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Vertigo (VivifiedVanityxSeven)

RE: Vertigo

Lisa looked up at his voice, pointedly not allowing for her eyes to look anywhere other than his face, and her somewhat nervous expression faded, hardening into a grim seriousness. "Do you really have to be up and about every chance you get?" She sighed, her shoulders slumping as her head tilted slightly, worn out by that situation. She'd inadvertently ignored his comment, her attention being snared by the fact that he was on his feet again. The tips of her fingers had lingered on the pile of clothing, and she now pulled them away, quickly wrapping her sweater tightly around herself as she made for the other side of the bed. She'd decided that if he toppled over... she was just going to leave him there for the night. A suitable punishment. "I think the only way to keep you down is to drug you..." Her words were exhaled, tired even.

Eyes followed the floor as she tip-toed around the bed, eventually pulling the covers down and settling on the other side of it. She'd decided that she was so comfortable with all of this, that she hadn't over reacted to that brief little moment earlier... because he simply was so modest. He'd been polite in the bathroom earlier, and even up until that innocent brush of her thigh... he hadn't said or done anything to push their physical closeness in that direction. What strengthened that security in her... was that he didn't seem shy or embarrassed about himself; he was simply being careful. No school boy reactions in him, no nervous stuttering, no shaking hands, no clear indicators that his mind was indeed there. He was also one of only three people who knew what had happened to her... and even with what she knew of him, he didn't seem the type to push something that could risk going in that direction.

Her knees lifted, pressed together and partially hid by the covers she sought for their warmth, and her hands rubbed her face, "If you're going to be poking and prodding at things... At least sit back down..." she offered to the room, not looking towards him or the awkward mirror above them.

Even though she'd made a clear attempt not to take in the sight of him, she couldn't help but take note of what he'd been doing even out of the corner of her eye.
 
RE: Vertigo

Jackson had been tempted to point out that even with the morphine in his system, the hospital staff and security had kept him handcuffed for the duration of his stay. Granted, he wouldn't have attacked the doctors and nurses - he had no reason to - but it wasn't as though they would have believed him if he'd explained that much.

He noted the annoyance in Lisa's voice and the slouch of her shoulders; she wanted him to stay off his feet. He even understood her reasoning, but he found old habits died hard - he had never been good at holding still, even now, when he knew he needed to.

And the way his muscles ached wasn't helping; it made him feel as though he had to move around.

Lisa moved to the other side of the bed and Jackson was a little relieved that she wasn't going to do something stupid like try and sleep on the poor excuse for a loveseat on the other side of the room. At this point, there was no need for either of them to be shy about physical proximity.

At Lisa's tired insistance, Jackson eventually moved back to the bed, sitting on the edge of it, and then finally drawing his legs onto it as well, though he didn't move to get under the sheets - he was already too warm.

Silence crawled across the room then, and Rippner finally laid back, but it was clear by the way he stared up at the ceiling that he wasn't about to fall asleep any time soon - and the mirror above them wasn't making it easy to distract himself, as its presence only drove home the point that he was distinctly unwell. He looked paler than usual and his eyes seemed alien and unnatural; he was freakishly still, however, trying to pull his mind away from the pain.

"There's a place about an hour from here," Jackson said, breaking the silence; he shifted a little, a hand moving to his chest as one of the wounds twinged. Pain registered as a flicker in his eyes, "Where we can get what we need."

He didn't specify what they would need, but given his tendencies, there was a good chance at least one of the items would be sharp.

Jackson's job had taken him many places, but there were some cities he ended up in more than others - Miami, Chicago, Washington, New York, and Los Angeles were the most frequently-travelled for obvious reasons. As such, he had set up living conditions, storage containers, and rentals strewn across the U.S, some of which he would only set foot in once every few years, but they had proven invaluable time and again.

"We'll go tomorrow." he added.
 
RE: Vertigo

Lisa sounded something softly, the beginnings of speech, but she stopped herself. Her expression had lightened itself when she'd felt the bed shift beneath his weight and she saw him find his way into it out of the corner of his eye, eventually settling into it. She hadn't laid back yet, and he'd interrupted her mulling over the slight awkwardness that still lingered in the air when they'd both become aware. Her mind was still there, almost wishing his hand hadn't decided to place itself on the bed where it had. The silence in the room seemed to intensify the sound that every creek and shift made; the darkness didn't help.

She could hear his breathing, slight as it was, and as her mind focused on it, her own synced with it...

"I'll go tomorrow," She finally corrected, gently but firmly. She moved then, scooting an inch or two closer to him as she leaned back against the headboard of the bed, her left hand reached out, fingers trailing through his hair. The tips of which barely whispered along his scalp, against which they drew slow circles; her eyes watched that progression if nothing else than to avoid the mirror above... and to avoid looking directly at the man beside her.

"You'll give me directions in the morning, and while I'm gone you're going to rest," Her tone was rather finite as she spoke, not inviting room for questioning. "I'm not suffering through that long of a trip with you when you're like this, because if you pass out... I can't get you back here." She paused her fingers slowing, "And I don't trust how you'd react if someone else tried to help you..." She was recalling how negatively he'd reacted when Eric, their once taxi driver, had offered to help him inside the room...

"What will I be going for...? Anything specific or merely the obvious...?" Lisa pushed forward gently to avoid any sort of rebuttal towards what she'd just said.
 
RE: Vertigo

Lisa's efforts to avoid a rejoinder were for naught; as it turned out, Jackson wasn't exactly prepared to passively accept her decision this time around,

"I'm not sure if you've been taking classes on how to be more assertive or something," Jackson said drily; he could feel her hand lingering near him, her fingers were in his hair and the gentle motion of them had made his eyes fall closed for an instant; he forced them open again, grateful for how dark the room was, "But if you think you're going alone, you're very much mistaken."

