She's trying so, so hard not to just laugh openly for the risk to her shoulder, but it's hard. Even though it hurts, it's still hard to keep it under control enough.
"I'd ask if you found him at the butcher's shop, but that's disrespectful to butchers. They know their anatomy."
It feels good that he hasn't lost his touch in soothing other parts of the wound, too. The physical harm and the emotional part.
"His anatomy knowledge was so terrible that it's a genuine wonder he had children with his wife. Only ever saw him reading medical journals to cross-reference how much he could charge. Almost done, just a few more," he really wasn't overly confident about his skills, he's nearly done already.
"Almost done, honey," he notices the wince, because of course he does.
"You think that's bad- he was a married man, and he was sleeping with the head of our nursing staff. And sure- almost everyone fooled around with people they shouldn't, that's war for you, but you should've heard the way he strung her along. Oh Margaret, of course I'll divorce my wife and be with you, I just need a few hundred thousand dollars more a year and for the kids to be eighteen and for the war to be over and for Pluto to enter Scorpio and- you get the idea."
"She must have really loved him, to keep buying into it."
It's tragic, really. And yes, this Margaret isn't blameless, if there was no understanding in place, but a firm no when she expressed her interest was Frank's to give. Particularly if he was going to set terms and conditions and impossible standards. Love. It must drive people to utter madness.
"You should have caused twenty seven more head injuries."
"Must have. It's a shame- Margaret's one of the finest nurses I've ever worked with. I used to pull her pigtails back home from time to time, but she was unbelievable in a crisis. Dedicated, compassionate- if she was here right now she'd have the bugs standing at attention whenever she went by."
Speaking of, with another couple of snips, Hawk's finished up the stitches.
"There. See me in a couple of weeks about getting these out. With any luck, you'll barely see the scar."
Sitting up carefully, she frowns, her brow furrowing. Okay. So she's going to feel like she's been hit with a sword for however long, but this should keep the bugs from deciding they had an entry point. Getting her shirt back where it was? Her hand feels the edges of where the fabric had split, given way under the sword.
"...Shame. I liked this shirt." Just grumbling now, thinking about the damage she'll have to fix later. Basic clothing repair is easy, but still, it's easier to complain about that than the fretting about the actual problem around them.
"I liked you in that shirt. And out of that shirt. Come to think of it, it might not be the shirt I liked."
One last step in the road to wellness, he pulls down the cotton mask that the author totally didn't forget to mention and gives her a little kiss on the forehead.
"All better. Now, do you want to tell me why you disturbed my beauty sleep or will I just have to be cranky at you?"
She thinks she prefers this sort of healing over magical now, actually.
The smile fades from her face as he asks the question that she knows was always in the air, trying to figure out how to phrase it in the most neutral fashion. But frankly, she can't.
"I was attacked by someone that the you-know-what had gotten to. He came after me out of nowhere. I'm lucky I managed to fend him off."
"You didn't step on a bug or something?" he asks as he packs his tools away, "because that doesn't match the symptomology. They're protective of the bugs and their hosts, but they haven't been violent, at least where I've seen."
"I don't know what rites he would have preferred. But I took his sword to keep it safe. And I know his name."
A little exhale.
"Dimitri Alexander."
When she says the name, there's a subtle weight to it. She doesn't know rites, how to properly and somberly mourn the dead, or truly pretend at it - she's tried, felt it sit all wrong. But a name is a symbol, is something to remember and say he was here. A name can be recorded in ink, survive generations, a whole story in a collection of letters.
He's coming back, of course. The hand attached to the good shoulder reaches up to her throat, gently rubbing it. If she hadn't fought, he would have strangled her where she stood. This wasn't some dark desire twisted and festering that had slipped past all her defenses. This had been survival, pure and simple. And yet, she doesn't want to meet Hawkeye's gaze about it.
"The uh- the blonde kid. Kinda formal, likes bad puns," his voice is very, very tight.
Of course he's not going to yell at Fever about it or anything. It was self defense. Kid was probably up to the eyeballs in bugs and not himself, there's nothing else she could've or should've done. Even if he'd only been knocked out, they couldn't get the bugs out of him, not under these conditions. The first rule is-
Hawk sits next to her on the bed, knees on his elbows, and puts his head in his hands, broad fingers kneading across his forehead. He'll be back, that's more than he can say about any of the others.
"We have to get off this boat. We have to. I can't stand it."
She says nothing to his description of Dimitri, merely nods. There is nothing she can say to make this better - no way she can explain to someone devoted to medicine, to healing, that this is the only mercy there is. The only mercy she can deliver to others.
You could demonstrate it.
Something foul, acidic as bile is in the back of her throat, burns the whole way down, and her hand rakes through her hair before her head drops forward. Fever can discern it, through the swirling, howling chaos, the impulse to close both hands around Hawkeye's throat and scream. That, she sinks into the burning pain in her shoulder and exhales without a sound. No. No. No matter how much it would get her mind temporarily off what happened.
