singillatim | ▷ open & closed - get about as oiled as a diesel train

Logan hits the wall harder than any guy his size should— not that she notices on more than a superficial level, because that kick she swept into the back of his legs felt like slamming her shin into two iron rods. Everything hurts: her head is spinning, her arm is definitely not right, her leg throbs. Each breath she tries to catch, her shoulders heaving, tastes like copper; probably not a good sign. Jason looks just as bad as she feels, with his squashed-up nose and still-broken arm.

But it might be over. Logan's shifting muzzily where he's sprawled against the wall, and Jason hasn't gone for her again yet, so maybe they'll actually be able to wrap this up?

Except no, because she knows that voice, has heard that particular bark of it aimed not just at herself, but at every other miscreant in Milton on one occasion or another. She tenses from head to toe all in one motion, like shoelaces being pulled tight. Fuck.

This isn't a gentleman's disagreement and it's not a ship's deck where an officer's order could calm the stormy waters. These two are brawlers and bone-breakers; Logan's drunk and as surly as she's ever seen, Jason's clearly still spoiling for a fight regardless of how hurt he is, and Little is absolutely not equipped to deal with any of it. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Jason react, turning toward this attempt at authority with a gleam of violence in his eyes, and she's moving before she can stop herself: just a step in his direction with the promise of interception and immediate retribution if he tries to go for the man who's just arrived.

There must be something in her eyes that convinces him she means it; he subsides and now she lifts her voice, speaks half over her shoulder to the newcomer, flat and annoyed. "Keep moving, Little. Just ignore this and go."

Should be easy enough for him. He's great at ignoring things.

Logan is down, and Jason's stumbling back up from where he'd rammed him into the wall. He stumbles momentarily, and almost falls straight back down onto Logan but manages to brace a hand against the wall, keep himself from tipping over. Despite how off-balanced he seems, there's clarity in his eyes as he looks down at the fallen man, tracking the slow rise and fall of his chest, any minute movements that could mean the guy's about to get back up and start rampaging again. Thus far? He seems safe.

Which means that when a fourth voice speaks up, he's twisting his head around to look straight toward whatever fucker thought it'd be wise to get in the middle of their fight. His mouth twists into a scowl, one foot shifting so it's mildly facing him because - look, the uniform, the authority he speaks with, clearly he's an asshole who needs to be taken down a peg, too. Except Wynonna looks to him, Jason's head raises enough to note the expression on her face, and he decides it's not worth it.

His left hand raises, knuckles making a gross, cracking noise when he curls in all but his middle finger and flips off Mister Royal Navy, then raises a leg to shove his boot straight into Logan's gut, once. For good measure. Jason's in shit shape, he's not going to be able to take the guy on by himself if he gets back up, but that doesn't mean he should have to skip out on antagonizing him a little more. He knows Logan can take the hit.

"Yeah," Voice a little slurred, but that's more the concussion and blood loss than the liquor. "you heard the nice lady, Little. Fuck off. 'fore I come over there an' take that stupid, shitty coat right off your back."

The world whines in and out in a wobbly, greyish haze for a few moments. As it starts to clear, Logan blinks, tries to shake his head a bit -- only for Jason to kick him in the belly with a boot that feels roughly the size of Ontario. At least it helps wake him up the rest of the way. Logan groans breathlessly as he folds around it, curling over his knees.

He's dimly aware of the argument going on and the British guy who has turned up on the edge of the fight. Intruding on their fight, as though it's any of his fucking business.

Obstinate and only thinking with about half of his brain, the other half being thoroughly checked out on moonshine and endorphins, Logan heaves himself to his feet, wavers, pulls his claws in with a dull snakt, then pushes roughly past Jason to thud across the frozen street towards the new guy, shoving Wynonna aside for good measure.

"Hey! Shut the fuck up!" This snarl accompanied by an unfortunately accurately aimed, bloodied and decidedly heavy fist aimed right at the new guy's face.

That done, Logan swings around to face the others.

"You're welcome."

Perhaps the response he gets shouldn't be too shocking in the face of clear ruffian behaviour, but nevertheless, First Lieutenant Edward Little is shocked and dismayed.... He's blinking in surprise as one of the men turns towards him and then freezes, his own eyes snapping again to Wynonna when she speaks, holding there. 'Keep moving, Little. Just ignore this and go.'

The response startles him; he can see more of it now, the ways the three of them are injured — there's blood, and bodies heaving for breath, and he can't understand how to untangle the threads of this. Is Wynonna... a part of it? Of the fighting? Is she fighting two full-grown, extremely well-statured men?

