shatterverse | (no subject)

Entry tags:

(no subject)

Rachel has been busy. Actually, Rachel hasn't been seen much around Metropolis. In fact, Rachel hasn't been seen much of anywhere... aside from Detroit.

She comes back to the apartment in Metropolis at night, because Tobias sleeps there, too, and would worry if she didn't. And while she's never seen him, Rachel has a sneaking suspicion that she's occasionally followed to Detroit, and watched. Even though all she's really doing there is watching, too.

Unless, you know, something happens. And she's in a position to do something about it. Things like that happen, you know.

(very often)

Sometimes, they happen a little more unexpectedly than she'd like, where she's not in a position to help someone being targeted but is actually the target. The things attacking her rarely ever know exactly what they're getting into and she's yet to deal with any serious damage from any of them. But today, one of them got lucky and surprised her. And the morphing power, while useful and incredibly powerful, is not an exact science.

Rachel has been unable to morph or demorph without reopening a four inch gash across her collarbone and chest. In her human body.

It's getting complicated. Not to keep it covered - her wardrobe has always been modest, if stylish. And not to keep it clean - Rachel is nothing if not fastidious in her appearance.

It's that she literally cannot morph until she heals and it is taking too damn long.

It's only been about two hours since she got the cut, of course. And right now, she's standing in an abandoned drug store back in Metropolis, in the back room of the pharmacy. She's stripped off her outer shirt, standing there in jeans and the top half of her morphing outfit. The gash is large and ugly but not dangerous, not when she's surrounded by bottles of alcohol and sterile bandages.

No, the real problem is... the gash is going to require stitches. Rachel has only performed stitches twice in her entire life, both times on someone else.

She's eyeballing the sealed pack of needle and thread with a deep frown. There's no way she's coming out of this without a scar.

Stupid Andalites and their imperfect science.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

She's glad Jo was asking about the stitches, and not what just happened.

"I didn't."

Do it to herself.

"I got surprised."

And marks where stitches have ripped, she doesn't say.

"There a needle in this place?"

Technically, Rachel didn't do that to herself either.

She's still on edge, fists clenched at her sides. And it's not until the back door slams shut with Dean's exit that even her fingers relax.

And Rachel still scowls.

"You don't have to help me."

Jo's eyes went to her face. Amused hypocritical.

Right. "You didn't have to help me either."

Stitches would never repay that debt, but they needed doing.

Jo walked past her looking at the place and what it had.

Seven words that do what no speech had ever accomplished before: shutting Rachel up.

She almost sags, letting Jo move past her. But Rachel stays in one spot, waiting.

It's not the same, but it's close enough.

Jo returned to her with a needle and thread.

There's a questioning look, before a quiet.

"It might be better if you were sitting."

If she had peroxide. Or iodine.

It's not quite a parallel - Rachel isn't catatonic, there was nothing even remotely traumatizing about what got her the injury, she's able to sew it herself, if not exactly willing.

But it's still Jo, looking at her, giving instructions in suggestion format, things Rachel should already know and be reacting to.

At least she isn't holding another bottle of Grey Goose.

Letting out a slow breath, Rachel glances back, steps toward the wall and slides down it to sit with her shoulders braced.

Jo neared her. "You want anything?"

A bit. Something to hold on to. Anything.

She trusts Rachel to know what she needs.

Especially since she's had a few put in and ripped out.

Though she was waiting, she had threaded the needle.

Rachel shakes her head.

There's a bruise on Dean's cheek and the memory of raw, angry skin that should be convincing her otherwise, but Rachel is first and foremost stubborn as a mule. If she couldn't keep herself in check last time, she'll just have to try harder this time.

Jo'd point out her reflexes are better.

It wouldn't even be bragging. At least not mostly.

"I'm starting now." It's quiet warning. Rachel's more one of them than not one of them, but she's not so much one of them that she's spent her whole life giving and getting things like these.

Jo's movements are small, trying to make the punctures clean and clear, to pull the thread through with as little jerking of the skin.

It's the sitting that gets to her, more than anything else. It's that she's expected to sit and allow this to happen. Someone to hurt her. Even if it's helping.

Rachel's fists clench and she looks away, breath catching softly with every puncture. But she doesn't swing again.

Jo's more easy to see as medical, professional. And Jo is a friend.

Jo's had enough practice with this actually being work, whether it was by choice and request or it was men being drug in while people were screaming who'd been holding bodies together with bloodied rags.

Sometimes hospitals would be too much trouble.

There were downsides to their lives.

She doesn't apologize or compliment here. Her lips pressed together and she worked down the wicked looking tear in Rachel's skin, wishing she could make it better, heal it.

Wishing her own healing hand didn't smart for every small movement she makes with the needle, but its such a small pain considering what else she's healing. And it keeps her alert, aware of Rachel's skin in front of her, and her small reactions.

"Almost done."

Rachel nods once, short and jerky motion. Her reactions have gotten louder, lightly huffed out breaths with each tug of the needle, and her clenched hands have white knuckles. Her face is contorted into a scowl, glaring at the wall to her right.

Almost done.

Almost done.

She's doing remarkably good.

But its not a comment that would matter.

"This'll hurt a little more." She seals the end with a knot, wincing a little bit as she does, since she has to tug it tight. To do any less would be careless and would mean it would need more done to it later.

A grunt, sharp and low. Almost animal, Rachel's teeth bared briefly at the wall.

It's in these moments where she doesn't think, only reacts, that she seems more animal than in one of her morphs.

She leaned in and bit the string, cheek and lips brushing Rachel's shoulder briefly trying to only graze the wound the slightest bit possible.

Then she pulled away. "It's done."

The first touch that hasn't stung or burned all night. Rachel shivers at it, surprised, but at the words she lets out a low, calming breath.

And also turns to inspect the stitches, wrinkling her nose. But it looks a hell of a lot better than it did a few moments ago.

"Thanks."

She didn't mean for it to come out so quiet, so soft. Rachel keeps her eyes down for the moment, eyes on the neat stitching holding the skin just below her collarbone together.

Jo'll take that bit as a compliment, which is warming, but she just gives Rachel a tight lipped not-quite-smile and shrugs.

"I'd hate to see you out of comission before I get you back in the field at my side."

Rachel blinks and looks at her abruptly, slow smile curving her lips. Pleased and surprised that Jo even wants her there.

It's been months since she hunted with anyone but Tobias, and she still considers the first Cathedral a disaster.

All of this is great, but a moment later, she's scowling at her stitches again. "I'm already out of commission," Rachel grumbles, though there's admiration in her tone for how neat and small the thread in her skin is. "It should have healed when I morphed, but it didn't. Now I have to stay human until it heals completely or it'll just open every time."

It's been months siunce Jo....

Well. They know.

"Guess you'll get to work a lot more on fighting as you are, then."

Rachel gives her a look.

"I haven't picked up a gun in months," she points out, and her features twist into another scowl when she jerks her head toward the exit Dean used. "And you saw how strong my punch is."

Weak.

"Then you can get back in the habit with me." Jo's looking at her straight, mostly serious, except for the edge of ironic amusement tinging all of her features.

"Since I haven't touched a gun in months, and I've punched exactly one person, and that's a few weeks ago, too, now."

She's been....cagey.

And nervous.

Back in the habit. As if re-learning for Jo wasn't just plain learning for Rachel. Getting back to basics for Jo, memorizing the basics for Rachel.

Someone willing to teach her.

Rachel smiles again, slow and sweet. "Yeah. Yeah, okay."

Jo finally gets around to the smallest bit of a smile, the lift in her cheek and twist of her lips right at the edges.

"Good."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only