Open // In-Progress

[furorimperator]

Who: a_general_chaos // silencesong // firstclasswings // slays_in_heels // blackhole_revel // eveningladies // frost_la_magra // mercuryquick // freedomonwings //not_puppet // revengebound // onegil // superninjayuf // 1led_them // ridiculoushair // unlocked_hart // 13sugars // andaateikaahrr // hellsingmaster // OPEN
When: After this.
Where: Streets of Paradise
Rating: Pg probably
Summary: ShinRa's General gets to work...and the city pays the price.

Kill them. Kill them allAnd so he was, without thought, without mercy. No less than fifteen had fallen to his sword; the

Comments

[unsharedburden]

"I'm not gonna forget your foot," she spat back irritatedly, a hand coming to the bridge of her nose. She pinched it, then spread her fingers out and rubbed her forehead, down to her eyes, trying to get everything to come into focus. "I don't know, I can go look," she muttered, opening her eyes. Her brow remained knitted together as she tried to see straight. The pain in her ribs was blinding, even more than her leg.

Buffy's gaze dropped to his hand, and she let her own fingers rest against his wrist, giving it a gentle squeeze. It was comfort, something they both needed. Even if everyone else was dead, the two of them weren't alone, and as much as that was not ideal, it was something.

"We have to get out of here. Away from here." She pushed to her feet, groaning at the stabbing in her chest, the jolts in her leg. But she had to help him up, and get him out; get them both out. Once he was safe, she could come back and look for Giles, and Deacon.

"I'll carry you if I have to," she muttered, shoving some more light rubble out of the way. There was a piece of broken pipe, probably from the plumbing, that would work well enough with something to fasten it to his foot. Her shirt would work; she had a tank on under it, and she could spare the cloth. It didn't matter anyway.

Buffy grabbed the pipe and carried it over to him, crouching in front of him, near his foot. "I'm really, really sorry," she murmured, bending the pipe to fit the shape of his heel, "This is probably gonna hurt a lot worse than hell." She set the pipe down long enough to pull her shirt up off her head, leaving her in the tank and her bra; that didn't matter. What mattered was bracing him and getting the hell out of this place.

As delicately as she could, she placed one hand at his knee, bending it, and the other under his calf. She lifted his entire leg, trying to keep the foot itself from moving as much as possible. She worked quickly, the hand from his knee grabbing the pipe as the other kept his leg elevated. She placed it against the back of his leg, fitting it against his heel and the bottom of his foot as best she could. He wouldn't be able to put weight on it, but he'd be able to move his leg easier, at least. She moved to prop his calf against a higher elevated heap of debris, so that her hands were free to rip the shirt into pieces that she used to strap the pipe in place. The extra bit of shirt was placed, folded, under his foot for padding so that the pressure from the pipe wouldn't be so sharply pressing into the ball and bottom of the shattered limb. Shoe or not, with the bones crushed, he'd feel that. "I'm really, really, really sorry," she murmured, repetitively, giving his foot a few light squeezes to make sure everything was well in place.

[eveningladies]

The irritation he could handle, but he noticed the lingering need for that contact before she started busying herself again. "It's okay; you should just," he was going to tell her to go and find someone else; Frost, her friend from her home, Dante, anyone. He'd be fine sitting still for a few minutes.

Until he spotted her with the pipe, until her apologies started and then he knew the dislocated shoulder had nothing on this. Moving his leg wasn't too bad, exceptionally uncomfortable in that way you know it's going to hurt in the next few seconds and there's nothing to do about it. He could feel the burn of bile in his throat.

The clench of his jaw almost hurt as much as the pressure she put on his foot as she strapped the pipe around his foot. She was right, it hurt a hell of a lot worse than hell. Even as his face tightened with the pain and his breathing stopped for a sheer minute, Hannibal couldn't stop from groaning out loud and getting painfully close to that scream.

"Oh, sweet Jesus, stop." He swore to God he would not pass out.

[unsharedburden]

"Hannibal," she muttered, slowly lowering his leg, placing it gently back on the ground, "Hannibal, I'm so, so, sorry." Her voice cracked, emotional. She didn't want to hurt him; she was just trying to help, really, and she wasn't a medic. She only knew just the most basic first aid training she'd learned as the Slayer, when needing to tend to her own wounds without someone else knowing. She'd never set, or braced, a broken bone before. Her head was spinning.

With a muffled grunt of pain, she struggled to move and kneel next to him. It was more like a squat, and with him sitting, it left her head a bit higher than his. She wrapped an arm around his shoulders and pressed her cheek to his head gently, rubbing the opposite arm, trying to comfort him. Her hand moved to rub his back, and she closed her eyes tightly. She was getting dizzy again, and her leg felt warmer than it had before. The tourniquet wasn't working as well as it should have been; she was bleeding, still. But when her eyes opened and she looked again, the blood wasn't coming from her leg. It was running down her side, from her ribs.

