Closed RP Six

[HighVoltage]

It had been a long night, and yet Mari knew there was still more to do.

Once they had exited the macabre scene that the warehouse had become during her temporary death, she had guided Spork the short distance to where she’d parked the car. Fortunately there were very few people out this late in this part of Pittsburgh, so she didn’t have to deal with any odd looks.

She kept talking, softly, about everything and nothing as she and Spork meandered to the vehicle, and continued once she opened the passenger side door and urged them inside. It was only once Spork was comfortably nestled in the seat that she stopped, punctuating with a “I’ll be right back, just going to grab the first-aid kit from the trunk” that Mari’s chatter stopped.

She clicked open the trunk, letting it swing up and ducking her head inside. The first-aid kit was just to the left, lodged firmly against the side of the trunk. Mari may have taken a few moments more than was strictly necessary to retrieve it, trying to push down the worry and guilt that festered and bubbled within her chest. They were fine, they were going to be fine. She just had to break it down into simple tasks.

Step 1: Make them comfortable. Mari snatched a couple bottles of water, some cloths, and the first-aid kit from the trunk. She tried to shut it as gently as possible, still wincing at the impact it had to make in order to properly close it.

“It’s a bit quiet.” Mari was sure to speak just after the trunk was closed, talking as she walked back around to their side. “Let’s fix that, shall we?” Mari fished out the key fob and hit the ignition button, the car rumbling to life under Spork. Mari’s phone automatically connected, and she quickly slid it out and put on Spork’s ‘Bricks That Hit Me’ playlist before putting her phone away.

Step 2: Clean their arms. Mari cracked open the seal on the first water bottle, wetting a cloth and setting the bottle down. She wrung out the excess water, shuddering slightly as the sound of wet impact on pavement reminded her of foot on wet flesh.

“I’m gonna clean up your arms. This is water.” She glanced up to Spork’s face to see if they had any reaction, any protest, any joke about it being vodka or vinegar. The only response she received was blankness, a thousand-yard-stare that saw everything and nothing, that stared into the void and received only immense exhaustion in return.

Mari bit her tongue, letting silence settle between the two of them as the music faded into the background. She dabbed at Spork’s right arm, pulling up guts and grime and far, far too much crimson for her liking. She just shook her head, rinsed the cloth with some water, and went back to dabbing. Once the right arm was complete, she did the left, all the while her mind cycled through all the scenarios that could’ve led to the massacre she’d woken up to. None were good, and nearly all of them set her stomach curdling.

Step 3: Disinfect. Satisfied that she’d gotten as much gore off Spork’s arms as possible, she grabbed a fresh cloth and a bottle of clear liquid from the first-aid kit, pouring the latter onto the former.

“This is going to sting.” She muttered, before pressing it gently against their wounds. Mari watched their reaction, and a small flutter of hope beat against her ribcage as she saw them wince, ever so slightly. It fell to the floor as she continued administering the disinfectant, the blank mask sliding smoothly into place once more. She felt something crack inside her, but she pushed it down. They were going to be okay. Everything was going to be okay.

Step 4: Get home. The drive was a blur of city streets and traffic lights. Despite herself, Mari still took the long way home, doing her best to ensure that, if they had somehow managed to pick up a tail at the warehouse, they wouldn’t be able to find the apartment. The drive was too quiet, even with the rumble of tires and Spork’s music. Mari hesitated more than once, about to break the ice between them, to try and make some malformed joke that she knew Spork couldn’t resist calling her out on.

She didn’t, for fear of what would happen to her if they didn’t.

Step 5: Get clean. It wasn’t hard to get Spork into the apartment, her hand slipping comfortably into theirs. It wasn’t as superheated as before, but its warmth still felt more sickly than comforting. She didn’t bother flicking on the lights once they entered, as Spork didn’t need them. She ushered them gently into the bathroom, turning that light on so she could see what she was doing.

“Wait just a moment, Spork.” She’d started talking again, if only to break the agonizing emptiness that was left in the blond’s absence. Mari never realized how much space Spork took up verbally, and it now felt like she was missing a few fingers on her right hand; not absent, but not quite whole. She dropped the plug into the bath, cranking on the hot water and adding just a bit of cold to temper it. She dumped some of Spork’s usual bubble bath into the tub, unable to keep a sigh from escaping as the warm, citrusy scent filled the air.

