Re: [Portal: Holly & Noah]
By the time Holly had started to run, Noah was pulling up near the edge of the woods. He scanned the trees, then hopped out of the still-running Jeep, to hurry into the fold and find Holly. Tears flowed freely down his cheeks too, but it didn't matter. It didn't matter that he couldn't breathe. It didn't matter. None of it mattered. He took his steps, making himself lift his foot and put it back down, because otherwise, he was going to start running blindly or running in circles. He was going to lose himself to Holly in the world below and no one would be able to help him out.—He couldn't suppress the scream though. It felt like he was wrenched from his feet and Noah yelled as he went down, feeling a nauseating mixture of his own pain and Holly's.
He didn't want to see the fucking thing. But, there it was. The monster. Holly was locked up, joints frozen in place, and Noah stared out of the dude's eyes up at the thing as its mouth burst open obscenely, lips strung together with gelatinous spit. Up in the woods, Noah was hyperventilating. He was on his back in a scattering of leaves and, fuck, he probably pissed himself. He just felt terror. Terror, then the tearing, horrible brightness of PAIN. He had to move. He told himself that. Holly was hurt. Noah had. To. Move. Crying, he pulled himself to his knees and started to crawl, then used the next bristling trunk to pull himself up. His leg felt like it was on fire and split in half and everything else all at once.
But, he saw the tree. He stumbled toward it, just as fire erupted from Holly's weapon. The dude was losing blood. Noah felt his husband's consciousness weakening, flickering. He fell to the ground, not putting out so much as a hand to stop his drop, and busted his nose as he shifted his own mind out from under him. Inside Holly—as Holly—he forced his eyes open. God, his leg fucking HURT. He cried. But, he made himself keep his fist around the flamethrower-thing and drag himself as upright as he could. The world was spurred with pain and coldness that deepened as blood drenched the tatters of the suit around his calf. Around Holly's calf.
The tree was right there. Noah only stopped once to dry heave. He risked one look back. The monster was going to come back. Noah reached into the wet, sticky heart of the tree and tried to pry it apart. It felt like reaching into a chest and peeling back the skin with both hands. It was being born in reverse. Shoving back up the corrupted birth canal, Noah as Holly fell into a bare winter forest. Infected, wet-wound decay gave way to the mundane decay of fallen leaves. Noah ripped the yellow thing from his nose and mouth. He could see himself—his own body—, through the pain and tears, on the ground, and he sobbed once as he fell to his knees (PAIN) and tried to drag himself over... to himself. "C'mon... Please..."