apocalypsehowcomm | Leave me here, Burning with you (Open)

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Leave me here, Burning with you (Open)

Who: Andrew Jaeger

bloodalwaystells and Everyone!
When: Late April-May
Where: Various locations
Summary: Catch-all for post-assassination and TDM events
Warnings: Scars, hospital setting, burn wounds, mentions of violence, murder, and torture, burned bodies, more will be added as needed!

((OOC: Open to planning, just PM or brimstonemuse to discuss ideas and set up a starter! I will match brackets or prose, as desired!))

The Infirmary ((Approx April 23-30, after this thread)) CW: Burn wounds and other damage, hospital setting

It's not the first time that Jaeger has been hurt in the line of so-called "duty", and it won't be the last. Normally, it's something he can fix, but not anymore. Not here, especially since using his powers is partly what got him into this situation in the first place.

So, a hospital bed is home for a while, until he is steady on his feet and showing signs of good healing. He's being kept in the infirmary ward for some fairly severe burns, and some rather mysterious internal damage that has him occasionally coughing blood. Bandages cover one arm and his side and chest, and there's a quietly beaten, haggard look to him that the big man seldom allows to show. Painkillers help, and so do visitors, though his entirely inadequate hospital gown shows both a fine array of decorative-looking scars (well healed) on his arms, and the vicious mark across his throat that by now is starting to become common knowledge.

Visitors will be greeted with a wan smile, though, once word gets out that he's laid up. It's better than listlessly flipping through cable channels for something interesting to watch. Most of the time, he settles on a murder mystery or old western, though other times he'll simply doze through whatever's on the screen.

Well-Read - (May 1 - 12): CW: mentions of torture, murder, scars/scarification, Bad Magic

Being out of the infirmary is a relief for Jaeger, even if it means returning to something like chaos. He's still healing, though, still tentative and careful in the way he moves. A book fair, though? That's a good excuse to get out and about. Fresh air, a change of scenery, and hopefully, bringing back something interesting to read while he's still recovering a bit.

There's still bandages, but he's better. He'll continue to get better, he's resolute on that. He might be out of action for a bit, but certainly not too much longer. He hopes.

In the meantime, he'll be found browsing the offered books, especially the folklore and local history sections. Or, occasionally, hunched over a laptop, a rare deep scowl on his face as the questions flash by. Terrible, pointedly direct questions, that the computer has no business knowing.

Hello, Sebastian. May we call you that? No. Invalid answer. Hello, Sebastian. May we call you that? No. Invalid answer. Hello, Sebastian. May we call you that? Yes. Excellent! Welcome, Sebastian.

This is not the worst of the questions. Not even close to it. Do you still love your wife? gets a vicious glare, and by the time he gets to Why did you kill Claudia when she was already helpless? he's ready to throw the laptop. Or just wither and die on the spot...that's an option too. He's tired and overdue for his next pain pill and goddamn, sometimes this place is just awful.

Alternatively, he might catch a glimpse of your screen, even in spite of his best efforts not to pry. But it's really just a reading questionnaire, right? There's no harm in seeing what kind of questions they're- oh. Okay.

Training Wheels Off - (May 13 - 14) CW: burn wounds, burned bodies, claustrophobia

The Train

Jaeger has never been fond of flying, really. A train proves much more comfortable, even if it's slower, and he is still healing. Most of the bandages are off by now, but he's still just a little bit careful, a little bit tired. Three weeks is a good amount of time to heal, though, and his wounds are well on the way to becoming new scars across his chest and arm.

He's going to choose to take the time on the train to relax as best he can, to lose himself in the liminal space of travel. They're going to be on the train for a while so he may as well make the best of it.

Until things start getting weird, at least. Then he can be found on a slow patrol of the train, or standing sentry (or sitting sentry) at one of the ends of the train cars. Breaks are taken in the dining car, usually with a cup of apple juice or a bottle of water and gaze alert to the darkness beyond the windows.

