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city of noise; [invite]
Topic Started: Dec 31 2010, 10:18 PM (990 Views)
Primal
Unregistered

Time of Day: Evening
Place in Timeline: Following God’s Clear Vision




It came at him through a well of blackness, the cool wet edge of metal, extremities tingling. His arm itched. Somewhere far off molten steel burnt through his veins, mind disconnected from the pain. Images of Jesse trickled through the idiot wake of unconsciousness, Jesse and sharp fear for her carried over from a half-remembered conversation. Between sleep and stupor, Primal couldn’t work out what was happening. His ears buzzed. Above him crackled a babble of worried voices and it was post-Murderworld all over again, the swarm of grim faces and the smell of burnt blood and the aftertaste of bile.

He felt himself pitch, freefall through cold space.

And into a white-hot furnace. Primal screamed. He felt damp, over-warm; tattered fabric stuck to his chest, sticky and uncomfortable. He tore at it. His right arm wouldn’t move. Everything swam, blotting into watery black splodges. Someone was yelling at him to lie still. That fabric, it wasn’t his shirt.

There were hands on his shoulders and weight bearing down on his legs. He tried to swear, to say Jesse’s name, but it turned into another raw shriek, everything he said ripped into noise.

“Stop-… Primal! Sir!”

Icy fingers dug into his cheeks. The muscles in his neck were bunched, aching. Fucking searing. He stared up into heat, into the glowing circles of a healer’s eyes; she was a distorted mess of zigzagging lines. She held his head still. He hadn’t realised he’d been thrashing. Above her there was an indistinct ceiling. He couldn’t tell where he was.

“Stop moving!”

He’d been in a cell with Gambit. There had been a frantic scrabble and the cunt had somehow gotten loose and there had been… The pain was constant, incessant, shredding across his shoulder.

Shuddering an unsteady breath, he managed a mangled sentence, “…Status… Jesus… What…”

“You’ve got a serious concussion, Sir, you need to lie still…” the medic exchanged a glance with the guy on her right, who was fiddling with needles and bottles, one syringe trapped between his teeth. She sounded distracted, finishing off with a snippy order for more pain relief as Primal groaned into her wrist. He’d meant the Cajun… or Jesse… The healer smelled of cheap perfume and cigarettes and reticence and cinnamon bagels…

Then she wasn’t there and someone else had clammy fingers all over his chest and he must have blacked out. There was a light swinging somewhere beyond their silhouette, the back and forth making him seasick. Mechanical tones chased him into a dark pit.

And up again into sludge, every movement agonising. People were shouting, more of the same crap. Had the painkillers worn off? He caught a glimpse of empty space and splintered bone and drooling muscle and couldn’t figure it out.

One guy was yelling, “-can’t fucking heal him like this!” and there was a struggle to keep Primal from throwing the awkward shit across the room. Everyone talked around him, like he wasn’t really there.

“Put him under!”

“How much is that now?”

“Yeah, too much; kid’s wired.”

“Just keep him-“

still. don’t fucking. couldn’t. if he stays. …yeah, I hope… …not that simple…

Yeah. No. Just close it. The arm’s gone.




He woke once more. The pain had been displaced, there but intermittent, too far away to understand. They had stopped screaming at each other. Seemed kinda quiet. He was furious, but he thought he recognised the slow drip of opiates rolling through his system—he wasn’t lucid long enough to work out why he was so pissed off.

He wanted a report, an update, a fucking debrief. He wanted to know where they were holding the Cajun and if Jesse was already dead and why he was so wasted and what the fuck she had done and why he was thinking about Trey and the way he had felt when she had turned her back on him.

No one told him anything.

Probably a good thing.

He might have killed them if they had.
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Magneto (old)
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The doors to the emergency center of Sanctuary's hospital flew open, each half slamming against the walls they'd been hung on with enough force to grab the attention of every single person down to the half conscious patients. Through the door strode the Master of Magnetism himself, followed closely by Reverb, Absolom, and several other SP officers. Every person in Magneto's small entourage save Absolom and Reverb was clad in a special black uniform that absorbed and redistributed energy bolts of varying types as well as impact rounds. They could regulate extreme temperatures in mere moments, and were so light that and moved so easily that it was as if the emergency response soldier that wore the suit was wearing nothing at all. The team flanked Magneto, watching from every angle for any sign of danger per Reverb's request. The leader of Sanctuary barely knew they existed.

