MISSION 002

[etrayamods]

WHO: Everyone!
WHEN: May 3rd-28th
WHERE: Within the Labyrinth
WHAT: The second Mission
NOTES\WARNINGS: Potential death, violence, injury. Please add additional warnings as needed within threads.

⏵ into the labyrinth ⏴ Aurora's announced time for the mission was correct: four days after, as she had promised, the door to the Labyrinth opens, connected to Etraya's atmospheric bubble by its entrance point. Characters are directed to come to the entrance on May 3rd, and warned that they may want to bring medical supplies, weaponry, and any important artifacts along with them. She warns that large vehicles will not fit within the limited space available, and smaller ones may be difficult to remove, thus advises those to stay behind. Aurora also offers to watch over any companion animals and keep them safe while competitors complete the Labyrinth. They are given a short amount of time outside of the entrance to speak with one another, to plan and organize themselves, before they are ushered into it in groups of two to four. Once passed the entrance, they'll find that they are unable to turn around and exit out of it: a barrier keeps them from going back into the city proper, and as soon as they are far enough forward, the walls around them shift, closing them in, moving in complex patterns meant to separate them and bring them together. Characters with extraordinary abilities may find some of them inaccessible: super strength may be downgraded to closer to ordinary strength, magic may prove to be less predictable than it should be, and regardless of how strong, fast, or clever characters are: passing over the Labyrinth walls or destroying them proves to be impossible. While one may be able to run through the pathways at superhuman speeds, the pathways compensate for it by running them in circles, refusing to allow them to make any progress on their own. ⏵ pathways collide ⏴ Junctures of the Labyrinth often present competitors with choices, some that may have consequences: a left turn down a darker path may prove to be harmless, whereas the well-lit path may be full of traps intent on slowing them down: a trip wire that activates a swinging massive axe, or arrows that shoot straight out of the wall as soon as one gets close enough. Other junctures may present characters with choices that have consequences: they can choose the shortest pathway, but at great personal risk to themselves or their partner (ie, you can go this way, but your arm isn’t going with you) or they can choose the lengthy pathway full of traps and trials they’ll have to surpass to get to the end. ⏵ balancing act ⏴ The pathway opens up into a massive space, but it's not one with an easy path out: instead, competitors will find an obstacle course that will not let them continue forward until they complete it. Many of the tasks involve things that one cannot do on their own: they must walk across multiple wooden boards balanced precariously on a tall beam, but to ensure it's balanced, there must be one person on both sides of the boards and make sure that they're walking on the board in just the right space to ensure their weight doesn't cause it to sink too far on the opposite side. If a smaller child is on one end, they may want to stand significantly further away from the beam than the larger person on the other half. ⏵ help! i'm bleeding! ⏴ A large garden area spawns off of a pathway. The peaceful chirping of birds can be heard among blooming cherry blossom trees, and it all seems utterly peaceful and calm. An area one might wish to take a breather in, enjoy the sunshine reflecting from above, and get a good nap in. Or would, except a companion bot whose abdomen is covered in ketchup appears to be struggling across the ground, crying out for help. They state they are bleeding profusely and require immediate medical attention, otherwise, they will die. The companion bot also carries a bag of medical supplies and MREs, which player characters are welcome to utilize. The pathway out of this open space will not open until after the companion bot no longer states they are dying. Whether it's because they're "dead", or because those who came across them offered "medical attention" and patched them up until they've stated they're good and no longer need assistance - well, both will technically suffice. ⏵ choice is an illusion ⏴ After walking down an additional pathway, characters will find themselves trapped within a glass box. In front of them is a pedestal with two buttons: one red, and one green, as well as a tablet above it displaying the image of another group of characters. The tablet states hindering them will help you. You may either choose to make the second group's time through the maze more difficult, or hinder your progress by pressing the green button and helping the other group forward. Characters are given two minutes to decide which path to take; the timer, on the tablet, counts down regardless of any attempt to break or hack it. Pressing the green button will drop several squishmallows into the glass box. Inside one of them is a key that unlocks the roof of the glass box. Pressing the red button, while it promises to hinder the other group, actually. . . causes a toxic yellow gas to flood the glass box. The gas will burn the lungs of those who breathe it in, but it also begins slowly melting the glass box. This gas will make breathing difficult for the next 24 hours, but will not kill those who inhale it. Healing factors will not offset the gas. ⏵ who deserves the knife? ⏴ A group of two characters will walk through one corridor and find themselves strapped to two chairs, the backs of which are leaning against each other. In front of the both of them are drills, slowly approaching their chests. They cannot go sideways but can push forward and backward. They can push backward and get themselves further away from the threat of injury - forcing the person behind them to suffer but allowing themselves to escape - or they can push into the drill and free the person they're with. Alternatively, they can choose not to push either way, potentially sacrificing them both. Three options, but they are left with minimal time to decide as the drill continues to press closer. If they choose to go out together, they'll find that as the drills press against their chest - they simply stop. Minimal blood will be spilled, and they will have all the time they need to figure out how to squirm out of their bindings. ⏵ the Siren waits for thee ⏴ A seemingly harmless pathway turns into much more trouble than it's worth. A few steps through a corridor, and suddenly competitors will find the floor falling out from under them, revealing a body of water and - no solid ground on either side of it. There are the walls, but they lack any good climbing holds. Within the water are numerous Sirens - beautiful androgynous creatures that sing soft songs meant to entice others into following them deep into the water. While they may look beautiful, their mouths are full of razor-sharp teeth, and their intentions certainly aren't innocent. However, the Sirens can only touch competitors once they have initiated touch first. They will do their best to encourage this: holding out their hands, crying out for help, pretending to drown, or trying to coax them into coming in close enough for a kiss. As long as they remain on the path, they're harmless. But the moment they reach out for the Sirens... getting away from them will not be easy. Their tails are powerful, built for moving swiftly throughout the water and dragging others along with them. They bite hard and will dig their teeth deep into flesh to discourage struggling. If one gets captured by them? They're lunch. Or worse yet: if they get bitten but manage to escape, they may find themselves becoming a bit.. scaley around the neck, eyes shifting color to a too-soft green, and an almost impossible-to-resist urge to take a bite out of their friends. This effect will continue until May 28th regardless of when the character reaches the end of the Labyrinth. After May 28th, they will find that their scales slowly begin to shed, their eyes begin to turn back to their normal shade, and any other new features slowly turn back to how they were before they were infected. ⏵ don't forget your ball of twine ⏴ The Labyrinth is large, and there are many challenges around each corner. There may be space for breaks in between monsters, challenges, riddles, places to sit and recuperate between battles and mind games. It's not all chaos and challenges meant to test one's strength of will. ⏵ NOTES ⏴ May's mission is completing a massive Labyrinth. All characters must enter the Labyrinth; whether or not they participate once they're inside is up to them, but no one will be permitted to stay behind in the city. The duo who completes the Labyrinth first will be allowed to assist in choosing the next mission. Sign-ups for this are here. We will contact the chosen characters on May 13th. This mission will cover the time between May 3rd and May 28th. After May 28th, any characters who have not yet exited the Labyrinth will be gathered by the companion bots and brought back into the city. The companion bots will be aiming for nonviolent intervention. If more is needed, please let us know here. The first to exit will be returning to the city on May 15th. There will be powercapping during this mission, but the extent of which is fully up to players. We want the Labyrinth to be challenging but don't want to hinder gameplay too much. If you have any questions relating to this or want assistance coming up with ways to powercap your character, please feel free to ask us here. We will be largely leaving this up to player discretion. Food is scarce within the Labyrinth, but not impossible to find. There are chests (or maybe they're mimics?) strewn throughout with various useful items. One might have a sword, another might have a fresh chicken nugget Happy Meal from McDonalds. Or an entire birthday cake, candles included. Large vehicles will not fit in the Labyrinth and must be left behind in the city. Numerous challenges are throughout the Labyrinth. You are welcome to make your own, but we will also provide several you may utilize! Please feel free to throw down wildcards, or your own challenges into your prompts! The limitation is that characters must remain themselves throughout the challenges. There are no mirror replicas, nothing within the Labyrinth will affect their personalities or core values. It’s meant to challenge, not change them. Deaths that occur within the Labyrinth will last 24 hours. Please report these on our Death Tracker. All new locations will appear after player characters have returned to the city. Feel free to note the differences from the May 3rd map, versus what characters will be returning to on May 15th.

