A Slacker's Contribution: Team Bananafishstickers Post #15
*should be studying for the ACTs*
⌐_⌐
*is not studying for the ACTs*
After Sagark and their serpentine customer left, Silla picked her way out of the wreckage carefully. She gave her wings an experimental flicker, and sighed in relief when they moved with greater ease than she had expected. Well at least something in this madhouse worked. The dragonfly scowled at the remains of her quarters before trudging off to the ship’s infirmary.
The medic on duty, a mantis with soft-looking red eyes, turned to Silla as she entered the clinic. He jumped, startled and uncertain in equal measures, before moving towards the dragonfly on four spindly legs. Long, blade-like fingers reached out reassuringly, “Mistress Silla, what...” He trailed off nervously, curious as to why the slave-trader was in such a state, but too demure to ask.
“Don’t ask, slave. Patch me up, but don’t ask.” Silla settled as gracefully as possible on the tiny cot and level a steady, if pained, gaze at the mantis. This one had been the previous medic’s personal slave. She’d suspected foul play when the medic, Yallar, had been found dead less than a day after remarking that she was growing tired of her pet, but Silla really couldn’t blame the young mantid. Yallar had never been too careful about hiding her cookbooks.
---
“You’re cut up bad, Benji...Stay still.” Kevin’s attempt at comfort went unheard as Ben slipped back into unconsciousness. The mutant shifted him carefully, balancing Ben’s cuffed and tangled arm over his Pyronite shoulder. The heated limb had cooled considerably, to the point when the living rock was only pleasantly warm rather than scorching. One of the furry arms curled behind the brunet’s knees hesitated a moment before sliding up to hold Ben’s rear in place. Kevin hooked a claw carefully through Ben’s belt before taking a jump.
The mutant’s powerful legs sent him nearly a story up before he set the wings to work. Ben’s added weight would have been nothing under normal conditions, but Kevin hadn’t exercised-or possessed-his flight muscles for a few years now. He wavered in the air before leveling out and rising up to his window. He fumbled with the window for a moment with his Petrosapien hand, a lost cause as the smooth, blunt fingers were useless for this particular task. When Kevin’s wings stuttered, causing him to drop a few inches, he made up his mind and smashed the window in with the diamond-hard fist. This was a bad neighborhood, what was one more broken window?
---
“Kevin, I have to take a big test in about four hours. What could be so important that you’re calling me before sunrise?” Gwen rubbed at her eyes with the heel of her palm, waiting for a question about why she’d be taking a test on a Saturday, but the expected response never came. Instead, she heard Kevin urgently insisting that Ben was badly hurt and she needed to come do her not-magic shit right now. The redhead hurriedly assured him that she’d be right over don’t worry she’d track Ben’s manna seventh floor broken window right she’d be there in fifteen minutes.
True to her word, Gwen arrived speedily with one of Ben’s spare t-shirts clutched in her hand. She slipped through the window, mindful of the glass shards, only to stop cold and gasp. Battling the forces of ultimate evil in the form of Vilgax and hunting down the DNAliens, among other species, had shown her some strange things. Even stranger was the appearance of some of her grandfather’s culinary experiments. Nothing, however, could compare to this.
Ben was stretched out flat on his stomach and on a blood-stained sheet, barely clinging to consciousness, with some sort of medicated cream slathered over his back. Squatting in front of him and wearing the most ridiculous pair of glasses Gwen had ever seen was Kevin in his mutated form. The mishmash of aliens grunted and beckoned her over tensely.
"He was cut up by a crazy fucker with a sharp knife. It stinks like iodine and I put some first-aid cream on his back, so it should be okay. You just need to close up those cuts before he bleeds out." Kevin pried carefully at the spinning face Omnitrix with a different tool in each of his four hands. When Gwen hesitated, he growled slightly and snapped his tail out. The prehensile appendage curled tightly around the hem of the redhead's shirt and tugged her forward, "Your cousin. Now. We can't take him to a hospital."
Shaking off her shock, Gwen dropped to her knees next to Ben, "You're right; they'd ask too many questions about how he got hurt." Gwen gathered the glowing pink aura around her fingertips.
