cactusy | IC contact for lastvoyages

[Eiffel has had a really rough flood. Almost getting bled out by a vampire, ragdolled around the halls by his new inmate, fucked killed by taser bullets and still currently tolling through all of that, he really truly does plan on staying in his room.

But he's also a curious bastard. And he has a microphone set up on the hallway side of his door in lieu of a doorbell, but he barely even needs it to hear whoever keeps stomping around outside his door.

God, he knows better. He knows he knows better. But he's gotta check, just in case. If someone's hurt and he didn't do shit, he won't hear the end of it. Even from himself.

So there's a loud, distinctive creak as his door swings open, and he checks for the source.]

...Shaw?

[Fuuuuuuuuuuuck

Fuck fuck fuck fuck.]

Vampire. Lestat. In my head.

[Each syllable sounds like it takes physical effort to get out, and she's sweaty and gasping with exertion, fingers clenched into tight fists.]

Lock the door. Run.

[And that's all the warning he gets before her fingers uncurl and she lunges.]

[The perks of Eiffel's door is that it's big, heavy and really difficult to move.

The downside of Eiffel's door is that it's big, heavy and really difficult to move.

Which means he can't even begin to pull it closed before Shaw's all but on him, and instead he throws himself back with a sharp yelp of alarm, kicking off the doorframe into his room and shooting halfway across to the lounge.]

Shaw, waitwaitwait- time out! [wait vampire rules--] Jesus Mary mother of Christ!!

[Her body moves of its own accord, fingers scraping through the air, intent on closing around Eiffel's throat and squeezing, squeezing--

The good news is that she has enough control over her mind so as not to be all in on this plan. The smart thing for a killer to do in this situation would be to turn the gravity back on, but the part of her intent on murder isn't the smart part of her. She struggles forward instead, clumsy and inefficient.]

Kill me.

[She gasps out, hoping to hell he's not too sentimental to do it.

Goddammit, he probably is.]

[Okay, well, either A, she's not a vampire, or B, vampire rules don't work on their thralls, or C, different vampire different rules.

The thought runs through his head in a split second and is immediately dismissed as useless.

Quick analysis of the current problem, then: person who wants to kill him, is actively trying not to kill him, and neither of them are armed. Cons, he doesn't want to hurt her and won't be able to fight her hand-to-hand, between ability (lackluster) and will (none). Pros, it's Eiffel's home turf - and he can Home Alone the shit out of it.

First step - in an embarrassingly quick motion he unknots his jumpsuit and strips off (he's a Simpsons boxers man, apparently), and holding them in one hand, he kicks off the couch and slams into the back wall in a controlled impact that still knocks the wind half out of him.]

You'll have to catch me first!

[Yup. Too sentimental. Or is it too much to hope that he's planning to strangle her with those if she gets too close?]

Eiffel.

[She says through gritted teeth, slowly but doggedly pursuing.]

[He uses his feet to scoot down the wall - nothing has weight in fucking zero G, so he just grabs a shoe that goes floating past and bundles it into the body of his jumpsuit - and then yeets it as hard as he can into Shaw's face.]

Kobe!

[And while she's distracted by that, because theoretically the momentum of it will also fuck hers up, he kicks off the wall at an angle, so he can pass around the far side of the couch while she's tangling with flailing limbs and head for the door.]

[Ow. Which is to say, good, but also ow. The shoe bundle hits her square in the face, not hard enough to do any real damage but definitely hard enough to send her sailing backwards through the air until she hits one of the side walls - and giving Eiffel plenty of time to get to the door.]

[Eiffel slams shoulder first into the wall next to the door with a short grunt, and pushes himself to ground level - but he's not leaving.

With a loud clunk of the lever, he turns gravity off.]

[You hear that thunk? That's the sound of her falling seven or eight feet and hitting the ground.

Ooooooooooooow.]

[Eiffel lands hard, but he's barely waiting for himself to adjust to the sudden shift before he's scrambling towards Shaw.]

Sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry--!

[The litany continues as he skids and lands on her, knees first into her ribcage so she stays down, and snatches up his jumpsuit so he can try and use the sleeves to tie her arms behind her back.]

Shut up.

[She wanted you to kill her; she's not mad about some bruises and a sprained wrist, dummy! Her fingers keep scratching at him and she's trying to flip herself over, but that had been a hard fall, and she's going to be winded for another minute or so. He has time.]

[It's a good thing Eiffel's not a small dude, even if Shaw's jacked as hell comparatively. He's five-foot-ten of flub (and underneath that, unbeknownst to him, peak physical fitness), but he's also very good with his hands and knows just enough about knots that he can tie her arms up securely, and he's wincing and muttering mindlessly to himself in panic as he gets scratched up, but he manages to clear that task successfully and then sits on her legs so he can tie her ankles with the legs of the jumpsuit.

This would probably be way cooler if he wasn't panicking in his underwear.]

Lock me in a closet if you won't kill me.

[She hisses, as she aims a hard kick at whatever bit of him she can manage to try for.]

I'm really good at getting out of restraints.

You've seen my subscription to Floordrobe Monthly, right-- augh, crap!!

[That's one right in the eye, and he flinches back sharply, but the knots are secure enough that you know what? He'll live.

He gets to his feet and stumbles back slightly, grabbing Shaw by her upper arms and drag her towards the door.]

