calling_logs | So when they say 'quiet' they really just mean 'as terribly dangerous as usual'

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So when they say 'quiet' they really just mean 'as terribly dangerous as usual'

Who: Steve and Dejah
What: Continuing from here, Steve and Dejah escape the beasties in a treehouse
When: Mid-afternoon
Where: City of Adventure,
Notes & Warnings: Mentions of blood and poisoning.

Now that the beasties are done with, Steve's going to climb his way up to the treehouse and collapse on the floor. Collapse because that was much harder than he'd expected it would be and while he knows he has some work to do, that he needs to check up on Dejah--

Dammit, he needs to get up and check on Dejah.

It hurts, and he's sore, but he pushes himself up and goes to take a look at her, check her wounds, see if any of them have turned an unsavory color. It's hard to tell, given her red skin and her blue blood, but so far, hopefully, so good.

"Sorry about the toss. I just... I needed to get you up there and I couldn't think of anything else to get you out of harms way. I hope it didn't hurt too much. How we doing?"

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Even in the gathering dark, he can see the dark blue blood staining her skirts. The puncture wound he'd bandaged once has opened up again, and there's another matching fang puncture that had been hidden beneath her clothes. It's easily visible now that it's bled through. The skin around the wound is angry and tendrils of green extend away from it, up her torso and down her thigh.

"You're hurt." Dejah's hand touches his arm where one of the wolves had tried to take a piece of him. "You're bleeding."

"I'll heal," he assures her as he shuffles over to get a better look at her. "And you're one to talk. How're you feeling, Dejah? Still feeling everything?"

Hurting, well... hurts but it's a good sign. It means you're mostly conscious. But the green tendrils worry him. He puts his hand over the tendrils, looks up at her eyes.

"I don't suppose you happen to know what to do about a poisonous snake bite like this?"

Because this is a little out of his depth. The nastiest animal he'd ever been bitten by was a dog out back one of the apartments near his own, and his mother had thrown the closest thing she did to a fit.

Her hand covers his over her wound. "If it was an extremity, yes. But in my torso..." Her voice trails off. "We wait."

She looks up, meets his gaze. "I have had worse. Are you sure you're alright?"

He doesn't argue the point, strikes him as just a bit too hypocritical for him to manage it without faltering, before letting out a tired laugh and flopping beside her with a deep huff of breath out.

"I've had worse."

He glances over.

"Would water help? I could go back and get you some water. Or-"

He looks over his own shoulder before reaching towards his pack, which had slumped off of his shoulders, and pulling the canteen over. He passes it to her a moment later.

"Here. That should do for now."

"Thank you Steve Rogers." She fumbles for a moment before wrapping her hands around the canteen and guiding it to her lips.

A moment later, she falls back beside him, her eyes drifting shut. "My sword... Later I need to find my sword."

She should stay awake, she knows, but she just wants to rest. Just for a little while. "Talk to me."

"How about when we can both stand?" he offers mildly with a little grin before flopping back against the wall beside her.

"Though I'm not sure what to talk about. I mean, we just met. What would you like to know?"

She's quiet for a long moment. Her hand gropes through the open air, reaching for something. Anything to hold onto.

"I shouldn't sleep. Not yet. Need to stay awake."

He slips his hand into hers and gives it a squeeze. A very gentle squeeze.

"Drink some more. And tell me what you'd like to hear. I'm... not exactly the most interesting guy in the world."

She laughs, the sound tired but gentle.

"I. Don't believe you," she says, squeezing his hand back, holding onto him. With her other hand, she drinks.

"Tell me about. That shield. Of yours."

"You wanna know the history or what it's made of?" he asks as she sips at the water.

"Cause the history is pretty simple: a friend of mine made it, I needed a shield that was a little better than what I was using, and he let me have it. Painted it in my colors for me and everything."

He settles back and reaches an arm around to tug her closer. He doesn't want her falling over.

"What it's made out of is something called 'vibranium', which is apparently the rarest metal on earth. Great stuff, though. Stops a bullet flat."

She listens to the sound of his voice, the smile in it. The tinge of sadness in the memory is obvious. He pulls her closer and goddess, is she ever grateful for the warmth. Again, she's struck by the gentleness of his hands.

"Such a great warrior, deserves, a precious metal." There's a touch of awe in her voice, even though she knows that Jasoom does not feel the same way about such things as Barsoom does. Her head settles against his chest and she lets out a shuddering sigh. "I am so grateful, you came along, when you did."

He'd tried to keep as much sadness as he could out of it, but it wasn't as if he was very good at it. Pretending wasn't one of his strong points, unless you counted 'pretending he had a plan' or 'pretending he knew what he was doing' or 'pretending to punch Hitler in the face 200+ times'. That's why he lets out a bit of a sigh as he hears her breathing go hard. He remembers being like that, struggling for every breath. It might have been his own body betraying him instead of the poison from a crazy giant snake, but the empathy is still there for all that.

"I don't know if I'm a 'great warrior'," he admits as he turns his head to look at her. "And I'll remind you that you kinda crashed into my little waterfall camp." He spreads his hands a little, looking down and between them as he tries to think of what else to say. "But I tend to step in when I see someone who looks like they need a hand. It's usually how I get in trouble."

