droppingin | The Ton

[ why did this go straight to voice mail? probably because Pheme loves a spicy bit of drama. ]

Ada.

[ His voice sounds rusty, and there's more than a few reasons it might be, not all of them bad. But there's also a breathy, strained quality that doesn't bode well, either. ]

There's a road that leads out of town from the Naval Quarter. Follows the shore. Old shed, cart with no wheels right outside.

[ He hangs up, presumably meaning he wants to meet there. (Or he uh, passed out, one or the other.) ]

Edited 2023-07-09 23:19 (UTC)

[ She doesn't bother calling back.

She's never really ordered her retainer around before, mostly allowed him to do his job enough to keep the peace, knowing at some point he'd be useful to her. What she asks him isn't anything outside of his job description, but the late hour earns her a raised eyebrow.

It's longer than she wishes it took, but after confirming with her retainer, the night finds one Ada Wong astride a dark horse, clipping through town on her way to the Naval Quarter, on her way to a moonlit beach, somewhat morbidly hoping she's about to find a drunk idiot instead of a corpse.

Well, at the very least she finds a shed. ]

Anyone home?

[ Maybe it's not the right shed, but she's going to push the door open anyway, just to make sure.

Ah.

She approaches him cautiously. ]

Oh, Leon. The hell did you get yourself into?

[ On the approach, there aren't any obvious signs anyone's been there in a while; Leon covered his tracks as well as he could — in case Krauser changed his mind, in case he went after him to finish the job. The door creaks open, and stops just short of a full swing when it knocks up against his boot, Leon himself slumped on the floor against the wall, communicator in his lap.

Smart to approach with caution, because her shadow falls across him, moonlight spilling through the door, and Leon's other hand comes up, knife glinting in his fist. It drops along with his arm when he exhales in relief: ]

Poked a bear.

[ He has a hell of a shiner developing, a bruise on his jaw to one side, a swollen cheekbone on the other, and the way he's favoring his left side speaks of other injuries not too readily apparent. His throat has dusky bruising all over. Explains the way he sounds like he's gargled with rocks. Rolling his head back against the wall with a wince, he attempts a dry: ] Should see the other guy.

[ Not really. Krauser definitely came out of that one on top. ]

[ It would be only natural to have questions, even to ask them. But Ada knows better. Leon didn't call her because he wanted to talk about whatever just wrecked his shit, or he wouldn't be running his mouth looking like he's a wet cough from punctured lung.

She expects the knife now, is comforted to see it, that he still has some self-preservation remaining. And if there's a threat she needs to be aware of, he'd tell her. They've both been good for that much. ]

Painful enough looking at you.

[ She kneels in front of him, careful, reaching out but not quite touching, ghosting her fingers just out of reach of bruises that tell a hell of a story. ]

Cozy in here. [ She never stops looking at him. ]

Think you can survive a short walk?

[ She's more worried about him deciding to die in the street when he sees his rescuer arrived on a noble steed. ]

[ She reaches out, and Leon's in enough pain to know better than to want those hands on him, he'll take the insinuation, let that warm him. Painful enough looking at him. Leon huffs (and regrets it).

Cozy in here, she says. ]

Heh, yeah. Is now.

[ A bit of harmless, low-stakes banter. He closes his eyes, nodding, and sucks in a breath to hold when he uses the wall to stiffly rise to his feet, knife shoved into the sheath behind him, and then it's his right hand firmly tucked against his left side. Left fingers have a tremor in them that comes and goes.

When he sees what's waiting outside, Leon lets out that breath in a hiss: ] Shit.

[ Horseback riding with busted - or possibly just badly bruised - ribs is going to be agony at anything faster than a walk (and even then), he looks bleakly at Ada. He can't really justify complaining, she is coming to his rescue, and all. ]

...You know where Whetstone is?

[ The mare gives Leon the eye as they approach, assessing, and huffs loudly at his curse. Ada purses her lips together in such a way that makes it a little too obvious she's trying not to smile.

It's not funny in slightest, seeing him in pain, seeing him broken like he always inevitably seems to become. It's always only a matter of time, isn't it?

But she smiles at that pitiful, bleak look he gives her, and reaches out, cups his face in a feather-light touch, then drops her hand. ]

I think so.

[ She glances around for a moment until she locates something that could work as a step up, because she's damn sure Leon hefting his full weight up right now is out of the question, and leads the mare over to it, just a few steps. She hops up first, adjusts forward in the saddle, then turns at the waist to pat the saddle behind her. ]

Get on. You're riding shotgun.

[ It would hurt Leon's wounded pride more if she wasn't looking for the levity here, and that's stinging enough that he had to ring backup. Not that it's unexpected, getting up close and personal with Krauser in the full, heated throes of a violent rage. Still, Leon heaves a shallow sigh as she leads her mare over, ascends into it and indicates where he'll be sitting. ]

Yes, ma'am.

