Why'd You Kill the Merchant?!

[sansseraph]

Who: ALL O' Y'ALL
Broadcast: If you want
Action: FRICK YEAH PARTY AT THE JUNKYARD...I mean, Waystation. Junkstation.
When: 10/07 - Event End

It looks more like a junk heap than a waystation, but luckily there aren't any math fetishists to add you to the pile (hopefully). Talk to the scavengers and heed their warnings...if you want. Or perhaps you'll approach a shady individual for purchasing or selling stuff.

"Welcome, stranger!"

Comments

[pain_train]

ok

[She heads where indicated. She's in better shape than she was, in that she's gotten a change of clothes that's ill-fitting and definitely not hers. She's also gotten herself mostly cleaned up, though her hair's still a mess that she's tried to fix by tying back. A utility shower at least took care of most of the blood.

The bigger issue is of course her left arm, which is immobile except for occasionally, irregular spasms of the fingers.]

Hey Erik. Thanks.

[She's not even attempting to smile.]

[exothermia]

[He's already there when Wrath arrives, toolkit set on a box nearby. It only takes one glance at Wrath to make his brow crease with concern. The arm is clearly damaged - he could get a more intimate sense of it, but that can wait.

Removing the kit from the box, he gestures for her to sit on the box instead.]

It's fine. What happened?

[pain_train]

[Her shoulders hunch miserably, though she doesn't quite look down. Wrath really doesn't want to think too much about it. The entire thing was so stupid, and it's also stupid that she's this upset.]

I did something really stupid.

[The damage isn't what one might expect from her arm taking a hit in a fight. It looks like someone's opened up the arm with the purpose of trying to disable or possibly remove it.]

[exothermia]

[He takes her arm carefully in hand, assessing it without making any other moves. If he focuses he can feel the slight bends and warps where things have been roughly pulled, poked at, torn. Glancing up at her face again, he doesn't press her on looking at him in the eye. He can tell it's not the right time for that.]

I don't think you did this to yourself, Wrath.

[pain_train]

[She swallows over a dry mouth and does make herself look him in the eye. She hadn't thought Erik would ask. But better him than her captain. Better than being so apparently unfit for duty.]

It wasn't my hand that did that. But it was my stupidity that got me there.

[exothermia]

[After a moment, he nods. He won't push further. He lowers her arm back into her lap and opens up his toolkit.]

This is more advanced than most things I've worked with. This could take me some time.

[pain_train]

That's fine. I don't have anywhere to be.

[Which is, honestly, part of the problem.]

Thanks.

[She puts her face in her right hand, though while doing her best to keep her left shoulder still while Erik works.]

[exothermia]

[He gets to work with care, using tools when he encounters parts he's less familiar with. Sometimes he'll set a piece in Wrath's lap to hold while he checks the more delicate wiring below.

After a while, the silence begins to stretch on, and he knows Wrath is merely dwelling. He speaks up.]

I used to own a car that would break down a lot. Nearly once a month. I spent a lot of my weekends trying any number of things to coax it into running again.

[pain_train]

[She was definitely dwelling. She actually starts slightly when Erik speaks, not expecting it. But the topic makes her relax, and even smile a little. She likes hearing about other people's regular lives.] Why did you keep it, when you had so much terrible with it?

[exothermia]

[He shrugs, keeping his eyes on the wire he's reconnecting.]

I couldn't afford to get another one. Factory workers don't make a lot of money. [Especially not in communist Poland.] I became very adept at fixing things the old fashioned way.

[pain_train]

Oh. That makes sense. Money's... hard. [Before now, everything she needed had always been provided by the military. Money's still an arcane and intimidating thing to her. Thank goodness Vision is willing to manage her account.] I guess that was a good experience to have, though, even if it must have sucked at the time.

[exothermia]

It was just something I had to do. I did have to get to work, after all. Not something I could manage without the car.

[pain_train]

Did you live far away from where you worked? [This is all such a weird thing for her to try to get her head around. She lived on base for years. And even if she hadn't, there's very good public transit in the city... and there's only the city.]

