fridgetothefire | 074 ☣ Snicker-snack

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074 ☣ Snicker-snack

[Public video]

[The post comes thirty, maybe forty-five minutes after Kara's. Even with the major broken bones and butchery repaired, from just the shoulders up, Anya looks an absolute wreck. She has a swollen, mottled lump at her temple, ugly purple dripping under her skin like a watercolor stormcloud. Her throat is bruised too, the wide brumous darkness there slashed through with line of red lightning, gleaming and raw rather than simple rusting scab, where she thrashed against the rough iron wire binding her neck. Her mouth has a dab of blood that wasn't all washed away, her lip ragged where she chomped partway through it. Her hair is a sweat-matted mess. Most of all, though, is the look in her eye, an unhinged lurching snarl.]

This. Is done. Now. This thing, with Dean, it's me and him, and we are square. Whatever private wars you've got to settle, I don't care, but any one of you touches him in my name - no vengeance. None.

Or I will take it out of your fucking hide.

[She is not entirely sane right now. And she is not even remotely fucking around. The feed cuts out. And then, fifteen seconds later, still broadcast to everyone.]

Including you.

[Private to Ricki]

[Slumped, quieter]

...except you, I guess. Sorry.

But please don't.

[Private to Stiles]

[Also quiet, eyes downcast, exhausted.]

If he can't be bothered to tell you, I think he thought I was the admiral. That he could get free, save the people here. I know you have to do something, I know you'll do. Whatever you decide is best.

But I'd like to be. Informed.

[Private to Iris]

Thank you.

[Infirmary spam]

[She stays there about thirty-six hours, too worn out to do very much, letting the minor surface wounds that didn't get mended with magic stay cleaned and bandaged and iced. She'll see visitors if they come, will be wan and weary but lucid, without the vicious freneticism of the immediate aftermath. After that, she can't stand it any longer despite the advantages, retreats to the sanctuary of her cabin.]

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I honestly don't know.

[He isn't, exactly, her brother. And by the time she was bringing the doom of their family home to roost, by the time he had anything to need to talk about, she wasn't interested in helping him anymore. For all the things Pietro gets mad about Anya thinking she knows, there are lots of ways she's keenly aware she doesn't know him at all.]

You're a good friend, and you've got good instincts. You can trust that, I think.

Okay. I'll try.

And I'll see you tomorrow.

[And she keeps her promise - both of them. The next day, she shows up at Anya's bedside with Johnny in her arms.]

Hey, Johnny.

[She looks better - a second pass has actually cleaned all the blood off, and the swelling on her head has gone down a little with anti-inflammatories and ice, though the bruises are only coming in more luridly. Her hair is brushed, though still a bit lanky. Her wrists and elbows are bandaged, though not the sores at her throat - the pressure there kept her too close to panic. Her bare arms are a riot of color, stained-glass style thick black lines and bright symbolic tattoos in between old, twisting burn scars from when she was a child, bordered by the white gauze.

She offers the rabbit a little bit of apple from breakfast, coaxing him into her lap.]

You weren't here when they were born, were you?

Edited 2015-06-29 14:42 (UTC)

[Tiffany carefully sets him down on the bed, letting him walk where he wants.]

No. They was all growed up when I got here, I think.

How old is he? I don't even know that.

Almost a year, now.

The parents were Zane's rabbits - he got them as presents, something to make him get up and care when he was in a bad way as an inmate. Something helpless he could learn to just care for.

[She pets Johnny tentatively when he comes close. She likes telling barge history, connecting them to each other. She misses Zane so much, obviously loves him.]

And they did what rabbits do, of course. Mason was so scared to take one. Thought he wasn't responsible enough to keep something alive, you know? But that was part of the point, having a reason to get there. He wanted it so badly, but it took half a dozen of us to talk him into it.

[She was very fond of Mason, too, despite their clashes.]

[She gives Johnny a sad look, reaching out to stroke his ears.]

Mason was so good at taking care of him. He didn't need to worry.

Well, but it was the worrying that meant he cared enough about getting it right, yeah?

Zane pretty much just put his foot down, in the end. Handed him a tiny baby rabbit and wouldn't take it back. He knew they'd both be good for each other.