“Report,” Magneto barked, his gaze fixing on an important looking man holding a clipboard and standing in the middle of the room.

“Lord Magneto,” the man hesitated, clearly not expecting the founder of Sanctuary himself to show up demanding to know the consequences of the security breach. He was scared out of his mind to see that same man staring at him with murder in his icy gray eyes.

He cleared his throat and adjusted his stance, straightening a little while he adopted a very professional manner, “There have been eleven casualties, sir. Fifty-seven are wounded. Thirty-four are in critical condition. That includes twelve Brotherhood and one Acolyte.

“Where is Acolyte Primal?” Magneto said without skipping a beat.

“He's down the western hall... third door on the left,” the doctor said, twisting and pointing over his shoulder with his pen, “He's stable, but still classified under critical condition, sir. He's not...”

The man in the white coat trailed off as Magneto strode down the hall, obviously ignoring everything else the man had to say. Reverb and the emergency response team started to follow him, but Absolom placed a shoulder on the Chief of Security's shoulder in an attempt to stay her and her men. His words, however, were meant for the doctor.

“Thank you Healer Remedy. You've done well and once Lord Magneto has attended to matters, he will express his gratitude to all our medical professionals. Please continue.”


Erik stood in the doorway transfixed on his Acolyte; he hadn't expected this...

Primal had been hurt before – on many occasions, but the young man had been graced by nature with the resilience of his power class, as well as the protection of scales that worked to a lesser degree like Dragon Skin. The saurian had bled, but it had almost always been of no real consequence... seeing him like this...

Seeing the pup he'd transformed into a bloodthirsty hound laying in a hospital bed missing most of his right arm came close to breaking him. It was then that he realized that the vision he had hoped to pass to his offspring was incarnate in those like Primal. It was the mutants who fought the hardest for his cause that were his children, and not those who merely shared his blood. They had forsaken his offer of the world for the sake of ridiculous ideals that would be their death. Primal, Spitfire, and those like them were the best hope mutant kind had, and seeing the young man's broken body laying there was like seeing his own fragile vision on the cusp of destruction.

“My god...”
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Primal
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It didn’t hurt now. He remembered being not quite awake, listening to them work, limbs one hundred times heavier than usual. He’d woken up alone in a bed that smelled of starch and soap in a room that reeked of fake lavender, sounds slipping in muffled Morse code through a closed infirmary door. He’d got his own room. Swanky. Semi-conscious, he struggled to work out why he was here, the hours beforehand patchy. He had no idea how long he’d been out. Took him long enough to realise someone was standing motionless in the doorway.

Primal let his head roll to the side, trying to focus, waiting for the scent to hit his nose. Stunk a bit like Magneto. Stunk like a little bit of dismay.

“…Sir…” he slurred through a wall of painkillers, sensible thought blocked by the drugs. There were half seconds of coherence, but they were full of rage.

They hadn’t told him, but he knew it was gone. He could see the space that should have been arm-shaped, but he couldn’t quite comprehend it. He could still feel it, he could press his absent fingers together, make an invisible fist. The skin on the back of his hand itched like crazy. His tendons were wiry and taut along his missing bicep. In those half-seconds of clarity it would hit him hard and he’d reel. At least there was the gauze of sleep and the white drip of whatever they had him hooked up to. At least there was that.

“…Shit… y’know what, ain’t had this much dope in me since Trey n all…” he drawled, eyes sliding dopey under heavy eyelids. “Fucking… sorry Sir, I fucked up… man… y’killed that son’a’bitch yet?” Even if he had been sober, it wouldn’t have occurred to him that Gambit could have escaped. It just wasn’t feasible. This was Sanctuary, mutant-goddamn-‘topia, the planet’s strongest fortress, powered by demigods and the superhuman. It was insurmountable, unbreakable. No one could get in or out without Magneto’s permission.