Kevin paused in his work and looked up with a thoughtful expression on his face, "I was gonna say that they'd ask too many questions about me." When Gwen stared at the mutant with a perplexed expression, Kevin elaborated, "I'm not leaving him. Not like this."
Gwen gave Kevin a scrutinizing gaze before nodding approvingly. She lowered her fingers to Ben's back, but paused to ask, "What's with the glasses?" Ben, who had been largely silent up to this point, made a grunt that sounded like a cross between a groan of pain and an amused snort. The manna wielder relaxed slightly; if Ben was coherent enough to find Kevin's ridiculous glasses funny, he would be fine.
Kevin smiled faintly at Ben's sound, "I normally wear contacts. You'd be surprised how much they bother you when two of your eyes change shape and you happen to grow a third." The plain metal frames, one large and round on the right an two small and slanted stacked neatly on top of each other on the left looked like they'd been put together with a soldering iron and some wire. Gwen could only guess who he’d gotten properly shaped prescription lenses from. Kevin had already looked back to the Omnitrix, dismissing any further questions. Now that she was closer, Gwen could see a foreign metal band around the face of the watch. The spinning watch face looked as though it was trying to aid Kevin in prying the band off, but no such luck yet.
Shaking off the distraction, Gwen leaned over Ben’s back to inspect the damage. For the most part, the circular cuts had stopped bleeding. In some of the deeper cuts, blood had congealed under the surface of the clear first-aid cream while the shallower cuts were already beginning to scab over. Gwen sighed to relax herself and got to work. She passed her hands over Ben’s back twice before setting her fingers against the first section of cuts. The thin slices began to close slowly under her soothing touch, forming raised scars. Frowning, she concentrated on closing the wounds. Clearing up the scar tissue could come later.
Still face down, Ben made an appreciative moan. The burning, throbbing pain in his back was steadily easing up under Gwen’s hands, and the Omnitrix, which had previously tightened on his wrist when Kevin started prying, had loosened up once it realized that the genetic anomaly presently poking it with wires and picks was trying to get the inhibitor off rather than cause further damage.
The trio fell into silence, each absorbed in their own thoughts. With a half-roar, half-shout of triumph, the metal band popped off the watch face. The Omnitrix echoed Kevin’s glee with its own little beep. Gwen sat back on her heels and wiped traces of first-air cream off her fingers and Ben lifted his head a few inches. He stared pensively at Kevin and then to Gwen before sighing and dropping his head onto his now-folded arms, “I suppose we need to talk about what happened??”
Kevin and Gwen glanced at each other and came to a wordless conclusion. The mutant lifted Ben carefully and pulled his against his chest, “Not now. We’ll rest up first.” Ben sighed contentedly rested his head against the rough, Tetramandian skin of Kevin’s chest. Kevin, mindful of the freshly-healed wounds on Ben’s back, curled a furry and blood-matted arm around the burnet’s backside again while Gwen shifted to rest near her cousin and his misshapen guardian. The test could wait; healing took a lot of energy.
Besides, Ben was worlds more important to her.
---
Notes:
--It’s completely and totally wrong, but I’m actually starting to like Silla...I LIKE ABUSED CHARACTERS I JUST WANT TO MAKE THEM HAPPY OKAY LEAVE ME ALONE. I like praying mantises.
--I occasionally slide into little forays of stream-of-consciousness writing and I don’t know how well it’s going over with you guys. Should I keep it in my fics or nix it? It gets a little confusing, but it’s kind of fun.
--I’m entirely too amused by the thought of Kev wearing glasses.
--I am even MORE amused by the thought of Mutie!Kev wearing glasses.
--Used allegoryredstar’s design for the scars. HEY THEY REMIND ME OF TRANSMUTATION CIRCLES LOLFMA.
--My internet dropped out, followed shortly afterwards by my whole computer. It, for some reason, ate more than a page of Gwen-awesomeness and funny dialogue. So you get...This. I'm unhappy.
--I REALLY NEED TO LEARN HOW TO PLUG THINGS IN PROPERLY.
