He should have taken one of these 'vacations' years ago.
The last time Viral had been out in the wilderness was when he lived as a ragged wanderer. He had gotten so caught up in fighting alongside the humans and falling back into the old, comfortable role of a soldier that he had completely forgotten the immense freedom of being alone in the wild.
The beastman found a small but ecologically rich island not far from the city. Piloting a Grapearl unit that was cold and unfamiliar made him miss Enkidu, so he had abandoned it at the shore and ventured out into the wilds with only his old blade and a small knapsack of supplies.
He was almost a day into his outing, and he was starting to get hungry. His stalking and tracking skills were a little rusty, but he managed to locate a young grape-hippo isolated from its fellows by a river bank. Viral watched it from a thick patch of reeds. Keen to indulge his restless instincts, he set his weapons aside for this one.
His claws flexed and dug deep into the moist soil as he crouched. The stupid hippo was wandering closer and closer. It stopped to dip its muzzle in the water, leaving it ulnerable.
Viral exploded out of the reeds in a spray of mud and cat-tails, aiming to down the hippo with a flying tackle.
CRACK.
The deafening gunshot felt like it went directly through Viral's head. He crashed into the shore and tumbled, landing in a dazed sprawl. He noticed the hippo running away and grunted, trying to hop to his feet to chase it, but his body was being uncooperative. It felt like he'd been punched in the side, hard.
He glanced down and blinked. There was a bloody crater in his side, tattered and gun-powder blackened edges of his shirt sticking to the wound. Soaked blood was creeping up the fabric.
That could be a problem.
Sudden weariness made him set his head down on the bank.
"Oh my god, Viral!"
Sounds familiar. Is that...
He was unconscious before he could verify his theory.
The first thing Viral noticed was the smell.
Blood, mud, cloth, antiseptic, all stuffy and thick like he was in some small, poorly circulated room. It was warm and everything in him was sore.
There was another scent, one he couldn't quite identify.
He was tempted to ignore it and drift back to sleep, but a feathery touch on his sore -- and bare, he realized -- side jolted him fully awake. He growled softly and lifted his head, and the light fingers froze.
Two sets of golden eyes blinked curiously at each other.
Yoko was kneeling beside him, with a small pile of rags, a bottle of alcohol, and his bloodied shirt shorn neatly into pieces.
"I don't get it," she started, looking down at the area his wound should have been, "It's only been a few hours, but you're almost completely healed. There's no sign that .33 caliber slug ever hit you."
He snorted and sat up wearily, forcing back his grimace. "It's a talent of mine."
"...Sorry. I didn't mean to hit you. You jumped out of nowhere right when I took my shot and -- I thought I'd killed you." Yoko frowned, glancing away guiltily.
"Luckily for you, I'm built better than you monkeys," Viral sneered slightly, but any maliciousness in his voice was tepid. It bled away completely when he noticed that she looked genuinely upset.
They were in a small tent, obviously meant for one, so it was somewhat cramped. Yoko was sitting half outside, looking at the ocean in the horizon. She was wearing a leather jacket with a thin, clingy black top, and long khaki pants. The cool autumn weather must have driven her to more conservative dress.
He barely knew her, even if his first encounter with her was a turning point in his life. When Cytomander took her hostage, he saw her there, a lot smaller and farther away than she was now, and could not bring himself to attack an opponent bound only by loyalty to his friend. He wanted a fair fight.
Then, years later, she had broken him and Simon out of prison. He fought across galaxies beside her and the dozen or so other core members of the Great Gurren Brigade. As fearsome as she was in battle, and as strong-willed as she could be, she was normally quiet and reserved and Viral had never particularly noticed her.
So, possibly...
Yoko yelped and jerked herself out of the tent, rubbing her neck furiously where Viral's nose and hot breath had tickled her skin. She glared at him, bewildered and red in the face. He scowled.
"I was just trying to see if you were that odd smell."
She balled her fists. "Are you saying I stink?! You're one to talk, you're covered in mud!"
"Because someone shot me," he growled coolly, "I forgot what pitiful senses humans had. You wouldn't understand."
Yoko bit her lip and scowled venomously. "I said it was an accident! What were you doing out here, anyway?"
"What were you?"
"I live here! ...well. I live on another part of this island."
"Heh. So this is where you went." Viral slid out of the tent slowly, standing and stretching his neck. He was still sore as hell, but he wasn't about to let her know that. "I am on a... vacation."
"I guess I am too. Coming out here to wild part of the island is a nice way to spend the weekend."
The sun was starting to set over the mountains in the distance. A chilled wind tossed their hair.
"Where did you get all of those scars?"
Viral glanced down. Yoko was still sitting just outside the tent, looking up at him curiously. Not at his face, either.
