drunk with vivid flame
#1
I thought that that lyric was "drunk with living flame" for the longest time. I like living better, but, eh.

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She had watched the wolves in what she had affectionately dubbed the ‘sick shack’ with a dark expectation that she would one day sink to that level. She was not optimistic enough to believe that something such as her species would protect her totally from the more advanced symptoms — just that it belated them, and shifted them slightly. Nikita had felt herself worsening, though she didn’t know if it was true or simply in her mind. Her mind had been playing several tricks on her lately nowadays; she couldn’t trust it as it was now. She would close her eyes to rest or to sleep, and she would see memories and other occasions playing like movies behind her closed lids. It had become more and more frequent until she had started to have waking dreams — ones that leaked into reality and made the lines between then and now blur crazily.


It was late morning; a particularly vivid dream had woken her earlier, and she had been awake since, though barely. She was mostly alternating between dozing outside her make-shift shelter — that she had not gotten the chance to improve since she had gotten ill — and staring across the lake and the camp of the group of gypsies. No one was around; the foul weather, though rain had not started to fall, seemed to be keeping them at bay. She was mostly happy. The sane side of her said that she was dangerous, that she shouldn’t be out and about. And yet another side saw no reason she shouldn’t.


Now, however, her eyes were open but she was seeing a dream. A memory. The dreary lake and camp turned into a dilapidated city street, overshadowed by clouds and with a faint rain falling. Sounds echoed in her ears, sounding more artificial than real and yet still believable, and, after a few moments, she lost the present. She could almost feel the presence of that nameless city that remained in the corner of her mind, the broken buildings and the echoes of shouts and whispers of words lingering on the wind.


And she could sense Patriot, though she did not see him yet. She knew he would appear sooner or later, though. In her dreams and memories, he was always there. Always. She merely waited.

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#2
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_____Rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain. That was all it seemed to do. It had been raining when he had gone to sleep and raining when he awoke. At times it stopped for a while and then maybe an hour or two laters, the skies would grow dark again and thunder would shake the earth beneath their feet. None of it really bothered him though, even if it was fairly annoying. It was the mid-afternoon that irritated him the most because it seemed like the slowest time of day one minute and the fastest the next. Lately it had been dragging on, making it just too early to invest in a little hair of the dog and a little to fix up a drink with lunch.


_____So he settled with wandering the territory, venturing out to the thickest part of the forest on the western side, where the fog eventually thinned out to nothing more than a thin haze. It was always the most foggy on the rainy days and though he didn't have the slightest idea why, having the lake nearby to their camp site always made pretty foggy but also nice and cool. Which with the late summer still trickling on down to autumn like the rain did off of the canopy of the forest, he appreciated. Coming to stop along a small brook that cut through the territory, Laurel sighed and rubbed his temples with one hand. That dull ache was back, nestling right down front and centre in his head.

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#3
Too tired for table.

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She had progressed so deeply into her reverie, it would be frightening to look at in retrospect. Nikita did not recognize trees and hills around her, but twisted and warped buildings made of rusted steel and rotted wood. All of her senses were malfunctioning, contributing to a dream that lingered onto reality. Memories were placed over reality like an opaque blanket — like a mask. A moving mask, a living mask. She could see time play against her surroundings in the shifting shadows and the moving clouds, and in the wind upon her face. She thought, however, she was still there. In the city. She could almost feel the palpable anxiety in the air, much like a storm about to break. And, judging by the clouds in the sky, it seemed like that might very well happen.


The coyote finally started to walk alongside a trickle of a stream — in her mind, a wandering trail of runoff from the rainwater collecting in the warped roofs of many of the buildings, though reality had it as a small tributary to the lake that was the centerpiece of the Esper Hollow territory. She walked there for some while, as her pace was barely better than that of a snail’s, until a silhouette against the dreary grays of her vision made her stop. Rain was falling again, piercing the mist slightly but creating a vision impairment all its own. Of course there was no mistake in her ill mind that the shape belonged to Patriot; who else would have it? Who else was in this world of hers? But what was she to think of him? She almost had a moment of total panic; was she angry at him, or not? Did she have reason to? What time did she lapse back into in the past?


Confusion gripped her — it totally blocked out everything. She almost lost where she was and what she was doing again (not that she had it to begin with), but she managed to stop thinking and focus on what she saw. She thought she saw Patriot’s tall, lean gray-white form through the rain and remaining mist, and that was enough for her. Her posture grew rigid, and her eyes grew sharp, though still clouded over slightly. Her hand twitched toward the hilt of her knife at her hip, but she refrained.


No. She would give him a chance to talk at least.
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#4
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_____He hated the routine his world had fallen into, the cadence in it was as slow as the day when he was very much used to having a better grip on the flow of time. When the days and night started to bleed onto each other and he felt the very pace at which he lived start to slow, he itched to sent himself packing. But in this case, he couldn't bring himself to just pack up and leave while a certain level of chaos breathed down his back. He didn't lack the camaraderie that some of his previous travelling companions had, in fact Laurel liked the camaraderie very much. His tendency to treat any and everything that he came across like family was both a flawed skill and a skilful flaw, so it was a put up and shut up situation.


