ArchivedLogs:Reality Check

Reality Check
Dramatis Personae B, Dusk, Rasa, Shane
In Absentia	2014-05-11 part of perfectytp. interspersed by phone call to micah.
Location somewhere in the catskills
It has not, so far, been The Most Delightful weekend for camping. Yesterday was wet and grey, drizzly through half the day and actively pouring through half the /night/. The twins' sturdy tent -- okay, really it's actually Karrie's sturdy tent, /theirs/ got torched, but they're borrowing -- holds up quite well as a nice dry shelter through the downpours, though the sharkpups haven't made much effort throughout to /avoid/ the wetness. B has spent a lot of time out of sight, plowing on ahead on all fours to scout a trail; half the day yesterday she hasn't even returned to tell them where to follow, just left a blood red dragonfly behind to guide Shane and Rasa in his wake. Today, though, she's sticking closer to the others, returning frequently to check up on them, hanging back with them rather than speeding ahead. There's a constant restless energy to her movements, eyes wide-alert, nose twitching. B's restlessness has infected Shane on this latest branch of the hike, too. At the moment he's gnawing on the leg of a rabbit picked up some ways back -- OK, they /brought/ a fair bit of camping food but. Some things are just more appealing. He has pared his clothing down to a pair of hiking shorts that /were/ long pants before he zipped them off at the knees, and lightweight hiking boots; yesterday the rain felt good against his gills and today with it sunny and warm again he just doesn't really care to bother with more clothes than this. His hiking pack looks absurdly oversized for his small frame, but if the weight has bothered him at all this trip he doesn't seem to be showing it. B (similarly garbed in an identical pair of shorts though she hasn't bothered with boots, barefoot in the still damp ground) reaches up to swipe the half-eaten rabbit from her twin. Her eyes flick with the same fidgety agitation over Shane. Shane doesn't protest the bunny-theft. His claws do grow longer, though, gills rippling along his sides before he glances up ahead. "... s'getting kinda worse." It's the first thing he's said in a while. Rasa has done her best to keep up. Ze does not have their keen sense of smell and speed, but ze can manage to keep up endurance wise, for the most part. Ze did consider stopping while the rain poured, but waited until the twins were done for the night before taking advantage of the tent. Ze is also sticking to the store bought food, stuffing small handfuls of trail mix in hir mouth when the trek is less difficult. The more difficult runs make hir less prone to speak, hir weariness and concern shutting down hir desire to pontificate about it. Ze is focused, moving forward and following after the twins. Ze adjusts hir bag as they walk, eyes studying B when she darts in to grab the food, hir brow furrowing. Ze continues the walk, glancing over at Shane when he speaks, frowning. Ze is wearing cargo shorts with a bottle or two of water strapped to hir waist. The dark brown material is a counterpoint to the lighter green tank top, one so loose that the band around hir chest peeks through at the neck and the arm holes. The rest of hir is a mottled green and brown, the forest around them capturing hir attention and occupying hir thoughts. The natural 'camouflage' begins to fade when Shane catches hir attention. "The heat?" That must be what is bothering hir the most - or what ze thinks would bother the twins first. B's teeth tear into the rabbit, hungrily ripping off a chunk of flesh before she passes it back to Shane. Her nose twitches unconsciously almost rabbitlike too, and she drops back down to rest hands against the ground, drawing in another breath. "Blood," she answers Rasa. "There's been --" "-- a whole lot. Fresher than the rain," Shane adds, with a small uncertain frown. "Which is close, anyway." Not that B sounds extra-specially cheerful about it. She gnaws on her lip, stopping to eye the red dragonfly hovering nearby. "... maybe we should send Blackie on ahead. I can call Dandelion back and keep him with us." "Can't track like you can, though." Shane eyes the dragonfly, too. Then B. He unshoulders his back, stopping to draw a water bottle out of the side of it to take a large gulp and then pass the bottle to B. "-- drink time," he adds to Rasa. Hiking hydration rules, if one person drinks then everyone does. Maybe hir comment about the heat reminded him. He digs a small pouch of first aid supplies out of the pack, shoving it into his