tampered | (no subject)

(no subject)

When; October 30th, evening.

Rating; PG-13

Characters; Kitty Jones (

kittyjones), Faye Valentine (

glock30)

Summary; Kitty heads over to Faye's place, to give a little medical attention and a whole lot of sarcasm.

Log; It was getting late. The sun was beginning to fade away into the last quiet night the City would have in the month of October. Tomorrow was Halloween, and Kitty had no doubt the streets would be filled with... well, she wasn't entirely sure what they'd be filled with. One could never tell in the City. But her mind wasn't really on candy and costumes.

It really wasn't on candy and costumes.

It wasn't far to walk, Building 8 was right next-door to her own block, but Kitty was in no mood to dawdle. She worried her bottom lip furiously with her teeth, and clenched her hands into fists. She hurried along the streets, not running, but walking at a brisk, fast past that seemed to warn everyone to get the hell out of her way. Her satchel was hastily slung over one shoulder, one buckle not secured in haste, and if a person had walked past her they could hear various thing rustling and clinking within it.

Whilst she was terrible at keeping up with the food shopping, for some reason Kitty was always able to keep a full medicine cabinet. She'd been almost paranoid, preparing for every pain-related eventuality, ever since she... she'd been...

Kitty shook her head. No point thinking about that now. That wouldn't help.

"She better not be drunk," the girl muttered under her breath in an attempt to distract herself. She was, of course, Faye. Faye who had been acting her normal annoying, sarcastic, far too big for her boots self until she let slip that something was... wrong. Faye has said something about a need for First Aid, and for some things to be dressed. Which implied wounds. Which implied something had caused the wounds. Which implied something, whatever the hell it was, had attacked Faye. What if she was -

Again, Kitty shook her head. Wouldn't help. In the slightest.

She was at the apartment now, coming up to the door, and pausing for a moment to compose herself. If she walked in looking like she did now, all flustered and windswept, she'd never live it down from Faye. Drawing in a deep, steadying breath, she straightened the sleeves of her coat and smoothed back her hair with one hand, before knocking on the door. She hoped the knock was brisk, yet casually. If knocks could really be measured in such ways. Probably it was just your average knock.

"Knock, knock, Valentine," she called in a voice somewhat filled with false cheer.

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Faye was beginning to hate the interior of her apartment. The living room was composed of white walls and dark hard wood, and she was pretty sure that she had memorized every crack, crevice, and sign of warping in both surfaces. She had read a third of the books stocked on the shelves, had taken more baths than she ever had when she had been on the Bebop, and had looked out the window from the couch more times than she could count. Even though she preferred having things done for her--well, sometimes--even a girl of Faye's stamina could get bored once in a while.

Sure, she'd been out and about to get cigarettes and food and things of that nature, but a girl could only see the same three things before she went totally out of her mind. When Scarab had been staying with her, it hadn't been so bad, but now...

She was plopped down on the white sofa in the living room, not laying down like she would have preferred--since her head was killing her--but rather sitting forward, leaning over the coffee table and peering into some magazine she had found. She was trying not to think about what was about to take place both because it involved someone she would rather it didn't and because she knew a thing or two about dressing knife wounds.

Really, who asked for help from someone as idiotic as Kitty Jones?

The knock on the door startled Faye, but only a little. Rolling her eyes, she got to her feet, able to hear Kitty's incessant fidgeting behind the door. She certainly sounded oh-so chipper when she called through the entrance. Faye couldn't help but smirk and open the door, saying, "What? You couldn't even wait until I let you in before you started stating the obvious?"

Kitty... blinked. Well, there wasn't much else she could do. Here she was, worrying rather a lot about a certain Miss Valentine, and suddenly her head was swimming into view round the corner of the door, with that oh-so-familiar smirk plastered right across it. It was perhaps not exactly what she had been expecting.

Then again, given that this was Faye, this was probably exactly what she had been expecting.

"What can I say," she gave a nonchalant shrug, followed by a little smile, "I didn't want to overcomplicate things for you. Have to make allowances for the different intelligence levels, you know. Wouldn't want you to lose the conversation when it's barely even begun."

