Afterparty

[toooldforlosing]

Raylan survived an entire night of being trotted around the party as Hasi's escort without doing anything embarassing, or getting attacked because he was mistaken for someone else. On the whole, he considered this a win.

The truth was, in his work, he'd occasionally been to a fancy party, but always as the outsider. It was work. Boys from Harlan county did not get invited to that sort of party as a guest. It didn't bother him, but it left him feeling a little displaced. (Of course, with some of the people he'd met and seen at the Xanadu affair, he could have been bright green and no one would have batted an eye. It did make a bit of difference.)

Even so, he was glad enough that it was over. He'd had... quite a bit to drink, though his steps were steady enough. Hasi probably knows him well enough by now to tell he's feeling the alcohol a bit, but he's still in control. Maybe glad he's not driving home, but more or less fine. Even though he's quiet, he's relaxed, and with no idea of packing it in just yet.

"I'd ask your place or mine, but frankly, you don't want to see mine. Hell, I don't want to see mine."

Comments

[toooldforlosing]

"By the time they get here, whatever's gonna happen'll be over," he says, calmly, "but it ain't a terrible idea."

Slowly, very quietly, he gets up to grab his pants, and both guns - one for use, one to make sure it's not just lying there like a birthday present. Hey, they might not be armed.

Keep telling yourself that, Raylan.

[norea]

Hasibe wraps her robe around herself, kneeling by the foot of the bed- she catches her lower lip between her teeth, worrying it without realizing what she's doing. Her heart is going pretty quickly, but she's mostly feeling that due to adrenaline; she's never as scared as she ought to be, but at least her senses feel sharper. She can hear their voices on the other side of the wall, muffled, as they go through the spare bedroom next to her master one.

"They're speaking Arabic," she says, very softly, "but I don't think any of them are native speakers. Maybe one."

So that's puzzling. A language in common, perhaps; she'd bet most of them speak English just fine, and probably are English themselves.

[toooldforlosing]

"Right."

Startling them was a recipe for getting shot. On the other hand, he needs them to take him seriously, and quickly, when he's this outnumbered.

"You should probably wait here, for at least a moment or two."

[norea]

She looks like she wants to argue, but there's really not time for that, and while she is a scary little witch in her own right, this is not necessarily a magical encounter; she tries to avoid mixing the two, lest she end up outed and the wrong person learns what she is.

Also, Raylan has a hell of a lot more experience with this kind of thing. She trusts him, and is for an instant really glad he's there, even if this is a complete mess and she has no idea what these people want from her.

So she nods once, a lot more worried about Raylan's well-being than her own.

(Also her dog's- if Huan keeps barking, they might try to shut him up.)

[toooldforlosing]

He flashes her an absent half-smile that he hopes is a little reassuring, then heads out, gun in hand, half raised. He's almost silent in his bare feet, moving toward the sounds of the intruders.

When he gets there, there are three, and he has a brief twist of satisfaction. He raises the gun, and one of them shouts in surprise.

"Easy," he says, in that falsely casual tone he's so good at. "Just thought we'd have a chat about what you're doing here."

And then everything happened both too fast and slow enough Raylan could see a few steps ahead without being able to stop it. One of the men reached for his pocket, and it could be a weapon, legit or improvised. One of the others reached out, as if to stop him, knocking him a moment after Raylan fired.

It was remarkable, the small difference between a shot to wound and a shot to kill.

[norea]

Hasibe's interpretation of a moment is pretty minimal- she follows Raylan as soon as she hears the shot, and what follows her is the force of her reaction, channeled into psychic whiplash. It sends one of the men toppling back over the balcony, and though it's not a far fall, he's winded long enough for Huan to find him.

Then there's a lot of screaming, snarling, and the remaining, uninjured man making a run for the stairs and the front exit.

[toooldforlosing]

"Oh, fuck me," Raylan says, standing over the man he shot. It caught him in the collar, and an artery. He puts pressure on the wound, but it's not going to help.

"That goddamn idiot." He may or may not mean himself.

[norea]

The other two are gone by now, out the front door, and Hasi drops the phone in her hand as she settles next to the man Raylan shot. She's getting his blood on her legs, but that doesn't seem to bother her. She can sense the hummingbird-beat of his heart as he tries to stay conscious and gingerly touches a hand to his forehead. It's meant to be soothing.

She looks askance at Raylan. He's going to die, isn't he?

[toooldforlosing]

He looks back at her and nods. He's bleeding too fast - by the time any help arrives, he'll already be gone.

"You ain't hurt?" He didn't see what happened after one went over the banister.

