Wiping the floor with our faces

[vVv]

victor rolls her eyes, hesitates for a moment, nervous. she takes off her hat, shakes her head vigorously, ruffles her own hair up a bit, puts the hat on. her expression sets, stony. she knows exactly what he wants, and despite her exuberant affirmations to the contrary, she does appreciate the man's respect, when business comes to business. she'll be fourteen soon, time to drop the attitude and be one of the grownups. (i died this morning), she reminds herself, (i got shot friday. i killed a whole bunch of stuff. i'm a official intern for a super spy mercenary team. least i can do is touch a stupid nail. who cares if it hurts a little. 'nother chance to show everybody how tough i am.)

victor walks up to sally, her boots clomping out solemn, slightly louder than necessary footsteps which echo even in the crowded room. she takes a deep breath, with a sudden movement like jumping into water the first swim of the season, swipes the gorramn stupid thing out of his hand.

white hot pain seizes her, not like anything she's ever felt before, not even in the last few days. she falls to the ground in a hard fetal position unable to move and barely aware of the room as her entire body freezes up in agony. she is dimly aware of feeling someone pry the thing out of her hand, but it is a long time, at least ten minutes which stretch on for days, before she is able to feel her body as anything but an amorphous mass of blinding, horrific pain.

when she's finally able to speak again, she raises a hand weakly from the floor to point accusingly, though more than a little pathetically, "sally, you're a fucking jerk, ok. now you owe me one TIMES INFINITY."

[Samantha]

Ness opens the back door to the diner and immediately sees Victor on the ground, and catches the last thing she says. At first she looked like she was about ready to run over to help, instead she places her surgeons kit on a table, walks over to Victor and holds out her hand to help her up.

"Picking on 13 year olds, Sally?" she says with a bit of teasing in her voice, she takes a quick look at Sally and sees how battle worn he is, any sort of mirth that was there disappears and she looks behind Sally instead.

Clearing her throat she gazes around the room, "Anybody want me to take a look at any injuries?"

[Sally]

Sally watches the young lady flop about the ground,

"Well, shit." he says grimacing as he tucks his ice-pack into Alice's sling and spins 'round on his stool to pry the old nail out of the girl's hand, and hoist her off the ground, and over to Ness. Given that Victor was roughly 3-feet-tall and like 40 lbs (okay that might be a bit of an underestimation), this wasn't exactly difficult.

"Err, make sure she ain't, ya know, gonna puke er nothin'?" Sally says to Ness, head tilted towards the swearing child. "An'... here, have uh, a cookie?" He tosses the nail into the fire and reaches for Eden's confections, before looking to Alice, the otherwise youngest woman he knows, as if Ms. White can provide some kind of indication that such a remedy will provide any succor.

His other hand is still cupping a scoop of Ammo, intended to be thrown to Victor's feet for experimental purposes.

It then occurs to him that Ness might also... he drops the handful of ammunition in a clatter, and says, "Shit, Ness, I was just tryin' to be all sci-en-tific-like!"

[kimp]

:: Liberty looks at Sally, the corner of her mouth twitching, and shakes her head ::
And they say I'm anti-social

:: she turns her attention back to Leslie, her expression the steady gaze of a snake ::
So, Sally proved metal bad. What else?
:: her expression says she's content to wait forever ::
Spill. Courts? Differences? Anything you can speak with authority to is better than 100 rumors or guesses based on myth or popular culture.

[Nixon]

Hartighan appears at the door to the Diner.

"SALLY!" Hartighan growls.

Hartighan is fully bound (aka: "breakfast Hartighan") and wearing his black hoodie under his trench coat. His horns are gone, and his hands... are human. But the red eyes remain. He walks across the Diner at a normal pace, but he is walking straight for Sally. As Hartighan gets closer you can see... he does not look tired... he looks drained. Blood and dirty tear-streaks still mark his face. When he gets close you can see... he is a shell. The fire that is Hartighan, that normally bursts from his smolder... is quiet and hidden deep within him.

But he still walks straight up to Sally's nose. Calmly his gravely voice stems out "Hey, Sally. Why are you hurting my friend? Last I checked... she was fighting on our side. Nearly died for our side. Saved a bunch of us. Fought shoulder to shoulder?" Hartighan gazes at the nail and the ammo, then back to Sally.
"What... are you... doing? Science? We are not the book club Sally."

