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Hermes squirms, the underside of her skin glowing with miniature, fluorescent, slug-shaped things as they shift through her. “Shit,” she murmurs, hands going into fists. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
“Babe,” Jolyne says, straddling her, pinning her down. “Stone Free and I can get them out of you, but you gotta keep still.”
Hermes looks up at her girlfriend. Jolyne’s hair is falling out of its braid, space bun gone wonky, but there’s firm determination in her eyes, unbendable like steel. It’s the look of the woman she fell in love with, and Hermes knows that her life is in Jolyne’s hands; she knows that it’s alright for it to be there.
In front of them, FF is fighting with the stand user, someone who, for once, is not monologuing about their intent, but rather, trying to move out of the way. They’re evenly matched to FF, neither overpowering them nor underpowered, and if Jolyne and Hermes want to win, they need an edge.
Jolyne pulls a pocketknife out of her bra, with dogged determination, biting a lip, she cuts into Hermes’s skin.
“FUCK!”
“I know, I know, sweetheart, I’m sorry,” Jolyne says. Rivulets of blood spill out of Hermes’s cut, and Jolyne ignores her howls of pain, digging the knife in deeper.
Her hands don’t shake, and through the haze of fear and pain and pain and fear, Hermes thinks that she loves Jolyne so much.
Strands of Stone Free worm their way into the cut, and Jolyne leans forward, eyes closed, pressing against Hermes’s collarbone. Hermes understands that Jolyne needs all her focus to do what she’s attempting, and tries not to freak out or jolt at the impressions of strings worming their way under her skin like veins, circling the fluorescent ebbing things inside her body.
Hermes is gonna have nightmares about this. Jolyne’s body’s got gaping holes, threads spinning out, the way they do when she’s exhausted, but as Hermes watches, mind somehow clear through the haze of pain (does one get used to this?) she can see FF’s opponent bleeding as bit by bit, parts of their body are violently severed.
When she was younger, Hermes used to be afraid of blood. Now? The smell of blood follows her everywhere. It’s become an almost neutral observance in her life.
Under her skin, through hazes of pain that have Hermes whimpering, strands of Jolyne’s power form loops, not unlike nooses, catching the fluorescent blobs and cutting into them. Hermes feels them explode under her skin, not unlike that one time when she was younger and she’d stepped on a snail by accident, its shell cracking. She felt bad about that for so many years afterwards. Now, she feels like there are snails inside her, and Jolyne’s snapping them, but there’s no choice.
It’s her, or the Fluorescence.
Jolyne’s winning the fight, and Hermes is blinking, eyes fluttering as she tries to maintain consciousness. She bites her lip in pain, hard enough to break skin, and blood trickles down her chin. FF is swinging punches in, fight going in their favour now that Jolyne’s landed good hits. It’s obvious what’s happening – the user fighting against FF crumples to their knees, and FF shows no mercy, killing via dehydration, drinking all the water from their body.
Jolyne’s stand spills back out of Hermes’s body, reminding her a little of spaghetti, of all things. Now that her assailant is dead, the stand in her body’s dissolved, too, and save for the pain from the cut, Hermes is fine.
Still, her body feels worn out and pained from the intrusions. Her hands fist in Jolyne’s jacket, and her head lolls forward. “Hurts.”
“I know, darling, I know,” Jolyne soothes. Her eyes are worried. “I’m so sorry.”
“You saved my life, for fuck’s sake,” Hermes says. “I’m not upset. Just – hurts.”
“I know,” Jolyne says. “I wish I could’ve numbed it. I really am sorry.”
“You have nothing to be sorry for,” Hermes assures her. She’s on the verge of passing out.
“Jolyne, med ward, now,” FF reminds the two of them.
“Yeah, got it, thanks FF,” Jolyne says, lifting her girlfriend easily in a bridal carry.
Hermes loves it; loves Jolyne’s strength, and the way Jolyne doesn’t show it off, but is truly powerful. Curled up against her girlfriend in a bridal carry, she begins to daydream, thinking about bridal carries in a less morbid context, thinking about weddings and marriages and rings, about vowing to love Jolyne forever and ever, the way she already loves Jolyne right now.
Jolyne’s frowning as she runs to the med ward, frantic. Hermes wants to take the tension away from her expression.
“Do you think we’d get married in tuxedos, or gowns?” she asks Jolyne.
Jolyne lets out an incredulous laugh. “Babe, you’re delirious.”
“Do you have an answer?” Hermes asks.
Jolyne humours her, thinking about it, as she runs. “I don’t know. Gotta think about it. There are pros and cons to both, I think.”
Hermes is on the verge of passing out, but she’s sure she hears Jolyne say, “I’d marry you in anything.”