Alicia Washington keeps her jaw tight and her fists clenched. This is absolutely ridiculous. She's without a shirt, stripped to her bra. Thank God that Lizard Ratfuck Piece of Shit Dinosaur hit her below her chest or she'd be giving the entire convoy a pretty damn nice view. She'd refused pain meds; almost always does and simply clenches her leather jacket in her fists; focuses on breathing through the primitive urge to flinch each time a new area within her wound decides to throb. She doesn't shut her eyes. Simply clenches her jaw, and (if she dares) utters curses and pained groans inconspicuously. The Field Doc attending to her is good though she'll boast to herself that she would have had the wound cleaned and irrigated much faster, but in all she can't complain. She can finally relax when she feels the familiar cold tingle of the mending gel as it knits her skin cells back into place and lets her jacket fall onto her bag next to the bed.
"Do you want the 'smooth'?" The Doctor asks and she quirks a brow at him. He rolls his eyes knowing too well that Lieutenant Alicia Washington doesn't remove her scars.
"You know the answer to that one. Let me see it." She says motioning with her hand for him to hover a mirror over her left side, low down near her hip. She's being completely honest with herself when she says the new addition to the collection of scars that litter her body is an impressive one. It will fade, it isn't as deep as some of the others but it's deep enough. It snakes from just below her bottom rib hugging the shape and moving down her side to her hip- where it over laps with an old scar- and again hugs the shape of her hip bone. Her body is humming with exhaustion and she knows she won't be let out of the trauma tent for at least a few more hours.
"Fucking dinosaurs." She mutters, shifting slightly to get more comfortable.
"You should get some sleep Lieutenant. The mending gel will have completed its job in an hour but you shouldn't jump back into anything strenuous until tomorrow." He rolls over the usual spiel, full of shoulds and shouldn'ts; if Nathaniel had been here he'd have told her flat out "Wash, your ass isn't going to budge off this bed 'til dawn." She has to grin as she hears it play in her head.
"Will do, Doc." She says taking a deep breath of cool damp air. Her eyes wander the Med Tent; more than a few soldiers had been injured. Nothing terrible, worst was probably the fresh she'd shoved out of the way. He'd suffered a concussion and was still out cold. It's only been ten minutes, Alicia. She reminds herself. She does a mental double take when she notices Corporal Laura Reilly's eyes on her. She too has been stripped down to her bra, same sturdy black design, holding the two things that make being a woman in the military just a tad more difficult securely in place, if not a little too securely. She has a few scars scattered over her abdomen. One of which Alicia notices the beginning of next to her belly button that disappears beneath her waistband. Her eyes come up to meet the Corporal's and doesn't miss (nor does it appear that she's trying to hide it) the intrigue in her eyes at the fact that she's been physically catalogued by the Lieutenant (and is by all means receiving positive feedback). The intrigue quickly disappears as soon as the nurse behind her begins whatever treatment the Corporal is in need of.
The younger woman's grip tightens on the edge of the bed and she grits her teeth as her eyes screw shut. Alicia's gaze moves to the nurse behind Reilly and she can't help but frown. The nurse is removing claws- the small ones with bristles- from the itty bitty shitty sneaky little dinos that like to tag along with packs of Slashers and wait for another animal to become incapacitated before converging in 10s and 20s onto the injured creature. They aren't any bigger than mice and their bodies can contort easily. It had been a real pain back in the day before they'd created a naturally occurring repellent. She vaguely recalls seeing the Corporal fall while she'd been aiming at the bigger beasts. The bandage on Corporal Reilly's arm tells her why the little buggers attacked her and Alicia can't help but understand the pain that the younger soldier must be experiencing. Alicia looks back at Laura Reilly's face and silently wishes she could get up and offer some kind of help. Removing the claws is painful to say the least; there are tiny pockets containing some kind of defence mechanism. Makes pain sensors ten times more sensitive.
Laura has her eyes screwed shut and her hands clench the edge of the bed enough to make her knuckles much paler than her dark skin. Uncontrollable tears stain her cheeks and she grimaces when she notices their existence. It's quiet enough for Alicia to hear Laura's quiet exclamations of pain. You can't take anything for the pain; something in the poison immediately induces violent vomiting. It doesn't have any other affect other than the extreme pain sensitivity and the vomiting (if you're dumb enough to take something). The nurse places a cloth over the Corporal's back and smoothes her hand over it, she says something to Laura and she manages a laugh through her grimacing. Her hands slowly relax and she takes a deep breath. Her entire posture relaxes and she brings both hands up to wipe her eyes. Alicia's eyes trail over Laura's toned body and she almost laughs when she realizes (and admits) her strange fascination with how Laura's currently visible muscles contract as she moves. The nurse puts a gel over Laura's back and pats her shoulder lightly before telling her something and walking off.
It's then that Laura's eyes find Alicia's again. The intrigue is back and she allows herself a subtle half smirk as her eyes move over the Lieutenant's body in turn. Alicia can't help but laugh and watches the younger woman catalogue her. If Laura's facial expression is any indicator, Alicia finds herself enjoying the feedback she's getting. She makes eye contact with Laura and a smirk plasters itself on her face. The Corporal's grin is infectious and she can't help but let out another chuckle.
"Lieutenant, Commander Taylor on the line for you." A young soldier walks up to her bed and holds her comm. unit out for her. She notices with a certain degree of mirth that the kid's got his eyes focused on a point well above her.
"You're dismissed Private, have one of the Docs bring me a blanket." She takes the comm. and activates it. The soldier scurries off.
"Lieutenant Washington checking in, sir." She smiles, the slightly aching (but healing) wound on her side doing nothing to dampen her good mood.
"You seem awfully cheerful, Wash." He says, obviously surprised not to hear outright and unhindered annoyance.
"Not a pain med in me; must be the scenery." She offers; omitting that the scenery she's enjoying isn't exactly the plant life.
"There rarely ever are pain meds in you. You're alright?" She has to smile at his worry. Nearly two decades of working together does that to people. She can't say that she doesn't return the worry when their situations are reversed.
"As alright as I can be until tomorrow. Heard your voice in my head telling me to keep my ass in the bed 'til dawn. Corporal Reilly probably got it worse, had a run in with some Roacheraptors. Pleasant times." The pleasant tone she's adopted for the moment doesn't drop when a nurse walks over and drapes a blanket over her. She nods her thanks.
"You're probably right. Those critters are terrible. You need sleep, so I'll leave you to it." His voice is cheerful too and this pleases her.
"Thank you, sir. Goodnight." She turns off her comm. and tosses it on top of her bag one of the soldiers had slid next to her, just before she'd been tended to.
She glances over at Laura Reilly. The younger soldier had received a blanket of her own and had quickly fallen asleep. Alicia smiles once more and is lulled to sleep by the distant sound of running water. She is pleasantly plagued with images of a certain scenery that has her quite refreshed come morning.
