Fractured windows
Angel sits up in the cot that is for now hers, today is so strange. Something is a miss, her daily visitor is nowhere in sight. Angel looks over to the vitamin iv that hangs from a thin metal hook on the wall, the drip is slow and steady. She had tried to refuse it before saying she was fine, didn't need it the day before. Dr. Zed didn't want to drag out the argument and let her have her way, She though t she had been victorious. No, within hours she found herself exhausted and with such a headache. Perhaps the iv is good for her after all, before agreeing to have it put back she had asked what was in it. To which they handed one of the bags and let her read the label, when daisy and the Dr. proved not to be hiding a damn thing she let them put it back. After that she didn't really argue with them anymore, it was strange to have a doctor that wanted her to be truly well.
A blur of colors glided over the liquid IV, Angel blinked and found Mordecai walking into the room.
" your late!"
Her smile is bright and wide showing off her teeth, a slight gap between her front teeth and a small chip in the lower left tooth. Mordecai gives a short chuckle as he sits down in the foldable chair beside her.
" you'll live."
Something is different today, Angel looks him up and down as she watches him slide his hand into a cargo pocket on his leg. None of his equipment is new...no new additions. Whats going on? She pluck s small grubby deck of cards from his pocket.
" I bet you never played poker before."
Angel narrows her eyes at him, her curiosity eating at her. Whatever it is it's likely not her business. She shakes her head at him while he drops the cards from their box into his waiting hand,
" you wanna shuffle?"
"okay, how do I do that?"
She leans forward to look at the cards curiously, he holds the deck out for her to take. She takes it from him and turns it over to look at it for a moment.
" you have to divide it in two then get it all mixed up, out of order. So its random when I deal the cards."
From around the corner Maya strolls out in front of the hospice surprised when she finds Mordecai holding Angels hands and shuffling a deck of cards. He laughs when they slip up and the cards fly into the air spilling everywhere.
"oh crap! I'm sorry."
She quickly moves to pick up the cards that managed to land scattered across her bed, Mordecai huffs as he moves to reach down and pick up the ones on the floor.
" don't hurt yourself old man, I got it."
Both Angel and Mordecai are surprised to find Maya getting on her knees and picking up the scattered cards. Mordecai snorts at her comment although he forgets it when she stays on her knees in front of him to hand him the deck of cards. As he takes them from her she lets him lean forward and kiss her lips. Angel watched as Mayas eyes fell closed, the way their lips connected. How strange, this woman was usually so standoffish whenever she set eyes on her husband. She usually sneered when she saw him letting him see only her back, completely different from when she was without him.
" what are you doing mami?"
Maya pushes herself back up onto her feet, dusting off her knees as she responds.
"some fuel cells busted I gotta run out and get some more."
"alright mami, don't get shot."
She nods at him, turning to wave to Angel before she walks out of the clinic. Angel turns and finds Mordecai watching her walk, a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
" your wife is no longer upset with you?"
Mordecai blinks and turns to look back at Angel, who stares at him with mild interest. He finds himself smirking at her and her odd comments.
" nope. Not right now anyway, I'm sure I'll do something stupid again soon."
Angel finds herself snickering at how strangely open he is today. Customarily he's rather one sided and closed off. There in some attempt to keep her company, to keep the loneliness, for his concern she was really quite thankful. Despite what anyone might think being surrounded by strange new people just going about there business did not comfort her, no matter the fact that most of the ones she saw where caring for her injuries. She had felt like such a burden. It was so relieving when Mordecai came and sat down next to her, he didn't say much right away. It took a bit of her own opening up to get him to do the same. Even so he diverted subjects changed topics when things got too close to home.
Today however. He appeared to be an open book, his mood clear in a lazy smirk as he shuffled the cards for her. Angel finds her thoughts floating backward, to all the times Jack had openly prattled at her. All of his nonsense and problems, things she didn't care to know. She had wished at those time for him to just leave, she could have enjoyed the quiet then. Sometimes when it was least expected jack would appear and his topics would shift,strangely as though he where nervous. He was asking how she was how she felt. Although it seemed so pointless as she could only ever give the same answer.
