Night 58: Pantry 1

[doneinthree]

[from here]

Momentum carried Kirk forward even as the scene changed: snow gave way to tiled floor and the field to a row of shelves, which they all got to experience intimately as Kirk slammed into Glasses and Wichita, and the two of them slammed into an assortment of soup cans, which tumbled off the shelf and down on their heads. Being the tallest, Kirk caught the brunt of the assault, because that was really all he needed right now on top of a gunshot wound and disorientation from the sudden teleportation. "Ow, ow, ow—"

Vaguely, he was aware of how deeply unheroic this whole thing had been, just as he'd been aware of how ridiculous he probably looked to the transporter technicians after he'd gotten trounced on the drill by Romulans and nearly killed himself and Sulu after losing his 'chute. But they were alive, or so Kirk judged from the echoes of ow from beneath him, and he'd take a ridiculous rescue any day of the week over an unsuccessful one. He let the pipe drop from his fingers, where it clattered on the floor alongside the last of the rattled soup cans, and grabbed his flashlight as he stepped away from the other two. They were in some sort of pantry... he remembered storage rooms marked on the map beside the first floor kitchen. Interesting.

It appeared they were— No. Kirk turned to point his flashlight at the exit, and frowned. He thought he'd saw someone darting from the room — short, with long pale hair — but the door stood firmly closed, and he hadn't heard anyone or anything in here except Wichita and the other guy. Funny. The last time he'd been in this area, he'd been with... okay, never mind, those cans hit in the head harder than he thought. The three of them were alone. Kirk finally allowed himself to prod at his bloody arm and grimaced. The bullet had passed clean through and hadn't hit bone, but his shirt sleeve was a mess. So much for his shiny new uniform.

But as much as it hurt, he knew he'd gotten off inexplicably lucky. Wichita had probably been shot worse. Kirk clamped a hand over his wound and looked over at the other two. "Everyone in one piece?" he asked, trying for a tone of confidence.

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[touchedgod.livejournal.com]

This had been what Billy had expected to find about forty five minutes ago. This was the sort of teleportation he was supposed to have experienced. Of course, being bombarded by food stuffs with someone in tears wasn't part of the original plan. It was a little late to be complaining about his design going awry, though. He recovered quickly enough from the shock, and took stock of where they had landed. As his eyes skimmed the shelves, his mind was still stuck on their rapid change of location. He couldn't completely suppress the chilly fear of another not-death, but... this wasn't Simon's work. "Kirk" had done it, and there had been no classic sound of being beamed, oddly enough. It also didn't escape Billy's notice that Kirk had ordered them to grab one another, or that momentum had been passed through and right into a waiting wall of offended soup cans.

Billy wished he had asked more questions about the various ways to move things and people. When Wati and Dane had discussed it, the hows weren't important. Billy might have disagreed, if he knew he was going to be jumping around through space this often. Regardless, he didn't feel any more or less alive or dead than he had earlier. That was probably the most important thing, or it had to be, considering he had nothing else.

"It's alright, it's okay," he told the girl, more authoritative than he might have once been. Much more tired, that was certain, but he didn't need to convince himself it was all under control, just her. The blood didn't bother him as much as he thought it would either. He clicked on his flashlight, demurely aiming it downwards before he blinded someone. The ambient light lit up her pretty face a bit, contorted with emotion as it was. She was young, a little younger than himself, but not a girl.

"You aren't going to die." Maybe. God, Billy didn't know. Maybe she really was going to bleed out in front of them. Despite being fired on multiple times recently, he'd never seen a gunshot wound anywhere but on television. He extended a hand to her cautiously. "Just turn around, we'll get it."

[doneinthree]

He was right, it was worse; but if Wichita could still stand and talk after all that, it was unlikely to have pierced a lung or someplace equally dire. Kirk watched the other man as he tried to soothe her, and was reminded from his firm but gentle demeanour (and his appearance, a little) of watching Bones with a patient. This man was younger than his friend, probably around their age, but like Bones would've been, he was hardly shaken by what had just transpired. Good.