He looked over at Lisa; in the dark, he could see her profile - she was staring at the far wall,

"I might not be in peak condition right now," he said, aware it was an understatement, but not caring to get into the semantics of it, "But unless you also took some lessons on hand-to-hand combat and the finer points of knife-handling, then you could find yourself in an extremely unpleasant situation with no way out."

Another understatement.

"You're good with a field hockey stick and a slingback, I'll grant you that," he added, voice dripping with sarcasm, but the intentional sharpness of it was lessened when his breath hitched in an unpleasant way as he propped himself up on his elbows, "But if you think I'm a monster, Leese?"

The thought remained unfinished; it was clear enough what he meant.
 
RE: Vertigo

Lisa took a long, slow breath. "I know that you're a monster," It wasn't the point he was driving at, and she knew that.

Her hand had dropped to the pillow when he'd propped himself up, though it would have stopped on its own if it hadn't. Her fingers curled, and she withdrew her arm, lacing her hands over one another across her stomach. She turned her head, looking at him through the darkness, her eyes narrowed slightly, "But 'not in peak condition' is an understatement for how bad off you are right now; you can barely stand, let alone deal with whatever mess might be waiting, and that's going by how freakishly well that you seem to deal with pain... and everything else going on inside of you. If anyone is there... or on their way there... Or even just between there and here... They're prepared to deal with you, not me... Which means I doubt they're going to be waiting nice and neat, single file for you to deal with them one at a time, and let's look at the facts, Jack," She'd rhymed unintentionally, and she drew a pause at that, "I'm more mobile than you are, and simply getting there isn't going to next to kill me. You? At this very moment? Are practically useless until you've mended a bit more, and tomorrow is not a long enough time frame for that to have happened in."

Sleep was such a long way off for him at this point, it was maddening. He needed rest, more than anything, and while they arguably did need a few things that Lisa hadn't bothered herself over just yet due to a fear of being out of the room for too long... He needed to just lay down and sleep. That's what his body had demanded of him earlier, and it was the only time she'd actually witnessed him listen to that very basic need for rest, and then he'd been very nearly comatose.
 
RE: Vertigo

In the darkness, Rippner's face twitched very slightly when she called him Jack, but he brushed it off; he could hear the anger winding up in Lisa's voice, something that started softly and began to take on a harder edge with every passing moment - she was frustrated. Understandable.

Of course, Jackson wasn't oblivious to her argument - it was logically sound. His injuries had taken an enormous toll on him and he could see why Lisa would believe he was incapable of continuing, to an extent he wasn't even sure how much longer he could push himself before he pushed until he had no choice but to be back in a hospital - but he told himself he would simply have to keep going. The reality was that Malevre wouldn't stop looking for them, and until he was out of the picture, neither of them would be able to leave Chicago. Even if they managed to make it through the airport and back to Miami, they would track Lisa down with incredible ease.

"And if there are a couple of trained killers prepared to deal with me, not you, how do you think you'll fare?" Jackson asked; he could feel sweat on his temples now; his hair was beginning to stick to his face once more and he had to push it back, "And here's the really cool thing, Leese, guys like us don't come with labels. We don't have tell-tale facial scars or tattoos on our foreheads to let you know we're the bad guys, you know that as well as I do. We blend right into society, we wear business suits, lab coats, police uniforms. So when you go out there, on your own, do you think you'll be able to tell which one has a knife up his sleeve with your name on it?"

He let his arms give out on him so he was laying on his back again; pain began to spread from the centre of his torso once more, another wave of something awful,

"Because you didn't see it in me." he added finally, voice taking on that raw edge once more.
 
RE: Vertigo

Hazels watched him as he collapsed back onto the bed, her slender brows worrying themselves as something swam behind her eyes; concern, worry, and all of the feelings she'd been trying to harden herself against during this little discussion. It wasn't just standing that was an issue for him, he couldn't even hold himself up for very long if in the right position... But what he said to her as he lay there, that last little bit, forced something else to the surface of those hazel pools.

"Damn it, Jackson, do you think that I don't know that? Do you think that I don't realize that it's stupid if I go alone? That there's a very real chance that if I walked out that door I wouldn't get to come back here to see your lovely face? That whatever end I'd meet wouldn't be a pleasant thing? That I'd probably just be dumped in some ditch somewhere at best?" Her words were icy; he'd struck a nerve with her earlier, but it had been a small one. This nerve touched on every lingering memory of Jackson that had haunted her over the past two weeks -- she'd not intended to bring this up with him. She'd intended to let it die, brushing it off as foolishness on her part... especially after he'd confirmed it to be simply foolishness on her part... I wouldn't have come to kill you. That assurance he'd given her was the only thing that forced her lips to purse themselves together, silencing her, but her eyes glared towards him with a wicked accusation.

She hadn't seen it in him, hadn't noticed any wicked gleam, no toothy grin that sent shivers... only his driving intensity when it occasionally peeked through... Something that had once made her quiver when it did, before she met the real Jackson Rippner...

Failing to make herself look away from him she did the opposite, she turned towards him, both of her hands reaching out for him when she stopped herself, fingers curling back as her hands settled beside herself on the bed. "Just... shut up and go to sleep..." Her tone wasn't defeated, but rather... dismissive. She was done discussing this for now. Sliding down the bed a little ways she forced herself to turn away from him, having to close her eyes first to make herself do even that, and from there rolling onto her side. Curling in against herself, her arms folded, wrapping around her a little ways. She was mad at him and imposing a sort of unspoken distance between them even though she had the presence in her anger to know that it was only herself that distance was bothering.
 
RE: Vertigo

Most people functioned from day to day under a veil of imagined safety; on a regular basis, they didn't really think about what could be waiting for them outside of their door because they were too caught up in their lives - as they should be. It was why they were always blindsided when something awful happened, the co-worker who loses his mind and brings a gun to the office, the out-of-control transport truck that mows through an intersection on a red light, the armed robber at their retail job, or the neighbour who was watching you all along. People never saw it coming, but on some level they knew, they were aware that awful things lurked nearby, just the idea of it happening to themselves seemed farfetched.