“I was gonna… I think I’m… m’arm’s kinda fucked… shit… Y’need a debrief?” He blinked slowly, sucking on his tongue, mouth sticky and dry. “Fucking cottonmouth… I think my arm’s gone, Sir… I think…” Jesus, his arm was gone, wasn’t it? Hoarsely, he croaked, “Need some water. Smack’s dryin’ me out.”
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Magneto (old)
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“…Sir…”

Erik stepped in the room, his eyes taking in the scene that lay before him. Bandages were wrapped around most of Primal's torso and ran around the arm that ended in a stump. The steady beep of the heart monitor reported the saurian's heart as healthy, and as the Master of Magnetism cleared the doorway, he gave the machine's screen a brief glance. He was by no means a doctor of any sort, but that didn't mean he knew absolutely nothing about medical care. Actually, he'd learned quite a bit from conquering death three years ago. Slowly approaching the bed, Erik held out a hand, calling forth the clipboard holding Primal's charts, which floated into the air and drifted to him.

“…Shit… y’know what, ain’t had this much dope in me since Trey n all… fucking… sorry Sir, I fucked up… man… y’killed that son’a’bitch yet?”

Grey eyes scanned the chart to see what kind of damage the Acolyte had undergone and what they had done for him since he'd arrived. At the mention of Gambit, Magneto tore his eyes away from the page and settled them on his attack dog, his jaw tightening as he tried to decide what to tell him. Before he could say anything, however, Primal continued, asking if he was required to give an account of what had happened and stating that he needed some water. Erik didn't move... the other person in the room would see that Primal's immediate needs would be looked after. She was a thoughtful and dependable soldier.

“Primal, you deserve the truth. Gambit escaped Sanctuary through one of the teleportation depots. The culprit responsible for providing them with a way to leave has been dealt with by my own hand. The other two were the human, Dugan, and Quicksilver. My son has gone mad, and it is the belief of Reverb's detectives that he somehow managed to fight off his the men trying to subdue him and in the process, managed to free the other two, using their assistance escape to the surface.”

Erik's gaze flickered to the bandages stretched across Primal's chest and then to the stump of the young man's arm. He then returned to his Acolyte's heavy-lidded eyes, not shying away at all from facing a soldier wounded following his orders, “Yes, your arm is gone, and as soon as I leave here, I will be setting up a meeting with the lead doctor as well as Razorback to see what we can do to help you recover. You are a member of the Brotherhood. You will be looked after.”
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Spitfire
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Since the call had gone out, barring searching Pietro’s former home, Spitfire had been shadowing Magneto. Her heart had given a lurch when this next task had come about, as despite his brashness, vulgarity and general unpleasant demeanour, Primal was her friend as bizarre as some might find that and with both Pietro and Remy gone…As Magneto went into the hospital room, the blonde speedster hung back in the corridor to talk quietly with a passing orderly she had helped to move into one of the apartments in her building. The girl needed the little break to normality before slipping into the room, stationing herself just inside the door.

Spitfire had thought the day could not have possibly gotten worse, thought that she couldn’t possibly see anything worse than what she had already, until she set eyes on Primal. It reminded her of footage from filed hospitals out in warzones with soldiers burned and bandaged or missing limbs. The sight of the Acolyte, his arm shorn off was so alien to her that Jac felt her eyes losing focus and sounds coming in through her ears like she was underwater.

Water.

In a snap, she processed what Primal was slurring along with claiming to be off his face on whatever they were giving him for the pain. Swallowing her initial fear at his terrible injury, the speedster was beside the bed in a black and yellow streak, pouring a glass of water from the pitcher on the stand.

“Here you go…Drink some of this and no gulping, you’ll choke,” Jac said quietly, possibly too quietly for Primal or Magneto to hear and she slipped her other hand under his neck to support his head as he seemed barely able to support himself and pressed the glass to his lips, tipping it up gently so it wouldn’t slop down his front. After the first few sips were administered, Spitfire set the glass down and adjusted his pillows, gingerly checking his bandage. A while ago now Amelia had taken her under her wing and taught her all the essentials of nursing, her speed enabling her to not only pick up the skills quickly, but that same speed she would be capable of delivering aid in the blink of an eye. If it hadn’t been for the fact she had blacked out on returning from the ruins of Murderworld she would have helped the best she could and indeed, after recovering the next day she had come to the infirmary to do what she could.

