multiversallogs | (no subject)

Who: Martha Jones and Severus Snape α
What: Awkwardness and armor.
When: Backdated to following this thread.
Warnings: Not really. Will update if needed.

Half an hour later, Martha had packed up her things, and she'd headed to outside Hellsing in order to meet the Severus who wasn't hers in person. It was an odd thing, really, and her head was still spinning a bit from what her Sev had said about killing his counterpart or younger self or however the descriptor was being used at the moment. She took several deep breaths, because despite of the fact that she didn't believe that he'd any desire to hurt her, this was still a very weird situation for her to be involved in.

She walked purposefully, and with a stride that had been lengthened by much time of walking with someone who was much taller than she was. The habit came naturally now, and it wasn't something that Martha had thought of often. It was just a small piece of her that marked the differences in her life before the Doctor and all of the goodness that had followed his crash landing into her life.

Her coat was open despite the temperature, the flaps of it allowing easy access to the mirror and the sedative inside her pocket. At this point she was more worried about Bellatrix than anything else, but it never hurt to be on the safe side. If there was one thing that this entire thing had taught her, it was that she wished she had the access to make another perception filter; just in case. Of course, she had no idea if it would work with wizards, and that was just another question to store in the back of her mind for if a Doctor ended up arriving here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

There's no conflict in his primary motivation for this. He is useful - desperately, viciously useful, the crux of the war - and by extension, so is his older alternate, despite the differences in their lives and realities. Though he may be dead, he lives on here, where the dregs of conflict and horror haunt relentlessly.

So of course, he's going to keep the man on his good side. He's going to do this, he's going to offer to do this, proactively. He knows himself. He knows the first chance the older man gets, he'll come down on his younger self without mercy. There's just no hate like self-hate, and Severus Snape is a prodigy of loathing.

At the El Train station, he's waiting beside the staircase, finishing a cigarette, wrapped in black. When he sees Martha he crushes out the end of it with his fingertips, dulled cherry end already near the filter. When they're close enough, he crosses his arms, appraising her sharply.

"Do you have anything with you that you're going to attempt to harm me with?"

(It's what he'd do.)

It was odd really, how there was this middle ground she was seeing in person, and odder still how the years would change him between then and now. She could see the place where they met, but in subtle ways it had changed him.

Smoking. Somehow she wasn't at all surprised, but that didn't mean that she didn't have a 2000s medical reaction to it. The cigarette was looked at for a moment, and one brow arched upward towards her hair, but she didn't make any comment other than that.

The question was almost expected, and she shook her head, quickly. "I'd only ever attempt to get away if you were harming me. I'm not a violent person, and I think you're doing this for a good reason, so I don't expect that to happen. However, I do have a non-lethal weapon on me, as well as my communication mirror."

"Violence doesn't always have anything to do with damage," he says dryly, but accepts her claim, as it's not like he can do anything else. (Well, he could, but he doesn't think invading her mind is in line with keeping is alternate on his good side.) Severus doesn't believe for a hot minute that Martha is a wholly goodhearted, harmless Muggle doctor; she's corrupt and broken, even if he doesn't know how, just yet. She's with Severus Snape. She has to be. It's just a matter of what's making her tick offbeat. There's something about her that's powerful enough to blind him. She's worth keeping an eye on.

Severus extends his right hand to her, apparently intent on teleporting them. His hands are gloved, old black leather, clean but worn.

Martha shrugged, accepting that. "Well, I try to bring as little damage as I can." Deciding to show her hand, Martha admitted about the sedative in her pocket. "Sedative, just enough to knock someone out in order for me to get away. Probably about four hours, depending on the weight and the injection site."

Taking a deep breath, Martha looked to the hand that was offered. Severus never wore gloves, and at the moment she was glad for it. Her hand was placed within his, and she braced herself for the sensation of apparation.

He doesn't comment about the sedative, just quirks an eyebrow a bit in an ambiguous expression. Maybe he's ~immune~, who knows. He's not going to say.

But then he pulls her, just a bit, and the movement yanks them into nothingness and - pop.

In a blink, they're no longer outside the city train, but in a long, rectangle room - enough of a space to pass as a school room, or perhaps a studio flat wholly redesigned to be a laboratory and research area. It's not a dungeon, but it's got some familiar sights for potions, and a number of other strange semi-finished projects. Either he's not done moving in yet, or he's hidden a few things from view magically; perhaps both. The most notable feature is that there are no windows, and no doors. Apparently Apparating is the only real way in. They could be anywhere.

Severus lets go of Martha's hand as soon as she doesn't seem like she's going to keel over (immediately, if so), and without a word, moves away from her and towards his desk.

Quietly, "Are you allergic to anything?"

After traveling by vortex manipulator and apparation before, Martha's used to it, and she just takes a deep breath before she he let go of her hand and stepped away from her. She did however take a deep breath before she started to look around at the room.

The familiar sights made her feel a bit relieved, but the lack of windows and doors was something that made her apprehensive. It was good to have a space where someone couldn't bother you, but not have an easy escape was something that Martha disliked, especially following her time during the year.

However, the question caught her by surprise, and she shook her head in response to it. "No, not allergic to anything, the TARDIS took care of all that."

He notes that, pulls off his gloves and jacket. Absent - "What's the TARDIS?" He isn't facing her when he asks, and is going through a few sheets of parchment, setting them out in a particular order. He doesn't need to; he just needs a minute. Past his desk there's an open space with an examination table that only Sebastian has had use of in the past two weeks; he stares at it and then points, moving and lowering it magically without a word.

Telling a story. Now this was something that Martha was good at. She prefaced what she was about to say with a standard qualifier. "I know it sounds completely mental" because it did, "but the TARDIS is this ship thing that I traveled on for a while."

Martha paused as he gestured towards the table, and she moved over to sit on it. Doctors were generally the worst patients that there were, so she had actually spent very little sitting upon an exam table.

"Because it travels through the time vortex, it means that there's all this background radiation that seeps into your cells when you do it. It means that I'm not allergic to anything, and I can't catch plagues or what not. It also means that any germs I'm carrying aren't going to be harmful to the times or people whom I've visited."