It always happened to someone else.

Except Lisa Reisert, who had been given no choice but to be very aware of what could happen to a person for just stepping outside, so of course she was aware of what could happen if she left the hotel alone - but bravado seemed to be taking over.

Rippner watched Lisa turn and face away from him in her anger, creating a barrier of the If-I-Can't-See-You variety, it was almost cute.

They could finish discussing it later; they were both too tired for it anyways.

Jackson decided to follow her demand and was asleep again in an alarmingly short period of time, as though he had simply needed to close his eyes for his body to give up again.
 
RE: Vertigo

The room was still as Lisa lay there curled in against herself; she'd moved only once, her fingers reaching out to cling gently to the blanket she had pulled over herself only a little ways. He'd listened to her without question. No small little rebuttal, no demands to conclude the conversation, no sarcastic retorts... and by the slowed rhythm of his breathing... he'd listened to her on that regard too. It hadn't immediately taken him, but it's progression had been quick, and now she found herself only able to listen to that faint sound. It worked against her own sleep, reminding her keenly of where she was and who she was with... of the type of shady local they'd hide themselves away in, and the very real reason of why. It was the faintest little rasp that quivered in the sound of his inward breathing, barely perceptible there and heard not at all when he exhaled, that her ears had attuned themselves to in that darkness. Assured he was sound asleep, she dared a look in the mirror overhead, and the purpose of it made her cringe even as she looked for his face in its depths. This was all so bizarre. He wouldn't have come to kill her... he didn't hate her... and if she let her mind focus on it for too long... It almost seemed as though... Lisa stopped that thought, refusing to see it through to its conclusion. Eyes studied the pallor of his face. Eight, long weeks... he'd spent shadowing her.

Lisa rolled over slowly, being as careful as she could not to let the bed shift too much, and her eyes wandered along the profile of his face, lingering at his lips for a long while before trailing further to his throat and stopping there. He'd been correct. She didn't like the things that he said, because he either didn't tell her enough...

Or despite his cold, hard logic... he was almost being foolish with himself. Wouldn't he have been better off if he'd not stopped for her in that elevator? She'd been heading for the first floor... hers tumbling into that darkness would have bought him some time, and he might have saved himself the exertion that finally shoved him so far over the edge.

Even now, things begged to question why she was even here if he was so intent to do absolutely everything by himself; had she not pushed for it... she doubted he would have asked for her help at all. He was even going so far as to struggle to convince her that he should go without her tomorrow, his reasons would be fluid enough if he wasn't trying to be so damnably independent, but they weren't fluid... If she'd gone along with things passively so far... her being here wouldn't have made a slight bit of difference for him; how did that make his chances more favourable...

Would she even be here at all if he wasn't promised a bullet to the head after she'd been done away with?

Her eyes returned to his closed ones as she scooted over to him, her movements again increasingly slow as her body slipped across a bed that was far too comfortable for the purpose it was often used for. Fingers finally reached for him, their touch deft as she fixed his hair a little ways before she laid her head down beside his shoulder; her far arm curled beneath the pillow her head rested on while her right hand lowered from his hair, it finding a gentle rest against the side of his throat while her thumb stroked against the edge of his jaw. Eyes eventually closed, her thumb's motion slowing until it finally stopped all together in time with her breathing that fell into the usual throes sleep brought it to...
 
RE: Vertigo

Jackson was completely motionless until Lisa's fingers brushed along his jaw - he didn't wake, but there was the smallest twitch in his eyebrows that showed some level of awareness. In his sleep, he knew there was something - different, and it came in the form of warmth, but not the kind of warmth that came from being buried under a pile of blankets.

At some point in the night, Jackson shifted and almost sought out the warmth, his broken hand ending up settled on Lisa's hip, the feeling of her body heat almost relieving for the painful injury.

Eventually, he would turn towards her entirely, his head resting against the curve of her throat, tucked just beneath her chin, his now unruly hair tickling against her jaw when he moved.

And though he would never admit it - and despite all of the injuries, the fever, and the withdrawal - it was the most pleasant sleep of his life.
 
RE: Vertigo

Lisa’s ascent into reality was a slow one. She was warm, unusually so, her sleep-fogged mind managed to pull that much from its recesses, and she felt a pressure on her. It didn’t force the air from her, crushing the small little lungs within her chest, but instead… it was strangely pleasant. Tiredly she turned towards it, the softest of sounds trying to emerge from her still closed lips, and at that movement something tickled them in response, its touch tendriled like the fingers of a feather. She puzzled at this, her slender brows knitting as the fog trying to keep her happily drowned in its depths began to clear a little ways, thinning out, allowing her eyes to tiredly flutter open. Her frown deepened when she found those eyes looking back at her; a slight tilt of her head, that gesture of curiosity oddly hampered by something…

She froze, not even daring to breathe for the length of time that her world swam messily around her, repositioning itself to show her not the scene she usually woke up to, but instead forcing her to recall the one she had actually drifted off to.