But really, death by her hands is a better fate for him. Better he be killed than to have to breathe the same air as her, walk the same decks. He's a good man. He doesn't deserve this.
When they get off this boat, it might even be kinder to the town as a whole to leave her behind. Forget about her, free everyone from her presence, let the hive eventually find its way under her skin until they eat away what's left of her brain, until she loses the last bit of herself. Hollowed out, a living carcass. Maybe they'll eat up her heart as well; that mephitic, necrotic thing did no one any good.
Subtly, out of his view, she moves the shoulder that's been stitched. It hurts, like fresh fire. She won't hide behind devotion, like those who pray at Loviatar's altar to bless their pain. It's not even a punishment. It's just...correct. Again. She can feel her heart throb in her chest as the jolt fades away.
Instead of letting it infect her tone, she tries for steadiness and steel, something resolute and sturdy for him to lean against.
"I know. That's why I say that we will. We're going to get off it, and then you never have to step foot off of solid ground ever again if it so please you."
Hawkeye isn't crying. Which seems insane, but it's just the same as he used to feel after a long shift. Numb. Deadened to pain like a limb fallen asleep. What a pair they make. He looks through the gaps in his hands, cold blue eyes to the floorboards. Think, Pierce, think.
"No, I mean it. I can't stay here another day. It's not- I can't do it. I can't."
A deep breath. His voice as low as he can make it.
"We'll steal one of the lifeboats. The island has to have dried out a bit by now, right? We'll head back and send help as soon as we can. But I can't stay here. I can't. I can't."
This is one of those things she can't talk someone out of, not without knowing them inside and out and how to twist the strings in the right direction. And frankly, she doesn't have a right to, other than she doesn't want another person she knows sailing off into nothing to either die of exposure or end up in some demon contract.
Better he does than stay here with you, still hisses in her skull, and that quashes any stray thoughts that are nothing but selfishness.
"...You need supplies, in case we're further out than you think. A way to keep the sun off. Water, something that's halfway edible. "
What help would there even be, when the entire town is here? Don't point that out.
"And a distraction when you make your move."
We, he says. You, she can't help but clarify. Even if she still wants to leave, still wishes she had said yes to Tayrey, just wants the small things that had almost become part of her usual life. A space of her own. Things that grow. Tasks to be done. Some actual fucking sleep again - when did she get so greedy for that last one.
"I already thought about it, and... Look, it's not pretty. As far as I know, everyone who has the bandages has been... some kind of brainwashed by the bugs. I don't know how it works but I know that there won't be any asking them to look the other way while we get those supplies. We have to leave without any kind of warning, or else we'll be dealing with damn near the whole ship on our heinies."
And oh boy, does he know what that means. But he doesn't move from where he is, still staring at the floor.
This won't be easy. But she needs to look at him for it - convince him so thoroughly that he will not ask again, and thus discover how weak her resolve really is. She has to persuade him somehow to agree.
"This isn't one of those pictures where someone makes a huge heroic sacrifice and we all salute your corpse, Fever. I need you alive and preferably not riddled with bugs."
"I'm not a hero. That's not a title I'll ever lay claim to."
It falls from her mouth as something unadorned. Still, she reaches out to lift his chin up, his eyes unable to hide from hers, and she leaves her hand there as she speaks.
"And I'm not going to sacrifice myself. I am going to stay alive, as myself. Listen to me - I've survived worse places than this. Even had to contend with a ship that was doing its best to break everyone aboard. I have endured, so I know I can endure again. Easy."
A bit of a smile, restrained but light. Even as her spirit screams against the idea of being made to endure again. Fever doesn't want to. She doesn't want to be here. She wants so badly to be back on solid ground. She wants to believe that help can be found and sent and this can be over, the inner dilemma of everything she thought before and still, the deep desire to not have to go through it.
"It'll be all right. I promise you."
It won't be. It isn't. But what is she supposed to do, crack at the idea of someone saying I need you alive? (why her?)
"Why do you have to be so damn brave, huh?" he asks. There'll be no convincing her otherwise. Fever might not call herself a hero, but Hawk knows how this goes. There's so many factors that could go wrong, so many reasons he might never see her again as herself.
Hawk moves his hand to cup her cheek, and leans in for a parting kiss. Give them both something sweet to remember each other by.
She's not brave. That's another title she can't take for her own - she just sees what needs to be done, and the fact that others can't do it, and it must happen anyway. Even if the odds are staggering, even if it's full of risk, even if her own life dances on a tightrope. It has to be done. It won't make up for anything she's done and will do. She knows it doesn't work like that. But at the least, at the least, let her do the one thing she's good at. Let her stand in the middle of danger, and inflict violence, and draw it to where she stands. Then it might allow just enough cover for others to run away.
