You're dating him, are you crazy?

((Tag: The Doctor ))

Gaige had been laying about Sanctuary since her team had been demolished by Handsome Jack some time ago. Just, lacking the drive to do anything. She'd not created anything to add onto her deathtrap since she'd had to watch her friends die. And they were her friends, they'd all come in together as whatever they were previous and became Vault Hunters. She'd gotten close to them, knew their names and why they'd come to Pandora. Some where running from the law, like her, and some where just running. And all of them had a singular cause to fight here on Pandora, Handsome Jack. He'd been oppressing Pandora since the last group of four Vault Hunters had found the vault and opened it. He'd been picking off his resistors as time went on and eventually he'd gotten them too.

She closed her eyes and shook the thoughts free from her head, focusing back on the drink that she'd been playing with for the past half-hour. Scooter was on a table in the back playing his air guitar much to the enthusiasm of the crowded bar at Moxxie's place. Finally, with a unenthusiastic groan, Gaige pushed away from the bar and started to head out. As she reached the door the Echo Devices that nearly everyone had went off in unison, Jack breaking in for a very victorious announcement. "Did you hear that?! Did you, no you're all too busy hiding away from the safety that I offer. Well, we just had four new Vault Hunters show up! And, unfortunately, the train they were on derailed and exploded into a fiery ball of death. Well, too bad. So sad. I'm gonna go buy a pony, because, you know I've got the money to." Gaige sucked in a breath as the festivities in the bar died down and just walked out. Heading towards the Fast Travel spot. "Trains, Trains, blah, blah.. where are the trains on Pandora.."

Her robotic fingers twirled the map around and she clicked a very remote area, one of many as Pandora was very wide. "If I were going to explode a train, where would I do it.. in this area so close to my "testing" facility? No... Here, on the Glacier.." She pressed her thumb down and activated the fast travel. "Shoulda worn my coat." Gaige mumbled before disappearing within the teleportation and reforming on the icy glacier. "Shit, it's cold." She muttered and jumped in place, trying to get used to the temperature in the area before darting through the remains of the town there and over the icy cliffs and walls. She didn't stop, using Death Trap to carry her at times, up the smooth faces of ice until she could see the billowing smoke and flames from the train wreak. "Damn.. he really did blow them u--oh!" She stopped, squinting against the wind and watching as four small black forms chased after some moving thing. "They survived. That's flippin fantastic! You see that D?!" She whirled around in place and went back to eying the wreckage. "Betcha I can find something there to make into something. C'mon D."

Thirty minutes later she'd managed to make her way all the way down towards the wreckage. Light had already started to fail, it would be full on dark soon on the middle of a frozen glacier. She grinned and pushed her hair back, pinning it under her hat before she delved into the wreckage of the train. She'd pull things and stack them off to the side. "Too big, too busted, too.. dude.." She made a face and tossed some weird box with blackened springs bouncing on it. She'd been about to move on when something shifted in the rubble and there was a raspy moan of pain. "No.. no no." She moved quickly, lifting pieces of rubble and tossing them until she'd unearthed a man. He was shirtless, wearing trousers and shoes with tubes hanging off his arms, chest, and back. "No.. No, I know.. I know you.." Gaige's hand found his face, or the gas mask on his face, and moved up to touch the mess of his hair. "Krieg.." Determination hit and she stood up, watching the last rays of sunlight vanish. "D, grab him and we gotta run fast. It'll get cold soon." She helped Deathtrap move Krieg onto his metal frame and starting off towards the ice cliffs. "Faster, D, faster." Her robot would deactivate every so often to recharge power and in those moments she'd sit huddled with Krieg safely tucked against her small body. It'd take hours until they'd get back to the Fast Travel area. She kept him close to her while activating the key to take her and her friend to Sanctuary. "Don't worry, Krieg, I'll take care of you. I promise."