[ The rickety bed of this cart rotting away in the yard by this seabreeze-weathered shed will serve as a step up just fine, and although it takes some work, Leon eventually slides his weight right up behind her in the saddle. The way his body knocks up against her back is unintentional, a flinch when his side flares up with a hot seize of pain.

He does everything he can to keep that to himself, jaw tight and hands... hilariously indecisive about where they should go to secure himself without getting handsy without invitation. ]

Down this road. That way.

[ Her lips kick up to the corner as he Ma'ams her, and she does what she can to assist from her perch. Of course she recognizes his pain, his body is right up against hers, she can feel his breath in her hair, and she has pretty good hearing, to back it all up. But she's not here to mock him for it, and she wouldn't appreciate it being called out were the situation reversed. Hell, she's not sure she would've called him if the situation were truly reversed. She doesn't...take that lightly.

She's a little rigid, herself, at first. She's never ridden a horse with someone else along for the ride, but how hard can it be? Even if she knows full well how much the man behind her would enjoy this on a good day. (Which is to say, very little if at all.)

She glances over her shoulder at him. ]

Hold on however you need to.

[ And once it seems he's got a grip, she clicks her tongue and kicks her heels, and they're off at a gentle pace. Fortunately for them both, her horse having been rudely awakened this evening means she's a little more relaxed than she might have been otherwise, and it's easy to keep her steady without too much reining in. ]

If you fall off I'm leaving you there.

[ Oh, Leon might have liked it a little, or a very specific part of him, for very specific reasons, such as the way her backside fits against his lap. He's in too much discomfort to appreciate it, eventually taking hold of the horn of her saddle in one hand, arm threaded under one of hers against her side, his other hand clasped over his ribs like it's the one thing holding them in place.

Her comment prompts a very abbreviated puff of breath that resolves into a gasp when, oof, laughing is not medicine for a banged up ribcage. ]

My hero. [ Leon quips dryly, but not without sincerity — it might not seem so, until his right hand strays from his left side and rests, just for a moment, on her hip, his thumb brushing against the side of her back in silent appreciation.

It doesn't last, he presses it against his own side, lapsing into tense silence. ]

[ Not having known exactly what kind of help Leon needed, if it was help at all, she'd been a little sparse in bringing supplies. There was a romanticism in ripping up a skirt to use as binding and bandages... but unfortunately she'd opted for pants. The loosening of societal expectations to merely "fully clothed" had emboldened her. And it was better for horseback riding, anyway.

In short, she wasn't going to waste the experience of ripping up her trousers on him in this state.

But she did feel a bit guilty for how he was literally having to hold himself together behind her.

It feels bold to smile at the soft touch of his hand on her hip, the stroke of his thumb, but he can't see her face so she allows herself this. There's something picturesque about it, if she removes herself enough, of a stroll on horseback by moonlight. So of course her experience with it involves a wounded man and a worry she hasn't allowed herself to articulate, to keep her grounded, to remind her not to allow distraction. ]

You can owe me.

[ She forgets to stop smiling before she responds, and the warmth in her reply is undeniable. ]

[ A smile changes the sound of the words that pass through it. He hears it, it takes him out of his own pain and not only for the glimmer of heartsick hope it sparks in him. It's the shimmer of pleasant, warm Thumos, a mere thread between them when he replies against the shell of her ear: ]

Wasn't aware we were still keeping score.

[ A calling back to more than six years ago.

Though, it's not entirely true. He's been keeping score ever since, the score was what prompted that vindicated smile when they encountered each other in Spain, the bitterness when they did in Andovale at the Trident, still high on their survival of the flood.

He's reminded, then, of the benefits of Thumos that often go unnoticed in such times of peace, the way it files off the sharpest corners of his pain, makes this into less of an exercise in sheer endurance. His left hand leaves the horn of the saddle, laying across the taut plane of her belly. Pushing his luck, certainly, counting on Ada to sharply tell him if he's crossed a line. ]

[ He's always had an effect on her.

It's evolved, over time, but whatever it is has always resulted in her doing something, feeling something, she didn't expect, didn't plan for. She's never been one for casual (sincere) intimacy, but some things change, always in increments, always when she isn't looking, and all too often with this man.

She did tell him to hold on however he needed to. ]

Of course we are.

[ Still as warm as before, but a little more teasing now that she's aware of her own tone. Keeping both hands on the reins, she...changes nothing. Which in itself is permission, and perhaps a tease, the act that she is unaffected.

