souffle_girlek | Post-Zombies, Post-Bones

Post-Zombies, Post-Bones

Oswin didn't get far once she and Autor returned to the bar - the doctor she'd seen before had spotted her almost before she could properly get into the infirmary. His plaintive grousing about how he'd just set everything to rights, couldn't she stay uninjured for just a little while, just for him is very distracting - the upper registers of her hearing return almost before she can set herself up to be properly worried about the exam.

The concussion, on the other hand, earns her a stay overnight, and no amount of pleading or nerves will get her out of it. He gives her an option - she can have pain medication and can sleep on her own terms in a quiet section of the infirmary, or he can sedate her now and keep her under constant machine surveillance. Either way, unconsciousness and staying in the infirmary are things that are going to happen here.

She chooses option 'a', after asking one of the rats to leave a note with Bar for anyone who might be looking for her.

So now Oswin (having commandeered a fair number of blankets) is making a somewhat half-assed attempt at reading to pass the time. Mostly she's staring at her book (Pride and Prejudice, if there was ever a time for Fitzwilliam Darcy, this is it), and occasionally making it far enough to turn a page.

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There's a light knock on the side of the doorway. Clint's standing there, khaki jacket over one arm, package of some sort in his free hand.

When she looks at him, he smiles.

"Zombies, huh?"

Edited 2013-10-27 07:48 (UTC)

"That's what they're saying." She lights up when she spots him, putting her book to one side with over-deliberate movements. She's not entirely sure which is worse - clumsiness due to a knock on the head, or clumsiness due to whatever it is she was given to make the headache go away, but either way, it's all very annoying. "Can't have a dull day around here, evidently. I think on the whole I did better with dinosaurs."

Clint's smile quirks up slightly as she talks. He walks in, and settles in the chair next to her bed, elbows resting on his legs.

"Well," he said. "Dinosaurs live in fear of the day you visited." Oswin Oswald, bringer of the electric fences. "You've been checked for bites, right?"

She's dead already, right? He's not sure how that works, but someone has to be able to cure zombie-ism around here.

"Yeah, that doctor from last time pounced on me last night. Says he's going to give me permanent earplugs if I don't stop coming in with the same thing." She snickers, before the thought that maybe she shouldn't be sharing that.

Ooops.

She fiddles with the futuristic fluid pump clamped over her wrist, for lack of something else to do with her hands.

Clint raises his eyebrows, brow knitting together. He's the picture of patient listening.

"Um. Grenades were used. And then I got a concussion and... well. Long night." She still has a concussion, her wide blown pupils and slow movements not entirely down to the medications in her system.

"Grenades," Clint repeats, low and disbelieving. "In the bar room?"

She's incredibly lucky she got away with just a concussion.

"They were kind of odd - I always thought of grenades of more... explody-things? But mostly they made a lot of light and sound. Lots of sound, that was... not fun? But it distracted the zombies, so, can't complain too much I guess." She sighs. "I'd kinda run out of space at that point."

"Oh," Clint says, and then he laughs, weak and relieved. "Flashbangs. Yeah, they're -- technically grenades, but the casing stays together, so the explosion's contained."

"Oh. He just said grenades." She scrunches her nose. "I don't think he was much inclined to explain, I was pretty angry at him. He took us outside, said it was safer."

The Outside that she's been avoiding for over a year now, and was just has happy to go on avoiding.

He's quiet for a moment too long, thoughtful.

"Was it?"

Delicate fingers tap nervously against the cover of her book - nervously, or full of nerves, ones that never really forgot the year that she thought she spent in a crashed ship, tapping out lines of code to destroy her murderers.

"We survived the night." She hedges, because even though there hadn't been so much as a demon bunny, she balks from calling it 'safe'.

"That's something," he says, smiling slightly. He lays a hand against the side of her bed; open, so she can take it if she wants.

"I'm not sure if I should be relieved or disappointed I missed the zombies."

"Relieved, definitely relieved." She assures him, "They weren't recently dead, or anything. And some weren't... adults." Her expression tightens as she tries to not remember her fire poker smashing zombie bits. "Some people did better though with the whole thing. There was one guy, kinda looked like a punk pirate, all black leather - he was doing well."

It'd been good to know some people could handle that sort of thing. As much as anything was 'good' at that point.

At some point she's managed to take his hand. It's real, more real than books and music and rooms she can't remember getting into in the first place.

Edited 2013-11-05 06:43 (UTC)

Clint doesn't mention that her description means he's not relieved; there're too many civilians in Milliways who can't deal with that bullshit.

At least zombies are already dead.

His brow pulls together slightly, trying to conjure this mental image. "Punk... pirate?"

"Yeah, all... black leather, and the eyepatch, and combat boots, and he was owning it. Seriously badass." She assures him. "He was short a cutlass, but maybe it didn't match his gun."

The mental image fills itself in pretty abruptly, and Clint promptly chokes on laughter.

He doesn't try to pretend he doesn't. "I'll, uh," he says, when he recovers his breath. "Have to keep an eye out."

"Hey, he was a rocking punk pirate, he can't help it if he's from a universe that prizes the leather bondage look." Oswin protests. "Knew some Time Agents once that'd probably have appreciated a look like that."

Clint can't help it, he starts laughing in earnest, bent over his free arm.

He recovers relatively quickly, rubbing his eyes clear of tears with the heel of his palm. "Oswin," he says, silent laughter shaking him again. "I'm pretty sure you're talking about a guy from my world. Black, a good few inches taller than me?"

"... Yeah? So is he really a punk pirate? Does he have a parrot? Does he make people walk the plank?" Oswin grills brightly, because really, that might be one of the best things ever.

"No, no, ...," Clint considers the last question, tilting his head. "... Sometimes?"

"Brilliant." Oswin grins, because frankly, theorizing on a punk pirate from Clint's world is much better than thinking about the shambling dead or spending the night hovering above a land that looks like the one she just barely escaped. "You should tell him about the parrot."

Clint huffs an amused breath. "As long as you don't tell him I laughed."

"Deal. Though I don't think you're much in danger - I mean. He was shooting zombies, and I... was mostly flailing at them. A lot. I don't think conversation is a likely thing, do you?" She asks, scrunching her nose. Sure, she runs into people who are heavily armed entirely too often, and usually it's a quite literal running-into, but odds are there won't be long talks over tea with the leather-bound pirate.

"Oswin," Clint says, and his tone is serious, though he's smiling around his eyes. "The one thing I know you're absolutely going to do, at any given time, is the unexpected. You'll probably end up dancing with him at Cinderella's ball, or something."

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