It was dark there, night having fallen on their little safe haven, which meant that everyone was tucked away in bed already and that she had to try and sneak this very tall man al the way to her hovel. It was pretty much just a hovel too, two room with a big mattress and covered in pillows and every single cute stuffed animal she could find with a overload of purple all over the place. She also had a ton of chocolate tucked into every secret nook she could find as well as regular food. She grinned to herself slightly, leading Deathtrap to her place and into it. "Set him down there, gently. Gently.. I just.." She held herself in check, darting throughout her place in search of med-hypos and the like. He was barely awake, hovering between consciousness and what could only be nightmare. "Krieg.. I thought, after.. I thought.." She moved next to him on the bed and started to remove the needles and tubing, putting Band-Aids and gauze down on the worst to stop the bleeding and wrapping others to keep them closed. "Don't worry, I'll keep you safe this time.."

Krieg was barely aware of anything. There was darkness now. He didn't know what there was moments before. There was heat and excitement, but before that he could remember nothing. He tried to move, but exerting in the slightest brought indescribable pain. He groaned, relaxing. There was something on top of him. He was certain he was going to die. Through the pain, he could manage no more than a slight mutter, forcing out only tiny tidbits of his thoughts. If anyone could hear him under whatever he was under, all they would've heard would have been something along the lines of "...is...best...who...heeeaaad..."

The actual conversation, occurring mostly inside Krieg's own head, went a little more like this. "Well...perhaps this is for the best...WHAT?! Who said that?! GET OUT OF MY HEAD!! Me get out of your head? You get out of my head! "I don't know how to play Checkers like you like! Why don't you send someone to my axe to show me?!" This exchange continued even after someone or something cleared away the debris on top of Krieg and he had been lifted onto something cold and metallic. If he could open his eyes, he wasn't aware enough of what was going on to acknowledge anything. He just continued muttering, shivering occasionally.

The teleportation of the Fast Travel system stopped Krieg's muttering. He was unprepared for it and it caused a strange, yet painful, sensation. For a few moments after, the taxing on his mind was too great for him to focus on anything, let alone his inner argument. When he started regaining any semblance of consciousness, he was in a bed. There was a figure moving around the room that occasionally came near him. It pulled the tubes and needles from him. The pain it caused brought his focus more to his surroundings, just in time to hear a voice promise to keep him safe. He felt the figure wrapping something soft around his arm and anywhere else he might be wounded. As it's arm moved past his hand, he grabbed it and puller it's face down to his. He forced out the only words he could think of over the pain of his wounds in a whispered scream. "I...need the...FEEL GOOD needles!" His grip on the arm loosened and his hand dropped away as he fell backward onto the bed again, his strength drained.

Gaige jerked as far back as she could, finding herself pressed against the far wall and staring at the man on her bed. He wasn't how she remembered. Just that brief moment of contact, just him pulling her down and talking.. no.. screaming at her. It shook her to the core, shook her hard. "Krieg.." Her hands shook slightly and she pushed herself up off the wall and floor. Heading back over towards the monolith of a man. "Feel good needles, I've got them. I'll make you better, I promise." She made a face and quickly jabbed one into his arm and released it. Then removed the empty casing and repeated the process, watching the bruises and cuts and open wounds slip closed as if they never were. None of them leaving more than a faded silver line or dot as a scar.

"What happened to you, Krieg.." Gaige sat down, her supply of med-hypos depleted. Now she just had to wait for him to wake up, and she didn't want to force it. "Krieg, do you.. do you remember me? You said I was a brat on the train here. And then you saved me from those Scags." She chuckled lightly, painfully, watching him with a sort of contemplation that few knew. A sweet patience that was foreign to the people of Pandora. "And we had good times. Oh, the-hah-the time with those stupid bandits. 'I have a rubber ducky!' And you yelled back at them that ducks were for wimps and turtles were the best? Haha, and.. and the others.." She trailed off, mostly talking to herself. Her heart ached as she talked, memories of good times that Handsome Jack had so brutally destroyed. "And you saved me... I.. Jack was there, and.. you.. You were a idiot, if you'd only let me stay I could have helped.. I could have helped.." Outside day was breaking, people were going about their daily tasks and morning things. And Gaige had a psycho in her bed.

Krieg slept peacefully for only a few hours. More unconscious than asleep. Around mid-morning, he came to but was still out. Sleeping now, he muttered more. Nightmares caused by insanity and the horrors of his recent past made him restless as he slept. He tossed and turned, almost rolling off the bed a dozen or more times. It was easy, considering how large he was. Occasionally, he would claw violently at the mask on his face. It wouldn't move and never broke, and he only tried once at a time as if swatting a fly. It seemed as if it was causing him terrible discomfort and was probably grafted onto his face.

