2021-01-19 - You should see the other guys...

While the rest of the group reconvened at the gym after the operation, Vic chose to stay behind, not at the area, but some ways away, with high powered night-vision binoculars, to watch the police and fire department response and see if anyone else showed, like maybe Reyes. She staked the scene out from the roof of a building a few miles away, taking note of everything for several hours. Then, feeling a little woozy from blood loss, she made her way back to Elm Street to rap on Seth's door with the side of her fist. She has two bullet holes in her. She needs some patching up for sure. She's still in her black outfit, though her hat has been removed and her hair is in a long braid.

Seth, having taken he Veil shortcut back to the gym after causing the big-bada-boom at the lab, has already made his way back from the gym after not having his celebratory beer. His blood-soaked clothing has been discarded onto plastic sheeting on the kitchen tile and the kitchen table is a mess of bandage packaging and first aid supplies. The enforcer is in a pair of PJ bottoms, his upper chest a mess of bandages that are wrapped and showing the early signs of pink soaking through the outermost layer. The knock at the door has the Ginger heading that way to open in, sidearm held at his side as he opens the door a crack to peer out before opening it fully as he sees Vic. "Shit, get in here. I was thinking of coming to find you." IE. I was starting to worry, but he isn't going to vocalize that. "How bad off are you?"

Vic looks at his bandages and grimaces. "A little worse off than you, I think. I took two. Just through and throughs though. But I'm feeling a little on the woozy side." That is all tough-bitch talk for needing at least butterfly suture bandages, if not real stitches. She limps inside, one of the holes in her left leg through the meat of her thigh. The other leakage is just under her collarbone on the right side of her torso. "You need me to help with bandaging you right? It looks like you're not so good at it."

"Hard to reach the entrance wound on the back. Did the best I could. It's just a leaker though, I should be fine. Let's take care of you first." Seth explains with a bit of a shrug as he places an arm around Vic to help her inside and take some of that weight off of her leg. He leads the other enforcer towards the kitchen table and using his free hand he clears off space for Vic to sit. "So, do I get the scissors or are you going to try and wiggle out of those jeans yourself?"

BDUs, but whose nitpicking? Vic grunts. She unbuttons her pants and slides them down her legs, wincing as the blood that's dried pulls on the wound, and the blood that hasn't begins leaking out again. She is in simple cotton underwear. She pulls off her jacket and the turtleneck under it gets partway up before she grimaces. "I think this one you have to cut." Lifting your arms when you have a wound under your collarbone is not fun. She slides herself up to sit on the tabletop. She looks pale, tired, and achy.

Once the BDU's are off, Seth takes a closer look at the wound on Vic's thigh. He places his hands on either side of the wound and applies gentle pressure to each side as he closes his eyes and concentrates on his Glimmer, envisioning the holes in her leg mending themselves together. There is a radiant heat that emanates from Seth's palms as the power takes hold. Lifting his hands from the wound, Seth looks down to the wound on Vic's leg and nods to himself as he seems satisfied that the power did something to help. "Hopefully that should let you put your weight on it. Might still be a little sore and tender, but it's better than it was."

Seth leans over Vic to reach for the scissors, giving the other enforcer a kiss on the cheek as he grabs them and then moves to start to cut side of the top where the bullet wound is, one that eerily almost matches the one in his own chest, but reversed. "One down, one to go. I'll try and be gentle with this one. If I am any indication this is going to be...uncomfortable."

Vic sucks breath through her teeth as the wound in her thigh is handled, but she doesn't flinch or cry out. A sigh escapes her as Seth's healing power warms through her. "Thanks," she whispers quietly. As the shirt is cut away, it's sticky with blood. She should have been patched up immediately, but she was stubbornly insistent on making sure nothing in the investigation came back to Joey and the crew. Her torso is awash in crimson beneath the shirt. "Everyone get back all right?" she asks.

"Fuck..." Seth exclaims as he peels the shirt away from the wound, taking delicate care to do the best the can not aggravate what already might be clotted. "Yeah, everyone made it out ok. Joey had the Tailor come in and sew him up, but you will never guess who showed up while we were 'cleaning up'. Fuckin' de la Vega just strolls down into the boiler room like he couldn't give a shit." Seth snorts, "I tried to offer him a beer, but all I got was a nice shoulder check into my wound for my troubles. Bastard."

