hadriel_logs | he was down on the floor with his lips to a glass

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he was down on the floor with his lips to a glass

Who: Maketh Tua and open
What: Aftermath of the doubles event.
Where: Apartments, Guard HQ
When: 26th and onward
Warnings: Alcoholism, depression, mentions of death and torture, probably swearing. I will match format.

Apartment

[Stars, she's tired. All the time now. Ever since Henry took her home from Hope's temple, she's been drawn to her bed and its blankets, a refuge that she can hide in and forget everything else. Anyone who knows Maketh will have noticed a change in her routine. She's sleeping almost the entire day, getting up only to drink or vomit from the drinking. If she goes out at all, it's in the middle of the night, a move engineered to let her avoid as many people as possible.

The best way to get in touch is to bang on her door, loud enough that she can't ignore it.]

Guard HQ

[Quietly, Maketh has changed all of her shifts to avoid the most people possible. So while she's still performing her duties, she's doing them out of sight and largely around two in the morning. If you've got insomnia and happen to wander in at odd hours, you might see her rewriting damaged reports, or trying to clean the mess off the floor.

Often she keeps a bottle of whiskey on her desk. Not to drink - not when she's working - but as a taunt. She often stares at it.]

Around the city

[By choice Maketh has turned into something of a nocturnal creature, rarely leaving the apartment - or indeed the room - during the day. But at night she goes out, either to check things with the guard or just to wander. Sometimes she goes to the river and tries to imagine what lives at the bottom. Either way she's alone.]

Wildcard

[Dealer's choice. Hit me.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Once again, Rey doesn't attack. But she isn't about to let herself get stabbed in the eye, either.

The alternative just isn't much better.

Her hand lashes out. A blurred motion. Rather than seizing Maketh by the wrist as she very well could have done, she goes for the blade. Her hold stops all the way to the hilt to prevent Maketh from stabbing any farther.

Under the force of the knife, her fingers do bleed. However, it's going to take more than a swipe to sever those metal bones that hold her body together.

"No!"

It's not that Rey bleeds. That's expected. It's that she doesn't retaliate. Maketh tries to jerk the blade free but finds that she cannot. Even with the blade slicing into tendons - or what would be tendons in anyone else - Rey holds fast. Implacable like a damn statue.

Like this means nothing to her. Nothing at all.

Maketh tries to punch her. It only hurts her hand.

"Fight back, damn you!"

That punch barely gets a reaction. It's clear that Maketh only hurt herself in the process, anyway.

Eyes narrowed, Rey focuses her attention on the woman before her. Fingers not releasing the knife.

She could turn this around, easy enough. Overpower Maketh and knock her to the floor. Beat her to a pulp if she wants to. But still, she does not.

"Why? So you can feel better about killing me?" Rey yanks the knife towards her abdomen, intending to keep Maketh's hold of it. Though she had been stabbed there quite recently with the machete her double had weild, the wound has already healed over. "Go ahead. Don't make a liar out of yourself. I'm waiting."

Damn it all. Maketh's hands are shaking so much she can barely hold the knife, even with Rey grabbing onto the blade. She thinks it won't hurt? That Maketh is so fucking weak she needs to be coddled like a child?

"You do not condescend to me!"

She tries her damn best to stab Rey in the gut.

Rey jerks the knife by taking Maketh's forearm, forcing the blade to avoid any vitals that would be a pain to heal over the next day or so. Being made of an immortal cell line with a feat for rapid healing has its perks. She isn't even remotely worried.

All she does is bleed. That's all she had to do.

"See?" Rey speaks in a ragged voice, trying to steady her breathing. "That wasn't so hard."

Blood splashes Maketh's hands. The heat of it shocks her into silence. The knife went in, easy as slicing butter. All it takes is pressure. Apply and twist.

Rey didn't even flinch.

Maketh stares at her in stupid confusion. It wasn't supposed to go like this. It wasn't.

"Wha--why did you do that?"

"Because," Rey says between gnashed teeth. Her tones are different. The complete antithesis of the indifferent husk that she had bore to Hadriel many months ago. "No matter what sort, I can handle the pain."

It's just too bad that the emotion she is expressing to Maketh right now isn't a very happy one.

Rey squints, hand still holding the knife inward. "I'm going to ask you again, what is your 'duty'?"

There's blood. That would be irrelevant except for the internal damage that produced it. Maketh twitches, dropping the knife. It doesn't fall. Rey holds it fast. Maketh can't tell if it hit any organs or some vital piece of machinery. Rey is different, hardier than most, but she can still die.

No. Stop that. She is not allowed to die.

Maketh jerks her coat off, eyes wide, and holds it out to Rey. "Put pressure on that, damn you!"

Rey staggers back when Maketh pulls away, finding a wall to rest on. She shakes her head when the other woman offers her coat.

"That's not the right answer."

