( open ) ain't no grave can hold my body down

[kovach]

CHARACTERS: takeshi kovacs & you
LOCATION: various locations on the station
DATE: a few days after the mission return + any days over the rest of the month
CONTENT: post canon update return
WARNINGS: excessive blood and some heavily sustained injuries

I. AIN'T NO GRAVE ( cw: excessive blood, stab/gun wounds )   closed to marta

---

[ Go on. Do it.

he wakes up on the floor, the cold ground of the station leaving him to believe he's still on head in the clouds. but it lacks the chaos of the satellite that had been plummeting back to the planet, losing altitude fast, the rush of the fall no longer popping his ears. his hands are empty. she's no longer in his arms. he looks down to see them fully stained red.

I'll never stop.

he peers around in panic, shouting her name. ] Rei? Rei! [ but he doesn't see her, nothing but the empty cold walls that feel familiar somehow, but in that moment, the adrenaline has him confused. he begins to walk, slow and then faster, nearing a run if only he could. but his body feels weak and he realizes he's losing plenty of his own blood too.

hazily, he focuses his mind on it — pain at his belly from a gash or two, sharp blade. an aching burn on his right side, blaster shot. aching throbbing near his head, katana. it pierced through to the other side, he remembers that.

his feet move from memory, but his mind is elsewhere, only thinking of rei's face, that way she'd looked at him. was she begging him without saying it? was she asking him to end it? his hands are still soaked — her blood.

I'll never stop.

he nearly stumbles when he reaches the entry of the infirmary. the door opens automatically for him just as he crashes against the frame, gripping it to keep upright, feeling the injuries starting to take their toll. he knows where he is. he remembers. and he remembers why his feet brought him here of all places. it isn't for the wound.

his eyes don't need to look far to find her, catching her with her back turned away. it's just as her body moves, angling towards his direction that he mutters, ]

Marta ...

[ and then he collapses. ]

II. CAN HOLD MY BODY DOWN   open to all

---

[ it's almost strange to remember this place now, considering that it wasn't too long ago he'd been struggling with his memories, empty holes that he'd had to figure out how to fill. but now it's all there, the year and more spent on his station, existing alongside the days that he returned back to his own world for a few days.

kovacs remembers the mission on ciraiwei, with the evacuation efforts and the final days he spent there camping out by the orb. ryunosuke had rushed towards it to grab it when it was decided they didn't have any time left. he was supposed to come back to the station with everyone else, just as he'd done time and time again after each mission, but somehow he'd ended up back where he'd come from instead.

and now he was here again, days after everyone's return, it seems, little time passing both here and in his own timeline, and yet still somehow feeling like he'd spent an eternity away, if only because his mind is still trying to catch up with the simultaneous memories aligning side by side.

having arrived in shitty shape (as is customary for him at this point), marta makes sure he doesn't leave the infirmary until he heals from the wounds he sustained. anyone either working there, recovering there, or just simply coming by for a visit, might find him at one of the beds, grimacing as he tries to sneak away while his girlfriend's eyes aren't locked on him, just so he can slip out for a much-needed smoke. helping him escape would definitely get some appreciation points from him but if you don't want to risk the fierce spanish swearing of one feisty cuban nurse, it might be better to shove him back on the bed.

otherwise, he'll be found around the station in the days after, once he's recovered enough to move around, either digging out some cereal to pour into a bowl in the kitchen, finally enjoying that cigarette at a small bridge overlooking a river in the sunlight room, or already trying to retrain his body to move comfortably again in the training room. ]

( just a note: kovacs did not arrive back at the station with the team after the last mission. he will have been missing for a day and a half before he returns from a canon update. anyone is free to have noticed his absence if you'd like but feel free to have missed it completely since he wasn't gone for too long. open to old and new characters alike! if you'd like a more personalized starter, just hit me up on plurk at hepburns or send a pm. ♥ )

Comments

ii.

[rootlessly]

[Vash hasn't had need of the infirmary (yet), but he has been trying to get himself familiarized with the layout of the ship until it's time for his first mission, so eventually, he does end up walking by, coincidentally just in time to witness Kovacs' escape attempt. He's not going to rat the guy out, of course, but he does linger to keep an eye on the situation for a few moments, just in case the injured man ends up needing some help.

