live Gren reaction

[scubatankfilledwithfarts]

Faye has seen fantastical and downright horrifying things, but she wonders if a wound can spurt simultaneously to your blood pressure spiking.

"Faye-Faaaaaye, don't dieeeee...." Ed whimpers from her bedside, and even Ein, stretching the neck of her t-shirt where he's hanging, dismal, seems to feel sympathy. It isn't all that, though having the girl and dog worry over her (while warm and fuzzy) is overwhelming. And unnecessary. They just need to do what she says!

"PFfff--- it's okay, Ed, Faye's gotta get something important done before she passes out." Jet could have a little more sympathy! Here she is with a bullet in her gut, barely hanging on to the pain med's assistance, and her sanity.

"Give me. My phone," she snarls through grit teeth, waving her arm expectantly, then grimaces at the hot spike of pain in her stomach.

"Here, Faye." Speaking of spikes-- Spike proves to be helpful, setting the phone in her palm.

Too helpful. The bounty hunter narrows her eyes suspiciously. Those crimson eyes gaze back at her patiently.

A distinct glint lingers there, expectant and knowing.

"Now get out. You're bothering the patient."

Jet tuts at her, and looks no less amused. "Now, now, Faye. The doc said we had to keep an eye on you, keep you calm. Feel free to be comfortable, we're your friends, after all."

So that's what it is. The bastards!

Faye sits up a little in a flash, then groans, regretting it.

"Faye-Faye's gonna bust, bust, bust!" Ed whimpers, and presses her fingers hesitantly against her arm. It's...nice, but again, not helpful.

Whatever. Fuck it.

What's on her mind isn't the lost bounty, or her co-worker's infuriating attention, or even her war wound. Days ago Badou had met her at the usual noodle cart and her heart decidedly did not do a flip at the familiar sight, or of red hair swaying in the wind. The way his mouth curved into a grin when they met eyes.

"Got some time off from work this weekend. And my toilet's finally working. Wanna come over?"

She'd huffed at him then, and rolled her eyes to show she wasn't impressed or wooed by a working toilet. Faye turned to her steaming bowl, fingers fiddling with her chopsticks. Craving a cigarette like a harder kind of drug.

The hardest drug she's dying for, between her fingers, warm between her thighs, groaning beneath her, fingers gentling a kiss from her lips, happens to be sitting beside her. Orders ramen that'll get his toilet broken again.

But she'd agreed. Faye doesn't know who started it, who came first, who bit lips swollen and wet first. When he follows her to the ends of the Earth they work in sync, always together. Maybe it'd started that way, too.

They always met up at his place. It isn't because she's ashamed, or he's possessive or anything stupid like that. It's just easier-- this easy, fragile thing that hangs between them like static before a storm. After the tumultuous romances of the past, it's simple. It feels good, he's her friend. She trusts him. She doesn't have to justify herself to anyone!

"Shhh, be quiet, guys. Faye's got a very important call to make," Jet raises his voice like a school teacher trying to round kids from the playground. There's a giggle in his voice much too embarrassing for a middle-aged man.

She doesn't have to justify herself. Not even to her coworkers who simultaneously zero in on her call. Maybe if she repeats it enough times it’ll feel real.

If she doesn't pass out from blood loss, it's going to be from the seething anger that bubbles under her skin.

"Wasn't expecting you so soon. Sup?" Her stomach does a little flip, and surely that's the bullet still in there, at the sound of Badou's voice. The rage washes away at that reedy drawl.

Her crew can never, ever know.

"I'm gonna have to cancel, sorry."

"Oh?" Faye hates that Badou's disappointment is crystal clear, even if he's trying to hide it. He does this thing that infuriates her-- it's this thing where he doesn't realize how important he is to the people around him, despite plenty of evidence otherwise. He's an info broker, he's supposed to be informed about stuff!

It's endearing to her. It makes her want to strangle him. She doesn’t realize she’d closed her eyes until Badou calls her name, tone going from curious to confused to concerned. The sight remains the same when she opens them — her crew not even trying to pretend to not eavesdrop.

"Not because I want to, dummy," she murmurs. "I'm getting surgery."

You could hear a pin drop.

"Wait, what??" There's a drastic change in tone again. She will not talk about feeling any sort of squishy way about the obvious concern, but with the pain, the audience, and the reminder she's not getting the nice weekend she planned, she's just tired and snappy.

"It's fine, it's just-- I've got a bullet somewhere around my kidney, you'd think the future of medicine could just suck it out or something--" And now she's sounding like Badou. Stupid. "Whatever, they're taking it out soon. Talk to you tomorrow, or whenever I wake up."

"Wait, wait, Faye--"

"Doc's here, gotta go."

And she hangs up, slumps against her pillow, and grumps. Exhaustion sets in now that she's done with her mission. To their credit, her crew remains silent, and the doctor does decide to breeze in then. Blessedly shooing the others out, she begins to say something Faye only half pays attention to. It’ll be more than she got the last time she went under the knife.

(Nothingness, the void, and her entire self stolen from her)

It’s probably how she’s going to be fine. She knows that. She has a date weekend to get to, after all.

Faye's mind is a swirling whirlwind of white, of beeps, and try as she might to grab hold, in this void, of something, anything, all she can surrender to is confusion for awhile.

Her eyes open to a very white space. A room. Turning her head takes a lot of effort, but she finally manages to focus on a figure slumped in a chair, head thrown back against the wall, eye closed.