As glad of her skills as she had been then, now she was eternally grateful for them. After making sure the saurian mutant was as comfortable as it was possible for him to be, the girl picked up the glass and offered him a few more sips of water, her brow furrowed in concern. Magneto decided there was no use in lying to his Acolyte and informed him of what had happened and instinctively, Jac set the glass down and shot back a few feet from the bed, retreating to the Master of Magnetism’s side and reached her hand out for the chart.

“May I, Sir?” Jac requested in a low voice, keeping one eye on Primal all the time. This had possibly been one of the worst days she had experienced since joining the Brotherhood and the only way to get through it was to keep herself busy…
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Primal
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Bullshit. A laugh got stuck in his throat. This far gone, levity was a pathetic fallback, and it didn’t taste so good on the way down. Primal couldn’t handle what Magneto was telling him, knowing the man wasn’t lying and too wasted to process the president’s dour sincerity—too stubborn to accept it, too ill to do anything but breathe. Gravity got real heavy.

Nah. Gambit hadn’t escaped. Everything he’d done this past month, it hadn’t been pissed away. His rotten humanity hadn’t just been dislocated. This, this empty space here, the cold buzz crawling along non-existent nerve endings, this arm; he hadn’t lost it for no damn reason. It wasn’t a pointless loss. It fucking wasn’t.

That numb laugh tried to punch its way back through the wall of disbelief, manifesting as a weak grin, which did nothing for his appearance. He wondered how he looked now, three jagged knots of keloid tissue bisecting his face, flanked by scales and crumpled skin that tracked down his neck, pointing towards a mangled stub. Smacked-up and smiling like an asshole, he had to look gorgeous. He couldn’t sustain humour. It came in short waves, a minute of amused self-deprecation giving way to nausea.

He’d lost his…

Jesse.

The grin vanished.

Jac’s diligent tottering around might have embarrassed him if he’d been sober enough to pay attention to what she was doing, not hearing her small voice warning him not to gulp the water she pressed to his lips, gulping at it anyway. It didn’t do much for the sticky sensation between his tongue and the roof of his mouth, but it was something. Primal watched her flying around the cot, smelled her horror and her concern. She fiddled with his bandages and he twitched, trying to slap her away, feeling sick when nothing moved.

Magneto was saying something about Razorback and being looked after, and Primal had a difficult time connecting the two, imagining Hollis all trussed up in a too-small nurse’s outfit, which sounded like something pulled straight out of a nightmare. He grimaced. Cyberpath, right. They’d fix him up with a shiny mechanical arm, something impressive and inhuman. The thought wasn’t comforting.

“…Orders?”

He didn’t know what else to say. He floundered in a directionless pit of loss and ineffectuality, needing something that wasn’t invalidity to hold onto, his rage peaking somewhere far off without an outlet. And Jesse, she was there, his confusion and fear for her and fear of finding out exactly what she had done… he nearly spat her name. He needed to see her. He couldn't ask.
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Magneto (old)
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“May I, Sir?”

Without looking at Jac, Magneto handed Primal's chart to her. As he relieved himself of the clipboard, Erik took a couple of steps forward, leaving Jac just behind him as he stopped beside Primal's bed, looking down at the young man who had just asked him for orders. He had trained the boy well... perhaps too well. After having his arm blown off by that race traitor, completely inebriated on medication to help him cope with the pain... the Acolyte was still requesting orders.

“Your orders are to rest, Primal. You're in no condition to do anything else right now but stay in bed until you've been told otherwise. Should you not follow those orders, I will be very displeased with you. Understand?”

Erik looked over his shoulder at Jac, the corners of his eyes tightened in an unreadable expression, “Spitfire, see to all of his needs. Make him feel as comfortable as possible, then go to my office and wait for me. You have duties to perform.”

He looked back down at Primal, “You've performed well as a mutant and an Acolyte. I am very proud of you, son.”

Without another word, Magneto turned and started for the door. He had not used the word 'son' in an attempt to convey the feeling that Raen was like a son to him, but only that he was an young man. The double meaning behind the word was not lost on him, however, and as the word echoed in his on mind, an image of Pietro flashed by. Another piece of Erik Lehnsherr died.