What ends up happening instead is this: a staff member comes around the corner for their rounds at the same time as Kovacs has paused to rest, leaving him standing in their direct line of sight. But before said staff member can go question Kovacs and/or drag him back to bed, there's suddenly a tall blond man in a red coat who makes a tremendous racket, apparently having tripped and knocked over some kind of equipment attached to one of the empty beds. Oh gosh, he is just so very sorry, he's new, see, and he got lost looking for the bathroom and tripped over a wire he hadn't seen in his haste, he'd be happy to help them set everything back to rights if they could just show him how it's supposed to be set up. Did he mention he's really, really sorry?

And if his gestures are just a little too big and dramatic, it's certainly because he's really so embarrassed, that's all. It couldn't have anything to do with blocking their field of vision and buying the other man a few more moments to escape.

Sometime later, Kovacs might see that same man casually walking down the hallway toward him. Maybe it's a coincidence?]

The nurse on-call comes back from break in about ten minutes, so it's probably a good time to start heading back.

[Or maybe not.]

[kovach]

[ it doesn't take much for kovacs himself to notice the sudden loud scene that happens, catching the chaos from the corner of his eye. though he's curious about the racket himself, it's abrupt and distracting enough to offer him a bit more spare time to duck out, which is a lot more promising use of his time instead of sticking around, slipping into the hall some distance away from the entry of the infirmary so that he can light up his cigarette.

when the guy (newcomer? hard to tell lately with his own little time lapse) joins him there, his comment prompts a raised brow, instantly putting two-and-two together on what that little performance was about. ]

The nurse on call is my girlfriend, so she'll probably forgive me eventually if I'm late. [ maybe. marta can be ferocious if tested. but it took him this long to find an escape so he's not planning on rushing it now, even if sacrifices were made to get him here.

so instead he just takes a slow drag of his cigarette to enjoy it. ] You pulling favors or just damn clumsy?

[rootlessly]

[Learning that said nurse is this man's girlfriend draws his own answering eyebrow raise -- suffice to say he did not expect that to be what he was stepping into when he engaged in his shenanigans. Sorry if he enabled getting you into the doghouse for a bit there, buddy.

The question, meanwhile, has him laughing a little sheepishly, hands raised in placation.]

Ahaha, I'd hope I don't seem so sinister as to be extorting an injured man.

[Come on, does he look like a cunning opportunist to you, sir!!

...It does seem a little sad to Vash that it would be this man's first assumption, though. Someone who's been burned a lot in his life, probably.]

[kovach]

[ really, he'd be likely to get himself into trouble one way or another with marta eventually, it's always just a matter of how, considering his own knack for stubbornness and being difficult. he's survived it before and he's bound to survive it again. not that his injured condition gets him any pity points.

kovacs snickers a bit at the comment, because of course he tends to lean towards believing that.

everything has their reason, with everyone having their own sense of ulterior motive. if he'd been reminded of anything in his brief return to his own world, it's that very fact. it might be that he gave in to trust too easily during the past year and some on this station. ]

People can surprise you. [ he gives a shrug, like with that, he's rolling off the weight that the statement actually carries. ] So, what, then — you just one of those do-gooder types? I remember this place is stocked to shit with those.

[rootlessly]

[Ah, there it is. He'd gotten the vibe from the man immediately of course, but the mention of 'do-gooder' seals it. Someone whose priorities this man would consider either impractical or foolish or both. His expression goes a tinge more solemn, though the sheepish quality lingers some.]

I mean, we're all here to set some things right, aren't we? It makes sense to help each other out with that, when we can.

[Not that this has anything to do with the orbs or regrets, but you know. People like this man don't typically like to hear that someone just cares about them because they happen to be breathing around them.]

[kovach]

[ it likely doesn't take much to catch the impression with kovacs. though the body he wears isn't even his own, he fits into it well, the posture that frequently suggests disinterest, the narrow boredom of his eyes, the frowning lips that don't always need to speak to hint at his annoyance in other people's presence. not that the reading is always correct, but it is usually the impression he prefers to give.

after recent events, he's wishing for it more than ever. ]

Oh, yeah, you're definitely new.

[ even the smile that forms is more amused than anything, sly with the chuckle that follows, forming around the cigarette. ]

That sort of optimism eventually gets wiped out. The whole holding-hands, being-a-team thing, not so easy with this crowd. You got your heroes, you got your assholes, you got your realists — ends up being a shitty mix.