On to blackmystique! Hope you’re feeling better, hun!
⌐_⌐
*is not studying for the ACTs*
After Sagark and their serpentine customer left, Silla picked her way out of the wreckage carefully. She gave her wings an experimental flicker, and sighed in relief when they moved with greater ease than she had expected. Well at least something in this madhouse worked. The dragonfly scowled at the remains of her quarters before trudging off to the ship’s infirmary.
The medic on duty, a mantis with soft-looking red eyes, turned to Silla as she entered the clinic. He jumped, startled and uncertain in equal measures, before moving towards the dragonfly on four spindly legs. Long, blade-like fingers reached out reassuringly, “Mistress Silla, what...” He trailed off nervously, curious as to why the slave-trader was in such a state, but too demure to ask.
“Don’t ask, slave. Patch me up, but don’t ask.” Silla settled as gracefully as possible on the tiny cot and level a steady, if pained, gaze at the mantis. This one had been the previous medic’s personal slave. She’d suspected foul play when the medic, Yallar, had been found dead less than a day after remarking that she was growing tired of her pet, but Silla really couldn’t blame the young mantid. Yallar had never been too careful about hiding her cookbooks.
---
“You’re cut up bad, Benji...Stay still.” Kevin’s attempt at comfort went unheard as Ben slipped back into unconsciousness. The mutant shifted him carefully, balancing Ben’s cuffed and tangled arm over his Pyronite shoulder. The heated limb had cooled considerably, to the point when the living rock was only pleasantly warm rather than scorching. One of the furry arms curled behind the brunet’s knees hesitated a moment before sliding up to hold Ben’s rear in place. Kevin hooked a claw carefully through Ben’s belt before taking a jump.
The mutant’s powerful legs sent him nearly a story up before he set the wings to work. Ben’s added weight would have been nothing under normal conditions, but Kevin hadn’t exercised-or possessed-his flight muscles for a few years now. He wavered in the air before leveling out and rising up to his window. He fumbled with the window for a moment with his Petrosapien hand, a lost cause as the smooth, blunt fingers were useless for this particular task. When Kevin’s wings stuttered, causing him to drop a few inches, he made up his mind and smashed the window in with the diamond-hard fist. This was a bad neighborhood, what was one more broken window?
---
“Kevin, I have to take a big test in about four hours. What could be so important that you’re calling me before sunrise?” Gwen rubbed at her eyes with the heel of her palm, waiting for a question about why she’d be taking a test on a Saturday, but the expected response never came. Instead, she heard Kevin urgently insisting that Ben was badly hurt and she needed to come do her not-magic shit right now. The redhead hurriedly assured him that she’d be right over don’t worry she’d track Ben’s manna seventh floor broken window right she’d be there in fifteen minutes.
True to her word, Gwen arrived speedily with one of Ben’s spare t-shirts clutched in her hand. She slipped through the window, mindful of the glass shards, only to stop cold and gasp. Battling the forces of ultimate evil in the form of Vilgax and hunting down the DNAliens, among other species, had shown her some strange things. Even stranger was the appearance of some of her grandfather’s culinary experiments. Nothing, however, could compare to this.
Ben was stretched out flat on his stomach and on a blood-stained sheet, barely clinging to consciousness, with some sort of medicated cream slathered over his back. Squatting in front of him and wearing the most ridiculous pair of glasses Gwen had ever seen was Kevin in his mutated form. The mishmash of aliens grunted and beckoned her over tensely.
"He was cut up by a crazy fucker with a sharp knife. It stinks like iodine and I put some first-aid cream on his back, so it should be okay. You just need to close up those cuts before he bleeds out." Kevin pried carefully at the spinning face Omnitrix with a different tool in each of his four hands. When Gwen hesitated, he growled slightly and snapped his tail out. The prehensile appendage curled tightly around the hem of the redhead's shirt and tugged her forward, "Your cousin. Now. We can't take him to a hospital."
Shaking off her shock, Gwen dropped to her knees next to Ben, "You're right; they'd ask too many questions about how he got hurt." Gwen gathered the glowing pink aura around her fingertips.
