[OTA] The Price You Pay | Jordan's Challenge to Seven of Spades

[heartsthespades]

It wasn’t a pretty fight. Of course, there were no pretty fights, not really. When Jordan had challenged in fencing when he’d been fifteen, that had been a pretty challenge, more like dancing than a battle. But this was different

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[a_sudden_change]

She hadn't entirely known what to expect out of one of these things. Certainly, she'd heard the stories, of course. There were plenty of stories among the servants. But seeing the real thing...

...well, that was something different. Then again, one might also call it a gang initiation. Get blood on your hands and become one of us. Then another again, sometimes the Agency felt that way too.

So her face is kept carefully blank as she approaches Jordan with the first aid kit someone had told her to be there with. "Let me help with that," she says, showing him the box with the red cross on it, "it's what they've got me here for."

[heartsthespades]

Its not entirely wrong to think of it like a gang initiation, really. Of course, Jordan hadn't been required to kill Maddox - there would be those who disapproved - but it made things cleaner in the end. No counter, no watching out for a new Six or Four or whatever Maddox would have fallen to with an eye out for revenge.

He was just done.

He gives Diane a faint smile and shrugs out of his shirt with a wince. The dead man had caught him in the left shoulder, too high up to be fatal, but still uncomfortable. "Always the fun job, I've heard," he says. "You do a lot of this?" He hasn't gone to many Spade challenges, after all, and Amy and Ethan tended to be occasionally stupid about getting their wounds seen to when they could stalk out of challenge arenas with pride.

[a_sudden_change]

She shakes her head slightly, "this is the first one I've seen, actually. Not been here that long. Dad was both a boyscout and in the military though. Knowing first aid was a requirement in our house." She smiles a bit and starts to work cleaning the wound before she puts gauze and tape over it.

"Hoping I don't have to make it a habit," and that gets him a wry look and a raised eyebrow.

And considering how most people around here knew her as the girl who smiled too much, the look might be a little incongruous.

[heartsthespades]

"They tend to frown on too much death, actually," Jordan says as he turns and stills so that she can clean him up before they send him to the doctor. Whichever one was around for this, at least; Hadyn had said something about Caleb James having gone off-Deck for something, and Abby Benson had just plain left.

He didn't think the Spades currently had a doctor in residence.

"I'll probably get scolded."

[a_sudden_change]

She bites back on a snort as she slaps the last bit of tape on. Well, not slaps, in actuality. But still.

"I'm picturing a Jewish mother shaking her finger at you. Do they keep one of those around here for this sort of situation?"

Okay, maybe the smiles-too-much girl is coming back.

[heartsthespades]

It's almost like she's slapping it on, really, though Jordan only makes a slight face at it.

"I don't know a single Jewish mother," he tells Diane. Though from what Hadyn's said, Elisha can do a good approximation. "But the Queen has the scary Russian thing going on, so that's probably where it'll come from."

Well, that or the Ace, he supposes.

[a_sudden_change]

"Scary Russian, huh? I will make sure to stay out of her way."

Or discreetly watch her from a distance, whichever. Still out of her way.

"There you go, though, all patched up. Though you should probably get an actual doctor to take a look at you to be on the safe side."

[heartsthespades]

"You've probably seen her. She's hard to miss." Six foot tall stunners in five inch heels tended to stick out, but then - Jordan was a boy.

"I'll see if I can find one," he tells Diane. "They tend to be a little scarce around these parts."

[a_sudden_change]

"Well," she says, with a significant look back over at Maddox's body. "Guess you'd need more morticians than doctors, really."

If they basically kill everyone who steps out of line, it might be a reasonable train of thought to follow.

[heartsthespades]

"I think we've only got one of those, really." The kill or be killed attitude was...dying, he thinks. Clive certainly wants it to, and while Jordan didn't exactly help that today...well, he can't help being at least a little of who he was raised to be.

He probably should...reassure her or something, but he's not exactly all that reassuring at the moment, still covered in blood.

So he just pushes his hair back and nods. "Thanks."

[a_sudden_change]

It's okay, Jordan, she's made of sterner stuff than she looks. So she'll just put first aid things away and flash a not-entirely-sincere smile up at him. "Just doin' my job, Mister Seven."