DeShaun (ex_hammerdow169) wrote in thefield, @ 2009-05-11 22:12:00 |
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Entry tags: | clay, milo, payne, rook, z - 1st tribe - day 19 |
Who: Clay and Payne and Rook and Milo
Where: heading northeast out of camp
When: mid-morning
What: Leaving, a day early. Because Kenneth is not the boss of them.
Rating: safe to assume it will hit R sooner rather than later
Warnings: Assume that many will be necessary. Check back often, folks!
It was a worse than usual morning. Clay returned to consciousness slowly and reluctantly, cold limbs stiff and aching on some damp, unyielding surface. Somebody's floor, he supposed, unwilling, yet, to look and try to determine where. His head was pounding insistently; whatever else had happened the night before, alcohol had most definitely been involved. And fighting, Clay decided, working his jaw experimentally. Damn, that hurt. Some fucker had knocked a tooth loose, for sure.
He finally cracked an eye open, noting in passing that the other seemed to be swollen shut. Christ. Clay blinked his functioning eye at the bright white sunlight and the glimpse of a stream through purple-tinted vegetation. The circumstances of the past two weeks of his life came back to him in a rush. That fuckin' psycho Arlo... Dammit, now he was late!
A scramble to his feet, biting back an urge to curse out loud, and then Clay was forcing his protesting limbs into a brisk walk, head throbbing annoyingly in time with his footsteps: piss, damn, shit, fuck. He bent to retrieve the pack Payne had rigged up for him--bedding and a share of the eleboar meat--and goddammit bending over was a bad idea. Staggering slightly for the next few steps until the pain in his head subsided back to its original level, Clay made his way to the clearing in front of the eleboar's den. Payne's eleboar, he clarified in his own mind, since Arlo (goddamn psychotic bastard) had killed one of the big oinkers too. Clay stepped into the clearing and glared around it balefully with his one good eye.
Payne had spent the last bit of time (dividing time into arbitrary chunks seemed so silly, here) on her knees in thick brush, staring at the earth. Emotions roiled in her belly, she swallowed them down again and again. Nothing she could do. Nothing, and certainly not now, when she had to lead her group (when had she started thinking of them as 'hers'?) away from camp, into a new place, a new home. It wasn't the time for sorrow or regrets and god, the guilt, that was the worst. She shook her head, forcing it up at the sound of movement in the clearing above her. She pushed her limbs into movement, shoving painfully through the thorns lining the ditch, and took the stinging licks against her skin as proper, as payment.
Her face heated at the sight of Clay. She wouldn't speak. If she spoke it would all come out, all of it, and... she stood there, hands clenched, jaw so tight it ached.
Clay's scowl eased into something more neutral, his usual flat affect combined with various bruises to mask his concern. Payne looked rough, no matter how she was trying to conceal it. What, was she still pissed at him? He approached her warily.
"Hey." Another step, and then he was folding her into his arms, because whether she was pissed or not, something had happened to her. Clay stifled the hope that whatever it was, he wouldn't be required to get into it with anyone else today.
She couldn't speak the name, not at first. Couldn't even tell him. It was still tied too tightly, down in the place where all the shameful things, the secret things, the dark, half-remembered, ugly things resided. Bleached bone and petrified monsters, frozen horrors that still covered the walls of her psyche with impotent mayhem just waiting to break free. She didn't realise she was shaking as she clung to Clay for a moment, letting him just for a moment hold her, protect her, be the man she could never admit to wanting, much less needing. She tucked her face against his neck, noticing that he was hurt. Even in her selfishness, her hands traced softly over his cheek, tender with concern.
Clay ignored the gentle touch, his own posture stiffening as he felt Payne tremble.
"What happened? Sombody been--" His voice trailed off. He, too, had certain things he was unwilling to put into words. Yeah, Payne could take care of herself. Sure. Only she couldn't, not with psycho guys with guns and knives and fuckin' machetes running around. Clay looked into her eyes, trying to read her.
Her eyes were blinking rapidly, the sort of desperate blinking that a person does to keep tears from coming. Only there were no tears; she'd been dried up a long time ago, and no moisture came, even though her cheeks were bright and hot and her eyes had that desperate, lost look. She shook her head - nothing like that. No, any threat, any danger would be far easier to handle than this slippery guilt, the rogue emotion that slithered in unwelcome just when she needed to be fearless and defiant. She brought Clay closer, whispering her confession into his ear. He could know. No-one else. Only Clay, because he wouldn't blame her.
As so often happened, words failed Clay, but that was all right. With Payne, that was all right. Payne was all right, and that was all that mattered once the story spun out of her, each syllable seeming to cost her something in its telling. He held her closer, no comment, no judgement, one hand rubbing her back, a mindless, soothing contact.
"Come on," Clay said at length. "Let's get the hell outta here." Time to put some of this shit behind them, he decided. Time to have adventures in the brand-new big wide world.
As much as she'd seemed to come apart just a bit at the edges, the teen glued herself back together fast and flawlessly. A symbolic wipe at her dry eyes, and in a moment Payne looked herself again, fierce and fearless and free. She gave Clay a nod, looking toward the edges of the small clearing. "They'll come." she told him, listening to the approaching footsteps. "You got meat?"
Clay jostled the makeshift pack on his back.
"Got everything," he told her with a lopsided grin. Angelica's gun was nestled in the center of the pack, a palpable weight between his shoulder blades. There was one less crazy psycho packing, anyway. Clay bounced on the balls of his feet, eager to be on their way, until renewed pounding in his skull reminded him that abrupt movement of any kind was a bad idea. His expression soured, right back to sullen. It was going to be a long day.
Payne grinned at him, giving him one good squeeze before walking over to the base of a tree and breaking off a generous slice of lichen. "You better keep dosed, or you're gonna have a pretty shit day." She handed it to him before walking into the low-ceilinged den to get her pack, all ready for her. She slung it onto her back, and then handed a thick bundle of spears to Clay to secure beside it.