Edited 2015-06-29 15:02 (UTC)

[She chuckles, wiping her eyes.]

I was surprised. I thought he was gonna take him with him. He loved him so much - he was so proud to have him.

[But he'd told her some about what his life was like at home. Maybe he'd figured it wasn't a good living situation for a rabbit.]

[She sniffles a bit herself.]

Me too.

Guess he trusts you a whole lot.

[Tiffany, don't cry about boys when Anya is sitting here recovering from being mauled.

... Shit, it's really hard not to cry about boys when Anya is sitting here recovering from being mauled.]

Sorry. I'm sorry.

[She presses her fingers to her eyes, hard, determined not to let any of these tears actually fall.]

He's a-- he's a good rabbit, and I'm gonna take real good care of him. He's gonna be a therapy rabbit.

Well, he's getting some practice.

[Petpetpet. Then she notices Tiffany struggling.]

Oh, hey, shhh, it's okay. Really it is.

[She hiccups, shaking her head.]

It ain't right. Not with you all... I shouldn't.

You extra-missing Zane and Ben right now?

No, it's. It's kinda nice. To be surrounded by love, right now, even if it means some crying.

[Another sniff, a rough swallow, a nod.]

I really extra am. And Riddick, especially. He was kind of a hermit, at the end, you wouldn't know him. But he was like a mom to me. Way better than my first one.

[She does not say 'real'.]

I don't think I knew him. Maybe I talked to him once.

... He was like your mom, even though he was a guy?

Yeah, he was. It just felt like that. We'd knead bread dough together, and he'd make my favorites and just hold me when I was sad, or scared. We'd just sit together, me knitting and him doing scrimshaw, all quiet and easy.

I mean, I guess there's dads that do that stuff. But it just. It felt warm and safe and - gentle, even though he was this big burly guy. Cozy. And it reminded me a lot of my other mom, before she checked out. How it was when it was good. And he didn't mind it.

[A tear slides down her cheek, falling onto Anya's hand.]

I think having someone who'll just hold you when you need it is one of the most important things.

Me too.

[She reaches up, pets Tiffany's hair lightly. In all the madness, all the harrowing excruciating screaming and the lost stumbling after, Anya hasn't cried. It's like something's frozen in her, and she wants to, comes right up to the edge sometimes, hitching and choking on it, and can't go any further. But Tiffany can cry, over the whole mess and the simple raw wish that everyone they loved was here. And there's healing in that, she thinks, something she can draw sustenance from.]

Edited 2015-06-29 16:35 (UTC)

And I got that here. I got the most amazing people.

[But sometimes the mind is a cruel thing, and when things are bad it defaults to making you want the people you can't have the most.]

You know, Mason could pick me up right off the ground?

[she chuckles again.]

Like grab me and lift me up. He was the only one who did that. I always thought it was romantic. It made my stomach flutter.

[It makes her smile.]

I think so, too. You know, the first time I kissed Ben, he was carrying me away from danger? Like a knight in a story, I thought.

[She was fairly mauled at the time, and it was actually once he set her on the infirmary bed afterwards - the one three cots down - but hey, details. ]

Wow. That sounds... damn.

Can you tell me about that?

We were both still inmates then. And we were pretty close, but not like later. He didn't have his abilities, but he had his training. Somebody attacked me, and when I screamed, he came. He put himself between us, held Dylan off until someone else came. He was hurt too but I was concussed pretty badly, couldn't get up the stairs. He just - scooped me up and got me safe.

And I kissed him on the cheek right before I passed out.

That's a real sweet story, Anya.

You ever kiss him on the mouth?

...well, it took me another two years. But yeah, we did.

[She's aware this sounds a little bit ridiculous. But - well. It made sense for them.]

Two years?

[She smiles.]

Damn, I never knew anybody who took things that slow.

Yeah, well.

Ben was - the people who raised him, they were evil. Really, just - evil. He didn't understand what had happened, the first time I kissed him. He thought I was trying to whisper something in his ear, and he couldn't hear it, because he couldn't imagine someone wanting to touch him, ever.

I spent a long time just getting him used to the idea that any touch at all could be a good thing. But we got there.

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