Still smiling, and without waiting for an invitation, she walked right into the room. It was... surprisingly clean, actually. She'd have thought Faye would be more of a messy person, but books were actually on the shelves, and all the furniture seemed to be the right side up. Well, you get a new surprise every day in the City.

With a little sigh, she slid her bag off her shoulder, and fixed her gaze on Faye, looking her up and down. She didn't want to beat about the bush. She wanted to find out what the problem was, and soon. Not so she could get out of here but... so that she could fix it. Not that Kitty would ever let anyone know that. "So. What happened?"

Faye shut the door behind her as Kitty pranced around in her apartment, apparently taking in the state of things. "Touche," was all she said, ambling cautiously over to the sofa. Maybe she was milking it a little bit, but Faye didn't care all that much.

Sitting down, Faye lit a cigarette, inhaling deeply. She'd been smoking a lot more lately than she used to. Chalking it up to present experiences, she didn't let it bother her. "Forgive me if I'm not really in the mood to play your silly little games today. Doing it over that computer isn't that big of a deal, but I'm too tired at this point."

Faye ashed in the tray on the table, shoving the gray bits around. She leaned back, stopped, and the leaned forward again. "I don't know. You tell me. Waking up and seeing this burn I had a while ago come back, open up, and then start spilling worms all over the place was bad enough." Kitty had sat down at this point, and Faye glanced over at her before she took another drag of her cigarette. "After waking up I don't remember a lot else. It's in and out. I'm sure you know something about that."

The comment wasn't meant to be scathing, but Faye shot Kitty a glance out of the corner of her eye anyway, just to make sure Kitty wasn't about to jump down her throat about it. "I really wish I could tell you more, but there's little else I remember," she said, stretching and trying to appear nonchalant.

It was a bad idea.

As Faye lit up, Kitty couldn't help being briefly transfixed by the little piece of paper and tobacco as it writhed in upon itself, glowing and then greying before drifting up as smoke. Cigarettes had never been all that common back in her world, at least, in her part of it. The Czech soldiers had smoked similar things, but in England it was pretty rare. She knew the habit wasn't exactly healthy, but she supposed right now Faye needed whatever help she could get. She sounded... tired, weary as she casually dismissed Kitty's opening words.

Normally Kitty would fly a reply straight at her, in fact the words were already forming in her mind, a jibe about the kind of games Faye liked to play, and then there was the beginnings of a pun over the phrase "doing it over that computer". But she stopped herself. No. Not helpful. She continued to watch in silence until Faye tapped the ash from her cigarette, which seemed to serve as some sort of a jolt out of her reverie.

Kitty still didn't speak as Faye explained as best she could the current state of affairs. It wasn't exactly detailed. To be honest, Kitty really had no idea what was going on. As usually, she'd acted without bothering to try and find out the situation. Her brows furrowed slightly at Faye's comment. "Yeah. Right."

It was obvious that Faye was trying to make light of this – the younger woman didn't begrudge her that, because she'd be doing the bloody same thing were the tables turned. But she wanted to know as much as she could before she started sorting her out. "So you got hit by the curse then," she said matter of factly, before giving a little smile. "I got all... wormy... too, if it's any consolation. I was just shut up in my room at the time."

She paused for a moment, mulling things over. Yes, Kitty Jones was actually thinking before speaking. Wonders will never cease. "So... you were cursed, and then someone... drugged you?"

As Faye shifted backwards Kitty could clearly see the outline of a hastily wrapped bandage beneath her shirt and she frowned slightly. "Perhaps it's not a good idea if you move too much."

Faye could see Kitty eying her cigarette through the gray haze of smoke. Without thinking about it, she snatched her pack up from the cushion next to her thigh, shaking one out and holding it out to Kitty like some sort of peace offering. Meanwhile, she took another drag, exhaling sharply through her nose. Sometimes smoking made Faye tired, and sometimes it just made her sad. Well... not sad. More like nostalgic. Fuck sad.

She had a feeling that the wheels in Kitty's head were turning, and she saw the brief pained look that crossed her face at the mention of Kitty's time in--well, at the mention of Kitty's time. She was thoroughly happy, then, when the girl dismissed it and moved on.