Look- all I need-- is to keep you away from me, right? So you- stay- out--

[And he manages to drag her over the threshold and into the hallway, and drops her rather unceremoniously in the middle of it.]

--and I stay here!

Edited 2023-02-23 06:08 (UTC)

[She's already wiggling, wrists working together to try to tug apart those knots, as she slumps onto the floor.

She's a sitting duck herself right now, which she in theory hates - but right now she doesn't actually care, beyond the fact that falling victim to a random attack right now would be a really dumb way to die.]

Keep the door closed.

Yeah-- [Now that the immediate danger is passed, suddenly breathing is really hard, and he has to swallow thickly to keep talking.] Yeah, no shit Zoolander. I'll catch you later.

[And the door is gonna get very forcefully shut. Not slammed, really, but it's a big heavy door being closed very much in Shaw's face, and there's the distinct latch of a heavy-duty lock on the other side.

And then, yelled through the door and severely muffled:]

For the record I'm not mad at you!

Shut up.

[She murmurs, too quietly to hear, as her hands keep working relentlessly at her restraints.]

When Shaw does wake up from her coma following the breach, she'll find herself in a familiar bed in a familiar cabin: Steve Rogers'. There's a large sheet of paper taped to the wall, where she won't be able to miss it.

In Steve's neat handwriting, it reads:

Hi, Sameen. Welcome back. The breach is over and you've been in a coma for and then there's a space where he's left himself a spot to tape up a new bit of paper each day to say exactly how many days it's been. (Steve's been updating the count every morning.) On each piece of paper with the current count, he's also written Today is with the current day of the week.

Below that, he's written: B found you and we put you in here, rather than breaking into your cabin. It sounds like you were killed during the breach, so you're going to be death tolling when you wake up. You can send me or B a text if you need a hand getting back to your cabin. Or you can stay here as long as you want. My door is locked and you should be safe. I'm checking in at least once a day.

And finally: We are currently experiencing followed by another blank spot, where he can tape up flood or port, but which should ideally read nothing strange that I'm aware of.

Edited (whoops should've waited a bit before posting haha, now steve knows she was killed) 2023-03-20 03:17 (UTC)

[ Iris gets Steve to leave two boxes by Shaw's bedside, and a note. ]

Dear Shaw,

Hopefully someone explained about barge comas? Any road I always wake up starving, so the big box has a decent dinner in it. I heard a lot of people got killed in that breach so open the small one first if that was you. It's what I call Death Toll Soup. My boyfriend invented it for me when I got killed one time and now I keep a batch on hand at all times. It doesn't actually make the death toll go away but it does help a little.

This is the one I mentioned who used to be a Marine. He's a big part of why I took such a liking to you. He has the same quality that you do, of cutting any dynamic down to its bones in one glance. I'm not a woman who looks for security and he's not a man to bubblewrap anyone, but I feel safer with him than anyone else I ever met. Not because he'll protect me, but because whatever trouble we get in, he can think of ten ways out of it as quickly as I can, and because he can catch anything I throw him. I love him and you remind me of him, so I nipped out to see him and got him to cook us all dinner.

We put your share in a stasis box so it's still fresh and hot from our grill on the beach. Enjoy <3 <3

Love, Iris xx

[ The small box is a container of aromatic chicken soup, with ginger, lemon, garlic, chillies and whisky. The larger one has roast duck, noodles and vegetables, spicy crab cakes and little crunchy spring rolls. There's also a photograph: a big silverhaired man in a Hawai'ian shirt, basting a roasting duck over a firebox on a rocky beach. Iris is sitting on a rock next to the grill sharing out vegetable peelings and meat scraps between two German Shepherds and an apparently friendly tusked boar. ]

When Shaw first wakes up, she groans quietly, rolls over, and buries her face in a pillow, a position she does not move from for several hours. Eventually, though, she'll resurface and read the note.

She doesn't send Steve or B a text, but she doesn't leave, either. Whenever she's next checked on, she'll be lying on her back, staring blankly at the ceiling.

thanks

[For the hearty meal that she hasn't eaten yet; for the soup that she has. Maybe too for the note that makes her chest feel tight for reasons she doesn't feel she has the capacity to examine too closely right now. Iris reminds her just a little of someone, too.

After a few minutes, she also sends:]

you're insane

[A boar?? What the fuck.]

B doesn't have food when he comes by, but when he unlocks and opens the door, he suddenly wishes he did. He does, however, have the dogs, so Libby and D will have to do for now. "Good morning," he says from the doorway, dogs on their leashes clearly sniffing hopefully in her direction. "Can we come in?"

"We have to stop meeting like this," she deadpans, because goddamn buddy, you've had to help deal with her dead body two times in a row now. "It's your place; I'm not gonna kick you out."

She flops an arm off the bed, wiggling her fingers at the dogs.

"Technically it's Steve's place, but he never uses it since he lives with me," B says, but he does come in. "Dogs incoming," he warns, letting their leashes go when he closes the door behind him and both of them come to jump up onto the bed, trying to vie for petting and even face licking. "Just tell them no if you don't like it."

IC contact for lastvoyages

Time for vampire-enforced murder attempt!

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On a large sheet taped to the wall of Steve's cabin by the bed

[also post-coma]

dated to March 30th-ish; open to both Steve and B!

text; vaguely March 31st/April 1st

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