He looks up at the ceiling.

"First time I've ever fought a snake monster, though. So points for originality there."

She laughs, coughs, winces hard at the lance of fire in her side.

"Stick with me. Snake monsters are, just the beginning." She lifts her gaze, somehow managing a weary smile. "Steve, can you do me a favor?"

That gets a look over. He knows what that kind of tone is, especially when someone's half dead from something and obviously in pain.

"Of course," pops right out, "anything. If I can do it, it's done."

"Can you get, a fire going? I need to cauterize, these wounds."

She looks down at her side and peels down the waist of her skirt, revealing the second puncture wound. There's more bright blue blood trickling down her side.

"I don't want to, attract more predators." This is going to hurt, she knows. She is no stranger to pain but it's been a long time since she's had to deal with this. "I'm probably, going to pass out. I might need you, to finish."

He nods, his mind ignoring everything but the wounds and what they look like as he holds up a hand and carefully slips away from her to start gathering what he needs. Thankfully, he'd been able to bring his pack through all of the nonsense they'd gone through, so he should be able to spark a fire. Brush he'll need to head down from the canopy to get, though.

"I'll be right back," he reassures her, trying to keep his eyes from the seeping wounds. "Right back, so you just... hang tight, okay? Stay awake and see if you can find something to do the actual cauterizing with. Maybe a hammer or a wrench or something?"

But he's speaking as he steps backwards, looking down to gauge how he wants to make his way to the floor. There's a couple of trees close by and he takes the opportunity to repel back and forth between them until he can roll to his feet on the ground.

"I'll be right back," he repeats in a shout up to her. Then he has brush to find...

She knows exactly what she's going to use. She grimaces as she twists an arm behind her back, fumbling the small dagger from its sheathe. It falls from her numb fingers and she curses.

It's no good. She falls back until she's prone, looking up at the ceiling.

He'll be right back. She holds a hand over the wound instinctively, focusing on breathing. In and out. In and out.

"Oh John. What have I got us into?"

Down below, Steve was sorting through the green to look for broken twigs and dried up flora. It took some looking, since most of the jungle was incredibly green, but once he had at least enough, in his estimation, to get a fire going, he focused on looking for what he could use to make firewood out of. It took almost a quarter of an hour before he found a half-dead tree, and then he was hacking at it with the side of the shield and kicking at the pieces to gather up what he could use. Hopefully, it would be enough.

Eventually, he climbed back up to the treehouse, his findings balanced in one hand in his shield as he moved slowly up the ladder. As soon as he got up there, he looked for Dejah to see how she might be doing.

She was where she'd fallen, the wood floor beneath her hip wet and sticky with blood. Her skin was ashen, and her lips a deep russet, not the same healthy pink he'd seen when she'd first emerged from the jungle.

She blinked, trying to focus on him. Her eyes, previously so deeply blue, are dark grey. "John, is that you?"

"It's Steve," he says, because he doesn't believe in pleasant lies, not like this. For Peggy, maybe, because she won't remember within half an hour. But he fully intends for Dejah to pull through this, which means that he's going to tell her exactly who and what's going on.

"This is Steve and I've got the supplies for the fire for you. We're gonna keep it inside my shield-" and he'd have to repair the straps once he got back to civilization, but needs must. "And we have to be careful with it, but you can heat your-"

He grabbed the knife up.

"Is this what you want to use? This should work. Come on, come on, Dejah. Answer me. This should work?"

"Steve? Oh, yes. Steve."

Her gaze clears and she remembered. John was dead. John had been dead for a hundred years. Her eyes filled with tears, but she forced a smile, regardless.

"Yes, my grandmother's knife. Where did you find it? That will work perfectly."

Her voice was still thin, and it was clear, her grasp of reality was tenuous at best.

"I'm assuming you dropped it," he informs her mildly, carefully, wanting to help her mind to catch without being rough.

"All right, let me get the fire started and you can get that heated up, all right? Are you going to need anything to hold the grip with or will it stay cool enough to touch?"

"Yes, I dropped it. It has a leather grip so it should be fine. Yes. Good. Uh... "

Her words trailed off and she blinked, scrubbed a hand over her eyes. This was not the time to be crying. (He's been dead so long. How does it still feel like yesterday?) She looked to his hands, and then into his face, tears starting to spill down her cheeks.

"Sorry, I lost my train of thought. I have the knife, and you're making fire, which means, I probably intended to cauterize my wounds. How much blood have I lost?"

"Too much for my comfort," he says as he brings out a couple of pieces of flint to spark the moss and dry brush to flame. Then he was adding the other wood, watching her carefully as he works on the fire.

"Unfortunately, I think you lost more while I was looking for supplies. This place is... unnaturally green. I'll have to keep it in mind the next time I decide to camp here." He looks over at her. "The next time we decide to camp here."

His words come from a great distance, and his voice blurred with another in her head. Human. Male. Different. Memory and reality overlay. This is Steve, not John. John is dead. And that's why everything hurts.

If it hurts, you're still alive.

The meaning of his words caught up to her after a breath.

"...wait, 'we'?"

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