Fu re ru

[apassingafternoon]

Alain was having none of their shit and that was just by the mere virtue of being completely and utterly out of it. Kaine had thought it would be alright to use an extra drop or two but ... Well, it was that or his own exhaustion that kept him out of it. For as much as Kaine wanted to lie around and ignore everyone, tend to her house and hardly the people inside of it Nariko had a point. They were to rest for a week before moving on. The quicker they dealt with the out of the way errands the sooner she could sit in her room for as long as Nariko would allow before inevitably dragging her back out.

Which explained why they were on the road to The Village, or Arpagio as it was now known. The name changed was ridiculous (Aelious must have somehow gotten his way) but Kaine accepted it with a shrug. The journey was a boring one for her, she stuck to Nariko's side a bit tighter, more anxiously than usual but otherwise kept her words to a minimum. She didn't feel like talking, didn't even feel like going anywhere near town and the last thing she wanted was to even heart Cuthbert's voice, which she had already spent the morning blocking out. And yet he somehow felt well enough to come along. Fantastic.

The doors pushed open in their rhythmic fashion and her first question of the day was directed at Roland even though she didn't bother with looking over at him.

"What are we here for again?" They had barely taken two steps in and she was already quite tired of everything, and it showed in her voice, and the fold of her arms over her stomach. If her oversized sweater and skinny jeans didn't make that just as clear then nothing else would.

Comments

[askthelookout]

He nodded, disentangling his hand from hers to reach for his gun. "Like shooting skeet," he repeated, scratching at his forehead with his free hand, and took a deep breath. Not that he was nervous or anything. After all, what could possibly go wrong? "Toss it good and high."

And let this be as simple as you seem to think it will be, he added silently. I'll take the loss of face, just so long as it's not literal.

[apassingafternoon]

"I don't know what that is." But she did know that losing his hand was not part of this deal. Wasn't one-handed shooting a thing? Oh well. Kaine accepted the loss and regarded the thing in her other hand. "But I do know what 'toss' means." But she hesitated for a moment, unsure of actually letting their chance go. Would it really be so horrible to see her grandma? For Bert to see his parents? She almost looked at him and asked to not do this. To not get rid of it, but that was exactly the problem.

Maybe it wouldn't be bad at first but it could become bad really quickly.

"Alright." Time to let the past fall away, at least in one respect. She threw it up and away from them with the vague, but genuine hope that if the thing shattered it wouldn't manage to accidentally kill them.

[askthelookout]

She wasn't the only one hesitant. For a moment, Bert actually froze up, not out of fear, but out of the sudden certainty that they were throwing away a golden chance. Maybe the only chance he would ever have to know for certain what had happened to those girls he'd promised to protect. Certainly the only chance he'd have to see Gilead again.

And then he remembered Roland, empty-eyed and hard-faced, and that sick twist in his gut when he'd seen the pink light under the door, and his hand moved of its own accord. By then, the glass was already falling, but at his best, Bert could rival Roland for speed. His father's gun leapt to his hand, and fired sure and true.

He fired again, just to be sure, and watched the bullets strike.

[apassingafternoon]

The first smacked into the glass and visibly cracked it from top to bottom. There was resounding, loud echo of unnatural sound. It was enough to make Kaine cry out and shove her hands to her ears as if to block it out. The second produced the same effect but at a greater, more unyielding magnitude, her eyes watered and it felt as if her head might crack open.

Kaine fell to her knees while the pyramid did much the same in two, large and jagged pieces, as unhelpful and innocent as a baby's toy. Because it affected her so badly it never occurred to Kaine that whatever the thing was wouldn't have any affect on Bert at all. For him it was probably just the same as hearing a glass break. For her it was overwhelming enough to leave her in confused tears.

[askthelookout]

Bert holstered his gun in one smooth motion, hunkering down at her side, his face a picture of concern. He had no idea what had happened to her - he hadn't felt anything, except maybe a faint chime in the back of hearing - but whatever it was, it had obviously affected her strongly.

He reached for her hands, frowning, trying to meet her eyes. "Hey. Hey, Kaine. Look at me, alright?" All the time, checking her over, his sharp eyes taking in everything, trying to figure out how to help. "What the fuck happened?"

[apassingafternoon]

"You didn't hear that?" The words came out slowly, as if her jaw didn't know how to work and needed to be reacquainted with its new task. "My head," It felt like something jammed in the side of her skull but all of that just felt like too much to say. "I don't know it just ... Feels like I got run over by something." For a good five minutes she did nothing but hold onto his hands once she found the strength to grab them at all. It felt impossible at first but her breathing eventually evened out, her vision sharpened from the blurry mess it had become, and most of all it didn't feel as if her head about was about to be lopped off.

It still hurt, of course, but at least now it was bearable. "That was horrible. Whatever it was." Because she had no fucking clue and while she usually deferred to Nariko about these things, and would to Roland about other matters this seemed way out of their league as a group. "That thing tried to kill me." Or something along those lines. At least it wasn't strong enough to do the job.

so in other news apparently my notifications aren't working :|

[askthelookout]

He held her hands tightly, his thumbs stroking gently over his skin in lieu of anything more comforting he could do. "Tried, but failed," he pointed out at last, his face close to hers, his eyes holding hers. "And we all say thankya. But I didn't feel anything. If it was going to attack either one of us, I would have thought it might have done better to try and kill the one of us who can die. And who was shooting it at the time."

It was impossible not to sound just a little petulant. The entire point of doing things this way had been to try and spread the load, and he found he was more than a little angry that it had hit her full-force nonetheless. For a moment there, he'd been genuinely scared of losing her. And after everything they'd been through in the last few days...

