faderift | open + closed | mistakes have been made

Clarisse often comes across as someone who's not super in touch with feelings, her own or other people's. And true as that is a lot of the time, she can read a room like no other. Shifts of energy are obvious to her. What they mean, well, that's another thing entirely.

Anyway, she can tell something is up with Barrow. He's distracted, seems almost pissed off about something. Not her, she hopes. She's letting it go for now, following his orders and pulling back the drawstring as far as she can.

"Good?"

"Mm," he intones in the affirmative, and begins to tighten the wire. Working in silence, brow furrowed, he turns the wrench until the wire is taut-- too taut, as it turns out, which they learn when the wood groans and a crack of metal cuts the air. Barrow hisses a startled "FUCK," as the wire snaps, whipping back with enough force to cut flesh and, at the very least, knock both of them off their feet with the release of tension.

"Shit!"

Clarisse isn't sure whether she throws herself down or gets knocked, but either way she hits the dirt hard enough to hurt and stays that way while she processes what just happened. Fuck, that could have killed one of them.

"Are you okay?"

She's greeted by Barrow leaning over her with a frantic expression, which calms the moment she speaks-- he's got a cut across his cheek, but miraculously seems to have evaded the worst of it.

"Are you-- fuck, I'm so sorry," he rambles, glancing Clarisse over, looking for blood or any other sign of injury, "my fault, that was my fault."

"I'm okay." Clarisse sits up, checking herself over. She doesn't think she's bleeding.

"It's fine, it's all good. Shit, you're bleeding, though." She reaches up, pointing to Barrow's cheek.

"I'm-- huh." Barrow touches his own cheek, brings his hand away to see the blood on his fingers. Unexpectedly, he smiles, which gives way to a stupid little chuckle before simmering down into concern again.

"S'pose that could've been a lot worse," he remarks, extending a hand to help Clarisse up, his smile gentle and apologetic. "'s what I get."

"What you get for what, trying to fix something?" Clarisse grabs his hand and climbs to her feet. She brushes dust off her pants. Yeah, that could have been way, way worse, but it more or less comes with the job, huh.

"You need that stitched?" She's looking at the cut over his eye.

"For," Barrow begins to answer, and realizes that... basically, yeah, trying to fix something. However, "not paying attention," he amends, because this is a Teaching Moment, and touches his cheek again.

"I... do I?" he asks, clueless. It doesn't seem to be in any hurry to clot, and he frowns at the blood, exasperated. "Don't wanna bother the healers over a scrape."

Edited (it's not a teaching moment it's a Teaching Moment) 2024-11-27 01:08 (UTC)

"I can do it. Just need a needle and thread."

Clarisse gives Barrow a wide, overly-friendly smile. Trust her.

"Oho," Barrow intones, but doesn't immediately leap to take her up on it, even if he probably should. He doesn't like the look in her eye.

But,

"do you have a needle and thread?" Where would one even find such a thing.

"Well," Clarisse hedges, "not on me, but I do embroidering sometimes, so I have the stuff back in my room."

The needle isn't surgical grade or anything, but beggars can't be choosers, right?

"Come on, I used to stitch Ellie up all the time." Once or twice.

"All right, all right," Barrow sighs, touching his face again and, finding it still bleeding, caves fully. He moves to follow her with a sigh, clapping his palm over the wound in the meantime, hoping to slow it down.

In Clarisse's room, she digs through her bottom drawer until she comes up with a spool of black thread (manly!) and a needle. Then, from her bag, a small bottle of water and a clean cloth.

"Have a seat." She pulls a chair away from the desk.

He sits as instructed, eyes on the needle-- he's a big strong tough guy, obviously, but nobody likes the idea of a sharp object right in the face.

"You've, er," he says quietly, "you've done this before, yeah?"

"I have," which is true. She's stitched herself up some, Ellie a couple times. She's no surgeon, but she has a steady hand and she knows how to sew.

First things first, we don't want anyone getting infected here: she pulls out her rune lighter and sticks the tip of the needle into the flame until she's confident that it's good and clean.

It's not like Barrow's never been patched up in the field before, but that doesn't mean a hot needle is any more attractive. He frowns at it, even if he doesn't object to its presence.

"Like a lot?"

"Like at least three times." Look, self-stitching isn't usually necessary when you have ambrosia or nectar on you. But she's helped make a ton of funeral shrouds!

"Don't be a baby," she adds as she threads the needle. "Ready?"

"Not being a baby," Barrow grumbles, wincing at the question-- but he nods. Get it over with. He will be manly and silent and steadfast all the while, he decides at this moment, gritting his teeth.

"For your information, I've been told that my stitches are neat as fuck," Clarisse says with pride, and that's all the warning Barrow gets before she gets to work.

To be fair, though, she doesn't do a bad job. The stitches are neat, especially considering the needle she's using. And luckily for Barrow, he doesn't need too many of them. It only takes a minute and then Clarisse is clipping the thread and tying it off.

"Well that's reassur-- ow," Barrow flinches at first, because how could he not, but Clarisse is hardly making a hack job of the operation. It's naturally still difficult to keep his face from twitching, but he tries his best, and it's over before he knows it.

"Look at you," he sighs, grudgingly impressed, "you ever help out in the infirmary?"

"Yep," Clarisse says, poking her tongue out in concentration while she finishes tying off the stitches. "I started doing that last year. I mostly focus on field medic stuff, for obvious reasons."

Like, look at her.

"Right, 'course." Look at her.

"Well. Thank you." The work is finished, he hasn't died or gotten infected or started bleeding more heavily, so Barrow considers it well done.

"...so... take another crack at the ballista?" he offers, hopefully.

open + closed | mistakes have been made

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