Comments

[skaikru]

I never should have said that out loud, should I.

( it's not really a question. there is the understanding they are being watched and judged constantly, but nothing other than a few moments that brush too close to old memories — like knives scraping across freshly healed scar tissue — that could really imply echo was taking offense to whatever they may say and seeking to punish them for it. or drawing inspiration from their past ordeals. or operating in any way that even acknowledges them, despite ruling their lives. aurora had given that the tasks were specially tailored to the competitors, sure, but did that mean somewhere in the belly of the maze rita was going to be brainwashed, natsuno was going to run into religious symbols, and octavia was going to find herself in a conclave similar to the one the two of them had just escaped?

the possibilities are endless, and if clarke allows herself to get lost in them she will spiral.

luckily — unluckily, actually, because that bite looks bad — there is a very pressing distraction right in front of her. krouse succeeds in peeling off his blood soaked sleeve and holds up his arm as bidden. she can count four deep punctures — two from the jackal's top canines, two a little shallower from the bottom, and a few skin deep lacerations from the shorter incisors between them. the wounds still weep darkly, but the bleeding is a slow ooze that means the beast managed to miss any main arteries. pressure to make sure everything clots properly, a stitch or two, antiseptic and a clean bandage... this isn't so bad, they can do this.

clarke kneels next to her bag, scoots closer while dragging her pack alongside her and busies herself with unzipping and extricating a few key items. out come two water bottles, the plastic a little crushed and crumpled but blessedly not leaking. one she shoves towards krouse's uninjured hand, and the other she cracks the seal on before fishing out two packets of salt that had been nabbed from the kwik trip's hot food bar. the flimsy paper corners are torn and shakily dumped into the neck of the bottle before it's recapped and clarke viciously sets to shaking it. she'd considered stealing saline pouches from the hospital plenty, but ultimately decided the flimsy bags would be likely to burst. and it's fine, salt water has been used to cleanse wounds far before the fall of the world — she's doing her best with what she's got. )

Okay, keep your arm up above chest level. I'm going to be as gentle as I can here, but I'm not promising that it won't sting a little. It's okay if you need to scream.

( with her free hand, she's also dragging out two gallon sized zip-lock bags — one stuffed full of rolled, clean hand towels and the other a surgeon's worst nightmare of jumbled needles, syringes, vials, scalpels, antiseptics, nylon suture string, gauze, and the most basic of bandaids. one surgeon's nightmare is an apocalypse kid who grew up where children's tylenol was a scarcity's wildest dream though. years spent perfecting her doomsday go-bag inventory and packaging techniques, four days to perfect it, and hopefully in the end it'll prove to be enough. )

[equivo]

[ Krouse's urge to tell Clarke she doesn't have to do this comes a little late to do any good. He thinks that's probably because he already knows it'll only lead to an argument he'll have to logically concede, and for what? So he can come across as having some stupid sense of macho pride, or just as a stubborn idiot?

The real reason he scrapes against letting her do this is a subject he's not getting into, let alone even entertaining privately. Keeping himself functional isn't about him. It's about what he needs to be functional to do, starting with being a good little rat and clearing this hellhole as efficiently as possible. So he takes the water she thrusts at his uninjured side and raises his arm above the level of his heart, shuffling back and up the fountain to steady his posture in support. ]

I'll keep that in mind.

[ He makes an effort to steady his voice along with his spine. It's an improvement, by his standards: a splash of irony over the tension of preparing himself for her to get to work.

From the look of her kit, he thinks he's in good hands. It's messy, but comprehensive, and she's going through her set up with practised efficiency that beats the projected confidence he brings to first aid any day. ]

And just so you know, that wasn't an accusation.

[ He tags that on like it's an idle throwaway comment, but with his focus trained on her pinched face that suggests it's not completely casual. Then again, maybe he's just watching her face because, as stressed as she is, it's still the least unpleasant thing in his immediate vicinity to distract himself with that isn't shrubbery. ]

I'd need at least two things from your list to happen before I'll start getting suspicious about your input in the planning process.

