theresnodoor | (no subject)

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(no subject)

When you fight for three years, you get used to the aspects of it. The secret keeping. The sudden pounding rush of adrenaline. The constant thrum of fear under your skin. The exhaustion. The rage. The helplessness and the power.

There are different kinds of 'get used to,' though.

There's the kind where, free of those constraints, you can relax. It never leaves entirely, but it ebbs. You don't miss it exactly but you recognize that you could go back to it in a heartbeat, if you needed to - and you tell yourself you don't want to.

There's another kind. Less readily admitted to.

The kind where you relax immediately. And slowly, surely, the thrum under your skin comes back. But the fear has a different flavor this time around, more restless than anything else.

The nice thing is, the solution is obvious.

The bad thing is, it's a solution you can't admit to.

Rachel does a lot of things to channel that thrum. Waking at dawn. Gymnastics routines. Runs around the lake. Training with the punching bag. Reading with Tobias. Talking, talking, talking to people. Morphing for fun.

But they're only channels, and none of them for much purpose.

There's only one thing that's given her true relaxation, release, since Milliways.

An afternoon walk in Milliways' forest and Rachel finds herself standing before a tall rock face, more than a hill but not quite a mountain. An opening several feet taller than she is - a rock cave.

Carved into the stone, a symbol she won't readily forget.

"...Daedalus."

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Let's hope not. She can't access that DNA anyway, so it's moot.

This time she watches, because it's a particularly un-disgusting process and because it beats actually thinking about her hand. When Rachel's human enough to be alert for a few seconds, Mel ducks her head under the water and runs her free hand through her hair, shaking off the last piece of sewage.

She's still fully dressed, and her shoes and socks are going to make her life miserable, but she doesn't envy Rachel's barefeet for a second.

Although...

She wonders how Rachel will feel about being carried, and decides probably negatively.

"Right, let's get outa here. I'm not dealing with another one of those."

'Negatively' is a rather mild way of putting it.

When she's human again, sitting in the dirt beside Mel, Rachel cranes to get a look at the underside of her foot.

Healed.

Then her arm, rubbing it with a free hand.

Sore, but visually fine.

"Man, it's so nice when that actually works," Rachel sighs, climbing to her feet.

"Don't it always?"

Mel gets her scythe first, of course. Reflecting that she's got electronics in her pockets that are probably dead now. Including a gun. She'll deal.

"That's skitzed."

"...sometimes."

The information's probably safe with Mel. She doesn't seem the type to use it - or care much, once she has it.

Rachel shrugs and stretches her arms above her head, wincing at the pull in the once-injured bicep. "Can you walk?"

Her legs are fine, Rachel knows that much. It's the combination of acid and sewage that concerns her.

"Yeah," Mel says.

As if her ability to do this reflects on her ability to walk, she flips into a handstand on her good hand, and back again. She's strong and fit, except for her useless left hand and that tiny burn on her shoulder.

It'll heal.

"just don't ask me to play guitar."

"But it would improve the ambiance so much," Rachel drawls.

She watches the rest of that handstand - admiringly - before they start walking again. As they move, she's scanning the ground, the trees.

"Caterpillars, jeez. This is ridiculous."

Mel is moving skittishly, watching the ground with every step, but looking up and around. Avoiding as many trees as possible. Watching every branch she can't help but push out of the way.

Nothing in this damn jungle is going to touch her without her permission.

"Evil should be big," she grumbles, sulkily. "The last caterpillar I fought as the size of a building. You know where you are when something eats you whole."

...you're in a mouth, for the most part.

Predictably: "Yeah, you're in a mouth."

Rachel wrinkles her nose, moving almost but not nearly as carefully as Mel. She has less to worry about, now she knows her morphing is behaving itself.

Or it was that last time. Is two in a row so hard to hope for?

"I used to fight Taxxons. Centipedes taller than me, big jelly bodies, and mouths-"

Rachel rolls her shoulders here. Mostly to hide her shudder.

"-well. It had more to do with the hunger than the mouths, but one kinda goes with the other."

Mel scowls. "Yeah, there's a whole ton of things that I'd get along with just fine if they weren't so hungry."

Lurks, for one.

"Or if they had any concept of what's inappropriate for eating."

"Taxxons will eat anything. Preferably with a heartbeat."

She's not entirely sure why she's talking about it. In the time she's been in Milliways, this is maybe the second time she's ever mentioned the aliens of her world.

Except Mel's hurt and Rachel isn't and it's possible she feels bad about that.

"I know the sort," Mel says. Because she does. There are lots of demons that fit that.

"Wish I didn't."

For that, Rachel can only shrug. After a moment, nod. Giving agreement instead of ignoring the statements. Because it's Mel talking about Mel-things, not pressing for more.

"Happens."

After a second, Mel dismisses maudlin thoughts, and shrugs.

"Yeah, world sucks. Only thing you can do is keep fighting until something gives."

Well, if she's going to throw off the maudlin, Rachel isn't going to point out what had to give in her case.

But it makes her think of other things. The fighting she left behind. How she's dealing here.

Where they are right now, and why.

"...why did you follow me in here?" she asks suddenly, checking the ground in front of her before glancing back at Mel.

Good question.

Mel smirks.

"Cause you looked like you were looking for trouble. And I'm not wired in a way that lets people look for trouble on their own."

That stops her, bare feet crunching leaves so she can turn and just look.

"...which one of us is hurt here?"

"Good point."

She shrugs it off, unimportant. "Told you, I've had worse. "Will have worse, too. Guess I'll never learn."

"So have I, but that doesn't mean I can run after people, unasked, so they can babysit me."

It's said low - and just a touch angry.

So Mel was spying on her, watching her. Saw where she was going. And decided she couldn't handle it on her own.

It's not just A Touch. But Rachel wants the hell out of this jungle more than she wants to scream at someone else's smirk.

Mel doesn't stop. But she doesn't keep smirking, and she doesn't look at Rachel.

She's given up trying to rationalize what she is. She was made this way, and accepting it was a thing she had to do.

But

"Be honest. Hands down truth. You think you could've made it through this on your own?"

The words are worse than the earlier realization. Rachel can feel the anger bubbling up, not cold, but hot in her belly. Watching Mel walk away from her and wanting so badly to feel the claws at the ends of her fingers, corded muscle rippling under her skin.

"Yes," is a snarl.

She's proven it time and again in the past.

She'd prove it to Mel.

She only loses when she chooses to.

Mel shrugs.

"Alright, then I was wrong."

As if it's that easy. She keeps walking.

Rachel stays standing where she is until the fur along her back melts away.

There is no hurrying to catch up. Mel's ahead of her, however many steps. Rachel will find her eventually.

Mel slows down, only to keep the distance between them managable. and because she's also skittish.

And because flexing her left hand against the bandages is not helping her healing, and she knows that.

And because. Well. Keeping the facade of calm because she knows it's a good idea doesn't make it any easier.

And because she thinks she sees a stone wall up ahead, and the jungle shouldn't have those.

Generally not, no. Cliff faces, perhaps. But as they peer through the trees, the stone wall is definitely a wall.

If a rather large one.

Rachel glares at it, if only for the break of glaring at Mel's back, and potential caterpillar hiding places. If it's new and different, that means a scene change for the Labyrinth and honestly, she's getting sick of this trip.

She almost bats away a soft pressure on her shoulder - and stops herself just in time, head turning sharply to inspect. But it's gone when she moves, frightened off.

Which is good.

Mel hand picked up pace again, but stops a good distance from the wall, to get a goo look at it.

She sees no doors in either direction, and now cranes her head to look up.

Up is the direction Mel usually prefers.