outsiderslogs

Entry tags:

OPEN;

who. York and YOU!
what. for anyone who wants to talk to, see, or run into York since her injury
where. anywhere in Zeta District -- The Quad, York and Wash's apartment, somewhere in the markets, etc
when. anytime this week!
warnings. probably lots of feelings :(

It hasn't been a good week for York. It's the understatement of the century, really. The mission on Saturday with Garrus and North had gone so fantastically awful, she's still reeling from it a little. It's too fresh in her mind, still, even the admittedly blurry memory of the incendiary grenade going off in her face. Garrus and North had had to drag her out of there to the clinic, and she'd lost a good day to emergency surgery and recovery. And in the end, they'd botched the job. Nobody had even gotten paid.

Mordin had done his best, and honestly, considering the limited resources, he did a pretty damn good job. Especilaly for an alien. She wouldn't have figured a salarian could fix up a human face this nice. No, nice isn't the word for it. It doesn't look even close to nice. The wound is healing, but it's still fresh, an ugly red swath of skin around her left eye, pulling down her cheek. Even when it's bandaged, it's impossible to hide the way the damaged skin pulls unnaturally tight around her eye. And she can't hide the eye itself. Even once the skin heals -- if it even heals all the way -- her eye will still be that awful, milky white. She'll be lucky to get it back to fifty percent functionality, at this point. Last time this'd happened, she'd had UNSC medical facilities available to her; better equipment, more staff, more resources. Last time.

York's starting to feel like the butt of some cosmic joke.

It's bad enough to have a job go so fantastically wrong like this one did, to have her ass land in the hospital with such a severe injury. To have it become something permanently debilitating, to have to wear it like she does. It's bad enough that it hurts. But it's even worse that this has happened before.

The similarities are too eerie, so much they make her feel a little sick. She'd gotten the eye fixed back on Sacrosanct because she didn't want to be a liability. She wanted to be able to watch her own back, and without Delta, she couldn't do that, not with a busted eye. And now she's right back where she started -- worse, even -- and this time, she doesn't even have somebody else's Delta to understand. Maybe six months with a new eye and she'd gotten used to it. She'd gotten used to looking in the mirror and seeing the perfect symmetry of her face, to smoothing her hand over her left cheek and feeling only smooth, soft skin. She'd just gotten used to the delightful ease with which she could read and focus and see, with no headaches, no strain. She'd only just gotten comfortable with it. And what -- that's it? That's all she gets? Well, joke's on her for ever thinking things might be easy, for once.

But there's nothing York can do. She doesn't have Delta to help her compensate and Mordin's got the best care she can receive on the station on her paycheck. So York does what she does best -- she keeps moving forward, making like nothing's happened, because what's she gonna say, anyway? She goes back to work at The Quad as soon as she's able, because she can only stand to be laid up for so long and it's just her face, it's not like she can't walk, and her boss comments on her face in a way that's maybe supposed to be funny, but maybe she doesn't get krogan humor. She keeps going about her business, just like before, and she doesn't look in mirrors much anymore these days, but at least she's still moving.

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It's been something of a rough week for him, too.

He'd spent a few days in Mordin's clinic, burned and bandaged as he had been, and though York had only been a short distance away from him, he hadn't been able to see her. Hadn't been able to talk to her.

And that just makes the guilt sitting in the pit of his stomach worsen. Makes every muscle draw tight so much to the point that when his jaw clenches against it, he thinks his teeth might be in danger of shattering.

He debates for a long while on whether or not it would be appropriate to go see her. He knows she has to be feeling horrible, not only because their mission had gone as it had, but of what it had done to her. The York that he and Carolina know, the one from their universe had dealt with an eye injury of his own, and though North knows that this York had had hers repaired wherever she had been before, the fact that she'd had it happen again ..

It makes his heart clench, makes his chest tighten and his throat dry up, and even though he's standing right outside the door to the apartment she shares with Wash, he's finding that he's hesitating.

Because he doesn't know what to say.