[ The talking is another distraction, as is the quiet creak and crumple of plastic in his grip. As brave of a face as he puts on, there's no getting around knowing this is going to sting. ]

[skaikru]

( that wasn't an accusation. clarke is so focused on shaking the bottle and keeping her eyes latched onto the open wounds dotted along his arm that it's a noticeable shift in mentality and sightline when she glances at his face proper. her face is still ruddy with the rush of blood that came with running for their lives, and up close the bags under her eyes are a corpselike shade of purple and her sclera a greyed out sort of bloodshot. she is focused, almost back to her roots with the way she's fallen into triage nurse — after all, once upon a time she was supposed to become a doctor — but with a weak foundation for bedside manner.

she is well accustomed to blame, so much so that a spoken alleviation of it almost surprises her. her eyebrows hike up a fraction of an inch, at least, before slipping lower. it's not like he would know any better, but it might as well should have been an accusation; with her run of luck, the idea of having sunk them all into this labyrinth based on an offhanded drunken comment would fit right in with the rest of her unintentional atrocities. what has she done lately that hasn't gotten people hurt? inevitably right down to trying to treat them for their wounds.

but clarke recovers from that moment. he's being a little glib, he's starting to do that thing where he talks to much in order to distract but perhaps this time it's for his own sake. and a strain of consciously based conversation can't carryon one-sided forever. she has to give him something back, and casts back to all those other terrible, drunken predictions she'd made in the middle of the woods. and can be a little glib in turn: )

Well, if there's a mudslide out here remember I just mentioned it first, you're the one who doubled down on terrain challenges. We could still have to deal killer tomatoes after this.

( but first, to deal with those wounds. the salt in the bottle has dissolved to an acceptable opaqueness, and she leans in to uncap and start dousing krouse's arm with it.

she'd probably undersold the burn of saltwater in open wounds in all honesty, it way more than stings. added to the aggravation, clarke's free hand comes up to grip below each puncture and pulls below the wound, stretching the edges a little just to make sure the makeshift cleansing solution gets as deep as it needs to flush it out completely. and immediately after the water bottle is crushed empty and tossed aside, she's on him with a towel, wrapping his whole forearm and using both of her hands to squeeze and apply the pressure required to choke off the rest of his bleeding. )

Sorry, sorry...

[equivo]

[ There's the strange tint to her colouring again, the less strange flickers of strain that play across her expression. He guessed right. She meant what she said a little more than she intended for it to come across as, and maybe even a little more than she realized she did.

Spend enough time assuming responsibility, and it turns into a habit. The same need for control that had her fighting to keep her composure in the woods cropping up again here, where the idea that an irreverent misstep caught the universe's attention just for the sake of fucking you over might not be rational, but seems like the kind of thing that'd happen anyway.

Clarke brought the lab rats up, but Krouse was the one who doubled down. If there's fault to be found, which of them really brought it on?

He thinks all of this while he smiles at her rebuttal, a tiny win for the side of badly timed jokes, and he holds the smile even as she unscrews the bottle cap and his guts clench in awful apprehension. He can deal with it. He can deal with it -

The noise he makes isn't quite an uncomplicated scream, but more of a scream snagged in a noose and dragged up to the back of his mouth to die strangled and broken. He kicks out at the grass with one heel and flattens his back against the marble, where he made sure to leave himself no room for a flinching retreat. His eyes slam shut as she pulls at the punctures to flush them out, mercifully merciless. The water bottle he's holding crackles as he squeezes tighter, and then the hollow bounce of its emptied twin heralds the towel being wrapped around his arm. ]

It's okay - it's okay, it's fine -

[ This shivering babble isn't performative. It gushes out clean from the hole in his chest, his own habits catching up with him. He curls slightly forward and in, like the hurt is under his sternum instead of her hands, and lets out a harshly attenuated: ] Fuck.

[skaikru]

I know, I know... ( she really does. life on the ground had come with more than a fair share of bumps and bruises, and life on board the serena eterna had seen to multiply those by a factor of ten. there is seldom a day that goes by that she doesn't remember bleeding out on the couch in natsuno's room and hissing fuck you in the face of the man who was inevitably going to save her with fire. krouse is, at least, not directional with his guttural swears. )

I'm sorry, ( clarke says once again, and she really means that too. but like with so many other times, one can feel reasonably gutted alongside the suffering party and still have to carry through with what's necessary. her hands are cold from the dip in the fountain, and she is very aware of the slow warm soak of blood beneath her pressing palms.

hopefully, at some point, there should come a point where krouse manages to get on top of the pain. where it becomes less startling and the pressure counteracts some of the pain receptors; where the brain clicks over into accepting injury and figuring out how to function around it. she waits, still and silent until he stops squirming and curling into himself at such sharp angles; only realizes she's holding her breath when the air in her lungs grows too stale to speak around, and she has to draw in a fresh one to — with an air of casual as if they were discussing the weather, or appreciating the craftmanship of the statue above their heads — ask: )

So, you teleport?

[equivo]

[ The burn of diluted salt fades as he acclimates, experience smoothing out his recovery. That was the high water mark; everything after this is downhill. He sucks in a rough inhale through his nose and lets it out, willing his arm to relax under the firm pressure of Clarke's grip.

When he opens his eyes at her question he has to blink them more than he'd prefer to get them clear. He wants to scrub the damp out of his eyelashes, but drawing attention to them would be mortifying. Better to keep moving past it, starting by scraping a coherent response together. ]

Did I forget to mention that?

[ Krouse aims for breezy insouciance, and winds up at a slightly cracked rasp. He swallows a mouthful of gummy spit and tries to will his pulse to slow down, without much success. ]

Guess it slipped my mind.

[ It's a weak joke, all inflection and no punchline - or less than a joke, and more of a deflection delivered like it's supposed to be funny. He doesn't feel great about it, his mouth drawing taut in a thin grimace. ]

I teleport. [ He confirms, losing some of the forced wryness. ] I haven't been trying to keep it a secret, exactly, it's just...

[ He starts to shrug, catches himself early, and draws his shoulder blades back down as he eases into a less uncomfortable position against the fountain. ]

Where I'm from, having a power tends to make your life more complicated. I wanted to get a sense of what I was dealing with here before I started advertising.