As she says this, she wrenches out the knife, tossing it onto the floor.

Blood splatters, spits out of the wound afterwards. Staining the blade.

Damn it all. Maketh flinches at the blood, hugging the coat to her chest when Rey won't take it. Look what you did. Look what you fucking did. "Stop! Just stop it!"

A flash blinds her for a second. Only a second. When her face gets hot and her blood starts to boil over. Their positions have, once again, changed. From Rey trying to calm Maketh, to Maketh shrinking at Rey's wound and fury.

She could fix this. Make the bleeding stop. It isn't like she doesn't know how. First aid and other skills have allowed her the ability to shrug off these hits.

But then nothing would be learned.

"THAT'S STILL. THE WRONG. FUCKING. ANSWER," Rey bellows, throwing her fist to the wall. Pounding it four times with every pause of word and breath. It doesn't do her condition any favors, as it only exacerbates the injury.

Maketh flinches back, raising an arm to shield her head. If the blow comes she'll take it, she's good at that. Protect your head and endure, cadet. This is her fault, her foolishness bleeding out into the open and now Rey - one of their best fighters - is injured. Maketh's damn knife went into her chest.

It's a waste of resources. It's not right all.

She holds her ground but doesn't speak. Just waits. There will be a blow. She'll take it and learn her lesson like a good soldier.

At the moment, violence is the only thing that seems to have any impact. It's the way Maketh had expressed her emotions, and the only thing getting a reaction out of her right now.

Unfortunately, it isn't the reaction Rey is looking for.

Bringing her hand from the wall to the wound over her stomach, she just scoffs.

"What a damned disappointment," she mutters in a weary, aggravated undertone, before brushing past Maketh. Her shoulder bumping against the other woman's maybe a little too rough.

Maketh shivers. This isn't right at all. "Wh--what are you doing?"

Is this for real?

"You just stuck a knife through me and now you give a shit?" Rey snorts on her way towards the exit, stepping over debris with her hand over the aforementioned stab wound. "Home. Or somewhere. Don't know and don't care."

"Rey, stop!"

This isn't right. Maketh knows that with painful certainty, a sharpness that she can feel in her chest. Not where she stabbed Rey, not there, but higher - possibly in her lungs. Either way it hurts to breathe.

She doesn't grab Rey, but moves to stand in front of the door.

"Just stop. Let me fix it."

The look Rey gives Maketh is a blank one. Unreadable and empty.

"There's nothing to fix."

That... might not actually mean the way it just came out.

"You're bleeding," Maketh steps, because that is the only problem right in front of her that has some damn chance of being fixed. "Stop. Just...stop. Please, Rey."

"No, I'm not."

When she removes her hand from her stomach, the bleeding has already stopped. The wound has closed up enough to offer a temporary band-aid for the time being.

Underneath, the skin has been cauterized, though no doubt Maketh would rather see that for herself, so Rey just pulls up the bottom of her shirt a bit to show this. "Do you really think I'd let you stab me if I knew it was going to kill me?"

"That--"

Should be impossible.

Maketh claps a hand over her mouth to swallow the laughter. It's not right at all. She shouldn't be laughing at this, the site of Rey's wound suddenly sealed back together. An inconvenience at worst.

Damn it all.

Maketh drops her hand suddenly and grins.

"I must be insane. That is the--logical explanation."

At least Rey wasn't expecting a normal reaction. Not after everything so far. There is nothing normal about this -- or anything in relation to her life, for that matter.

"Well, you're hardly the only one around here."

That is hardly comforting.

Maketh laughs at that, loud and a little desperate. Stars, this is mad. "I shouldn't have done that. I know, I know---"

Stop. Focus.

Maketh shifts from foot to foot, eying Rey carefully.

"You--you will be all right, won't you?"

She waves a hand, dismissive. "No worries. Am a lot harder to put down than that."

If the scar on her throat is any indicator, and the marks on her body, both visible and not. Rey has taken several heavy hits during her time, and her previous lifetimes, to have a good sense as to what her limits are.

It wasn't much different than with Faye, really. Like back then, Maketh just had some issues that needed to sort itself out. Sometimes you just need to go to town at someone. It's a totally valid form of help!

Edited (wow that sure was a freudian slip if i'd ever written one) 2017-02-10 03:24 (UTC)

Maketh swallows hard. Focus now. Don't be foolish. "I know that. But I---"

It shouldn't have happened at all.

She shivers. Tries to smile.

"You'll be fine."

Rey said she would. So it's okay. It's going to be okay.

No, it really shouldn't have happened. But it did, and if anyone understands psychotic episodes that result in anger and violent stabbings, it's Rey. So she withholds any judgment that would be cast on Maketh over something as seemingly unforgivable as attempted murder of an ally.

"Yes, will be fine." She pauses, giving Maketh a hard, studying look. "Will you?"

Rey already knows the answer, but it needs to be asked.

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