Because he feels like this is somehow his fault.

And he's never had to deal with this sort of guilt before.

He doesn't even realize he's holding his breath until he lets it out and finally knocks on the door.

They hadn't let him in to see her at first. She was still healing, she'd be unresponsive, she's under the sedatives. Wash doesn't care. It hadn't stopped him back on Sacrosanct, and drones or aliens, he's not leaving her alone. Not like this.

It's never been one of the things they talk about, the eye. Sure, York would always play it off with a laugh, but he'd seen just how much it meant to her to get it fixed. And now?

What a cosmic joke.

So Wash parks himself at her bedside and stays there, ignoring anyone and everyone who tries to get him to leave. Like fuck he is. He cares more about York than anyone else on this station, and he'll be damned before he lets her wake up all alone here.

He hears about it. She goes back to work, people go to bars, people comment. Arthur does patrols and hears some Krogan talk about the 'battle scar' the bartender at the Quad, and feels his stomach turn.

Christ. What qualifies as a battle scar to Krogan?

So he waits until it's too early for the Quad to be full and goes to visit, finds York - and she's got her good side to him, so for a moment he doesn't see, until she turns to do something - ah, shit, bandages.

He'd gotten used to York with her good eye. It takes a moment to conjure up the memory of her before, but it's clear, it's the same side. Like some sort of horrible irony. Arthur feels for her.

He approaches the bar, figures the best way to start is normal.

"Whiskey, neat." Well, almost normal. This is no time for his regular drink.

Someone will be waiting for her outside the bar after she finishes her first day of work. He'd heard about the news from the streets; some smart-ass guy made a crack about the Dun's lack of an eye being similar to the bartender's at the Quad. A few more enquiries around lead him back to Mordin, who offered him the bare minimal of facts about what happened. Dun doesn't know how or why she got hurt, but he does feel that he needs to see her, just to check on how she's doing.

Also, he's got a package next to him. It might be for her as well.

She's been wanting to see York for a while, ever since her brother came home. Ever since she heard what happened. And yet, every time she's almost talked herself into going over to York's place to actually see her, she's immediately talked herself back out of it. Probably not the best time, probably not welcome, who knows how things would be... etcetera. None of them are particularly good excuses, but they're what she has.

So when she hears that York's back at work, the next day, she shows up.

She acts like nothing's different when she makes her way up to the bar. She rests her arms there, lightly crossed, watching York work for a few seconds before she finally calls out to her.

"Hey. Got something really strong you wanna pick out for me?"

To her credit, she's trying to act like nothing heavy is on her mind. And she's doing a pretty good job, except for the tiniest hint of tightness in her otherwise usual smirk.

Marco didn't think his life was likely to get any shittier after the last time he went to visit York, but somehow, it did. And what else is a guy to do after having some shitty times besides visit his favorite bartender? Never mind that he was barely tall enough to see over the bar and said bartender was still probably going to refuse him drinks.

Doesn't hurt to try again. He strolls in as if he owns the place and hops up onto a stool, waving a hand to flag York down.

"Hey, I'll take two fingers on the roc--shit, York, what happened to your face?"

Pax knows the kind of week York is having, hers hasn't been the greatest either. After the fire and water damage to all of her tech and computer mainframe all she wants to do is sit and have a drink. Of course, seeing the bartender, she's not surprised that krogan like this bar as much as they do. Then again, around here, everyone has at least one good battle scar.

"Looks like everyone I'm meeting has taken a rocket to the face."

He never consciously went looking for her.

Even after the small group's short stay at Mordin's (Garrus snuck out first, for reasons unknown), the uneasiness never really left. Still, he couldn't look her in the eye (no pun intended); not after pulling the blame onto his own shoulders. He should've been faster. He should've watched harder. Should've known what was going to happen somehow.

So when he almost literally bumps into York in the marketplace, he's taken completely by surprise.

"York!"

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FIRST. FIIIIRST.

and sunday comes afterwards

:(

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