TREBUCHET [P]

[Tarrik Rosdahl]

Coming to was a lot less like daytime TV, and a whole lot more like something out of a Die Hard sequel. Tarrik had fallen off his bedroll, whacked over a bowl of water, struggled to his feet and tipped over no less than three tables and two people by the time inertia caught up with him and knocked him flat.

It hurt.

A lot.

The garble of Spanglish that he growled into the concrete floor went mostly ignored or misunderstood, because instead of getting out of his way two pairs of arms grabbed him and dragged him back onto his bedroll. He impolitely disagreed, and the resulting brawl slash shouting match left the tenderfoot hiding behind an upturned table, and the medic storming off with a bloody nose to get someone to strap his stupid ass down. Panic threaded in at the mention of the ties, and he snarled at the tenderfoot when they made a move to do something, and stood there in scared confusion. Everything was a painful blur of familiar and unknown, and fear pounded under all of it like a war drum. Or maybe that was his heartbeat, he couldn't tell. He knew they were medics, but he didn't know who they were. The piles of spare clothing, food, and water where all in places he knew before he looked, but the room itself seemed strange. His headache was getting worse and worse, and he struggled to focus on what he knew.

His name was Tarrik Graywall, he was twenty-two years old. His brother was named Tain. He was in the Menagerie. He was Fulsi. He'd seen Charm recently, she hadn't looked happy or pleased. There had been a fight, outside the hospital, Holly had helped him and... what? Helped him and what?!

The pounding grew louder, and faster. Outside the door he heard someone yelling a relayed message; the tenderfoot behind the table squeaked an answer, then repeated it when Tarrik was too out of it to demand he shut up. Bandages covered his arms, back and chest, and he was wearing nothing else. He was freezing cold despite the heat, which meant he had a fever. And he was still missing something, something that had him in a panic as he tried to remember what it was. He couldn't stay in the room, it was stifling him with it's lack of answers and the smell of sick and blood.

Gravity fought him as he lurched into motion, but he ignored it as he made for one of the interior doors, grabbing a pile of cloth from the counter of clothes as he went. He'd thought they were pants of some kind, but as he shook it loose with fumbling, numb fingers in the hallway it revealed itself to be a baffling length of plaid that he tied clumsily around his waist anyways.

He had no idea where he was going, but his feet seemed to as he dodged through hallways and struggled up stairs. Any sound or sign of people he avoided like the plague. Soon, the ruckus of the medical wing was behind him and all he had was the quiet darkness of the hallways. It was nearly dark out, but ambient light was just barely lighting his way. Dawn, then, or some time before it.

Finally, a door. His hand stilled on the handle as he tried to grasp why he was there, but his mind was turning over nothing, other than he had to look inside. So he did, quietly entering and pulling it shut behind him, then looked around the dark room. His heart plummeted; there was nothing. Some gear was piled against a wall, an old futon-style bed was in it's couch position, tucked into some of the deepest shadows under a massive bay window. And across from it a balcony with a sliding door, the door standing ajar to let the air circulate. A large, covered container of rainwater was just inside it, and on top of that a plate of mostly ignored food, though it had clearly been chosen for its inability to spoil quickly. Whoever it was for was consistent in refusing their meals, then.

A muffled noise made him spin in place, bare feet silent on the moss-covered carpeting, and stare at a corner of the futon. What he'd dismissed as a pillow stirred a little in it's sleep, tucked into a ball so tight it hadn't even appeared to be an animal. Quiet, as quiet as he could be and still live Tarrik crept closer, pale eyes wide as saucers to try, desperately, to place the lump of fur. It was so achingly familiar it hurt, and he knelt down and leaned his elbows on the futon, fingers just barely not touching. It was the scent that did it, finally. That made connections tumble together, fuse, ignite. He remembered fighting for his life at the hospital, desperate not to let them get to where his friend was sleeping, remembered the hit to his head that made everything turn to a haze. And before that, running for their lives from Ann, who'd chained them and so much worse and he was alive, alive.

"D..Dalton?" he whispered, and touched the tip of one of the coyote's long ears. And then a bit louder, though his voice cracked dangerously, the molten heat of tears burning lines down to his jaw. "Dal?!"

[Dalton Williams]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, width: 477px; height: 422px; background-image:url(http://i49.tinypic.com/ba9hj.png)] This week felt like it was something out of a nightmare, to the point where Dalton was no longer entirely certain as to what was reality and what had simply been conjured from the depths of his imagination. He had scattered memories of that week, though the focal point of it all was that Tarrik was gone. He was gone, they couldn’t find him, they weren’t sure if he was alive. Each thought was like a brick pounding into the side of his head; he felt gutted, numb. First came denial and disbelief, second came acceptance and heartbreak, third came…what? Insanity? It sure seemed that that was the way he was headed. They tried to help him, comfort him, but they couldn’t. Not really, anyways. They didn’t understand what he had gone through, what he needed. Only Tarrik did, because he’d gone through the exact same thing. Dal didn’t need the blankets or their soft, kind words. He shied from embraces, skittish of touch, nervous of stares, and rejected the food they offered him. It sat abandoned and lonely in one corner of his – no, their room, wholly unappetizing. As a consequence, he lost weight. His clothes became loose, baggy. He drank from the water canteens they pressed into his hand, if only out of necessity – they would not let him refuse those no matter how much he tried to give them back. He didn’t care what they said – he didn’t need sleep, didn’t want it. Wasn’t tired, and sleeping meant he wouldn’t be awake if Tarrik came back. It was only when the panic attacks started that they forced his hand again, this time with tranquilizers to calm him and let him sink into dreamless, drugged sleep. When he realized what they had done, he nearly had a meltdown, and they finally backed off some. Needless to say, any medics with needles in their hands were warded off with a guttural, feral snarl. Needles, tranquilizers. She had used those on them. Dal suffered through the panic attacks, at times convinced his heart would eventually just fail him altogether, but it never did. It kept on beating, fast, loud. A thumping in his ears, drowning out background noise, and that strange buzzing feeling that thrummed whenever he thought he might faint. He kept a bucket nearby for the nausea – he’d had too many near misses to not acquire one. It was worse when an attack happened while he was sleeping (when he managed to sleep, that is); he’d wake up in a cold sweat, his chest tight and his breath coming in short, sharp gasps, shivers racking his body. The attacks weren’t the only troubles he had, though. There was the pain, of course, barely masked by the bandages and salves covering the injuries on his back and ribs. And then there were the hallucinations. Those were interesting; he couldn’t recall the last time his insomnia had led to hallucinations, but they made it quite difficult to concentrate on the reality of the situation. They weren’t very vocal, at least, but they were there. At present, he lay in a miserable ball, curled up in one corner of the futon that he and Ari had once shared. It was Ari’s side that he was on, of course – the strong, familiar scent of his bedmate was a small but reassuring comfort to him as of late. A paw twitched as he slept uneasily, and he pressed further down into the bed, his tail wrapping around his body nearly twice-over. Since the Keepers’ experiments, he’d had a few nasty shocks about the state of his shift – including the fact that his tail was now the length of his body. His fellow Fulsi hadn’t much liked the changes either. Maybe it reminded them of the viruses’ shifts. Either way, it didn’t help matters at all. And he could swear he was going crazy because he heard someone calling his name, someone very far off, someone that sounded very much like Ari. He wouldn’t have been much surprised, considering he’d hallucinated and dreamt about him often that week to the point where he’d wake up thinking he was back only to be thoroughly disappointed once more. Still, that voice was persistent, insistent. The coyote cracked one serpentine eye open, then the other, jerking his chin up when he noticed someone leaning over him. His heart leapt into his throat in surprise and fear…until he caught proper sight of the person’s face, took in his scent. He scrambled to his paws, trembling slightly as he shoved his face forwards towards Tarrik, hardly daring to breathe, hope. Slowly, carefully, and painfully, he morphed back to his human figure, crouched on the bed. “T-Tarrik? Is it…it can’t be you. It can’t, I’ve...seen you too many times, it can’t.” He reached a shaking hand out, and gently touched Ari’s cheek, fingers flinching back in surprise when they connected with very real skin. It wasn’t a hallucination. But…but how was…”You’re really here? You’re…you’re…” A heavy swallow followed, tears choking his voice. “Please be..please be really here, don’t leave me again. I need you.” He all but collapsed into a pile in Ari’s lap, wrapping his arms around him in a hug – carefully, being mindful of his back – and burying his face against his shoulder as the tears overflowed. “I need you here, I’ve missed you so much.” Somewhere over Tarrik’s left shoulder, he caught sight of a coyote lying sphinx-like in a corner of the room, watching them both with those green serpent’s eyes. But for once, he didn’t care. This had to be real, it felt real, Coyote be damned. “Where have you been, what happened?” he asked through the tears. OOC; sorry about the length of it. xD if you dun want table [ie. if it's hard to read] let me know and i'll toss it u.u; yayfeelss

[Tarrik Rosdahl]

The hesitant touch was strange, so painfully wrong that a low whine clawed at the inside of his throat, regards from his other half. They were never afraid to cram straight into each others space like a territorial freight train, not jerking back like his hand did a second later. Fear was bottling up, pressure with no way out. Was he forgetting something critical? Had he done something to Dalton, and blacked it out in one of the gaping holes his memory still sported? He didn't believe he could, not under gunpoint and certainly not under.. whatever she did to them.

But Dalton answered that for him, begging him to stay, to be real. The ungainly weight that fell into his lap and knocked him back off his knees was welcome, and no amount of pain could make him try to pry Dalton's arms off of him. Tarrik fumbled for a moment with trying to maneuver his own around him, his limbs were slow and heavy with bone-deep exhaustion, and the hug he managed was weak enough to barely deserve the title. It didn't matter, Tarrik held on with everything he had.

"Damn right I'm here," he whispered, pushing Dal back just a little, then relaxing so their foreheads pressed together, letting him see his friend's eyes. He was searching them, looking from one to the other and unable to settle. All his body wanted to do was close them, fall over asleep and never move for what felt like years. But he couldn't, not yet. Looking at him meant he was alive, and here, and safe. Making himself talk more felt like a titanic effort, but Dalton deserved to know. Hell if he felt anything like Tarrik himself, he needed to know. So he ground the words out, and they were thick on his tongue.

"Drifters, outside the hospital, when I was scouting a bit. Four, I think.. they handed me my ass." He smiled, then, eyes drifting closed as he talked despite his intentions. "I think I was doing alright until they got me in the head like.. five times. Holly ended up helping me, Carna, but I look like Tain, you know? She didn't, and I didn't, I couldn't even remember my name. I didn't mean to forget you, Dal, I'm so sorry, I knew there was something but I just... it was a haze. But she patched me up a bit, I think I might have died otherwise. I can't remember much of it. But she brought me back here, I just woke up and.. um. It wasn't good." Understatement. His ass was toast once Charm got her hands around his neck, but for now he didn't care, for now he wasn't budging. He wanted her to get up there and join them, to have both of them crammed in on either side on the futon and hide for days. It was fantasy, there was an entire ring to run, but that didn't do anything to make him want it less. "But your back, Dal, all those cuts, are you..?" Pale eyes cracked open to watch him again. Of course Dalton wasn't okay; neither of them were right now.

[Dalton Williams]

The press of Ari’s arms around him was a sorely missed comfort, and Dalton shuffled about in his lap until he was close enough to rest his head against his chest. If there had been any doubt in his mind before about whether this Tarrik was the real, true Tarrik, it was immediately erased by the steady heartbeat that drummed beneath Ari’s skin, and the warmth that radiated from him and washed over Dalton. He had once dreamed of hearing that heartbeat again, but found when he woke up that it was only his own beat that he had heard – a panicked, stuttering rhythm that quite honestly terrified him. As it were, the thought of a heart attack had become a startling possibility as of late - he hoped, however, that he could shove that horrible thought away into the darker crevices of his mind now that Ari had returned. He let his friend’s familiar scent envelope him, breathed it in, and found that it calmed him enough to stem the flow of tears that had been trickling.

So when Ari pushed him back a little, a soft whine of protest rose in his throat; he’d wanted to remain like that for an immeasurable length of time. But then Ari’s forehead rested against his own, and he relaxed again, loosening his grip to move his hand up and touch the back of Ari’s neck lightly. It stayed there, gently brushing at short strands of unruly chestnut hair, a gesture meant to reassure his friend. He spoke no words yet, but his eyes met Ari’s with unwavering patience, and he simply listened to the halting and slurred speech. Or tried to, that is – he hit a roadblock in the attempted poker-face upon learning just what had happened to him, and his expression mirrored the jumble of concern, fury and upset that mixed within the pit of his stomach. Five times. He’d been hit in the head five times. No wonder he hadn’t been able to remember him, anyone with a concussion like that would’ve probably felt more dead than alive. And he had faced four attackers on his own, and Dal hadn’t heard a thing. Guilt crept into the mixture; he could’ve helped somehow, spared Ari some of the pain and misadventure or…or something. He should’ve done more to help. Dal’s eyes squeezed shut a moment, focusing on the rest of Ari’s words, laboured though they were.

