Log Title: Running Up That Hill
Summary: The Grim Reaper goes looking for a familiar unfamiliar face in Licktown.
IC Date: 2381-01-23
OOC Date: 2019-01-23
Related Logs: None
johnviolet

 

 

"No job's ever as fun as it sounds. Not even the ones where they try to pay you in sim whores."

Well, John was workin' again.

His target? A crime boss in the criminal underworld who harmed one family too many. Someone put out a hit and gave John all they had to get the job done. So, 15 minutes of machine gun, pistol, and shotgun fire later, and 23 mob grunts are reported dead at the scene with the mob boss himself with a bullet in his head.

Limping down the street is the Grim Reaper himself, pistol at his side, with bullet wounds in the side of his leg, his rib, and his shoulder. Clearly he's looking for someone, like one of those street Doctors who are probably used to him by now.

He was looking for Violet Grey.

-

Doctor Violet Grey was not a woman who made it her business to advertise. Not, at least, along the usual channels. She had spent long years establishing other networks. Word of mouth, and sometimes simply those she had worked for or helped in the past that returned her good deed with another.

Even now, in the belly of Licktown, those acts of kindness paid dividends. As the Grim Reaper made his way down the street, he'd notice a homeless man, huddled beneath a broken holosign lift a finger to his nose, tap it twice, before he twisted his hand and pointed surreptitiously down the alley that branched off to the left. All done so smoothly and so quickly, that to the casual passerby, he might have been only adjusting the hood of his coat to hide his face from the glare of neon.

The alley in question was dark, cluttered, filled with refuse and detritus about half way down the block. Long enough that most would not wish to continue on. But if they did, they would find that the street cleared, making walking easier, and that there was an unmarked, but perfectly serviceable door at the end.

-

Let no one say there isn't a system at work for those in the know. John just gives a small nod to the homeless man beneath the sign, and John seems to drop something in his cup…likely a payment? But he turns down the alleyway, his handgun still in reach and with someone with as quick a draw as John? People who know him know well enough to keep away.

He finds the door, and he knocks on it with a bloody hand. A rhythmic banging sound.

-

When Violet opened the door, she did not seem at all surprised to find John on her doorstep. But this was, after all, Licktown, and those who did not invest in good security did not survive long. She stood in the doorway, backlit, the white hooded coat she was wearing casting a shadow across her face, adding to its odd quality. "You don't call. You don't write. What am I to do with you, John John?" She did not wait for a reply, only stepped back to allow him to step inside so that she could close and lock the door behind him.

-

John looks at Violet with that same ultra-serious face as always. "I need treatment, Violet. Otherwise I'd call more often." He limps on in, turning around as if he knew the drill. She's gonna check EVERYWHERE anyway. He wonders if she'll ask this time. "You look healthy."

-

When it came to John Stryker, Violet had a routine. No, she had more than a routine. She had a policy. And as he turned around, she lifted a hand to push back the hood of her coat, before she slipped on gloves and began the always prolonged process of stripping him of his weaponry. At least she helped him out of his jacket first. "I like to keep myself in good repair. You, however, look like you got run over by a mag-train."

-

Especially when it came to John Stryker. John had multiple bruises, and yes, he had those bullet holes in him. A few of them still reeked of gunpowder, implying that some of them were at almost point blank range. And yet, he still managed to kill them all. No wonder he was called the Grim Reaper. The comment about being hit by a mag-train is unanswered. Did he actually get hit by….?

He does have durability implants. But he was hit by a flying car. It sucked.

"I'm surprised you can find the resources down here to still be in good repair. Pays to fix up guys like us." He'll sit down in the elevated operation chair, and as usual, he prefers to be awake.

-

Violet placed every weapon she took off of him neatly on a rolling table. Pushing it with her as she left him to manage stripping down to the essentials. Once she'd left the weapons close enough that he could grab one if he needed it, she went to switch out her gloves and head back towards where he was settling into the chair, pulling her work tray over with her. "Well, the sleeve's new. Cashed in all of my benefits wholesale and convinced C-TAC to pony up for a new synth. Of course, it pretty well burned all of my bridges on that end. I guess sixty years in the uniform was good for something."

-

"Makes sense that you look different…once again." John perhaps with a subtle display of humor. John only had this one new sleeve, his original human one way to fucked up to do what he does. But he looks to Violet. "Yeah. Do you miss it?" One veteran asks another. though John only served for about upwards 12 years…which is STILL nothing to scoff at. "Looks like it's pretty top of the line, your sleeve."

-

"Do I?" Violet paused for a moment, as she began cleaning the bullet wound in his left leg, working with the same efficiency and precision he'd remember. "Oh, I remember now." She nodded, looking down at her work, the overhead light casting a harsh glare on her face as it seemed to shift and flow. When she looked back up, the hair was still the same, but her face had become the face by which he had first known her. Hazel eyes instead of green, a softer jaw, more pronounced cheekbones. A button nose. Tanned skin rather than pale cream. "To be honest? I don't know if I even think about it that way. When I look back on it…I suppose I only hope that when the totals are tallied, that I helped more than I harmed."

-

John just lets her operate on him. He doesn't speak until she admits that she sometimes misses the C-Tac days. "I miss it too sometimes." His eyes go to the clock…like he has somewhere to be or something. Either that, or he's trying to distract himself.