Seth peals away the remains of the shirt and sighs, getting a little squirt bottle to rinse the wound and clear the dried blood around it to prep for bandaging. "So, what was the show like? Were the fireworks pretty?"

Vic grimaces with every movement of the wounded area. "Javier isn't stupid. He had to know it was us. He just can't prove anything. I know he switched sides to protect his boys, but I am pretty sure he's just playing the long game. He won't abide someone like Reyes yanking his chain or forcing his hand." She hisses a bit when the water hits the wound, it'll be worse when something antibiotic is put on it. It's still leaking from the back. "He was probably just there to make sure Rosencrantz was ok, and none of us were dead. He and Kelly were sort of friends until the Reyes mess."

As to the show? "It was crazy bright and loud. That big of a meth operation makes for a hell of a big boom. They had to call in trucks from other towns nearby. Pretty sure they won't be able to pin anything on us, it was chaos, and between the chems and all the water they had to put on the site, nothing will be uncontaminated."

"Well, if he didn't know he knew as soon as he walked in. Joey getting sewn up and me walking around leaking was a pretty damn good giveaway we had something to do with it," Seth says as he pats the wounded area dry with some sterile gauze and then reaches for the anti-bacterial. "This is going to sting."

Seth squirts both sides of the wound with copious amounts of the liquid fire before setting down the bottle and moving to grab the butterfly stitches. "But if the fire was that big, and with the evidence being all contaminated I don't know if there is anything that he could prosecute if he even would. I still can't get a read on him. I didn't mention it before, but I ran into him the other at the clearing in the woods while I was out getting some target practice. After a bit of banter back and forth he was offering me some information for a 'favor' later. I told him to go to hell, but he gave me some information anyway. Didn't get a chance to follow up on it though. We hit the lab to quickly, but it might be something to look at in the aftermath. Its an address, here on Elm. At least he didn't shoot me."

Vic's nails dig into the tabletop as the stinging begins and she holds her breath until she gets it under control. "Again, he has no proof. And we can reason away our wounds, especially as there were no bullets in the holes they put in us," she points out. It's good to have a former cop with a love of forensics in ones criminal posse. "The only thing we need to take care of is our weapons. Slugs will match so anything we used tonight we need to dispose of so they can't be linked to us. And we need to destroy the burner phones too." This is why she's Joey's #2. She's smart.

The news about him and Ruiz in the woods though has a brow arching. "Oh yeah? What else did you two talk about? Maybe when we both stop leaking we can go check the address out."

"You, a little bit," Seth admits. "Asked him how you two ended up in Gray Harbor together, mostly just trying to push his buttons," Seth says as he starts to apply the butterfly stitches onto the wound in the back first to stop the leaking. "He told me a little about how you two worked undercover together, but not much else. Oh, and that you two 'enjoyed each other's company' a couple of times...but said much more unrefined. I think that was him trying to get my hackles up." If the fact that Vic and Ruiz had some form of an affair in the past bothers him, it doesn't show.

Finished with the back, Seth looks over the wound and nods to himself since it looks like it has stopped bleeding, so he moves to the entrance wound. "Sure, we can go take a look. I would be interested to see what we find."

Vic snorts. "It was a long time ago, we were both drunk and high, in a high stress situation, and my fiance had just dumped me. It was a comfort situation. It definitely wasn't romance of any sort." She chuckles. "Why, would you be jealous?" she teases, wincing when the bandage pulls the skin together.

"Would you want me to be?" asks Seth with a chuckle as he starts working on another one of those strips. "We all have our pasts, getting upset over something like that would be...something. I am sure there is the right word to use there, but I'm hopped up on painkillers. Speaking of..."

Seth finishes off that butterfly strip and moves over to rummage around in a bag, pulling out a bottle of pills. "Say hello to our little friend Percoset. Do you want to be numb, or just dull? I'm going for dull for now, but might switch it up later depending on the rest of the evening."

Seth sets the bottle down by Vic's unwounded side and wanders off into the kitchen to fetch some water for her, "To answer your question, I'm not jealous, no. It would be asinine...that's the word...to be jealous over something that happened before I even knew you. I gathered it wasn't anything serious by the way he said it, anyway. As I said, I think he was trying to get me to throw a punch at him or something, or it was just de la Vega being himself. Hard to tell at times."

"Just dull. We can't be sure Reyes won't retaliate tonight," Vic notes with a grimace. "As for jealous, it can be kinda sexy, as long as it isn't, you know, controlling misogynist bullshit," she quips. She takes one of the pills instead of a full dose. These wounds aren't the sort that bother her over much. She has plenty worse scars that he's seen. "I should bandage and clean that exit wound on your back," she notes.