Stay sharp, twice now, gunshot, bandage, debris, bandage, gunshot, rocket launcher, gunshot, hint, hint, hint, risky rescue, risky rescue, rocket launcher, sea-doo... back and forth they go, but frankly he's owed her awhile, if she was keeping score. But somehow, breaking even always costs her. ]

But we never agree on it.

Beginning to think you'd miss me if you didn't swing by now and then.

[ She doesn't react, and another time Leon might have been disappointed. Not now, not when her unaffected tolerance means Leon can act without being waved off, can indulge himself in the distracting micromovements of his fingers, feeling her and the texture of the material between his fingertips and her skin.

He still smells like woodsmoke, summer sweat, and the whisky he sipped on the shore. She smells like heaven, his only excuse for indulging in the scent of her hair is there's no way he can back off without slipping from the horse's back. She said she'd leave him there, can't be helped, right? But god, if a moment could last hours, he'd try to preserve this, the hot pain of his injuries and all.

Not that lucky; Whetstone rises like a pale ghost under the moonlight, a square stone gargoyle squatting near the wine-dark sea, a long slope of green leading to its drawbridge. It's down. Which spares Leon from the need of calling ahead. Which... he should have done anyway, rather than just drop in on Shaxx like this. Leon starts to fumble for his communicator, only to change his mind when he has to clutch at his side again. ]

There it is.

[ She can't even deny it, the way she left in the middle of the night to find him with no information but a location and a worry in the pit of her stomach she refused to put word to. He called, and she'd come. ]

Always having to find you myself.

[ It's mock annoyance; she's got a handle on her smile now, but only because she's reduced it by half to a smirk.

She hears him hiss behind her, already missing the warmth of his arm around her, and compromises, holding the reins in one hand temporarily to reach down and grip his thigh just above the knee, squeezing gently. ]

There it is.

[ she echoes quietly. She'd heard of this particular fort, of course, but hadn't had much reason to make it there herself, yet. ]

You gonna make it?

[ She teases softly as they approach, retrieving her hand after a final pat to his leg so she can keep both hands on the reins, just in case her horse decides to find something innocuous terrifying while on a drawbridge.

Blessedly she doesn't, and the next order of business is finding somewhere to dismount, get Leon inside, and... find a first aid kit along with a hope and a prayer. ]

Pheme hasn't made me go soft yet.

[ In the end, though, as they reach the small courtyard of the fort, Leon has to disembark and chooses to just get the painful business dealt with — by not exactly hurling himself from the back but it's hardly graceful, and for a few moments he'd appreciate no spectating or interference while he stands, slightly bent, significantly pale, and potentially trying not to heave at the agonized protest of his ribs.

Is he good? Fuck no. And there isn't any protest when he carefully steps into the fort's hall towards what is, presumably, a larger common area inside the fort's walls. It's some time before he speaks, and when he does, it's with mere sips of words and breath. ]

Storage room. Got supplies there.

Hey Ada? You talk to powerful people back home a lot, right?

[ it takes her a moment to decide how to respond, after it takes her a moment to decide whether to respond at all, when the un clicks. ]

I've been known to.

Why?

Sanji invited me to be his date when he has his dinner with Pheme and I don't know how I'm supposed to act! You're the most put together person I've ever met, so I thought maybe you'd have some advice.

[ WELL then. her "advice" wavers between "stab her in the eye with an oyster fork" and "remember that 'dinner' too many of us attended awhile back...' but she takes a breath and takes this in stride, instead. ]

sanji, hmm?

judging from everything she's harped on in her little journals: be quiet, be observant, don't be too remarkable. I'm not sure you want to hold her attention.

[ as if anyone could ignore Aerith. ]

she likes to change the rules.

[ Oh no, not the hmm. Aerith can only imagine the inflection Ada would put on that were this conversation happening aloud. ]

Sanji! Hmm?

[ Two can play at this game! Though, Ada's probably better at it and Aerith knows that - she wouldn't have come to her for advice about this if she didn't. ]

See, I knew asking you was smart. I'm going as his date, and this is his prize, so, I want to make sure he looks good. He seemed really happy about it, anyway.

[ mmhmm . ]

his date with you is the prize? seems a little presumptuous of our dear lady.

[ she did not misunderstand for a moment. ]

he'll already look good escorting you. but caution is good. who knows why she's showing her face, now.

Maybe she thought I got good grades?

Meeting her is the prize! He just asked me to come since he gets to bring someone. You don't think it's going to be dangerous, do you?

[ ada is of the opinion that aerith is vastly over-qualified to be a prize. ]

no more dangerous than anything else about this place.

[ which is to say: shrugs? ]

I don't think you have anything to worry about. I'll be surprised if she actually shows her face.

maybe you'll have a nice date, after all.

The Ton | I N B O X

voice; 7/4 (nighttime)

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un: ranunculus (text) probably sometime between july 16 and 18

un: ada

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