|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Posted: Mon Jun 03, 2013 8:59 pm
The good thing about being knocked out was that her brain didn't have a lot of energy to make dreams--all of it was just an uninterrupted void of darkness until one moment Stormy was tasting dirt, the next a very antiseptic sourness. Sort of like from not eating for a while, she realized. Like . . . stomach acid? Onions? Undeoderized armpits? She spent a few minutes contemplating it while rousing herself from her stupor, wincing as her mind caught up with her body.
Aaand there went the whimsicality of her thoughts. Stormy gingerly examined and poked the runic bandages at her waist and arm where the major damage had been wrote. She could feel a few sutures elsewhere, but at least that didn't seem as bad. A broken arm, though . . . Ohhhhh nononononono! Nooo, why did-why that side no how would she write--
< < You are left handed? How sinister. > >
Failing to catch Thane's rare joke for the moment, Stormy lamented her new cast and sat back with a soft groan. A lab tech came and checked up on her, though it was brief and formal; just another luckless trainee probably doing a stupid stunt. At least she was well on her way to healing, though apparently she still had a day or so left before being discharged. Left with little else to do, Stormy asked for her possessions and managed to rifle through her coat (with a few aches) to get her phone.
Was it okay to check on the others? She didn't remember much towards the end, just that Sam and Mark had come to get them and a big bright light . . . Sherry had been most distraught, and Jake had--crap. His weapon . . . Maybe it was too soon to ask after either of them . . . Marcus she didn't know so well, though she'd be passing the Moon hunter an apology as soon as she could for deciding to run after them. Out of the group, the only one who seemed her easiest and most comfortable option was Gale, and so painstakingly Stormy began to type out a message on one hand.xkurotomato Text to Galehey im awake now ne news?
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Jun 03, 2013 9:39 pm
Everything hurt, but that was, at least, in Gale's opinion, not a good enough reason to be stuck in the infirmary for yet another round of antibiotics, IVs, poking, prodding, and generally too much closeness and stupid hospital type gowns.
So, at the first chance he'd gotten, he'd snuck out and made his way back to his own house and, thankfully, his own bed, which was a helluva lot more comfortable. He'd all but collapsed there (bad idea; falling hurt), and slept for the next eight hours straight, only waking when he could hear the text alert on his cell phone going off.
He rolled over in bed, groaned in pain, and pressed his face into the pillow, inhaling sharply. One hand fumbled for the phone, which was somewhere on his bedside table, and once his fingers had found it, Gale dragged it towards him, blinking awake blearily and pressed the on button.
A familiar name flashed on the screen - Stormy Ortega.
He was instantly awake, rolling onto his back, wincing slightly, and slowly typed out a reply, though having one hand bandaged made this slightly difficult.Ol-j-man Text to StormyGood morning - are you all right? Are you in the hospital wing? The others are fine. Banged up, but fine. Quote: Text con'tDo you want a visitor?
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Jun 03, 2013 10:13 pm
Banged up was fine, all things considered; that had almost been a slaughterfest. She sighed in relief and let the phone fall to her chest as she debated an answer. On the one hand, being alone was nice (even if she had been asleep most of that time, and even if technically she hadn't been alone in the labs). On the other, Gale was First Friend™ and should be treated as such.
But . . . she didn't look ready for a visit, her hair was probably a mess, she smelled weird, and all Stormy had on her mind was apologizing again. For not being up to snuff for the mission, for being closed off for the majority of it, and for running in headfirst--even if that last part had been very accidental as far as the portal was concerned. Eventually she took a breath and thumbed in the response anyway, because above all things she felt a sudden need to cuddle the crap out of something.kurotomato Text to Galeow/yes wudnt mind if can typig hurt
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Jun 03, 2013 10:19 pm
It took her a while to answer back, and Gale was suddenly nervous that he'd made her uncomfortable by asking. It wasn't like either one of them was in all that great of shape right now (the bandages across his head and over parts of his arms weren't exactly fashionable...) - but there was just something about being alone. Perhaps it was because most of his time was spent alone, so he knew very well both the benefits and the negative ramification of it.
But there was a small beep as the screen of his phone lit up again with her answer, and Gale read through it carefully, pressing his lips together before typing a reply:Ol-j-man Text to StormyBe there in a few.
It took him a little longer to get to the Infimary, mostly because he was still sore, but once inside it was a little easier, and Gale found Stormy's bed easily; a small, quiet section in the back. Hesitantly, he pulled back the curtains and peered around, his expression cautious.
"Hey," he said, and took a step towards the bed. "How are you feeling?"
