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]

The one place they'd been able to seek shelter from the storm, and a place that she'd begun to call something-like-a-really-shoddy-version-of-home, much that it wasn't actually... All of it, completely obliterated. The building had cracked and begun to shatter, collapsing on them all. Instead of covering her own head, she'd done what she could to shove Giles out of the way, shielding him and taking a few blows until the rubble separated them

[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

[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.

[unsharedburden]

She used the brunt of her strength to lift him up and move him again, as his right foot served as his own leverage. It hurt, a lot; he wasn't exactly Oz or Xander, he was a big guy, lots of muscle, and heavy. But she'd thrown heavier into a wall with less effort. The injuries just made what would've normally been a breeze into one hell of a task.

"Sorry, no can do," she grunted, repeating the process. She got him as close to a wall as she could, even with how slow they were moving. "Don't lean on it fully. It might not be stable," she murmured, keeping herself lifted, holding him up for support. "Take a second, breathe." She couldn't tell if she was talking more to him, or herself. Things just got blurrier and blurrier.

[eveningladies]

He pressed his hand to the wall in an experiment to see how sturdy it was. It held okay, only a slight shift in the wall at the press. "Hey, hey," he leaned against it then, pressing his back to the wall and pulling her to lean against him with an arm around her shoulders.

"Take your own advice, okay." She needed to calm herself a little, all the exertion couldn't be helping her at all. He was worried about her side, about the blood, about the wound in general. "Will you let me see it?"

He wanted to determine if there was shrapnel, or if something could cause an infection. She might heal quicker than most, but that didn't make her Supergirl.

[unsharedburden]

She let out a soft gasp of pain as she leaned against him, tensing. It hurt so much, but she knew that he was probably in more agony than she was. She didn't know what the condition of her ribs happened to be, but even with as bad as it probably was, his shattered foot was worse.

"No," she muttered, "I won't, because we have to get you out of here before we worry about me." She was nearly hissing, it was so painful to talk. Her voice was weak and broken, and her ribs felt like they might just explode at any second. Breathing was a chore.

[eveningladies]

If this had been any other situation he'd have shook her. "I'm already worried about you." He half groaned, a mix of pain and frustration. She really had to start thinking about herself. He couldn't do it all on his own.

"Okay, fine," if he could hobble out, then she might let him check her over. "I'll try to catch you as you pass out, but please don't be offended if I don't." He was getting a little testy, and he knew it. Exhaustion, shock, the adrenaline wearing off. Whatever it was, he just wanted to make sure she wasn't going to keel over the moment they got out of the wreckage of the building.

"Somewhere, God hates me."

[unsharedburden]

"I'll be fine," she murmured, "I'm not gonna pass out. I would have already, if it was going to happen. I heal fast." Buffy frowned at how tense he was getting, the snappiness in his words. But she really couldn't blame him, could she? "I really just want to get out of this building before worrying about anything else." Her mind went back to Giles for a moment. Deacon... He couldn't die unless it was by silver or sunlight. He would be okay. But Giles? Giles was just a human... And he wasn't exactly spry and youthful, either.

"I'm sure that wherever he is he doesn't care about any of us enough to hate us," she responded, pushing back from him a bit. "Gotta keep moving. Almost out."