At some point in the evening, after the chaos of the Tunnel Incident, Jaeger will return to his assigned sleeping car, and whoever his roommate for the trip might be. If it's someone he knows, he will be as cordial as ever...if it's someone he previously hasn't met, well, he'll still be friendly, if a bit reserved? But quick to introduce himself before stretching out his huge frame on the provided bedding with a deep sigh.

Burned Bridges

He's not hallucinating. He's pretty sure of that, and the sight of the body propped up by the tracks, contorted by intense heat into something barely human-seeming, is a strange and surreal shock after the night they've had. He's seen a lot of Weird Things In The Woods but a body always draws his attention right away. It's wired into him by now, with all the awful things he's seen, even though through the glass of a moving train car, it's oddly distant and surreal.

Until Jaeger sees the lower portion of a leg, and the whole thing snaps into focus. Untouched, unscorched, just laying there amid the charred, leathery mess of the rest of the corpse. "That's human."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Beau was busy tussling with Fenix when everyone else was going after Roderick and Penny, and all things considered, she's... fine. It's a bit hard to tell with a girl already so covered in scars and old injuries what's new and what isn't, but whatever the case, her injuries aren't dire enough to keep her down for too long. Or at the very least, none of the medical staff can physically do so, so here she is.

Ultimately, she's got her robes on, but the bandages around her hands are different than the usual tape she's got for fighting. There's also some marks around her stomach and what looks like a bigger cover somewhere around a shoulder, but otherwise, she looks as confident as ever.

Which is why she walks into where Jaeger is with a little smirk on her face to see him so laid up. "Wow. Fire not your thing, huh? Looks like you really got your ass beat." Beau doesn't wait for a greeting to come and sit nearby, flex one of her legs just a bit until something in her knee pops before she sets it back down. "Who were you after?"

It seems a lot of them are a bit banged up, but Jaeger is always relieved when someone else walks into his room. None of them are dead, from all he can tell, and the injuries might take some time but the matter is, at least for now, dealt with.

Whether it stays that way, they'll find out eventually, but for now, he's taking what he can get.

He looks up when Beau comes in, giving her the faintest crooked smile before reaching for his cup of apple juice. Of course he notes the bandages: few of them got out of this whole mess unscathed and he expects that Roderick and Fenix were just as rough as Penny.

"To be perfectly fair, some of it is internal bleeding. They just want to keep an eye on me for a few days," he returns amiably. Of course he didn't get his ass beat: he's not the one in pieces in a shallow grave full of sawdust somewhere.

Also, he's got painkillers, which are really nice right now. He appreciates chemistry so much at the moment.

"Winter and I dealt with Penny. The one with the fire whip." He winces, shifting to put his cup back on the little bedside table, then settles back into the nest of pillows. "It was a bit more complicated than planned. It turned out she was held together with wax."

Which is exactly as disturbing as it sounds.

"Oh, totally fair that the blood is still in your body, sure." She's grinning at him as she says it, but lets it go just as quickly. "So you were whipped, got it. Did Aelwyn not tell you about the whole wax thing? Apparently that's what's up with the whole Desolation guys. Turns out that also hurts." She wiggles her fists back and forth, as if to suggest exactly why she has these burns. As it turns out, trying to punch a human candle is very, very painful. Who'd have thought?

"'Ss probably how Roderick was too. So far seems like we all got 'em without losing anyone, though. So that's good, I guess."

"It's funny how it can cause just as many problems in there as it does outside," he jokes wryly. He's not above a little black humor, especially when laid out the way he is. And mentions of being 'whipped'? That's just hilarious given his ten years of marriage. "But I'm stable and recovering well, so I'll take it."

He gives Beau a sympathetic look, then gestures toward the rolling service tray off to the side. The water is on the bedstand, leaving the rolling tray free to host a small assortment of fruit, chocolates, and other snacks, clearly get well gifts left for Jaeger while he's recovering. "If you'd like something sweet, help yourself. There's more than I can manage, here."

A brief detour in the conversation, but he wants his guest to be comfortable. He continues after that, quietly matter of fact.

"We didn't know about the wax, so we had to improvise. We did know that she wouldn't be harmed by knives or bullets, though." He glances around, to make certain that no one else is listening, no lingering nurses or other personnel before he continues.