There wasn't much of the man left.
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Spitfire
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Out of all the messed up things to occur today, this was most certainly in the top three. Or five, considering everything that had happened after the call to come in had issued, had been basically like something out of a horror film, or rather a bad, bad dream. Jac liked horror films…Taking the chart, she half wished she didn’t know how to read the thing once she started looking at it. The speedster wouldn’t deny that the bottom fell out of her stomach a little as she scanned what the medics had charted. The Acolyte was in a real mess. He hadn’t reacted particularly well to her initial fussing, though in his current state, he wasn’t capable of foisting her off – not that he was really fast enough to anyway, but normally a swipe from him would require much quicker dodging and a scary temper, as well as some possible cussing to go with it. No, no there would be cussing. Christ, he had an arm off…

“Yessir,” Jac swivelled her blonde head around to look at Magneto as he gave her his orders, which differed greatly from the ones laid down to the saurian mutant, naturally. Jac’s stomach growled and she sighed inwardly. Man, she’d been making dinner when she’d had to scramble and after running around everywhere, she was bloody starving…Okay, think back to smouldering corpses and one armed dinosaurs…Okay, maybe not, Jac chastised herself grimly as she nearly went retching into the bin. Pulling her shoulders back, the girl replaced the chart at the end of the bed.

“I’ll be along when I’m finished, Sir,” Jac said as Magneto left the room, as soon as I’ve grabbed a taco…godssake Jac…shutup…

Looking back to Primal, her stomach gave a little murble, this time not of hunger but…Sympathy? She would never feel pity as such for the man, as he wasn’t that sort of type, but in his current situation, the blonde couldn’t help but feel something. Fishing a band out of her pocket, she tied her long, paled blonde hair back and went to the basin in the corner to wash her hands, as after all, Amelia had taught her well, before returning to the bed.

“More water?” Jac offered the glass again, supporting his head once more. Heads really did weigh a lot. “Look I know you’re not really happy about all of this, but orders are orders and you’re not in a position to disagree otherwise – the fussing I mean. I do know what I’m doing as well, so don’t worry. Amelia taught me. Figured my speed would make me a good medic for a field situation. Any situation really…”

Putting down the glass, she checked the bandage again, more carefully this time and with a markedly calmer approach, making sure there was no swelling or inflammation to the wound, other than what there should be. It was still pretty grim, but she could deal with it now that her vaguely sensible side was kicking in. If hadn’t kicked in, she would be dissolving into a wreck on the floor right about now, but that wasn’t really wise, given the situation. What the hell had happened anyway? Jac still wasn’t sure just what had gone on that day and felt as if she were drifting around in some sort of murky cloud.

“So can I get you anything? Something else to drink – don’t ask me for alcohol – or I can fetch you something to eat later, not now though. Pizza?” she crinkled her nose lightly and changed the bandage over, then arranged the blankets before checking on the various monitors and drips he had wired to him. Opening her mouth, she almost offered to stay for a while, but for one, Magneto wanted to see her and two, he would probably scoff at her, well, as much as his drugged up state would allow him to anyway. Giving him a small grin, the speedster awkwardly patted his pillow. “I could come back later if you like. I don’t know what Magneto wants though so I don’t know when, but if you want me to…”
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Primal
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Fuck… no… that wasn’t what he’d wanted to hear. Sit around wallowing in your complete lack of use, your distinct inadequacy, nothing to fill the time except drug-induced stupor and phantom limb pain. Thanks boss. What was the man gonna do if he disobeyed; hack off another limb? A few stern words from Mr Sanctuary seemed a more appealing prospect than staying here sprawled on his back listening to the sound of his heart stretching out the seconds in toneless adagio. He could barely move his head; getting up and moving around was a stupid pipedream, one aggravated by the warm line feeding meds into a vein. It itched where the needle met his skin, fucking itched without relief, fixed into the crook of his elbow, the medic having been unable to pierce the tough scales on his hand. He’d forget. Every few seconds, he’d forget and try to scratch it.

He’d lost his arm…

Primal realised what Magneto had said as the president turned into a silhouette at the door and disappeared, leaving behind heat trails and non-smell and diminishing pressure. It sunk in, but remained superficial. He couldn’t process daddy issues on top of opiates on top of missing limbs on top of Jesse’s undetermined whereabouts. He blinked slowly and held the shape of his commander until it dissolved from pink into green and disseminated into formless ghosts, shifted by the breeze from the air conditioner.