[groupiedrifter]

T.K.!

[The amount of pure relief in two little letters cannot be understated; Newt came as soon as he heard about all of it — coming back, being injured, all of the so super fun stuff that comes with it — and Kovacs can be guaranteed he won't have any measure of peace for the next few hours. Newton crosses the infirmary pretty damn fast for someone with legs that short.]

Are you kidding me, man? You can't just vanish like that!

[Don't worry, he doesn't sound angry; he does sound like he's verging on a tiny little meltdown over the reappearance of his friend. Kovacs undoubtedly got... that... long-winded message from him...]

You're lucky, I would totally beat you up if you weren't already in a bed!

[no he wouldn't]

[kovach]

[ the return has resulted in a lot to wrap his head around, still trying to align his sense of time, with everything that came before, along with the weight of all that happened in between (rei — had she really done all of that? did he really do what he did? his hands keep shaking at the memory). supposedly he hadn't been gone too long but it'd been long enough to leave some kind of impression, between marta's reaction upon seeing him again and the messages he'd found on his earpiece (I'm sorry, Newt, he thinks, with a sigh).

reaching out to anyone hasn't happened, mostly on account of his condition. if it weren't for the tech on this station, he'd probably be dead, having sported wounds that had gone through his body, rendering the damn sleeve nearly useless. but with bandages coating his chest, the repairs seem to be in progress, even if it means being required to lounge back in a bed for longer than his patience could likely tolerate.

when newt comes darting in, his voice louder than permitted in the infirmary, it'd be easy to be annoyed by it, to put on a scowl and utter a tsk at the volume — but instead kovacs just watches him, chest tight with its own surge of emotions, even if kovacs tends to do better about not amplifying it the way newt often does.

two opposites with the same degree of emotion, the kind of thing that probably brought them together as friends in the first place, despite everything about their personalities likely suggesting an expected clash. ]

I think I can handle a punch from those baby knuckles.

[ there's the obvious joke but even his eyes are too far from the playfulness, despite his uncertainty with saying anything else. ]

Heard you all get pretty useless without me here, huh?

[groupiedrifter]

[Ugh, it's so stupid. His eyes are already full by the time he makes it over to Kovacs, his lips thinned to try and mask the wobbling; he feels like a needy child who had thought their mom left them in the store on purpose — why'd you do that to me wants to jump out of him, knowing full well Kovacs had nothing to do with it, followed by a how'd you get so beat up, which is bouncing around his head like a jar of shaken bees.

He's up on his toes, the bed tall enough to give him a little trouble. But he wastes no time grabbing him up and giving him an obnoxiously sentimental sideways hug, anyway, because it's slowly becoming part of his love language when it comes to big burly guys whose actions sometimes speak a thousand times louder than words. In his defense, he tries really hard not to jostle the patch-up job that seems to be the rest of his friend.]

What the fuck, man. What the fuck.

[He pulls back, looks him over, and then pulls him into another, more loose hug. The gravity of it really seems to settle in then, when he considers how long it might've been for Kovacs — or how absolutely shitty an experience, considering the state of him.]

You okay?

cw: mentions of patricide, family death

[kovach]

[ kovacs has always been one to be hesitant about physical affection, not unless it matters. for a long time, it was reserved for one person, and with the way his own heart has branched out in its trust, that reservation has opened up a bit more, especially in his understanding that someone people just need it.

he remembers when rei needed it, when she'd thought her brother was dead and gone, when she nearly crumbled in his arms as she wept, every sob and clutch of her fingers saying I missed you, I missed you, I missed you.

sometimes action speaks more than language, and for all that newt is a talker (fuck knows he can talk), kovacs always seems to grasp what he needs more in what he does, rather than what he says. like the hugs that seem to slip in now, quiet reassurances that his friend is back, that the message he'd sent wasn't to some guy who ended up dead in a ditch back in his world — kovacs gets it. it's why he doesn't resist his own return of touch, hand sliding to the small of his back in the best way he can manage with the continued ache in his own ribs, giving a light pat of understanding. ]

Yeah.