Seth tries to glance over his shoulder at the leaking entrance wound without much success. Handing ice the water, Seth nods, "Yeah, at the very least the one on the back. Trying to work in the mirror wasn't exactly my best work. I think it started leaking again when de la Vega tried to assert his dominance over me at the gym," the enforcer snorts. Sure enough, there is a line of red oozing from the back bandage which has been soaked through creating a rivulet of blood down The line of Seth's spine.

"Ok, switch places." Vic eases herself down off the table to let Seth get up there. She carefully removes the bandage on his back, and flushes the wound out, making sure there isn't any debris left from the bullet passing through. "We got damned lucky tonight. No one was broken in a way that couldn't be fixed. We got Daryl to interrogate. We shut down what is likely Reyes' most profitable business. It was a win, but I worry what's coming next."

Seth switches places and climbs up onto the kitchen table. Sure enough the wound has trace amounts of fibers from his shirt embedded in there that need to be cleaned out, the procedure causing The enforcer to grimace through the pain, dulled as it is.

"Yeah, I'm sure Reyes isn't going to take this and just say 'Oh, guess I should pick up and go!' This isn't going to be over till he, or Felix, end up in a box, and honestly I don't know who is going to come out on top. I just hope in the end it is all worth it. At least so far things have been going on our favor." Seth angles his head and tried to look at Vic as she works, "Honest question...if you could get info on shit from Vega for the cost of a favor, would you? I almost thought about it. Almost. But I wasn't prepared to risk what he might ask in return. The deal was far to open ended for my comfort."

Thankfully, Vic has a secret gift for cleaning wounds. She is a "Mover" as those in town call those with the Physical Glimmer. She's able to pull out the inanimate matter from his wound without using tweezers or the like, and with as little movement of the wound possible. She frowns at his words about Ruiz. "For you to do it? I'd say no. He doesn't know you, trust you, or like you. If he offered that kind of trade with me though? I'd consider it. I don't think he'd ask me to do anything I wouldn't be ok with doing."

She begins suturing the wound with butterfly strips in lieu of stitches. She doesn't have the gift he does, so it's all standard first aid happening, no magical healing foo.

Chicks dig scars right? That's what they say, so this is just another to add to his collection. "That was pretty much my reasoning. I was certain that if I took that deal he was going to call in the favor to turn against Felix or Joey, which I wouldn't do and then it would just be a clusterfuck...not that it already isn't with him. But it could always be worse."

As the butterfly bandages are placed, Seth grimaces slightly through the pain. "I'm shocked that he hasn't wandered off to take a permanent vacation. It's not like Felix to let someone 'off the hook' like he has de la Vega. Typically there in only one way you cut ties, with a visit to the basement. At least that I have seen."

"I think he's Joey's problem now. I think your cousin passed on most of the debts of the people in this town to Kelly when he left town. De la Vega is smart and he's dangerous, believe me. With both survived insertion and discovery in a cell of the Sinaloa Cartel. If you don't know about them, look it up. It'll give you nightmares." Vic presses a bandage over the wound and makes sure it's taped securely. "Want me to make some coffee? I don't think sleeping tonight is a good idea unless we do it in shifts."

"Oh, I know he is dangerous. So are you," Seth says with a small smile. "Don't think I didn't see you ventilate that guy. Nice shot. And good call on the crane, that infiltration could have been so much worse...but yeah, I don't know tons about the cartel, but from what you have said and how de la Vega talked about it I have an idea and it's probably worse than the idea I have."

The pressure applied as the bandage is secured causes a grunt to escape as Seth nods about the coffee, "If it wasn't for the painkillers I think we would be too hopped up on adrenaline to sleep anyway, but coffee sounds wonderful."

Vic presses a kiss to the back of his shoulder, now wandering around in her bra and panties like it's no big deal. She's not limping nearly as much since he worked on her leg though, as she heads to the coffee maker and rummages around for the stuff to brew. "I ventilated two guys. You blew that one asshole's head right off though. That was a beautiful shot." Only these two could have an appreciation session about murder while half naked and full of bullet holes.

"He shot you, I couldn't let that go unanswered," the enforcer says with a chuckle as he slides off the table. "He deserved no less."