He could still smell Jac’s dismay, but it was coupled with something that might have been pity; Primal couldn’t quite place it. He was too stoned to care. She talked at him and he didn’t listen, shoving the glass in his face, talking shit about how Voght had taught her a few medical tricks, how superspeed was an asset on the field. He didn’t fucking care. Her babble became a background drone, a high-pitched ramble, that accent stiffening her words, cutting off familiar letter-sounds.

His eyes slid shut until he noticed he was drifting. Fighting the sluggish tug on his senses, he forced them open, ‘lids like two lead gates. She mentioned pizza. Primal wasn’t sure how pizza applied to the situation, felt his lips peel into a sneer, ready to spit something acerbic, mind not fast enough to keep up with the muscle memory of mockery. Pizza… His thoughts trawled backwards, recalling their first proper exchange, something that had turned into a long running joke.

“Jac…” he slurred, only dimly aware he’d used her human name. “Where’s Jess?”
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Spitfire
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In an odd sort of way, Jac was glad for this duty as it kept her mind off things. Keeping busy was helping her to not think about what had happened and about what could have become of Pietro and Remy. Already she missed her fellow speedster, not least because of recent weeks he had not been himself, but the English girl also regretted the way things had turned out with Gambit. The Cajun thief had been her friend and he had turned out to be a traitor who could easily have sold her soul along with the rest of the Brotherhood to the bullets of SHIELD. No, keeping busy helped keep her mind off things…

Primal’s question made her pause mid reach as she leant over the bottom of the bed to adjust a blanket, looking up towards the Acolyte. Something about how he had asked the question struck the blonde as odd, but she couldn’t put her finger on why. Straightening up, Jac moved in a blur so she was at the head of the bed. So far he had ignored her inane babble – which she wasn’t surprised about, but the girl hated uncomfortable silences and even in this situation, the silence between them would count, even peppered with the beeps of the equipment in and around the room.

“I don’t know where she is. I could go and find her if you want me to…” the speedster offered a little warily. The Acolyte didn’t seem incredibly coherent, so Jac wasn’t sure if this was just him asking out of some sort of delirium and would later regret asking after Jesse, or if he genuinely wanted the Italian there at his side.

“It’s no trouble,” her hand rest on the bedding by Primal’s remaining hand and for a second she almost patted it, before realising what a stupid, ridiculous thing that was to do and pulled it back, placing both hands on her hips and giving her patient a no nonsense glare.

Wait...He'd never called her Jac before...Had he? Trying to remember, the blonde could not recall one instance where he had used her given name (nickname, rather) and she blinked. “Don’t go soft on me now…”
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Primal
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Jac didn't know... Good, that was good, it meant Jess wasn't dead yet.

No, he was jumping to conclusions, making assumptions; hell, he didn't even know the full extent of her involvement-- he could barely recall the reason behind his original suspicion. There had been her scent and an emotion he couldn't name and LeBeau's smug dismissal, the Cajun still managing to retain some semblance of his inimitable defiance. Primal's hatred hadn't waned but it had been tempered with pity, and a strange, scornful kind of respect he'd first felt sometime after the third week of relentless torture. Nah, respect wasn't the right word. Comprehension maybe, something that was currently threadbare.

Falsworth pottered and pitched, suddenly sideways, Primal struggling with sensible lulls and dizzy peaks. She said something about finding Jesse, something about going soft, to which he muttered a dazed fuck you, unable to make sense of the accusation. And then he was trying to figure out why he'd asked her in the first place, and what the fuck she could do if Jesse was in trouble and hiding or in custody or dead.

"She ain't dead," he slurred, eyes rolling. He was suddenly furious at her, at the feral bitch, at Magneto and not knowing why, at himself, at the goddamn bed, and he tried to sit up and only managed to roll part way onto one shoulder, a trough in his blood pressure mangling his perception into fine lines and spots. He slumped back with a groan, regretting the sudden movement. Jac couldn't find out. No one could.

"Fuck off," he mumbled, and blinked, searching for clarity, his eyes settling hard on the speedster's too-hot outline. "Get the fuck out." He was out of his damn mind and cold with severity. "Get out or I'll kill you."

