Aftermath.
Wednesday, 11 July 2012 23:50![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
flint_garouI don't like doin' this much. Unless someone's seriously fucked up. Which, you are.
11 July, 2012
The moon is in the waning Half (Philodox) Moon phase (46% full).
Flint's in glabro, half-on top of the blankets, and there's a humming from the cliath's apartment, the first signs of stirring that he's shown in hours as the last of the painkillers from earlier wear off. Earphones are half-in, one on the pillow. There's a water bottle within reach, and the greater part of his abdomen, stomach, and right shoulder are covered in bandages. He's still drifting, in and out a little bit, every so often glancing towards the door, or picking up the IR remote and pointing it at his phone to change the song.
It's during one of these idle glances, without any sound loud enough to be heard over the music or his own humming, that the door abruptly appears open, with Ex standing framed in the doorway. Her eyes are narrow, with her head low enough that she's looking at him from under hooded lids. Her hands are empty, but the right one is curled into a fist.
It's clear that there's a moment where Flint tries to sit up when he spots Ex, and then he fails, slumping back into the mattress and giving her a half-nod. There're red, ugly scratches on his jaw, as well, though they've been cleaned and tended as well as possible.
Ex eyes Flint's state dispassionately; there's no real change to her expression at all. "Evil werewolf?" she hazards.
Flint shakes his head once. "Argument," he grunts, turning and his uninjured arm moves the pillow so he can at least look at the cub. "Hey, Ex."
Ex's eyes narrow a little further. She steps into the room, entirely uninvited, and then she does a strange thing. She shuts the door behind her. "That's how werewolves argue?"
"If…" the cliath musters focus, and shakes his head. "The argument," he continues, "lead to. To, getting angry, to Frenzy. Which, is what happens when. When Garou argue."
"Y'know," Ex says, slowly. Both of her hands are still behind her back, around the doorknob. There's the faint click of the lock. "Doesn't seem like you people have all that much control yourselves. How're you supposed to fucking teach me?" Her tone is level, almost conversational despite the words used.
Flint looks at her. "Unlock it," he says, conversational himself. "Please."
Ex pulls her hands away from the knob. She does not, in fact, unlock the door, but she does take two steps further into the room. "Well?" She waits barely a moment. "How're you supposed to?"
Flint looks at Ex, and there is a tired sigh and another attempt to pick himself up from the bed, and that attempt fails. "Sometimes, I. I'm still, learning," Flint says. "Cliath, doesn't mean. Not, no one's perfect. Kavi-rhya is, helping me with it, though. Please unlock, the. The door." Flint's breathing is hard, and he silences, to grab his water bottle and pull the sports-cap open with his teeth.
"Devon lost it on Kevin," Ex points out. Still, she doesn't so much as look back toward the door, though she does watch his attempts at getting up through those same, hooded eyes. "You have to breathe, you know. But if I stepped on your neck, you'd last a lot longer without air if you were hybrid form."
Flint listens to Ex for a moment, and sets aside his water bottle, hands pulling the blanket up and over him. There's a half-muttered 'ngh' and he ignores the cub a bit, ostensibly trying to be comfortable again. "Too much talk," he says, before his free hand comes out from the blankets to pull out the earphone. "Hurts to talk, right now."
"I want to talk," Ex insists. "Anyway, if you got stabbed though, over and over, would it kill you? I think it'd have to be a lot, in a real vulnerable place. Maybe if it went through your eye and into your brain." Her lips purse. "But it'd have to do that a lot too. They can slice up there if they want."
"Knives, heal fast, wait breath, and it heals," the cliath says. "Unless, silver. It's, claws, other things. Doesn't heal fast, does heal." Flint takes a deep breath, and he's not wholly ignoring Ex, but there's a sense of the wooziness of pain medication and drugs in his manner.
Ex nods several times. "It'd have to be a lot of stabbing. Maybe not even then." She takes another step, and then leans forward. "Tell me how you find people."
The cliath bares his teeth at her, but it's a weary gesture. "Unlock. The. My door. This is, my space," Flint informs her.
Ex repeats, with emphasis, "Tell me how you find people." A beat. "If this is your space, the fuck do you care about the door?"
"Because," Flint says, there's a little of the tiredness in his voice. "Said so." His uninjured shoulder lifts, and Ex's primary question gets a shake of his head. "I dun know. I can't do it."
This time, Ex is the one to flash her teeth. "I don't do things just 'cause a little kid 'says so'. So who does know how?"
Flint is clearly not all the way present, and he looks at Ex, the half-sided shrug as he tries to get comfortable, finishing in a wince. His voice raises. "Don't know."
Rina knocks on the door. "Hey, ah, Flint?"
Ex starts to say something, but the knock startles her. She flicks a glance toward the door.
Flint looks at Ex, then looks at the door. "Ex," he says, loudly enough that he might be heard through the door, on the other side, and his voice is strained, though it might be the pain from talking given his injuries. "Get the door, please."
There's the briefest of twitches to Ex's mouth. "No," she declares. Not loudly, but it's still likely to be audible to the other side of the door.
Even as exhausted as Flint is, that brings a flash of anger to his face, and he pushes to sitting up with an audible exclamation of pain. "Then leave my room," he tells Ex, words carefully grunted out, and points with uninjured arm at the door.
Rina takes a slow breath. "Ex," she says patiently, "I am perfectly capable of blowing this door open, but I would really rather not have to do it. Doors are expensive and we go through a lot of them around here."
"No," Ex says again. This time, she sounds almost delighted. At the very least, closer than she ever has before. She jerks her gaze back to the door as Rina speaks, and scowls. "I'm just talking."
Wincing, Rina steps back, looks to Kavi and mutters, "I don't wanna shoot her by accident. Shoulder?"
Halfway to sitting up is as far as Flint gets, and there's a glance towards the doorway, and towards Ex, before Flint lays back down with less grace than an elephant.
Even as Rina turns she can see the bandages rip from his arm as he shifts. It's only a moment after that, not even a full second, that the full force of his glabro weight comes against the door and the wood around the lock cracks and comes apart and the door flies inward.
Rina winces, bringing up a hand to rub at the back of her neck. "Or Glabro, that'd be fine too," she says with a certain pained dryness.
Whatever Ex was expecting as a reaction, it certainly wasn't that. She flees from the suddenly inward swinging door, straight past—or over—Flint, to the bathroom. Where she proceeds to slam and lock the door again.
Flint looks to the doorway, wincing a little but there's also a grateful expression, even as he fights to regain a sitting position. "Really?" he grunts, eyes shutting. The cliath shouldn't be sitting up, and he looks to Kavi. "Do you, Nieve has a gift, that? She. Opened drawers, with it, and, cabinets."
Kavi watches Ex flee, even as he follows her deeper into the room. He doesn't even seem to hear Flint, though he stops at the bathroom door, and his fingers rake back through his hair.
Rina is stepping into the apartment when she hears the slam of the door. "Oh, for FUCK'S sake!" she says fiercely. And as she stalks in, of course, the hapless Cliath gets the brunt of her glare. "Lay the fuck down."
"I'm armed!" comes Ex's voice—muffled by the door, but certainly loud enough for everyone to hear. "I will stab the fuck out of you. I will shove your fucking five-A down your fucking throat and make you choke on it!"
Flint takes a bit of a breath as he sits up, and again, laying back down is a rather abrupt motion more akin to collapsing backwards on the bed. "She. Woke up, and she was," Flint says, "and, she. I asked her, to. Unlock, it." Then Flint's silent.
Rina winces, glancing down. She takes a long, slow breath, letting it out in a sigh. "Maa—donn'," she mutters, rubbing at the back of her neck.
Kavi's hands go to the door, shoulder height at either side. He leans in, touching his forehead to the wood, and draws in a deep breath. "Come out," he says, the gravelly tones of his glabro voice more than capable of penetrating the distance.
"Ex," Rina says casually, raising her voice. "If your knife isn't silver, it won't do shit, you know."
There's silence from the bathroom. A long, pregnant sort of silence, and then the lock clicks again. She doesn't actually open the door though.
Flint tries in vain to settle, and ends up propping himself up on the uninjured arm such that he can still look, see what's going on, despite the wince it brings to his face.
This seems to go unchallenged, though Kavi might hear the faintest sound of quickened, anxious breathing from the other side.
Rina rubs at the back of her neck, but lets out another slow breath. She comes to sit on the edge of Flint's bed, then, gingerly, studying his face as if she can read the rest of his state there.
Flint's brow is furrowed, attention on the elder galliard for the half a minute or so that he manages to sit up, and then there's another wince as he settles back on the bed, gaze turning to Rina. "Thank you mom," he whispers.
Kavi takes half a step back and to the side. "No one will hurt you," he says and then pushes at the door enough that if the hinges are loose, it could swing all the way.
Rina touches a hand to Flint's. "You shouldn't move that much, aright? Not until at least t'morra. Text me, you need me ta bring somethin'."
It ends up mostly doing that. Ex is halfway into the small bathroom, with her knife raised (blade pointed down, as Slug helpfully instructed). Her abnormally bright eyes look rather wet and glassy just now, though there's no sign of tears having actually fallen. Or, for that matter, falling. Her gaze flicks over Kavi, and she slowly lowers the knife. There a sharper inhale, just one, and she seems to swallow something.
The cliath nods, and there's another wince as all the movement that he's done takes a toll, no hiding the evident pain that's returned between the exertion and the last dose of painkillers being long hours ago. "Try not to," he agrees.
Kavi steps back again from the door, leaving a clear path from one to the other, should Ex choose to take it. He looks at her for only a moment and then gestures toward the open, broken door. The injuries he sustained the other day in pulling her out of Devon's reach have yet to fully heal.
Rina nods, her gaze on the boy, serious. "You want another dose, or no? If you think you need it to sleep, the answer is yes. You'll heal faster. If you can sleep without it, great."
Ex folds the switchblade and tucks it back into her pocket, then shuffles out of the bathroom—though she doesn't move for the hallway itself. Her shoulders hunch as she goes, and her head lowers, and now it's Kavi she's watching from under hooded eyelids, rather than Flint. The would-be tears are rapidly blinked away.
Flint glances past Rina, to Ex, as she emerges, and watches her, before attention returns to the question asked. "It hurts," is the very simple answer. "It, I. Woke up, because." There's a nod. "I. I think yes." Chest rises and falls, breaths sometimes bringing a wince.
Kavi's expression is hard to read, more closed than usual and his glabro form makes everything sharper, harder, as well. "You're okay, now?" he asks, but even the question is flat, almost a statement as inflected.
Rina nods, and glances to Kavi. "After they go," she says quietly.
"We were just talking," Ex replies. There's a tinge of the expected excuse to it, but much like Kavi's words, it comes out more like a statement of fact, missing most of the sort of emphasis it should have.
There is a flare of anger from Flint, though it doesn't stir him much, "I told you! I said—" and the cliath bites his lower lip and shuts his mouth, falling silent with some effort, breathing now less steady than it had been before.
Rina silences him with a squeeze of his hand and a tiny, authoritative shake of her head.
Kavi tenses, shoulders rising, hunching, at the flare of anger from the cliath. His lips pull back from his teeth in his own display, though his is silent, and it's impossible to tell at whom it is directed. He gestures again to the open door, and this time there's more of a directive in it as he looks to Ex.
There's a flash of temper from Ex as well; muted, tightly restrained, visible only in her eyes and her expression. She doesn't look at any of the three as she heads for the hallway at a swift clip.
Flint bites his lower lip and shuts his eyes, silencing at the touch of his hand and putting effort into pulling the anger back down and pushing it away, and he reaches for the nearby water bottle, fumbling until he gets it.
Kavi glances back to Flint and Rina, and then follows Ex out into the hall.
Rina passes it to him without a word, her gaze steady. "There," she says. "Gone now. Until I get back, I want you to focus on your breathing. Lie down and breathe low, try to breathe into the pain. Into where it hurts."
Flint nods, taking a few sips of the water and looking to Rina. The cliath's breathing steadies, with effort, and he looks up, gaze mostly unfocused. "Gone now?" he repeats, seeking assurance a little bit.
Rina nods. "Yeah. I'll be back." Another little squeeze to his hand, and she steps out.
Flint is breathing, slowly, in and out. But it's more steady, now, and the cliath has settled. He's laying on his back, the blanket half around him. Most of the bandages from on his chest and shoulder are in place, not disturbed by the stress.
She's back before long, with that little book-sized leather kit. She closes the door as best she can, and then heads in, coming to sit on the edge of the bed again.
There's another moment of trying to sit up, a quiet and annoyed sound as Flint stops trying after barely a few seconds, eyes wincing shut. "I should have, have told her. To go away, not. Not talked when," the young galliard says, the words trailing off.
Unzipping the kit, she takes out the little medical vial and fills the syringe. "Glad the moon's finally going down," she murmurs. "I don't like doin' this much. Unless someone's seriously fucked up." Setting the needle down, she takes up the tourniquet and binds his upper arm, deft movements orchestrated by many repetitions. "Which," she gives him a stern look, "you are. You need to sleep tonight. I don't want you waking up to pee—seriously, I got a jug thing and I'm leavin' it by the bed. Aright? Make a fist." Turning her gaze to the inside of his arm, she prods until she finds a vein.
There's the sound of a fist hitting drywall not too far away.
Flint is cooperative, arm held out and straight for her, hand clenched to a fist such that the vein is easy enough to find, though the sounds from the hall startle him. And then Flint stills. "I, I. If, whatshisname, hadn't. Come, it. It could have been…" There's worry, what-ifs creeping into the boy's voice, as he looks up at Rina.
Rina winces just a little. "Probably Kavi," she mutters. "Who's whatshisname?" she asks, picking up the needle and flicking a finger against it.
"Earlier," Flint says, quietly, keeping as still as he can while speaking. "With. April. He. He never said, name, but. Knew. He knew, and he. Said, he was going, to. To call Salem-rhya, and." The cliath's distress at the earlier incident is audible in his voice now. "And, office, we… how messed up was, was, the, office?"
She leans over to kiss his forehead gently, a wordless benediction. "Hush," she says quietly. "Don'worry about it. We'll work it all out. People frenzy, it happens, aright?" Her touch returns to his arm, and then there's the cold feeling of the drug again, a brief sensation that soon passes into the heavy euphoria.
Flint pulls in a breath, quieting a little, "He, he shoo'd off some kid who was, too close," Flint says, the second half of the sentence not at all tense compared to the first and the boy's arm relaxes. "Okay," the boy says, trust in the tone. An incredible amount of trust in the tone, as he looks at Rina.
Rina puts a palm to his cheek, dark eyes meeting his for a moment. "It'll be fine," she says firmly. "Now sleep."
The boy nods, reaching to pull the blanket up a bit, though failing. It doesn't take long for the first drowsing off of sleep to claim him, and he looks at Rina a moment. "Don't, go 'way?" he asks, that same trust echoing in the low tones of his voice. Flint's eyes close, and open, and close again.
"I'll stay awhile," Rina answers, tugging up the blanket to cover him, watching the boy's face.
By the time she's finished speaking, Flint's asleep, lips in a drawn line that softens now, breathing in the more steady patterns of someone who's asleep.
It's a long time before she gets up to leave him—and even then, she hesitates long enough to fix the covers a little more precisely.
11 July, 2012
The moon is in the waning Half (Philodox) Moon phase (46% full).
Flint's in glabro, half-on top of the blankets, and there's a humming from the cliath's apartment, the first signs of stirring that he's shown in hours as the last of the painkillers from earlier wear off. Earphones are half-in, one on the pillow. There's a water bottle within reach, and the greater part of his abdomen, stomach, and right shoulder are covered in bandages. He's still drifting, in and out a little bit, every so often glancing towards the door, or picking up the IR remote and pointing it at his phone to change the song.
It's during one of these idle glances, without any sound loud enough to be heard over the music or his own humming, that the door abruptly appears open, with Ex standing framed in the doorway. Her eyes are narrow, with her head low enough that she's looking at him from under hooded lids. Her hands are empty, but the right one is curled into a fist.
It's clear that there's a moment where Flint tries to sit up when he spots Ex, and then he fails, slumping back into the mattress and giving her a half-nod. There're red, ugly scratches on his jaw, as well, though they've been cleaned and tended as well as possible.
Ex eyes Flint's state dispassionately; there's no real change to her expression at all. "Evil werewolf?" she hazards.
Flint shakes his head once. "Argument," he grunts, turning and his uninjured arm moves the pillow so he can at least look at the cub. "Hey, Ex."
Ex's eyes narrow a little further. She steps into the room, entirely uninvited, and then she does a strange thing. She shuts the door behind her. "That's how werewolves argue?"
"If…" the cliath musters focus, and shakes his head. "The argument," he continues, "lead to. To, getting angry, to Frenzy. Which, is what happens when. When Garou argue."
"Y'know," Ex says, slowly. Both of her hands are still behind her back, around the doorknob. There's the faint click of the lock. "Doesn't seem like you people have all that much control yourselves. How're you supposed to fucking teach me?" Her tone is level, almost conversational despite the words used.
Flint looks at her. "Unlock it," he says, conversational himself. "Please."
Ex pulls her hands away from the knob. She does not, in fact, unlock the door, but she does take two steps further into the room. "Well?" She waits barely a moment. "How're you supposed to?"
Flint looks at Ex, and there is a tired sigh and another attempt to pick himself up from the bed, and that attempt fails. "Sometimes, I. I'm still, learning," Flint says. "Cliath, doesn't mean. Not, no one's perfect. Kavi-rhya is, helping me with it, though. Please unlock, the. The door." Flint's breathing is hard, and he silences, to grab his water bottle and pull the sports-cap open with his teeth.
"Devon lost it on Kevin," Ex points out. Still, she doesn't so much as look back toward the door, though she does watch his attempts at getting up through those same, hooded eyes. "You have to breathe, you know. But if I stepped on your neck, you'd last a lot longer without air if you were hybrid form."
Flint listens to Ex for a moment, and sets aside his water bottle, hands pulling the blanket up and over him. There's a half-muttered 'ngh' and he ignores the cub a bit, ostensibly trying to be comfortable again. "Too much talk," he says, before his free hand comes out from the blankets to pull out the earphone. "Hurts to talk, right now."
To Kavi, Rina: ex came by. in apt. she locked door, wont unlock. not good, pls come?"I want to talk," Ex insists. "Anyway, if you got stabbed though, over and over, would it kill you? I think it'd have to be a lot, in a real vulnerable place. Maybe if it went through your eye and into your brain." Her lips purse. "But it'd have to do that a lot too. They can slice up there if they want."
"Knives, heal fast, wait breath, and it heals," the cliath says. "Unless, silver. It's, claws, other things. Doesn't heal fast, does heal." Flint takes a deep breath, and he's not wholly ignoring Ex, but there's a sense of the wooziness of pain medication and drugs in his manner.
Ex nods several times. "It'd have to be a lot of stabbing. Maybe not even then." She takes another step, and then leans forward. "Tell me how you find people."
The cliath bares his teeth at her, but it's a weary gesture. "Unlock. The. My door. This is, my space," Flint informs her.
Ex repeats, with emphasis, "Tell me how you find people." A beat. "If this is your space, the fuck do you care about the door?"
"Because," Flint says, there's a little of the tiredness in his voice. "Said so." His uninjured shoulder lifts, and Ex's primary question gets a shake of his head. "I dun know. I can't do it."
This time, Ex is the one to flash her teeth. "I don't do things just 'cause a little kid 'says so'. So who does know how?"
Flint is clearly not all the way present, and he looks at Ex, the half-sided shrug as he tries to get comfortable, finishing in a wince. His voice raises. "Don't know."
Rina knocks on the door. "Hey, ah, Flint?"
Ex starts to say something, but the knock startles her. She flicks a glance toward the door.
Flint looks at Ex, then looks at the door. "Ex," he says, loudly enough that he might be heard through the door, on the other side, and his voice is strained, though it might be the pain from talking given his injuries. "Get the door, please."
There's the briefest of twitches to Ex's mouth. "No," she declares. Not loudly, but it's still likely to be audible to the other side of the door.
Even as exhausted as Flint is, that brings a flash of anger to his face, and he pushes to sitting up with an audible exclamation of pain. "Then leave my room," he tells Ex, words carefully grunted out, and points with uninjured arm at the door.
Rina takes a slow breath. "Ex," she says patiently, "I am perfectly capable of blowing this door open, but I would really rather not have to do it. Doors are expensive and we go through a lot of them around here."
"No," Ex says again. This time, she sounds almost delighted. At the very least, closer than she ever has before. She jerks her gaze back to the door as Rina speaks, and scowls. "I'm just talking."
Wincing, Rina steps back, looks to Kavi and mutters, "I don't wanna shoot her by accident. Shoulder?"
Halfway to sitting up is as far as Flint gets, and there's a glance towards the doorway, and towards Ex, before Flint lays back down with less grace than an elephant.
Even as Rina turns she can see the bandages rip from his arm as he shifts. It's only a moment after that, not even a full second, that the full force of his glabro weight comes against the door and the wood around the lock cracks and comes apart and the door flies inward.
Rina winces, bringing up a hand to rub at the back of her neck. "Or Glabro, that'd be fine too," she says with a certain pained dryness.
Whatever Ex was expecting as a reaction, it certainly wasn't that. She flees from the suddenly inward swinging door, straight past—or over—Flint, to the bathroom. Where she proceeds to slam and lock the door again.
Flint looks to the doorway, wincing a little but there's also a grateful expression, even as he fights to regain a sitting position. "Really?" he grunts, eyes shutting. The cliath shouldn't be sitting up, and he looks to Kavi. "Do you, Nieve has a gift, that? She. Opened drawers, with it, and, cabinets."
Kavi watches Ex flee, even as he follows her deeper into the room. He doesn't even seem to hear Flint, though he stops at the bathroom door, and his fingers rake back through his hair.
Rina is stepping into the apartment when she hears the slam of the door. "Oh, for FUCK'S sake!" she says fiercely. And as she stalks in, of course, the hapless Cliath gets the brunt of her glare. "Lay the fuck down."
"I'm armed!" comes Ex's voice—muffled by the door, but certainly loud enough for everyone to hear. "I will stab the fuck out of you. I will shove your fucking five-A down your fucking throat and make you choke on it!"
Flint takes a bit of a breath as he sits up, and again, laying back down is a rather abrupt motion more akin to collapsing backwards on the bed. "She. Woke up, and she was," Flint says, "and, she. I asked her, to. Unlock, it." Then Flint's silent.
Rina winces, glancing down. She takes a long, slow breath, letting it out in a sigh. "Maa—donn'," she mutters, rubbing at the back of her neck.
Kavi's hands go to the door, shoulder height at either side. He leans in, touching his forehead to the wood, and draws in a deep breath. "Come out," he says, the gravelly tones of his glabro voice more than capable of penetrating the distance.
"Ex," Rina says casually, raising her voice. "If your knife isn't silver, it won't do shit, you know."
There's silence from the bathroom. A long, pregnant sort of silence, and then the lock clicks again. She doesn't actually open the door though.
Flint tries in vain to settle, and ends up propping himself up on the uninjured arm such that he can still look, see what's going on, despite the wince it brings to his face.
This seems to go unchallenged, though Kavi might hear the faintest sound of quickened, anxious breathing from the other side.
Rina rubs at the back of her neck, but lets out another slow breath. She comes to sit on the edge of Flint's bed, then, gingerly, studying his face as if she can read the rest of his state there.
Flint's brow is furrowed, attention on the elder galliard for the half a minute or so that he manages to sit up, and then there's another wince as he settles back on the bed, gaze turning to Rina. "Thank you mom," he whispers.
Kavi takes half a step back and to the side. "No one will hurt you," he says and then pushes at the door enough that if the hinges are loose, it could swing all the way.
Rina touches a hand to Flint's. "You shouldn't move that much, aright? Not until at least t'morra. Text me, you need me ta bring somethin'."
It ends up mostly doing that. Ex is halfway into the small bathroom, with her knife raised (blade pointed down, as Slug helpfully instructed). Her abnormally bright eyes look rather wet and glassy just now, though there's no sign of tears having actually fallen. Or, for that matter, falling. Her gaze flicks over Kavi, and she slowly lowers the knife. There a sharper inhale, just one, and she seems to swallow something.
The cliath nods, and there's another wince as all the movement that he's done takes a toll, no hiding the evident pain that's returned between the exertion and the last dose of painkillers being long hours ago. "Try not to," he agrees.
Kavi steps back again from the door, leaving a clear path from one to the other, should Ex choose to take it. He looks at her for only a moment and then gestures toward the open, broken door. The injuries he sustained the other day in pulling her out of Devon's reach have yet to fully heal.
Rina nods, her gaze on the boy, serious. "You want another dose, or no? If you think you need it to sleep, the answer is yes. You'll heal faster. If you can sleep without it, great."
Ex folds the switchblade and tucks it back into her pocket, then shuffles out of the bathroom—though she doesn't move for the hallway itself. Her shoulders hunch as she goes, and her head lowers, and now it's Kavi she's watching from under hooded eyelids, rather than Flint. The would-be tears are rapidly blinked away.
Flint glances past Rina, to Ex, as she emerges, and watches her, before attention returns to the question asked. "It hurts," is the very simple answer. "It, I. Woke up, because." There's a nod. "I. I think yes." Chest rises and falls, breaths sometimes bringing a wince.
Kavi's expression is hard to read, more closed than usual and his glabro form makes everything sharper, harder, as well. "You're okay, now?" he asks, but even the question is flat, almost a statement as inflected.
Rina nods, and glances to Kavi. "After they go," she says quietly.
"We were just talking," Ex replies. There's a tinge of the expected excuse to it, but much like Kavi's words, it comes out more like a statement of fact, missing most of the sort of emphasis it should have.
There is a flare of anger from Flint, though it doesn't stir him much, "I told you! I said—" and the cliath bites his lower lip and shuts his mouth, falling silent with some effort, breathing now less steady than it had been before.
Rina silences him with a squeeze of his hand and a tiny, authoritative shake of her head.
Kavi tenses, shoulders rising, hunching, at the flare of anger from the cliath. His lips pull back from his teeth in his own display, though his is silent, and it's impossible to tell at whom it is directed. He gestures again to the open door, and this time there's more of a directive in it as he looks to Ex.
There's a flash of temper from Ex as well; muted, tightly restrained, visible only in her eyes and her expression. She doesn't look at any of the three as she heads for the hallway at a swift clip.
Flint bites his lower lip and shuts his eyes, silencing at the touch of his hand and putting effort into pulling the anger back down and pushing it away, and he reaches for the nearby water bottle, fumbling until he gets it.
Kavi glances back to Flint and Rina, and then follows Ex out into the hall.
Rina passes it to him without a word, her gaze steady. "There," she says. "Gone now. Until I get back, I want you to focus on your breathing. Lie down and breathe low, try to breathe into the pain. Into where it hurts."
Flint nods, taking a few sips of the water and looking to Rina. The cliath's breathing steadies, with effort, and he looks up, gaze mostly unfocused. "Gone now?" he repeats, seeking assurance a little bit.
Rina nods. "Yeah. I'll be back." Another little squeeze to his hand, and she steps out.
Flint is breathing, slowly, in and out. But it's more steady, now, and the cliath has settled. He's laying on his back, the blanket half around him. Most of the bandages from on his chest and shoulder are in place, not disturbed by the stress.
She's back before long, with that little book-sized leather kit. She closes the door as best she can, and then heads in, coming to sit on the edge of the bed again.
There's another moment of trying to sit up, a quiet and annoyed sound as Flint stops trying after barely a few seconds, eyes wincing shut. "I should have, have told her. To go away, not. Not talked when," the young galliard says, the words trailing off.
Unzipping the kit, she takes out the little medical vial and fills the syringe. "Glad the moon's finally going down," she murmurs. "I don't like doin' this much. Unless someone's seriously fucked up." Setting the needle down, she takes up the tourniquet and binds his upper arm, deft movements orchestrated by many repetitions. "Which," she gives him a stern look, "you are. You need to sleep tonight. I don't want you waking up to pee—seriously, I got a jug thing and I'm leavin' it by the bed. Aright? Make a fist." Turning her gaze to the inside of his arm, she prods until she finds a vein.
There's the sound of a fist hitting drywall not too far away.
Flint is cooperative, arm held out and straight for her, hand clenched to a fist such that the vein is easy enough to find, though the sounds from the hall startle him. And then Flint stills. "I, I. If, whatshisname, hadn't. Come, it. It could have been…" There's worry, what-ifs creeping into the boy's voice, as he looks up at Rina.
Rina winces just a little. "Probably Kavi," she mutters. "Who's whatshisname?" she asks, picking up the needle and flicking a finger against it.
"Earlier," Flint says, quietly, keeping as still as he can while speaking. "With. April. He. He never said, name, but. Knew. He knew, and he. Said, he was going, to. To call Salem-rhya, and." The cliath's distress at the earlier incident is audible in his voice now. "And, office, we… how messed up was, was, the, office?"
She leans over to kiss his forehead gently, a wordless benediction. "Hush," she says quietly. "Don'worry about it. We'll work it all out. People frenzy, it happens, aright?" Her touch returns to his arm, and then there's the cold feeling of the drug again, a brief sensation that soon passes into the heavy euphoria.
Flint pulls in a breath, quieting a little, "He, he shoo'd off some kid who was, too close," Flint says, the second half of the sentence not at all tense compared to the first and the boy's arm relaxes. "Okay," the boy says, trust in the tone. An incredible amount of trust in the tone, as he looks at Rina.
Rina puts a palm to his cheek, dark eyes meeting his for a moment. "It'll be fine," she says firmly. "Now sleep."
The boy nods, reaching to pull the blanket up a bit, though failing. It doesn't take long for the first drowsing off of sleep to claim him, and he looks at Rina a moment. "Don't, go 'way?" he asks, that same trust echoing in the low tones of his voice. Flint's eyes close, and open, and close again.
"I'll stay awhile," Rina answers, tugging up the blanket to cover him, watching the boy's face.
By the time she's finished speaking, Flint's asleep, lips in a drawn line that softens now, breathing in the more steady patterns of someone who's asleep.
It's a long time before she gets up to leave him—and even then, she hesitates long enough to fix the covers a little more precisely.