less, albeit weakly, her fingers trying to grasp unsuccessfully at his coat, as if undecided whether she wanted to grab him or push him away.
"Nooo..." she half-sobbed, twisting her head back and forth, "Please don't be angry, please, please Robert please..."
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Interesting Conversationalist
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Posted: Mon Sep 24, 2012 6:51 pm
The flames that had awoken within him were doused like a bucket of water dropped on the heat of his anger, when she cried out his name. His expression melted into horrified concern while he listened to her monitors speed up, and he settled down against her, trying to get her to stop moving by being as close as he possibly could.
"Baby. Baby I'm not angry. Come on, relax now, this ain't good for you. Just relax, you gotta keep calm so you can get better and come back to me."
His head tilted, and he left kisses along her jaw, down her neck, and across her clavicle - but he paused a moment there, as a particularly dark bruise made him wince and tested his strength.
He passed over the bruise, refusing to kiss the tender skin and cause her any more pain.
He pulled his head up, his eyes distant but relaxed. "See? Not angry, baby."
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Posted: Mon Sep 24, 2012 7:42 pm
With Robert's body pressed against her, Petra relaxed almost instantaneously, pacified and tired from the effort driven by her sudden inexplicable desperation. With the warmth of his larger form against hers came the reassurance, starting to edge out the disorienting fear, and the pale-haired girl tilted her head to rest it on his shoulder, pressing her face against his throat. It wasn't just his tone, soothing and far more him than it had been a few moments before, but the words he spoke as he tried to calm her. 'Come back to me.' Somewhere, in the recesses of her mind, she saw and remembered a white dress and wildflowers, and a promise she had made. I can't promise I'll be safe, but I'll always come back to you. With it came an itch of guilt, swelling like a balloon in her chest, and she immediately regretted her outburst; she'd worried him.
Sighing a little, the tension completely melted from her muscles, tears from the stress of it all tracing two pale streaks in the corners of her eyes. His kisses, however, were the soothing balm nothing else could offer, no other medicine could compare. It was what she needed, and she pressed into it, her fingers seeking his, taking his hand gently.
"Don't blame Cass," she murmured finally, brushing her thumb in concentric circles around the joint of his, the way he did sometimes when they were alone, "I've always been a shitty friend."
The need to tell him how much she loved him, maybe to apologize for worrying him, maybe because she realized she might have died, was so strong, Petra lifted her other hand again to weave it into his hair, tilting her head to catch the corner of his mouth with her lips.
"I love you."
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Interesting Conversationalist
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Posted: Tue Sep 25, 2012 1:26 pm
Whoops.
The kisses stopped when Petra uttered Cass' name. His lips were still pressed against the skin of her neck, but his movement stopped, and his face was out of her view. His expression went from gentle worry to hard, cold features. His eyes opened, glaring without seeing at a point directly in front of him. There was nothing there, but it didn't matter. All Robert could see was Cass.
And blood.
Petra's movement and her words forced him back from his true feelings, and he put his mask back on carefully the moment she tilted to see him. His face softened, and he brushed his nose against hers.
"I love you too, sunshine. More than you'll ever know."
He pulled himself away, slowly to give her the time to adjust, and carefully sat on the edge of her gurney. Both of his hands were still reaching for hers, touching her in any way possible. His expression was a quiet, steady calm.
Years of acting practice.
"Are you too tired to tell me what happened?"
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Posted: Tue Sep 25, 2012 2:36 pm
Whether due to the obscene amount of drugs in her system or Robert's insane acting ability, Petra was completely oblivious to the mistake she had made. His kisses stopped, but the soft, warm exhale of breath that fanned against her skin was enough, comforted into a pleasant lull. She couldn't see the way his face hardened, nor did she have any reason to look for it; in her mind, all was right in the world. Pressed against her as he was, she could feel his heartbeat so acutely in this strange, slightly warped state of mind, and she reveled in the warmth and protection of him. She was sixteen again, and he was protecting her. They were happy. Her friends weren't beating the s**t out of her.
Had she known about his intentions, the Death trainee would have put up a fight trying to keep him from going through with whatever was ticking into place in the inner workings of his mind. She would have argued, she would have pleaded, she would have threatened; anything to keep him from doing something to jeopardize himself. Nothing good could come from the revenge she was sure he wanted to take. And had she been aware that Cass could not summon her weapon due to that very incident, she would have handcuffed him to the bed and would have never let him go for the rest of forever.
It would have been wonderful. She was a benevolent captor -- she would have fed him cookies and juice.