pocket before passing off the pack to B, shoulders rolling in slow stretch. "I'll go in front." "Blood?" Rasa's brow furrows as hir attention drifts back to the landscape around them. "Does it smell familiar or …" Are we looking for a victim? Ze turns back to the twins, intently, lips twitching downwards into a frown. "Look, if I'm holding you back… go ahead, I can follow one of the dragonflies just fine to catch up." Ze unstraps a waterbottle from hir waist and takes two gulps, almost mechanically, not questioning the 'suggestion.' Then, ze is ready for whatever is next. "S'more than one person been out here," Shane answers uncomfortably. "More than one --" It's slow, gills fluttering rapidly, before he finishes the admission, "-- person's blood. They might need --" His gills flutter faster, and then calm. "I'll look. Call for help if I --" B nods, taking a swig of water and returning the bottle to the pack before shouldering the pack herself. "I guess if /we/ find him we'll, um." She fidgets, rubbing her palm against her gills. "... call for help?" Shane suggests wryly. He darts in to peck B lightly on the cheek and then races off, swift and quiet now that he is unencumbered by the pack. B closes her eyes, breathing deeply. And falls back into restless agitated silence again after sending the red dragonfly after Shane, fingers curling in at the shoulder straps of her pack as she starts off the trail and deeper into the trees. Rasa nods and pulls out hir phone, fidgety as ze notes that ze does indeed have reception out here. "We'll do what we can, too. You guys have some first aid, right? I've only got the basics, but it's better than nothing." Ze sticks close to B as they press onward, tension erasing all the weariness from hir form. B is largely quiet for the next long part of the hike, stopping at intervals -- sometimes just for a rest, maybe if she's tired, maybe if it looks like Rasa might be. Sometimes for food or water. Sometimes she darts a little ways ahead, sniffing thoughtfully, only to return and fall back to the slower pace. There's a sharply increasing tension to her as time passes; it only grows the longer Shane fails to return. Eventually she stops with a sudden start, actually /spooked/ by the time her phone vibrates in her pocket. She pulls it out to look at it, exhales heavily. "Shane found a. Person. Hurt. Staying with them." Rasa continues in a very even pace, hir tension growing and fading as they go. The breaks help, but the silence is difficult. Ze eats when it is time, glancing at B to try and judge what she is taking in. Ze reminds her to drink from time to time too, but it's likely more so for hir, as ze has salty trail mix to put up with, rather than the fresh meat B had before. When she stops suddenly, pin pricks of white run through hir skin, starting at hir temples and running the length of hir limbs. Ze settles back into a mottled green and brown when she sighs, biting hir lip as ze hears the news. "Should we catch up? Does he need help?" Hands grip the straps of hir backpack as ze looks on ahead to see if ze can see him in the distance. "No, he's -- we're fine, he's just --" B stops again, halfway to returning the phone to her pocket; it's vibrating again though this time with a call and not a text. She answers it quickly, brows creased deep as she wanders -- just a short ways off, gills fluttering through the brief call. She returns to Rasa's side soon, the agitated motion of her gills not calmed. "My dads are um -- they're going to meet up with him. They're sending out --" Her teeth clench hard, fingers gripping tight around the phone before she shoves it back into her pocket angrily. "-- a /team/ to. Bring him -- the person Shane's with, they're. Pretty mauled I guess, they don't think it's safe for us to. Approach him if we." Her eyes narrow, unhappily. "The last thing he needs is a bunch of -- it's not going to /help/ him having people swoop in and cart him away to lock him up again." "Fuck," Rasa breathes under hir breath, studying B as she gives the post phone call information. Ze frowns and fidgets in place, gnawing on hir lip some more. "What are we supposed to do until then? Sit here? Scratch our backsides?" Ze exhales and looks upward, scratching at the side of hir neck. "What do you want to do?" There's a pause here and a relaxing of hir form, a quiet thought filtering to the surface though ze doesn't actually speak it. It is plain as day, written on hir face. 