Seth makes his was over to the pile of blood soaked clothes on the plastic sheet, and adds Vic's and the remains of the used bandages to be burned in the fire he starts to set up in the fireplace. "Anything else need to go in here?"

Vic adds her leather jacket to the pile with a sigh. "Dammit, I liked that one," she mutters. "We need to disassemble the guns, get rid of the barrels and replace them, so the bores don't match the rifling to any of the rounds we fired at the compound," she notes, getting some mugs from a cupboard.

"I'll get you a new one," Seth says about the jacket as he stokes the fire to life, starting with the easy to burn things like bandages. "It's a shame about the guns, I just had that rifle to how I liked it, but it is just as well. De la Vega saw it the other day, so just in case someone finds something it is best to get rid of it. Should have just left it there in the lab, would have gone up with the rest of it."

"I'd dump them on the other side but then I'd worry about oompa loompas coming after us with our own weapons or something," Vic mutters. She sits at the kitchen table in her underthings, and begins disassembling her rifle with precision and care. "You don't have to buy me a new coat, Seth," she says with a chuckle and a grin.

"I know I don't," Seth says with a shrug that causes a wince to cross his face. "But, uh, I recently came into a shit-ton of cash. You know those crates? I went back." He grins a bit sheepishly, "I know...stupid. But I found a crate full of stacks of wrapped bills..." he says as his voice lowers to a mutter, "along with a note from Felix. After I got it into the trunk, everything else just turned to seaweed. So I figure I only have a finite time to spend it...might as well share the wealth."

"A note from Felix? In one of those crates? What did it say?" Vic asks, arching a brow curiously. "How much money are you talking?" he's piqued her interest now for sure, as she sets the barrel of the rifle to one side and gets up to pour their coffee "Want yours doctored or no?" she asks.

"Black is good," Seth answers about the coffee as he tosses some of the clothing into the fire to burn.

"The note just said he knew he could trust me, and I haven't counted it. But it was a crate full of stacked bills that filled my trunk, and that isn't including the stacks I just left on the beach. It has to be at least a half million if I had to wager a guess."

"Jesus Christ, you better spend it really quick in case it poofs," Vic exclaims as she pours them each a cup of un-doctored coffee. She doesn't mess with her brew, she's a former cop. "You wanna buy me a new kitchen?" she jokes with a grin as she moves over to him, handing him a mug and sitting on the couch gingerly with her own.

Taking the coffee and setting it too the side to cool a bit, Seth laughs. "Sure, I can pay someone to finish up the renovations on your place if you want. As you said, better spend it quick before it poofs. I'd hate to hold onto it and find a trunk full of seaweed one day."

Seth looks around his place, "I could upgrade some of the stuff in here too, but I think your place is in dire need to get it out of that '70's Show." Pause. "Speaking of things going poof, we should drink that Macallan. That would just be tragic..."

"Yeah. We should. Maybe. Maybe not," Vic says with a frown. "I am not entirely sure it's safe to eat or drink things from Over There. I remember something about fairy stories as a kid, and being trapped in their realm if you ate or drank anything from there." She sips her coffee. "But it's M. It might be worth it."

"I'm willing to risk it. When I went back there was a bunch of canned food that people had been eating like caviar and shit, and so far it didn't seem like any if them were having any adverse effects. At least not that I saw. Also, there was porn. Other side porn. I didn't look, I didn't want that image in my head." Seth exclaims as he tosses the BDUs into the fire. "Someone was talking about some guys big antlers or wings or something and I just noped out. My luck I would turn to Cthulhu in a thong."

"Other...side...porn..." Vic drawls in a low tone of disbelief. "The Veil is a weird damn place. But yeah, ok, we can drink that after we're sure we aren't going to prison for blowing up the meth lab," she quips at him. She watches the flames dancing in the consumption of their clothing, feeling the percoset kicking in.

Tossing the last of the clothing into the fireplace, Seth picks up his coffee and moves to join Vic on the couch for this fireside chat. Who says romance is dead! "Sounds like a plan. I'd bank the cash, but that might draw unwanted attention. Stupid banks and there reporting to the government. Ruins the hard work of people like us."

"They have to report any deposit over 10K," Vic helpfully rattles off. As he settles beside her she nestles in against his side, hopefully the uninjured one. "Better off spending it places that aren't going to ask questions."

"Exactly." Seth agrees about the 10k limit, carefully slipping his arm around Vic as she nestles in. If it bothers him, he doesn't voice it. "So you are going to help me spend it."