[ Which is more or less how he's been planning to explain it to anyone who might have questions about his reticence until now, if on the blunter end of the spectrum. He doesn't think Clarke needs everything spelled out for her; he's not sure that he's up for spelling everything out. She's kept her not-exactly-secrets close to the chest, too. ]

[skaikru]

( blanket permission had been given to scream. there would have been as little judgement for wiping away stray tears as there would have been for outright bawling here.

krouse rasps and swallows, deflects, confirms. for her part, clarke is quiet throughout; leans with him as he forces himself to relax back against the fountain, and mostly watches the white of the towel on it's slow progression to a jackson pollock piece. she drags her eyes back to his face once or twice, just to acknowledge that she's listening, that she's heard and subsequently noted. but her brow is predominantly creased with focus, silently counting the seconds she's spent putting pressure on the wounds, and very aware of how she can feel his pulse in her palms.

at least until krouse somehow manages to deflect again in the form of a loose explanation — then there's the slight flicker of annoyance. no one likes playing chess without being able to see the whole board, not knowing which pieces are where, not knowing what the rules are, or when one piece can skip over the opponents.

in the realm of secrets, "i have magical powers" would have slotted neatly into conversation between "i killed three friends" and "i died". but it's still early on. one failed game and an unpleasantly bloody chat in the woods did not for trust make. clarke is fully capable of feeling mildly miffed and recognizing she has no right to act like it. so she schools her face and tone, keeps both purposefully neutral and again drags her eyes away before speaking. )

...That's fair, I guess. Do a lot of people in your world have powers like that?

[equivo]

[ Something can be fair and still be shitty. In fact, in Krouse's experience, that's what a lot of fairness ends up being. All of his reasons for this conspicuous omission don't change that, especially when she doesn't know the half of it. 'More complicated' could mean anything, and that's by design.

But she doesn't push. She doesn't even ask about it head on, and it's just like him to be left on the back foot because something went smoothly, for once. He'd been ready to shore up his justifications against interrogation. He isn't sure what to do with this tenuous acceptance. ]

Enough.

[ He hunts for a stray tell in her expression, picking at the edges of her neutrality, and comes up empty handed. Resentment, indifference, distrust - it could be any of them, or none, for all he knows. ]

Parahumans. That's the technical term for anyone with a power. And then the people who put on costumes and go looking for trouble are capes. Like the ones around here, kind of.

[ These capes have all been glossily heroic, so far. When he sets his reluctance to be forthcoming next to that, he knows it doesn't line up. ]

But it's not like comic books, or the movies. It's - [ he hesitates, tongue pressed against his teeth ] - not everyone who gets a power uses it to get kittens out of trees. Not everyone gets a power that gets kittens out of trees, unless you don't give a shit what happens to the kitten or the tree. And most of them don't.

[skaikru]

( ah, see capes are a concept clarke can grasp at. by this point she's met (two) enough of them to grate against. there's the child with the yellow cape who snarks and condescends even when he doesn't mean to, and then there's the older one in blue and black who'd insisted acrobatics were a better method to wrangle the adult version of the jaguar-snake chimera in the hospital dining room when she'd just wanted to kill it. holier than thou, better prepared than thou; the projection of morals greater than hers, which rankles in the most uncomfortable ways. all these good guys concentrated in the city of etraya, but she knows there's no such thing in real life. )

We don't have parahumans where I come from. I've never seen a kitten, I didn't grow up reading comic books, and we sure as hell didn't have a lot of movies either. But I understand power, and those who misuse it, Krouse. You don't have to explain that part.

( after all, plenty can be accomplished with a bit of ambition and a penchant for public speaking. with the weight of your people behind you, with drive; with a reputation and a bit of bloodshed.

clarke choses this moment to none too gently begin to guide his arm down from it's forced upright position; back down below heart level, in a more natural hang of an injured limb. and carefully peels back a portion of the towel to look at the wound proper, on the look out for free flowing blood or signs of successful clotting. there's still a bit of an ooze, so she clamps her hands back down. and with no free fingers to drag away the stray hairs that stick to the drying sweat on her face, tosses her head a little and sighs. )

Teleportation seems a pretty reliable way to get things out of trees, though. So where's your silly costume?

( this is a guess. or a lackluster joke. or something in between. )

[equivo]

[ Of course that's not the part he has to explain to her. It's not even the part that explains what he'd need her to know to understand where he's coming from. It's just the part he can explain without having to tell her anything about himself except what she already knows, which is why it doesn't mean a fucking thing.

Krouse puffs out his cheeks with a slow, shakily controlled exhale as Clarke guides his arm, whatever relief that might have come with releasing the tension of holding it up more than wiped out by the discomfort of moving it. But it's easier to manage now that he's gotten on top of it once, and he only hisses when she bears back down, feathers of strain crinkling and smoothing at the corners of his eyes.

The persistent hot ache that's left is bearable. The hollow gnaw elsewhere in his guts is harder to tolerate. Not exactly dissatisfaction, certainly not disappointment, but something almost like a sense of incompletion.

In the woods, he hadn't felt that. As bad as it was, as fumbling and awkward and never to be repeated as it was, there had been the click of synchronicity. She hadn't wanted to be vulnerable; she probably regrets it more than ever now, but they'd connected. He'd said things, and she got them, and for a while, he felt like someone was almost really looking at him.

He lets her question hang too long, this time, as his face smooths out to pallid deliberation that gives way in turn to a cast of determined, soft resignation. ]

I'm not exactly the hero type.

[ From someone else, said with humour or modesty, it might come off as yet another demurral. He says it with the settled coolness of a subject past deliberation. ]

The thing is - and I'm guessing I don't have to explain this to you, either, but indulge me - heroes are choosy about which kittens deserve to get out of which trees. And the first time I ever met one up close, it turned out I was the wrong kind of fucking kitten in the wrong kind of fucking tree. So were my friends. I can't say it left me with a glowing impression of the profession.

So if I'm going to be a selfish prick, I'm not going to pretend doing it in technicolour spandex makes me a good guy. Got to have some standards for yourself, right?