By early afternoon, Krieg was more violent and loud. More accurately, he was less asleep. Not quite so less asleep that he woke himself up, but enough that instead of muttering and mumbling, he would scream and yell. Instead of tossing and turning, he violently swung his arms at any noise or movement. His eyes were still closed, as indicated by the lack of light from behind the eyes of his mask. They had flickered with a green light before he lost consciousness at the Glacier. He responded to anything by swinging his arms in the general direction of whatever he heard. As most psychos yell nonsensical things, it seemed that his mind was awake enough to control the mouth, but not much else. Amongst his screaming, a few things were clear enough to make out. Sometimes it sounded like he was arguing with himself. Other times it was just random, and slightly amusing, babble. But sometimes, near to the end, he started yelling things like "Protect the weak" and "Kill the deserving", with extreme enthusiasm on the "Kill the deserving" ones. And once, just once, amidst an unintelligible rant about 'nipple salads' and loudly making it known that he wanted blood and meat for every meal and bowel movement, he quieted down to a silent suffering, tossing and turning again, and he managed to get out a low "I wonder if she got away..."

Gaige had long since moved over to the corner of her room that was mostly filled with stuffed animals and plush pillows and other such treasures. Her face was throbbing from where his arm had caught her in one of his flailing moments. She'd decided to try and hold him down and found out a few minutes later that it was a very bad idea. He'd flung his arm out and caught her cheek with his fist, sending her rolling across the floor and into the wall. She was lucky that DT hadn't been out or her.. her friend wouldn't still be there. So she'd simply moved off to the side and watched him. His hand reached for the mask on his face and she absently thought about if she should have tried to remove it. "Krieg..."

After a few more hours she started to doze off, coffee cup and fresh pot sitting nearby as well as various bits of food and such. She was afraid to leave him alone there to get more med-hypos and food, but the neighbors had already verbally expressed their discomfort with the screams from her home. Apparently Nipple salads and talk about stripping flesh and salting wounds was enough to make some people uncomfortable. She found it amusing and had to constantly fight back tears when he murmured the last bit. She was that person, the only female on their team. But he'd gone quiet again and she started to doze off, blind to whatever danger could be in the room with her.

Late afternoon. The sun was setting and darkness was beginning to encroach upon Pandora. Krieg had never settled down, he just kept yelling all day. But then, as dusk set in, he suddenly fell quiet and still. For a moment, it seemed as if he were sleeping peacefully. Then, suddenly and without warning, the eyes of his mask flicked to life, glowing a pale green. Krieg shot bolt upright in the bed and screamed, holding his head with both hands. He held the wail for a good minute before he put his feet on the bed, put his head between his legs, put his hands on the back of his neck and started rocking slightly. He stayed like this only until he noticed a noise in the corner. A shuffling or shifting or breathing, he didn't know but it was something! He looked up, in the direction he heard it from. There in the corner, he spotted Gaige. Without thought or hesitation, he leapt from the bed and swung his arm.

"Krieg, no!"

The arm collided with the wall next to Gaige's head. Hanging his head and staring at the floor, he growled "Whyyy...NOT?!"

"She hasn't done anything. Not to you. To us."

"She'll squirt the same crimson fun juice as any OTHER meat puppet!"

"I would never have done this. And I can't let you do it, either.

"You're just one of the voices that don't come out of the face-plate! I'm the voice that comes out of the face-plate! The meat mashers listen to MEEEE!!"

At that point, Krieg's right hand curled up into a fist and struck him hard across the side of his face, sending him into the wall. "I...DIDN'T...DO THAT!!!" Krieg screamed, slamming his face into the wall repeatedly.

"I did. I'm not just a voice, Krieg. I'm what you used to be. Before they got you. That's why I can control you."

"You can't be me! I'M me! I'm more me than even ME!"

"Believe what you want, but the fact remains that I can take control of you. I can make you hurt yourself. And I SWEAR that if you hurt her...or ANYBODY else who doesn't deserve it, I will take control and I will kill us both!"