"We used grenades and magic. And even that didn't do the job until we found some sawdust and roofing nails."

Beau hardly needs to be given the okay before she casually starts taking food and snacks, shoveling some into her arms before she sits down nearby.

"Sometimes the easiest shit is the best. Maybe I'll just get a nail gun." She's kind of more of a fan of hitting things with her hands, but having some ranged never hurts. "Glad you figured something out though. Fenix acted like a little shit the entire time. Should've known better than to think he'd give us any clear answers other than confirmation that he was a little bitch. Anything from Penny?"

Jaeger watches Beau gather her snacks with quiet satisfaction, glad that he can share his bounty with someone who appreciates it. He might be in a hospital room in a corporate building, but he still believes in rules of hospitality and he sincerely likes Beau's company.

It's nice having someone he trusts nearby, a comforting presence at a time when he really could use it.

"She didn't have anything to say, but we never planned to take her alive," he says quietly, with a small shake of his head. "Most of the information was expected to come from Fenix, and I think it would have taken more than Winter and myself to subdue her. It was very much a maximum force situation."

Could they have bagged up the wax fragments and body parts and brought them in to wait for them to reform? Probably, but by the time they'd gotten to that point, the two of them were already injured beyond ideal operating parameters and it was a matter of just ending it.

"I talked to Pyre the first time around, and he didn't seem quite as involved as the others, but he was still part of it so I have my questions. He burned his hand to the bone in front of me, and seemed very disappointed that I didn't react with the shock and horror he expected."

She listens intently, taking some bites out of an apple as he talks. It all sounds about right- not that she would expect him to lie or anything. But it still puts them back to an earlier square, a more difficult predicament, because as far as she's concerned she didn't get much from Fenix at all.

"Figures. It wouldn't be safe to try and restrain her anyway. Fenix was enough of a dick about it." Even if he mostly seemed to be getting a kick out of it versus it being real torture. "Apparently Pyre's missing. Nobody found him during the whole thing, or beforehand. Aelwyn thinks he was in over his head and Fenix already got rid of him."

Which would be... disappointing, somehow. That the kid came and went so quickly without really knowing where he was headed-- or where he was. But maybe they can do something about that for the future. Who knows.

"Agreed. We might have managed well enough with Fenix, but more prisoners make things more complicated and less predictable. Especially with their abilities."

He probably shouldn't have been surprised at the gouts of fire, but they hadn't been expected, either, and wasn't that an unwelcome little trick. They had probably been far luckier than they had any right to be, to have come out on top in the first place.

It's good to be able to debrief, to go over their experiences with a calm, rational (if slightly painkiller-hazed) mind. Jaeger shifts carefully, reaching over to pour himself a cup of water. It's cold and clean and very possibly the best thing ever, and chases away the sourness in his mouth, the dry scrape of his throat.

"I don't know how far involved Pyre was, but I expect that things wouldn't have turned out well for him no matter what, at this point." He says it with his own measure of regret. No one's really been clear on if there's a way back from that kind of bargain, and Jaeger...well, Jaeger isn't entirely sure what to think. Certainly, he'd expect at least some measure of contrition before such a thing could even start.

So he stays there for a few moments, sipping his water. "I suppose he could have run, too, if he knew that Fenix was likely to get rid of him. I don't know if that's a good or bad thing to hope, though. Being so...pliable, with something like that whispering in your ear."

Arson at the very least? Very possibly leading to some truly awful things.

Beau just shrugs. "I dunno if it's better that he's out there. Once somebody gets to one of those points of no return, it's just... eh." She's not really one to be making those judgements on someone she's never met, nor someone who she isn't really sure if they've done anything wrong. Fenix is different, as far as she's concerned. It's complicated, and not especially what she actually came here to ask him, so it's time to get into that instead.

"So did you feel anything weird? While you were dealing with her." It's a question a little out of left field, but she has a point to it, really, and she's watching him as she asks. "Besides like... pain, basically, that's a given."

