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 Posted: Mon Dec 02, 2013 9:21 am
Finn powered down a few blocks from home - it was the closest he felt safe going in his cape and furs, spilling an energy signature like the blood dripping from the open wound that currently graced his face. It was freezing in the rain with only his jogging windbreaker, but it was better than turning up as Babylon and probably scaring Vanya half to death. Or maybe he was going to do that anyway - He was a lightheaded, bloody mess, and couldn’t manage the key one-handed. Awkwardly, he pounded on the front door of the apartment with his left hand. “Vanya?” he called. Shouting stretched his gash, made it sting, might have made the bleeding worse. Finn pressed his right hand harder to it and shouted again - “Vanya? It’s Finn. I need help. Are you home?” He hoped to dear god she hadn’t gotten a sudden craving for potato chips and soda and walked down to the 7-11 despite the rain. “Vanya!” he hollered. “Vanya, I’m bleeding! I was mugged!”
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Posted: Mon Dec 02, 2013 6:05 pm
She’d appeared in her kitchen without considering that Finn might be home. He hadn’t been, which was good. Even after henshining down, blood still covered her hands, dark red and turning sticky. Vanya leaned hard against the sink. Teleporting had been a good idea, especially if there really had been another fighter for Order out and about. That didn’t mean it wasn’t tiring. She pulled a paper towel off the roll and used it to turn the water on, hot as it would go. Rinsing her hands did nothing; she could still see blood, so she picked up the steel wool in its little ceramic dish and started to scrub at it.
Why had she done that? Why had she attacked Babylon? It wasn’t going to help her, she’d probably done more harm to her cause than good… Regret made bile rise in the back of her throat. Regret and fear--would he get home alright? Or would some other, less scrupulous Negaverse officer find and kill him?
Vanya had no idea how long she’d been standing at the sink, scraping steel wool over her hands. She could have stood there for hours. But a voice intruded and she dropped the steel wool into the sink, stared at the blood weeping from the wounds she’d just done herself. Someone pounded on the door, and she grabbed a wad of paper towels and went to open the door for Finn. “It was unlocked,” she said, her voice thin. There was a gash on the side of his face, cleaner than she’d expect from a mugging, and Vanya felt physically sick. “Oh my god, Finn!”
She pulled him inside, into the kitchen, and pressed the paper towels against his face. Crisis was good, she thought, crisis kept her head on her shoulders, crisis meant she could stop thinking about what she’d done except she couldn’t-- “Oh my god,” she repeated, “Finn, you need to go to the hospital. Seriously!”
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Posted: Mon Dec 02, 2013 6:09 pm
Her claim that the door was unlocked didn’t even process. Finn was just glad she was there, that he didn’t have to deal with this shitty mess of a night alone. “I haven’t seen how bad it is,” he said, leaning against her. He was dizzy, and Avalon’s blade was sharp, and Vanya had repeated oh my god twice so far, so he supposed it must be bad. “Do you think I need stitches?” Of course he was going to need stitches. Avalon had cut to scar. But this was a mugging, and he needed to get his story in order.
“I was-” he stammered, looking down at his blood-covered hand. “I was on my way home and this guy came at me for my wallet and when I said I didn’t have it on me he knocked me over and cut me up and searched my pockets.” He hadn’t had his wallet on him, fortunately. “I came home because- because I didn’t know what to do.” Her suggestion of going to the hospital was sound, though.
“I’ll go to the ER. Can you drive my Jeep?” he asked. He really didn’t think this was worth an ambulance.
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Posted: Mon Dec 02, 2013 6:09 pm
“Finn, I can see bone,” she said, and she looped an arm under his to keep him upright. One thing patrolling did was give her a ******** of muscle to work with in emergencies. “C’mon, let’s go downstairs, I… uh, I’m sure I can handle it.” She grabbed his keys and her bag, pulled a coat off of the rack and covered him with it. There was blood soaking into her shirt from his face, even with the buffer of the paper towels. Okay, calm down, Vanya, she thought, head wounds bleed a lot, you’re fine. He’s fine. Vanya guided Finn down the stairs, murmuring platitudes and distractions. “We should call the cops when we get there,” she said, worriedly, as she bundled him into the passenger side of his Jeep. “That’s aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, Finn, that’s a felony.”
She got the car started okay, got them to the hospital okay, and even got Finn seated. “I think you’re going to have a lot of stitches,” she said, when she peeled back the paper towels enough to see.
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Posted: Mon Dec 02, 2013 6:09 pm
The car ride, on top of his pre-existing lightheadedness, left Finn feeling a bit nauseous by the time she got him seated. “No point in calling the cops,” he said, wincing as she peeled the paper towels back. He’d never gotten a major injury in the line of duty before, but now he understood why the senshi he knew relied on a network of back-alley doctors and allies with medical experience and healing powers. Because how was he ever going to convince Vanya they didn’t need to go after his assailant, because if Avalon didn’t want to be found then they’d never find her, and ordinary cops would be no match for her, anyway?