Oh, what now?

Her tank was red on one side, practically soaked - but she ignored it as much as she could, and moved to try and keep him from seeing. "Take a minute, and then I'll try to get you at least half on your feet, okay? We need to get out of this building before something else happens, to shelter somewhere. The clinic," she muttered against his hair, "Would be best."

[eveningladies]

Everything rolled; his vision, his stomach, the world. Holy hell, he never wanted to feel anything like that again. He could hear her murmuring apologies again, and then he felt her press to him. It was comforting, he wanted to tell her it was okay, he just needed a minute, but he still couldn't speak just yet.

Instead, his arm curled up and around her back, palm flattening to her back as he took deep breaths to calm himself from that passing out point again. Usually, pain came quick, and it was sharply followed by some kind of pleasure or passing out. It had always been a fairly reliable constant. These days, the pain came and went on it's own and only after lingering for days. The days where the injury lasted mere days were gone, and Hannibal no doubt had a while of this.

He heard Buffy speak, his forehead practically pressed to her chin as he stared over her shoulder and forced the thought of pain away. "Okay," he could take a minute, he'd be glad to take a minute, what he didn't like was the sound of her voice. It was off. "You okay?" His hand slid down her back, resting at the base of her spine, and he felt the wet, warm, sticky substance on her top. "Buffy?"

[unsharedburden]

"I'm just hurt," she answered, a little too quickly. She tightened her grip on him, wincing as his hand came in contact with the wet part of her tank. She could feel it; she'd been hoping that he wouldn't notice. "Not any worse than you are. I'm fine." Her tone was defensive, but weakly so. Buffy knew she was in a bad, bad place. But so was he, and he was her concern more than her own well being was. She was supposed to protect people, especially those she cared about. And he was definitely one of those.

"Can you get up yet? Or do you need longer?" she asked, trying to deflect the conversation from her decreasing blood supply, back to just getting out of that damn place. She needed to get him safe, so she could come back, and find Giles and Deacon, and anyone else, really.

[eveningladies]

The tone told him she was lying, it was worse than she wanted to let on. He'd been around Abigail for a total of three weeks, two days and seventeen hours. He knew that tone well enough already. What was with these women hunters and their tendency to be the heroes?

"Yeah," he'd fight through it, and they'd move, and they'd both go to the clinic and he'd make sure she got taken care of too. He would. "Help me up and I'll manage." That was one hell of a joke.

Regardless of how much he didn't want to strain her, how badly he wanted to get there on his own steam so that she wasn't hurt any further trying to help him, he knew for a fact the moment he put any weight on that foot his whole leg would give way under him. He was as good as disabled right about now.

[unsharedburden]

She slipped away from his grip, wincing as she pushed to standing, and stood so that her legs were straddling his. She held both of her arms out for him to take her hands. "I'm going to pull you back," she said firmly, "And I want you to try not to touch your foot to the floor, okay?" Buffy ignored the pulsing pain that told her she was going to be gushing blood the second she was tugging his weight; that didn't matter.

She gripped both of his hands, then looked him right in the face. "We're going to make it out of here, and we're going to be fine." Her voice was stronger now, more delusional and trying to convince herself than anything. Her grip on his hands tightened, and she began to pull, ignoring the sharp, searing pain in her side.

[eveningladies]

Whatever she'd been trying to hide from him before, he could see the full extent of when she stood over him. Her side was leaking blood like a sieve. And her straining it would only increase it. He didn't have the room to tell her no, without another option, if she didn't pull him up he'd be down until the rest of the building came down around them.

As she began to pull, he noticed the drawn, pained expression and shifted to put his weight on his good leg before she did too much damage to herself. Before he caused too much damage to her. His bad heel pressed against the unsteady ground for a second and Hannibal almost let go of her, only managing to stay standing.

His weight rested on his right leg, his good leg, and he took steadying breaths, even as his hand pulled her closer, one hand moving to steady at her hip while he leaned to catch his breath. She needed to stop for a moment, he knew it, he could tell. The flow of fresh blood over her tank told him more than she would.

"Stay still a moment." With that much blood loss, they were going to need to take it slow just to stop her from falling over from being too dizzy. They needed something to stop her bleeding again.

[unsharedburden]

She saw him nearly crash to the floor, and lunged to loop her arms under his, pressure pushing upward to keep him standing. "Oh no you don't," she choked out, trying to push through the pain enough to make sure he didn't fall back down. If that leg collapsed under him, they were completely screwed, because he wouldn't be able to move at all - and she wasn't going to leave him here. Not a chance in hell.