" I am as well as you allow me to be."
Mordecai came daily and asked how she slept, if she might need another blanket or a thinner one maybe. She had tentatively asked for a thinner one. Pandora is so damn hot. How surprising when he flagged down Daisy, asking her to switch Angels bed set.
After about an hour of attempted poker Lilith came down from headquarters, rapping on the frame with her knuckles. She stuck her head in the room, waving awkwardly at Angel before asking.
" how intense is this game Morty?"
He rearranged his cards a bit before responding without looking at her.
"she's getting pretty good, why? You need somethin?"
Lilith folds her arms over her chest and gives a nod, after which she steps back out of the small clinic. Looking rather displeased, Mordecai folds his hand of cards with a sigh. His expression is mirrored on Angels face, she watches him stack up the cards and place them back in the box. He pauses as he moves to return the deck to his pocket, instead he just holds it out to Angel. Her smile is small at first, when she reaches out and wraps her pale fingers around the paper box- the smile grows.
" we can finish later okay?"
"okay!"
He doesn't need to see her as walked out of the room to know that she was already unsheathing the cards and attempting to shuffle them on her own. As he walks across the short distance up to head quarters he wonders to himself.
'why did I leave those cards? Why does it matter...'
Those cards should not be important... in his own mind he should have left them behind long ago. Burned them or just pitched them off a cliff. No reason to keep them whatsoever. It feels strange to walk with out them bumping around in his cargo pocket. He sighs glancing backward to where he knows Angel is enjoying them.
As he walks across the room he quickly spots Mayas ludicrously bright blue hair held back and restrained in a long braid as she walks the perimeter to Sanctuary hole. About ten feet behind her walks a heavily armored guard, and another behind him. She scans the area around her, her focused gaze looking somewhere off screen. He watches her point her small chunky SMG, tapping the trigger and smirking at whatever happened. Mayas smirk remains on her face as she turns away and continues her patrol.
Lilith snaps him out of his thoughts by throwing a crumpled up flier at him, it pops off his lens. He lets it hit the floor and looks at her with a snort,
" well what'd you want?"
She extends her arm holding out a handful of small black micro chips with bright green lines darting all over them.
" I need you to go and install these in every fast travel station within a hundred mile radius."
"what?"
"you heard me."
" why am I doing this?"
" because everyone else was busy"
"really? because I could have sworn I saw Axton heading over to Moxxis."
Lilith rolls her eyes at him, still holding out the hand full of little chips.
"scooter said he's not allowed to touch the inside of stations anymore."
Hours pass and Angel has memorized the deck of cards, found thirteen ways to organize them and even learned how to shuffle them without making a mess. The sun does not fade here, night is a season on Pandora. Like winter on other places but colder and crueler. Thankfully that's at least two months away. She can hear them in the other room whispering their argument, the doctor and the nurse. What to do with her, she's well enough to leave but has no one to take her and is in no shape to care for herself. She fidgets with the cards in her hands trying desperately not feel so hurt and ashamed. It's right then that she finds herself locking herself up in her thoughts, trying so hard not to feel. How did she manage to detach herself from everything before?
How surprising when she should find Mordecai stepping over and picking her up, an arm beneath her knees and the other wrapped around her back. Like a princess. She blinks at him confused, not at all sure what to say. He doesn't say anything either, although he glances at the cards still in her hands. Angels frame is almost weightless even when wrapped up in her blanket, the nurse Daisy barges in panicking slightly.
" wait! Just a minute!"
It would appear Mordecai had forgotten about Angels IVs, Daisy scurries about the small room searching the little white prepackaged alcohol swabs. The sensation of the needle being pulled out from under her skin is an odd one. As Daisy swabbed away the little droplets of blood and taped down a cotton ball, Angel found herself strongly disliking the needle that was pitched into a funny orange canister. Now free of any clear plastic tubing keeping her attached to the bed or area Mordecai could carry her away.
