open | i been up all night no sleep

[okayimin]

WHO: Sister Sara Sawbones, Jenny Lou, Sol Noon AND YOU
WHAT: Catch All
WHEN: Post Satinalia and forwards
WHERE: the Gallows and Kirkwall
NOTES: Sawbones is having a bad time post murderhaus, Jenny Lou is up to some wildly stupid meme shit, Noon's just chilling.

Comments

[innerharbor]

Amos' smile takes on a different sort of dimension, blankly promising violence, until the Brother leaves. Then, he looks to Sawbones. "Take a breath."

He doesn't lean down. He just waits.

[okayimin]

Her jaw closes with a click and for a moment, he's too large. Everything is and there's no escaping the empty arch of blue behind him. She flinches, eyes glassy and face blank. Then she tips her head back and glares at him.

"I am breathing," she says primly, "And you're bleeding."

[innerharbor]

"I know." He starts walking, looking for a private alcove of the hall. He finds one-- goddamn place is full of these things-- and sits on a windowsill. "C'mon."

[okayimin]

She follows him, curiosity overriding a little of the fear. She's still shaken, feels hollowed through from it. The alcove is a lure of it's own. Not quiet as small or dark as the places she usually goes to hide, but close. She sighs and leans against the wall next to Amos.

[innerharbor]

Amos wipes the blood off his lip with his sleeve, waits for it to stop bleeding on its own. It was a small wound, a vessel that's been broken so many times it's used to it. He doesn't care how it looks. He never has.

"Look," he says, "I dunno what happened with you and Cap in the dead psycho's basement," he begins promisingly, "and I'm not much help with that shit. But if you got anything you gotta say about it... I don't judge."

[okayimin]

She tips her head back to look up at him. She doesn't say anything for a long moment, but...

"Do you know anything about the Deep Roads?" She doesn't recall what parts of it Mhavos had put in the pamphlet, the sight of the Casteless mark a strangely overwhelming thing.

[innerharbor]

Even if that pamphlet was yet published, Amos wouldn't have bothered reading it. "Nope," he says amiably.

[okayimin]

"Used to be how all the thiags were connected, how dwarves got from one city to the next," she says, "Then the taint came and the Darkspawn with it. The thaigs fell. There's only one or two left now. And the Deep Roads are a pit. Whatever you've seen in space? It's worst in the Deep Roads."

She can say that with absolute confidence, "They exiled some of us there, during the food riots in Orzammar. Sometimes I forget I'm not still there."

[innerharbor]

What's the worst thing Amos has seen in space? Eros, falling, screaming, running through the ancient guts of the station, poison water, radiation, waiting, Semi's face as the bullet ripped it apart.

Worse than that. Okay.

"I known some guys like that." He nods, expression blankly pleasant.

[okayimin]

She makes a sound that's almost a laugh. "Guess it's good to know I'm not alone then." Then, quieter, because she doesn't say this ever: "It's what I miss about Dust Town sometimes. It's a miserable fucking place, but at least everybody knows."

[innerharbor]

Amos nods. Yeah, that tracks. "How the world works. Instead'a just fucking around for fun."

[okayimin]

Sawbones huffs and gives him a smack (worlds gentler than the one she'd given the Brother), saying with a trace of primness, "Either way it's a mess."

She hauls herself up onto the windowsill next to him, frowning, "Now let me have a look at you, so I know you didn't bust a tooth or anything."

[innerharbor]

He waves her off, but without the (small) amount of effort it would take to completely block her. "Got my nose busted up when I was little, it always bleeds easy, and my tooth cut my lip. Not deep."

The self-assured tone of someone accustomed to fighting.

[okayimin]

The self-assured tone is wildly unimpressive and she only arches a brow at it. "I've heard that before," she says, "Let me have a look anyhow. For my peace of mind."

[innerharbor]

"Sure, Sis." He leans forward, allowing his face to be inspected. "You work on the Cap? James Holden, you met him?"

[okayimin]

It's a brief inspection at least (truly only for her peace of mind, the blood kicking up too many memories). She grimaces and nods, "I did meet him, yes. Only helped with the field work, since my shoulder got fucked. He should be off bedrest soon."

Satisfaction in that. Those kinds of injuries had ways of going very wrong very badly.

[innerharbor]

"He's from my planet," Amos says, and then, meaningfully, "but not where I'm from."

[okayimin]

He gets a small smile for that, "I guessed." And since they're being vague about it: "There's a lot about you that's familiar."

[innerharbor]

Amos' voice is blank, but there's a subtle thread of disbelief in his words: "The fuck's that mean?"

It's really subtle, though, so you might miss it.

[okayimin]

"You're not that smooth, salrocka," she says, Dust Town drawl out in full, "I've seen your face when you get in a fight and it ain't even close to the first time I've seen that. You move like one of the mean Carta boys."

[innerharbor]

"Sure, whatever." That's pretty meaningless to him, but- "How the fuck am I like Holden?"

[okayimin]

That hadn't been quite what she meant, but the question still makes her line up the various human men she's met recently. Edgard falls in with the line up and she manages not to wince.

"You're both quiet," she says, without thinking, "Though I suppose I haven't seen you in a particularly dire situation yet." It's a given that she will. She eyes him, not mistrustful, just cautious. "You don't seem like the yelling type."

[innerharbor]

Something to consider. He analyzes it. "I yell when I gotta," he says. "The Cap, too... but less."

[okayimin]

She nods, grimly accepting of the fact that sometimes people need to yell.

"The man I woke up trapped with was a screamer," she says, "Forgot how hard that hits when you aren't in the middle of a battle field." Screaming in a medical tent made sense. Screaming in a dark room while strapped to torture devices... Also made sense, but reminded her of much darker things.

[innerharbor]

Amos nods, slow. "How'd you get out?"

Of where she was, of where she came from, it's all the same thing.