Snorting, Faye said, "Definitely got hit by the curse." She held up her awkwardly bandaged wrist. The burn that she had sustained weeks ago--back when the sense loss curse had hit--hadn't healed up like Raphael had made it. Whatever poking and prodding this new sadistic asshole had done, it had irritated the burn in a way that it hadn't been irritated since the beginning. And that really wasn't the half of it, at least not to Faye. "Wormy? You? I'm surprised the worms even wanted to be around you." It was lame, but she didn't really mind.

Faye shook her head. "Not drugged, at least not until later," she said. "Curse hit, I woke up, and next thing I know, someone's busting the door down and trying to forcibly remove me from the apartment. As you can tell, I wasn't about to go willingly." She sniffed, taking another hit of her cigarette. "I think I hit him with the Glock once. Not with a bullet but with the actual gun. Not that it mattered. I was out cold a few minutes later."

Stumping the cigarette out in the ash tray, Faye said, "Like I said, everything else after that is a haze. It was dark, it was cold, I was probably being fondled while I was unconscious, and when I woke up I was back here."

After thinking about it for a minute, Faye leaned forward again, trying to shift her weight in a way that didn't aggravate the damage. Any position was uncomfortable and she said as much, telling Kitty, "It's not like I can just sit still all the time, you know. Any way I sit bothers something."

Gingerly, Kitty took the thin cigarette in her hand, twiddling it slightly between her index finger and thumb. She managed to prevent herself from looking at it like she was initially about to do – that is, with a look of fear that it was about to explode at any moment. Instead she managed to say, "You know, I've never..." before breaking off into silence for a few moments. Then she smiled a little, quirking a brow as she looked at Faye, saying the same words that so many men seemed to use in the bars round here to start a conversation, "Got a light?"

She couldn't help but grimace slightly at the sight of the wrist, "That's not... not the burn you got when you lost your senses, is it?" Kitty was by no means an expert on burns, but she was sure it should have healed up more than that by now. Thinking back, she remembered with a jolt that that had been her very first curse. A trip down memory lane indeed. It all seemed so normal now, it was odd to think there had been a time when she hadn't been plagued by... well, plagues. Like the worms they were now discussing. "Trust me, they were more than welcome to leave anytime they liked."

The way Faye described the events in such a calm, matter of fact manner... well, it told Kitty one thing. That Faye was decidedly not feeling calm. "You were cursed. Maggots crawling over your body pretty much explains why you weren't able to kick his arse back into the last century. Least you managed to hit him."

Kitty was unable to help herself from stiffening slightly when Faye mentioned the dark and the cold. She remembered... well, darkness, coldness was most of what she could remember from her own kidnapping experience. That and flashes of... she shook her head. "I doubt they..." she swallowed a little, "I doubt they did anything to you just for the hell of it. I mean, they took you specifically on that day, just for that day..."

As Faye grumbled about not being able to sit still, Kitty forced herself to focus on why she was actually here. She wanted to help Faye. She didn't like seeing people hurt. Especially not her friends, "I should probably take a look you then." But she didn't know what to do. She wasn't a doctor. Point her to something that was bleeding and she'd stop the blood, show her a hole in somebody's body and she's try and sew it up. But to simply have to fix a whole body...

"Erm, well, what hurts the most?"

Kitty took the cigarette like a child would, holding it commonly and fidgeting with it. Faye wasn't surprised that Kitty had never smoked before, and she even smirked a little when she asked for a light. Pulling the Zippo out from the plastic wrapping of her Marlboros. She produced the light for Kitty and watched as the girl touched the tip of the cigarette to the little flame.

"This old thing?" Faye replied, gripping her wrist lightly in her opposite hand. "That would be it. It wasn't a pretty picture then and it's really not now." She was only mainly concerned with the scarring. Raphael had managed to clear that up before, but Faye had a feeling that Kitty wasn't as adept as he was, wherever he was now.

"That's all that really matters to me," she said. "Hopefully the guy's out there with a big ass bruise on his face."