'Do you want to find him before they get here?' B presses her hands to the sides of her neck, flattening down the gills that flutter there and dropping her arms a moment later to squeeze her elbows against her sides to mash down the larger set of gils as well. She turns her eyes up towards the sky, drawing in a deep breath. "He's not far," she whispers. "He's not far and he's been /bleeding/ and --" She looks at Rasa and nods, firmly. "We have to find him. After everything he's been through if the first people who actually interact with him just come to chain him up and throw him in another cage? That's not okay. He needs friends." She gives Rasa a worried look, teeth sinking into her lip. "I know we've been pushing pretty hard for a while but are you okay to -- I think we're /close/ if we just. Go a little faster I don't. I don't know. If they bring the freaking /jet/ --" "Yeah, I can run," Rasa replies, hefting the bag a little as a running tally of what is in it and weighing hir down runs down hir arms. Not much can be left behind, honestly, as they won't really know what they will need when they meet up with him. "I'm with you, B. Let's go. If I can't keep up, go without me. I'll be there as soon as I can." Ze does need to wait on her to start though, completely lost as to where to go. B nods, reaching out to squeeze Rasa's shoulder, the very brief touch over the tank top strap only barely long enough to transmit a grim /determination/ over the backdrop of fretting. She takes another swig of water and stashes the bottle, adjusting her pack before setting off at a swifter pace, broken up only now by adjustments as her nose leads her further into the trees. Further into the trees, eventually, there doesn't even really /need/ B's keen nose to start tracking the signs that a wild Dusk has been through -- there's been underbrush blatantly trampled, blood smeared thick against one tree and spattered in places against the ground. And then from beneath a large outcropping of stone, a niche etched into a bank of rock rising on one side of the trees, there's a low growling. Brief, and then stopping. One enormous fuzzy-soft wing has stretched out of the small recess, draped limply against the ground. Dusk is curled up inside it, the other wing wrapped around him like a blanket. Shirtless and in boots and ragged cut-off shorts -- or, well, they /were/ jeans once before getting the bottoms halves of the legs ripped off -- it's easy to see the rather copious amount of blood drying on his leg and side, though the rest of him is tucked beneath the shelter of his blanketing wing. Rasa slows hir approach slightly when it's obvious that they are in the right spot. Hir eyes narrow a little, partially out of caution, but mostly out of concern when ze casts hir attention on the smears of blood. The smell is obvious to hir less sensitive nose now, a small jerking back of hir chin when ze notices the odor. As they continue onward, hir frown deepens, now glancing from time to time at B, but mostly searching the vicinity for Dusk, in case he's intent on a second mauling. At the sound of the growl, ze stops, hir attention fixing on the spot where he is resting, swallowing hard against the fear in the back of hir throat. A few deep breaths and it subsides a little. "Dusk?" ze calls out softing. "It's Rasa… and B." That's all ze can think to say just then. B glances up, then back over towards the source of the growl. She stops short, unhooking her pack from her shoulders to set it carefully down beside a tree, leaving her more free range of movement for now. She's slow as she moves just a little closer, stopping still several yards from Dusk's crevice. "Dusk? Dusk, it's -- it's us, are you okay? We came to find you. We just -- wanted to make sure. That you were doing -- that you knew you had people -- if you need anything --" She trails off uncertainly, claws inching out just a little longer as she hangs back. The greetings are met with another soft growl, before Dusk's head turns slowly towards the teenagers. His movement is jerky and abrupt when he shifts himself away from the rocks, lunging out of the opening -- though only to curl one wing against a nearby tree as if for support, dragging himself semi-upright. Semi-leaning against it. His hand lifts, flat-palmed to press against his chest and circling there -- 'please'. His wing is shaky where it curls against the tree, the other one hanging down limp against his back; there's a rather bloody hole torn against the front of his shoulder. His voice is quiet, still a little growly itself when he speaks. "-- Be careful." Rasa drops to all fours when Dusk lunges out, hir shoulders building muscle in anticipation of danger. When he lands up against a tree, hugging it for support, ze settles back on hir legs, arms straightening to a slightly more upright position. "Be careful?" ze asks quietly, hir brows furrowing. "Be careful of you?" Ze remains hesitant even when ze can see his injuries better in the light of the day. B's claws shoot out further when Dusk lunges, weight dropping defensively into a crouch; she, too, relaxes more when he leans up against the tree, though her eyes stay fixed on him carefully. "Please -- what? What do you --" She looks back at her pack, retreating a few slow steps to open it. "We can help. With the -- the bleeding and the. Do you need food? We have water." Dusk cringes, leaning up more heavily against the tree when the teenagers tense. He shakes his head, sinking down lower to drop shakily to sit up against the tree instead. There's blood, too, leaking copiously down his leg, cut-off jeans torn though the fabric still mostly covers the injury beneath. His head bows, hiding for a moment behind one large wingsail; he drops his wing again to nod at the offers of food and water, signing 'please' again. "Not me. No. There was a -- a man. Had a gun -- I don't know. He shot -- You're not hurt." He seems relieved by this. His eyes scrunch shut closed, head lolling back against the bark of the tree trunk. "S'Shane with you?" "No, we're fine," Rasa replies, slowly standing and drifting a little closer to Dusk and his tree, still tense. "We didn't even hear the gunshot. Well, I didn't. The twins hear much better than I do." Ze keeps hir attention solely on Dusk as ze approaches, hir skin darkening as ze takes in his wounds. "Shane's… waiting for the others. B, did you want to call him? Let him know what's going on?" Ze unclips a waterbottle from hir waist and offers that to him first. "Shot --" B pales slightly, reaching into her pocket for her phone. "Wait, he shot /you/? What -- happened? Why? Shane took our." Her eyes narrow on the screen of the phone, gills fluttering quickly. She digs in her own large pack, biting down on her lip. "We brought blood. Too. If you -- have you. I don't know if you've." "It was early. In the morning, it was --" 'Dawn', Dusk signs, and then, 'before dawn.' He closes his eyes again, shivering where he sits; he opens them only to lean forward with a grimace and clench of teeth, reaching for the bottle Rasa offers, other hand signing a thank you. "I hadn't. Fed in. In days." His words come slowly, still a little rough and growly; it seems like somewhat of a struggle to find them. 'Was looking,' he signs, muttering after he takes a swig of water. "... squirrel. When this man --" His hand lowers again, stiff and slow. "S'-- hunter. I don't." 'Don't know,' he signs slowly, hand moving stiffly once more with his hurt shoulder. 'Don't know. Saw --' He gestures to his wings. "Freaked the. Fuck --" He quiets, closing his eyes and taking another sip of water. "... what others?" His brows crease in a sudden deep frown, posture abruptly tense.With an unhappy whining growl he starts to push himself back to his feet, though this motion doesn't get very /far/ before he collapses back down to sit right where he is. "S'funny," he says with a rough breath of laughter, "came out here to fucking." 'die,' he signs, 'but. Asshole shoots --' "And I actually --" "You know how it is with us teenagers. We go off alone, they come after us. But, we just have to be young and irresponsible though, you know." Rasa's stiffness relaxes only a hair as conversation continues, looking over hir shoulder. "Oh for fuck's sake. People hike here. There shouldn't be hunters." Ze kneels down and digs into hir bag. Ze pulls out a small soft-sided cooler and unzips the compartment inside. The red bag ze brings out is still cool in hir hand as ze offers it to Dusk. "If you want to get out of here before they get here, we can try to patch you up quickly." Ze glances back at B, hir skin darkening to an inky black. B pulls out a large packet of jerky, creeping forward to set it down in front of Dusk as well. "Hunter?" Her eyes widen after this, gills fluttering again. "... oh. Shane's." She swallows, dipping her head in a nod. "Shane found him," she says quietly, "I should -- I should call. Shane and -- and Pa, um, Flicker's. They're sending the jet out, with Flicker -- they wanted to bring you --we can go. Before they get here if --" She glances back over her shoulder. "They're probably tracking my dragonflies I can send Dandelion -- away. To Shane. Somewhere. You look like you need some --" She looks at the blood dripping down Dusk with no small amount of concern. "Some care, though, are you going to be okay? /I/ don't want you to die." "Shane found --" Dusk's eyes widen, and once more he starts struggling to his feet though once more this attempt just falters and fails. "No that's not. What if he. Tell Shane to. He has to go." He picks up the blood pack instead once he's sitting again, fangs sinking into the plastic ravenously. He sucks at it with an almost desperate hunger, quiet for a time as he drains the pack nearly empty. "Don't know what it's. Season for." He grabs the jerky only once the blood is gone, digging a few chunks out to devour them as well. His head shakes fiercely at the mention of the jet, Flicker, shoulders trembling. "I didn't -- want -- I just. Just want to --" His head thunks back against the tree again. "Just want to…" "Dusk," Rasa starts, concerned. Ze leaves hir bag where it is and moves closer again. "B'll tell Shane the situation." Ze swallows hard, starting to gnaw on hir lip. "Do you… want to try? I mean, it's kind of horrible, everything's kind of horrible, but there are people - good people - that want to be around you. I don't know if that helps. But, it's true." "Turkey," B answers offhand, straightening and biting down on her lip again. "I'll tell Shane, okay? And I'll call --" She glances up towards the sky with a slightly nervous look. "Just hang tight for a bit, I'll be right -- back I just. I love you, okay?" She reaches a hand very tentatively towards Dusk, fingertips stretching to brush lightly against the back of his hand before she wanders off, dialing her phone as she moves away. Dusk tenses reflexively again, but turns his hand upwards, exhaling softly and curling his fingers back up against B's. He pulls his not-bleeding leg up towards his chest, wing wrapping around it. 'Don't think --' he signs, head shaking slowly. 'Don't think --' His eyes scrunch shut, his breathing slower, shakier. "Not sure. /I'm/ okay. To be -- around. People. I -- hurt." Jax's name-sign is easily identifiable, an initialized J+SUNSHINE. 'Hurt bad,' he signs. "I know." Rasa replies, turning to grab hir bag, pulling out a long sleeved t-shirt and a pair of gloves. "The light shivers when he saw me be you." Ze is a little distracted as ze turns back, pulling on the clothes, the gloves taking a little longer. "But he…" Ze pauses, fingers pulling tightly against the thin material over hir hands. "He cares about you so much, he fought so hard to give the sky back to you. Yes, what happened makes him uncomfortable, but I don't think he's… going to - I don't think that is all he thinks there is to you. So, you shouldn't think that is all there is to you too." 'Be me?' Dusk looks a little puzzled at this, head shaking. 'I love him, I don't know why I --' He scrubs his knuckles against his eyes, head shaking harder. "I don't know. What there is to me. Just a --" 'Monster'. Rasa moves close again, gloved fingers brushing gently against his wing on his good side. "I… shifted into your form to show the healer what your wings looked like, so she could help grow them. Jax found me at the school and explained the situation, asked me for my help, but I would have offered if I had known. Everything was completely disorienting after. There were drugs and bad dreams and people talking, talking, talking and I barely knew what they were saying. Know I said I'd take care of you… Feel bad that I didn't." Hir head bows as ze settles into a sitting position. Ze glances up, hir flow of words running dry, hir eyes darting here and there as ze scans his face, frowning. "Apologies. Not processing well just. Yet. Just… wanted to tell you that we care. Came for you, yes? Going to keep trying. You healed me once. Want to try to do the same for you. Give you time to find you again. Can't … let you just stay lost." Dusk's wing twitches, slow, pressing back up against Rasa's touch. Then, also slow, curling up against hir arm to rub in gently against hir. "My wings --" He shivers, the tremor rippling through his wing where it touches up against hir. "These aren't my --" He shakes his head, forehead bowing to press against his knee. "Doesn't feel. Right I don't." 'Bad dreams,' he signs. 'Dreamed --' His wing curls slowly against Rasa's back. 'Wings gone. Eyes -- everything. Hurt -- I --' "Fuck." There's a quiet unhappy edge of growl whining beneath his voice again. 'Lost,' he agrees. 'Everything feels. Wrong.' "That's my fault. I... am not very good at being other people and I just wanted to do my best and hopefully you could fly once more." Rasa takes a deep breath and leans a little against Dusk. Hir arm loops around his neck, above his wing joints, pulling him in close. "They just... aren't ever going to be the same." Ze swallows hard. "Hope… you can forgive me." B slips back over towards them, sliding her phone back into her pocket. She settles down into a crouch in front of Dusk, one arm wrapping around her knees as she watches the others. "Dreams?" Her inner eyelids blink first, then her outer. "Dusk, you went through -- you went through a /lot/. You were hurt so badly, it -- makes sense to feel. Whatever you're feeling. You just don't need to go through it all alone, okay?" Her nose twitches, nostrils flaring and her eyes sliding back to the blood again. "Can we help deal with that, it looks kind of bad." Dusk's other wing twitches out towards B, though it doesn't make it all the way towards the sharkpup before falling limply back behind his back. 'Hurt?' His head shakes, wing settling in around Rasa's shoulders. 'No.' "I woke up." 'Woke up,' he echoes in sign, 'I was fine. Just don't -- don't know don't know don't know.' He leans in against Rasa, slumping a little more back against the tree as well. "You're good," he whispers to hir. "I just --" 'don't understand --' He closes his eyes, hands falling to twine blood-crusted fingers together in his lap. 'All -- vanished. Think I dreamed --' His wing is trembling around Rasa's shoulders. "Had a lot of bad dreams," he whispers. The quiet pained growl doesn't stop, twinned vocal cords continuing the low rumble even as he speaks over top of it. "Just want to." 'Stop. Finish.' Rasa holds Dusk quietly, hir gaze shifting back up to B, frowning. "Do… you want to see? I can show you - if it will help you know what was real." B slips back to her pack, returning shortly with a water bottle and a t-shirt that she starts tearing into strips. She moves over to Dusk's other side, watching his face closely as she settles onto the ground beside him. "S'it okay if I take a look at that? Wash it out? Bandage it up?" Her gills flutter slightly, head shaking as Dusk speaks. She lifts a hand, fingertips tracing gently down against his arm. "Dusk, you -- /were/ hurt, that was -- oh, man." Her brows rumple together, a slow swallow pushed down her throat. Her eyes turn to Rasa a little helplessly, meeting Rasa's gaze for a moment. "It /was/ real Rasa can -- can help." Dusk nods, slow and heavy. 'Please,' he signs again, stiffly stretching out his bloodied leg -- no bullet wound /there/ but a deep torn gash in his thigh where the fabric has been ripped, perhaps from a knife. And, 'please', again, his face turning towards Rasa. Rasa carefully extricates hirself, pressing the briefest of kisses on his hair before getting to hir feet and a little further away from the pair. Ze also takes off hir shirts, turning hir back to the pair when ze unclasps the band around hir back. All of the inky blackness of hir skin seems suck backwards to where his wings should be as hir form begins to grow, stretching upward into Dusk's taller stature. When ze is as pale as the vampire bat was back then, in the dark room, when ze cradled his head in hir lap, the black is two jagged vertical lines down hir back and shoulders. After a hitched breath, the skin splits open and jagged bone sticks out, red and white replacing the black. It doesn't leak like a wound might, but it glistens in the light like it is wet. Deep, irregular breaths stretch his torso as he turns back toward B and Dusk, angling his face to where he remembers them sitting. The same glistening redness marks the pockets where his eyes used to be, the white of bone and other ligaments dot a much cleaner representation of his facial wounds. Words appear across his abdomen, a single phrase, 'must be hard to feel awake like this.' B rolls the leg of Dusk's torn cut-offs up as much as she can, quiet as she starts irrigating the cut and doing the best she can with the torn strips of fabric to stem the leaking blood and bandage it. Her eyes shift from her work as Rasa starts to change, breathing halting as her gills flutter, gleaming blue cheeks paling with these gruesome changes. "See," she finally manages to whisper. "That happened. To /you/. You're allowed to feel it. And you're allowed to let people help you through feeling it, okay?" Dusk's teeth grit hard, muscles tense and breathing more ragged as B starts to tend the injury. His eyes just focus on Rasa, though. His fingers clench into fists, eyes widening and knuckles lifting to press hard against his lips, a convulsive shudder running through his wings. He manages to uncurl his fingers to sign slowly -- 'I thought --' His head shakes numbly. "Oh." His