Her expression had opened up, her eyes widened only a breath; all of which shifts in herself she was allowed to watch play out in the overhead mirror before those hazel pools shifted their gaze slightly downward. His hair was soft as it tickled against her mouth and chin, messed somewhat in the throes of sleep; his body pressed tiredly against her own was what had been creating that warmth for her, and if the feel of his heart ever so near hears, his chest pressing further into hers with each slow but steady breath, the growth that covered the lower portion of his face tickling against her neck the same as his breath… his arm draped lazily over her. She tried to shake off the feeling of numbed shock that held her rigid in place, her fingers moving first against the bedding, her mind trying to locate her own extremities without her needing to move to much least she wake him…

Their legs were tangled… Lisa’s frown returned; she knew without knowing that there wasn’t exactly an easy way to wiggle herself out from beneath the sleeping Jackson without a very real risk of waking him, and she wasn’t too keen to do such a thing with how he behaved towards his own very real need to rest… and because some small part of her… felt safe… She realized her left hand had found its way to the back of his head in her sleep, those fingers feeling not the soft sheets of the bed, but the inviting strands of his hair as they slowly explored what surrounded them. He probably rolled over in his sleep…

The way he was laying spoke volumes in that defense, and it was an innocent enough thing to brush aside without much thought. Taking a slow breath, she forced herself to relax from her partial position beneath him, deciding it best to keep still and let him sleep for however long he could while he had no choice but to allow himself that…

She'd never told him good night. It was a rather abstract thought, but it was one that very clearly rang home with her… What had she said...? Just… shut up and go to sleep. Her lips became a hard, thin line as her eyes followed her own small fingers through his hair in the reflection the mirror offered her above.
 
RE: Vertigo

For the second time in as many days, Jackson dreamt the same dream; a much younger version of himself sat on the edge of his bed and stared at the door across the room as the handle twisted slowly from side to side, and then began to spin in a circle in a perpetual effort to open it, but the chair kept it closed. In the dream, the door rattled and jolted and he tried to stand, only to be staggered by a terrible pain in his chest - he tore his shirt open, and maggots spilled out from a gaping, metal-spiked cavity where his sternum had been.

Rippner stirred; he had become tangled with Lisa during the night, his head against her shoulder, his hand on her hip, his legs entwined with her - but if he noticed, he showed no evidence of it. Instead of going through the gradual process of moving from a state of sleep to a state of wakefulness, Jackson skipped everything and went directly from laying quietly beside Lisa to sitting up sharply, eyes still half-lidded; his unbroken hand went to his chest and his fingers dug against the staples and bandages that were still there - pain shot through the gunshot wounds, but it didn't matter.

Wordless, he stood and crossed over to the bathroom; his own reflection faced him for an instant and he knew he looked crazed - his face was flushed across his nose, cheeks, and temples and his hair stuck out at odd angles. His eyes hadn't even reverted back to their normal state yet, pupils still blown as a result of his body's efforts to detox - however, he was aware enough of his surroundings to know that Lisa had brought back scissors to cut the gauze she had used on his injuries.

Jackson grabbed the scissors and made quick work of the bandages, letting them drop into the sink before he focused on the mirror, his expression completely placid save for the slightest stress in his mouth; he opened the scissors up and dug one of the shears beneath a staple, jamming it between metal and skin and ruthlessly pulling forward, tugging the staple out of his body - it hit the sink with an audible, metallic ring and he moved to the next one.
 
RE: Vertigo

She’d been watching that play of her hand for how long, she didn’t quite know. Her mind had settled though, and she’d relaxed beneath him; she could feel the warm fingers of sleep coming for her again after awhile, her fingers gradually stilling though her eyes remained upon them ever watchful… and then, just like that, Jackson was sitting up. Her fuzzy perception tried to wrap around what she saw in the mirror as his warmth left her, the weight of his head on her shoulder gone and leaving behind an almost empty feeling as that joint once more accustomed itself to supporting nothing… It was what he did in that mirror that caused her eyes to widen, her sleepy state falling from her as she propped herself up, realizing only at length that she wasn’t limited to only using that overhead mirror to see him. Her eyes dropped, her neck craning as she sat up, rolling herself forward onto her knees as one foot found the floor. “Jackson…?” Her voice was tired, unsteady, and she seemed to follow just behind him with her eyes as he disappeared into the bathroom, intent on something. Sitting back on the bed, she lifted a hand to her head trying to physically shake the sleep from her when the first soft, nearly heart-stopping clink broke the almost silent atmosphere of the motel room. She’d missed the sound of the cabinet being opened; the soft snip the bandages made as they were cut away, and with where he was standing she couldn’t quite see him, but that sound reached her.

Her eyes opened and her hand dropped slowly from her head; another clink.

Her jaw dropped, his name never quite making it passed her lips as she stumbled from the bed; she wasn’t quite sure what she was hearing, and though her mind couldn’t manage to wrap fully around what it was… somehow… she knew. A trembling hand found the door frame, and it was with a vivid clarity she realized what he was doing as she rounded that small corner. Lisa’s mind simply stopped.

Clink. “J-Jack…” The rest of his name was only breathed, her lips moving but her voice dying out as she was moving towards him. Clink.

One hand found its way to the scissors as soon as that instrument of harm had dug out another of the staples that littered his chest, her fingers wrapped them and yanking them away from him while her other hand shoved him away from the sink. Horrified, both hands curled around the scissors, holding them against herself as she stared at him, wide-eyed, in a sort of shock. She was afraid he might reach for them. Her eyes didn’t look at the damage he’d done to his chest, didn’t note the cast off bandages in the sink, didn’t take in the bloodied staples that tainted the porcelain white sink, instead they sought his black pools, questioningly, demanding answers of him, demanding that he come to, “Jackson, what the hell?” She finally managed to choke out.
 
RE: Vertigo

Jackson was focused on the task at hand, but eyes had a distant look as he went through the process of steadily yanking the staples out of his skin; he had tugged five of them out by the time Lisa made it into the room. On some level he was aware of her speaking to him, but he didn't acknowledge her, not when he was in the midst of a minor surgical procedure.

Though, a moment later he had no choice but to acknowledge Lisa; it had been just after he'd tugged the sixth out of himself that her hand went to his, taking hold of the scissors and pulling them away. As though stirred from some strange hypnosis, Jackson blinked and finally looked over at her, his expression as placid as ever while blood moved in thin ribbons down his skin, draining from where each suture had been.

He realized the look on Lisa's face was almost frantic and for an instant he was unclear on why, all he was doing --

-- he caught sight of himself in the mirror again.