"You're alive," he said, as much to himself as to her, and squeezed her hands lightly. "Can you stand, or should I carry you?"

DW you have one job why are you messing it up

[apassingafternoon]

"I can stand." Probably. She didn't let go of him even as she coaxed her legs into working. They felt odd but she knew that was the result of whatever process kept her from dying. It was a nifty, helpful trick but not without its drawbacks. Even on her feet and mostly back to normal Kaine didn't appear to realize how close they were or that she just wasn't ready to let go of him yet. "That it didn't actively go after you, though …" Didn't that mean that it was possible it was meant to mess with her, specifically? Maybe it didn't have any form of consciousness like the pink thing or Maggie's book.

Kaine looked over at the useless chunks but no matter how hard she concentrated nothing else happened. "I guess it doesn't matter. It's broken, so we can throw one end in the river, and bury the other. It can't work if it's split into pieces." She wasn't entirely sure of that but it felt like a vaguely logical though so there was no reason to not go with it. "Besides, if it really becomes an issue then we know who to ask. It'll just be a while before we get back to her."

That nameless thing had managed to bring a dead person back to life (although with a nasty fine print), and the more Kaine thought about it she had to wonder if Claude had been the prisoner in their situation. If that was really the case then that thing had to know everything about this world and by now Kaine was long overdue for some answers. "Hey, Bert?"

ah they're back now all is well

[askthelookout]

"Hm?" He had let go of one of her hands, but only to grip her elbow instead, to support her better as she stood. He wasn't particularly ready to let go of her, either - not until he was sure she was all right. She still looked nastily pale, and he didn't imagine she was completely recovered by any means. Add her to the list of people with magic bashing in their skulls, sighed a voice in the back of his head, rather sarcastically.

[apassingafternoon]

"I know you hate talking about feelings and all and I'm not going to try and get myself killed for it but I just want to say that I really like it when you actually worry about me because it makes me feel important and you are important and don't be a jerk and start making fun of me again because I said this!" For someone who still looked like shit Kaine did a hell of a job getting all of that out in one breathe while simultaneously avoiding oxygen deprivation. But she added, a little quietly, "... Or at least wait two minutes and then do it."

Because fake-flirting with her right after she went and said all of that would just be cruel and unusual. But it still needed telling. He wasn't the exact source of her recovery but he had helped her focus. What should have taken a half hour took minutes and the only difference was Bert's presence. "We should really figure something out and get back."

And also avoid these implicative emotional pit falls since he didn't seem to like them very much.

[askthelookout]

"I worry about you all the time," Bert said, after a moment, looking mildly disgusted at his own frankness. "Don't tell me I'm important, though, I'm big-headed enough already." And, surprising himself a little, he leant in and kissed her - not a lover's kiss on the lips, but a kiss just above the temple that was at once more chaste and more intimate. Gods, he was going soft. Worse, he didn't even have it in him to mind any more.

"I'll pick up the shards," he said after a moment, clearing his throat. "You shouldn't touch them, I think. Not if they can do that to you. But they can't get through my head, it's bone all the way through." He rapped his knuckles against his head, and laughed a little. "Ro' might know better what to do with them. But if it's broken, for real and true, then we may as well head back anyroad."

[apassingafternoon]

Whether she had accurately communicated her point or not wasn't the real question here. What counted was that hearing that, maybe the inevitable, had a greater and more resounding effect than any lighthearted flirting (joking or not) could hope to achieve. And maybe that wasn't the type of kiss that occasionally flooded her day dreams as if to spite all of the grief and pain they'd been through but it felt just as good.

"Sure." Never mind that in its whole state the thing hadn't so much as buzzed at her touch, which only made its reaction to being 'hurt' that much more unsettling. Even if it was some weird defense mechanism it just didn't explain why it only went for her. She tried to clear her mind of it but the concern wouldn't scrub off. "It looks pretty broken from here."

The guts of the thing, a richer purple than the inside, glittered over stones, but the two bigger chunks stayed right as they were. In just a few hours those littler pieces would be left alone and the thing would never be entirely complete again.

At least they pulled it off.

[askthelookout]

It did look pretty broken, but Bert still approached it with some caution, skirting around most of the glittery innards as he leant down to pick up the two halves. One went into the pocket of his jeans; the other, after a moment's thought, into his jerkin. He wasn't going to risk them being too close together, even if they seemed inert and dead.

Straightening up, he looked down at the shining purple stuff spread out over the rocks, and took a deep breath, closing his eyes for a moment. "Well," he said, with a little sigh, "I guess we'll never know."

And that was all the grief or regret he was going to let it cause him - or at least going to let himself show. Shaking his head, he turned on his heel and started back towards Kaine. "Let's get back, before we give Momma and Papa a heart attack. Shall we?" He offered her his arm, with a sidelong little smile.

[apassingafternoon]

"A little late for that." At least when it came to the former, it seemed as if they finished right on time! "… But certain people could do with a little heart attack." That little bit of dialogue out of the way Kaine took his arm easily, and with a tad more confidence than usual. For the second time in as many minutes Kaine waved to the gatekeeper and was spared from confirming who they were and where they were going. In truth they'd never really left Maverick's gaze as it was.

Maybe this wasn't the right decision. Maybe they should have left it as it was, asked Roland and Nariko to deal with it and simply reigned them both in but there was something quite satisfying in having dealt with it on their own!

Maybe-heroes indeed! And whatever the outcome the gates were opening again and it wasn't be much of a surprise to find their friends on the other side.