Well, he has to get her out of this. He's taking another step forward, obstinately refusing to follow that instruction, only to be met with a rude gesture and what could constitute as a threat. The man who gives it sounds sluggish, words thick and slow — they've been drinking, haven't they? — and he's aimed a kick at the other man...! Little's shaking his head quick and firm; this needs to stop, now, before it can get even worse. (Never mind the panicky buzz of his heart like a trapped insect; he doesn't like confrontation, especially not when he knows what people are capable of when they're not in their right minds, angry and aggressive).

But he can't step away. He'll stop this, and collect Wynonna, and direct the two men to the nearest person with medical capability. That is the plan, at least (however hopeful and foolishly earnest it may be).

"Enough! This ends now!" he warns, still holding a hand up, turning his head from one to the other, eyes sliding from Jason to Wynonna and then to the man who seems the worst off for the moment. He's moving towards him first with the intent maybe to make sure he's all right, try to get him to his feet — only making it a step or two before the guy's heaving himself upwards and closing the distance himself, and Edward doesn't react fast enough.

The fist makes contact with his face, a pain that's so severe he's too shocked to even register it at first. Knuckles slam against the socket of an eye, and Edward's never been struck before, but this seems— especially hard, practically blinds him from the intensity.

He's staggering backwards, shotgun slipped loose from his back, the strap actually falling down his body. Dimly aware of the weapon falling to the ground with a heavy thud, Edward steps backwards over it, managing not to trip but he's going down anyway, the blow to his head sending him reeling. He can't see, can't think, can't do anything, a dark figure crumpling to the snow.

"Little, don't — "

It all happens so fast. Logan lurches up and forward and she knows how hard he hits, can feel it in her own bones when his fist connects with Little's face and sends the other man reeling backward to collapse in a heap. She's not fast enough to stop it or catch him, just follows him down, landing hard on her knees next to him in the snow. It hurts. Her knees are bruised and wrenched, but she's reaching to grab his shoulder, rolling him to his back so she can see his face. Her knuckles are bruised and bloody, but for the first time in the last fifteen minutes she tries to be gentle. "Little?"

There's nothing, he's out for the count, even when she gives him a little shake. "Hey, look at me— Edward—" There's a red blotch on his face where Logan hit him, and he's limp in the snow, and something deep inside her snaps. She feels it go, like bone, right before a red haze of rage falls over her vision.

In the next heartbeat she's up, her face twisted in anger as she turns on Logan. No thoughts make it through the buzz of incoherent fury, aside from one: she's pissed at Little but he's still off-limits, and this asshole just put him on the ground. "I'm going to rip those claws out of your hands and jam them right up your ass," she spits at him. "And that's a fucking promise!"

Which is the last thing she says before she takes off toward him again, fully intending to make good on her threat.

It's not that he's been passed out per se, it's been--

--yeah, no, it's exactly that, and in March's moonshine soaked slumber he had finally had a cigarette, and he was in his home in LA--his real home--and he had a 12 pack to sort through and life was perfect, except for that awful clanging outside.

He wakes up with the realization that it isn't, in fact, clanging outside: March is pulled out of his drunken reverie by shouting, and more shouting, and the tell-tale scuffle-scuffle-scuffle has him sit up. Great. People are fighting nearby and the cabin walls aren't thick enough to hide it. Not his problem, though. Big whoop. where was that cigarette dream? Time to close his eyes again. Let someone who's responsible do something about it.

It's Wynonna's voice that pierces through his abject apathy, causing him to sit bolt up right and then scramble up in a cartoonish manner. Slamming open the door and running into the snow despite only being in his tank top and no outer layers, and he's face to face with what can only be described as a mass of drunken, angry limbs and one tiny little sailor. March clocks them as he moves:

One, bulky guy, new, body type like Jackson Healy and a heavy do-not-fuck-with-me snarl. Two, motorcycle man, lacking a knife from their introduction but still full of piss and vinegar. Three, the meekest boat guy here except for maybe Billy.

Four: Wynonna, who looks like she's about to transcend with how she's so full of rage. She's also injured, and if Little on the floor is anything to go by--and the threats, of course the threats--March is going to have to act fast.

He's not stupid enough to get in bulky guy's way, he knows motorcycle helmet is way better at him at fighting than this, but what he can do is intercept Wynonna before she does anymore damage to herself. It's not a scooping motion so much as it is a running interception, March bolting over to pick her up from behind and using his full 6'3" frame to make sure the woman doesn't touch the ground. Easier to drag her back into the cabin this way.

"Jesus fucking Christ--No. No. No." Probably he shouldn't be using the same type of tone he uses on dogs. Bad Wynonna, no biscuit.

Jesus Christ.

