Second Shot

[dog_eat_dog]

Who: Tess and Jennifer
What: Tess needs medical attention and doesn't trust to ask strangers unless she's got leverage over them.
When: August 26th
Where: City
Rating: PG-13 for hostage-taking, guns and medical squeamishness?



Desperate times called for desperate measures.

Tess didn't work like that, generally. She was a smuggler –– she made connections, she arranged the movement of contraband, she talked her way in and out of situations, and she made sure that her work went unimpeded. While it did involve the need to put bullets in a few brains every once in a while, Tess did not do "flashy." Her unrepentant confidence was as close as it got.

What she was choosing to do was already way too flashy for her, but she was going to do what she needed to if it means protecting her life. Joel and Ellie were covered –– fuck, she couldn't even begin to process Joel and Ellie right then. Right then, it had to be all about her. It had to be about not dying. It had to be about not becoming a monster. It had to be about getting the answers that others couldn't give her.

It was about very desperate times.

She crammed a few necessary weapons into her bag and adjusted the way her handgun sat in the waistband of her pants, flipping the bottom of her shirt over it. As she tromped out of her room, it almost pained her to leave marks all over the pristine floor from her wet, dirty boots and jeans. There was nothing beautiful left in their world, after all, but it couldn't be helped now.

The whole time, her neck was throbbing. Tess couldn't tell if it was worse because it was spreading or worse because she had the time to contemplate it too much. Even so, it made her pick up her pace, racing to find the nearest clinic. She missed the one in the castle, of course –– who went looking for a clinic in a mansion? –– and found one in town.

And there she pushed the door open, striding right in. Next to all these well-fed city folk, she felt like a black sheep with her slight frame, her lean muscle and the near-endless string of bruises, scratches and marks up her arms and face.

Her eyes locked on Jennifer's from across the room, exhausted but sharp. There was a slight twitch to her jaw, almost nervous, but her hands never trembled, not even once, even when a few eyes seemed to catch the red swell of infection peeking out over her shirt collar.

"I need to be seen immediately," she said, "And don't give me any shit about waiting in line."

Comments

[dog_eat_dog]

Tess was startled. That, if anything, spoke to the state of her nerves right now: the movement at the door prompted her to pivot and train her gun on Joel. A heartbeat later at the doctor just in case she needed to emphasize that she was fucking busy here with a hostage. And then, because it was goddamn Joel, she lowered the damn gun entirely.

Not away, though.

"God damnit, Joel," she hissed, "I am handling this."

If he could be angry, she could too.

[forsometimenow]

Jennifer had been preparing to tell the woman she wasn't going to go that far- an open sore that big needed a skin graft if it were to properly heal, as it was too big to staple or stitch shut, and she wasn't about to let her go walking around with a gaping, open sore on her chest- but all that was driven out of her mind by the appearance of another stranger.

Another stranger who was likely armed, to boot, if his full backpack was any indication- no resident of Paradisa needed to walk around with provisions. But he also knew her captor. Tess.

Jennifer knew she should have been wary, at the very least, but she felt a surge of hot anger coursing through her, and before she could stop herself, she failed at the don't-do-anything-stupid role.

"Hey. Someone want to clue me in on what the hell's going on here, or should I just be a nice docile hostage and keep on with what I was doing?"

[focusrighthere]

He stared down the barrel of a gun and then stared at Tess for a moment too long when that was done, checking over for any small sign that she was doing worse. He wasn't sure how long he'd been out (stupid to let himself drift off like that at all and let her slip away) but she looked, more or less, exactly the same. Neither more or less infected than she'd been upon arrival.

"You should probably just keep being a nice docile hostage," Joel muttered unhappily to the doctor without looking over at her yet. "And keep on with what you were doing."

Which was what, exactly? Removing the tissue, from the tail end of the conversation he'd busted in on? Would that work? He turned to train his dark and angry eyes on the unfamiliar young lady, as if that would answer that nagging question at all.

Back to Tess.

"She's gonna strip it out?"

[dog_eat_dog]

"Assuming you haven't scared her off, yes," Tess snapped, to the point. She glanced back at Jennifer for a brief moment, as if sizing her up, and then she scowled. "When has anyone ever tried this as a solution?"

And not bled out, that is. Tess was sure some idiot somewhere tried cutting off their arm to save the rest of them, but she didn't have a damned clue if it had worked or not.

All she knew is that she would rather face a whole line-up of patrolling soldiers and get caught in a condemned building in a goddamn prohibited zone than do this. At least she knows she could pay off soldiers –– she can't pay off a hostage and an infection.

And then she moved the gun between her hands, taking it by the barrel so she could thrust it in Joel's direction grip-first. She hated losing control, but hey, they wanted a docile hostage, didn't they? Tess trusted Joel wouldn't let the woman get past the door if she tried to run for it.

"But I'm not getting injected with anything. I'm just going to grit my teeth through it." She glanced back at Jennifer again. "Just cut it all out. As deep as you need to go. Like I said before, I don't care if I bleed out or whatever, cut it all out."

Who needed a clavicle, anyway?