"I suppose we'll either find out, or we won't." He's tired and it's a heavy subject, and there's not much to be done about it except keep a watchful eye out. He rubs his eye absently with the back of his hand, settling further into the pillows.

Beau's question gets his attention again, though, and he shifts, the better to look at her while still not moving too much.

"There was a lot of fire. She could set her whip aflame, and also shot something like a flamethrower at us." He touches his bandaged chest lightly, frowning, because that had been a miscalculation he was going to be paying for.

"The strangest thing, though, was that she was made of wax underneath." He's going to try and put this delicately, but there's really no way to be tidy about it. "After the grenade went off, what was left was a mix of body parts and wax, that started trying to reform as soon as they were...ah, separated. We had to mix them with sand and bury them in separate graves to be sure the job was done."

He looks at her curiously, to see if that was what she was thinking of. Because that certainly counted as weird to him.

She listens, taking mental notes of what she knows and what she's looking for. The wax thing is known, or at least... well, some of it is. The fact there was any kind of blood or guts under there is it's own question, but not really the one she was asking. When he's done, Beau sighs, leaning back in her chair and looking towards the ceiling as she thinks of how to phrase this.

"Okay, that's-- yeah, that's really weird, but more like... did you feel something. When you were fighting. Something that didn't feel like you, but.. in, y'know. You?" Her head tilts back down, eyebrows up, as if she's hoping he catches the jist and gets that she isn't here to sell him out.

Jaeger pauses for a long few moments, because he doesn't know precisely what she's asking, but his mind automatically goes back to that night anyway.

To the bloodlust, the want. Stalking Penny, reveling in the fight and the old, familiar thrill of finally cornering his prey. The rush of blood and magic, the taste of smoke and dust and lightning and that shining moment when Penny realized just what was about to happen.

It's awful and thrilling at the same time, and it makes Jaeger recoil, closing his eyes at a sudden wave of dizziness. He opens his eyes again, after a second, and looks at Beau a bit helplessly.

"If you're asking what I'm thinking, then...yes. I had to use my powers during the fight, and that...came with complications." He blows out his breath slowly, heavily. It still hurts to breathe like that, but it's calming, steadying. And a reminder of just what happens when he lets his abilities get out of control, because his own overreach is a bit part of the reason that he's in this bed in the first place.

She can see the disorientation on his face, the way he feels something he doesn't want to. It doesn't make her happy to make him relive that, but in a way, it's... relief all the same. Something something misery loves company, after all.

Beau sighs too, a little breaking of the breath from between pursed lips. "Sorry. I mean, for pushing like that, I just... it's weird, right?" She pauses to try and get her words, tries again. "Like I don't have magic or anything, there isn't... powers, I dunno, but there was something else there. Just kind of... egging you on to do bad shit."

"It's alright. Honestly, I think we need to talk about it more. To be aware of what we're all going through. Because I suspect it is all of us, or close to it." They're all in the same boat, sort of- The boat of having something vast and incomprehensible trying to have its way with them, and it's only that much more terrifying for its insidiousness. For how it tries to make them believe that it's okay, that it's right, that it's what they want.

Jaeger has spent entirely too many restless nights thinking about it, feeling the dying sparks of his magic buried inside him and knowing that he could kindle them to full flame, if only he were willing to do-

And that's the trap. He huffs a quiet sigh, looks back up at Beau with knowing glance.

"It is weird. And terrible. We know what the right thing to do is, but the justification is too easy. Just one little thing. Maybe a few little things." Things he could probably justify to himself, even in the daylight with how jaded and worn he's become. "That's how it happens, I suppose. Until suddenly, you're so far in you can't see the light anymore."

She nods at his assessment, looking just a bit off to the side on the floor as she thinks about the information, processing it into a response.

"I just don't get how we're supposed to do this without getting eaten by it. We're, like... we've been marked since we got here, and we didn't pick that either. The more we try to understand the more we have to play ball or we just-- fucking die. The people in with 'em are the only ones that can get power. There's just no way to get on their level without falling for it." Her tone is frustrated, but restrained, knowing she's preaching to the choir on this. "Just... how do we fucking keep them out, y'know? How do we get strong enough to kill the assholes without getting stuck in the quicksand?"