"Kill...the deserving?" Krieg repeated out loud. Then he turned his head and looked over at Gaige. He got up on his hands and knees and crawled over to her. He got up right in front of her, the eyelights of his mask staring straight at her eyes.

"Don't kill this one. She is not deserving."

"Not deserving..." Krieg repeated under his breath. He inched a little closer and said quietly, but just loudly enough that she could hear "Don't...scream."

She'd been dozing still, mumbling every so often in a futile attempt to calm down the screaming man on her bed. She hadn't really been awake either, in and out much like he seemed to be doing. And then he moved, jerking upright with a loud frightening scream. Gaige's eyes bolted open, the color a sharp contrast to the sudden pallor she'd taken on at the sound of him screaming. And the rocking started, he was trying to calm himself? She shifted, lifting a hand up towards him. "Krieg?"

Wham, his arm hit the wall next to her head causing her to whimper slightly and shrink back against the wall. Trying to make herself as small as possible. He talked, arguing with himself now it seemed and all she could do was wait and weep. Tears slipping down the sides of her face as he continued to talk. Wham. His hand curled and caught his face, a punch. The arguing continued and she shivered. "Krieg.." It was a testament to how shocked she was that she'd not summoned DeathTrap.

Suddenly he was crawling back to her, whispering softy. "Kill...the deserving?" His face was under the mask, but the eye lights where his eyes were looked her dead in the face. He was so close to her, she could hear his breathing and count the beats of his heart from the vein in his neck. "Not deserving..." He inched closer still until he'd nearly crawled atop her, she turned her head and closed her eyes whimpering and waiting for a blow that may or may not come. "Don't...scream." The last bit was for her, not him arguing with himself. Gaige turned her head back and faced him looking at the eye lights of his mask. "Krieg.. I.. I am.. I'm Gaige.. Do you remember me?" She was going on a limb, hoping that he would have the slightest memory of her. She'd changed, her hair color and style and clothing but she was still Gaige. "It's me.. I.. I saved you, I'll keep you safe this time Krieg."

Krieg hung his head again. This time, he seemed to be lost in thought, trying to remember. He thought for what seemed like a very long time but was probably only a minute or two. Finally, he looked up at Gaige again. "I...remember...TURTLE! You! You are Turtle! Yes! Krieg remembers!" He jumped backwards onto his feet and victoriously hopped in place, waving his arms above his head. He ignored any attempt Gaige might make to correct him as he continued jumping and happily shouting "Turtle" at varying levels of volume.

Suddenly, he stopped and looked at her. "Turtle! Turtle will help Krieg! Help Krieg kill the deserving!" He said excitedly, almost manic. "Turtle makes the thinks! KRIEG MAKES THE DEADS! Ahahahahahahahaha! Turtle will get weapons for Krieg, then Krieg will get skulls for Turtle! Krieg wants to make holes in the little ones and take apart the big ones! Turtle will help! Turtle MUST help!"

Gaige jerked back again, smashing the back of her head against the wall and enticing a painful moan as Krieg bounced around yelling "Turtle". She rubbed her head and tried to shake the black spots away from her vision. With a wobbling hand she pushed herself up and tried to get his attention. "Krieg, Krieg it's Gaige. Not Turtle, Gaige. I'm Gaige." She stopped finally, watching him with a quiet contemplation. He wasn't the Krieg she knew, he was new. He moved right about them, jerking back around and staring at her talking quickly and loudly.

"I..," He looked so desperate, if.. if masks could make facial expressions more like his body language delivered a hungry demand for murder. "I suppose I can help.. I've got some stuff here that we can use but it's early in the morning." She gestured towards the only window she had, shrugging and fighting back a small yawn. "If you want to go I need to have Dr. Zed look you over. You were really hurt, Krieg." She was trying to buy time. Gaige puffed a breath at her bangs and watched him, reaching over to check under the gauze she'd put on him. "And I've got to get more med-hypos if you need them, and then food. You always ate more than.. well you ate a lot, so i'm sure your hungry."

