deercountry | 13 . autumn catch-all

[ It all goes wrong remarkably fast. He sees the way Robby's face twists, and knows exactly what it means; funny how he still gets a sinking feeling watching a kid jump towards hell. It's been a while since he felt that.

There's a lot of blood, a lot of screaming. Robby hooks a thumb into the thing's dark wet little eye. It isn't human, but John can still feel the rupture of vitreous jelly as a familiar pop. His senses go beyond sight, and a body is a body. He can marvel at the way this one comes apart, blow by hacking blow.

He doesn't intervene.

Robby lives, and the thing beneath his axe doesn't. John regards the color of its brain, wet and clumpy on the blade of the axe. He regards the ribbons of the kid's shredded back, not half as bad as he'd thought this might get, and he waits for the thing's digging grip and then death-spasms to end. It goes sweetly still: it dies like anything else.

When it's finished, when Robby stops swinging, he steps forward clean and untouched. He doesn't look horrified, or even concerned: mostly, he looks tired. ]

I think you got it.

[ When he stops, Robby isn't quiet. It takes him time to recognise when the monster is dead, more the weight of his limbs growing heavier slowing him to recognise the resistance lost before actual observation. But once it's said and done, Robby kneels there, the weapon gripped tight in his hands. He can hear the sound of his laboured breathing filling his ears, choking to even be attempting over the emotion thick in his throat. Rust-coloured blood seeps out from where he's been torn at, flushing his skin, but the latter may be questionable for how long it will stick.

He hears John's remark, but doesn't react. Sense would ask him to respond to the pain in his body, to do anything than the sitting there that he does, but Robby doesn't. His arms shake, he keeps the weapon pressed in to where it is, as if stuck in a moment of time he doesn't dare move out from.

He can be eased out, or he can finally give in, and try to stand as even he begins to recognise the lightheaded he's feeling as a problem. Unfortunately, his attempt topples him, falling sideways, a cry gasped he only seems now to acknowledge the state of himself. ]

[ The kid holds shudderingly still, frozen with his hands still fixed around the handle. For a sharp moment, the kind he hasn't braced for, the kid reminds him of a boy crouched on the black-sand beach. Or a girl trying to will herself to standing despite the ashen pallor of her face.

He steps forward as Robby starts to rise, and catches him with a broad and clumsy hand at his shoulder. He gives a fumbling squeeze, meant as comfort. ]

Easy. Danger's passed, you got it taken care of. Let's hunt down a shower, next.

[ The hold steadies him, in a sense. It stops Robby from going back down, yet the world is dizzying, hard to focus. Walking-- walking's an idea, though the him that was just doing that before the encounter is hard to remember; it's hard to think about anything.

Robby will though, if the other starts to move. Ignore the pain, don't complain, though it flares in him with each movement, the air exposed on his back. He's sluggish, slow, and--he's just human, even with the qualities of his blood, running down his clothing in a golden-red. ]

I-- I fucked up.

[ Because he feels-- not right. Not right. But he doesn't want to say, I think I'm bleeding too much, I don't know if I can do it.

But he's pretty sure he just fucked up. ]

[ John smooths a hand up his shoulder, toward the nape of his neck, just above the wreckage of the boy's back. Though he doesn't touch it directly, there is a sudden kick of power, forceful as a solar flare— and the wounds begin to knit together.

It doesn't hurt, exactly. It doesn't not hurt. John plucks at the back of Robby's jacket to tug its strips free of the closing gashes, which makes for a uniquely weird sensation. There is a layer of stripped wet skin and flesh that gets shucked, matted with the shreds of his shirt, to make way for new growth underneath.

John just claps him on the shoulder and starts moving, even if he's largely the thing keeping Robby upright. ]

Well, you got the job done. Might be a little more careful of the claws next time.

[ The sound he makes from the sensation - a performance he can't actually see at work - is somewhere close to one would make stepping on a lego with a baby sleeping in the room. It hurts, it's weird, which already was describing everything already, but Robby will attempt to swallow down the displeasure than openly complain, or think.

Really, he doesn't know what to think. There's a dull thumping in his head that's not actually a headache, one in his chest; everything is wet, and this guy couldn't be any more the picture of perfect casual. That's not getting questioned; Robby will take the opportunity for them to just walk and kind of figure what's going on in his head and what he's supposed to say.

There's things he should, right. Maybe a 'thank you', but that will take another while for him to figure out it's deserved. ]

--I don't know why I did that. I've never done that.

[ He'll settle on that instead. Somewhat a lie (the former part), yet not. Can both be true? ]

[ He lets the kid lean on him for as long as he needs, and doesn't protest when Robby figures out his own unsteady pace. He keeps his eyes on the forest ahead, his stride calm and unbroken. ]

This place does that to you.

[ He says it with the same ease, but his expression has gone distant again. ]

It adds pressure until the pressure boils up. Could've gone worse, but it could've gone better. I'm not in much position to judge you for it.

[ He is, after all, the guy who stabbed the ocean. ]

[ He'll walk with this own weight, once it feels right; somewhere along when he recognises his aching isn't actually there anymore, a phantom pain receding -- this time, he'll give a quiet "thanks".

But everything else, that stays tilted, not right. There's blood sticking to him, the exhaustion of the effort; there's a man's body left to rest in an abandoned shack in some place he doesn't belong, and if Robby thinks too much, that's where his mind goes. The anger sparks. He feels something close to glad for what he did.

That's not what he wants. ]

Yeah? [ He says, a little delayed. A small pause, and honestly: ] I think I'd pick being in juvie over being here right now. Shitty take out food. [ ... ] That shower-- a shower sounds good.

[ He's trying to grasp onto anything that isn't everything that just happened. ]

[ His smile isn't much of one, just a wry tilt of the mouth in acknowledgment. His pace remains steady. ]

Shower it is. [ And: ] Maybe see if we can find something to eat that isn't fish and mushrooms, while we're at it. Not that I'm against fish and mushrooms, but I'm with you: we're not getting a lot of variety.

[ It's the light tone of a man who is deeply, profoundly accustomed to shooting the shit while a body cools. He's content to talk about nothing all the way back. He's always been good at that. ]

13 . autumn catch-all

cw: eye injuries, gore

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cw: bleeding

cw: gory healing

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