Hartighan moves over to stand between him and Victor. A little affection sparks in his eyes when he looks back to Sally. "We had a tough couple days, friend. Grab a chair and regroup, but enough... science. Got me?"

Hartighan looks around. Throws an affectionate look to Victor. And nods to Alice and Gabriel. When he takes a seat next to Sally you can see how unsteady he is, obviously he is running on vapors.

[Samantha]

Ness watches him take something out of Victor's hand, she offers to help Victor to a seat so that she can take a look at her. Getting a new pair of medical gloves out of her kit and puts them on.

She was just about ready to ask Victor if she was okay, when she heard the ammo drop. Turning around she sees a horrified looking Sally, "Sorry?" her strange brown eyes look confused. What about Science?" she asks tilting her head. When she does this the light casts over her face differently and her skin almost seems to shine.

She quickly glances over at the other people in the room, trying to figure out what she exactly walked in on.

She watches Hartighan come in and get into Sally's face. Her attention turns to Liberty talking to Lesley, "Metal, bad? Are we talking about Fae here? I would guess they don't like metal because when.. we.. uh the town fought them they didn't want cold iron used."

[Nick Sleet]

Nick watches the shenanigans with a sort of horrified amusement. "Well, that was informative, if a little extreme. Are you ok, Victor?" He shakes his head a bit and listens to Hartighan's mini-rant. "Yeah, after what I heard happened to the people who tangled with the Rats, I think that Science is picking up some nasty connotations. Let's not keep that trend going..."

He finishes off the cookie, looking over at Liberty. "From a practical standpoint, there are definitely differences between the fae that we can use. The primary thing that springs to mind is that their hounds can't dodge bullets, though they are ridiculously tough. A good thing to keep in mind for those of us who rely more heavily on firearms."

He grins momentarily, and looks over at Anatalya. "I wonder if it would be worthwhile to draw up some boilerplate contracts to be used when dealing with the fae? Subsections and fine print about aid against reprisals, full responsibility resting with the fae who talked to us, that sort of thing. That's outside of my expertise though..."

[Sally]

Sally puts his hands up, fingers splayed, and says "Y-yes, sir, tha's a enough science fer me. Leave tha' shit to the white coats, then?"

He yanks an empty chair and sets it at the table for Hartighan, grabs yet more cookies, and looks down to Alice's spare beer, considers it, and instead reaches into his gunbelt for his flask, handing it over to Hartighan, "Fuck this whole golldarn week-end," he says, boots kicking up the loose ammo at his feet.

"C'mon there, big fella, have a seat," Sally says, re-looping his arm around Alice and patting at the chair. While table has grown crowded, again Lautner seems strangely pacified to be so surrounded, even while beat all to hell.

"How's that little bugaboo doin?" he asks of Ness, looking to Victor, "Victim of the sci-en-tific method?"

At Nick's question, Sally grimaces some, "Yeah, who do I gotta shoot at? I think at some point, I just kept punchin' things in the face and kickin' 'em in the damn kneecaps. Next time, I need ta like, set up all my kit 'round the field." He glances to the black-and-pink softball bag in the corner that bulges in odd shapes.

None of them bat-or-ball like in any way.

[PoeticJustice]

If Alice was flustered by all the activity around her, she didn't show it. She leaned into Sally and managed to help him juggle any of the things he placed on her. She watched Sally's "Science" without much expression on her face, but quirked a brow at Hartighan's intervention.

"She's fine," Alice said with a quiet shrug, otherwise ignoring the interactions. She closed her eyes and exhaled, not really responding much but clearly listening.

[Nick Sleet]

Nick smiles at Sally's sally. "Effectively, that's what I ended up doing. My knives were scattered all over the place. Speaking of which..." He pulls out a knife from a concealed pocket and a cloth, and starts to wipe it down. "How do you get fae blood out of a coat? Ring a bell over it while dry cleaning?"

His right hand twitches again, but he manages to catch the dagger before it falls. A brief flash of mixed rage and pain comes over his face and is gone almost instantly. "I have to agree with you on your main point though, Sally. This weekend can go fuck itself."