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]

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.

[norea]

"He still could have been. If you hadn't been here, Raylan..." Three men and one girl and one dog (whose range is limited); she knows what she might have had to do, but she also knows sometimes she lets herself get hurt.

(The girl is mental, but they knew that already.)

[toooldforlosing]

He touched her shoulder. "It shouldn't have happened at all. But... I guess I'm glad I was, then."

[norea]

She tucks her knees up, tilting her head back against the wall.

"I don't know how you--" Cope with this, with seeing this all the time in his job. A man died in her apartment and she can't stop thinking, over-empathizing, with what he might have left behind. "--I don't know. The last person I saw die in front of me was my husband, and I killed him. I don't think I'll ever be used to seeing that."

Which is maybe a good thing, but understandably doesn't feel like it right now.

[toooldforlosing]

"It's always hard," he says, simply. "If it ain't, you should quit." Because when it stopped being hard, you shouldn't be making the kind of calls you had to make. He probably, himself, wasn't upset as he should be - but then again, he tended not to feel his anger until he couldn't help it anymore.

"You got every right to be upset. It's natural."

[norea]

She presses her fingertips to her collarbones and realizes with muted surprise that her heart is hammering now - she felt the death. It's not the first time she's done that (felt the flare of energy as someone's life left them, and it always hurt), but it's jarring every time.

She reaches for Raylan's hand -- the hands that had blood on them not very long ago -- and, if he's inclined to let her, presses it to her heart so he can feel how fast it's beating.

"It doesn't feel natural," she says, quietly rueful, looking up at him steadily.

[toooldforlosing]

"Why not?" he asks, the question legitimate. If his relationship with Hasi has taught him anything, it's how much he doesn't know. It doesn't bother him, exactly, but it puts him off balance.

His hand is warm against her chest, and he doesn't pull it away.

[norea]

"It catches inside me." She knows she sounds a little crazy when she talks like this, so she tries to push it away, shaking her head again. She lets go of his hand, and pulls herself onto her knees again so she can go to him. He might not want an armful of mildly traumatized Hasi right now, but it's instinctive for her.

"What do we do now?"

[toooldforlosing]

He shifts to be sitting, rather than crouching, so he can hold her more properly. "Well. You've taken care of the logistical part. Do you want to try and sleep?"