Stupid question, he chided himself instantly, cheeks pink, because obviously that was not a question that was going to be answered with I'm just fine.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Jun 03, 2013 10:30 pm
In the time it took Gale to get there, she had nudged her pillow into a new position and was counting invisible stars in the ceiling. Her vision danced with spots, which caused her to blink rapidly when he poked through the curtain. "Ehhh . . . asi-asi," she mumbled, lifting her good hand to make a see-sawing motion. It was more than one question could be answered with in truth. Stormy gestured for him to pull up a chair (or the next available stool) and sat up with a wince.
"I'm guessing you have a few aches and pains too," chimed in Captain Obvious as she eyed his bandages. A small smile appeared. "Nothing new for you, huh. First time we talked, you had a gimp hand; guess it's my turn?"
Pause.
"So, um, the others . . . I remember Sherry and Jake yelling, and something had broken, and, uh, was it his--?" She was afraid to even say it aloud in case it somehow warped circumstances to make it true.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Jun 03, 2013 10:41 pm
He dragged a chair over beside her bed (making a little too much noise in the process, which made him slightly embarrassed, but he coughed to cover this up and got over it), taking a seat and leaning forward, his forearms linked together on his knees, hands linked together.
"Just a little, yeah," he replied dryly, eyes flickering over her own bandaged arm. If he thought about it too much, he could almost smell the sand, feel the heat and the pain...
Gale pushed those thoughts away forcefully, what was almost a smile passing across his face as he tilted his head to the side a little. "That's right," he said. "Our illustrious leader had just stabbed me in the hand when you arrived. Good times."
The smile faded from his face, Gale's eyes flickering slightly.
"Yeah," he said quietly. "He's broken. Not sure about fixing it, that's up to Jake, I guess..? Haven't heard much from him, or from Sherry. Marcus is all right, everyone is pretty messed up and resting."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Jun 03, 2013 10:55 pm
She was wrong: better to not ask at all; obviously if she hadn't, Jake would have been just fine. Stormy chewed on her lip with more obvious concern than she usually showed, positively alarmed that their partners could be broken at all. The implications on the psyche, especially for hunters who were already adapting to having a second voice . . . And no shield . . . Just a snap and you're down. But hell, she had learned first hand how even a shield didn't always do much, that it just took a strong spear or four bone projectiles--
She shivered and gripped the sheets. "Good times," she echoed faintly before turning that anxious look upon Gale. "It . . . doesn't happen often, does it? I-I can't imagine . . ." It was lonely was what it sounded like, and the worst kind too.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Jun 03, 2013 11:06 pm
She was looking alarmed, positively faint, and Gale sat up a little straighter, edging closer to the bed with the typical teenage boy angst of what to do in this sort of situation. He cleared his throat a little, hesitated, and finally reached out, gently gripping Stormy's wrist (her good wrist, of course, and not the wrist of the arm that as broken), and giving it a very light shake.
"Hey," he said quietly. "Hey, it's not all that common, okay? I can't..." He sighed in frustration and pushed his hair away from his face. "I can't promise that it won't ever happen to you, because nothing is ever for certain here, but it's not a frequent reoccurrence, okay? I mean, I've had Jinhai for going on three years now, and he's never been broken.
<< At least not physically. >> Jinhai murmured, but Gale ignored this, giving another little sigh, this one smaller than the first.
"Don't think about that," he said forcefully. "Just...take a breather. You're still alive. That's something, isn't it?"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Jun 03, 2013 11:22 pm
She made a small surprised sound at the touch but didn't pull away, unable to wipe the concern off her face. Still alive now, yes, but one of these days . . . "Sorry," she mumbled, dropping her gaze. "It just never occurred to me . . . I mean, they're magic practically. Monsters in steel with ancient runes all over the place. It's not fair they're not unbreakable." Nor had she thought shattering that illusion would be so literal. But that came off more childish than she liked to reveal, and thus she gave Gale's hand a small squeeze.
"You sort've know me; I'm no good with positive topics." Not about herself at least. "Another thing . . . Um . . . Down there, when they were asking us to drop our weapons." Wait, was this too personal? She wished she could do something more with her hands to channel the idle energy of social anxiety, but it seemed determined to be vented out by airing all of her troubling thoughts. "You can't talk for Sherry, but why'd you try and bargain with your life?"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Jun 03, 2013 11:33 pm
He offered her a small, slight smile. "It's not fair," he agreed, and his voice dropped lower, quieter, as he looked at the silver banded ring on his hand, heard the soft noise from Jinhai in his head.
It's not fair at all, Gale thought.
Stormy's question dragged him out of his thoughts, Gale blinking in surprise, and for a moment he wasn't entirely certain of his own answer, pressing his lips together in a thin line, his expression troubled. After a moment of silence, he said haltingly, "Partially as a distraction. I wanted to see if the horsemen would take the bait enough to allow us to escape so long as we kept him occupied."
His shoulders rose and fell in a small shrug as he looked away from her, down at his hands, and his voice was soft, hardly above a whisper.