Krieg flinched as Gaige reached out to check his wounds. Visions flashed in his memory of doctors and scientists operating on him. It was a wonder that he didn't lash out at her, but he was visibly uncomfortable with whatever she was doing. He shuddered and clenched his fists. It quickly became abundantly clear that taking him to a doctor was not a good idea. At least, not while he was in a state where he was fit to control his body and actions. It could end up being very dangerous for Dr. Zed. "Don't need food! Don't need blood drink! Just need flesh! POUNDS OF FLESH! Rip it from the bone, tear out the sinews and strangle his FRIENDS WITH IT!"

Frenzied, Krieg burst out the door of Gaige's hovel and out onto the streets of Sanctuary. He took off at full speed, running aimlessly around the city. He ran up and down every street he could find, trying to locate the city's exit. He tripped on a box outside Dr. Zed's clinic and tumbled down some stairs. Laughing maniacally as he got up, he was about to kick the box when he noticed it had opened. Inside was a pistol. It was a Jakobs pistol, though all he cared about was that he had found a gun. He grabbed it and held it above his head triumphantly, screaming "DO-DA-DO!!" It was then that he noticed the big gate farther on. He took off towards it, pistol in hand, and left the city.

Gaige tensed and stopped touching his arm, slowly retracting his arm as if he was a wounded animal. That's it, that's what he was, a wounded animal. She was slowly coming to terms with how she'd have to treat him and how she'd have to take care of him. Gaige was just a moment from trying to calm him down when he burst out of her home yelling in a frenzy. She stared for a moment, shocked. "Kr..Krieg? Oh, no. KRIEG!"

She ran to the door, watching him and trying to get his attention. "KREIG NO! COME BACK! Shit!" Gaige ran back into her home, grabbing her belt and pulling her shoes on before taking off after him. But she'd lost precious time, and lost sight of him. Stopping in the center of Sanctuary she listened for him, sure enough she was able to hear his maniac laugher followed by a very strange "DO-DA-DO!!".

"Krieg!" She took off towards the front gate as quickly as possible. She slipped in a puddle and skinned her knees and palms, then tumbled down the stairs after him. "Krieg! Krieg!! Come back!! Uh, Come..," She hesitated a moment, still chasing after him. "Come back and carry your Turtle! Come get Turtle!!"

For a few long moments it seemed like Krieg might not come back, like he was out of earshot or he was just too focused on finding something to kill to register that Gaige was yelling for him. Soon, though, he came rushing back and hefted Gaige up over his shoulder. He didn't wait for anything she might say to try to talk him out of anything, he just grabbed her and took off back toward the gate. The lone Crimson Raider posted at the gate was barely awake the first time Krieg had run through. He had written off the huge psycho running out of the city as a dream. He woke up a little more when Krieg had run back in and was almost alert when Krieg and Gaige came through.

There wasn't much distance between Sanctuary's gate and the nearest group of bandits. They had a little camp right outside, in the hopes of getting in and doing some looting. Krieg had different plans. He rushed up to the opening in the bandit camp walls and set Gaige down. He knew well enough not to carry her in, as she could get hurt. Before she could say anything, he charged in. There were only a few marauders out patrolling while the rest of the bandits slept and it took a few seconds for the first one who saw Krieg charging at him to realize he wasn't looking at one of the psychos who lived in the camp. By the time he managed to aim his pistol at the towering psychos, Krieg had already fired three rounds and killed him. If the gunshots hadn't alerted the rest of the bandits, the marauder's death groan surely had.

In a few moments, half-dressed bandits, nomads and psychos were pouring out of all the buildings. A psycho near Krieg threw a buzz axe, which lodged itself in his shoulder. Krieg ignored it and charged the psycho. One shot to the head took it down and Krieg continued on. He fought through a nomad and a killer marauder before he ran out of ammo. In a rage, he threw the empty pistol at the nearest psycho, who was knocked over and began laughing hysterically. Krieg roared in anger as the bandits began to swarm him, realizing he had no weapon. Or so they thought. Krieg reached one hand up to the handle of the buzz axe, still stuck in his shoulder, and violently pulled it out. A few of the marauders took a step back at the sight of it. The Krieg charged again, faster this time and directly at the largest group of bandits. They began to scatter as he yelled "GRIND GRIND GRIND KILL KILL KILL" while wildly swinging the buzz axe at anything that moved.