[forsometimenow]

Jennifer inwardly sighed with relief when the woman handed the gun over. That didn't make the situation any less dangerous, though, she realized- the man was still a big unknown, and her captor could still have other weapons hidden on her person. But some of the tension seemed to be diffusing, despite the fact that they were speaking about her as though she weren't in the room- and as though she were still perfectly willing to treat this woman.

Was she?

Jennifer considered. She might be able to make a break for it now, but then again... the man could easily chase her down and stop her without harming her badly. She could refuse further treatment, but they might kill her- anyone who had no problems threatening and pointing a gun at a doctor, someone who was willing to have skin tissue cut away without any sort of anesthetic, would likely have no problems shooting her in the back as she ran and going to find another medic before anyone found her body.

"... I must be insane," Jennifer mumbled to herself, moving toward the sink, discarding her rubber gloves, then washing her hands before putting a fresh pair on and gathering her tools, making sure both of them could see that she was simply gathering disinfectant, a scalpel- everything she needed except anesthetic.

"I'm not cutting that entire patch of skin off," she then firmly told Tess. "It's not safe without a skin graft prepared. The wound would be way too big to staple or sew shut, and there's no way I'm letting you leave here with a big hole in your body. It would get infected, and the idea is not to let you die. So I'll cut off as much dead tissue as I can stitch, and put my strongest antifungals on the rest. They won't work immediately, but a consistent treatment with them should clear it up."

[focusrighthere]

No, he didn't mind holding the lady's gun for her. Joel took it in his grip like it was second nature for him to do so and listened to the ebb and flow of their exchange, torn between backing Tess up and slowing things down. He wanted to point out that it looked like they had the same amount of time that they'd started out with, which was apparently plenty, but he didn't want to take the risk of the infection leaving the building at this point.

The medical description of the procedure was brutal. This was gonna be pure torture for her if she wasn't out. He kept one eye on the doctor at all times and tried to make an argument for anesthetic.

"Maybe you should let her put you out first, Tess," Joel cautioned. He didn't sound like he was one-hundred percent certain of his own idea, but he didn't like the alternative very much. "I'm here now. I'll be watching everything she does."

Not to mention, he had about five different kinds of guns on him total. He'd been in Paradisa long enough to understand why nobody was coming after them yet, as much as he kept listening and waiting for an army to kick down their door on instinct. They were the anomalies here, but they couldn't take any risks with this.

"Very carefully."

[dog_eat_dog]

Tess wanted to kick both their asses.

Hadn't she made it clear to Jennifer that she didn't care if it threatened her life, she needed it gone? Wasn't it obvious to anyone but her that any standard infection she could get in her open wound was going to be a million times better than the one she already had? Didn't she just say she wasn't going to be injected with anything, just in case it wasn't something she would wake up from?

Tess wasn't about to call Joel a traitor –– that word was reserved for people she'd put bullets in –– but the look she threw him stopped just shy of it. What a rat, she thought.

She'd beat herself up for her own hypocrisies later, walking into a clinic and then acting like she hadn't gone of her own volition.

"I'm not being put out," Tess insisted. "I can't do consistent, I need now. Prepare a fucking skin graft now, if that's what it takes."

(Tess had no idea what a skin graft entailed, obviously.)

"I don't have time for this!"

Panicking a bit? Panicking a bit. God, she wished she had bullets flying by her head and Robert's thugs screaming at her and soldiers marching by her hiding place, anything but pristine surgical rooms and know-it-all doctors and partners with much better compartmentalizing skills than her own.

[forsometimenow]

"I can't whip up a skin graft out of thin air! That would take a long time, longer than you're probably willing to wait for," Jennifer replied, her voice starting to rise with anger, but she fought it down. Tess didn't necessarily know that, but she was starting to get frustrated. "Look. I'm doing the best I can with what I have in this room and the little information you've given me. If you're not going to let me leave to get more help, and you can't accept that I won't cause any more harm to you than I have to..."

She drifted off. She'd been about to say "you may as well shoot me and get it over with", but that would likely have been a mistake, even with the man there to talk some sense into her captor. Provoking them was not on her list of priorities.

"I can't do more than what I've told you. I won't. Bottom line. Take it or leave it, but I can tell you right now that any other medics you might find would tell you the exact same thing I'm telling you." Jennifer took a shaky breath. "At least tell me why you're going to this extreme. Why is this fungus so dangerous?"

[focusrighthere]

For fuck's sake, Joel was about ready to pistol-whip Tess into the unconsciousness she was refusing to accept. She did have time for this but she was losing her head and forgetting it. Any amount of time she had before, she had now. An unchanged infection was impossible to argue with.

He understood her misgivings about injections, and in fact he had plenty of his own. He felt a strong urge to start a fight with her about how she ran off when she should've stayed -- but what was done was done. They were here now, with a doctor hostage in a facility that was, most likely, given all the evidence put together, not hostile. Joel took a step towards Tess and pointed a raised hand in her direction, anger written over the pure tension that was his entire demeanor.

"Look, I get it," he started, stuffing down the pain that would accompany what he was about to say on auto-pilot. "You don't trust her. Neither do I. But I've got my eye on her and I think she understands the consequences of killing you with an injection instead of doing everything she can to help us. You think this young girl is ready to die for you? You took your chances when you left the room, now take one more."