"Partially because I would rather I die than one of you guys."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Jun 03, 2013 11:43 pm
She got the tactic--even though the horsemen could have and would have destroyed them, having someone talk meant having to make them listen, if only for a few seconds; a few precious seconds someone could use to take advantage of it. That's what she imagined Marcus had been doing, shouting insults at them like that. Or maybe he too was just trying to incite them into killing him instead. If Tuck ever got an itch to do something stupid like that the next time they got horsemen issues, she'd slap him with Thane's broad side for them.
It didn't stop her from asking, "Why?" just as quietly. Stormy found the courage to look at him, her own troubled expression remaining in place even as her tone remained less determinable, somewhere between curious and stunned and maybe, just maybe, with a hint of an argument.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Jun 04, 2013 7:37 pm
He suddenly felt very exposed, very out in the open. His head was aching rather painfully, and Gale wondered whether or not he should have stayed in the Infirmary, if only for the pain medication. Stormy's question was quiet, and he could hear a rustling sound as she moved to look at him, but he couldn't look at her, couldn't admit that he felt as though he were drowning, as though he were sinking into something he couldn't escape from.
One shoulder rose and fell in a half sort of shrug. There was a small, bitter smile on his face as he replied softly, "Maybe because I think hardly anyone would notice if I were gone sometimes."
His voice was deliberately casual, though there was an odd tightness to it, as though the control were barely holding.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Jun 04, 2013 8:07 pm
There it was again: that keening familiarity of pain she'd felt when she'd talked with Nevada was back. Pain and pain and more pain, of the body at first, and now of the mind and the heart. This was a notion Stormy knew all too well, and thus she struggled not to get sucked back into that dark and lonely place it had brought her once. But God how she hated to see her friends, people who actually put up with her, find themselves in the same pitfalls she'd continuously navigated . . .
It was okay Gale couldn't look at her. She could barely look at him either, instead staring fixatedly at their hands and feeling sweat plaster her hair further and her heartbeat too loud. This was not an issue she thought herself ready to tackle again, but like Alice she had fallen helpless into the hole and now she had to run the gamut of Wonderland. Maybe in the end you couldn't ever escape it, just fight and fight and forget.
Stormy's mouth twisted several times as she struggled to find the right words to help them through this. And it took a while: her mouth would open a crack, but the words wouldn't come out, like there was a cork forcing them back, and several times she enacted it before finally something scraped its way out of her throat, meager and almost pleading. "People know you. I. . .I saw that group around you at orientation, and that was just the new guys. Marcus--That's his name, right? He knew you. Jake knows you. Candace is your Deus sister, she'd definitely miss you. And that other guy you mentioned, the tall sun guy, he'd miss you too. A whole lot of other people would miss you that I don't even know of. You've been h-here three years, Gale; remember that. You have friends, you have people who'd watch out for you . . ." As pitiful as she started sounding, Stormy had to believe that.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Jun 04, 2013 8:16 pm
His mind had moved to Leslie, but he couldn't think of Leslie, not now, because thinking of Leslie hurt too much, because sometimes when he thought about her, it was like it was hard to breathe, that there was suddenly not enough air in the room for it to pass through his lungs.
Gale swallowed, closing his eyes briefly.
Marcus has Cass, he thought, when he heard his name.
Jake is...Jake. And I'm pretty certain that Sherry likes him.
Candace has a lot of people.
Bix has Ceres.
Who do I really have?
The bitter, light smile, hardly there, was still on his face, Gale absently rubbing a thumb alongside the metal of the ring on his index finger, feeling the cold against his skin.
His gaze flickered upwards.
"Would you?"
It was a stupid question, perhaps. He'd only met her a few months ago, and even then their friendship (if you could call it that) was confusing at best. They hadn't exactly had the easiest of times, always thrust into life threatening or dangerous situations, but for some reason he wanted to hear the answer anyway.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Jun 04, 2013 8:34 pm
In spite of the fact that her throat now was burning with all the words that had been spilling from her mind, she found this easy to answer: "Of course I would." And in hindsight she should have thrown herself in that same list to begin with, but it had slipped past her too, like so many other things whenever pressure mounted, that when pushed to a pivotal moment she couldn't stop the nonsense cluttering her mind, like the apple and apple pie analogy she'd given Nevada, or how the animals sang in Cinderella, or how very, very small she felt in that cot. And wasn't she that in the end: just a little girl clutching at people's coats? Not someone whose answers should matter.
But she talked anyway, because a crack in a dam was enough to let some of the water out. "We built a perfect snow dog with just two gloves and three good hands," Stormy added quietly, feeling his gaze but turning hers to the motion along his ring. "And you carried me around the Sahara. You didn't have to do either. Of course I would..." She was not yet aware Gale had done another courtesy on the last mission.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