-

"You know I don't do shoddy work, John John. So settle in, unless you want me to treat you like a real street hack, and you wake up in the middle of the night wondering why you're bleeding out of all of the wrong orifices." Despite the snap in her words, her expression was amused, as she applied the cauterizing pen to his leg, once she's finessed out the bullet lodged there. She reached over to retrieve the bullet, offering it with the hand not holding the pen, "Souvenir?"

-

John looks at Violet as she already gets about set to fish out the bullet. "As always. Another bullet in the chamber." his way of saying 'another one in the collection'. He does wince though when the bullet is being fished out. It's still a wonder why he never asked for painkillers or asked to be put to sleep so he didn't have to experience it…as to anyone else, this would be extremely painful.

-

Violet nodded, dropping the bullet into a glass of disinfectant, to be added to the jar that sat high on the shelf in the back of the room she worked out of. "You need to get out of the business, John John. You're running up that hill, and the days coming when you're going to get to the top and even I won't be able to pull you back down again." Violet finished with the leg, bandaging it, more out of a desire to cushion the small scar that was left behind than anything else, before she switched out her gloves yet again, and scooted forward to attend his ribs next.

-

John looks at Violet as she gives him that warning, giving an emotionless look at her as he just allows her to treat him. "I know. I've already been thinking about retiring." John admits, which probably comes as a shock. for him to actually settle down and live the quiet life…one with significantly less bullets in it.

-

As Violet turned to position herself at a better angle, she reached back to adjust the light, bringing it down to cut the shadows as she started to work. "Couple of fragments in here. It's going to be messy." And that was about all of the warning she gave him, as she got to work picking the pieces of bullet turned shrapnel out from between his ribs, "Couple of impact fractures as well." She didn't glance up as the conversation shifted, but the tone of her voice showed just a hint of skepticism, "Find yourself and girl and a dog and settle down somewhere that isn't Bay City?"

-

John didn't flinch from all the digging she was doing inside his ribs, clearing the way for the removal of billet casings and of course, treating his fractures. "Getting a dog does sound nice." John wisely doesn't confirm or deny the past, present, or future ideas of getting a girl. "Maybe….maybe."

-

To her credit, Violet was not a sadist, and what pain she caused was what she calculated to be the least she could elicit while still doing her job efficiently. So it was fragments out first, wound debriding, and then she repaired the bone and tissue damage on her way out. "Whatever it is you decide to do, it's got to be something other than staring down the barrel of a gun." Each of the fragments Violet dropped into the same cup as the bullet, "Or else you're doing to start taking up even more space on my wall than you already do."

-

At least she cleaned up her mess. John received the lecture in utter stride, not interrupting her or giving back with a hearty dose of mouthing off. He knew better than anyone that he probably shouldn't mouth off or go off the cuff like that….and he also knew that his engine would definitely not last forever. "I know. Only thing I'm good at though…as opposed to being some kind of office worker…." he frowns at the very thought, the audacity of it all!

-

"I'm going to need to prep the mesh overlays to cover the damage. And I can see a few places where it's starting to show strain. When was the last time you went in for a complete overhaul?" She went through the whole process if bandaging, regloving and picking up the detritus before she got to his shoulder. "So find a meth to leech off of. Sell yourself as personal protection and spend the rest of your days some rich woman's piece on the side, with gun attachment."

-

"I already did the bodyguard thing for awhile. It's not nearly as fun as it looks or sounds." John shrugs very softly. "Unless I worked for a meth…then I guess things would be quite easy until someone decided that money was best used in other hands. I'd be no different than some minimum wage mall cop or something." John clearly didn't like the idea of bodyguarding, and casually allowed her to bandage him up.

-

The shoulder was easier, a clean through and through, so it was perhaps for the best that she saved the relative best for last, "No job's ever as fun as it sounds. Not even the ones where they try to pay you in sim whores." There was clearly a story there. "Stay there," Violet ordered, as she left the shoulder unbandaged, pushing off on the chair to roll over towards the cabinet, pulling down a synthesizer from the cabinet, before she rolls back to the operating chair. "So, no dog, no girl, lots of bullets. What do you do for fun?"

-

Sim Whores? What…in the literal hell? John didn't want to know, not really, so he definitely played it safe and just didn't ask. "I definitely don't want to know." WHY DID HE VOCALIZE IT?! John stayed put as ordered however. "Fun? Not a lot of room for it in this line of work. But…I do enjoy reading a good book."

-

"Yes you do." Violet's lips quirked into an almost impish smile, as she began to work from the shoulder down, repairing the mesh overlay that had been damaged, though, once she started, she ended up on her feet, toeing aside the chair so she can work more easily, hitting the bullet wounds first, but working systematically down from his neck, repairing the reinforcing that had been overlaid on his skin, "Even when the missions were riding each other's backs, we still took time to destress once we'd cast back to HQ. I'll see if I can dig you up a few books. Penny romances or hard-boiled detective novels?" Ah Violet, the poster child for terrible bedside manner.

-

John smirks. "Your bedside manner is absolutely terrible." but he seems to wince lightly. Repair on a human body was not something for the faint of heart. It was painful, if not agonizing, but people like John were far too tough. The question as to the preference of his books was not missed, but there was definitely some hesitation. "…..detective novels."

-

"C-TAC's finest insertion combat medic, right here. This is why I don't get the cushy jobs." Violet moved efficiently, but she had worked on John more than a few times when they had both answered to the same master, and a handful after, and she knew him well enough to know how to find a balance between the work she had to do and the amount of pain he could tolerate before he took a swing at her. "Few more patches and I'll even buy you dinner." Beat pause, "A real dinner, not the shit I eat." What more could you ask for?