Logan shoves past him and Jason stumbles to the side before he has time to react more than that, boots catching on the snow being the only thing keeping him from toppling straight over. Before he has time to tip his head back, he hears the snakt, then the thwakt of a fist ramming itself into someone else's skull and he's - wincing, less at the pain Jason knows that caused and more because he's curling both hands into fists once more, ready to go for round - what, three (?) with Logan, given he knows damn well the guy's built like a brick shithouse, and if Wynonna's going at him with bare fists, she's going to need back up. A breath in, a steadying step forward,

"Hey, asshole, this was between us!" Yes, Jason wanted to punch the idiot first. Yes, he'd probably still go in for a hit if he managed to get himself back up onto his feet after getting knocked out in one hit, but listen - that's irrelevant. He's raising a fist, then the idiot from before (not the one who fell, the blond traffic cone one, that idiot) comes ramming into Wynonna from behind, and Jason figures - fuck it, he's already up, he's got his dukes up, he's finishing this just to prove a point especially after the asshole (asshole the first, the tall one with a skull hard enough to break his hand on) started this mess. Fist up, blood dripping down into the snow from where the glass bottle's still impaled into his back, and the movement of his arm isn't helping it any. Jason's swing may be messy, but it's messy for Jason.

Meaning, maybe it'll break his hand a little more, but fuck if it'll be worth the satisfaction of shoving it straight into Logan's nose with the strength of all two hundred and thirtyish pounds of his bodyweight behind it.

Honestly, even without having seen all of this play out, Bigby is still walking in on a scene when he too has followed the sounds of the fight to see what's going on. March and Wynonna are already gone, sure, but that still means he sees Jason there with glass sticking out of his back? And the other guy has claws for some reason?

Even though he's inwardly groaning at the realisation that people just don't know how to behave anywhere, especially since this isn't even the first public fight in town, Bigby still instinctively steps right over.

.. you know, right as Jason's fist connects with Logan's face, making the latter just drop in the least elegant way possible.

At least it solves the problem of having to break up the fight, but still-- really? Really.

Is this really happening.

Bigby quickly sprints the last few steps to cover the distance between where he was and where Jason is standing. It's only when he gets closer that he realises there's not one, but two crumbled shapes on the ground. Bigby may not recognize the stranger with claws, but he sure recognizes that miserable pile of greatcoat. In any other situation he would have checked on Edward to make sure the guy is at least just unconscious and not outright dead, but there's so little time for that when Bigby kind of has to focus on the one guy still standing, especially when Jason has been effectively turned into a glass hedgehog. He can't even tell what of the blood here is Jason's, and which belongs to the stranger, or even to Edward. It's a mess.

He moves his hand to latch onto Jason's own arm, just in case the other guy's worked up enough to attempt to punch him too, and then makes sure to capture Jason's gaze - Bigby's own eyes different from the last time they ran into each other. His eyes have grown completely black and deadly serious, with golden shining irises in the middle. When he speaks, there's an odd, almost animalistic growl to the edge of his words.

"Doctor. Now."

Apparently he isn't planning on giving Jason much choice in the matter, because Bigby is already hooking his own arm with all the strength of a vice grip around Jason's own to drag the guy off.

Sorry, Logan, Edward.. He's hoping someone will come to fish you two out of the snow as well..

( continuing this bit over here. )

Seeing another fight breaking out in town is shocking, particularly one involving Wynonna. Randvi does not know the other woman well, but she’d been at the meeting where they'd talked about this! (Yes, she had spent the entire conversation lobbing small balls of paper at the man Hickey but she’d attended…)

She's still approaching when one of the new Saxons moves to intervene, which is a relief until one of the brawlers punches him and the man goes down in a heap like a sack of grain.

Alarm brings the burning pinch of fire to her fingertips as she runs the rest of the way to kneel at the man’s side.

“Stop it, all of you! Have you not done enough?”

No one hears her, but the fight seems to be breaking up on its own. Randvi buries her hands in the snow to try and cool them, then moves to investigate the state of the collapsed man.

“Can you hear me?”

Edward has no concept of how much time passes (really not long at all, mere minutes at the most) before he'll regain consciousness from the literal-knockout, but the coaxing probably does help, someone's voice coming through the strange heaviness of his mind.

The man's eyelids flutter, eyes opening and rolling slowly upwards — pupils swollen and swallowing up the browns of his irises, making them black and strange. His vision's blurry, confused, lids heavy, and instinct makes him want to sit up — but as soon as he even attempts to move at all, he's hit with a wave of dizziness and pain, and cries out softly.

That uncanny dazed look is one that Randvi recognizes - had inflicted, more than once, during the war - and the accompanying dizziness is unsurprising.

“Peace. You've been struck in the head, but you're safe. The fight has ended.”

Edward goes still again, not daring to try and move again just yet, only remaining there on the ground. Some part of him is aware of sensations — the chill of snow in his hair, the crisp air inhaled — but everything feels heavy and blurred, strange. His face and head hurt so badly that it's almost unbearable.

He blinks glossily upwards at the woman, whom he doesn't immediately recognise (soon enough he'll realise he does know her face, at least; he's seen Randvi around town), but one word stands out. Fight.