Jaeger sighs, soft and full of commiseration.

"I wish I had answers," he admits, after a moment of letting her just get it out of her system. Frustration is a bitter, toxic thing, and secrets like this...they're hard. Do you trust your co-workers to help, or do you hope that you can control it yourself? Do you watch them the same way they're probably watching you?

It's miserable and depressing and Jaeger hates it just as much as Beau does. He'd been trying to be a better man at home, and he still is here but it's so much harder.

With the Hunt reminding him every day how much he revels in the chase, the catch, even, with grim satisfaction, the kill. It's so easy to slide down into that dark place, to feel like it's justified, and to lose sight of the good in favor of what becomes an addiction, a fleeting and ever-consuming rush.

"It's a wire to walk, I think. That's the only way I've found, so far. Because sometimes, there doesn't seem like much choice. You can choose to only...feed on the worst of people, the ones you think might deserve it, but that's a hard judgment to make."

He shakes his head, gives her a sad and weary look of understanding. "The best we can do, I think, is measure every use of power very, very carefully. And watch each other, because there is a point of no return. A point where the power becomes everything, and you lose the ability to see the harm you're doing in return."

She didn't come into this thinking he was going to have some sort of answer, some way to make all of this make sense. At this point, she should be thankful enough that someone else is experiencing this, that she isn't totally alone. But somehow it's still disappointing that she doesn't have an answer, that he doesn't, that they're just... stuck.

"Yeah. Just. I've got your back if you've got mine, right?" He's been solid for that sort of thing in the past, and that's about all she can offer right now. "Okay? Once, y'know, you're not... stuck here, with all this."

Jaeger nods solemnly.

It would be better if there was an answer, any kind of answer besides "it will probably all go horribly wrong". But if nothing else, at least there's solidarity in the shared experience, in the recognition of the threat and the desire to cling to humanity and sanity for as long as possible.

It does help, even if it's not a perfect solution.

"Anything you need me for, I'm willing to do my best," he says resolutely. "As many difficulties as this place has, it's...the people have been good. It's been a long time since I've had people I can rely on, and that's been important." A faint smile, tired and strained around the edges but as sincere as he can manage. "I've learned a lot of things the hard way, in the past few years, and...if I can make it a little easier for others that way, then I think I'm okay with that."

She snorts, a little grin tugging at her lips. Something to be said about having friends around, making things more bearable, ect ect ect. All she knows is that it's some kind of comfort not to be alone in it all.

"Appreciate it. And I... know the feeling. When I came here I had just sort of gotten my first crew. Wish they were here, but. You'll do." Beau takes another snack from the pile she'd amassed, giving her something to do with her mouth while the silence sits with them.

"And y'know, I'll take care of all this extra food. Like a good friend."

"I was on the run for a long time. Almost six years. I had a few people I could trust, but I couldn't really spend time with them. I always had to keep moving, to keep us all safe. Always a different place, a different bed, but the same dangers. All the time."

He's a little surprised to hear himself admitting this, but, he's on good drugs and if he's very honest? He actually does trust Beau.

Now that he's learning how to trust again, to actually be with other people and not a total mess. It's not always easy, but...it does help. It's a small comfort, but one that Jaeger will take advantage of.

It gets another brief smile from him when Beau goes for the gift baskets again, and he watches her with her treats.

"I'm happy to see it go to good use."

Aww, look at that, they're bonding. She gives him a knowing nod, but settles back in and doesn't press it. They're very similar, and in the past that might have given her pause. At least there's something to be said about growth for the both of them.

In the meantime, she kicks back, armful of more food. "So, got any good TV channels in here? I can chill for a bit." It's gonna take her a hot minute to finish all this anyway-- better get comfortable.

Jaeger feels...quietly good about what he's shared, that little bit of further connection between them. He likes Beau, and more importantly, he trusts her well enough to speak. To share. Maybe even to doze off for a little while, while they watch TV.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Leave me here, Burning with you (Open)

infirmary!

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cw: reference to body parts, gore

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probs about wrapped?

Good place for me!