Ah, yes.

He looked like a psychopath, and judging by Reisert's tone, she was sure he had snapped and started mutilating himself for kicks.

All at once he became aware of exactly how much pain he was in; the sharp throb from the removal of the staples had distracted him from the ache in his leg and he placed a casual hand on the sink to steady himself when the world did an unpleasant little flip. He shoved his hair back with his other hand; he was going to have to cut it once he convinced Lisa to relinquish the scissors.

"They have to be removed." Jackson said finally, a simple and straight-forward answer, "My skin is starting to reject them, if they don't come out, they'll get infected."
 
RE: Vertigo

The small hands that held so tightly to the scissors trembled only once at his answer as the colour drained from her face, her pallor suddenly matching Jackson’s. …If they don’t come out, they’ll get infected… Her head turned, her eyes dropping to his chest, and she felt her world turn over on her as what was once a horrendous sight had become a gory mess. Unable to look away, one of her hands released the metal instrument she held to so dearly, steadying herself against the wall as she took a step back. He said it all so calmly… She swallowed, her face tightening as her hand clenched around what she was keeping from him. It was too early for this. He was right; he was so very right as disheartening as it was. She of all people shouldn’t have been forced to see this – any of this; she’d been the one to do this to him, but… People recovered in the safety and comfort of a hospital bed with wounds this severe, happily drugged up on morphine and oblivious to the world through bouts of shallow and deep sleep with, at the worst, the occasional nightmare jarring them awake before they’d drifted off again… Jackson Rippner was being allowed none of that.

Even that much needed pain killer had been turned against him; each and every step towards recovery he’d be put through within the warmth of a hospital turned into a horrifying problem that needed to be muddled through here… with her watching every minute of it. She swallowed hard; no one should be made to watch someone suffer like this… Straight-faced or screaming… she could only imagine the amount of pain he was in.

She seemed to come out of it a bit, though her hand remained against the wall while her cheeks retrained their porcelain pallor. The hand that had been pressed to the wall moved, finding her forehead, and a slight bit of Jackson’s blood was smeared across her forehead as she held it there, silently asking her world to still for her. A single, shaky breath escaped her lips, forced out as they formed a slight ‘o’, and she closed her eyes to give them no other choice but to look away from the somewhat bloody sight in front of her. “Yeah, okay… but you need to slow down, just a bit,” She said this softly, her voice oddly steady despite the fact that she looked like she was very near fainting, and when her eyes fluttered open they sought his face. Lisa was pointedly avoiding looking at the wound he’d been very near butchering even though his reasoning was indeed very sound.

“Would it…” She let that linger between them for a moment unintentionally as she turned away, looking to the mess he’d been making in the sink, and what little colour had returned to her cheeks paled itself again; the hand that had been pressed to her forehead fell slowly to her side, and her eyes caught the stain of blood that was on it even as she spoke, “…be easier if I did this for you?” Her voice was distant, absent even… as if she’d forgotten she’d been asking him something.

The look on her face almost appeared to say that she didn’t understand what she was seeing as she looked at her hand.
 
RE: Vertigo

Jackson could tell by the look on her face that Lisa was begrudgingly accepting that he was right - but his method had alarmed her; he wasn't used to having a second party around, especially not during moments like these, moments that were usually reserved only for complete solitude just so he wouldn't traumatize anyone. He watched as Lisa's eyes flicked down to his chest, to the mess of blood that trailed over his skin, worsened by a sheen of sweat he had only just realized was on him - his temperature was high again.

And while his skin flushed, Lisa's did the opposite; as she looked over the damage, all of the colour drained from her face, and Jackson began to gauge her; she had to use the wall to stabilize herself, but she was still offering to pull out the staples herself. On some level Rippner knew it would be easier if someone else did it for him, but Reisert looked as though she might collapse if she was introduced to any more blood.

He shook his head.

"I'll do it. You should go in the other room." he said, trying to redirect her, to get her to walk away before she really did lose consciousness.
 
RE: Vertigo

Lisa’s tore her gaze away from her hand as his answer tickled her ears, and before she’d even fully registered the implications of it a soft, “No!” had forced its way passed her lips in a single breath. Her breath shot inward again as a small gasp escaped her at her own surprise towards her reaction. Staring at him, she blinked, levelling herself out, trying to force everything that was churning through her head… out of it. You should go in the other room. He was trying to protect her from what she was seeing… That at least had registered with her. What’d he’d said wasn’t a call for privacy, and didn’t demand that she simply do anything but watch him… “No… It’ll be… Just sit down,” In trying to settle herself, she lost where to begin with him, her aimless speech revealing that much, though her words were firm. Just sit down. It didn’t offer room for question unless he wanted to argue with her. The fingers of her left hand touched to the upper portion of his right arm, urging him back a step… urging him to just sit down on the closed lid of the toilet.

“You shouldn’t be forced to do this, not when you’re like this,” No one should. He was flushed, crimson, and that fever was probably partly to blame as to why she was so pleasantly warm all night. He’d moved from her boogieman to her little heater in the span of a single night…

She carried on as if he’d obeyed that urging from her; as it stood, she had the scissors, and she didn’t plan on relinquishing them to him – not because the thought had ever even entered her mind that he would use them in some vile way on her… but because he simply couldn’t move forward without them, and this did need to be done. But the pressure behind why this had to happen was near deadly. If any of his wounds managed to get infected before they’d fully healed, Jackson Rippner would be left with very harsh choices. Suffer through a near agonizing death here, or take his chances behind the walls of the hospital that would also serve as his deathbed…

If they’d found him once… and with how grievous his injuries were… Nevermind that the staff tending to him would be forced to report the nature of his injuries to the authorities… He’d be identified easily… She would lose him.