[norea]

"No. Are you okay?" She then directs her attention to the man on the floor. They only have a few minutes before he bleeds out, and she should probably figure out what they wanted next. "Hey, don't go to sleep- don't--come on. What did you want to find? Who are you?"

[toooldforlosing]

Raylan's hands are a mess from his attempt to slow the blood. "Come on, hang in there," he said, low. "What was all this about?"

[norea]

She doesn't really want to do this in front of Raylan, and thus there's a momentary eyedart of uncertainty before she cups the man's face in her hands and forces him to look at her. The compulsion is short and quick - more of a hypnotism done by meeting her (strange) eyes.

"Answer his question," Hasi suggests, and when their captive speaks, it's barely audible- she can compel him to talk, but she can't do anything about that bleeding out. Nothing that'd be natural, anyway.

"The books- the Hours--" His eyes flicker shut, and Hasi's jaw tightens.

"Come on, please--" There's a tiny break in her voice there, because she really, is not completely or even a fraction of okay with watching someone die here on her floor not again. It's not going to ever be something she can brush past.

[toooldforlosing]

"I didn't mean to hit him there," Raylan says, low and frustrated. It was supposed to be a flesh wound, a shot he could easily make accurately at that range, and yet...

"Do you know what he's talking about?"

[norea]

"Sort of."

She can tell when the life goes out of him, and that's when she lets go, rising...fairly unsteadily. The last dead man she saw in person was her husband, and she doesn't want to freak out in front of Raylan, who is clearly not having a good time, himself.

"I have these books- from Almos. There are...in Christianity, there are these these devotional books called the Book of Hours that could be personalized. I have three kinds, most of them twelfth century. One of them is- it has a bloody history."

She presses back against the wall, trying to steady her breathing and push down the flashing memories this corpse on her floor is bringing back.

[toooldforlosing]

He sits back on his heels, shirtless and bloody. They're going to have to call the cops, and it's going to be ten kinds of bad. He doesn't have a visa, he's a goddamn U.S. Marshal (who was being investigated for needlessly shooting people in the line of duty), she'd already been involved in some violence...

"Go get some water," he says, after a moment. "Doesn't look like the other two are coming right back."

[norea]

She shakes her head, minutely, tearing her gaze from the dead man to look at Raylan.

"I have to take care of this first."

Hasi has other ideas about calling the cops. She might have picked up the phone, but she never so much as dialed one digit.

[toooldforlosing]

"What're you gonna do?" he asked, low.

[norea]

"Get rid of it--of him." She's clearly not loving how cold that sounds- this is a person who probably would have tried to shoot her, if she'd interrupted his heist alone, but she's not going to completely ignore that he was a person. "There are too many complications, and this is...I think the fourth or fifth suspicious thing I've been involved in in the past six months. It's too much of a mess for both of us."

(And she doesn't want Bellamy to know. This is something from her past, she thinks, and she tries so hard to keep what happened from the new people she meets...except Raylan, with whom she attempts being honest again.

She's distracted, suddenly, when she speaks. "Your hands..."

[toooldforlosing]

"They're a mess," he says, absently. "Get rid of him how, exactly?" Not that she's wrong; there are way too many reasons this is terrible, but he also knows how much worse it could be if they try to cover it up and don't succeed.

[norea]

"A spell." She doesn't want him to see it, though. "Do me a favor? Go get cleaned up and...make sure Huan is okay, I heard him fighting with that guy. I'll take care of this part, you did- the hard bit."

The actual shooting, the sound of which is still echoing in the back of her mind.

[toooldforlosing]

He wants to argue, starts to, in fact, but then just shakes his head and goes to wash up. Part of him rebels at it; he's never covered up killing someone before, and it feels wrong, despite all the reasons he knows they have to. Still - it's a slippery slope.

He slips out of the pants he'd hastily pulled on, and steps in the shower, the water turned up hotter than it should be. And he tried not to think about what Hasi was doing in the meantime.

The truth was, he'd screwed up, and if he hadn't, they wouldn't be in this mess at all.

[norea]

When he's out again, she's sitting (in her robe, slipped over one shoulder) on the floor with her legs stretched out in front of her. The body is gone, and so is the blood on the floor, but there's still a faint feeling of electricity, like walking too close to an old television.

There's still blood on her legs. She'll get that. Eventually.

[toooldforlosing]

There was a little blood on his pants, but they were black, so it didn't much show. He comes over to crouch by her side. "...hey," he said, after a moment.

[norea]

"Hey," she says, in an exhale, tipping her head back. Everything seems muted now, and there's pale light beginning to peer in through her windows. It's nearly dawn.

"I am...really sorry that happened."

[toooldforlosing]

"Me too," he said, simply. "I shouldn'ta shot him at all. I thought he was going for a gun."

It had been sloppy, that was what.