When he reopened them, Tarrik was watching him as well, waiting expectantly for an answer as to how he was. What could he possibly say to that? He desperately wanted to say that he was alright, to help reassure him further, but lying wouldn’t do any good for either of them. Besides, he was impossible to lie to – he knew Dalton too well. Dal’s hands slid down, both of them this time, to cup either side of his friend’s face lightly. For a moment, he looked rather lost for words, like a blind man stumbling in the dark, but eventually managed to speak. His voice was rough and low from lack of use and dehydration; he’d been avoiding people for days, and only drank when he was desperate. He was sure that much would be noticed by Ari, and perhaps the slight tremor in his tone as well. “My back still hurts,” he admitted, nodding confirmation. “It’s…better, though. The cuts, too. The medics helped as best they could. I…gave them a bit of a hard time, I guess. Stubborn bastards, keep coming to check on me at all hours of the morning. It’s funny, I’d been wishing the door had had a lock. But I’m so glad it doesn’t, cause you got in…”

He fell silent for a moment, swallowing heavily and feeling like he might just choke on his tongue at any moment. “Please don’t apologize, don’t you dare,” A hand brushed a stray piece of hair away. “You’ve nothing to be sorry for. I’m the one who’s sorry…I…I should’ve tried harder to find you, and..and I did, you know. I looked for you. Snuck away to look. But then they caught me, made me stay inside ‘cause they were worried about infection. And I didn’t care about that, made the scouts hunt around. Made ‘em hunt, and hunt, until they were as tired and sore as I was, and every time they turned up without you I just…” His throat felt like it was closing, his voice rising an octave as he tried to finished before he completely choked up. “I-I just. Kept going over…everything that had happened, y’know? Over and over, imagining what I could’ve done differently to…to help. To keep you from getting hurt like this,” he gestured with a wince, leaning away a little to study him, watering eyes drifting from one cut to another. “Have you been to the medics?” He finally asked, voice a bit calmer as he sniffed a little, and moved back over to him again to catch his chin and peer at the nasty bruising near the top of his head. The coyote in the corner regarded them with a solemn expression as Dalton helped to haul Ari up onto the bed, which was considerably more comfortable than the mossy floor, and pulled him into another hug.


OOC; has it really not been since june adljfaldjflag .-.

[Tarrik Rosdahl]

"I know you did, I know. And this is me after the medics, Dal," he gave him a sheepish look, dragging himself up onto the futon with a grunt. "Never thought getting kidnapped by Carna would be the good thing to happen to me in a fight." He wasn't going to tell Dalton that he completely agreed with not letting him out to look, not when he was like this. He'd have worked himself to exhaustion or death and never found him, not as far away as Holly had taken him, with no trail to follow or scent to find. So he just buried his face in the side of Dalton's neck, enjoying the burn of pain where Dal's arms were wrapped around his sides and back.

"You smell awful," he mumbled against his skin with a grin, leaning his weight sideways onto his right arm and the folded up back of the futon. It was mostly a lie, yeah Dalton clearly hadn't washed since they were caught in the rain at the hospital, but his scent was home to Ari, and the dog half of him reveled in it. There were some things that just weren't explainable to non-canines. And he'd always been a little more, well, animal when it came to some things. Like the coyote. Which was why when he moved a moment later, adjusting his position on the couch so the side of his own neck and throat were bared, well, he just rolled with it. His bare arm still hung over the other side of Dalton's neck, the warm press of skin-to-skin practically intoxicating in contrast to the cooler air. His enhanced sense of touch, right. And it gave him what he needed to help Dalton out, just a little.

