( 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

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[ 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

[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.