Angel looked up at him and wondered to herself where he might be taking her. Doesn't he live at headquarters? He isn't going to shove her away with all the other kids that don't have parents...is he? As they exited the small hospice Angel blinked, slightly surprised to find Maya standing there waiting. She walked along side Mordecai all the way to the fast travel station and went through first. Nope she wasn't going to be shoved away, he wouldn't do that. Angel found her self smiling when he let her scroll through the destinations on the small screen.
" Fyrestone is where we're going."
A bit further down, there it was, she tapped it with the pad of her forefinger and was surprised when she was overwhelmed by a plethora of spinning colors. When her vision cleared she found herself staring at a blinking image of Dr. Zeds face on some kind of vending machine, a small screen on that was flashing prices. To the side of that was an empty counter, Angel tried to look at absolutely everything that they passed. She began squirming in Mordecais arms pulling herself up by his shoulders to look at rows of sprouting green things and armored men walking along a giant wall. All the houses looked like piles of scrap that someone was trying to glue back together. A tall lookout tower poked out from the center, further on they went until she found them standing in front of a cliff side wall. He shifted most of her weight to one arm and reached out with the other to push a door open.
She wiggled and squirmed some more in his arms as she stared around the place, walls covered with blankets. But why? A soft click announced Maya stepping out from a door under the stairs with her arms loaded with thick blankets.
" I'm very sorry but we don't have another bed yet, so I hope you don't mind being down here for now"
Unsure of what to say Angel gave an awkward smile and nodded, Maya threw a blanket over the pile of cushions that was their couch. Tucking in the sides and pulling it tight, with a huff she dropped the second blanket on the makeshift bed and went back downstairs.
"wanna see whats going to be your room later?"
Angel blinked bewildered at the comment, she looked at Mordecai curiously.
" my room?"
" yea, unless you got somewhere else to go?"
She could feel her face turn warm.
"my room? You're going to let me stay here... with you guys? I don't want to be in the way..."
He can hear her voice warbling ever so slightly, shes nervous. He moves to walk up the stairs.
" I made this room for Maya originally but, we're not home very often so she doesn't get to use it much. She already offered to give it to you."
Angel reaches out and turns the knob, lightly shoving the door open. The odor is strange. Not like the rest of the air. Its.. not dirty. The air in this room is clean and crisp, thanks to the many small blooming flowers and sprouting vegetables in the box garden off to the side. A little desk with a mismatched chair, a book shelf sagging under the weight of so many tomes. And there on the floor beside the shelf is a tank half the size of the shelf. Inside the tank beady little eyes stare out from under the slowly turning lily pad.
"its kind of sparse right now, but we're going to be looking for a bed to bring in here for you and some other stuff."
Angel looks around the grubby room wide eyes, she looks at all the books on the shelf and finds herself grinning at the flowers. For some reason, she looks up. up. Here eyes grow wider when she realizes she can see everything above, there's nothing to block her view. Its a giant window! Mordecai smiles without meaning to when he sees the way she looks to the window that was so much trouble to put in.
" you're giving me this room?"
Her voice no longer warbles although it now sounds slightly mystified.
"yea."
" I never had my own room before, thank you."
She turns and grips him tightly with her feeble little arms.
"thank you so much! I cant even say it enough! I promise I wont be useless I'll-"
Mordecai laughs before she can finish and turns around to bring her back down to the living room where Maya flops a large pillow down. She pulls the top blanket back and grins over to Angel.
" you like the room?"
She nods quickly letting go of Mordecai when he sets her down onto her current bed.
" well good, because you're going to be in charge of watering those plants once we get you up there. And since you're going to be staying here in Fyrestone during the day you're also going to make sure to water the green house outside. I'll show you how to work the water system tomorrow morning okay?"
