The Mighty God of Thunder, Son of Odin (god_ofthunder) wrote in spinningcompass, @ 2015-05-28 23:20:00 |
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Entry tags: | !plot, thor, ~sif |
Who: Thor & Sif
When: 5.28
Where: Medical Holding
What: Sif Wakes Up!
Closed
For more than two days, after her literal fall in battle, Sif lay in the triage established by the mortal healers, housed beside so many others that had nearly met their end at the hands of the invading forces- some that had, after succumbing to their injuries, despite the efforts of those to their charge. To their credit, they did what they could for the Asgardian in their midst, but the anatomy of a goddess cared little for their primitive techniques. So long as there was life in her body, it would heal itself- if over time. So long as she was safe from sustaining any further damage, she would recover.
Sif was too stubborn not to.
The first threads of consciousness came to her in the dark, in shades of dreams she wouldn’t remember, the sounds of her surroundings filtered through; first at a slow and minimal din, then mimicking the low roar of injury still coursing through her blood. Her breathing began to shallow from its deep, slow slumber, and her sword hand twitched at the fingers. When it found nothing to grip, Sif’s green eyes opened.
~~~
Thor had been outside of the room. He had come and gone while she lay there, exacting revenge upon any foe in his way. His blood boiled in a heat he did not truly understand. Jane had been taken from him and he had been worried, cross, but something in seeing Sif laying in a heap on the foreign ground made him squirm. So he swung with all of his might--which, as we all know, is quite great--and filled the air with thick static and electrical jolts. He was a man on a mission and despite his own injuries, some otherwise devastating save for his stupid good luck, he did not stop.
He retreat only to rest as needed, to regroup, to eat and be mundane.
He retreat to check on Sif every few hours.
Now, as he paced outside of the room, arms crossed with Mjolnir on a chair in the hall, he was talking with someone. Maybe it was strategy. Maybe it was about her health. His health. Katherine’s whereabouts and wellness. He hadn’t heard from his niece, save for a bizarre text he recently looked over once again. He did not know what it meant and assumed it was falsely sent. Then someone called for him, that Sif was awake, and whatever he was doing was dropped. His blond hair tied back in a ponytail whipped around as he hurried through the door. His armor was tarnished, dented, and his cape was dirty and torn. It didn’t matter.
“Lady Sif…” Thor looked upon the warrior laying there as if she were a miracle.
~~~
Another of the human healers was fussing over her when the shadow looming through the door caught her eye in a very familiar way. Sif’s attention was immediately drawn to her friend, inadvertently dismissing the doctor without much fanfare, or courtesy. She could be told just how much they didn’t know about her recovery process later. For now, processing exactly where she was and how she ended up here were paramount- but figuring out the reason Thor was looking at her like that seemed much more complicated.
At least, for the time being. She was still incredibly dizzy.
“Did I miss the fun?” she said in regards to the haggard state of his armor- and himself, but the fatigue and thinness in her own voice surprised her. It made her frown. “Exactly how much fun did I miss…”
~~~
Thor stood framed in the door, stunned. He thought he’d lost her. He thought...This island didn’t bring people back. Not the right person. It brought back duplicates, dopplegangers, and alternate universe selves. It didn’t bring back the person you cared about most. So he looked upon Sif like she were a miracle before finding himself and rushing forward. His hands reached out and held her face as he looked into her eyes. Vitals seemed acceptable. Oh, really, what did he know? At least she could see and didn’t have brain damage. She could talk.
“Two days,” he said, not letting her go as he bowed over the bed at her side, one knee on the metal support that was the riser. “Maybe a bit more. I’ve doubled your kill count…” Like it mattered. Nothing else mattered except that she was well.
~~~
The sudden rush, his sudden closeness made Sif’s head swim, enough to place a reactive hand on his thick, gauntleted wrist to stable herself- another strong sign that she was nowhere near top form, along with the weakness and hot ache in every joint from her ankles to her shoulders. The memory of what had put her in this condition was still fuzzy at best, but it had to have been something fairly cataclysmic. Sif hadn’t had her bell rung like that since she was barely old enough to swing a sword.
“Did you now-” she said after a breath, and a momentary moment to close her eyes, then open them. “You certainly look worse for wear.” At least her deflective humor was still working- Sif closed her eyes again, letting her brow rest against his for a stabilizing breath.
~~~
He held her face and felt frozen. He didn’t even know what to say. What to do. He was just so overwhelmed with thanks that she was alive. Thor watched her eyes close and he shook his head. “No, Sif...Look at me,” he demanded. His voice was quiet. His voice had never been quiet. There had probably been all of five times when his voice had been quiet and this was not that kind of quiet.
It was soft and driven by emotion, concern, compassion.
“Don’t close your eyes. Don’t go to sleep,” Thor continued, demanding, but that voice was so calm. It beckoned her like a long lost companion; lover. “Look at me.”