Now he's trying to get up again, slowly, carefully, pushing through the sharp whimper of pain that accompanies his words. "Is everyone— are they all right? Miss Earp—"

Randvi reaches to support the man’s back as he sits up, her freshly cooled hands warm again with alarm. They likely do need to move him, but he's not well.

“Earp…?” She doesn't know her surname but there had only been one woman in that fight. “Ah. She’s all right. That jester took her away from here to recover. Bigby has removed one of the men, and there's a woman attending to the other. Please don't tax yourself.”

Even through thick layers of wool, he's aware of some odd sensation of warm, but for the moment he's not able to attempt to reason it out — just looking up at the woman, eyes widening. Jester?

But if Mr. Wolf was here... he must have made certain things were all right. Edward trusts Bigby wholeheartedly. Still, he'll need to make sure that Wynonna's truly okay.

....A task that may be easier said than done. His head is spinning again, and he winces as he lifts a hand to his face, palm cupping it. Surprisingly, it isn't his first time being knocked out from a literal blow to the head... but it is the first time he's ever been punched in the eye socket. The pain is nauseating, and he's suddenly leaning forwards to gag, throat convulsing but nothing coming up.

“I would have thought that she of all people would know better than this -” Randvi is cut off as the man pitches forward, gagging. Unfortunate that he doesn't seem able to take a hit any better than his ancestors.

“Shh, you're all right. Move slowly and take deep breaths.”

Hey, what a funny thing to hear someone else say, he feels the exact same way, Randvi!

Edward coughs a few times, staggering a bit with each one, but manages to stay on his feet. One hand clasps his middle while the other stays hovered close to his face, though not daring to directly touch the angry red skin around his eye that pangs with sharp, white-hot pain. He concentrates on taking deep breaths as directed, before he's slowly, slowly trying to reach for his cap.

"Thank you. I'll be all right, I just need to... gather myself. And then deal with this. Learn what caused the quarrel — there may be retaliation..."

Randvi smiles a bit ruefully. “I think it was drink that caused that fight. We can hope that the lack of a clear winner will mean there is no specific target.”

She bends to the ground again herself, filling one of her orange mittens with snow.

“You should hold this to your eye to limit the swelling.”

Gingerly, Little places his hat back onto his head, though it aches, sending another dizzying pang through him. But he can withstand some pain — it's important to keep to uniform....

He takes the offering, nodding gratefully as he presses it gently to his eye, jaw tightening at the contact for a moment before he releases a shaky breath.

"I hope that will be the case. I didn't recognise the two men involved — they must be newcomers here." And... frightful ones at that, even if drink may have been involved. He can't help fearing the worst case scenario, that there may be consequences to follow.

"They'll have to be talked to. They must understand that such behaviour cannot be allowed in this community. What if there had been passerby on the street...!"

“Perhaps until you've recovered, another should do that talking. We can only exercise the authority granted to us by the others here.”

At home, Randvi’s power is granted through her blood, and the blood and honour of her husband. In this place, things are much more precarious.

“I do not wish to see you struck again so soon.”

"It's quite all right, I—" But there's a pause as he continues gathering up his things, slowly but with determination — reaching for his shotgun next to pull it closer, and obstinately ignoring the fresh rush of dizzy swirl that has him wobbling a little.

'I do not wish to see you struck again so soon.'

That... is a good point. The tempers directed his way would have had no time to abate. Still, he doesn't feel right about just letting it go... what if they direct that rage towards other townspeople? Those men were out of control.

....And the main, pressing concern is Wynonna. What if they try to pursue her?

"....I do deeply fear for the safety of Miss Earp. You said some sort of... jester had taken her?"

“It - yes. He…” Randvi had even spoken to this man once, though considering the circumstances she can't recall if they'd exchanged names. “He’s very orange.”

Very orange.....

Edward winces as he squints at Randvi, one-eyed, the other currently covered by the mitten he's gently pressing to it. Given how disoriented he is, he very well may be imagining half of what the woman's saying.... Is this a fever dream?

"Do you mean... the colour of his hair?"

Edited 2024-05-08 15:51 (UTC)

“No. The colour of his clothing. My people don't have such colours.” That's true of a lot of the fabrics here but most aren't as loud.

Admittedly there is only one person he knows who wears orange in a way that would be so notable — the very opposite of his own time and societal customs, which are to draw the least amount of attention to one's self as possible...

Still squinting one-eyed at Randvi— "I wonder if you might mean Mr. March."

It would be a relief if so, and it would make sense, given that he knows the man seems to have a friendship with Wynonna. He hopes it's March; he'll have to make sure soon. ...He's anxious about it, tensing a bit with worry.

"Whomever it was, they were not hostile to her, were they? She's already been injured before this..."

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Rolling up 5 hours late with Starbucks...

it's okay Ned's definitely not going anywhere

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