“I didn’t get a good look at the guy,” he explained through gritted teeth while Vanya messed with the paper towels. “Wouldn’t be any use looking at a lineup. Wouldn’t even know where to start. It was dark. He had a hood on. All I know is he was bigger than me, and he had a knife - ouch! That hurts.” Well, it all hurt. Whatever she’d just done had hurt especially much, though.
Leaning back, he tried to make the room stop spinning, but it didn’t do much good. Finn closed his eyes. “How long until they can get to me, do you think?” he asked.
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Posted: Mon Dec 02, 2013 6:10 pm
“Not very,” she said, and she covered the injury carefully with the paper towels again, put pressure on it. “There’s no one else here. It’s a teaching hospital, so--”
“Derouen,” called a nurse, and Vanya gave Finn what she hoped was a reassuring smile. They went through the whole rigamarole with the intake physician, although Vanya frankly thought it was stupid that the conversation started with And what are your symptoms? Finn’s symptoms were the blood all over his stupid Clinton-era election shirt and a giant gash through his left eyebrow, all the way down to his jawline.
Eventually, he was settled on one of the emergency room beds with gauze taped to his face. “Why won’t you at least file a report,” asked Vanya gloomily, picking at the blood all over her hands--hers and Finn’s, mixed. Weird that she couldn’t tell whose was whose. She couldn’t say why she found that weird, but. “I mean, would you recognize his voice?” They’d had to talk the nurse out of calling the police, too, and it was the most horrible thing Vanya’d ever done. “I feel like I’m being a huge piece of s**t by not calling the police for you.”
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Posted: Mon Dec 02, 2013 6:10 pm
Finn was settled as comfortably as he could be with an IV of saline jabbed into his left arm and a bottle of off-brand sports beverage clutched in his right hand. The blood covering his Putting People First shirt was drying - it would be ruined, he could already tell. Tate had always hated that shirt. He was sure that if she knew what she’d done, she’d laugh - but it wasn’t really Tate who’d done this. “It’s not worth it, Vanya,” he sighed, and took a sip from the bottle. They’d given him something for the pain, and it was kicking in nicely. He felt less dizzy and more like he was floating, which was weird.
“I don’t think I’d stand a chance,” he shrugged, trying to avoid the subject. At least a mugging sounded believable - more than I was attacked by my best friend’s brainwashed corpse - but he didn’t want to get caught up in any kind of legal proceedings. The case wasn’t going to add up and any cop who looked at it would know. “Like seriously, forget it, Jake, it’s Chinatown.”
He inferred from the look on her face that she didn’t get the reference. “I mean it’s shitty, but this is Destiny City we’re talking about. The cops have bigger problems on their hands than one kid getting cut up in the rain.” Which didn’t sound very convincing, he realized. He decided to try another tactic. Finn sighed and said, “Vanya, I don’t think you’re a piece of s**t. Like, you drove me here and sat with me and held my hand while a doctor put forty stitches in my face and I’m pretty sure that absolves you of all piece-of-shittiness. So, like, leave it alone. Please. For me.”
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Posted: Mon Dec 02, 2013 6:10 pm
“I think cops are exactly supposed to be worrying about kids getting cut up in the rain,” said Vanya. The slight note of hysteria that leaked into her voice was at least half fear that this was some sort of karmic retribution. She’d cut Babylon and someone else had cut poor Finn, who didn’t deserve any of that. “I don’t care about that stupid gang war thing, you’re my friend and--”
She wrapped her hands around one of his, the one at the end of the arm with the IV. Carefully--she didn’t want the joint to bend and hurt him--she ran her thumbs over his knuckles. “God, you’re freezing,” she said, pressing his hand between two of hers. If he didn’t want her to focus on the whole fact that he was violently, viciously attacked on the street, she wouldn’t. She’d just have to find reasons to focus on something else. “And your shirt is a mess. Please tell me we can throw it out if that doesn’t come out in the wash. I mean, it was always hideous...”
Something else occurred to her as she sat there, chafing Finn’s hand between hers. “Are you sure this isn’t, like, a hate crime? Because you’re gay and all?”
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Posted: Mon Dec 02, 2013 6:11 pm
"Do you think Apollo's is still open this time of night?" Finn asked, sort of joking but also totally serious. He hadn't noticed how cold he was until she pointed it out - he'd been distracted by a multitude of other things, between the stitches on his face and the needle in his arm and trying to get everyone to agree not to call the cops- but now that it was brought to his attention, Finn had to agree. He was cold, goosebumps ticking up on his arms, and his damp clothes weren't helping at all. He looked, but his surroundings didn't offer up more than a bed sheet as possible sources of warmth, and the bed sheet was pulled so tightly around the mattress he was sitting on that he was scared he'd get in trouble if he took it off and wrapped himself in it.
"Yeah, I guess it's time to give this thing a proper Viking funeral," he said, tugging at his shirt sadly. Would he ever meet another soul that shared his fondness for cheesy political slogans from bygone elections? Probably not. He would just have to suffer alone, while everyone gazed disapprovingly at his hard-won thrift store finds. "I personally don't see what's so bad about it, but everyone seems to hate it." Well, Vanya and Tate, and Tate's opinion had been the only one to ever really matter when it came to fashion.
