MAILBOX; inbox

[shoubai]

WELCOME

House 1411

"Hello? Hello?? I'm sorry, there's nobody home right now. [ obnoxious peal of laughter: go ]

Ahh, that's right! Leave a message, and I'll get back to you. Right? That's how it goes? Aha, no telemarketers, please!

If you run up my bill, I'll have to ask you to pay the extra costs.

[ BEEP ]

Comments

Re: action

[badbreak]

[headwounds always look ghastly, and this one's no different; the cut is somewhere under all that electric hair, but the blood is steadilystupidly coating down the only side of his face he can actually see out of, really screwing up the works, forcing him to constantly wipe the stickiness away and lose his balance]

[he doesn't instinctively flinch from that reach (which should maybe be Sakamoto's first warning sign), and it's slurred shortly through a red and bloody mouth, old wounds bitten back open again;]

Got bad again.

[his mouth is twisting up, not into that horrible snarl he'd faced the man down with in the road, but into something else; he's already meted his aggression out somewhere, and come back in barely enough pieces to hold the ends of that unhappy smile up]

[he trips over every root, over his own feet, just trying to stand, and it's hard to say if its the fault of the stark hopelessness he's come face to face with, or the headwound]

[a hard shiver passes through over-taxed limbs, and as he reaches for Sakamoto, he looks down at the blood coating his hand; he's had the bandage around it all this time, even though the stitches were out long ago, because he hates looking at it. but that bandage has been lost some time in the night, and now it's just that deep, awful scar he sees, covered in his own blood again]

[the sound he makes, swaying with exhaustion, is somewhere between a laugh, a bark, and a sob]

F-fuckin' slaughterhouse -- !

Re: action

[shoubai]

[ he picks out each flaw, each wrong move and there's so much wrong here, now, it's astounding. it would be paralyzing, if he weren't so busy trying to do something about it. ]

ignoring blood and branches and the whole myriad of traps underfoot, he moves to meet Badou, hand around his smaller, bloodier one in a firm grip. ]

What is?

[ careful, coaxing, and it's taking all he has now not to pick the kid up like the bag of jagged birdbones he is. ]

This way, come on.

Re: action

[badbreak]

[that broken arm hangs dead and numb at his side, it's definitely been fucked with, but his other arm grips far too rough at the other man to make up for it, and Badou staggers into Sakamoto more than he staggers to him]

[he hits that wall of his body, and all the scents are wrong; no smoke, no coffee, no ink; nothing that he wantsneeds right now (he needs to feel calm again, Dave could always calm him down, laugh at him until all his anxiety and fear seemed stupid, kiddish)]

[(but it wasn't stupid, it wasn't unfounded, they are making monsters in the dark to eat us to eat him --)]

[the scents are wrong, but Badou holds onto Sakamoto's clothes like he's drowning all the same, smearing his bloody forehead along cloth as his head tumbles forward and black again]

M'tired. I can't 'member...

[he can only think in still-frames, in pictures, about the last few hours]

Re: action

[shoubai]

It's okay. You don't have to, right now.

[ later, when everything was fine. later, when it wasn't dark and tense like top-grade nightmare fodder, when the iron tang of blood and stale sweat wasn't sharp in his nostrils and his lungs and when his heart stopped hammering against his ribcage like an animal, frantic for freedom.

later. right now, he's wrapping his arms around thin shoulders, cheek pressed against the stickywet mat of badou's hair. ]

Idiot.

Re: action

[badbreak]

[there's a harsh, too-loud noise that comes from the vicinity of Sakamoto's clothing; it could be loosely termed "a laugh," but that isn't quite right, ill-suited and ill-fitting for all its edges]

[Badou has never once doubted that he was a wholesale fucking idiot, and that feels true now more than ever]

[the Undergrounder doesn't seem inclined to move without Sakamoto, who he continues holding onto, amidst the brambles and the blood; he's built a bit like his brother, really. broad for all his thinness, strong when necessary for all that laughter, for all those smiles]

[( -- but not strong enough, none of them could ever be strong enough, not with unkillable monsters below -- )]

-- Ahahahaa. Haha. You're th'idiot.