[skaikru]

( man, sometimes francis krouse opens his mouth and reminds her alot of —

nope, tamping down that sentiment, as it serves nothing except aggravating the perpetually raw wound of homesickness. clarke even manages to restrain herself from looking blatantly at the knife he'd dropped in the lush grass before collapsing; lets her eyes haze out the entire garden background and just watches his face as he talks — indulging.

she doesn't know how to respond at first, and cycles through probably a dozen sentences in the span of two seconds: i'm sorry that happened to your people or the technicolor spandex is ridiculous, right? or what made you the "wrong kind"? or careful, too many more analogies turned into inside jokes and next month we'll actually be dragging kittens out of trees. or the age old adage of there's no such thing as good guys. or selfish pricks don't hand over their guns like that.

but none of those sound right in the moment, or are concepts that could be revisited later. so clarke deviates to something more idle and accepting; something more encouraging and validating, because she can more than imagine growing up idolizing someone who felt so strong and big and smart, only to be inevitably disappointed by how they behaved. it'd be natural to dislike superheroes after the illusion is shattered, could even be argued as smart, or a form of survivalism — it'd be like learning your parents have tragic faults. let me down once, shame on you; if i ever relied on your kind to keep me safe again, shame on me or something along those lines. )

Of course. And keep them realistic.

( and she nods a little, sucks on her teeth and makes a slight clicking sound with her tongue at the roof of her mouth as if to convey: that blows, but that's just another day on the ground. )

So, you and your friends managed to get yourselves out of that proverbial tree in the end?

[equivo]

[ Krouse smiles a little, off-kilter and wan. No light catches in his eyes, burned out circles like the scorchmarks left by his bad habit of choice. ]

Not really.

[ He's never told anyone that. It trips off his tongue like it's easy, this confession of failing at everything he promised everyone who counted on him.

The ones who never made it home, and the ones who did. He wasn't the reason they made it back, but he's most of the reason they'll never really leave the Madison, Wisconsin of a universe they didn't belong in. They took it with them when they left, and they're going to take it with them everywhere they go. He knows that because he does, too.

He thinks he just wanted to say it someone on his own, once. He can't tell it to anyone who should hear it, but he can tell it to someone who went to pieces over what happened to her friends, dragged with her to another world they don't belong to. Someone who hears not the hero type and says realistic standard. And maybe it counts for something, although it probably doesn't, and maybe it takes some of the weight off his shoulders, even though they fall like he can't see the point of keeping them up. ]

But we got out, more or less. You're not wrong about teleporting. Great for exits.

[ And like the little clicking sound she made, that's that. One bad day at the start of a run of bad days, and what else is there to say? Nothing relevant to the moment. ]

Speaking of. Thanks, for back there. [ He tips the water bottle in his free hand at the direction they came. ] Although, not to sound ungrateful - I am kind of wondering why?

[skaikru]

( ah, the uno reverse once again reversed and suddenly the onus of carrying on an honest conversation foisted back onto her. clarke is effectively caught off guard, it shows in the way her eyebrows arch and separate and her mouth curls around invisible consonants. how does one explain how her stomach had twisted and she hadn't even really thought about it before inserting herself in a dangerous situation simply because it contained a familiar face? that it'd been one look at someone whose name she knew, in danger, and there'd simply been no other choice. why what? all i did was not leave you.

yeah, actually, that's it. clarke takes a second and snorts out out half a breath before putting into words: )

We're being graded on teamwork, remember? Standing idly by while you got eviscerated is not on par with teamwork.

( and after that moment, when her gaze had caught and her feet rooted to the ground instead of carrying her on an expedient backtrack, clarke had been just as stuck in the fray as he'd been. not to think her too considerate, she'd also just been thinking of herself.

but then comes the acknowledgement that, at the end of the day, she hadn't really had the means to do anything besides kicking a skeletal cat and urging him to run, verbally and physically in the end there. and mere moments after the thought occurred, it's time to dig into her bank vault of swallowed sentiments and ask along the lines of — )

Also that owl was really getting on my nerves. Why'd you give me your gun?

[equivo]

[ It's a practical reason, a motive that even conveniently extends to cover the present moment. Why help? Because that's the game. Krouse could believe someone would be that calculating about their strategy easily enough, especially since it's also his own.

As a counter, he respects it. He just doesn't think he entirely believes it. The things she did might fit, but how she did them doesn't, at least not in the little details. There are other factors at play, ones she'd prefer to keep to herself.

But he doesn't really have room to talk when she volleys the question back his way, and he's as flat-footed on the answer as she was. His faint smile doesn't falter, but he cuts his eyes away from her to the translucent barrier. The scrappy frontrunner has a few more of its mutated companions with it, a pack of scuttling misfits still making occasional attempts to break through. ]

I thought you might be more helpful armed than eaten.

[ He came up with the reason after making the decision, but just like realistic standards, people should maintain realistic self-justifications. It's smart to get your story straight with yourself first. ]

And what do you know?

[ Krouse wiggles his fingers stiffly at the end of the towel. ]

Owl extermination and first aid? I'd say I was right.

[skaikru]

( well, yeah. a bleeding heart is best kept bandaged. tightly, to the brink of a torniquet. )

Guess that also explains why you kept switching half dead things in place of whatever was about to get me, ( clarke says flatly, a flicker of wariness dancing across her brow when krouse breaks their sustained eye contact — at least until she peers over her shoulder and follows the blood dotted pathway back to the only thing allowing this moment. the barrier stands solid, and behind it figures pace and lunge fruitlessly.

there hadn't been a lot of time to truly look at the beasts in the midst of combat, and that was probably for the better. clarke catches the eye of the larger pig-lizard and feels a shiver run up and down her spine that severely undercuts any gut-lead suspicion about krouse's answer. now is not the time for it, and maybe that really was all is to it. she is used to commanding military operations on a larger scale but it makes sense; two on twenty, two against what feels like the world but is really just a narrow section of a maze they hadn't entered by choice... of course the tactics line up with nature, and it's important to keep your partner as safe as you can.

...but then he'd also run downrange of her and, in the spirit of distraction, made the reckless choice to engage rather than... run, evade, literally anything else.

clarke struggles with her own thoughts for a moment, and again decides that right now is not the time to parse it out. they can quip and question each others motives, yet true speculation over instinct versus game plan will have to wait until they make it back to the relative safety of the city proper. if they ever do, feels like. and if the barrier holds, as the second most pressing concern in this moment. she turns back towards krouse and again checks his wound. )

Might not have needed first aid at all if you'd just kept it. Knife, gunfight, whatever you said. Buuuuut...

( rigid fingers shift and relent, again peeling the edge of the towel away from the skin of his arm but keeping it up like a surgeons curtain, so he doesn't have to look with her. the terrycloth material is soaked through, and beneath it a mess of slicked down hair and ridged transfer patterns. no obvious new gushes of blood into the palm of her hand or speckling the grass beneath them, though. clarke's going to tally that in her very bare win column. )

The good news is I think you've stopped bleeding.