Gaige had continued chasing after him for a few moments after she'd yelled for him. His sudden return startled her enough that she took a few steps back only to be scooped up and hauled off. She'd only been able to manage a squeal of surprise when he'd hefted her up and took of again. His movements kept pushing his shoulder into her chest, making talking difficult. There was a rather cheery wave directed towards the Crimson Raider posted at the gate as they charged back through. "Don't worry," Gaige managed to shout as Krieg continued towards the gate out of Sanctuary, "'I'm okay!"

She had started slipping off his shoulder and desperately clutched to the bits of leather that were still strapped onto his chest. Though it wasn't very long before they made it to the bandit camp outside of Sanctuary and he set her down. Gaige thought he'd sit still for a moment but he immediately took off into the camp, all but blaring a alarm indicating his sudden approach. "Krieg! Wait!!" She chased after him, pulling her own pistol from her belt and aiming at a near by marauder's head. The spray of crimson painted the air and ground when he finally hit but she'd moved on to the next target. Gaige slammed the butt of her gun into the skull of a midget psycho and caught a marauder who got too close for comfort in the groin with her knee.

The bandits swarmed out of the buildings, like Truxicans at a wrestling match that got busted by Hyperion or clowns from a light runner. Gaige took several steps back, this was more than she could handle by herself. But Krieg just moved on, taking one of the psycho's buzz axes to the shoulder and not stopping. She couldn't do much more than watch as he tore through three more bandits with the pistol he'd acquired somewhere. When it ran out she hesitated long enough to watch him tear the axe from his shoulder and start to rip through the bandits. But where he took one down, two more seemed to come up out of the bloody mess. She chewed her lip anxiously and gave in. She lifted her robotic arm and summoned Death Trap, the machine set about tearing apart bandit after bandit. The bandits were stunned, caught between a robot and a mad man. Gaige used this distraction to move closer to Krieg and try to get his attention. "Krieg, don't attack the robot! It's on our side! Don't attack it!" The midget she'd hit with her pistol earlier popped up outa no where and bit her leg. "Ah! Stupid ankle biters!" Gaige lashed out with a foot, knocking the midget over towards Krieg.

Krieg saw Deathtrap materialize and was immediately filled with rage. The only robots he had ever seen before were Claptrap and the Hyperion Loaders. This didn't look like Claptrap, so he assumed it to be Hyperion. When Gaige called out for him to not attack it, he struggled to comprehend. Too busy fighting to voice his thoughts on the robot, he argued with himself inside his head. "I want to carve it's metal meat! Make it bleed black blood! No! It's fighting for her! It's helping G-...helping Turtle! Krieg helps Turtle! Helps her paint the floors red! Robots don't have the red, don't understand it! This robot wants to help you help Turtle. It doesn't want to hurt us. It wants to hurt things that hurt Turtle while you're busy hurting other things. I'll let it hurt the things I can't reach, but if it touches my bacon I'll eat it's PINKY FINGER!!" He snapped back to focus on his killing when the midget came flying at him. "EEEIIIGHT!!!" he yelled, as he swung his buzz axe like a golf club and ripped completely through the midget.

The buzz axe began to run out of power and soon stopped spinning. Krieg swung it around a few times, but it just wasn't the same. He grabbed a shotgun that one of the bandits had dropped and started blasting the ones still standing, steering clear of Deathtrap so a stray shot didn't accidentally hit it. Unprepared for weapon combat, whenever he ran out of ammo, he threw down the gun and picked up another. By the time all the bandits were finished, he had gone through two pistols, a shotgun, an assault rifle and three sub-machine guns.

Gaige panted softly, leaning up against a wall as the last of the bandits went down. It had taken longer than she'd anticipated. Even after she'd pulled out Death Trap and he had to dematerialize to recharge there were more to take down. Eventually, the steady stream of bandits died down to the last screaming psycho who quickly went down under Krieg's boot. A quick look around the area confirmed that they were all dead so she slid down the wall to assess any damage done to herself.

Nearly everything had been deflected by her shield but the midget did manage to bite a chunk out of her thigh and there were a few scrapes, bruises, and burns. Overall, the turn out wasn't nearly as bad as it could have been. Gaige leaned her head back against the wall and sighed softly, eyes closed. "Are you okay, Krieg?"