Kevin paused in his work and looked up with a thoughtful expression on his face, "I was gonna say that they'd ask too many questions about me." When Gwen stared at the mutant with a perplexed expression, Kevin elaborated, "I'm not leaving him. Not like this."
Gwen gave Kevin a scrutinizing gaze before nodding approvingly. She lowered her fingers to Ben's back, but paused to ask, "What's with the glasses?" Ben, who had been largely silent up to this point, made a grunt that sounded like a cross between a groan of pain and an amused snort. The manna wielder relaxed slightly; if Ben was coherent enough to find Kevin's ridiculous glasses funny, he would be fine.
Kevin smiled faintly at Ben's sound, "I normally wear contacts. You'd be surprised how much they bother you when two of your eyes change shape and you happen to grow a third." The plain metal frames, one large and round on the right an two small and slanted stacked neatly on top of each other on the left looked like they'd been put together with a soldering iron and some wire. Gwen could only guess who he’d gotten properly shaped prescription lenses from. Kevin had already looked back to the Omnitrix, dismissing any further questions. Now that she was closer, Gwen could see a foreign metal band around the face of the watch. The spinning watch face looked as though it was trying to aid Kevin in prying the band off, but no such luck yet.
Shaking off the distraction, Gwen leaned over Ben’s back to inspect the damage. For the most part, the circular cuts had stopped bleeding. In some of the deeper cuts, blood had congealed under the surface of the clear first-aid cream while the shallower cuts were already beginning to scab over. Gwen sighed to relax herself and got to work. She passed her hands over Ben’s back twice before setting her fingers against the first section of cuts. The thin slices began to close slowly under her soothing touch, forming raised scars. Frowning, she concentrated on closing the wounds. Clearing up the scar tissue could come later.
Still face down, Ben made an appreciative moan. The burning, throbbing pain in his back was steadily easing up under Gwen’s hands, and the Omnitrix, which had previously tightened on his wrist when Kevin started prying, had loosened up once it realized that the genetic anomaly presently poking it with wires and picks was trying to get the inhibitor off rather than cause further damage.
The trio fell into silence, each absorbed in their own thoughts. With a half-roar, half-shout of triumph, the metal band popped off the watch face. The Omnitrix echoed Kevin’s glee with its own little beep. Gwen sat back on her heels and wiped traces of first-air cream off her fingers and Ben lifted his head a few inches. He stared pensively at Kevin and then to Gwen before sighing and dropping his head onto his now-folded arms, “I suppose we need to talk about what happened??”
Kevin and Gwen glanced at each other and came to a wordless conclusion. The mutant lifted Ben carefully and pulled his against his chest, “Not now. We’ll rest up first.” Ben sighed contentedly rested his head against the rough, Tetramandian skin of Kevin’s chest. Kevin, mindful of the freshly-healed wounds on Ben’s back, curled a furry and blood-matted arm around the burnet’s backside again while Gwen shifted to rest near her cousin and his misshapen guardian. The test could wait; healing took a lot of energy.
Besides, Ben was worlds more important to her.
---
Notes:
--It’s completely and totally wrong, but I’m actually starting to like Silla...I LIKE ABUSED CHARACTERS I JUST WANT TO MAKE THEM HAPPY OKAY LEAVE ME ALONE. I like praying mantises.
--I occasionally slide into little forays of stream-of-consciousness writing and I don’t know how well it’s going over with you guys. Should I keep it in my fics or nix it? It gets a little confusing, but it’s kind of fun.
--I’m entirely too amused by the thought of Kev wearing glasses.
--I am even MORE amused by the thought of Mutie!Kev wearing glasses.
--Used allegoryredstar’s design for the scars. HEY THEY REMIND ME OF TRANSMUTATION CIRCLES LOLFMA.
--My internet dropped out, followed shortly afterwards by my whole computer. It, for some reason, ate more than a page of Gwen-awesomeness and funny dialogue. So you get...This. I'm unhappy.
--I REALLY NEED TO LEARN HOW TO PLUG THINGS IN PROPERLY.
On to blackmystique! Hope you’re feeling better, hun!