[equivo]

[ Now that they've gotten their motivations settled, it's clearly the perfect time for him to already start questioning if he made the right decision by deflecting. More old habits kicking in: people thrive on praise and recognition. Would it have been so bad to tell her that an equally plausible reason for giving her his gun is that he thought he could trust her with it?

Of course it would be. All the factors that go into that reason don't hold up under scrutiny. A gut feeling about her reliability isn't good enough, even if it was right. That's before the door it opens up to a worse fact, one he wants to keep off-limits: he thinks he likes her.

She's easy to like. Practical, matter of fact, smart, brave, funnier than she seems to like to lean into. In some other world, she's the kind of person he'd think was worth getting to know better. But they are where they are, and he is who he is. Getting to know him has never done anyone any favours. If he likes her, the best thing he can do for her is keep his distance. He's thought it before, and nothing since has changed the fundamental facts.

But knowing that harder to keep a grip on when she half-scolds him in one breath and goes out of her way to keep him from having to look at the consequences of his screw up in the next. He can't catch the short, quiet laugh fast enough, or the soft, still slightly stunned pulse of gratitude. ]

Hooray for coagulation.

[ That doesn't mean they're done, but it's good to know that he's stopped leaking. Recovering from blood loss while working his way forward is going to be a pain in the ass as it stands. ]

And maybe you're right, but then again, maybe this is all part of my master plan. You know how it is - shed some blood, earn some credibility. 'I survived the labyrinth and all I got were these battle scars.'

[ Downplaying the cost of his choice still comes readily, at least. Make it a joke, minimize the impact. If he doesn't care about it, why should she? ]

So, tell me, doc. Think I'll be impressing anyone at the afterparty?

[skaikru]

( there is nothing to be ashamed about when it comes to falling for the trap that is liking clarke griffin. she's a bit of an acquired taste, a little bossy, a little beyond broken, stubborn to the detriment of herself and others, too grumpy and/or tired to ever amount to her true comedic promise. but on the flip side, also amenable, helpful, loyal to a fault and fiercely protective on instinct. something about the levelheaded way she swallows down panic and pushes forward fools some into even thinking she's followable, but that never works out well. it is not krouse's fault that he hasn't gotten to know her well enough yet to know that just existing in the same orbit as her carries danger and death sentences. and befriending her just skews the odds even less in his favor.

just ask raven. ask natsuno. ask bellamy. ask rita. ask octavia.

clarke likes to think she's grown enough scar tissue, and has moved past the point of seeking to make quick friends — even at the end of the world. but then there's the neat category of allies, who earn the title through acts instead of knee-jerk sentiment but can be kept at arms length. problem is, between leaning into her scheme in the hospital room, lingering in the woods, keeping her name out of the mouth of the general populace, and handing her his gun in the midst of a fray — he sure is racking up the acts. that explains it, decidedly that's it.

and with all of that she can ignore that sometimes it feels like the two of them are speaking on a different frequency than normal people, catching hooks in each other's psyches, repeatedly coming to the same conclusions, and that — despite how easily francis krouse smiles and laughs everything off, when she looks in his eyes it's a lot like staring at a spiral fractured mirror. like recognizes like, or is she just projecting because he'd helped her wash blood off her hands one time and it was novel to be told she'd done the right thing for once?

hooray for coagulation, he huffs with a return of that barely shakable good natured-ness. ) Hooray, ( clarke echoes, though it's a lackluster impersonation and not a single muscle in her face twitches in celebration. they're really not done here, stopping the bleeding had just been the first step and she'd seen the way it pained him. but also a metric is being put into place in this moment — if krouse ever stops trying to laugh off his own personal hurts, that's when she'll really start to worry. )

I think you're too smart to rely on getting mauled in unknown territory, in unknown company as a part of any "grand plan". ( there would be air quotes here, if she wasn't still occupying her hands with gently cradling his forearm. ) I'll be impressed if you stave off infection long enough to actually form scars.

( and in that vein, she takes a deep breath and steels herself: )

Are you ready for the bad news?

[equivo]

[ There she goes again, compliment and calling out bundled up neatly together. Being accused of being too smart to be as stupid as he's pretending to be isn't entirely new, but it's been a long while since it happened, and longer since that it wasn't laced with disdain or disappointment. His wan smile tips up at a corner, slight gratification bleeding through his mask.

Of course, he can't be that smart, because he's still sitting here with extra holes in him. No reason to let it go to his head, which is woozy enough as it is without adding any kind of misplaced boost to his ego to the mix. She's only saying he doesn't seem like a complete idiot, and it's on him if he takes that for more than it's actually worth. It'd be convenient if rationalizing it kept him from clutching at the tiny shred of validation anyway.

Maybe he's just trying to brace for whatever the bad news is, because if it's enough to make her wind up like that, he can be fairly confident he's not going to like it. ]

Is there any other kind?

[ He lifts his eyebrows into wry arches, following it up with a shrug of the shoulder attached to his good arm. Another little pantomime routine for his audience of one, undeterred in the face of her ongoing indifference to the bit. ]

Hit me with it.

[ He tries harder when people make him work for it. One of those perverse incentive things, he figures. ]

[skaikru]

( bad news gets delivered in three parts. act I: get it all out there. )

I really want to stitch a few of these punctures before we wrap you up.

( want is not quite the right word in this context, but it works as well as it fails; leaking out a tiny bit of the pressing concern clarke had tried to keep beneath her tongue so as to not worry him. she'd kept the towel in place like a shroud, because she knows the brain rules the body and being forced to acknowledge just how deep some of these wounds were would be horrifying. there is a chance — and thus she worries about — krouse could carry on and reaggravate the wound, bleed out afresh some hours or days later. and in terms of scars, he could never heal right.

act II: the secondary not-so-good good news, and a key inside look into the other ways the wheels of her mind have been spinning throughout their conversation. )

I have morphine in my bag, but I don't know if it's smart to drug you. That barrier seems solid enough for now but we don't know if it's going to hold, and I can't carry you if it fails. The other option is a boat load of acetaminophen, something to bite down on and you... just not squirming.