_____But he was quite sure that everything would come to pass and that life would pick up. Even if he hadn't noticed just how easily time got away from him to the point that he didn't notice that his life was in fact, slowing down. Though age no doubt attributed to that, it had come much more gradually than all of this. It seemed like every time he had come up to the chance table before that, he had always rolled lucky sevens or some variation thereof. But now he felt like every time he gave that simple flick of the wrist, snake eyes stared back at him. He drew in a long breath, stretching when he decided that he no longer wanted to sift through his thoughts, and then forced it out in a huff. Things could have been worse, he supposed. He could have been out of his mind; he could have been one of the sick.


_____Approaching footsteps caught his attention—as reflected in the way his ears twitched with acknowledgement—at the sound of someone coming along behind him and he cast a lazy glance over his shoulder at the figure emerging from the haze. He had gotten used to Nikita's stature and build to the point where he could pick her out before the colours meshed across her body, before his brain recognised her on appearance alone. She seemed to have regained the rigid sense of alertness that had been absent in the previous days and he thought it was just a sign that things were returning to normal. It was normal for her to be that way, always a nice contrast to his outward demeanour.


_____“How're you feeling?”

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#5
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His voice wasn’t right. Well… no, that wasn’t it. In her ears, the sound had been synthesized to sound exactly like Patriot’s cold tone. What wasn’t right was what he had said. How was she feeling? Patriot had never been one to be so outward to care about anyone’s wellbeing but his own — if he didn’t care for anyone else at all. This confused her slightly, but the image did not waver one bit. Maybe he was having a change of heart. Or maybe he was just messing with her again. She frowned sharply, suddenly furious that he could be so calm in seeing her once more. Did he not understand what a monster he was? What a monster he had changed her into? He probably didn’t. This life was the only one he knew, as if that was any excuse.


Nikita had to answer his question, though she was loath to respond to him at all. “Worse, now that I’ve seen you,” she hissed lowly. Outside of her mind, one might worry that Laurel would be wounded by the words… if they weren’t as mismatched as his own to Patriot’s personality. They were hazy and shattered, much like her sense of reality at the moment. Someone who had been around her as long as Laurel would be able to tell that something was definitely up. The fact that she swayed slightly, only to catch herself from falling by shifting her weight near the last moment, only made this even more obvious. She scowled, not noticing her little slip-up in the least. Her mind was somewhere else totally at the moment.


“Why are you here?” she said, her voice rising to resemble a snarl. He rarely came to this part of the city; that was why she was here in the first place. She wanted to get away from him, as impossible as it seemed. And yet her voice phased as it had before, emphasis placed on the wrong words and breaks placed between others. She waited for his response; it better be good.



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#6
*has to listen to murder by death now that she's read your table, dies*
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_____Her words had a definite edge to them and they did sting, but not in the way that he had expected it. If anything, it had confirmed the thing he had been denying in the back of his head for a while—that quite possibly, she had what the others had—and would no doubt become just another reason to put behind the pro list of tearing into a bottle of sweet, sweet oblivion. He huffed a soundless laugh into the air and shook his head. So that was what it had come to, that was exactly what the world was coming to. He didn't answer her directly, only mulled over the possibility that he too would one day fall to pieces like the rest of them had.


_____But then again, maybe four out of however many they had running in and out of the Hollow wasn't so bad anyway. It couldn't have been called an epidemic until it had almost infected them all, could it? Maybe a pandemic when there were more sick than healthy. Or something like that, he really didn't know. He wasn't even sure that he even cared any more. But he wanted to stand there and laugh at his streak of bad luck. “Yeah, you're worse,” he said quietly, more to himself than to anyone else. Then a sigh followed, his shoulders slouched at the ends and a frown furrowed deeply into his sandy-coloured face.


_____This was like the case with Ahren, he imagined, although Nikita was smaller and lighter than the blonde. Easy to drag or carry somewhere, if he had to. He imagined in any case she was just as unsteady on her feet as he had been that night and just as well armed, if not better. The knife that Ahren had didn't get pulled on him that night, but he had taken it away from the blonde. Nikita had one that mocked it, he thought. Given by the angry tone in her voice, he wasn't sure he wanted to turn and face her at all. Laurel thought maybe he was just a little bit afraid of what he may have found. Yet he turned to face her anyway, ignoring the fact that he was halfway holding his breath in the process.


_____“You're hallucinating, you know,” he merely replied.

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#7
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She flicked an ear quickly — she had heard the whisper of words, but had not distinguished them. What had he said? Her lip drew back from her teeth momentarily, but she quickly quelled the anger and forced herself into a semi-neutral expression. She almost wanted to demand he tell her what he had said, but she was quickly distracted as he turned to face her. Her thoughts, which had been buzzing like a hornet’s nest, quickly slowed down. For, as instinct led, the moment that he had chosen to face her, things had graduated to a direct confrontation. She knew she could never contest with Patriot — there was a reason why she had managed not to get away yet — but that didn’t mean she would have to back down easily. She stood her ground, well aware of the knife at her belt.