She thought about going into the kitchen and getting a drink for this part. She had a feeling that Kitty would like looking at the incisions about as much as Faye did. They were mainly on her sides and looked like the rotting skin from the curse had just been lifted and stretched more than sliced open. There was some bad bruising, but it had started to turn a sickly green already. More or less, Faye looked like a giant bruised apple.

Standing, she lifted the hem of her tank top up and turned around, feeling cool air chill the skin of her back. She hadn't been able to get a good look at it, even with a mirror, so she waited for Kitty's response to her saying, "This is what's bothering me the most. I can sit or lay down really."

Steadying herself not to give any negative reaction at all, Kitty took her very first drag of her very first cigarette, and moments later was thankful for the prior mental preparation. It was all she could do not to start coughing. Violently coughing. Instead she just blinked hard for a second, before hastily raising it to her lips again, taking it in once more before she could start choking on the smoke. She had no idea why people did this for fun.

"Burns aren't generally known for their aesthetic qualities, so I wouldn't worry about it not looking pretty. I'll leave that till I've had a look at the rest of you, sometimes back home I... I know what I'm doing with burns," she grimaced slightly, remembering all the times when one of the Resistance arson attacks had gone a little awry and there had been an abundance of charred fingers to patch up by morning.

When Faye drew up her shirt, it was hard not to wince, and Kitty found herself inhaling on her cigarette instinctively. The lines ran down Faye's side almost like a second ribcage, dark purple-red-green and several other murky colours, none of which exactly gave off the appearance of good health. And her back...

"It's not that bad," she spoke in a level voice, trying not to give away any emotion. "Honestly. Really. Truly."

It wasn't bad, actually. Bad couldn't really describe it. It was like her side, but... worse. The cuts were longer, and the bruising was even more florid, but the lines were still straight and... it was obvious someone had actually taken a knife and... "Just sit down for a minute, yeah? I'll take a closer look at it."

As Faye went to sit again, Kitty rummaged through her satchel, making sure she had everything she thought she might need. Once again, she was thankful that the rather volatile state of the City had encouraged her to prepare for any eventuality. She didn't take anything out at the moment, just brought herself and the bag back over to the sofa, where she sat behind the other woman.

"I just want to check you can feel everything back there, okay? That nothing's numb or anything. This might irritate a little - not too much though. Tell me if you don't feel anything," gently she reached out and with little broken touches worked down the sides of the scars, barely touching the skin before she took her fingers away and moved down another inch.

Faye was impressed, to say the least. She had expected Kitty to sputter--kind of like she had when she took her first drag--but that wasn't the case. She could see the restraint in her eyes, though, and Faye could tell that she was keeping whatever discomfort she was feeling inside her lungs with the smoke. Whatever she was, though, she was still a trooper, taking another drag as Faye pushed her hair out of her face.

"I don't care if I can decorate it like a fucking Christmas tree," Faye said, running her palm absentmindedly over the bandage, "I just want it gone." She nodded as Kitty expressed her experience with treating them, though, and it made Faye feel a little better when she got to her feet to know that Kitty at least had some idea of what she was doing.

She could hear Kitty's sharp intake of breath no matter how much the other woman tried to disguise it. She'd heard inhalations like that before. Plenty of times on the Bebop. When Spike would come back looking like some sort of child's watercolor painting, Faye would often get a good look at the damage and feel herself blanch. And, to be honest, she hadn't even really looked at her own wounds, a little too unwilling to look at them and see what they looked like.

But when Kitty told her that it wasn't that bad, Faye knew that she was lying.

Faye could feel what Kitty was doing, but only faintly. It was like shallow little pinpricks all along the sides of the slashes. When Kitty put her fingers closer to the actual cuts, however, the pain burned her as if she was holding a lighter to her skin. Arcing her back away from Kitty's prodding fingertips, Faye grit her teeth and said, "Well this is mildly unpleasant. I hope you're finding out something useful while I sit here in agony."

It wasn't agony, but, really, the thought of having those horrible marks all over her for the rest of her life was.

Close up, Faye's cuts really didn't look any better. From this distance, Kitty could clearly see the texture of the skin. It rose and fell with the incisions, red ridges, almost like they were little waves. At each one Kitty could feel something rising in the back of her throat, and throbbing in her temples, and pounding in her ears. Anger. Anger at the person who had done this. Anger at the fact that they'd chosen a friend of hers. Anger at the fact they'd had the audacity to choose anyone for... this. Kitty had been often told she got angry too easily, was always too quick to fly off the handle, but this... in this case she was sure any and all rage and retribution would be justified.

Kitty matched Faye's arching away with a swift pulling back of her hands, as though she'd been burnt. She might know what to do, but she wasn't exactly confident she had the healer's touch, and was (to be frank) terrified she was going to screw up. Was she doing this right? Was she finding out something useful?

She swallowed, nodded, "Of course I am. The mild irritation you're feeling means everything's working a-okay back there, no nerve damage, nothing. Once you've healed up, the next time you get a back massage you'll be able to feel every little thing. And, Valentine," she patted Faye's shoulder in a conciliatory way, "don't get your hopes up. I wasn't volunteering."

There was something comforting, for her at least, about slipping into the old rhythm of light banter. Something certain about it. Pun, riposte, innuendo, witty remark, a pun again, sarcasm. A set series of rules. A maniac with a knife wasn't going to come rushing into that. She hoped Faye appreciated it as she did. At the very least, she supposed it would even help if the other woman got angry - being pissed off could be a powerful distraction.

Speaking of up-and-coming distractions, now that Kitty had finished checking Faye's back for any deeper damage, she had another task on her hands. Delving into her bag, she drew out a packet of cotton pads, and a small bottle of some faintly blue translucent liquid. In case one was in any doubt of what it was, it was labelled as an antiseptic. "I'm sure you know how this goes, but I've got to clean it up. It'll sting. You're a big girl, I know, but if you'd like you could..."

She broke off for a moment, and reached into her bag again. Whatever she was searching for now was at the bottom, and it took a few moments before her hand grasped another cool, glass surface and drew it out.

Like the antiseptic, this larger bottle also had a label proudly proclaiming its contents in block capitals, however the word written here was decidedly more pleasant. Not that antiseptic was an even somewhat pleasant beverage (though to be honest, Kitty had never tried) – but she was pretty sure whiskey would outrank it every time.

"Besides, though I don't doubt you've spent the last couple of days drunk off your head, you still look like you could do with a drink," she held the bottle out towards Faye, a somewhat knowing look on her face. It was clear the other woman was fairly (and that was an understatement) shaken up by recent events, and more than a little worried about the current state of the back and her sides and anywhere else the sick bastard who did this had gotten with their knife. Alcohol was a powerful distraction too, perhaps even beating straightforward being-pissed-off.

Faye could feel Kitty poking and prodding, moving skin here and moving skin there. She clenched her hands into fists, holding her shirt just under her breasts, the fabric twisting and burning in her fingers. What she really wanted to do was scream. It took all the willpower that she had to keep her teeth clenched and her mouth shut, but Faye was a big enough girl to not make herself look like a babbling idiot. She wasn't afraid of a little pain, no matter how delicate she looked or acted. Besides, a part of her knew that Kitty wouldn't fuck her up further than she was already fucked up. And by the way that she could feel Kitty's hands shaking, she knew that what the other woman felt was anger, not fear, and that steadied Faye a little.

Her comment sharped Faye a little, her body still stuck in half-arch. "As if I'd let your dirty little fingers anywhere near my beautiful skin. Besides," she said, knotting the material of her tank top so that she didn't have to hold it anymore, "pretending that you don't want me to ask isn't going to make me ask. Will you ever learn?"

The banter, no matter how annoying or old or inane it got, always sort of comforted Faye. It reminded her a lot of being home--home? Since when had that worthless ship and her worthless shipmates become home?--and somewhat of the people (or more particularly the person) she used to explode verbal fireworks with. It was like a comfortable pillow, something for her to fall back on, and as much as she appreciated that, she didn't like it at the same time. Relying on things and people had gotten her nowhere in the past, and this was no different, especially since, eventually, they'd all have to leave each other in one way or another.

But that was all beside the point. The point was Faye's burning, bruised, and mangled back. At Kitty's words, Faye craned her neck around to see the bottle she held in her hands. Bracing herself, Faye said, "Believe me, I've seen and been through worse. I don't think a little antiseptic is going to scare me away." While she spoke, though, Kitty rummaged around in her little bag for something else, and when Faye's eyes hit the alcohol, it was like a godsend.

She knew that she'd been drinking and smoking a lot more since she arrived in the city than she had before. But, to be honest, the bad habits had started just before she came. She didn't want to get into that, though. "Aren't you a smart one for once," she said, taking the bottle and unscrewing the cap on it.

Strange, it didn't burn as much as it usually did when it worked it's way into her throat and down into her stomach. Faye smirked. Her voice thick and heavy with alcohol, she said, "Do your worst, Jones." Another long swig and she was good to go and fully on her way to being trashed.

Kitty was unable to keep herself from grinning a little as Faye secured her tank top - not at the securing of the tank top, you understand, but at her words. "And yet here we are, you quite happily stripping off for me. A strange turn of events, oh beautiful skinned one, no?"

It was tempting to coolly raise an eyebrow at Faye's dismissal of the ointment. It was clear the woman was preparing herself for the worst, her gaze hardening, her jaw set. In the end, Kitty chose neither to make a comment, nor even to move. She would have done the same, after all. And besides, when Faye's eyes lit up at the sight of the bottle of whiskey, Kitty was unable to help feeling a little bit amused.

"Not so smart in this instance. It's easy to know the way to your heart, Faye," she handed over the bottle casually. "Besides, you're not going to bring me down. Seeing the joy in your eyes at the sight of the drink... this must be like when a mother watches her kid take their first step or something. It makes me so proud."

Judging by Faye's fast-slurred speech, the stuff was stronger than she remembered it. Still, that was probably for a best. It seemed likely Kitty was going to have to do her worst. She soaked one of the torn pieces of cotton with the antiseptic, but it took some courage to even bring herself to move it towards Faye's back. She didn't want to hurt her.

"So, anything on your mind, Valentine?" She babbled out the question, the first thing that had come to her mind, as she gently pressed the cotton against the first cut. Her eyes winced closed in expectation of Faye's reaction.

"Don't think you're being cute," Faye replied, looking back at Kitty. "I know you like it when I put on a show for you, but, really, I'm not in the mood today, considering present circumstances."

Faye scowled at her, eyebrows knitting harshly together. "It's not like I'm an alcoholic, you know," she said, eyes roaming over the whiskey and then the bandages and then the antiseptic. Yup, way too familiar a scene for Faye to be comfortable with. "Certain situations just call for... reinforcements, I guess you could say. And believe me, when you've had as many of those situations as I have, you learn pretty quickly what works and what doesn't. Just because you're inexperienced doesn't mean that we all have to be."

The room was full of the sharp tang of Jack Daniels--at least it smelled like Jack--but Faye could still detect the heavy medicinal smell of antiseptic meeting rags. She steeled her spine, set her eyes, jaw, took a swig of the drink again and felt it run through her like hot coffee.

"Believe me, there's plenty on my mind right no-AAAH!" she screamed it. Holy fucking Hell but it burned! Her entire body felt like it was spasming out of control. She had to grab the back of the sofa and lean forward so that she didn't fall flat on her face as her back arched again and her eyes squeezed shut. No crying, she told herself. Don't you dare fucking cry. She kept that bargain with herself as well as she could and took another drink to numb the pain.

At this rate, the whiskey would be gone in ten minutes.

The scowl Faye shot Kitty was the sort of filthy look that could make dogs whine and run yowling far into the distance. Luckily, Kitty was nicknamed for a far more sensible creature of a feline nature, and so she simply gave a little snort of Faye's denial of an alcohol problem. Not that she really had a problem. She just... liked alcohol. And so drank it. "I'm sure you're very well acquainted with the reinforcement process. And I have plenty of experience, just not in this particular area of... back up."

Kitty could see the tense muscles in Faye's back, the almost desperate way in which she was clutching the bottle, to quick look she gave the medical equipment before steeling herself once more. Kitty didn't like this. Any of this. It shouldn't have happened in the first place. She certainly didn't like putting the antiseptic on Faye's back and...

Faye screamed. Faye screamed. Kitty almost screamed herself in shock, but toned it down a notch to just a surprised grimace. And then Faye was falling, and grabbing the sofa, and her face was screwed up like she... "Oh, I... fuck. Sorry. Sorry I..." Kitty knew she was babbling, but what else could she do? "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to... I have to..."

She didn't know what to say. What words could counteract, could overrule something so basic as a scream of pain? How could she carry on... but she had to carry on, for Faye's own good. All she could do was nod approvingly as the injured woman reached for the bottle. "Yeah. Have another drink."

Kitty pressed on. She couldn't stop. She couldn't think about stopping. She couldn't even think about her not being able to think about stopping. She just had to... do it. She continued to clean the wounds, as gentle as she could possibly be, softly encouraging Faye to carry on drinking as she worked. And then perhaps by way of distraction, she spoke again. "Well, if there's plenty on your mind, then there's plenty for you to talk about. So talk."

At Kitty's snort, Faye rolled here eyes. "What? Don't believe me? 200 woolongs says I'm not." Faye took a swig of the whiskey anyway, feeling it numb her mouth a little as soon as it left her throat. "So you're saying that you can't hold your alcohol? Well I knew that already." Faye looked at the bottle clutched in her hand and, for some reason, sobered enough to feel like someone had just kicked her in the chest. "Be thankful that you've never had to deal with this kind of... back up." She took another swig. "It's never fun."

The scream had surely torn her vocal chords in half. Her back was burning, skin had to be tearing itself off of her bones and falling to the floor. She could feel it. Her eyes were watering but only as a physical reaction to the pain, not because she wanted to cry. Faye hadn't cried in a long time and she wasn't about to start now. But... fuck it hurt. Even with the alcohol dulling her senses it hurt.

Faye felt her back twitch, the material of her sofa being clenched in her tight fingers. She dropped her forehead against the couch and it felt cool and smooth underneath her skin. Kitty was still cleaning the wounds: long, slow sweeps of antiseptic and cloth alternating on the soft skin covering her spine and the jagged tears of the incisions.

She sighed, taking another small, quick swig. "Believe me," Faye said, "you probably don't want to hear about it. It's all very long and boring and path... pathetic? Yeah, that's the word." Even Faye knew that her speech was slurring, but it didn't matter. As long as her back was more or less numb to sensation, she didn't care. At this point, though, Kitty could probably ask her anything and Faye would tell the true.

Oh, well, Faye thought, smirking.

"All right," Kitty smiled a little, trying to lighten the mood with a joke, "I'll admit, you don't have a problem with alcohol, Valentine. Quite the opposite. Alcohol, judging by your hangovers, has a problem with you."

Keep her talking. That was the trick. Keep her talking, and (even better) keep her drinking, and then she might not... might not scream. At least, not so much. But... it worried her - in fact, to be quite honest, it threw her completely. Not just out of concern for a friend, but worry, worry that the wounds were causing this much pain. Were they worse, deeper than she had initially thought, were they...

No. Of course not. Kitty mentally reassured herself as she continued the gentle strokes of the cloth, moving from her back to the marks on her sides, working from top to bottom. Faye was just screaming because... well, because anybody would scream at a time like this. But the wounds weren't that bad. She could heal her. She could fix this. She could. She could.

And she did. Or at least, with one final sweep, she finished the application of the antiseptic. The process of fixing the woman up was by no means over, but this part, the inherently painful part, was. "That's done. See? Told you it wouldn't be so bad,"

She rid herself of the cloth, and realising her hands now stained thoroughly with the sharp scent of the liquid, wiped them hastily on her trousers, before taking a deep breath. The hard aspect was finished, they could take a breather for a minute, let Faye recover herself before Kitty moved on. "But then, you're always telling me I'm pathetic and boring, and self-absorbed too. And being self-absorbed, it's only natural I'd want to hear about things that are pathetic and boring. Like me. And, apparently, your life."