( she winces, simultaneously apologetic and transported right back to bleeding out on a couch with a heated blade hovering over her abdomen. clarke decidedly does not suggest cauterization, no one should have to go through that awake and krouse's wounds are not that life threatening.

act III: offer him an out. )

I know there's people with healing powers here, though. And I can go find you one, if you'd prefer.

( and yes, the only obvious exit from this little sanctuary is back through the barrier from whence they'd come. the barrier that is still being guarded by those monstrous amalgamations of sinew and teeth and fur and moss and ooze; the barrier that could theoretically disappear at any point in time, much like the pathway that lead them here had only materialized at the last second but... she is completely straight faced. and serious.

she means it. if he wants. )

[equivo]

[ Krouse stares at her in the kind of disbelief that comes with assuming that, somehow, a perfectly coherent sentence must have been misunderstood.

He'd known it was bad. He hadn't thought, or maybe just hadn't let himself think, about how bad it really was after his first cursory assessment. If he's breathing and coherent, that's a baseline he can work with. But if there's one more thing he thinks he can trust Clarke on, it's that she's not prone to being dramatic about scrapes and bruises. So if it's bad enough that she thinks he could use a healer, bad enough that she'd be willing to offer to go find one, that might be a compelling reason for him to say yes. ]

No.

[ He cuts his eyes away from her on the pretext of bringing the water bottle she handed him up to his mouth, taking the cap between his teeth to twist it off. He catches it between ring finger and pinky before he tips the bottle back, taking one hard swallow. ]

No, and that's - [ a bad fucking idea ] - come on.

[ There's a note of oddly strained helplessness in that come on, and he's still not meeting her gaze. He doesn't want to see how much she means it a second time, how straightforward it seemed to be for her to offer up help above and beyond what he conceivably could have earned. Jumping in to back him up in a fight is one thing, but that's - he doesn't know what to do with that. He doesn't know where to put it. He just knows that the bruised tightness in his chest means that taking her up on it is not one of the fucking options he's entertaining. ]

Acetaminophen and something to bite down on. [ He nods, decisively, jaw setting. ] That'll work.

[ And to forestall push back, and to have something to keep him distracted from thinking about it any further for a minute, he sticks his water bottle between his thighs so he can flip open his belt buckle and start the ungainly process of shimmying it free of his jeans without getting up or jostling his arm too much. ]

[skaikru]

( something can be a really, really awful idea, and not a venture she actually wants to set out upon, and still be offered. but it'd felt important that krouse knew exactly what was about to happen while simultaneously not feeling forced into it. choice matters, in whatever capacity they can scrape out their own options in this place; having no good choice isn't new. still, clarke feels a scrap of relief when he chooses the more immediate option, the one that offers her more control over the outcome even while undoubtedly being the more unpleasant, and the one that doesn't send her packing for a fools quest out into the maze alone. she exhales a breath she hadn't even realized had been stuck in her lungs and pivots on her knees, reaching for the gallon freezer bag of disorganized medical supplies at the same time he works to undo his belt.

rips open the seal of the ziplock, pauses to rub blood tacky palms over her thighs, then fishes out three of the gas station packets of tylenol that'd been squirrelled away. it won't be enough to even take the edge off, but it's the maximum daily dose for an adult and there has to be something parasympathetic about taking something for the pain even when it won't touch it. clarke rips apart the packages with little regard for littering this time, and turns back to offer a cupped handful of six red and white pills.

now, they could wait an hour for the candy coating to dissolve and the anti inflammatory to at least do what little work it can. but time remains a concept as fluid as water, something neither of them can grab a tangible hold of and promise more was to come. so without even waiting to watch krouse take the meds, clarke's got her back turned again. she figures it's better if he doesn't see this part either, as she finds the smallest gauge curved needle she has and peels open the sterile packaging to get at the eye. unspools the beginning of surgical string and threads it, then picks up a small pair of nail scissors. last addition to her hands comes from the interior of her backpack proper, and is held on top of the sharper instruments so as to obscure them when she shuffles back into his personal bubble:

a package of wet wipes.

same brand as he'd brought her out in the woods. the newest item to be included in every go bag she ever creates, though the intention had been more for wiping hands and faces when without the opportunity to shower. but as they've already established, they work wonders for cleaning blood off skin.

clarke spares one moment of solemn silence surveying her makeshift operating suite and bitterly wishing for more. for a table, for everything to be perfectly sterile, for this to be taking place literally anywhere else and for knocking him out to be a more viable option. for an actual professional, or a healer, or her mother. but this is what they have, and it's going to have to be enough. )

Do you want to lay down or stay sitting? ( or, can i trust you won't pass out and i won't need to hold you down? )

[equivo]

[ Falling back into the practical details of prepping for medical care is a relief, and Krouse isn't going to spend any time pondering what that says about him. Either of them, if he's judging by how swiftly and smoothly Clarke gets back to work.

He accepts the pills in a cupped hand holding the end of his liberated belt and the plastic cap now tucked against his palm. The cap clicks against his teeth when he pops them into his mouth and cradles the swiftly sticky coated tablets on his tongue, belt buckle colder against his cheek than he'd have expected. Maybe not a great sign. He downs all six painkillers at once the ease of having done this too many times before, then screws the cap securely back into place before he sets the water bottle aside.

They're not going to kick in before she starts. He knows that, like she also has to know that. But the idea that it's going to hurt less eventually will do wonders for tolerating it now, and that's good enough. He settles back and doubles his belt over in his lap, studying the faintly shiny black leather instead of whatever she's doing.

He could cope with seeing the materials in advance, but the care she's taking to shield him from the ugly parts adds to the weight pressing down on his ribs. He understands what she's doing, because it's what he does, and knowing the trick doesn't detract from his appreciation of it. He might not be as taken in as someone unaware, but that's not the point. The point is that she's bothering to try. The least he can do is be a good audience participant.

When she comes back into the tiny sliver of space they carved out through mutual studious ignoring, he recognizes the wet wipes. The tiny smile that had abandoned him comes back as he looks up at her, something like the shape of a shared joke held in its curve. ]

I'll sit.

[ He loosens his shoulder joint with a light roll in the socket, then relaxes his arm into pliability one more time. His head tips back against the lip of the fountain as he stretches out his legs, projecting all of the confidence he can scrape together her way. ]

It'll be fine.