~~~
It was more the quiet cry in his voice- the grave quality of it that spoke to things much deeper in her soul than even battle or glory- more than the words themselves, however raw and honest, that made Sif’s chest ache without injury. It was also sobering exactly how difficult it was to actually open her eyes again- and keep them open. Her body had been through a hell her mind hadn’t been able to catch up with.
But Thor’s quiet voice spoke volumes of that hell. She recognized it with painful acuteness; she’d heard it in her own deep thoughts, aimed at him.
Through effort and another long breath that rolled from her parted lips, her eyes did open, focusing on his face. After a moment of willing the waves of frayed consciousness away, her hand slid from the dented Asgardian metal around his wrist, to cover his hand. “...I’m here.”
~~~
When she opened her eyes, he smiled with gladness and some serenity. Thor feared she wouldn’t come out of her rest if she closed her eyes and drift back to sleep. What if she had head trauma? What if she didn’t wake up again? The nearest medical wait, watching, lingering, but Thor would not back away. He just held her face, cupped in his giant hands until one turned over to hold hers. The feeling in his gut was surreal. He didn’t know what to make of it yet he knew exactly, with pin-point accuracy what it was.
“You fell a very long way,” he said in a hushed voice. “I have also lost your blades…” Thor sounded guilty beyond belief but it had come down to her life or the swords.
Her life was more important.
~~~
A fall… Sif didn’t remember falling. She barely remembered climbing- the last crystal clear image in her still quite fuzzy head was standing beneath the colossus and it’s red eye, shoulder to shoulder with him. Her fingers squeezed his hand, a lingering grip that helped stave off another physiological urge to close her eyes and let go. She needed more rest, but that could wait.
“They will be found,” she assured him gently. As much as those swords meant to her- more than worlds in themselves- comforting him and the pain in his voice meant more.
~~~
He knew that. In the rubble they would find the swords right where they were left...probably. He had taken down that hells spawn after all. Maybe they would just remain jammed into its joints until collected. Thor hoped so. Though he did not like the idea of having to clean up this mess. Would it all go away like the festivities at the holidays? Or did they have to pick up the wreckage?
Whatever.
Thor’s thumb nudged across Sif’s cheek as he looked her over. His heart pound in his chest despite simply kneeling there. There was nothing difficult about it and yet everything in his body felt tight, tense, and withdrawn. “I should let you rest…” he conceded after letting silence linger for two or three minutes. It felt like an eternity.
~~~
With those words, Sif held onto his hand a little tighter, and did not let him go.
“No-” she said without thinking, and even after the word had left her lips, she did not regret the outburst. Usually her words were pressed through filters upon filters for various reasons, but now, there wasn’t the energy. She also didn’t want to filter herself. Not right now. Not this close.
“Don’t leave me,” she added, possibly in the smallest voice she’d ever used. “At least- not here.”
~~~
The god’s heart shattered. He nodded and turned to sit, holding her hand but having to take his hand away until he was in a more comfortable position to put it back. He paused, however, mid-seat. Thor’s eyes glanced around, deep and blue, and gave a chin tilt toward the medic to send them off. No one else was looking or even seemed to care, so he turned back to Sif. “I won’t,” he told her, promised her, bowing to kiss the hand held in his. His beard was untamed despite his brief showers to keep clean and general hygiene routine so it was a bit prickly on her skin. There was then a passing of silence, at least on his part, looking down over her face. His heart wrenched, gut wound in a knot, before he leaned back down to kiss her on the mouth.
~~~
It was not the first time they had kissed- not even close- but the last time had been literal ages ago, before mortal man had perfected the art of crossing their great seas. The last time had been when they were young, and so much more reckless. When the realms that surrounded their home were adventures to be conquered.
This time Sif could not keep her eyes from closing, for her world crashed in on everything, except for the sound of his held breath, and the feel of his lips.
And that of her own gently pressing back. Both a pure desire of her soul, and a cautious reach of her heart, Sif consciously tried to keep still injury-riddled thoughts of what does this mean from ruining the flare of perfect joy his kiss sparked deep in her chest. That combined cautious joy is what drove the way she squeezed his hand, then let her fingers slip from the grip to reverently brush his cheek, grazed by dirty spears of golden hair escaped from the leather throng.
~~~
Thor squeezed her hand back as well, maybe even too tightly at first before releasing slowly. He pulled back even slower, as if seconds had become minutes in the grand scheme of time. When he was back enough to look her face over his eyes had some kind of glitter in them, a blue ocean sparkling under a thousand stars. He licked his lips, then moved to sit in the chair at the bedside. Thor sat there with a pleased kind of smile on his face as his free hand raised to beckon in the nurse.
“Make sure she is well,” he said while never letting go of Sif’s hand. He would never let go of that hand again.