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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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."

"What, by standing on his boots? He's a tree." Oswin protests, having never seen Steve Rogers up close. "I will look ridiculous."

...

This is not to say she wouldn't do it, no.

...

Clint's brow pinches slightly.

"Okay," he says. "That mental image was my fault." The idea of Fury dancing with someone on his boots is kind of... disturbing. "Anyway, he's a solid guy, follow his lead in a catastrophe, and try not to get into any catastrophes. Please.

"How bad was your concussion?"

She makes a face at him for his plea for her to stay out of trouble - it's not like she goes looking for these things.

"Bad enough, I guess." She shrugs slightly, not really up on her 'classification of concussions'.

"... Don't remember getting here." Frankly? That's the most worrisome thought running through her head right now.

"It happens. Something about your brain not storing new memories until it's over the shock." He squeezes her hand, gently. "You seem real enough to me," he says, voice lightly teasing. If he was a hallucination, that wouldn't matter much.

He hates hallucinating.

But where, where did you get the eggs and milk for the souffles?

She pales precipitously as her brain (the poor rattled thing that it is) makes the not-so-difficult jump to the completely wrong conclusion. We could perhaps blame it on the medications, or the healing damage. That would be... polite.

It's a dream, Oswin. You dreamed it for yourself because the truth was too horrible to face.

"... You okay?" His eyes flick up away from her briefly to see if he can spot the doctor, just in case; other than that, he keeps his eyes on her

She tries to reassure herself that of course this is real, it must be real, there have been other people, but she's stuck over the idea that there's a gap, a severe gap in her memory, a gap she can't explain away, one the exact size and shape of another gap that she wishes she still didn't remember the contents of.

"I'm. You'd... where is he? Where's the Predator?" That's the wrong word, but it's the one that slots into place, the Predator who comes and takes away all the safe places to hide. "I... I thought..." She thought she'd escaped, but really. Really Oswin, a magical bar that just happened to show up in the nick of time?

Of course it isn't real.

Oh.

He tries to parse what she thinks is happening, what will help without jarring her too badly. This is what he gets for not asking questions. "He's not here," Clint says, gently. His tone isn't reassuring, not really; it's the tone of someone who wholly believes what they're saying. "What's going on?"

"No, of course not, he ran." Run you clever boy. "He got away. He's safe now." The accent is still hers, but the phrasing (and the calmness of it) belongs to a different girl, or rather, the other girl, the impossible one.

"Though." Her grip tightens, and she gives Clint a bit of a broken smile. "I should get points for thinking up someone who wouldn't leave me here." She gives the door a worried glance - there's no defenses there, that's not good.

"You aren't, are you? Going to leave? It's just that, he already did, and... well. If I have to die, I'd rather die as me. And I don't know if I can keep them out anymore."

Edited 2013-11-11 09:28 (UTC)

"I won't. I'm real, but even if I wasn't -- that's not what I do."

He's not -- entirely sure what she's talking about. She told him that the things attacking her were hard to kill, but he's not entirely sure what as me means. Mind control?

"You want me to sit between you and the door?"

She shakes her head, her gaze flickering to the door every few minutes.

"There aren't any defenses, and they'll be... quite desperate. It's a bit selfish, but I don't want to see it when they kill... I would want to see them coming. So I can... I don't know, there has to be something."

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