Lisa had been in the process of cleaning the sink up a bit; she’d collected the staples Jackson had already managed to rip from his flesh, putting them into a neat little pile at the edge of the sink. The scissors were next, she running them under the cold water to clean them as her hands had been inadvertently touching to their sharp side, followed soon after by those same hands. When this thought flitted through her head on the tail end of the others, she almost missed it, but as her mind grasped hold of it… it refused to let it go. Her hands had stopped under the water, her head lifting a little ways, and she stared at the faucet, letting the water aimlessly run for a minute.

She would lose herself too… That steadied her a bit, and she found herself able to turn off the water.

Her neck was tight, her shoulders upraised slightly, tense, and her face still held to its pallor though she didn’t seem as unsteady as she’d been before; she looked as though she was holding that part of herself at bay, and while it was clearly a struggle, she was succeeding.
 
RE: Vertigo

Lisa's reply was sudden and almost violent, an absolute refusal in response to what he had said; it was followed by Lisa's hand moving to his upper arm, urging him backwards. Jackson made the decision not to protest - she had the scissors and it was clear that unless he wanted to fight her for them - potentially a physical fight, rather than just a verbal one this time - it was going to play out as she intended it to.

So Rippner sat, perched on the edge of the makeshift chair and staring up at Lisa while the blood continued to leak slowly down his thin chest; two staples remained in the still heavily bruised and mottled wounds on his chest, and he hadn't even begun to attack the other injuries - his arm, leg, and neck would all need to be addressed.

"Good morning." he added drily.
 
RE: Vertigo

Good morning…? Lisa turned and looked at Jackson slowly, her lips parting to say something, but only a disbelieving sigh came out. The heel of her hand pressed to the edge of the sink, her hip cocking to the side, and her head tilting as she stared at him for a moment; she didn’t want to respond to him with biting sarcasm again… and that urge melted from her as she actually realized what she was seeing. He almost looked like a little child who had run inside to his mother with maybe a banged knee or a scrape that needed tending to… Her posture straightened awkwardly, and she turned back to the sink, realizing what her hand had been sitting on; the washcloth from the night before. She blinked, lifting it from the edge of the sink and running it under the water while trying to forget about the image that had imposed itself over the real Jackson Rippner almost innocently staring up at her from the perch she’d sent him to. Holding the scissors in one hand, she still managed to use both to twist the excess water from the washcloth, mildly thankful that its threading was at least somewhat dark with what she intended to use it for.

He was bleeding, not profusely, but she wasn’t going to watch even a little bit of that life run out of him for a prolonged time.

“Yeah… it could have been,” She mused, leaving the safety of the sink and stepping into the chill offered by what she was actually about to do; she was steeled only by the reassuring thought that this would be easier for him. He would just have to close his eyes and grit his teeth through the pain and discomfort… instead of actually inflicting it upon himself. That bit would be left to her… each old injury revisited with the utmost intimacy…

Kneeling down in front of him, her eyes were allowed to take in the extensive damage that marred his chest once more. The injuries were angry around the edges, red where he’d been pulling out the staples that were intended to hold him together; blood trickled from those tiny openings, a slow fall down his chest, daring to lick its way lower if allowed.

His chest itself was bruised, discoloured slightly where the skin was still furious at those bullet holes from being made; it looked painful to the touch, and she inwardly recoiled as she realized that was exactly what she had to do – what’s more, she had to dig something out of there. Mommy, is it going to hurt? On her knees, Lisa was almost eye level with his chest, and once there she moved a bit closer, settling herself between his knees with the tiles from the floor digging into hers; she’d switched the scissors into her left hand for now, her right using the wet cloth to gingerly wipe the blood away from around those two wounds and stop its downward progression.

Somewhat nervously she looked up at him, that gaze just a brief little flicker before she leaned to the side, the edge of her sweater brushing his right knee as she returned the now darkened cloth to the edge of the sink for now. Did she warn him about what she was going to do?

Verbally walking him through a process he’d almost violently completed on himself in the short span of time it took her to cover the distance from the bed to the bathroom? The scissors found their way into her good hand again while her left touched to him, steadying herself, the side of that hand pressing gently to his chest around wound. If she’d intended to verbally warn him, the words never managed to make it as far as even her throat – Jackson could look away, Lisa could not… and none of the classes or books she’d read in all her life could have prepared her for actually doing something like this… The scissors found one of the staples slowly but firmly, careful to touch only the metal invader instead of around any piece of him, and as they closed around it… her stomach churned.

She pulled it free, her eyes closing as she did so, and she sat there a moment, the sound of her slowly swallowing back her revulsion strikingly loud to her own ears.

Clink. She went back for the last remaining one with little hesitation, and the same process was repeated a bit more steadily, “We have to see to everything, don’t we?” her voice was steady, but forced as it came out, “Everything has to come out?” It very well could have been a good morning… Clink.
 
RE: Vertigo

Jackson was silent as he watched Lisa navigate the bathroom, washing her hands and the scissors in the best preparation they could have under the circumstances; he could see the hesitation in her movements and it became more prominent as she edged closer to him, settling in front of him with the scissors in her hand, eyeing what remained on his chest. The final staples were focused near the centre of his sternum, directly in the middle of all of the mottled bruises from the surgical incisions that had been made to remove the bullet fragments that were inside of him; it had been his misfortune that they had shattered violently in his body, but to his benefit that for the violence of the wounds, the damage was reparable. From what he understood, there were still bits of the slug inside of his chest, miniscule shards that couldn't be removed - a permanent fixture for him to always remember Lisa by, if the scars weren't enough.

Lisa knelt in front of him, eyes flicking to meet his for an instant, but Jackson said nothing - her pallor told him everything he needed to know, that she was having trouble looking at the injuries, nevermind that she was about to tend to them in a very intimate way.