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Spitfire
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Primal was officially the worst patient ever. Jac could safely say that, despite having yet to really try out her nursing skills to an extent that she could name the good, the bad and the downright bloody awkward. He was also potentially delirious, but that really wasn’t so surprising, all things considered. He tried to sit up, which wasn’t particularly smart and his blood pressure took a hit as a result. Pushing him back gently, Jac shook her head, despite the fact he probably wasn’t altogether focused on her. It was probably time for some kind of sedative…Or for her to leave maybe.

The thought was affirmed as he started cursing at her, then his threat came, making her flinch slightly, but not by much. Putting her head on one side, she looked down at the saurian mutant almost sadly, putting her hand to his forehead for a moment, making a mental note of what she needed to tell the healers who would be waiting to take over from her.

“Come on, don’t be daft. Even if you were in a state to kill me, you know you wouldn’t,” the speedster chanced a grin, taking a small step back all the same before continuing. “Look, I’m going to have to go soon, but I could go get Jesse if you wanted. Or, I could come back after…” Jac pulled her hand back, slightly tempted to place it over his own, but knowing he’d only curse at her again or try and gut her and while she was able to currently escape any swipes with ease, it wouldn’t be good for him to try.

Not really waiting for an answer, the girl continued. “When I go, I’ll send someone in. Don’t move too much or you’ll end up having that line out,” she warned in reference to the IV that had been administered through the crook of his arm. “I’ll come back and see you soon.”

Impulsively, she reached out and grabbed his hand, giving it a squeeze despite her earlier reluctance. Well, it was that or a kiss on the forehead and if she’d done that, he really would have ripped her to shreds. Setting things to right one last time, Jac smoothed the sheets, checked the lines and scribbled something on his chart before ducking out of the room into the corridor. Outside, she nodded her head to the medic out there, who dutifully filed in and she sagged against the wall, one arm wrapped around her middle tightly, while her free hand covered her face.

Slowly, the young Englishwoman slid to the floor and there she sat for what felt like an age, but to the rest of the world was merely three or so minutes. This was all so messed up. It was the first point of that day where she had actually been able to stop and think about what had been going on and as soon as she touched down on the floor of the corridor, she knew it was a mistake. She should have just kept going. It was Christmas bloody Eve…not that Christmas really existed anymore, but it should have been a good day, she should have been hanging out with her brother and having fun in the city. A fat tear rolled down her cheek, splashing to the floor and she quickly snuffled the others away before boosting herself up and standing. Straightening her shoulders, the girl adjusted her jacket. There was work to be done. Turning around, she ran down the corridor and to the exit of the building, heading to the office of Magneto in a blaze of flames. No time to stop now. Later, maybe, but not now.
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Jesse
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The early morning hours

She'd been standing outside his room for at least twenty minutes... probably longer. Time had lost all meaning as the events of the last couple days passed through her mind; hindsight was anything but her friend, showing her how much of an idiot she'd been. As she ran through all the wrong decisions she'd made, the blond couldn't help but mentally kick herself for what she had done.

She was weak... foolish... insecure... and unable to do what she should have done – what had been necessary. The price had been the man laying on a hospital bed on the other side of that wall... her desire to save his soul without soiling her own had cost him his health... had almost cost him his life.

Jesse wanted to run away... to pack up every belonging she dared to take with her and run back to California and take up her old life once more. Maybe she could pull some cash from her bank account and start out new; she had a friend in Mexico who she could stay with while she set up shop.

It didn't matter how much she contemplated leaving... it didn't matter that at one point she stood just outside the teleportation center with a pack slung over her shoulder. Jesse couldn't make herself actually leave; he knew what she had done. She didn't know how he knew or suspected... she couldn't even explain why she was so sure that he was onto her. She just knew without a doubt that when she finally looked into his eyes... she would see the accusation she was terrified of. She'd said things in the past... done things to make him mad, but all of it paled in comparison to this. She'd fucked up. Part of her wasn't sure why she wasn't already in chains – or worse... dead.

Taking a deep breath, she released it as she pushed herself off the wall and reached for the handle of the door to Primal's room. Letting herself in as quietly as possible, she kept the handle turned so not even the soft click of the latch could be heard as the door shut behind her. Leaning against the door, she simply watched Raen's indistinct shape laying on the bed in the darkness. She swallowed once, just then noticing how dry her mouth was. Blinking slowly, she leaned against the door, frozen between inaction and wanting to run away terrified.