And he was pissed off, he was so fucking pissed off that she'd done that, but he had to stay on track. Joel finished up by giving into the docor's final word without addressing her question. Instead, he shot her a troubled side-glance that amounted to: It's bad. Later.

"Fucking Christ, Tess, let's just listen to her if we're gonna use her. The bite looks the same."

[dog_eat_dog]

Tess found herself sliding from her chair, right onto her feet –– what the fuck did he know about being bitten, standing there and lecturing her? So what if it hadn't changed –– it could change. She could be still contagious. She could still be fucked. Every instinct she had screamed to fight and then get the fuck out there, if Joel wasn't going to back her up.

But still, maybe it was less desperate times and more desperation at this point. Someone (or something) had taken time off the table.

Tess looked between Jennifer and Joel, breathing hard. She swallowed hard and tried to piece together an argument, but nothing could trump the fact that the wound hadn't changed, not at all. It was the same collection of pulsing infected tissue as it was before, no better or no worse. How could anyone argue that truth, etched on their own body?

Besides... Joel had always been good at shouting her into submission. He put up with her bossing him around all day, but when push came to shove, he was an immovable wall.

"Fine," she spat. "But if you even think of leavin' the room, I will fuckin' throttle you, Joel."

It would be difficult in death, but as before: hypocrisies could wait.

[forsometimenow]

Jennifer let a quiet sigh of relief escape her. She was still very annoyed and more than a little scared, but things finally seemed to be getting under control. She also caught the message from the man's- Joel's- glance at her. Now wasn't the time, she supposed. She may never find out the truth, and found herself wondering again what sort of world they came from. What sort of infection was so bad that a doctor would rather break their oath and deliberately hurt or kill another person to stop it from spreading?

You placed some trust in me when you burst into my clinic and hung around, Jennifer thought suddenly, actually amused a little despite herself. You may be talking about me like I'm not here and like I'm liable to do something to you at any moment, but both of you have had plenty of opportunities to hurt me and haven't done so.

More thoughts for another time, so Jennifer pushed them out of the way, tying her hair back.

"Lie back down." Her tone was calm and professional now. She was a surgeon, and there was a patient. When everything else was stripped away from the situation, that's what it boiled down to.

[focusrighthere]

For a minute there, Joel was gearing himself up to yell some more. Instead he exhaled on an unsteady sigh when Tess said fine, though he wasn't relaxing one bit. He couldn't relax, because if the doctor slipped Tess anything other than anesthetic or botched the procedure it was on him now. He was gonna watch her like a hawk, but he wasn't a fucking doctor.

There was no way to be sure she was doing everything right. He figured his best plan would be to give her no reason to be on anything other than on her best game. Shoving a gun up against her back to make a point would just make any "accident" look more legitimate. He moved aside, giving her plenty of room to work, but he stayed in Tess' line of sight by the chair and sent a worried frown in her direction when things started up.

"I'm not goin' anywhere," Joel told Tess, while she was still awake, in a tone that was almost soft underneath a shitload of carefully controlled anxiety. And then, said to himself and possibly low enough to be unheard by anyone else: "I gotcha."

He then raised his voice to an audible level and spoke directly to the doctor, finally. Their best chance was to be as business-like as she was being, so his next reminder was phrased as if it was the simple truth of the matter and nothing else.

"I'm sure I don't have to tell you twice that her life is your own. You already got that message loud and clear."

[dog_eat_dog]

Tess wasn't sure it was possible to feel so vulnerable, shoulders tensed and toes curling in her boots.

She held her gaze on Joel a moment longer, until it was too much and she needed to withdraw into herself and focus on herself. Almost mechanically, she boosted herself up onto the exam table, scooting midway down and busying herself with stripping off her undershirt entirely. No point in leaving it in the way or to get mucked up, though Tess imagined she'd just replace the damn thing if she made it through this. The bra could stay; it was so threadbare that it would probably come off with a tug, anyway.

(And, just to make a point, instead of discarding it on the floor with her purple denim shirt, she whipped the undershirt at Joel to catch. Asshole. You hang onto it.)

"Better not," she muttered, laying down and bracing herself.

Goodnight, Tess.

[forsometimenow]

"Crystal."

Jennifer was breathing hard through her nose. Being addressed directly and spoken to like a person didn't help her mood much; things could still go way wrong, if she did anything they didn't like, and there was nothing she could do to stop it.

"I was chief of surgery of a scientific expedition back home. I've taken care of dozens of wounds like this."

That probably meant nothing to them, but Jennifer went to work anyway without further comment, placing her tray of tools and an empty pan nearby, expert hands cutting away the skin, moving into that place at the back of her mind that allowed her to fully concentrate on her work. Now, more than ever, she was thankful that she was able to achieve that state of mind. It had saved her sanity and steadied her hand many times, especially during her first major crisis, when Elizabeth had been so gravely wounded.

It seemed to be no time at all before she was threading a needle, stitching the wound, and finally finishing it up with a heavy bandage and dose of antifungal on the rest of the awful, angry red skin.

"There. It's done."