Kintsugi

The Strategy

None of them wanted to stay in the gas station so they went back out to the bikes. The storm had broken and full dark had fallen. The moon peeked through sparse cloud cover, lighting things enough that those with dark vision didn't actually have to use it. For which, Rebecca looked extremely grateful.

Anson returned Aisling's long knife and watched with fascination as she reached up to press them back into her shoulder blades. They melted into her skin, becoming tattoos once more. She rubbed at her empty collarbones a little ruefully, and Anson finally noticed the array of lockpicks tattooed across the back of her hand, fully realizing their purpose now.

He grasped her wrist, distracted from the pain in his shoulder and his thumping heart and the irritation at Eveirdo to examine this curiosity. "This is amazing. How did you do that?" He swept his thumb across the back of her hand.

Grinning, Aisling slid a finger down a pick and pulled it from her skin with that same silver glow. "Pretty handy, huh?"

"So your Aunt Tony...?

"Yep. Hers are pretty much all functional too." She let Anson examine the lock pick, then pressed it back into her skin when he returned it.

"I need some of those."

She chuckled. Sable drew his attention with a grimace of sympathy and he flinched when she went to touch his dislocated shoulder. "We need to get that popped back in." Anson sighed and let Sable get to work. She put his shoulder back into place, cleaned up some scrapes where Aisling had taken a hard tumble, and eyed Rebecca with concern when the Witch said she was fine.

"They made me relive something horrible and showed me some nasty nightmares," Rebecca spat, "but physically I'm fine."

Aisling sidled in, offering comfort. Rebecca snuggled into Aisling and sighed. Aisling held Rebecca close and sent an assessing glance over Sable. "How about you? How did you fare?"

Sable shoved dark hair out of her face, golden skin gone pale and black eyes haunted. "Zach killed me."

Anson winced. The way she said those words made him think she was oversimplifying that. If the things he had seen were any indication, there was more to it than that.

Rebecca extracted herself from Aisling, ruefully wiping at her face and hands. They were all dirty and disheveled, to the point that only a shower was going to help. She looked back towards the dark gas station, peering through the yawning openings. "Do we need to go back in for Eveirdo?"

Anson shook his head, feeling the irritation creeping up and turning his neck and shoulders tight. "That idiot will be fine."

"Idiot?!" Eveirdo came striding around the side of the gas station, trying to scrape mud off of his bare skin.  He was covered in muck, from his blue black hair to his bare feet.  "I just knocked out a portal so no one can be kidnapped and hauled off to a different dimension to be forced into slavery. How does that make me an idiot?"

"Because you could have come up with a better way of dealing with that situation before barreling in halfcocked with no information!"

Anson snatched his tee shirt that had been drying out over Eveirdo's bike and threw it at the Dragon. Eveirdo caught it, scowling as he used it to wipe mud off his face. "I didn't hear you coming up with any brilliant plans."

"Well, maybe if you had asked me instead of just walking in there..."

Eveirdo got the worst of the mud off and caught his jeans when Anson threw those at him next. "What was your brilliant strategy then?!"

"Doesn't matter now, does it?!"

"Ha! You didn't have shit. And you won't have shit even if I give you a week to think about it."