[ it's the natural answer, the one always prepared on his tongue, the one ready to bury the things that haunt him.

except newt has already seen that, seen the old nightmares, witness to the day kovacs had gripped that blaster and shot his father square in the forehead, as the blood splattered out against a young rei's innocent face. for someone who had seen that, a yeah is a lie as big as any.

he's quiet for a moment longer. marta had done well to patch him up, the tech in the infirmary had restored damage to bodily functions that should have killed him, so physically, he's fine.

but his sister is dead.

so is he okay?

his lip quivers, subtle but present, stern eyes looking ready to crumble. ]

No.

[groupiedrifter]

[Newt can hear the pain in Kovacs' voice, short as his answers are, but most importantly, he can feel the shift in his body, the way his jaw twitches against where his shoulder leans. He adjusts his hold, hugs Kovacs more firmly, still too aware of his injuries — but also too aware that they're not what hurt right now. It's easy to feel that trill of panic, the ice-cold awareness that something bad has happened. More than just being hurt, because they all get hurt a lot. It wouldn't have meant anything to Kovacs, being laid up with another unfortunate ache and pain.

This has to be something else altogether, to make the air so thin so suddenly.

He leans his cheek in, close enough to hear the softest shift in breathing.]

You don't have to be strong if you're hurting, T.K.

I got you, man. I'm here.

ii

[youre_nicked]

[ Gina is only in the infirmary to bring something to Professor Mikotoba; when it turns out he isn't there right now, she's ready to slope off to make a nuisance of herself elsewhere. Then she spots a familiar face, looking extremely physically uncomfortable in the act of trying to exit his sickbed.

Unhelpfully loudly, she exclaims: ] Cor! Wot 'appened to you?

kitchen — ;

[karaoqi]

Hey. [ Shang-chi's greeting is pleasant and casually said from his place at the kitchen counter because who has the patience to pour a bowl of cereal and milk and then head to the mess hall to eat it?

No.

One grabs everything together and eats over the kitchen sink like a little gremlin. It's just how it's done. ] Haven't seen you around for a couple days.

[ In other words, not in their usual meet-up place whenever they've got station downtime and a little bit of time to kill: the ol' training room.

Shang-chi slides the carton of milk he's been hoarding for his own bowl of cereal (some brand of wheat O's that might as well be off-brand Cheerios but with a delicious sugary addition he can't quite put his finger on) towards Kovacs now, before resuming swirling his spoon in milky, cereal goodness.

Casually: ]

Hiding out? Or recovering?

[kovach]

[ some of it's just excess hunger too. turns out that when you're on the brink of death and stuck in a bed sleeping for most of the day with plenty of meds pumping through your body, the itch to down anything as soon as possible is fairly strong.

despite kovacs' assumed anti-social tendencies, it's actually been a bit of a comfort to see some of the familiar faces that have popped around the station since his return. despite it not being too long of an absence on their end, it'd been hard to tell from his own just how much things around here had changed.

though he's never been much for routine, there's a sense of need to draw back in towards the familiar, like the training sessions with shaun. ]

Bit of both?

[ he's no longer confined to his bed, but it's not like his body is what it was. even when he reaches over to take the offered carton of milk, he can feel the ache in his ribs when his arm stretches out. ]

I ... kind of ended up going back home for a bit. [ home is a weird word to use. ] My world, I guess.

[naloxone]

[ and then he collapses.

and then he has the fucking nerve to collapse, right there at the entrance of the infirmary, at least ten feet away from the nearest empty bed like her 5'6" frame can somehow carry all 6'2" of his ass. nevermind she's somehow managed it before, like those stories you hear of mothers lifting cars to save their children; nevermind she'd do it again and again and again, any time she has to, because it's him and he's hers and she'll always be there to pick him back up even when the fury bubbling up inside her could be enough to blot out the sun.

to be clear, she isn't mad at him.

to be even clearer, that might not necessarily spare him from said fury anyway. ]

Maldito.

[ it's the kind of shout you can hear throughout the entire station, even though she never actually raises her voice any higher than normal. what had she been doing prior to hearing him call for her? she can no longer remember, because all that matters now is getting to his side, putting a hand to his cheek, feeling that he's real. even the blood beginning to pool where he's fallen, soaking into the knees of her pants, are a strange sort of comfort; the warmth from the blood a detail a dream or hallucination surely wouldn't catch, which means this is real. he's here. he's back. ]

Tak. It's okay — I got you.