Tears streamed steadily down her cheeks, blurring her vision as they caught in her lashes while she made feeble attempts to squint them away. Buffy looked up at him as his hand came to her him, taking a deep and shaky breath. "How bad is it?" she whispered weakly, her hands balling into his shirt.

[eveningladies]

He had to choke back on whatever crawled up his throat, he wasn't sure if he could deny it being a sob or not. "Fucking horrible." He admitted. Right now, he couldn't think of anything worse.

It was shattered. As he stood, unable to even put his foot on the ground, he could tell. The whole fucking thing was shattered. He had to bite back what he knew was a sob, his head lowering to press his forehead against hers. He could see the tears in her eyes, and he instantly worried about her pain.

"How bad is it, and don't bullshit this time. How bad is your side?" The blood was still free flowing he guessed, and even if his foot sent wave after wave of agony along his legs, he didn't want her pushing herself further than she could go.

[unsharedburden]

"Promise I won't tell anybody if you need to cry," she murmured, trying to be a little bit humorous (she knew he'd appreciate that) as she gulped and allowed her forehead to rest back against his. She was weak, and more by the second. With every single blood cell that gushed out of her, she got dizzier. How much blood could possibly be left? She was lucky she healed fast; anybody else probably would've been dead by now. There was every chance that she would be, even in just split seconds. It terrified her. She'd died twice already, and still, the thought made her nauseous.

Her hands tightened more on his shirt and she choked a sob out. "I don't know, but it's bad," she managed to mumble, hoarsely and without much gusto. "I think my ribs are broken, I don't have any idea. But we have to get out of here. We can't do anything for anything if we don't get out."

[eveningladies]

His hands raised, cupping her cheeks as his thumbs wiped away the tracks of her tears. She was right, not only did they need to move away from the building, but she needed to see someone. He did too, but it was more for some kind of pain killer than anything pressing. He'd really love to not be able to feel anything right about then.

"Okay, okay." Trying to get out of there, without injuring her or causing himself more pain, because really, he refused to break, not for this. Even if she wouldn't think less if he did cry, if it did get too much, he didn't feel he could let it get to there. "If we get over there, I can use the wall, the walls, for support." Leaning on her wasn't an option in his mind.

[unsharedburden]

Her eyes closed tightly as his thumbs brushed her cheeks to clear away the tears, and a fresh set billowed down her cheeks. She swallowed again, slowly opening those greens and looking directly up at him with them. The grip on his shirt loosened a bit, and her arms moved to the outside of his, bent with hands curling to rest at his wrists, fingers spreading over the backs of his hands and giving them a light squeeze. It was a silent gesture of appreciation, a quiet thank you, before she began to move again.

She looked toward the wall, or what was left of it, and nodded. "But we can't get there without you leaning on me a little. Please, Hannibal, just--" she sighed, "Don't worry about it." Buffy turned away from facing him, standing beside him instead, and draped his left arm over her shoulders. She was going to be a support for him, whether he liked it or not; there would be no arguments about it. Even if it killed her.

[eveningladies]

That was exactly what he was worried about. He didn't want to hurt her more than he had to, and he felt like shit about that in the first place. He was in pain; she was bleeding out, she was dangerously close to passing out, she was in worse shape than he was and she was worrying about him.

Sometime, they would need to have a talk about priorities.

"Okay, just, oh sweet baby Jesus," he really, really didn't want to move, at all. But shit if they didn't need to. "Go slow, fuck, please go slow." Or as slow as he could stand them going. He wanted her to get out and get help, but holy hell, he was going to throw up soon.

[unsharedburden]

"I'm sorry!" she yelped, cringing and slowly beginning to move. "Okay," she paused, "Okay, here's what we're gonna have to do. You step on the good leg. I'll walk forward and rotate you a little. I'll hold your left side up, you hop forward with the right. Got it?" Buffy had to have a plan for this kinda thing. She didn't want him to get hurt. Well, any worse than he already was. "You can't put any pressure on that foot."

She looked up to him, sideways; he was really, really, really tall. Twice as tall as she remembered him being before, right now. "Are you ready? We'll take it one step at a time.."

[eveningladies]

He really hated this damn foot; it wouldn't been better if it had just been severed he was thinking. "Okay," he muttered it under his breath, they didn't have time for this, because if she did pass out, all the blood loss making it utterly possible that she could, he could do next to nothing for her.

With his good leg extended, trying to keep his left foot up without jarring it or knocking it or inflicting any kind of pressure to it, Hannibal was tiring himself. "Oh, just throw me into the wall." He was pretty sure getting dragged out wouldn't hurt as much.