She caught herself and tried to shrug off her sudden awkwardness. "Uh... sorry. I cut off your shirt because I was going to treat your wound and I noticed them. They're all over the place. You must've had it pretty rough."
"So to speak," Viral set his massive hand on his chest, pointing to the X-shaped scar that lanced his chest and collar bone, "Some were from my training. Some were from my commanders. Some were from you and your friends."
Yoko blinked, then turned her head away with a sad smile.
"I think we all have some scars from that time."
Viral's head tilted slightly. All of the humans he had dealt with would have taken that casual swipe as a challenge. He could even get a rise out of the Rossiu sometimes. What made her different?
...oh.
All of his life, he had been surrounded by other males. Female beastmen were few and far between -- besides, Adiane had been more frightening than any man he'd ever known -- and human females were equally rare in the military position he found himself in now. Even their scent was strange and unfamiliar to him.
He crouched down beside her.
She was still looking away, so he was free to study her features. Her face looked soft. So did her wine-colored hair.
His claws itched. Not the way they yearned to maul an enemy, not to heft his cleaver, not even to grab hold of a ganmen's steering rod and lead it into ruthless combat.
Curiosity got the better of him, and the tips of his gnarled, thick fingers grazed one of the red sidelocks of hair hanging behind her ear. He was stealthy, but his oversized hands were hardly nimble. Rough skin brushed against Yoko's cheek and caused her to start.
Viral yanked his hand back as soon as she jerked and bristled, quietly mortified. He pretended to be interested in something in the distance as Yoko gave him a puzzled look.
"Is your campsite nearby?" She finally broke the silence, "It's going to get cold tonight, you can't stay like... that."
"I'll be fine." Viral stood up swiftly, "Like I said, I'm a lot tougher than--"
His sudden movement ripped open the delicate, newly-healed skin over his wound. Viral made a strangled sound and slapped his broad hand over the wound, fresh blood dribbling between his fingers.
"I knew you couldn't heal that fast!" Yoko jumped up and hooked her arm around him, guiding him back down into the tent.
"I can," he hissed between his teeth, but was too distracted by pain to do anything but comply. "You don't need to interfere!"
"Too bad," Yoko sat behind him in the tent and pried his bloodied hand away from his wound,
"Ugh... there's still gunpowder residue in there, and I don't think the bullet ever came out either. It's already getting infected. Hold still, this might sting a little."
The air was suddenly flooded with the burning scent of alcohol, and Viral saw her pouring it onto a cloth out of the corner of his eye. Without further warning, she started it running it around the area of the wound. At first, it was merely cold, and Viral wondered what the hell she was talking about, but then she gingerly daubed it over the raw flesh and gore.
"I think I see the slug. Let me just..."
The howling shriek that came out of him was far from human. She cried out sharply along with him and froze, and after the pain subsided, Viral grimaced and realized what he'd done.
In the throe of shocked agony he had dug his claws into her hip and dragged them upwards. They had gone clear through the fabric of the khakis and left deep trenches in her flesh. She was pressing into his back, her face buried in his hair. Her breathing was pained.
Viral swallowed and carefully flexed his claws, dislodging them from her flesh. She whimpered at the slight jerk, and he felt something in his chest sink. "Yoko, I didn't... gh..."
"It... i-it's okay." She shook her head slowly against the back of his neck, "I guess it makes us even."
She recovered enough to finish dislodging the bullet and cleaning his wound, and he was cowed by shame into sitting still. He couldn't help but look down at the guilty hand. Her blood was still staining the groves of his claw, gathering around his cuticles. It was hardly the first time human blood was on his hands, but it was the first time he felt so damn bad about it.
Without warning, he pulled away from her and turned around.
"Viral, you can't keep moving around like that, you're going to aiiegh!"
Viral had ripped off her pants.
Well, half of them, anyway, grabbing the fabric by the holes his claws had already put into it earlier and tearing with all his might. He managed to catch a seam and separate the pants-leg from the waist of the khakis raggedly. Viral threw the bloody canvas fabric aside and took her leg, trying to better examine the wounds.
Yoko couldn't do much but stare at him, horrified. "Y-you could ask me before you do that, you know!"
Viral snorted. "Lean on your other leg."
Though ruffled, she complied. Viral's hands were large enough that his palms could span one side of her thigh almost completely, and to her agitation, he wasn't shy about using them to manipulate her leg.
But his focus was entirely on her wounds, so he took no notice of her uncomfortable frowns. He took a clean rag and wiped away the blood.
"That alcohol... You use it as a disinfectant, correct?"
She nodded, and he added some of that to his rag. To his chagrin, she took the cold stinging sensation far better than he did, just quietly wrenching her face.
