ArchivedLogs:Common Mistake

Common Mistake
Dramatis Personae Joshua, Tag
In Absentia	2015-04-15 "/Knives/ are the ones that go on the outside." (Takes place directly after Colorful Target. Warning: blood.)
Location Phone
"... you know I'm at work, right?" Joshua sounds so happy to hear from Tag, honest. Well, okay, in /actual/ honesty he sounds mostly ragged. A dash of blear, a pinch of snip. Maybe he's been sleeping on the job. There's a muffled scrape from the other end of the line. "I know." Tag's voice sounds faint and far away. "I got stabbed. There's um." He pauses for breath. "A lot of blood." On Joshua's end of the line there's brief quiet. "Where." "My work." Tag sucks in a sharp breath. "Out back." This response meets with a sharp exhale from Joshua, kind of counterpoint to the one Tag sucks in. "/Where/," he clarifies, "did the damn /knife/ go /in you/." There's a brief pause, as if Tag needed to re-check the location of his injury. Or, judging by the thump, fall over. "Abdomen," his reply comes finally. "Ruptured artery. Not sure..." This trails off into a soft whimper. "Mmnh. Alright." There's more quiet, here. At least on the talking side of things. There's plenty of background shuffling, muffled conversation, more footsteps. "Just remember, even if it /feels/ like the organs are supposed to be on the inside of you, if they start to come out don't try to shove them back." A pause. "... but /try/ to keep them on the inside." "Okay." Tag's voice has gotten smaller and more quiet. "I don't think...they're coming out. Mostly just. Blood." "Well, that's --" The voice starts out on the phone, but it ends clearer, popping into existence just by Tag, "supposed to stay inside you, too. For the record." Joshua hasn't brought supplies. Just himself. Uniform'd. Lips pressed tight together as he crouches by his roommate. Tag lies on his side, curled into a fetal ball around his phone. Everything on him is white, from clothes to hair to skin to unseeing eyes. A zone of white extends for two meters in every direction around him, expanding and contracting at irregular intervals. Even the surface of the blood pooling beneath him tries to turn white here and there, though it's constantly replenished by newer, redder blood. "{Sorry...} comes out somewhat slurred, but flickers of brighter colors intrude on blankness of his immediate vicinity. Maybe he is happy about Joshua's arrival. Or just in shock. Joshua's brows furrow. The hand he reaches out is towards Tag's forehead rather than the actual injury. The /sense/ he reaches out is stretching, evaluating, assessing. Slowly starting at the worst of the blood loss and repairing the damage beginning there. "Blood stays on the inside," he reiterates. "/Knives/ are the ones that go on the outside. Think you got 'em confused, bro." The sound Tag makes might have startled out as a chuckle, but it turns into a groan pretty rapidly. He closes his eyes, and when he opens them again, they have returned to their natural color, if the sclerae are bloodshot and the pupils wildly dilated. The white around them ceases spreading, leaving Joshua's upper half unchanged as if he had been wading in waist-deep bleach. "S'a common mistake," he offers weakly. "In my line of work. Really commonplace. Christ. You're going all Murky Dismal on the world." Joshua leans down further to start scooping Tag into his arms. He doesn't break the skin contact; the slow process of healing the bleeding gut wound continues, flesh knitting itself back together. "You want home, or you want the Clinic?" Tag doesn't offer much help, but his fine-boned body weighs little even as dead weight. He does at least pick up his phone with the hand not currently holding in his organs. "Home," he says when he has stopped gritting his teeth, resting his head on Joshua's shoulder. "Warn Tian-shin? In case they go after her." Joshua's teeth grit. "If they come after her," he answers, "they'll regret it." Tag's bike is left alone in the alley with a whole lot of blood, as Joshua disappears them both from view.