Seeing Faye smirk, Kitty took this as acquiescence to press on, and blurted out the first question that came to her mind. A broad question but, hey, it did the job. "Tell me about your world then. Who do you know back there?"

"Damn straight," Faye agreed, taking a swig as if to emphasize her point. "And I just happen to have the ultimate cure for a hangover, too. Just don't tell the idiot who told me about it that I regularly practice what he preaches. Think of what it would do for my reputation!"

Faye could still feel the dull throbbing of disinfectant-cleaned pain. It thrummed across her back like a bass buried deep within her skin: stinging, hot, but it was heat underneath a heavy lead blanket. The smell of whiskey and the heavy antiseptic, she told herself, was what made her eyes sting. It wasn't the thought that she was marred, that she might actually have to blend in dress-wise that bothered her, nor was it the pain. Whatever, she thought. What the fuck ever. The whiskey was starting to taste good.

"If that's your def-in-iti-on of the word 'bad' then I reeeally have no desire to know what tor-tu-ous or agony means to you," she replied, feeling delicious cool air breeze over her back as Kitty moved away and began messing around on the coffee table. Faye's back still throbbed, but her hand throbbed more. It took a minute for her to realize that it was because she was clutching the bottle so hard her hand was shaking.

"Ha ha," she said, punctuating each syllable so that she was sure Kitty wouldn't mistake them for anything else. Kitty's question, though, threw her for a little bit of a loop.

Since being in the City, Faye had made it a point not to think of things that took her back to certain places. Thinking of her ruined home, for example, was something that she didn't revisit, and--although it was mostly unavoidable--thinking of the Bebop and all that came and went with it was territory that she didn't like to trod on. Right now, though, Faye was so far gone that it didn't matter. All the rules she had created for herself were on different continents from where she was.

She giggled--giggled! She knew she'd regret that later--and looked over her shoulder at Kitty. "Who do I know? It's not a question of who I do know so much as who I did know." She went to take a sip, thought better of it, and said, snickering, "Ed always makes for a goood story."

So help her god, she would steer this conversation as far out of Spiegel Sea as possible.

Oh yeah. She was tanked.

It took some effort to stop herself from snorting with laughter. "How blessed you are to have knowledge of such a miraculous device. Don't worry, my lips are sealed. We wouldn't want to besmirch your pure reputation." Then she muttered under her breath, just loud enough so that the other woman could hear her. "Faye Valentine, eternal object of goodness and innocence, that's you."

Kitty thought it had been a long enough rest. Time to move on. She hated to disturb the flesh anymore, wanted to just leave it be, but it wouldn't do to leave the cuts open. So she so produced some clean bandages from her bag, slightly starched and stark in their whiteness. If she could wrap Faye up in this, then you wouldn't be able to see the cuts anymore, not for a little while. Hidden away, and protected. Just a few light strips of material could give the impression of her back being flawless once more. Until the strips were removed, of course. But never mind about that now. Carefully, she began to wrap them around Faye, doing (if she did say so herself) a far better job than the other woman had done initially on her own.

Not that she could really blame her.

"Torturous? Agony? In this present instance, I'd define them as over-exaggeration," she quipped back, providing verbal distraction once more. Out of the corner of her eye she noticed Faye's hand clenched hard on the bottle, her knuckles showing through her skin, bone pale as any of the bandages. "Hey," she spoke gently, placing her own hand on top of it to stop it shaking, "be careful. I'm going to fix that hand up in a minute, all right? Just be careful with that bottle. You could break it, and then there'd be no more whiskey, and think how terrible that would be."

She watched Faye cautiously as the woman fell silent after her little mockery of a laugh, Kitty wondering guiltily if she'd said the wrong thing in asking her about her home. She knew it was always awkward when people asked her. She never had a single idea of what to say. And now Faye was... hold on a minute. Was that a... Yes. Yes, it was. Faye giggled. Faye Valentine just giggled. What the flying Jesus is going on here? Good God, the poor woman really was drunk.

Of course, Kitty wouldn't take advantage of her in her weakened state. Of course not. She was the perfect gentleman, in all but gender. "All right then, who did you know? There was your little ginger monkey of a computer genius, and...? Was there anybody... nice?"

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