She'd really fucked up this time.
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Primal
Unregistered

His whole arm ached, a black line of pain running from his shoulderblade to the tips of his fingers. He could deal with pain; it focused his straggling thoughts, made them coherant, cutting through all the cognitive detritus. He didn't need to think about how much longer he'd have to lay here waiting for some half-baked doctor to tell him what he already knew. All those dumb kids running round the barracks with their dicks up their asses didn't matter. Jesse's whereabouts were negligible; he ignored the clinching in his stomach. It was easier with dead weight and empty space that stung to pretend that everything else was bullshit.

Didn't make much sense how a missing arm could hurt so bad, but Primal had long moved past the metaphysical, seeking out some kind of psychological resolution, not cerebral enough to figure out how the psychosomatic translated into phantom limb pain. He'd have asked a doctor why or how the fuck it was hurting, but he expected a critical response, some incredulous stink, and he didn't want to appear crazy or delirious. He recalled his stoned conversation with Magneto and Spitfire through a gauze-- half-remembered sentences and stupid moments that made him grind his teeth in embarrased frustration. Vulnerability didn't suit him, especially not in front of people he respected with a vulgar kind of genuineness. The speedster had touched his hand, he remembered that; some weird display of affection he couldn't translate. He wasn't comfortable with it. The memory stirred a cold indisposition in him; had he been sober, he wasn't sure how he'd have reacted.

There had been a death threat. Even smacked-up he was putting up walls.

There was that too; he didn't want another dose of opiates. He'd get to liking it too much-- he felt the old him roll under his skin, that angry street kid with a sweet tooth for smack suddenly appeased after years of dismissal. Half an hour back one of the nurses had come in to check his dressing and he'd heard himself start to ask for a hit, and he'd swallowed the request, turning it into a scornful gripe she'd dutifully ignored. He'd beat back that snotty little shit with a fucking crowbar if he had to. Narcotics only suited him when he had nothing to live for.

Despite the pain (or perhaps because of it) he must have slept, because Jesse was suddenly in his head and in his nose and he could hear her breathing, soft gulps he recognised even unconscious. Briefly he thought she was next to him, that they were home and in his bed and that they were all tangle-limbed and muddle-headed in the dozy early morning hours, that her breath would turn into a wakeup call, a kiss or a bite or an affectionate insult, or something that might make his back arch.

He sniffed hard, a snort, head rolling to the side. She stood motionless in the doorway. There wasn't an immediate relief. Instead he stalled, confused by the dull response, senses slowly collecting. For a moment the violent centre in him squirmed. She smelled so strongly of guilt that he had to be imagining it.

The silence felt like wet clothes on a hot beach. Primal looked away to the ceiling above him. It was plain, but he could see pipes and wires like veins branching through the tile. His mouth was dry again.

"Say something."
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Jesse
Unregistered

“I don't know what to say,” she said, her voice much steadier than she felt.

This was the last place she wanted to be. She wanted to run from Sanctuary... to leave this place and all these people and disappear – to create a new name... a new identity. She'd fucked up trying to do what she felt was right, and this had been the price. Staring at Primal as he lay there – half-lidded eyes betraying his drug-riddled state – her eyes stung and a single tear suddenly escaped, slowly climbing down her cheek. She barely noticed the cool damp trail.

She wanted to beg him to leave this place... to come away with her and start a new life. They could go somewhere else... do something else that didn't involve killing people and breaking their souls. He was a good guy being twisted into something horrible by a monster. If Raen didn't change the direction he was taking, he'd end up as much of an abomination as Magneto – fighting for a good cause, but in a way that was just as evil as the prejudice that consumed the humans.

“I mean...”

Her voice came out huskier than normal, her wet sniff emphasizing her inability to put into words what she wanted to say.

“You know what happened, don't you?”

It was a rhetorical question... one that didn't need an answer. She could feel the turmoil in his head no matter how doped up he was... she could smell the emotions coming off him in droves. Hurt, anger, and a myriad of other things. The look on his face that shown through the inebriation and weariness would have been enough.

“I did it for you,” she said after a few moments of torturous silence.

“But I didn't mean for this to happen.”
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