Badou. Her heart speeds up (numbly she might pick up on the heart monitor catching on in tandem) in that pleasant-annoying way it tends to do around him.

The beep of her monitor finally registers, and her heart lurches this time, to an unfamiliar, unfeeling request (pay back the debt, or else), glasses glinting behind narrowed eyes--

She remembers then. No, she shoves the far past where it belongs, dripping into the chambers of her heart, seeping-- no, she doesn't even recall the job-- but the disappointment over her lost weekend. Surgery, shmergery, her side hurts, but she's alive.

"Looks like you live to pay us back another day," Declares a familiar voice from the door, and it makes Badou scramble to sit up properly. Faye feels her lips quirk. She blinks at Jet, who, despite the smile on his face, looks like he hasn't slept. His shirt is wrinkled, beard unkempt. She wants to tell him that she's fine, that she'd much rather be pampered hand and foot at home, but then her mind screeches to a halt.

Badou.

At the hospital.

Faye swivels her head back, finding the man in question already up and next to her bed.

"What the hell are you doing here?" are the first words that come out of her mouth post-surgery.

Badou's eye, which was filled with an intensity almost too raw to bear a second about, widens in affront.

"The hell do you mean what am I doing here? Maybe I'm here to see how you chuckleheads managed to screw up the dirt I risked my ass to get you. Dunno who's more embarrassing, the cowgirl shot in the ass or my reputation."

He puts up that affront but guilt swirls in his eye, clings to his shoulders. They’re both so good at running, aren’t they. A good match.

"You're one to talk! Your reputation lives in toilet in an abandoned building that's never been flushed! And it wasn't my ass, it was--"

Even as she yells, she realizes the room's filled up already, because of course Spike and Ed had wandered in, their computer nerd whimpering worriedly beside her, and even Ein, again, looks concerned. Or hungry. Her face feels hot. It's either the pain, the embarrassment, the knowing looks Jet and Spike shoot both of them-- it's the pain. She's not even listening as Badou continues to rant--

"And the fuck kind of tv drama call was that? I'm getting surgery--" The pantomime of her voice sounds nothing like her, but the words are stuck in her throat a lot like the bullet was in her guys. She groans, swatting his hand away from her face, and then groans louder as her injury spikes up again in heat.

Badou stills. "S'it hurt?"

"THE HELL DO YOU THINK!?"

Jet calls for the nurse, and a second later a young woman who does not let her gaze linger on the visitor list because she is a professional, pokes something nice into the pole next to her bed.

Almost immediately, the pain subsides. Her muscles relax, and her head sinks deeper into that lumpy pillow. She closes her eyes as her thoughts begin to sink into fog again.

"This is nice," she breathes out, lips twitching into a slow smile.

"Of course it's nice, they put you under a fake name so you won't have any trouble, apparently. Only a former cop would think to do something like that, something so shady. But everything's fine, don't worry."

Faye lets that voice wash over her, like a welcoming flame during a cold night. A beat passes-- a minute? Fifteen? (how long can he rant: the answer is a long time) and when she opens her eyes, the fog threatening to tug her down into the past, Badou's still there. A soft, fond smile playing on his lips.

Everything's fine, duh. She thinks. You're still here.

(In a part of her conscience she only meets with her face pressed to an ancient television and an even older version of herself, this is the outcome she'd hoped for when she made the call. Don't dwell on it now. Her mind hangs onto conscience or pride or manners, and she knows what she should say)

"Go home, Badou." She means to sound forceful, aggravated with purpose, but it comes out as anything but.

There's a soft huff. "You need to let go of my hand for that, dummy."

Faye looks over. Yup, she's holding Badou's hand, hers atop his, scarred palm rubbing hers. A calloused thumb skates across the back of her hand. When did that happen? Was this her, or Badou, or both? It doesn't matter.

They don't really hold hands. Not unless they're doing things that involve pinning one another to Badou's desk, or kitchen sink to see who moans first, or louder. This is nothing like that, just contact, a focus point that feels more real right now than anything else. She likes it. It's warm. His pulse thrums where they're connected.

"Huh," she hums. "Do I have to?"

Badou's face does something weird, expression crumbling like dominoes tipping one after another, unstoppable, inevitable as fate. A true face journey. It's just a second, then it settles into something more careful, but still soft in that way Faye's used to finding charming when they're alone, panic-inducing when they're with the others. Not now when she's drugged out of her mind, though.

"No. How about I stay here?"

"Here?"

"Yeah."

"Hm." She can't ask for that. She isn't a child. "Okay."

Badou's free hand rises to push hair out of her face, fingers winding in her hair. He leans further into Faye's space, eye searching hers.

Faye wants him closer. Never will admit, for a long, long time, that she wants someone close like this.

"My mouth is gross," she mumbles. "But you should still kiss me."

Badou stills, then blinks, then turns as red as his hair.

Her crewmates have been silent for a while, which Faye notices when it's broken by Spike's gruff voice.

"Incredible stuff you've got." He says from somewhere in the room. "Gren owes me 30 woolongs."

Faye doesn't care, too hazy, too blissful. She's going to fall asleep any second, and she didn't get the weekend she'd planned, but there's still time for this.

"Yeah, I can do that," Badou finally says, mouth quirking up. The hand in her hair slides down to cup her face, and there's a familiar press of his lips, of tingles. Faye's eyes close, wishing she had the strength to pull him closer. The next words barely register as sleep takes over.

"Ugh, this is kinda gross."

And, "Go to sleep."

And, "I'll be here."

And he was. And that's all there is to it.