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

Entry tags:

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?"

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"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'?"

"Of course, we," he says, smiling warmly at her. People need reasons to live. People need to have things to look forward to. It wasn't much, but he wasn't about to leave her with nothing.

"Someone's gotta make sure you don't go pissing off giant snakes next time."

"I didn't piss him off. He tried to eat me!" Somehow the ridiculousness of the situation strikes her, and she laughs through her tears.

It made heart hurt exponentially more, and yet, that's all right. John could always make her laugh, even in the darkest times. Maybe this was his way of watching over her. Sending this man to catch her as she fell.

Her head falls back with a quiet thunk and another wave of laughter takes her, soft as it is. "Bloody hell, let's get this over with."

Edited 2016-05-17 22:23 (UTC)

"Let me," and he offers his hand for her to put the knife in. "You just tell me where it needs to go."

There's something about her that gives him the feeling that she knows her way around this kind of thing. Giving speeches, leading men and women into battle... sure. But this sort of battle was never one he was particularly good at. He'd lived most of his life unable to make his own body behave, let alone someone else's.

"Just need to get it good and hot."

She hands him the knife, makes sure to fold his fingers around it. "You ever done this before?"

Her chest rises and falls in shudders, maybe from the tears, maybe from the venom. She has to peel back the quick patch job he'd done earlier. She also has to tear the hole in her skirts larger, until the fabric parts and she can expose both fang marks. The wounds are angry looking, seeping greenish fluid along with blood now.

"I'm going to scream. But don't stop until the flesh stops smoking, all right?"

He shook his head, because while he'd seen it be done, he'd never done it himself. But as she gave the instructions, he settled himself on the ground and straightened his spine and nodded to what she'd said. He'd done a lot of unpleasant things over his lifetime. This was at least one that would hopefully save a life instead of ending any.

He put the knife to the flame, waited until he could see the heat and the char on the metal, and finally pulled it away and pressed it to the wound.

...there was nothing like that smell, that sound, and he did not look forward to doing it again but he had to hope.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject