#themageofmany

[calamitysshatteredson]

@themageofmany liked for a thing!

"No. Absolutely not." He wasn't really talking to either of them, not Skylar and not himself, and not any particular unnamed entity potentially in control of the universe either. They were just words, offsetting the panic that he was not going to let himself feel overwhelmed by. He was going to continue tearing clothes to wrap with, to soak up the blood, to stop the bleeding--

He'd still had some fairly decent reaction time and sword muscle memory, it turned out. Unfortunately, it was for a much longer sword at a much different weight, and he just-- He hadn't, in time, in the right place before he'd managed to correct himself and his stance, and she'd--

"This isn't how it ends. It isn't." Rip. "Not now, not after all this." Zip. Surgeon's knot, they call that. "I made a promise." He wasn't all that good at holding to those, apparently. Or making them possible.

[goldendivinewrath]

@themageofmany liked for a thing!

Somewhere between one mostly empty (and partially collapsed) charging station and a tiny grouping of buildings that could be called a town in the broadest sense, they were walking again. Supplies weren't bad, but they hadn't been the best through the last couple of places they'd been to. Understandable, doing a little avoiding of the busiest spots until it seemed safer.

Kind of annoying, too, but Vash tried to keep that thought to himself. After all, that'd been his plan, hadn't it? Stay out of trouble. Find somewhere Skylar could stay out of trouble. Problem was how far away that might be and how much time that might take, and--

Oh. Something inside his coat bumped against his knee; he'd completely forgotten about that! He could save it, sure, or he could just redirect a little bit of energy for a few minutes as they tried not sliding down a dune. Getting to the bottom without anyone face-planting was reason enough to celebrate, letting out a silly little whoop and reaching into his pocket to hold out a suspiciously cold soft drink. "It's-- Uh, some flavor. I don't know, the label's kind of gone, but it should still be good!"

[royalbratprince]

❝ Oh yeah,  I’ve been here before.  I can see it with eyes closed. ❞

Silent Hill Starters | accepting but slowwww

Noct's lips were pressed tightly together as he looked around in silence. Seconds ticked by, possibly minutes, movement slow, languid, but he was determined to look. To see and maybe memorize, but...

There wasn't much to see. Seemingly barren in all directions, from where they were. He didn't want to think about how his heart should have been pounding. How it should have been hard to breathe. (Was he breathing? Since when--)

No. No. Focus. "You know the way out, then?" He asked, airy and cool before looking back at Skylar. A way out. A way back would have been his preference, but that... Too specific. Too much of a set-up for more than just being disappointed. Slowly, little by little. Let hope build in fits and starts.

[goldendivinewrath]

❝ They make fun of me. ❞

Silent Hill Starters | accepting but slowwww

"Hm?" Vash paused in his chewing, then politely swallowed. It was one of those rare times lately when he actually felt hungry, but that might have been partly because of the bakery with wide open doors and being up early enough to have their pick of baked goods. "What for?"

Not that it mattered, exactly, but he was curious. "A-ah, I mean, you don't have to tell me. Forget I asked, if you want, just..."

He picked at the pastry for a moment, getting his thoughts together. Tearing little fluffy, sugar bits into smaller and smaller pieces with prosthetic fingers. "People can be kind of mean without knowing it. Or meaning to be, but that's-- Not better. Not really."

[stonecoldmeme]

❝ It would be a much better sight with you with me.❞

Silent Hill Starters | accepting but slowwww

It was a good thing that she'd learned from the moment they'd met that he was nowhere near smooth. Confident in some things, sure, and he could definitely accidentally catch objects thrown at or near him without too many fumbles, but anything even related to what he referred to as "relationship stuff"? No clue. Never had one, probably never would.

Skylar floored him. She just kind of did that sometimes, true, but he was left without a thought in his head for several seconds. She was... saying what he thought she was saying, right? Prompto kind of had to... look. Not stare! Just. Look.

Then he flustered hard before finally looping back around to semi-confidence and the usual conversation. "Wow, I can't even joke about you buying me lunch first because you literally are doing that."

[calamitysshatteredson]

❝ I’m here and waiting for you.  Where are you?  I can’t find you. ❞

Silent Hill Starters | accepting but slowwww

The sound coming from between his fingers was almost laughter. Sounded like it, nearly. Didn't feel a thing like laughter, but maybe he was a little rusty in making the sound, let alone recognizing it.

Sephiroth breathed, a startlingly loud noise after he'd been listening to the erratic rhythm of his own heartbeat for so long, and then this-- Hallucination.

He wished very much he could just call it that and be done with it. Or that he could claim not to know the know, know exactly who it belonged to, but as for him... "Gone again, I think." Straight to the non-answer. Where the real uncertainty was.

She wasn't here. She wasn't anywhere. Or maybe that was him after all. This dark place he did and didn't recognize, like the voice he did and didn't know. (He did. He did. He could try to deny it all he wanted, but he--

There would be no one there when he looked up. So he didn't.

[goldendivinewrath]

@themageofmany liked for a thing!

He was patient, generally. At least, he considered himself patient, but he supposed what other people thought could be incredibly different--

Not the point. In spite of numerous temptations to just do the best thing for her and try to leave her somewhere safe, Vash... hadn't. Still wanted to, sure, still occasionally tried to convince her to stay in one of the nice little towns they stopped in (and preferably left before someone recognized him), but he didn't simply give her the slip.

Mostly because he knew she would find him and bounty hunters were actually a lesser concern. He did not try to reason that one out.

Still, they did work well together, once he'd started allowing it. A traveling companion wasn't a bad thing across the sands, and when they were on the same page everything was great! But... they were also maybe extremely capable of annoying each other. A lot. And being very outwardly impatient. Which was a spiraling feedback loop. And both of them being, perhaps just a little bit, stubborn brats--

They both reached for a pan at the same time. That was it. Someone got their hand bumped away, a bump lead to a slap, a slap lead to a slap fight where they were both reaching and smacking away and--

He did not mean to bite! He didn't! It wasn't deep or anything! But it was obvious, and it was quite obviously a bite on Skylar's reaching hand and maybe there was a little bit of an annoyed grumble as he held on, but that--

Oh. Shit. Guiltily, Vash dropped the hand in his mouth and sat back. He was content to pretend it hadn't happened, but the look on Skylar's face immediately spurred him into tripping all over himself with, "Sorry! Sorry, can you just-- Sit. Still. And I'll-- I'll take care of that."

He was very insistent that she get more of what the can insisted was "chili" than he did. Another attempted apology, but he wasn't sure how well that transferred given the fare.

[calamitysshatteredson]

@themageofmany [From here because brain finally "a-ha"ed.]

Wincing back slightly was really the least he could have done. The words left this mouth a bit before he had a chance to think about them, and... all fair points made. More than. There was more to tear into, even, though he was grateful for where she'd stopped. For the moment.

"I wasn't particularly in the mindset to think about other people at the time." It wasn't an excuse, and he didn't offer it as one. More, it was a flat, tired sort of reminder to himself more than anyone. It was him. His fault. He'd been there, just... not completely as himself. Things he barely understood were a little difficult to explain, to say the least. Like how he did remember the stabbing, but there'd been completely different reactions happening at once. One of them was horror. Sephiroth wished that mattered.

He just sat in silence, gathering his thoughts together as Skylar moved around him, not completely aware of where she was or what she was doing. Not until there was tea set in front of him, the smell more than anything pulling him out of his own mind. What was up... and was he up to talking about it...

After a few tense seconds, he sighed, staring into the tea itself. "I'm having... dreams again. Not memories, not nightmares... Not--" He still couldn't speak her name without difficulty. Not Jenova. That would incite panic more than anything. Fingers lightly running along the teacup's edge, his eyes narrowed as he tried to pinpoint the sense of it all. Another name he found difficult to speak for different reasons. "The... Cetra. Aerith. It feels like... she's speaking and I can't hear her."