"You'll be okay," Kirk echoed. He stepped away further to give them both as much room to breathe as they could get in this pantry. He'd been around Bones enough to know that if someone else had the situation in hand, crowding them wouldn't help. "Just put pressure on the wound. Maybe sit her down too. You can use... ah..."

Kirk's flashlight swung around the room but there was nothing in here except packaged food. Shaking his head, he lifted his hand from his bleeding arm and tugged his uniform shirt off, leaving him in the black undershirt he'd worn for much of the chaotic trip he'd had before landing in Landel's. He tossed the bundle of gold fabric over to the bespectacled man.

"Apply pressure. I'll look around outside for something we can use, unless you both want to follow me too." Kirk smiled reassuringly as he nudged the door open to the kitchen. "I'm Kirk, by the way. Her name's Wichita." Longer introductions could be made later.

[cons]

"Hey." With the added distance between the three of them came another mood change, and Wichita was back to clearing her throat and trying to save face for the second time that night. Even though this time she... actually had a reason for feeling overwhelmingly depressed. "Nice to m-meet you."

It should have bothered her more that she sounded all wrong, but she was too distracted to question it beyond the idea that she was probably just over-reacting due to the fact that she'd never been in a situation like this before. Her mouth opened to protest when Riverside started pulling off his shirt, because what no she didn't want to use his uniform to mop up her blood. He had his own wound to take care of!

But. She was selfish enough not to turn the offer away.

Wichita turned her body enough so that the other man could get to assessing her shoulder, but once the door was open she was moving again.

"We're coming with you." Because yes, she could speak for the both of them, apparently. At least, she thought it was a safe assumption he wouldn't want to hang out in the pantry the rest of the night. She turned to look back to the man that was now stuck with looking after her, gesturing towards her shoulder with her other hand. "If you could just show me where to press, I can hold the shirt there. I can't actually tell where the bullet went in, it all just hurts."

At least she wasn't panicking like she was a couple minutes ago. And again, it was weird how fast she went from crying to adrenaline-induced action mode, but maybe she was the only one that noticed. "And you," She turned to face Riverside again. "what the hell was that all about? The blipping we just did? You can teleport? That's fancy."

[touchedgod.livejournal.com]

"Billy," he said reflexively, which was good, considering that anything more complex than parroting his own name was going to be shaky. He was busy staring at Kirk, dumbfounded.

Billy had thought he was beyond this. He'd seen too much to get caught up on weirdness now. His life was weird. He, Billy, was weird. But all the same, his mind emptied of any thoughts that were not tied up in Star Trek. It had only been in jest that Billy had called the man Captain Kirk, and it was strange enough to have it echoed back at him. What shocked Billy the most was his face. Billy nearly shivered when his eyes met with the actor's. Hell if Billy could remember his name, though, so apparently whats-his-face was going to reprising his on-screen role tonight. He wished Simon could have seen this, maybe kicked his last ghost out of excitement. But on the other hand, Simon seemed like the sort of fan that had more venom than love for the reboot. Billy had been ambivalent.

Composing himself, Billy accepted the shirt. He tried not to react to how detailed and high quality the garment was, but he did spare it a couple glances before he applied it to the now very visible wound on Wichita. There was already blood on it, and his confusion was tainted with a concern that Kirk, like his T.V. counterpart, wanted to play the hero. Again. His eyes briefly moved down to the action star's arm.

"Right here." Billy told Wichita, stumbling out of his reverie. He folded the gold cloth, then pressed it gingerly to her back. He waited for her to reach around and take the shirt from him, and prayed he wasn't going to make anything worse. She didn't seem particularly at a loss to Kirk's Kirkness, and was only somewhat puzzled by his knacking.

"Whatever you did, thank you." Billy released any questions he might have about his rescuer, or his rescue. It was looking like one step forward, and two steps back. They were inside, but inside where? Billy felt like his feet were tangled up, and every time he tried to run, it dragged him back. The Angel was silent and undisturbed, or maybe still out on that field, rolling and clattering its way to him. "Thanks for stepping in in the first place. But she's right, we're not staying here."

Each for their own reasons, of course. He glanced at Wichita, but gained no clue to what she wanted out of this.

[doneinthree]

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