“Alright. I’m gonna get you out of those clothes, and we’re gonna take a bath. I think we need it after today.” Mari slowly helped them undress, removing their jacket and gently putting it aside. Their other gauntlet had been left on the floor of the car, and Mari made sure to avoid touching their wounds as much as possible as she lifted one arm, slid it through the sleeve of their undershirt, and let it back down.

Their pants were next, and she ached for some joke about her drunken attempt at seduction, about her being forward, about anything. She would have gladly taken an eyebrow waggle and an exclamation of interest instead of the silence that took up the space between them.

Once Mari had gotten Spork out of their viscera-covered clothing, she quickly shed her own before taking their hand once more. She squeezed it and pulled, urging them to follow her. She stepped into the now-full tub, murmuring a quick “Step up.” as they reached the tub’s edge. Once they were both in the tub she sat, gently tugging them down with her.

Water spilled over the sides, but Mari didn’t care. She sank into it, pulling Spork down against her, their back against her chest, wrapping her arms lightly around them. She didn’t know what to say. She didn’t know what she could say. Even the words ‘I’m sorry’ caught in her throat as she realized she didn’t know what she was apologizing for, what she’d done that had led to this.

So she said nothing, and just held them against her in the hot water, hoping it was enough to at least bring some semblance of her friend back.

 

[Katpride]

The mission is over.

The targets they were told to kill are dead.

Shiba is not dead. They are very much alive. Alive and moving, in fact, placing one foot in front of the other ad infinitum as they are led… somewhere. Somewhere… else, they think. Away. Away is good, they think.

Someone is speaking to them. The words turn to static upon reaching their ears, and yet they know, somehow, that they are words, spoken in a familiar tongue. By a familiar tongue. The cadence is soothing.

Not that they need to be soothed. They don’t, but they say nothing on the matter. Any sound they make may interrupt, may cause her to stop.

They nearly trip over a sudden unevenness in the ground, but the hand holding theirs tightens, pulls them back up. They recover, and continue.

The journey is short, and soon they are instructed to sit. They do, and as they sink into the unfamiliar space a hand briefly touches the back of their head, ducking it further than they had initially. The hand is familiar, and so they yield to it without a second thought, arranging themself in accordance with its unheard instructions. They rest their calves against something cold and hard, their shoulder against something lukewarm and significantly more yielding, their head against a more solid object attached to the seat just above their shoulder.

Then the hand in theirs falls away, taking with it their only reason to remain aware, and they stop keeping track of things.

---

The air is muggy and heavy with the smell of bergamot and eucalyptus. This is the first thing that Spork notices when they wake up.

The second is that their arms hurt. They curl their fingers experimentally and find that there’s something warm and solid under their hands. Porcelain, they realize, after tapping it with the short stub of a nail. They’re in the bath, and the warmth around them is water. Water and bubblebath, judging by how their various cuts and scrapes sting.

They shift, adjusting how their legs are curled, and the hands in their hair go still. They freeze, too, more than halfway startled by how they hadn’t even realized someone was scrubbing their scalp until they’d stopped.

Wait, no, not just someone. Even with their head stuffed with cotton and a drunk toddler playing their brain like a bongo, they know who it is. “...Mari?”

Oh sweet Lucifer, their voice is rough. Just the one word feels like it scrapes all the way up their throat, catching on every snag and jagged edge, and they make a face, one hand halfway lifting off the bottom of the tub before plopping back down, even the simple gesture of touching their throat too much energy to commit to. The soapy water doesn’t sting as much if they keep still, anyways.

After a second, they finish adjusting their legs, then tilt their head back so she’ll continue. “Wh’t h-”

A flash of muddled memory (-bitingnailsandthesickeningthudofa-) steals the rest of their sentence before they can voice it. They take a breath of citrus and steam, clearing their throat with a quiet rumble before trying again. “Ah-uhm. You okay?”

 

[HighVoltage]

Mari didn’t know how long she sat there, arms wrapped around Spork’s corpselike frame. A few times she wasn’t even sure if they were breathing, their chest rising and falling so shallowly that Mari almost could’ve believed that she did find them on the floor of that shitty warehouse and had managed to drag them here in some fugue state of grief.