Mordecai sets himself down on the edge of of the couch, making sure not to sit on Angels feet. He digs around in one of his cargo pockets and plucks out a large rolled up bag of skag chewies. He pops it open and offers a bit of it to Angel. It smells strongly of salt, not really much else to it. She dips her small hand into the bag and plucks out a chunk of dehydrated it meat. Mordecai holds the bag out to Maya whose gotten accustomed to the strange food and grabs a handful. Angel eyes the meat for a moment before simply biting down on it, sort of rubbery. She bites as hard as she can then jerks her head to the side ripping a chunk off of it. Mordecai and Maya smile as they watch her tear apart her little piece like a starving animal. Maya being more acquainted with the food had developed a technique for heating the rubbery substance, one Mordecai perfected a vast and many years ago.
" so what where you guys playing earlier?"
Up in his floating heap Jack grumbles and swear on everything he can think of all the ways he will tear apart the little bitch that trashed his satellite and stole his baby. He lays on his back under an open panel in small raised server unit. He reaches in with pliers snipping broken wires and reconnecting them. Soldering here and there, removing whole pieces of the servers intestines and taking parts of it. He reroutes power from one to another until finally little lights blink to life. He grins widely one of the systems work! Jack rubs his hands together for a moment in a small celebration of victory before pulling up one of least grimy chairs and begins tapping at the keyboard.
Those little blue haired bimbos ore up the closest fast travel station here but it wasn't the only one. There has to be another, he searches blue prints and archives for where one might be. He's deeply displeased by the fact that the back up model is old and out of date like the re spawn station that had brought him back. With a heavy sigh Jack stands up and marches out of the room following the map he memorized in a moment, right turn down the stairs blah blah blah. In a hallway he looks around at a wall tapping here and there until he hears a hollow sound. He follows the panels seams and stabs a screwdriver under it wiggling the flat head until a corner pops out of place. He drags the screw driver up wiggling it here and there until the whole panel of metals falls out of place. He muses to himself that this shouldn't be so easy. As he wonders who built the place he mentally refers to them as every colorful variation of the term 'cheap skate'. The panel it tossed to the side with a heavy thud, the station hidden behind the wall untouched in a vast many years. Jack reaches out with on hand to the side of it flicking a small black switch and watching as it hums through its start up.
It works just fine, jacks grin slides over his face like a slow moving incision. That blue haired bitch is gonna pay for what shes done.
In here in this house with all the windows covered up the way they are, its much easier to sleep. No blinding sun poking in to pester them, Angels arm hangs off the side of the couch while sleeps. To be fair its the first sleep since her arrival that has been unhindered. No tubes poking her skin no sun in her face no nurses shuffling about here and there, no one bumping into the foot of her cot. No whispered arguments about what to do with her. Maya had even said if she needed anything she could just call them and they would come up. But what could she want? Sleeping on this lumpy pile of cushions is just fine. She sleeps so deeply she doesn't notice a damn thing.
Downstairs however Mordecai is busy kissing at Mayas neck nipping at her collarbones and grinding his hips between her soft thighs. He can't help but grin at the way she desperately tries to stifle her voice with her small hands clamped over her mouth. Those noises aren't for sharing. He likes them, the sounds she only makes for him. He reaches down placing both her her knees up over his shoulders and thrusts a bit harder and faster. He can feel her inner walls gripping him, milking him- he has to bite his lower lip to stave off his climax. A little more, he shifts his position slightly, oh but when he does her back arches upward. She screams her release and pulls him down with her, he grips Maya tightly while he spills himself within her.
After ward he lays beside her peppering her shoulder and cheek with soft kisses, she almost purrs at the feeling. As he watches her she looks over her shoulder at him, her brilliant eyes so vibrant in the dark.
"Tienes los ojos más bonitos del mundo."
She blinks and rolls to face him letting him see her quizzical expression.
"I hope that was something sweet and not perverted."
Maya smirks as he presses herself against him placing her lips over his for a moment.
"I like your eyes mami, I was saying you have pretty eyes..."
Their rendition of passes without incident, Angel upstairs hardly budges from her perfact impression on the pillows and blankets that make up her bed. Outside a few guards switch shifts, in headquarters Lilith sleeps sitting upright with her chin resting on her chest. The small chair that mordecai used to occupy so often has been serving as her bed for a the last few nights.