The kiss is gentle, smothers the part of her that knows she can't remove whatever false good concepts he has of her. One day. One day it'll all come out, and she'll have to watch him turn away. It's fine. If she starts preparing for it now, it'll be easier to shoulder. But until then, she kisses him as if he's only going on a trip for a few days, something soft that doesn't say goodbye. Lingers before she pulls back.
"There's something terribly clever to be said about kissing as a replacement for painkillers, but I just don't have the brains for it."
It's a clumsy attempt to make him smile. It probably will fall so short. But she'll pretend and keep pretending if it makes it any easier.
And yet she kisses him a second time. She needs to go, needs to give him room to make up his plan, needs to let him depart with whoever he can convince to accompany him - perhaps that man with the glasses that's around him enough, perhaps some of the more jittery ones who'd leap at it. She needs to leave, she knows, but one more second. Just one.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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"I'd ask if you found him at the butcher's shop, but that's disrespectful to butchers. They know their anatomy."
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"His anatomy knowledge was so terrible that it's a genuine wonder he had children with his wife. Only ever saw him reading medical journals to cross-reference how much he could charge. Almost done, just a few more," he really wasn't overly confident about his skills, he's nearly done already.
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She exhales slowly, a tiny wince the only betrayal of the discomfort of it all.
"Poor woman, married to such a man."
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"You think that's bad- he was a married man, and he was sleeping with the head of our nursing staff. And sure- almost everyone fooled around with people they shouldn't, that's war for you, but you should've heard the way he strung her along. Oh Margaret, of course I'll divorce my wife and be with you, I just need a few hundred thousand dollars more a year and for the kids to be eighteen and for the war to be over and for Pluto to enter Scorpio and- you get the idea."
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It's tragic, really. And yes, this Margaret isn't blameless, if there was no understanding in place, but a firm no when she expressed her interest was Frank's to give. Particularly if he was going to set terms and conditions and impossible standards. Love. It must drive people to utter madness.
"You should have caused twenty seven more head injuries."
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Speaking of, with another couple of snips, Hawk's finished up the stitches.
"There. See me in a couple of weeks about getting these out. With any luck, you'll barely see the scar."
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Sitting up carefully, she frowns, her brow furrowing. Okay. So she's going to feel like she's been hit with a sword for however long, but this should keep the bugs from deciding they had an entry point. Getting her shirt back where it was? Her hand feels the edges of where the fabric had split, given way under the sword.
"...Shame. I liked this shirt." Just grumbling now, thinking about the damage she'll have to fix later. Basic clothing repair is easy, but still, it's easier to complain about that than the fretting about the actual problem around them.
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One last step in the road to wellness, he pulls down the cotton mask that the author totally didn't forget to mention and gives her a little kiss on the forehead.
"All better. Now, do you want to tell me why you disturbed my beauty sleep or will I just have to be cranky at you?"
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The smile fades from her face as he asks the question that she knows was always in the air, trying to figure out how to phrase it in the most neutral fashion. But frankly, she can't.
"I was attacked by someone that the you-know-what had gotten to. He came after me out of nowhere. I'm lucky I managed to fend him off."
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... There's no pleasant way to ask this.
"Is he... going to be a problem?"
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She'll spare him the details. Even by her standards, that wasn't glorious. That was anguish, and pain, and mercy.
"I don't think the bugs were causing that violence, though. I think more...he was fighting them. And that such was the consequence."
The way he looked when he asked for more is still in her head.
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Then it just sort of drops and dangles there. She'd mentioned that killing is a part of the job, hadn't she?
"Poor guy. Did you... know him? Enough to- is there any sort of... rites we could do for him?"
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A little exhale.
"Dimitri Alexander."
When she says the name, there's a subtle weight to it. She doesn't know rites, how to properly and somberly mourn the dead, or truly pretend at it - she's tried, felt it sit all wrong. But a name is a symbol, is something to remember and say he was here. A name can be recorded in ink, survive generations, a whole story in a collection of letters.
He's coming back, of course. The hand attached to the good shoulder reaches up to her throat, gently rubbing it. If she hadn't fought, he would have strangled her where she stood. This wasn't some dark desire twisted and festering that had slipped past all her defenses. This had been survival, pure and simple. And yet, she doesn't want to meet Hawkeye's gaze about it.
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"The uh- the blonde kid. Kinda formal, likes bad puns," his voice is very, very tight.
Of course he's not going to yell at Fever about it or anything. It was self defense. Kid was probably up to the eyeballs in bugs and not himself, there's nothing else she could've or should've done. Even if he'd only been knocked out, they couldn't get the bugs out of him, not under these conditions. The first rule is-
Hawk sits next to her on the bed, knees on his elbows, and puts his head in his hands, broad fingers kneading across his forehead. He'll be back, that's more than he can say about any of the others.
