Day 29 - ???

[cactusy]

WHO: Rust Cohle, Sameen Shaw
WHAT: The poetry code buddies meet up
WHEN: Late night Day 29 - ???
WHERE: VII.H.7
WARNINGS: Mutual enabling of delusion, probably
NOTES: N/A

When Shaw drags herself out of a particularly dense patch of underbrush and comes face to face with a man who is probably Cohle, she doesn't say anything immediately. She assesses him with both a doctor's eye (noting his physical condition from the perspective of someone who will be treating his injuries) as well as a soldier's (noting his physical condition from the perspective of someone who is definitely rethinking her plan to ask him if he feels up for watch duty). From his perspective, it'll probably just look like she's staring at him sharply, judging.

"Would you look at that," she finally says, her tone as deadpan as her expression. "Two roads converged in a yellow wood. You look like crap."

Comments

[cactusy]

Shaw wakes as easily as she fell asleep, still exhausted but not groggy: and though his instincts are correct and her hand immediately flies to the gun at her hip, she at least has the presence of mind not to pull it out and point it at him.

"Yeah?"

She doesn't sit up, but she does shift a little, rolling her head back to look at him.

[aluminumandash]

He drops his hand—a few seconds and his arm's ready to buckle under the weight of it. “You got your walkie?” His eyes are bright in the dark, follow the shifting shadows to her hip.

Distractedly he struggles closer, breath catching now and again. “When I was in that cell, I tried opening it up. Now I—I was dehydrated. Coming off a mystery drug, no telling what was in my system. And—” The pause wouldn't fit a knife's edge; he can't allow himself more than that. “I see things. Sometimes. Lights and colors, patterns. But not like that, not like what happened.”

[cactusy]

"See things, present tense."

She's sure she'd heard him correctly, so it's not a question so much as a confirmation; the information makes her frown a little.

"No way it's the dehydration; if you were still messed up enough to be hallucinating, you'd have other bad symptoms too. I figure we're all a little dehydrated, but hallucinating's not like yellow pee."

A pause.

"So it's probably long-term effects of that drug. What else happened?"

[aluminumandash]

He makes a noise in the affirmative, too soft to qualify as a grunt. Grateful they're not plunging deep into the weeds of his dubious fucking sanity. Not right now, at least.

“The screw at the back. Ah, I took my knife to it. Worked fine, but—” He touches a hand to his chest, fitting his fingers into his jacket. “Every time I turned the fucking thing, it was like—like a shock. A jolt. Right in the chest. After three I couldn't handle it.” He pauses, takes a ragged breath. Goes still, gaze unfocused. “And it just kept hurting, you know, until I screwed it back in.”

[cactusy]

Shaw wiggles her walkie out of her jacket pocket, studying him.

"You still got that screwdriver?"

He can probably guess why she's asking, and she's out of luck if he won't fork it over for her to experiment with; she'd had a screwdriver, but had left it behind at camp for the others to use.

[aluminumandash]

He nods automatically but doesn't reach right away for the knife clipped to his belt. Appraises her in turn—what he can make out of her features, how she holds herself. Seeking traces of stiffness, discomfort. Tamped-down pain.

“You in good enough shape for this?”

[cactusy]

It is so, so tempting to say Only one way to find out and just get on with it. But she's not in the city anymore, with access to near-endless supplies and medical facilities. Here, if she pushes herself too far, she's a liability to herself and others - which doesn't mean never do it, but it does mean don't do it without a damn good reason.

"Good enough shape that I can do it once," she allows. "One jolt. More than that, probably not a good idea."

[aluminumandash]

Rust holds her eyes another moment—as if he might discern there, through the intervening darkness, something not in her voice. Gives a twitch of a nod. “Lemme get the candle.”

The candle's bundled in the cloth lump worn on his back, now set beside the patch of ground he'd been drowsing on. He drags himself a few feet and grabs at it, half-shuffles, half-crawls back to her with it in his lap. Rummaging inside he produces a tuna can clotted with fat, sets it between them and touches his lighter to it. It glows low and steady.

He hands over the knife, blade folded in—solid and well looked after but nothing special.