is it bright where you are
He doesn't close his eyes, but his vision goes dark despite it - the blue-black lightning striking them is cold, and for a moment he has a particularly gruesome vision of shattering apart into a million frozen flesh-and-bone pieces and falling away into this void forever. (He can see it, just for a moment, and it's not as frightening as it should ( Read more... )
Comments 82
Next to him, Enfys leans hard against a table and grimaces down at herself, her torn clothes and the disgusting ichor that's ruined both them and her hair, ugh, which is going to be such a bitch to wash now that it's back to the old length. Of course it hadn't stayed cut once she got sent back to Dunedin, which would've been less annoying if she hadn't then got dragged off on...
At this point it occurs to her that they aren't where they were a minute ago and this place is much, much cleaner. Right. Good. She squints at Bruce-
"Sweet God tell me there's a shower."
Reply
Reply
Blood - theirs and whatever it is that thing bled out - and sweat and the salt from an ocean pulled up from the center of the earth covers them. Bruce shakes out his left arm slightly, making a bit of a face. It's slimy, which is ... great, especially since said arm is sporting the remains of his shredded shirt and an unpleasant looking spiral burn. (It's a burn, right?)
"...Yeah." He shakes off another bit of black slime, annoyed. They must really smell awesome. "In the back." He should look for Claire, he should go home - but he's been awake for eight days, his PINpoint is destroyed, and Enfys, whom he had previously resigned to 'insane fever-dream inspired' is ruthlessly existing.
As well as the goddamn fox thing.
"Right." Hi, Ammit. (Sigh.) Careful not to step on anything furry, Bruce manages to slink away towards the back. (He'd always wondered why a bar would have showers. Now he knows.)
Reply
'Ruthlessly existing' seems like an excellent description of what Enfys tends to do, although right now she's squinting down with a hint of bewilderment at this little canine monster licking her leg. "That's disgusting, you have no idea where I've been," she says, reproachfully, trying and failing to wipe some of the ichor and her own blood from her backpack (in which she hopes her clean spare clothes are still kind of clean) as she yanks her ankle away to follow Bruce.
"If there's only one, I don't care, you'll just have to move over," she yells at his back. "Are you coming, Mr Licky? Because I don't know if he's going to let that one fly."
Reply
Having missed their initial appearance, he wrinkles his nose over-dramatically at what's left of the goo on the floor. (It's not even that bad, Jack, honestly.) "I'm not even going to ask what that is. Besides disgusting."
Reply
Because this is the Nexus and we can't have nice things, there was conveniently a change of clothes for Bruce waiting when he was done showering, audience and all. His hair is still wet, but pushed back, and despite being clean he still pretty much looks like hell. He's in the process of attaching one end of a roll of gauze to his arm when he walks back out into the main room, and takes a moment to observe Jack in all his slightly younger and alive glory.
"Well, you're right."
... That it's disgusting.
Reply
"Disgusting and formerly dangerous?" He nods to the gauze, finding a place to drop his couple of grocery bags. Do you need help there, sir, because Jack knows doing things one-armed is not the easiest.
Reply
To someone like Bruce, the differences read as striking as a billboard. As such, the somewhat intense observation fades away like it was never there. Interesting, but not his business. He just shrugs at the inquiry, because he's not going to talk about what happened, and then hesitates at the silent offer - normally he'd say no, but the whole 'looks like he's about to collapse from exhaustion' thing is not a front.
"I'll take care of it in a second." The mess, he means. Apparently he is actually incapable of asking for assistance.
Reply
Eventually, after their injuries are as tended as they're getting and Bruce has miraculously not passed out from sheer exhaustion, Enfys stretches out on one of the sofas and presses her feet against the table in front of her with a bottle of water in her hand. She's cleaned her cross off and put it back on, too, and after checking her cellphone for messages - there are a few - she considers her companion.
"So. How long?"
Reply
Staying conscious against all odds is a talent of Bruce's; passing out is a special sort of thing reserved for gunshots and utterly broken spirits. By now the painkillers have begun to swim around in his system (hopefully someone's given him food as well), and he's sitting on a sofa looking about as relaxed as he ever does.
He watches Enfys for a moment, considering, before finally answering, "About a year."
Oh.
Reply
A year is...a little longer than Enfys was expecting (she saw him in Taxon not so very much more than a week ago, surely?), and then again not as long as she thought it could be. The difference in Bruce would be difficult for her to articulate, and she can't be sure if that's because it's indistinct or just because she's shit at articulating that kind of thing. She waits before letting herself answer - just this once - thinking it over, first.
After a few beats, she gives him a game smile. "Miss me?"
Reply
It's actually a bit more than that, but answering with exaction might be a little weird. (It doesn't have anything to do with pining, he's just ... like that.) He gives her a flicker of a smile, wondering what he might feel if he'd found her here so soon after he'd left that strange city. He's glad it's been this long; he was in such a dark place when she met him that even the friendship they formed had no chance of helping him out of it. He had to bury it on his own.
"I said I did." Don't be a jerk, Bruce.
Reply
Leave a comment