just don't. mess up, i mean.

well, yes, ma'am. that settles it right then and there. parker looks at her critically, even as she looks away, and she swallows past the lump in her throat. does nomi actually not trust her? is that why she can't meet her eyes? actions speak louder than words so she doesn't say anything. she just nods to herself and thinks, okay. fuck, okay. yeah, this is it. this is it. 

she owes nomi her life, whether she likes it or not, and she'd rather get her leg ripped open by the shadow miasma again than let anything happen to her. 

when nomi's finished, parker pulls her leg back and admires her handiwork. well, it will at least probably heal a little bit better. the antiseptic still tingles unpleasantly, but she's good at ignoring pain. still, she's careful as she rolls her pant leg back down.

"yeah, yeah," she says. "i gotta be in tip top shape to protect you. so i'll rest, but you bet your ass i'm gonna complain the whole time."

Naomi Sato

☉

crux whines. the glow from his eyes flickers and then dies as he blinks rapidly. parker opens out her hands to take the wolf's face in her hands. he whimpers again and noses into parker's palm, but parker can't discern what's wrong. 

her attention is pulled away when the weird pokemon presents them with options. those don't really matter. what matters is the balloon-headed deer can speak like them - through them. the puppets give her the heebie jeebies and she decides, very quickly, that she would rather not get possessed just to ask a question. 

nah, she'll leave the brainwork to the experts. like nomi. 'cept when people start asking their questions, they get taken over by the damn thing. one by one, parker watches them lose their faculties, voices their own but eyes glassy, and before she can warn nomi, the bubblegum-haired woman's already asked. 

so she reaches out, hands on her hips to keep her steady, and when her question is answered, parker lets her go. 

"you wanna ditch this party and go to a hot spring? bet," parker says with a laugh. "circhester it is then, doc."

SWORD RAID

no question
circhester

D3Ur7uQv

☉

nomi's only a couple of stitches in and she's already doing a damn better job than parker ever did with her clumsy hands. while they sit in silence, parker looks at those hands of hers - the dark knuckles, the calloused palms, the swollen fingers. and then she looks at nomi's - small and meticulous, slender and gentle in a way that makes parker shift in her chair.

"c'mon, cupcake," she says with a shaky laugh. "'m just doin' my job. dunno if ya can even say i've done a good job. we've been on, like, what, six, seven missions? and i'm pretty sure ya almost fuckin' died on half of 'em."

her shoulders sag at the confession. nomi's so deep in her work, so maybe she doesn't notice when parker raises a hand as though to touch her on the shoulder. but then she leans against her and she drops it. 

"y'know you're fucked if i ever mess up," she says slowly. one particularly raw part of her skin does not like the needle sliding through it and she hisses, fingers curling. "i'm not gonna, but...that's...fuck, nomi, that's wild."

Naomi Sato

☉

parker has reason to believe there are a lot of things on cill's list that never end well, and that she had made a point to flaunt those things during her line of questioning. but it's not her fault skyler makes her incapable of rational thought. if she told the truth - fuck, she's not even sure what the truth is anymore. 

we'll make a sailor out of you yet. 

so she shoves her out of sight and out of mind, which is easy actually, because the alternative is to come back to reality and look at nomi's backside while she's rummaging around in a cabinet. 

the warning's met with a snort and then a chuckle. "not gonna hurt 's bad 's whatever the hell he did. 'sides, i'm useda patching myself up." she wriggles permanently bruised and scarred knuckles for emphasis.

"go on then." she's relaxed, for the most part, calf twinging every once in a while when a glimmer of pain reverberates over her skin.

Naomi Sato

☉

blood doesn't bother her. fuck, the wound doesn't really bother her all that much. it's just annoying. 'cause it means she'll be out of commission for the next couple weeks. and that means sinking into her savings (which she hates doing) and also not being able to workout (which is actually the worst thing imaginable). 

so that's what she's thinking about while she applies pressure until she's not. until, quite suddenly, she thinks oh, i'm gonna get blood on nomi's hand and her hand is very soft. 

"sure, doc," she says and withdraws. she leans back heavily in the chair and stretches out her leg for her. idly, nervously, she rubs the blood on her hands onto her jeans instead. 

"stupidly courageous, eh?"

Naomi Sato

☉

the sweatshirt's sentimental. so she shrugs that off and tugs her muscle shirt up and over her head and quickly shoves her arms back into the sweatshirt. zips it up hastily and wads up her shirt in a ball to press on the wound. it's bleeding a fair bit, which makes sense, considering cillian had ripped the already-poorly-sewn sutures right out and dug his creepy little tendrils in her skin. 

should she be worried about an infection? 

when the door opens, she's bent over and peeking at it, fingers red and slippery. she doesn't look up.

"remind me not to get on that fucker's bad side again," she jokes thinly, still smiling. 

Naomi Sato

☉

she snorts out an ugly laugh, lucky she hadn't yet attempted to swallow the last of the frozen drink in her mouth. but she does that now and licks her teeth, her lips, and looks at him out of her peripherals. 

parker's has a fairly one-track mind. her mission's somewhat fallen to the wayside because there are greater stakes here. she's pretty sure his hands are going somewhere not appropriate for a public establishment and really, the worst of it is that he's touching the chips afterwards. 

she doesn't fault the girl. not once. she's known girls like her. fuck, she's shaken down men like him before - the men who own them, warping circumstance and tying a noose with green paper. women like dav. thinking about her makes parker suck down the rest of her drink. 