He had dressed many wounds in his years as a soldier, both his own and, occasionally, those of his subordinates. So it was with a practiced hand that he neatly shredded the khaki pant leg he had torn off, dividing it into long strips to wind around her leg as bandages.
"That should hold until I can get some real supplies." Viral lifted his head to look her in the eye. He hadn't realized how close he was to her face. They were sharing the same air.
Viral froze. He wasn't sure if he had ever been this close to a human before, even when he was slaughtering them. That was usually done from afar, with Enki's deadly force. It was a secret shame of his that he had never quite been able to bring himself to kill them in person unless it was in self defense.
Up close, they reminded him far too much of himself.
Especially now. He'd never seen a human with golden eyes before. Maybe it was egocentric, but he found them rather fetching.
"Um," Yoko started, blinking at him warily. "I think that's enough wrapping."
His hands had idly continued winding the fabric around her leg as he had admired her face. Flinching back to awareness, he nodded and quickly finished up the bandaging, pulling back as soon as he could.
"Sorry about your pants," Viral muttered, looking down at his own, "I can give you mine if you want. I can tolerate the cold far better."
"T-t-that's fine," she waved her hands and shook her head, "I'll deal."
He didn't understand why her face had contorted into such a disturbed look. Humans were confusing.
Viral glanced outside; it was night now, the last traces of the sunset fading over distant mountains.
"I'll stay."
Yoko looked up from fiddling with her bandages. "What?"
"I'll stay with you. You're not going to be able to hunt or defend yourself with that leg, and it's my fault."
She stared at the back of his head since he was still looking outside, away from her. Yoko shifted uncertainly. She didn't want to admit that she couldn't still hold her own, but he had a point.
"Okay... It'll be kind of cramped in here, but..."
"I'll sleep outside."
"N-no!" Yoko grimaced. That came out a little too quickly. "I mean, you're hurt too. There's enough room."
To prove her point, she scooted over to the far side of the tent and pulled a tightly folded, thin blanket out of her bag of supplies. He turned his head and watched her with a blank stare.
A lifetime of combat training and experience had taught him that the primary -- and usually, the only -- reason to ever get within five feet of another living being was to kill or be killed. His muscles tensed and his skin crawled whenever someone invaded his personal space. He had to force back the reflexes in his claws at every bump and brush. But for some reason unfathomable to him, he didn't reject her invitation.
Carefully, he slid back into the tent beside her. Despite his maneuvering, their sides were against one another. Unable to do anything else with his massive arms, he awkwardly folded them behind his head and laid back uncomfortably. The hair on the back of his neck was standing up. Claustrophobic tension was pulling his muscles taut.
It was bad enough that he almost didn't notice Yoko frowning down at him, still sitting up by his side. "You don't look too happy."
Viral took a deep breath. "I'm not... used to being this... near someone."
Yoko smiled distantly. "Truth be told, I'm not either. But you refuse to leave and I refuse to let you freeze outside, so we're stuck here, aren't we."
She laid down beside him, her long hair pooling around his elbow. The crown of her head rested against his arm; there was no other place for it to go. Viral was certain that even her weak human ears could hear his accelerated heartbeat, though he didn't understand why it wasn't accompanied by the usual indignation and violent impulses. In their place was a strange tingling thrill, not unlike the high he got from fighting or hunting.
He laid there, fixating his stare on the tent walls. It didn't help much. He could still feel her hair tickling his skin and hear her every quiet breath. Her warm scent was the only thing he could smell.
Viral was starting to understand the strange control she seemed to exert over her male colleagues. It wasn't fear, the way Adiane had bulled her way through her subordinates... hell, Yoko didn't even seem to be aware of her own abilities.
He flexed his toes. No, it wasn't fear bothering him. It was frustration, self-consciousness and some strange hot craving he'd never known until the past few weeks. Eating, drinking, fighting, exercise, killing -- nothing slaked it, and it was getting worse in her presence.
A warm weight leaned into his side. He had spent so long ruminating that he hadn't realized the source of his angst had fallen asleep. She was almost resting in the crook of his arm, and he felt her shiver faintly when a cool wind blew in through the tent opening.
The thin blanket she had brought was warm enough if doubled over. He immediately relinquished the side she had given him and tried to arrange it over her without disturbing her. The gesture left him turned on his side, facing her.
Viral gave into the desire he couldn't understand and settled against her that way, cradling her head onto his shoulder and draping his arm across her stomach. Now he could bury his nose into her hair and enjoy her strange, intoxicating scent without getting in trouble.
Oddly enough, having the human leaning against him made the tension ebb. Her body heat seemed to chase it away and leave something very pleasant in its wake.
He was content.