[exothermia]

[He nods, picking up a pair of pliers to use on a circuit.]

A few kilometres. Our house was out near the forest, beyond the edges of town. We had bicycles as well, which Magda used... [There's a clicking sound as he reconnects a part, and he drops the pliers back into the toolbox.] It wasn't close to much.

[pain_train]

It's hard to imagine what that's like. I mean, it is for me. Did you like it?

[This entire subject is so disconnected from everything here, it's getting her to relax. Getting her out of her own head as she tries to envision this life Erik had before.]

[exothermia]

[His reply is a shade more quiet, though he remains focused on his work.]

Yes. I did. Even though it was unexpected for me.

[pain_train]

I guess you can find good in really different things sometimes. I'm... Glad that's something you had.

[She knows from previous conversations that it's not something he has any more. That this is a hard thing for him to talk about.

And somehow that makes it easier to quietly admit:]

Someone I picked up... Found a drug my liver couldn't metabolize immediately... I guess. When I woke up he was trying to remove my arm.

[A shudder runs through her and she clenches her right hand into a fist, takes a deep breath, relaxes.]

[exothermia]

[His expression becomes fixed and tense, anger simmering below the surface. These waystations were full of criminals, and the fact that one had gotten the better of Wrath was unacceptable. He knows how it feels to wake up to someone (or something) tearing you apart.

After a moment he lets out a breath, forcing himself to relax somewhat.]

I assume he would think twice before trying that again. [If Wrath is here, she either escaped or fought her way out. He thinks it's likely the latter.]

[pain_train]

[She's quiet for a little while.] Don't think he's going to be doing much of anything, thinking or otherwise. Maybe. I don't remember it too well. Everything is fuzzy.

[She's not proud of this. And the fuzziness of her memory around the time, until she can recall being around Makie, is extremely disturbing.]

[exothermia]

[It doesn't concern him if the man is dead or not. Good riddance if he is. While he would balk at killing himself these days for the recent hurts in his past, he wouldn't begrudge Wrath defending herself in such a situation.]

Well, you were drugged. That isn't unusual.

[pain_train]

Okay. I... It's been a long time since I got hit with something like that. [By drugs or alcohol. She's never had someone try to steal some of her parts.] Freaked me out a little.

[exothermia]

And you shouldn't have been. [His tone is a bit firmer, highlighting the injustice of it.] Situations you aren't used to are always going to be harder to shake off.

[pain_train]

[That weirdly makes her feel better. A little better.] I should have known better, maybe.

[She shakes her head.] I hate feeling like... I'm going to forget things. It scares the shit out of me. [But there's also part of her that would really like to forget this.]

[exothermia]

[He closes the final panel on her arm, setting his tools aside.] If there's one thing I've learned, it's that we can't control everything. Sometimes we can barely control anything at all.

I understand. [He has no words of comfort for forgetting. His own memories are patchwork in places, in the darker times of his life. Charles had managed to resurrect the good ones once, from his childhood. But he's lost chunks of time since then. In the Pentagon, in the thrall of En Sabah Nur... even going back to his house a couple of months ago. He knows he did it, and he remembers some things. Seeing the charred-out husk left by the rage of the townspeople he'd bereaved had shorted out something in him, going dark, and the next thing he clearly remembers is opening the barn.

He shakes his head.]

The mind is a terrible thing like that.

[pain_train]

I don't know if it's worse, that other people can do that to you, or that your own brain can do it on its own.

[She slowly wiggles the fingers on her left hand, moving them one at a time, then in sequence, then closing then into a fist from loose to tight. That feels satisfying, even if everything else is full of dread.]

Thank you, Erik. For fixing my arm. And understanding.

[She will never breathe a word of this to Vision, or Charles, or Winter, assuming he's still taking to her once he wakes up. But she hadn't expected Erik to listen and not be disappointed in her for fucking up so badly, and that helps just as much as the repair work.]