when Abel looked up at Cain (closed)

[sandrocker]

Who: Jason Todd (jaytodd), Quatre Raberba Winner (ironinvelvet)
When: May 26th
Where: ...in the maze
Format: paragraph, present-tense
What: Jason and Quatre buddy up for safety; and by safety, I mean HORRORS.
Warnings: High Octane Nightmare Fuel. Just...just that.

Comments

[jaytodd]

The last two days have been bad enough, and some more bad, but this takes the cake

[sandrocker]

He knows before he hears or sees anything, and the feeling of drowning intensifies so much that he can't breathe; Quatre panics, forcing his lungs to push an invisible fluid out - but he can't because it's not really there (but it is!), and he hyperventilates. The drowning worsens, and he knows why because he thinks of his father: he was never there, but Quatre tried, anyway, to reconcile with him. He never told Quatre a damn thing, even seconds before his death. Honor and justice, more important than Quatre. Almost crying, he remembers the anger from one single moment -

- everything shatters. (Or maybe it's just the memory of when everything did; the color bleeds everywhere, and it's hard to tell the difference anymore.) Quatre yells, even though it's choked and muffled by his own breathing. Remember your training: focus, deep slow breaths

[jaytodd]

It had been a hallucination, nothing else than a hallucination, and now Jason is stupidely outside and lost and just who the hell came up with the idea of a fucking maze

[sandrocker]

Several moments pass before Quatre makes any movement. It's not the second time (more like the umpteenth) since wandering the maze, and he has to collect himself and fight the feeling of drowning all over again. He can't lay down again and breathe too fast, too deep, too much. Not again.

When he moves, he only turns the muzzle of his gun toward his closest thigh (I won't hurt you). His finger was never on the trigger, but if that is discernible to Jason or not, Quatre doesn't know; it's not a risk he's willing to taking, either way. Not that he really is remotely threatening, at the moment, but Quatre knows he doesn't have to be.

He waits for the older man.

[jaytodd]

Quatre's answer... it rings true, and it means everything and nothing, really. Jason's question was about everything and nothing too, after all.

Jason licks his lips. It's strange. It feels like time stopped.

They keep going - Jason at arm's lenght to Quatre's back, keeping his eyes moving back and forth, Quatre close enough to the wall to use it to prop him up, sky above and red walls surrounding them, muffled noises -even the almost unheard scruff of their footsteps and their breaths-, weird light.

There's a turn, up ahead. Going right, or going left. It matters little, but the main thing that worries him is going into the wrong direction and getting lost -well... more lost than now-, hitting the Mist deep and dying there. Dying's not on his flight plan.

And if there is still a shadow and a cape up ahead, in his head or outside it, he focuses on the back of Quatre's dusty uniform jacket and tries not to think about it and gets angry at it.

[sandrocker]

They could turn around and retrace their steps back to the community block. This is probably a desirable option to Jason; to Quatre, it's so little of an option that he hardly considers it. He has to get to Dismas - everything is quiet now but for how long? What if something happens again to trigger another episode?

He stops at the turn, looking left, then right. It doesn't seem to matter which way they go. Quatre scrunches his face, and his skin feels weird, dry from his tears.

After a moment: "you do what's necessary," and he knows well enough that it won't be a great reassurance because it's not from the people that matter to Jason. But maybe it can be helpful; Quatre hopes it is. At least to stop the anger radiating off Jason. ...if he doesn't think Quatre is being cryptic about the fork in the road, even though he is, too. It was an unintentional double meaning.

[jaytodd]

"What's necessary would be me carrying off your bony ass, we'd get somewhere faster."

He engages himself further up the fork, before he realizes it could have had another meaning. He turns around, facing the teen -allows himself to turn and lose partially visibility, because it's quiet enough but maybe too quiet.

"What did that came from?" Except it sounds more like an order, and like there are dots beginning to get linked together.

[sandrocker]

Quatre frowns but says nothing. Because it's true: Jason might as well carry him. But there is a preference towards not being brutally overpowered by his own telepathy again, and even remotely risking is out of the question. Still frowning when Jason turns back, he watches the other man. The hesitation is brief, though; he deserves to know what Quatre knows and, really, has no right to know (but Quatre didn't ask to know, which muddles the culpability).

"I know," he says. His voice is softer than before because it's overwhelmingly sad. He isn't sure what to expect of a reaction, but Jason is an intelligent person. Brash but intelligent. Even if he doesn't realize now, it won't take very long for him to understand why there was an episode that has left them in this position in the first place.