"We have to get off this boat. We have to. I can't stand it."
cw: murder introspection, self-harm
You could demonstrate it.
Something foul, acidic as bile is in the back of her throat, burns the whole way down, and her hand rakes through her hair before her head drops forward. Fever can discern it, through the swirling, howling chaos, the impulse to close both hands around Hawkeye's throat and scream. That, she sinks into the burning pain in her shoulder and exhales without a sound. No. No. No matter how much it would get her mind temporarily off what happened.
But really, death by her hands is a better fate for him. Better he be killed than to have to breathe the same air as her, walk the same decks. He's a good man. He doesn't deserve this.
When they get off this boat, it might even be kinder to the town as a whole to leave her behind. Forget about her, free everyone from her presence, let the hive eventually find its way under her skin until they eat away what's left of her brain, until she loses the last bit of herself. Hollowed out, a living carcass. Maybe they'll eat up her heart as well; that mephitic, necrotic thing did no one any good.
Subtly, out of his view, she moves the shoulder that's been stitched. It hurts, like fresh fire. She won't hide behind devotion, like those who pray at Loviatar's altar to bless their pain. It's not even a punishment. It's just...correct. Again. She can feel her heart throb in her chest as the jolt fades away.
Instead of letting it infect her tone, she tries for steadiness and steel, something resolute and sturdy for him to lean against.
"I know. That's why I say that we will. We're going to get off it, and then you never have to step foot off of solid ground ever again if it so please you."
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"No, I mean it. I can't stay here another day. It's not- I can't do it. I can't."
A deep breath. His voice as low as he can make it.
"We'll steal one of the lifeboats. The island has to have dried out a bit by now, right? We'll head back and send help as soon as we can. But I can't stay here. I can't. I can't."
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Better he does than stay here with you, still hisses in her skull, and that quashes any stray thoughts that are nothing but selfishness.
"...You need supplies, in case we're further out than you think. A way to keep the sun off. Water, something that's halfway edible. "
What help would there even be, when the entire town is here? Don't point that out.
"And a distraction when you make your move."
We, he says. You, she can't help but clarify. Even if she still wants to leave, still wishes she had said yes to Tayrey, just wants the small things that had almost become part of her usual life. A space of her own. Things that grow. Tasks to be done. Some actual fucking sleep again - when did she get so greedy for that last one.
Regardless.
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And oh boy, does he know what that means. But he doesn't move from where he is, still staring at the floor.
"Please, come with me, Fever."
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This won't be easy. But she needs to look at him for it - convince him so thoroughly that he will not ask again, and thus discover how weak her resolve really is. She has to persuade him somehow to agree.
Please, leave me.
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"This isn't one of those pictures where someone makes a huge heroic sacrifice and we all salute your corpse, Fever. I need you alive and preferably not riddled with bugs."
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It falls from her mouth as something unadorned. Still, she reaches out to lift his chin up, his eyes unable to hide from hers, and she leaves her hand there as she speaks.
"And I'm not going to sacrifice myself. I am going to stay alive, as myself. Listen to me - I've survived worse places than this. Even had to contend with a ship that was doing its best to break everyone aboard. I have endured, so I know I can endure again. Easy."
A bit of a smile, restrained but light. Even as her spirit screams against the idea of being made to endure again. Fever doesn't want to. She doesn't want to be here. She wants so badly to be back on solid ground. She wants to believe that help can be found and sent and this can be over, the inner dilemma of everything she thought before and still, the deep desire to not have to go through it.
"It'll be all right. I promise you."
It won't be. It isn't. But what is she supposed to do, crack at the idea of someone saying I need you alive? (why her?)
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Hawk moves his hand to cup her cheek, and leans in for a parting kiss. Give them both something sweet to remember each other by.
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The kiss is gentle, smothers the part of her that knows she can't remove whatever false good concepts he has of her. One day. One day it'll all come out, and she'll have to watch him turn away. It's fine. If she starts preparing for it now, it'll be easier to shoulder. But until then, she kisses him as if he's only going on a trip for a few days, something soft that doesn't say goodbye. Lingers before she pulls back.
"There's something terribly clever to be said about kissing as a replacement for painkillers, but I just don't have the brains for it."
It's a clumsy attempt to make him smile. It probably will fall so short. But she'll pretend and keep pretending if it makes it any easier.
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"You want to kiss me again, see if that jogs your mind a little bit?"
Fever might be the one putting on a brave face, but Hawkeye practically invented laughing in the face of crushing terror and loss.
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And yet she kisses him a second time. She needs to go, needs to give him room to make up his plan, needs to let him depart with whoever he can convince to accompany him - perhaps that man with the glasses that's around him enough, perhaps some of the more jittery ones who'd leap at it. She needs to leave, she knows, but one more second. Just one.
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