"first thing you gotta know about me," she says as she pushes the glass towards him, "is i'm real fuckin' good at gettin' under people's skin."

she slaps her palm against the bar top and gives a wink. "why dont'cha bring me another two in about ten? sooner if i can work 'im up faster."

Isaac Merlo

☉

here are the shackles, forged in the fire of a moony-eyed devotion, hastily sprung from heat-of-the-moment adrenaline-ecstasy from life or death situations. it's a savior and saved complex. parker's just the best bodyguard's she's had; that's why it makes sense for her to stick around. 

that's why nomi snaps quickly, tartly, very uncalculatedly at the man parker is pretty sure had been inches away from knifing her through with his shadows. 

they come down around her wrists as the shadows withdraw. they wrap neatly around her skin as her face lights up, that lady-killer smile crawling up her face, warbling as she struggles to shove it back down before cillian can turn around again. 

she doesn't need him to tell her to leave twice. she bolts up out of the chair, shoves hands in her pockets so she doesn't reach out for nomi's arm, and shoulders her way out the door. blood squelches, leaving a trail behind her leg as she walks, but she doesn't limp. she doesn't give him the satisfaction.

she just walks and walks and walks until she gets to the office. until she can slip behind the head scientist sato's door. and then she can stagger into her chair and rip her pant leg up with a haggard breath. 

Cillian Quinn Naomi Sato

☉

she's got another something (someone) sweet on her mind. her phone's on the table too and she's staring at it as though that will be enough to wake it up with a notification. but she knows it's not going to. these are Naomi Sato's busiest hours of the day. 

still, that doesn't stop her from sighing and nibbling at the end of her straw, waiting for some fruity text about interdimensional rifts or aliens come through. 

her gaze lifts. the somewhat chewed end of the straw pops out of her mouth and she chuckles, raps her knuckles against the bar and flips the phone over so it won't distract her. this is the bartender who had made her bombass piña colada. 

"eh, kinda both? watching grown ass men throw fits because they're losing money they don't have is a new kink i didn't know i had," she says with a grin. 

she gestures with a jut of her chin to one table in particular. "i wanna make that old fart with the twenty-something arm candy cry."

Isaac Merlo

☉

what the fuck is wrong with her? blood sprays from where her fist had connected with his nose. he shoves his arm against his face and starts hurling insults at the two of them. when he calls yumi a bitch, her blood boils, but she's no knight in shining armor. 

yumi's yelling at her and she's reaching for her purse and parker knows she's lost her. couldn't stand having her own night ruined; couldn't stand the loneliness. and now she's sucked yumi down with her too. 

don't fucking follow me!

she flinches back and tries to gargle out some words, but yumi's back is to her and she's traipsing away and the bartender is calling security. 

"i'm goin', i'm goin'," she snaps. 

"yumi, wait! i'm sorry!"

Yumi Hasegawa

☉

it's been a while since she let loose. like, really let loose. she never ever does it on jobs either, but the stress has been getting to her, man. Cillian Quinn ripping her leg open with literal shadows is a haunting enigma that would drive anyone to the bottle. 

but at least she's being proactive about the where and how. with a lump sum of cash in hand and the directive: lose it all, well this is the perfect fuckin' setup. she's got a partner with her anyway, so she has to be a little professional, but she's not too worried.

she's in the casino now, thrumming her fingers against the bar and idly sipping on a piña colada. 

Isaac Merlo
rigged gacha rolls

☉

she remembers a few things. clearing a path straight to the tomb like nomi asked her to (nice). watching said tomb blow up right in front of them (not nice). and then bone-rattling fear knocking her legs out from under her, shoving her face-first into the dirt (extra not nice). 

lashes fluttering dirt out of her eyes in time to see the sword break and the world get sucked away from them. or, more precisely: them get sucked away from the world. 

"parker?"

she stirs and groans as she sits up. still-healing ribs prick her with their displeasure. she blinks and haphazardly swipes at the dirt still on her cheeks, giving nomi a once-over to make sure she's alright.

others are rousing in the stadium. this kicks parker back into gear. she scrambles up to her feet, offers a hand out to nomi, and then wordlessly swaps a limping amulius for her absol. one of nomi's army of creepies comes out and parker grimaces. 

she listens to nomi talk. that is, until she does a double-take. "oh, fuck."

skyler dross ' golden hair had been enough to stop her in her tracks, but the first fuck and the next one - "fuck!" - come from recognizing the bitchass who'd stolen her granola bars (angelo vestri ), but the last dozen - "fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck shit fuck shit fuck" are because of him. 

GIDEON GRAVES .

it's one of those traumatic things where everything had been so crystal fucking clear and she knew then what's happening now: that she'd be able to spot him a mile (or in her case now, several hundred yards) away. they haven't noticed her yet, but she's still quick to yank her hood over her head and turn around to nomi.

"doc, i hate to say it, but i think i might bring more harm 'an good for ya right now." she chews her lip. "dross is here and if she's friends with that guy, i am grade-a fucked."

she nods down to crux - keep an eye out. just in case. 

and then looks back at nomi with steeled resolve, shoulders tense. "but i'm not goin' anywhere unless you tell me to."

SWORD RAID

uh oh lmaoooooo
absol uses future sight
vibing w nomi

hEiAUCbg

☉