[openish]

[sorrycharles]

CHARACTERS: Erik Lehnsherr, Iezabel Sadonna, Charles Xavier, Rikku, others pending.
LOCATION: Debris Trail, Base Camp, Etc.
WARNINGS: Gore
SUMMARY: Erik meets the 15 mile tether via beating himself nearly to death with it and is dragged back to camp by a good kind noble samaritan.
NOTES: Catch all, currently with closed starters. PM or hit me up elsewhere if you've got something you'd like to do and I can grind a starter out or you can. Believe in your dreams.


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Comments

[metempsychotic]

[ She could try and put this delicately, but euphemism has a bad way of suggesting that what it hides sound worse than it is. Better a justificatory honesty, she judges. ]

Life eats life, [ she says, with the cadence of proverb. ] Even the trees feast on the worms that will feast on us. [ Not true in the way she means it, but forgive her a limited understanding of ecological science. ]

I need a living being. Something of appreciable size and complexity. Still living. Unbutchered. [ A steak, no matter how rare, will not do.

That this will entail larger problems of logistics, that she will want the delivery to be discreet, that she will be happiest given a steady supply- these are matters for future discussion. The sense she gets now, from that defensive posture, is that this interview might progress more smoothly when Charles is less... distracted. ]

We can discuss minutia and appendecta when the sun is risen. [ As if his help were assured, her request a settled matter. ] Please, tend to your friend.

[ She replaces her mask, fastening it with a silk ribbon behind her head, and raises her cowl. ]

He looks nearly as poor as I do.

[ She makes another of those bows, hand on belly, fingers on forehead, and then drifts into the darkness, shading away. ]

[forgodssake]

[ Charles doesn't offer correction with regard to her ecological science. He is listening, instead, obvious though it is that he is paying equal parts attention to what the cat dragged in. Her meaning is clear, and the solution is not, or how he can help -- but already niggling curiousity is feeding on itself.

Just not enough to waylay her when she finally withdraws.

Like she's an event passing by rather than a whole person -- or, more accurately, a problem he can deal with later -- Charles doesn't say a word, dropping his focus more completely to Erik. There is a conflictedness bringing tension to his expression, like he is on the verge of igniting some kind of argument, but he swallows instead. Words go as smoothly down as sand.

But, gentler; ]

Can you stand?

[ With help, evidently, a hand lifting. ]

[sorrycharles]

[ Erik breaks the death grip of his stare from Charles to crane a look after the direction he last heard Ieza’s voice. His eyes are still glossy, wild around the whites.

It’s been a lifetime since he’s seen a dessicated corpse. Her hooded eyes and sunken jaw are viscerally familiar.

But she’s gone, and Charles is offering a hand. Erik reaches across himself for it, right over left, which will be the last thing he remembers -- whether Charles is able to help him up six feet or six inches, low blood pressure spins him into nigh immediate blackout. Still breathing, fast and shallow. His tongue sticks dry to the roof of his mouth, blood thickened hair damp at the nape of his neck where tears have soaked in.

Friendship can be difficult. ]

[forgodssake]

[ The sink of Erik's consciousness tiding under feels like something slipping from Charles' grasp and vanishing. Maybe Erik hears his own name startled out loud, but neither it nor the sudden tightening of warm hands prevent black out.

Meanwhile, in the land of the living.

They hadn't gotten far, but far enough that Charles feels obliged to grip and fold back down the rest of the way, one hand splayed starfish-style on the side of Erik's face in an effort not to cause further damage to that specific body part. The last lingering memories before blackness closes over echo like a light trick, and feel like cold poison. Personal irritation and its festered hurt at being Abandoned!! back at camp for whatever self-destructive exercise Erik was embarking on subsides, despite himself.

For a minute, Charles just sort of stays there, still, holding on to Erik and feeling the only somewhat unrelated existential panic at being stranded on this planet that he's been doing pretty well at keeping at bay all this time, before finally, he reaches out a psychic tether to the nearest helpful brain to help him drag Erik back to shelter. ]