[ There's a faintly knowing tease in the callback to her favourite catchphrase from the woods, but there's also the return of his soft, steady tone of reassurance. ]

A couple stitches. No big deal. Over before I know it, right?

cw: questionable field surgery, no gloves 💀 also needles

[skaikru]

( wet wipes, lab rats, terrain challenges, and movie theatres. it's an eclectic array of growing inside jokes. throw away comments and disposable cloth, reinforced by repeat appearances. amazing, the small things that stick with and stand out to a person. )

...Yeah, ( she agrees easily enough, though the tight force of her smile and the preemptive twinge of sympathy around blue eyes really cuts the lie off at the ankles. krouse's teasing reassurance ultimately does nothing to quell the pit of anxiety and preemptive guilt that slithers through her ribs and right up the back of her throat, but he's right about one thing. or, she'd been right about one thing, whatever — ) It will be fine. I'll be quick.

( if clarke griffin gets any say in this matter, it'll turn out as well as it possibly could. she just knows better than to outright promise.

personal space feels like a boundary already crossed the second she'd been slicked up to the wrist in his blood, so there's no use standing on airs now. clarke pushes in even further, hiking up both of her grass stained knees onto krouse's upper leg and making a little surgery table for herself out of her own thighs. the gathered handful of supplies is nestled near her stomach so she can use both hands to guide his arm down to her lap and she bows her head. )

Keep your eyes on that barrier, okay? Let me know if it looks like they're getting through. ( look away, look anywhere but down; have a job, have a focus point decided for you so you don't need to do anything other than lock onto it. clarke leans over her intended work station but needs the warm sunlight that currently filters down through the high walls of the garden in order to see and thus cannot completely eclipse the view; she just really hopes he doesn't take it upon himself to look.

the que to slot the leather belt between his teeth comes with the unwrapping of the towel and the pop of the wet wipe package. gently as humanly possible, she wipes around the open puncture wounds to clean the area. then picks up the needle and —

it isn't fast. and it hurts. rudimentary stitches in open punctures involve digging into the exposed flesh and stringing the lower layers back together so when they naturally knit, it's easier and a cleaner scar. she has to pull at the edges of his wounds again to get at the muscle and subcutaneous tissue, then dig the tips of her fingers in to retrieve the needle and pull the thread through. it's messy; where the bleeding had stopped previously, a few blood vessels weep anew with aggravation, and clarke's fingertips almost immediately take on the drip of a quill dipped into a pot of red ink. it isn't fast, or at least probably doesn't feel like it.

three minutes on one puncture, four on the next. she utilizes her elbows to dig into the back of krouse's wrist and the bend of his arm to subdue any twitches and provide a sort of counter pressure, but that's all she can offer in the name of distraction. that, and the eventual subconscious stream of — ) I know, I'm sorry, you're almost there, we're almost done.

cw: questionable field surgery, no gloves 💀 also needles

[equivo]

[ Krouse obediently redirects his gaze to the barrier, but it can't hold all of his attention. His heart slips into a quicker tempo as his skin prickles around puncture wounds under the temporary chill of the wipes, an array of autonomic responses triggered by his body's mute anticipation of new pain. There's no clean escape, however arresting the visual of a slender green snake with too many eyes unhinging a doubled set of jaws to spit a milky stream of venom at the divide between them is.

If he can't get away from what's happening just out of his resolutely maintained peripheral vision, he can pick the parts of it he thinks about. Clarke's knees digging lightly into his leg, the sturdy planes of her muscle underneath his arm, not the needle biting deep into already swollen tissue and boring new holes for suture thread to be dragged through, loop after loop. The light play of sunshine bouncing off of her bent head, not the choked, muffled whines coming out of his. The hard anchor points of her elbows alternating pressure to keep him still and grounded, not the shuddering resistance that lances up his arm as she draws the rent open parts of him closed.

He's broken out into a clammy sweat before the first minute is over. By the time they get to minute seven, the back of his t-shirt clings damply between his shoulder blades, and the fringe of his hair is caught on the slick of his forehead. The leg she's not kneeling on bounces with redirected restlessness while he rubs his knuckles above the knee, the mild scrape of denim barely strong enough to register through the pinkish red fog clouding his senses.

Clarke keeps saying she's sorry. In his growing haze, he's grateful for the unpalatable taste of belt leather against the curled tip of his tongue, because without it, he might do something as recklessly unfair as asking what she's sorry for.

He says something else instead, only barely intelligible as words. You're or I'm at the start, blurred into indistinguishable alikenesss, and the clearer cadence of okay to follow. It won't shift the guilt that has her in teeth of its own, but he wants her to hear it anyway, just in case it can snap off the tip of one fang or another. ]

cw: questionable field surgery, no gloves 💀 also needles

[skaikru]

( he's doing really well, all things considered. the blanket invitation to scream hadn't been reiterated but was long standing, and color clarke surprised that he never takes her up on it. but at the same time, somehow that's... worse? because she knows this hurts, and can see all the silent and externalized signs of pain in the background of her line of focus. the smell of fresh sweat intermingled with the scent of blood, the jostle of his leg, the strangled whimpers slipping out just above her head, the flex of muscles she can see exposed to the world as he fights himself not to pull away. this hurts, and she's sorry because she has no immediate way to fix it, but —

one last stitch, now. needle drawn up high as her ear to pull the walls of the open wound closed like a curtain sweeping across a stage. a bit more blood pools up on skin level, and she brings in the tiny scissors, using the closed blade to assist in tying a small knot then snipping off the excess. it's impossible to have held her breath for the entire seven minutes, but the sharp inhale through the nose that follows is the first clarke manually feels. ) Okay, done, hold on —

( needle, thread, and scissors are haphazardly deposited back behind her left shoe, and a few more baby wipes are yanked from the open package to scrub off her fingertips before again grabbing for the bag of medical supplies. an entire bottle of neosporin is dotted generously across her handiwork, then she flips his arm with no warning to dab around the edges of the shallower punctures from the jackals lower canines. a roll of gauze next, starter edge peeled off and immediately, repeatedly wrapped around his forearm until the whole surgery site is erased by pure white cotton. there comes the moment where the excess bandage material needs to be cut off, but hands occupied and already disposed of the little scissors, clarke just leans in and nips a little tear with her teeth before tying it off.

there. )

All done now. You did really, really good, Krouse.

( her right hand skirts up to his shoulder and squeezes tightly, shakes a little just to reaffirm he's still with her. )