wings ripple briefly again, eyes shifting from Rasa to B. Back to Rasa, fixing for a very long while on the simulated injuries. The wing on his good side extends, brushing out softly against Rasa's cheek, curling around behind to touch one velvet-soft edge against the bone fragments at Rasa's back. The thoughts that swirl through his mind are broken and disjointed, trying to sift through this and slot /anything/ into sensible place through an uncertain haze. Pain and fragments of memory, waking up broken and waking up /fixed/ and not entirely able to make sense of the transition from one state to the next; the rattle of chains and the darkness and pain and Jax's blood in his mouth. A hospital room and a dim carpeted basement and wandering the woods healed and unbroken. His eyes stay fixed on Rasa, mind tracing back to the basement with a slow shudder. Rasa's voice reading to him. He drops his wing away slowly, head turning aside with a slow apologetic frown. "-- You were there." His head doesn't lift, but his eyes do, turning up towards hir. "Are you okay?" When the wing brushes up against hir, Rasa initially jumps, but leans into it immediately after. Hir mind listens to what Dusk is trying to piece together quietly, keeping to hirself until he trips upon the memory ze is holding onto to keep the shape. It is unfortunately reinforced from hir outside point of view, the smell of the room, the people around them, the pain ze felt at the idea of endangering Spencer when he popped into the room, the pain of hir wounds, and the gnawing ember of hope that hurt just as much to hold on to as to let go - that they would be rescued. The fear ze held that they were going to find out hir secret, that Micah had infiltrated their church to find them - and if they found out, they might kill him and then there'd be no rescue. The complicated feelings ze has about Micah now, after what they did to them both… When he pulls away, Rasa struggles to find hir next breath, a little shaken up. "No," ze squeaks, hir shoulders slumping. "Not really at all. Do… do you still need this?" Ze gestures with his form to the damaged body. "Do you need more time?" B turns her head back down, focusing on Dusk's leg as she works. "Ze was there. You were there. You were /there/ and it /happened/. Can we -- what do you need?" Her head is tilting, listening to some noise -- she casts a worried glance to the sky, teeth digging down against her lip. Her eyes turn back to the wound, tying fabric into place. Dusk shakes his head, shivering again with a soft growl. His hand lifts, fist circling against his heart. "Thank you," he whispers. "I don't --" He shakes his head, slumping back. His wing stretches out towards Rasa, but without touching, this time. "I don't. Know it. It vanished and I -- hurt people and --" He swallows hard, wing dropping back to his side. "I guess we should -- go. Back." Though he sounds extremely unhappy at the thought. A moment later he adds, very softly with a small signed 'please,' "... but not. Yet." Rasa begins putting hir clothes back on, hir body shrinking to fit them, making sure to slip into hir shirt before crouching low to move back in close to Dusk, wrapping hir arm around him again. Ze is more careful, as hir gloves remain off for the time being. "I... can show you what it was like when they put me back together. I was awake for it and could see what was going on." Ze offers a hand to him quietly, letting him take it if he will. B moves to get a second packet of blood out of Rasa's pack, setting it down in Dusk's lap. "Only when you're ready," she promises, brushing the backs of her fingers gently against his bearded cheek. "We'll be with you until then." Dusk's wing curls back around Rasa. His face nuzzles into B's touch, hand lifting to cup against B's, hold it a moment longer against his cheek. At length his hand drops again, fingers tentatively curling against Rasa's. The chaos of his mind hasn't entirely settled down, though it's quieted somewhat into exhaustion, a weary curiosity hoping to make some sense of the jumble. Rasa's mind is a little more peaceful this time, starting in a cool, quiet place and going back to that still morning when the healing truly started for hir. Ze fills in faces to go with voices and impressions, helps link some of the stranger sensations of Dusk experienced to a recollection of externally inspired regeneration. In the end, ze helps him use hir references to link back to the fragments he has of his own healing, hopefully breathing a little more reality into what happened to him over the last few weeks.