Then they would shift, ever so slightly, take a breath that was slightly deeper than the rest, and Mari would be jolted out of her doomed, spiralling thoughts. But it was always temporary, and Spork would soon settle back into their deathlike state and Mari would fade with them.

She wasn’t sure when she noticed how gross the water had gotten, flecks of dried blood and viscera rehydrating and muddying the water underneath the bubble bath. She just did, slowly dragging her body from the warmth, from Spork, to drain and refill it. Hopeful glances were stolen in their direction, hoping they would spring to life and cuss her out, demanding she ‘stop wasting their good bubbs’.

No stream of colorful language spewed forth. Mari was left alone with only Spork’s breaths and the sounds of water cascading into the tub to keep her company. Eventually one of those silenced, and all that remained was the steady, shallow sound of airflow.

She had to do something, anything to get her mind off the sound of her best friend’s life seemingly balancing on a knife’s edge. She’d checked their pulse, it beat as strong as ever. Their vitals were a little off-kilter, but nothing out of the ordinary for heavy exercise, which definitely fit the bill considering the state they were in when she came back. The cuts on their arm weren’t superficial by any means, but they’d been conscious and walking a little bit ago. All the data she could feasibly see said that Spork was fine.

They just…wouldn’t wake up.

Mari decided to start with their hair. It was gummy, crusted with red and brown, their natural blond buried below the gunk. She started slowly, scooping up handfuls of water and letting them fall over them, gently tilting their head back so it wouldn’t run into their eyes. Soap came next, and her fingers set to work along the strands, rubbing against the scalp in rhythmic circular motions.

Time slipped away, Mari’s mind slowly quieting as she focused on this one, singular task: clean Spork’s hair. Her attention was so thoroughly devoted to the task at hand that her awareness of Spork’s breathing slipped away. In particular, she didn’t notice when it changed, deepened, became more irregular.

She did, however, notice when Spork shifted under her touch. Mari stiffened, breath catching in her throat. Her hopes had already been dashed too many times against the rocks of reality, and yet in this moment they hung in the air, waiting to see whether wings or gravity would win the battle.

With a single croaked-out word, dragged up the staircase of Spork’s throat and hitting its head on every single step before falling out of the mouth, Mari’s heart soared. What felt like a hundred years of tension began thawing, slowly beginning to trickle away.

“Take baths with many other women?” Mari joked softly, attempting to cut through that ice a little further, to break it into smaller pieces so it would melt faster. A question died on their lips, swallowed by a cough, and Mari pretended not to notice. She wasn’t sure what had happened after she died, and she wasn’t sure what Spork remembered. A second question was asked, a simpler one. An easier one.

‘You okay?’

No.

Mari was not okay.

Truthfully, today’s death had been the last of her concerns; a relatively quick and painless death that had resulted in a relatively easy return. No, dying had not been the issue. It had been what she’d found upon waking.

The warehouse floor and her best friend, both covered in gore but only one left breathing. The bodies that had been scattered across the floor were almost entirely in the process of decomposition from what Mari had been able to see. Spork’s arms had been covered in long scratches with jagged edges, and her name had been the first word they’d said since she’d come back over an hour ago.

Her best friend had fought tooth and nail to protect her dead body from something, had been so scarred by whatever the fuck it was that they’d essentially shut down any nonessential brain function until a minute ago, and Mari had put them into that position. She had put her best friend’s life in danger while she bled out on the floor just for the thrill of the job and a surplus of computerized currency.

“Yeah.” Mari replied after a moment, the word slipping through the steam-soaked air with a sigh and draping itself over Spork’s shoulder. “Job done, we both needed to get clean.” Mari let a hand drop into the water, a splash for emphasis, before it returned to its sacred duty of massaging Spork’s scalp.

“Didn’t feel like standing, so bath it was.” She let the silence hang between them for a moment before adding on another question. She knew it wasn’t quite fair, turning it back around on them when she hadn’t answered honestly, but Mari needed to know what they remembered and what they didn’t. Worry began to gnaw at the edges of her chest, vultures circling around the soft thing that had, just a few short minutes ago, been soaring through the sky.

“How about you?”