Jack finds himself growling with frustration when all his attempts to get down to pandora have been thwarted. Someone thought ahead and put a rerouting system on all the fast travel stations there, he screams in frustion and kicks a debunkt loader. One more time, one more try before he just tries to arm that damn cannon.
He clicks the little rubber down arrow on the old model, too hard. The button gets stuck and scrolls all the way down, with a little prodding he unjams it and finds himself staring at a curious new destination.
Athenas.
Why would Athenas be on the destination listing? Curiously Jack walks back to his one working terminal to see if the data Angel pulled from that hunter had remained intact. He smiles inwardly and let it be seen on his faux face as he watched the recorded scenes of Mordecai's wedding day. She was so sad, he fastforarded and watched her cry. The idea of her sobbing like that had left a a wide sharp smile on jacks face, he fastforwarded a bitfurther and smirked at their honey moon. More interesting than all that was her arrival to Pandora, screaming and hiding and christ how boring. He stopped the footage, flicked off the screen and went about collecting scrapped loaders all with great wide smile. He could almost sing with what he's learned.
The hour of morning ticks on their alarm, now usually Mordecai would slap the damn thing til it shut the hell up. Nope, not today not when there is a possibly consious girl upstairs. Maya lays curled up there beside Moredecai who taps the alarm so it doesn't wake her. He rolls over and sits on the dge of the bed, yawning and stretching like an oversized cat. Mordecai looks around the floor, he lazily pulls them on and almost forgets to button them. The yawning continues all the way up the stairs, when he steps into the living room he finds Angel sitting upright on the floor looking rather panicked.
"oi?! You alright?"
She squirms in place looking deeply uncomfortable, she makes an attempt to scoot back up onto the bed. He moves a bit more quickly to her, she looks so worried as she reaches up for him.
" I'm sorry I really have to ...go and you never showed me wher the.. uh ba-bathroom is."
Mordecai finds a lump of guilt quicklt drops into his stomach, he carefully lifts her up off the floor and takes her down stairs. The thought occurs to him as he step down into his own bed room.
"uh, have you ever used a bathroom before or...where you locked up all the time?"
He watches her face burn red with embarrasment be fore she looks away.
"ah, I see...um well i'll just get you in there and send Maya in okay?"
Angel nods quietly allowing him to carry her all the way to the restroom. To be honest she hasn't even seen one, she had rather accustommed to a cathoder since Jack refused to let her out of Angelcore. He isn't quite sure wher to set her down so very awkwardly seats her and hurries out. He shuts the door behind him, Angel can hear him call for Maya who grumbles nonsense.
"c'mon I need you to get up now!"
The sound of rustling sheets follows.
"NOW!"
Maya jolts upright looking bweildered and panicked, she gawkes for a minute at Mordecai. Her eyes narrow with her lack of sleep, how dare he keep her up so dman late and then wake her up like this damnit what the hell!
"what?"
He looks flustered and highly embarrased as he picks up her sleeping shirt and hands it to her.
"Angel is in the bathroom aaand she needs you in thererightnow."
Mayas glare softens, she pulls the shirt over her head and pulls on a pair of shorts she had yet to wear to bed.
" is she having her preiod?"
Mordecais face pales, he doesn't respond just sort of stares at her.
"its just a bit of blood, no big deal, you know-"
"bathroom that way!"
Maya rolls her eyes at his reaction and walks past him. She lightly knocks on the door before letting herself in, how odd to see Angel just sitting there looking beyond embarrassed.
Mordecai wonders if he should stay in the room or leave the house or go get something, what a bizarre situation. He can hear Maya talking but can't make out whats being said, not sure what else to do he begins walking around the room picking up clothes and tossing them in a bin. Maya Pokes her head out of the bathroom.
" hey!"
He turns and looks at her like a deer might look at a parked car.
"huh?"
"we don't have any clothes for her, she can wear a bit of mine today but mine are probably too big. Can you go look for something for her? I'm going to get her in the bath- I don't think any ones been brushing her hair or anything. Poor thing."
Mordecai nods at her and quickly looks for the rest of his clothes so he can run the hell out.