He glanced down at Vanya's hand holding his. "Your fingers are really warm," he observed. "Keep doing that. It's nice." Her question about hate crimes sort of tossed him for a loop, though. He didn't remember ever saying anything about- "Um, the guy wanted my wallet, so I doubt it." Finn frowned. "I don't remember ever telling you anything about me being gay, though." Had she been snooping? It wasn't that he minded her knowing, just that he didn't know how she knew- no one had ever told him he was particularly obvious.
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Posted: Mon Dec 02, 2013 6:11 pm
Vanya blinked. When had she been told about Finn’s sexuality?... “Tallulah said she took your boyfriend to prom,” she asked, head tipped to the side. She kept rubbing circles on the back of Finn’s hand, for all it never seemed to warm up. If he thought that it was nice, she’d keep doing it. “I mean, I guess I didn’t question if it was a joke or not,” she said. “I sort of just assumed? I’m sorry.”
With a heartfelt sigh, Vanya looked up at the curtain separating their little room from the rest of the ER. As if by magic, Finn’s attending physician popped his head in, shook a couple of bags of prescriptions at them. “You’re all set to go, just let me detach you from all these tubes here, Mr. Derouen.” Vanya watched as they flushed the IV line and pulled the needle out, explained the purposes of all the pills, and wished Finn the best of luck in his prosecution. She didn’t mention he’d fully declined to even report the crime.
Back in the Jeep, Vanya put the car in gear and said, “Okay, so, Apollo’s. What do you want?”
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Posted: Mon Dec 02, 2013 6:12 pm
"Oh, no, um, she did," said Finn awkwardly. He knew Tallulah had said that, in a sort of distant way now. Today had been incredibly long, as it were, and his attention span could only stretch so far. "It's fine as long as you're fine with it, I guess." She didn't seem like the kind of person to not be fine with it, as far as he'd observed. "But I still don't think it could be considered a hate crime just because I'm me. The guy probably saw a short kid out running in the rain and figured I'd be good for a couple twenties and a bank card and then I wasn't and that pissed him off. No hate crime there, and definitely not worth bothering the police over when they've got bigger fish to fry like supernatural gangs." Which she had already said she didn't care about, but he had a point to make and he was sticking to it.
In the Jeep, Finn cranked the heat up to blasting without checking with Vanya if that was okay. He was freezing, and he was sure she'd understand; after all, she'd felt his hands back in the ER. Truly, he was grateful to her for bringing him and taking care of him thought the whole process. You could meet amazing people on Craigslist if you were just willing to put yourself out there! "The biggest chai latte they have," he replied, sinking into his seat. "And then I am going to go home and sleep for a century."
Getting grievously injured was exhausting, but at least the aftermath had done a good job of distracting him from the cause.
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Posted: Mon Dec 02, 2013 6:12 pm
She rolled her eyes and pulled into the drive-thru lane of the Apollo’s on their way home. “I’m getting you decaf,” she said, and she didn’t comment when he turned up the heat. He’d gotten ice-cold saline dripped into his veins; ice-cold saline and the wet from the rain had to make his life really uncomfortable. “And you’re sleeping on the couch, unless you’re okay with me checking on you in your room every half hour.” She had class to teach tomorrow, but like she hadn’t done that on less than an hour of sleep before! Suri would probably spot her on her lunch break if she decided to catch a quick nap.
When she had the coffees in hand, she passed the chai latte across and patted his shoulder. It made getting him up the stairs a little bit complex, but that wasn’t a big deal; she could handle it. Chaos made her strong, and--she’d always felt close to Finn, for reasons unknown and unexamined. “Okay,” she said, settling him down on the couch. She pulled the blanket off its back and threw it over his shoulders so he could finish his chai before laying down. “I’ll get you up at six so you can take your antibiotic and a Vicodin. Any objections?”
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Posted: Mon Dec 02, 2013 6:12 pm
Finn wasn't about to object to being babied at a time like this. There was no denying that Vanya was taking better care of him than he could do for himself right now, so he was just going to smile and go with it. "Yes, Doctor Morgenstern," he said sipping his latte. It was piping hot, warming him up from the inside, and he was happy to have it. He settled down onto the couch. "Sounds good, Doctor Morgenstern."
He drained the last of his drink and set the empty cup on the coffee table. "I guess I should, um, not sleep on my right side," he said, which seemed like a pretty obvious statement. He laid down towards the left instead, settling his uninjured cheek against a throw-pillow. "I'm sorry I bled on you, Vanya. Thanks for taking care of me. You're a really good friend. Good night."
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Posted: Mon Dec 02, 2013 6:12 pm
She smiled and patted his uninjured cheek. On impulse, she leaned forward and kissed the top of his head, right where his hair parted. “It’s alright,” she said, tucking him in--as much as she could on a couch, anyway. “It’s totally fine. I’ll bring you home some ice cream or a strawberry banana smoothie after work tomorrow. You just rest, okay?”
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