Krieg was still coming down from his frenzied state and not fully back to what can be considered as his 'normal' self. He recognized that he was being spoken to, but when he opened his mouth to respond, he said "The prince of justice and genocide has something to say: Gone are the days of the tentacle and the age of the gods' mercy is far away...We are the fighters of the middle, the second act in the three-part MEAT play, AND I WILL WIN BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR! Pitiful people prepare, plead plentifully plentiful platitude phenomenal patriot pounds, poundingly perverse puppets pulping, pleasantly, putrid pasties. I am the conductor of this orchestra of agony, and with my axe-baton I will carve out a symphony of slaughter!" He raised his arms above his head, one hand still clutching his buzz axe, and waved them around triumphantly. He then started quickly hopping from one foot to the other, stomping around in the blood and torn flesh.

"Yeah, yeah. That's great 'n' all, but Ga-...Turtle wants to know if you're okay. She wants to make sure you didn't take too many bullets in too many important places. She'll wanna getcha all patched up and ready to go fight more bad guys, so go on and go with her."

With his excitement dying down, Krieg stepped out of the circle of corpses he had created around himself, hopped into a puddle of blood and then continued on over to Gaige. "Turtle!" He said, his tone a happy one. "I made the squishy feet! Come squish with me!"

Gaige stared at him, panting still and slumping farther down the wall. Shit, she was tired but sleep wouldn't be a option unless he was tired to. She couldn't just let him run around all free like, singing with his symphony of slaughter. Wait. What was that you just thought? Oh god you really are tired. She pushed up off the wall and shook her arms out, trying to wake herself up a bit more and walked over towards him. "Squishy feet? Oh, you don't have shoes? I can get you shoes."

She looked at her own shoes, now covered in bits of brain and other splattered body parts. Soaked to her stockings in blood. Shit that smell wouldn't come out easy. She shook one foot and grimised at the horrible cold, squishy feeling between her toes. "Ugh, Krieg want to go find some bathroom with hot water? Or.. more things to kill.. or.. feel good needles?" She looked him over quickly, searching for anything that could be threatening his life. "C'mon, lets go back to Sanctuary and see Zed. He's a doctor, but he's good and wont hurt you and you can't hurt him. Can you do that, Krieg?"

Krieg took a step back. He remembered hearing the scientists in the Hyperion laboratories called doctors. He didn't want to have anything to do with any doctors. His grip tightened on his buzz axe as he was about to make a run for it. He took another step. "Hold it! She don't wanna take you to any doctors like they had at Hyperion, okay? This is just a guy that'll patch you up nice and neat so you can fight some more bad guys. Don't fight her on this and you'll be ready for another fight before you know it." Krieg seemed to be thinking hard for a moment, then he reluctantly relaxed and moved to follow Gaige.

Gaige hesitated just a moment and took his hand, guiding him back towards the gates of Sanctuary. Not that they kept anyone outside anymore, too easy to be ambushed by the camp. Namely the camp that had just been wiped out by them. She could feel the bite of the cold through her leggings and her shoes were getting squishier with each step. Not that it wasn't something she could take. Being clean only happened when she stayed in Sanctuary after all. The only place she'd settled down in on Pandora.

As they moved out of the shade of the hulking wall and gate, Gaige sighed a little. The sun was warm on her skin, through her cloths. But.. if the sun was up that meant people were up. She glanced up at the gate where Private Jessup was standing. He'd been the one she'd waved too before Krieg had carted her outside to kill things. He had his pistol at the ready and she knew if Krieg saw that he'd flip. So she gripped his hand a little tighter and stopped him.

He was really terrifying, covered in blood and hunks of those bandits. And that mask that covered his face didn't help, neither did the way he moved or how he breathed. He was monstrous, horrifying. But she knew the man he used to be, the side of him she hoped was buried under all the brokenness. "Krieg.. I need you to stay calm up here. Listen to Turtle. Remember, I have the thinks and i'll help you kill things but you need to do what I say and don't freak out.. okay?"

As they would near the gates she'd wave at Jessup and flash him a big grin. "Hey Jessup. He's with me, he's pretty cool. Just gonna go see Zed and get some food maybe." Casual, that was the goal. Casual and calm.