It wasn't easy for her, so Jackson sought to be as still as he could in an effort to make the process as simple as possible; there was no verbal warning when Lisa began to work on him but her movements made it clear when she was about to. He felt her hand on his chest, pressing against his skin just around the wounds while the other hand worried the scissors under one of the staples and right then, Jackson felt as though he was the character in the Operation game that children played - she treated the staple so cautiously that she seemed to believe he would buzz at her if she touched the sides.

His face remained impassive even as the staple was tugged out, and the only visible reactions came when his fingers tightened almost imperceptibly in his palms, and from the subtle strain around his eyes - but he remained stoic, even as the second one came out. However, there was no feeling of catharsis or relief at having the metal out of his body, there was only the throb of pain.

She was the first to break the silence, and Jackson didn't answer immediately; instead, he reached for the sink beside him, turning on the faucet and running his fingers beneath the water. Carefully, he brought his dampened fingers up to Lisa's forehead, where a smear of his blood lingered on her otherwise flawless skin, and he swiped it away with his thumb.

"Everything needs to come out." he confirmed, but didn't ask if she would be able to do it - he was aware that Lisa was perfectly capable of pulling herself together when she needed to, and this would be one of those times. She was capable.
 
RE: Vertigo

Lisa’s head turned slightly at the sound of the faucet instead of his voice, her eyes never quite leaving his chest but worry flooding her face just the same; she’d been distracted by the gore in front of her, her own hand having reached for the wet cloth she’d set aside to once more wipe away the blood that was attempting to run down him. Feeling his thumb against her forehead, that worry transformed into a heavy confusion, it pulling her eyes from his chest as she looked up towards his hand, very nearly jumping back a little ways. Her slender brows drew together, posing the question that never quite made it beyond her head… There had been blood on her hand… It clicked into place what he’d done, and her expression softened. It was perhaps the most intimate gesture she’d ever received, considering who’d it was sitting in front of her, and it pulled at her terribly so. He was just going to sit there, so placid and calm… so collected and still… while she quite literally tore him apart.

She’d tried to keep that from her mind as she’d worked out those two staples that had held him together so well once upon a time, while he’d healed and mended, tried to forget that the person she was digging into was in fact a person, but that was difficult when her hands were touching gingerly to his chest, when she could feel the faint rise and fall of his chest even with his attempts to be still for her… when she could feel his heartbeat beneath her fingertips more firmly than she had the night before. If she didn’t understand the necessity for this needing to be done, she would have left the room and would have probably taken the scissors with her. She wouldn’t have offered to do this… but if she didn’t do this for him, he would have to do it himself, because it had to be done.

Between the two of them one of them had to rip him open, and she’d rather it be her than him because that would be the easiest route for him…

But that small gesture… Lisa realized then how early it was, or rather, how early it felt. She’d just rolled out of bed, her hair was probably dishevelled at best, her clothes somewhat wrinkled, and her usual routine of coffee followed by a cold shower had been replaced with something far more jarring. Jackson looked no better than she did.

The wet cloth she kept in her hand this time, pressed between three fingers and the palm of her hand as it and its mate reached for his; her right hand still holding to the scissors in much the same way ran down his bandaged forearm, testing the length of the injury gingerly before she switched her grip on the scissors much as a seamstress would and began to carefully snip away the bandages. “Did you know any of this would happen…?” She questioned, not entirely caring if he answered or not; she was offering a distraction of sorts, something to take his mind off of what she was doing.

Giving up on the cloth for now, she thought about handing it off to him, but decided against it; she wanted him involved in this process as little as possible, and so it returned to the side of the sink. “I don’t mean this,” She directed her question, having the presence to gesture to the room with her now free hand instead of with the hand bearing the scissors even with the early hour, “…Did you know that there was a chance they would come for you?” She found the correct words finally from her sleep addled brain. Her free hand slid its way into his own, holding on to it only firmly, her thumb stroking against his knuckles, “Squeeze if you need to…” she offered absently. Him tensing that arm at all probably wouldn’t be the best thing for him, but considering what she was going to be doing, it would probably happen anyway…

Her hazels didn’t find him during any of this, her gaze downcast, focused on what she needed to be doing, trying to turn him into a piece of furniture, a placeholder… anything but a living, breathing, person… As carefully as she could, she set to work on his arm, the scissors once more moving with as much delicacy as she could manage; her thumb continued to stroke against his knuckles steadily, offering him at least one other sensation to focus himself on, to draw him away from what she was pulling out of him…
 
RE: Vertigo

Jackson had removed the blood from Lisa's forehead so absently that he had never considered the intimacy of the gesture, only that there had been blood on her forehead - his blood - and it somehow felt wrong to just leave it there like she was a member of the Manson family.

Beyond that - he was tired. He was aware of having slept for several hours, yet he somehow felt more tired than he had the previous night, as though the act of sleeping had managed to further drain his energy. Characteristically, Jackson didn't show his exhaustion - he held himself stiffly and properly, even as Lisa began cutting the bandages off his arm, revealing another row of staples.

Her hand took hold of his; on some level this registered to Jackson as being odd, but some part of him was too spent on trying to avoid those little touches that he simply allowed it - her fingers curled around his, but he didn't put any pressure on hers, a loose grip as though they were simply - touching.

She was speaking to him, and her voice came through with a sharpness and a loudness that made him realize he had been fading out a little - though he was unclear on whether he had been about to fall asleep, or fall unconscious. He hoped it wasn't the latter; he had managed to avoid it insofar and wanted to continue doing so.

"I was aware of the consequences," Jackson said, "I knew I wouldn't be in the hospital for long."

Though, they had left him there longer than he had expected them to; he supposed they wanted him just capable of travelling without expiring along the way.

The knuckles of his other hand went white when Lisa began to pull out a staple, but he made no other indication of his pain - save for the added rawness in his voice,

"I didn't predict their end game, however. It would be more sensible for them to force me to go after Keefe, given that his security team is on high-alert, it would be a suicide mission. But it's not about the job anymore."
 