[ now all she has to do is make sure he doesn't die on her. ]

cw: a teeny hint of nsfw if you squint

[kovach]

[ kovacs doesn't remain conscious for most of it, aside from the occasional shifting in and out, the flicker of light overhead here and there, the rough pull that manages to jolt his body when necessary, the whispered assurances of someone important at his ear.

if he could guess what he would find in his dreams during that time, he'd have expected it to be rei, after everything he'd just experienced, reliving the memories of the rei he knew, the girl who ran along the lakeside with him, skipping rocks across the surface of the water, laughing as she hopped her smaller body upon her brother's back, arms clinging around his neck, anything to deny the rei that she becomes.

but he doesn't dream of his sister; neither does he dream of tragedy.

in his dreams — or maybe a memory, yes, he remembers this, whether or not the state of sleep has adjusted a detail or two — he's lying on a bed just as he is now, except there's no aching pains in his ribs, his shoulders, his heart, anywhere at all. he's at peace, bare from head to toe as he usually sleeps, still caught partially in a doze as the echo of birds chirp just outside the window. not the station, then, but one of this worlds where he'd been able to carve out something of a home. forsythe heights, probably. appropriate to have his nicest dreams end up in flames by the end.

but there's no danger in the present scene, not as the bed sinks beneath him with a shift of the weight at his side, forcing his eyes to blink open. the body next to him — as naked as he is, because he can be very persuasive at encouraging her to match his sleepwear from time to time — sits up before twisting at her waist to face his sleepy expression, pink lips pursing into a gradual smile as she rests her elbow against his abdomen, pressing her cheek against her palm to stare at him.

marta asks him if he's awake, even if she knows he is. he answers no, of course, closing his eyes again. she calls him lazy and he answers with a elongated groan like a grazing farm animal. "Kovaca," she says, and his lips stretch into a helpless smile because he's practiced enough spanish by now to catch the joke.

it's the smile that coaxes in a kiss from her every time, and he already knows it's coming even with closed eyes, his hand practically prepared to cup her cheek when she draws in to catch his mouth with a chaste sweet thing that melts him easily. even if he ruins it by purposely nipping her lip playfully, earning a light smack of her fist to his arm, as she pretends to be angry, even while she laughs.

he could live in his dream, or memory, for a long time. maybe if he's put under ice for another two hundred and fifty years, he can ask for just this, set to a replay over and over to replace the usual haunting darkness.

while he's under (while he's dying, maybe, it's hard to tell from here), he thinks he does relive it a dozen, a hundred, a thousand times. what happens after often changes; sometimes, he lays there for a bit longer while she slips out to get the coffee brewing, or she convinces him to get up with her, as he manages to pull on a pair of jeans and comb down his hair, or he convinces her to stay, successfully recapturing the kiss he'd rudely interrupted before, this time with enough charm to coax her on her back to blissfully spend the next hour or so between her legs.

sometimes, his face isn't even the same. a lot of the time, he's still wearing elias ryker's face because he's been in it long enough to feel settled in it, but there's the occasional change, rotating between sleeve after sleeve after sleeve, every once in a while wearing the face of takeshi kovacs as he was meant to.

but she never changes. in the dream, it's always marta who stirs awake at his side. in the memory, it's always marta who sneaks the kiss to his mouth. in the future — he wants it to always be marta.



when he wakes up, he tries to take in the details even before his vision focuses. there's no gasping and writhing, which means he didn't die and get himself put in a new sleeve, and he can hear the steady beeps of a monitor which signal his heart's still working. his body isn't in agonizing pain either, at least not as drastically as before, which means whatever damage was done to him before, it's gone. good medical tech would have been needed to take care of that, which means — he's on the ximilia.

too bad his body still feels tired, lacking the strength to even really sit up right now. the only thing he can manage is a sighing mutter of, ] Fuck.

[naloxone]

[ the answer comes in a clipped tone from the chair dragged close to the side of his bed, ] I'm good, thanks.

[ there at his bedside, perched neatly into an armchair brought in specifically for the visitors of longer-stay patients, is the very object of his dreams, looking for all the world like she can't quite decide whether she's two seconds away from kissing him or throttling him. the brusque, snappish response borders on that thin line between playful and deeply annoyed, a tone he might know well from the many times he tries to test her limits; yet there is a sharpness in the way she looks at him that is critical, clinical, echoing the tension in the grip of the book she's got propped open across her lap.

she takes a breath, one of the first full ones she's had since settling him down on that bed. ]

Welcome back.