Petra's fingers tightened a little on Robert's as he sat up, loathing to let him escape, but once again his gentle nature softened her heart, coaxing her to relax once more against the gurney. Pacified by his hands, connecting them together still, she met his eyes, feeling a sudden weariness wash over her, a sensation she couldn't place. There was something wrong -- she could see it in his face -- and yet at the same time there was nothing that would indicate that at all. His expression was the picture of calm and patience, loving her with the same unwavering faithfulness as ever.
"We... were talking," she started, eyebrows furrowing a bit as she tried to pinpoint details, things important to the story. But the drugs were making it hard to concentrate, everything impossibly muffled. Details, like how the coffee tasted like turpentine, felt so important, while she could not for the life of her remember what Cass had been so upset about. "In the cafeteria. It was so cold..." Wait... that was wrong. Petra paused again, realizing her mistake, scrunching up her face for a second before letting the skin smooth between her brow. "Cass was... upset." With her? "I made her upset?" 'What we wish doesn't matter.' "I tried to stop her when she got up to leave, and she hit me."
Beneath the sheets, her body stiffened for a fraction of a section: a kneejerk reaction. There was something... innately terrifying... about having someone you thought was safe, someone you thought cared about you, suddenly use a weapon... a weapon you would have never considered to be a threat against you... to beat you to death.
"I tried to hit her back..."
Lifting her eyes to Robert, Petra looked genuinely disturbed by that.
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Interesting Conversationalist
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Posted: Tue Sep 25, 2012 3:18 pm
Petra's disturbed expression was mirrored in her husbands, as he listened to the story and slowly lost his calm. He stared down, trying to rationalize what he was hearing. He'd been expecting her to tell him that Cass had gone too far in a spar. Maybe lost control. He'd seen it - he'd DONE it. He still would have raged on Cass, but it would have ebbed after a minute.
But not like this.
"You're telling me, this happened in the cafeteria?"
Not like this.
"Just.. just talking?"
He could have lost her. She was hurt so bad, so very bad. There were so many bandages, so many scars. This had happened in the cafeteria. In the cafeteria.
His brow furrowed deep as the dumbfounded shock settled in. He didn't know how to feel anymore. He couldn't even be mad yet, he was too busy being completely confused at the sheer stupidity of it all. He didn't know Cass that well, but she'd never seemed the kind of person to do something so stupid. Rep? Sure. Jerry? Robert was almost certain that man was going to snap and kill someone, someday. But Cass? That little girl who always seemed to be attached by the lips to Marcus? That girl who'd come to their wedding, who'd cried at their vows? It made no ******** sense.
"Baby.." He breathed out, trying to work past the shock. "I am never letting you out of my sight around these ******** psychos again."
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Posted: Tue Sep 25, 2012 4:35 pm
"What?"
Whatever distress she had been feeling vanished completely as she got sidetracked by the Life trainee's statement, eyebrows unfurrowing to lift in surprise. "Robert, I'm the psycho," she replied, an air of incredulousness touching her tone, "I think I told her to get over it."
It would be the source of shame and guilt for a long time. What she had said before, she'd meant every word; she'd always been a shitty friend, and no one could dispute the fact. No one came to her when they were upset, and this was exactly why. Petra could offer no comfort, nor would anyone look for it in the cold indifference she projected on a regular basis. She was convinced, and thanked any god who would listen, that Robert was only with her because he had seen her before she had become the robotic, monotonous attempt to be a good soldier. He understood her and knew her to her core. No one else did. And it was for this reason that she could not help but feel completely... confused... why he thought... Cass...
...wait...
In a moment of clarity, Petra cocked her head a little to the side, slowly, the wheels in her head turning slowly as she puzzled over the memory. The exhaustion. The rap on the table. The conversation... Cass had been upset. She'd been unsympathetic. She tried to hit Cass... but Cass had hit her first.
There was a long, pregnant silence, until finally the Death Trainee's eyes widened just slightly, as if she had reached a sudden epiphany.
"... she hit me."
She was completely shocked too. Drugs man.
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Interesting Conversationalist
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Posted: Tue Sep 25, 2012 5:40 pm
Petra was flying. That much was certain. Robert might have been a touch jealous, if he wasn't so confused and enraged and worried all at once. A big ball of emotion was welling up inside him, but all of it was pushed aside for one more thing.
He leaned down and started to leave punctuations in the form of kisses as he spoke. First her forehead, then her nose, her lips, her chin - all pauses while he assured her of what he needed her to know. "You. Are not. A psycho. You are mine." His kisses stopped, and his hand lifted her chin to get her to look in his eyes. "And you're perfect."
If she didn't believe that, he'd failed his one and only true job. ******** the hunters. He was on this earth to make Petra happy. If he couldn't do that.. he might as well go let Cass beat him to death, too.
...Cass. Seriously. It just made no sense.
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