if the sky can crack (~3 day timejump)
She feels like sheâs eaten her heart a thousand times over in the past few days. The pub stinks of alcohol and blood and sweat and vomit, but itâs tempered by the icy air. Itâs barely better than outside, but at least theyâre protected by the building snow (a never-ending blizzard it seems, as if the country is rebelling and trying to bury everyone who isnât yet) and the brisk wind. She dragged a metal trash can into the pub yesterday and started a fire, keeps a fire extinguisher on hand in case, the fire melting her icy skin as she holds her hands over the flames.
Alys ventures outside as a matter of necessity, scourging up antibiotics and a few painkiller pills that the other looters missed, cans of soup, anything thatâs canned, and blankets to drape over Jonâs fevered form. He drifts in and out of consciousness, of awareness, and when he is awake, he is barely lucid. She doesnât know how to help, doesnât know anything but to keep fluids in him, keep him swallowing pills and soup and keeping him warm, and theyâre feeble efforts, really, and Alys feels useless and pathetic before his fever finally breaks.
The puffiness and redness of his wound goes down, the fevered heat dissipates from his body, and Alys relaxes for the first time, muscles releasing tension, her anger and rage (such red hot emotions, so foreign to her, used to only fear and numbness and cold, that it makes her wired but it stresses her when the tensions refuses to leave, when it stays buried in her marrow) evaporates, draining from her. She slumps in the booth, her hand with splits and cracks and bitten nails feeling Jonâs forehead, feels the absence of fever.
Alys had pushed and arranged the booths to create a makeshift bed and the high sides prevented Jon from falling off. She had tried to sleep next to him, but his mumblings and fevered skin burned a brand against her, so she only spent nights next to him, trying to pull her body inward against itself, trying to keep them both warm. Alys had to be aware for the both of them, had to help Jon with everything â forcing him to eat, forcing him to take pills, helping him to the bathroom (which he was thankfully able to handle) and it seems the entire world has narrowed down to this â to the pub, the world a blur of white and grey outside the walls, burying them in the cold and wind and snow. Its floors are slick and sticky with blood but no walkers come. Perhaps they are buried by it all too.
Every time she closes her eyes, they appear, blue eyes shining, wounds dripping black, and they all wear Darynâs face, the faces of her brothers. She is cold and she doesnât feel alive â she is frozen by the weather, by the silence in this space, and by the memories she shoves away. She justifies bringing out the bottle of alcohol, she canât sleep without having nightmares and perhaps this will clear her mind, wipe it clear and safe for her to rest, and Jon is out of danger, besides, the entrance is barred, no low windows for them to crash through.
The first swallow stings and her stomach churns, her body crying for more food but she rations cautiously now (canned food is all thatâs left and the power fluxes ruin any frozen food she might have scavenged) and she wants to cry from how useless she feels, how helpless she was (unable to save Daryn, a warning on the tip of her tongue a moment too late, unable to stop Theon from shooting, panic rising like bile as Jeyne calmly took in the situation, hands moving, steadily assembling the equipment, the careful precision of needle and thread closing skin back together. Greyjoy is erratic, but Jeyne is strong and willful and maybe sheâll keep them both alive.)
You wonât feel it as much, she wanted to say to them, itâs there and heavy but you canât hold it in front, not when youâre running and shooting and tired and hungry. You donât have room for it. But she bit down on it and she loaded her gun and waited for the walkers to smell the blood.
The alcohol is burning through her limbs now, making them heavy and tired and warm and itâs a welcome respite from the ice, from the stiff movements, and she sits on the floor, leaning against the bar and it feels like she could choke from it all even though sheâs not drunk. But she canât, not while her heart is gone, not when a sliver of her whispers live live, her desire to spite the world who is throwing everything against her. Everyone she loved is gone but she isnât. She wants to feel something beyond the cold and the death and the fear and the hunger seeping into her bones, her marrow, her blood, and the alcohol burns through it and maybe thatâs enough.