RE: Vertigo

Finishing with his arm, she drew a pause, both at what he’d said and as she was allowed to realize that the hand she held to was still lifeless, not even holding on to hers gently… She was the one holding on to him. Blinking at this, she absently wiped the blood away from his arm before looking up at him, “You should ha…” She stopped, shaking her head; giving his hand a squeeze she let go of his arm and straightened herself up. He should have told her what? As he was laying on the floor of her childhood home bleeding out, that the ambulance coming to take him away wasn’t offering safety and help… Would her knowing have even made a difference? Could she have changed this if she’d known? Lisa’s hazels flicked over the flush covering Jackson’s otherwise ghostly-pale face; he was still feverish, and the strict composure the man had kept her noting little else. Her eyes dropped, glancing to the tub behind him, but she decided against that; she’d just redress his wounds and try to get him to go back to sleep. If need be, she could hold him together… “Then what is this about?” She was simply trying to keep him talking to her; the early hour was beginning to show on her, whatever rest she’d managed the night before was completely drained from her, she exhausted by what she was forcing herself to handle.

Though unlike Jackson, she didn’t feel the need to keep that locked behind a wall of steel. The wear showed on her face, and she looked away from him for a moment, her neck losing its upward tilt as she stared towards the wall for a moment before her hands started moving again.

Fingertips lightly touched to his thigh, the scissors following after, and again, she carefully cut away the bandages and laid them to the side. How close she was to him and exactly how high up on that thigh her hands were was lost to her, so set on keeping Jackson as nothing more than something to be worked upon and ripped apart…

Whatever awkwardness would have shivered into life the night before was nowhere to be seen; at least not at the moment. Her eyes seemed confused to see the stitching she knew would be greeting her; she’d been dealing with staples up until this point, this was something new… and her mind failed to wrap around it right away. Closing her eyes and shaking her head, she pushed herself forward, and once more one of her hands touched gingerly to him to steady herself before she set to work.

Delicately the scissors moved, manipulating the thread that had once held the wound closed as carefully as they could, freeing it from his skin; Lisa was so wrapped up in this new process, and with trying to use the utmost care to cause him the least amount of pain, that she only realized how close she was to him when a lock of her hair tumbled forward. It had freed itself from behind her ear, sliding down her shoulder to hang there, tickling against the side of his leg, and as she stared at that offending strand Jackson Rippner awkwardly ceased to be another inanimate object that simply needed fixing. A hand lifted from his leg, pushing that lock of hair once more back into place before she resumed the small procedure that had halted; she tried to ignore the heat she could feel staining her cheeks with only the barest of hues, tried to forget everything she’d seen of him since she’d stepped into the bathroom – she’d avoided looking at him the night before, but because of the urgency he’d created in her this morning…

She tried to push away the reality that those boxer briefs of his really didn’t hide all that much if one cared to actually look…
 
RE: Vertigo

Jackson was keenly aware of Lisa's current state; it was part of his job to be aware of a target's frame of mind, to understand their thought processes and predict their next move - in the current situation, he didn't need to forsee what Lisa would do, but her exhaustion was palpable.

She was tired and he didn't blame her; only two weeks prior she had undergone the sort of stress that the average person never recovered from and she was already travelling for business again. On top of that, her wake-up call hadn't been the best; despite his silence in the process - or perhaps because of it - she had been alarmed.

He observed distantly as Lisa pulled staples, and then began cutting the bandage from his leg. Though Rippner was still conscious to everything, he felt as though his brain was sitting outside of his head, accompanying his body only in theory; it was, perhaps, a method of pain management.

Then what is this about?

Jackson didn't have to consider the question, he knew the answer instantly:

"A failed attempt on Keefe's life - or more specifically, on his family's life - will only intensify his efforts with homeland security because it's become personal for him. Anyone who has, does, or could eventually want Keefe dead will become the focus of severe and invasive investigative methods."

Jackson spoke as though he was reading from notes that were held up in front of him,

"Understandably, with even the slightest possibility that they might be noted by homeland security, the people who paid for Keefe's assassination will be concerned about any - trail - that could link them to the attempt. They're destroying their connection to it - me. And, by default, you."

His brain continued to float beside his head for a moment longer before suddenly snapping back into place when he felt something trail along his inner thigh, the muscles twitching in response. Jackson's eyes flicked down in time to see a coil of Lisa's hair play along his skin before it was tucked back in place, and he was suddenly aware of how very close she was to him.

He shoved the thought away.

"Malevre wants me to kill you to make it appear as though I worked alone - as though I escaped the hospital to hunt you down."
 
RE: Vertigo

Lisa regained herself quickly enough, focusing on the movement of her hands and everything that Jackson was telling her, she trying to turn the process back to the methodical nature it had been at before… Finishing with his leg, she drew a pause, her head tilting back as she looked up at him though her eyes soon dropped to his throat. He’d been almost dangerously tense the last time she’d even ventured to unravel those bandages… but that had been the night before… “And then they do away with you themselves, making you, quite simply, disappear…” Lisa murmured absently. Straightening up, she touched to his chin gently, her fingers urging his head to tilt back slightly, “Even though I doubt you’d be the one to spill any of their secrets, just from the little bit I know of you.”

She moved more slowly this time, perhaps because this was the one injury on his body with a sort of meaning between the two of them… The tips of her scissors found the edge of the bandages wrapped around his throat, and their lips slid carefully along his throat to undo those binding in one fluid snip. In doing so, Lisa's knees had brought her closer to him, enough so that she wouldn't have to stretch her arms out to reach the next wound she'd have to free from its stitchings. “Though, we wouldn’t be here if not for that end of things…” She furthered, her voice still distant.

Lisa’s attention was still more focused on what her hands were doing than on their conversation even though she was very clearly taking in everything he was saying.
 
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