pain_train | SANCTUM INBOX

She looks into his eyes when he says that, not because she doesn't believe him, but because she wants to cement this in her mind somehow, to fight against that constant counterpoint of 'you are not important.' "I'll try not to."

Wrath nods. "Okay. Do you want me to go home now, or can I stay a bit longer?" She smooths her hand over his shoulder. "I'd kind of like to catch a quick shower maybe." Hot water or sonics, either might help her back relax a little.

"You can definitely stay." He rolls back and sits up, stretching his shoulders a bit. "You need help getting up?"

"Yeah, I do," she says. Well, not a surprise, right?

"Hey, if I can stay for dinner, I'll do the dishes." She's a soldier. She's good at cleaning things.

"No," he says. "I forbid it." He stands and turns to wrap an arm around her and carefully pull her upright. "You don't realize how hard standing is on your back, not to mention working like that lifting things. I think doing dishes is more demanding than you think."

Wrath looks taken aback until North explains, and then she just looks down. She rests her hand on his hip, thumb stroking his skin.

One more fucking thing.

"Yeah," she says. "I guess... just tell me if I can do anything to help, then?"

"Think you can sit at the counter and peel potatoes?" he asks. "That would be helpful. Cuts down on preparation time if everyone does something like that." He makes sure she's standing steadily before turning to grab his robe off the closet door. "You can grab your shower real quick and then we'll head down."

It's something, and it's not bullshit busy work. It's something that needs to be done. She nods. "I can definitely do that. I'm good with knives."

She can't help the silly smile when she takes North's robe. It's enormous on her, and soft, and smells like him. It's a comforting thing, a little like a hug.

"Aye, sir," she says teasingly, throwing in a salute, and then limps to the bathroom. A hot shower feels pretty damn good and does get her back to relax a little, though she tries to not linger too much.

Damp hair loosely braided to keep it out of the way, she heads back to North's room to get dressed.

In the meantime he's gotten dressed and is on his glasses, cruising the network. When he hears her moving around in the hallway he stands to come to the door and open it to let her in. "Hey," he says, as though they'd been separated for more than a few minutes, and gives her a kiss before letting her in.

"Hey you." She slides her hands around his waist for a brief hug, smiling up at him. "Hope you didn't miss me too much."

Yes, she's just teasing.

It takes her longer than she likes to get dressed since she's so stiff, though not as bad as she was.

"Oh, I was pining for you," he teases back. "But I survived it."

Once she's done dressing he takes her hand. "I'll go down ahead of you. Just in case."

"I'm fine," she insists, laughing, and follows him to the stairs.

Turns out he was right to be worried, though. Halfway down, her leg buckles and she starts to fall, making a small, dismayed sound as she does.

He'd been turning partway every couple of steps, and happens to be half-turned in her direction when she stumbles; he quickly shifts to brace her with his shoulder, wrapping an arm around her ribcage. "Hey," he says, "you all right?"

Wrath clutches at the bannister with one hand, and North's arm with the other. Her voice comes out embarrassingly small and pathetic. "No?" Why is she saying that like it's a question. It's pretty much a fact that she's not fucking all right if she's losing it on the stares and---shit, that hurts, a lot, like one of the muscles in her back is trying to tie itself in a knot, and maybe that's why her leg gave way.

Breathe through it. Shit, that doesn't feel good. She's probably holding on to North's arm way too tightly.

Bracing her up is more difficult than it should be—the awkward angle and her extra weight from the augmentations force him to concentrate not just on holding her up but on his own footing and balance. But he doesn't let his difficulties show; he simply holds her there. "Okay," he says quietly. "I won't let you fall. Let me know when you're ready and we'll go the rest of the way down together."

Wrath nods a little and just focuses on breathing for a moment. "Okay. Let's go." She doesn't really feel ready, as such, but they can't just stay in this position. Better to just fight through it, get to the ground floor, and then she can just... sit. Or fall over. Or lay on the floor and cry. All of those sound like pretty good options right now.

Thankfully there aren't that many more stairs, and she doesn't even try to be dumb about this; almost falling already scared her, between the startlement and reliving (however briefly) the loss of physical control in the face of gravity. It's got her a little more afraid than she even should be, shaking with it, but she can fight through that until they're all the way down.

It's a trial but eventually they reach the bottom and he carefully releases her, but remains right by her side. "Do you want to hold onto me to get to the kitchen?" he asks.

If she's being honest with herself, she's not sure she could even make it on her own. She hates this. But she can also admit that it's good North is here. "Yeah. I'm going to need to."

Wrath leans against North a lot more than she likes to get to the kitchen. She's grateful to get settled down in a chair and leans back, eyes closed. She feels a little sick, really, not so much the pain but the shock of it. "Okay. I'm okay."

He watches her for a moment. "All right," he says, though he knows she's actually in a measure of distress. Moving on and pretending things are normal may help. "Potatoes, right? Have you ever used a peeler?"

She's grateful for that. There isn't really a lot to be done right now. She's in pain, and she scared herself, and she just needs a moment to deal with those things. Maybe getting a hug would help, but she also does have a certain amount of pride in her own resilience. She's already asked North for a lot of help.

"Yeah, potatoes. That's what you said." Deep breaths, Wrath. "Just give me a knife. That'll do the job just fine."

It's obvious that immediately moving on isn't doing it, and he bends to wrap an arm around her shoulder. "Okay, that's what I'll get," he says. "Don't be afraid to ask if you need something, okay?"

Wrath carefully leans against him. "Sorry," she says, rather nonsensically perhaps. "I... Don't know why that happened. I'll do better. Be more careful, maybe." The suddenness of it was what had scared her, though. It hadn't been a lapse in attention or anything so simple. That and the sensation of falling...

"I really don't like falling."

"Hey," he says, rather firmly, pulling back enough to put a hand on each of her shoulders and look her determinedly in the eyes. "What just happened was not your fault. You're recovering, and you're in daily pain, and I am here to help you. Don't blame yourself for failing when you haven't failed."

Goddammit North, you're not going to make her cry. She's been crying way too much lately, on opinion, even though she believes there's nothing wrong with crying as such. But her eyes are watery. She reaches up to touch his face.

"I'm not used to problems not being things I can just fix by working harder." And in a way, that scares the hell out of her.

"Sometimes work means different things," he says. "Right now your job is to heal up and get better. So you have to put the right kind of work in to make that happen. And that means not pushing through pain." He presses in on her shoulders and then rubs his hands down along her arms.

There's not anything to really argue with there. She knows it's the truth. She knows North is right. It's just so damn hard to remember that, to live by it. To watch other people doing things for her because she's not allowed to do them herself. The whole point, over two decades ago, of joining the Army and then the Militia had been service. She's supposed to be the one doing things for other people. She's supposed to be protecting them.

It's a lot harder than she thought, being on the other side of that. Would it be so hard if she hadn't been actively serving for twenty-six years? Probably not. Most civilians don't seem to have this kind of mental trouble.

"I'm trying," she whispers. "It's just a lot harder than it sounds."

Edited 2014-12-29 04:27 (UTC)

Day 166 | Evening | Action

bothbarrels - 2014-12-29 05:11 (UTC) - Expand

Day 166 | Evening | Action

pain_train - 2014-12-29 05:36 (UTC) - Expand