It wouldn't have been half as easy on a stranger, but the coyote was anything but. A calm peacefulness thrummed through the connection like a guitar chord, eating away at the tight ball of anxiety he knew Dalton still had. And then spikes of adrenaline, hard and not entirely nice, though he used elation instead of fear, to kickstart his body into figuring out more endorphins, killing some of the pain that had to be a constant. "Sorry," he muttered, and it was a blatant lie. How long before they find us, y'think?

[Dalton Williams]

Dal sat back on the futon, knees drawn up to his chest as he cast Tarrik a scrutinizing look at the man’s words; however, peering closer, he could see the scarred outlines of roughly healed cuts and the fading bruises. “You still look like hell.” His words were blunt, but honest, because it was true – and he knew he looked just the same. Not that it could be helped, really; it’d take a while for them to both heal properly. The boy remained where he was, arms wrapped loosely around his friend, head tilted to one side as he breathed easy for the first time in weeks.

That is, of course, until Ari mentioned the word ‘Carna’, and Dal nearly toppled into his lap in his haste to question him. “Why on earth were you in Carna?! God, Ari, no offence but how’d you make it in and out without them sticking your head on a pike?” They both knew the brutality of the other ring and how their list of regulations against killing intruders was incredibly short. Dal was, frankly, astounded they hadn’t murdered the man point-blank. On the other hand, he was, obviously, supremely grateful that they hadn’t, and all he could do was simply shake his head at Ari’s nonchalance as he commented on Dal’s scent. “I’ve been living as a ‘yote for a few days, what’d you expect, aftershave? You aren’t all peach and roses yourself, man, y’got the blood and mud smell still on you.”

And then he had to bare his throat. The bastard, of course he would, and the coyote in the corner roused from its sphinx-pose, head up and eyes alert. Dal’s eyes flicked towards it, then narrowed. He had hoped that it would go away, simply vanish into thin air if he ignored it hard enough, because obviously he was having some sort of delusion – lack of sleep did awfully funny things to a guy – but then he saw it sway to its feet and prowl over towards them with a swag in its step. It must’ve looked odd, Dal staring at nothing that anyone else could see, and if Ari was paying attention, he would’ve noticed at that point.

Just then the first sense of calm began to thread through him, and he glanced back at Ari distractedly, mouth slightly agape. He tensed against the sensation for a moment, rebelling not out of spite but out of defense, for the memories from that day were still fresh in his mind. But he relented a moment later and found himself sagging back against the futon and Ari, relaxation creeping into his muscles. The endorphins that kicked in shortly thereafter helped to drown the pain from his back, and he welcomed it. He could not help but wince, however, when the coyote actually began speaking to him. Like, full on, verbal sentences, the whole shebang, and it wasn’t him speaking. Or it was, but it sounded..different. A thicker Irish accent, and much, much snarkier. “You gonna do something about that throat?”

Dal blinked, then blinked again. Rapid succession blinking. “I…sorry, what?” Oh, man, he was talking to the thing now. Why was he encouraging it?! The coyote sat down at the edge of the futon, and dropped its chin on the mattress; it appeared to be frowning. “You’re the laziest ‘yote I believe there ever was, Williams. He’s practically throwing himself at yeh, lookit that! Completely exposed, bare skin, and y’aren’t doin’ a thing about it. Lazy. That’s no way to fetch a mate, and y’know it ‘cause I know it. And I’m the smartest thing in this room, it seems.”

And then Dal choked; just, completely and utterly choked on air, wheezing and coughing as if he’d just swallowed a bitter lemon the wrong way. Because it had just called Ari a potential mate. And that particular lilt and lip that it had reminded him painfully of his younger brother’s sassy wit. It was at that point he remembered Ari had asked him a question, something about ‘them’…the medics? He managed to hack out an answer in between choking to death, “Give ‘em ten minutes – though I think I may need ‘em at this point, so help me God.” He could not, however, bring himself to look at Ari, because every time his eyes began to slide towards him, they had a tendency to glance towards that vulnerable, proffered throat, and he felt a flush start to creep its way up his neck and ears. And that just wasn’t acceptable. Nope. He certainly couldn’t hear his pulse beneath his skin, either, of course not. The coyote caught his gaze, and gave him a pointed look, and Dalton felt as though he was being damned to an inevitable truth that he couldn’t yet bring himself to think about.

ooc; oops i made a thing about 5 months later and look i even made it a bit lulz 8D