He actually spoke to her then, words that didn’t make any sense at all. Hallucinating? She blinked, her cloudy eyes, for just a moment, registering trees with dirt at their bases instead of cracked concrete before the memory snapped back. She didn’t pay much heed to this slight lapse; it didn’t make any sense to her brain as it was. She certainly wasn’t hallucinating. Nikita began to take a few tentative steps forward — checking herself every once in a while to make sure Patriot wasn’t going to make any sudden movements, or to make sure she wasn’t going to topple over — until she was close enough to see him much more clearly. Though her eyes surely must have registered Laurel’s comparatively smaller frame and sandy-colored fur, all she could see was the towering shape of Patriot, along with his monotone fur and blazing yellow eyes. She shied from the image, barely managing not to cringe visibly.


“I,” she started, somewhat unsure. Her words rattled a bit as she spoke them individually, as if listing them instead of linking them in a sentence. “I can see you fine.” She near-spat the emphasized word, her hazy eyes narrowing into emerald slits. Despite the ferocity she tried to put on, however, it was obvious that she was unsure now. This made no sense; Patriot had never spoken like this, acted like this. What was he playing at?



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#8
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_____She came in closer and he tensed ever so slightly with each step. She hadn't pulled that knife on him ever, but he felt like if there was any situation where she would, this would be it. But maybe not, she seemed to be confused herself just by the way he was acting. Maybe it was the direct approach, maybe it was the seriousness of it all. Or maybe she was seeing through the haze of her own eyes, seeing through little proverbial cracks in the ceiling. “I know you can, but things aren't matching up,” and he wondered, would she start yelling at him in the same way that Ahren did? Would get those little glimpses into the past that he had never dug for?


_____A more malicious man would have tore into that, but he didn't. “I was hoping you weren't this sick,” he sighed, not really caring whether or not things panned out at any rate. She was going off of the deep end and he was gearing up to figure out what in the hell to do about it all. It wasn't like they had another shed to throw another body in and he certainly didn't want to throw her in with Ahren. He thought for sure that if they both saw things, they'd tear each other apart. “So what is it that you're really seeing, anyway?” Was that asking about the past? He wasn't sure, but he wondered if she saw the forest for the trees.

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#9
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He was certainly right; things weren’t matching up at all. What was wrong with him? What was wrong with her? Her eyes were not agreeing with her ears, and certainly neither were agreeing with her fried brain. Her confusion continued to spread as he mentioned sickness — she did not remember falling ill; when had that happened? He looked as if he were trying to figure out something, and she frowned vehemently. Nikita felt as though she was being left completely out of this, even though she had been pretty out of it to begin with. And yet, she was as frustrated as anything. Why didn’t anything match up? Why didn’t he make any sense? Her scowl increased into a grimace.



It loosened for a moment — to let in a usual confused look — when he spoke once more. Then it snapped right back, anger flaring quickly. “What do you think?” she snapped, her eyes flicking around and taking in all that they pretended to see. “The city.” The words staggered a bit, as her anger faded. Replaced with sheer confusion and frustration. How he could not recognize the city? It had been his home for his entire life. “And you.” She got worked up once more. “Why are you saying all of this, Patriot? What are you playing at?” Her voice rose until she was almost yelling near the end. She tried to get the most out of her diminutive height, though it couldn’t even begin to compare with Patriot’s towering frame.



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#10
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_____A tall ear twitched at the mention of a name he didn't recognise, though his eyes struggled to read her ever-changing expression. He could pick out the emotions pretty easily, but he wanted to know what she was thinking, what she was planning next. While Nikita wavered between anger and confusion, he could feel that frustration working up through her and it sharply made its début. But his expression didn't change; he felt like nothing could surprise him any more. He felt like the last thing he was going to be seeing out of all of this was either all of them getting better or all of them dying.


_____That was why he had retrieved the shovel some time ago, it was why he would eventually decide whether to bury them all or burn their bodies. But that was only if it came out to that, maybe it would be years. Maybe he would eventually get fed up of his own good will and take off—it was only a matter of time of decision. “Think about it, Niki,” he drawled, wondering if reasoning was something that would work. “Wouldn't this make more sense if you weren't sick?” But he knew he was wasting his breath, building up to the breaking point.

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#11
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Nikita couldn’t force herself to listen to him anymore — every word that left his mouth seemed to make less and less sense, and made her feel more and more out of touch of everything. There were always those little mind games where you would ask someone what they would do if they woke up and the world was different. That was how she felt right now. The past few years of her life didn’t exist to her at the moment — she was trapped in a memory of the past. This whole influx of the present on her image of the past clashed so greatly, it was nearly enough to totally overwhelm her. After some thought, she narrowed it down to one of two things. There was something wrong with him — Patriot, or a really damn good impostor — or there was something wrong with her. Since she couldn’t really test the latter option, she would try to narrow it down the other way.


And how? She knew. The weight of the steel at her side was enough to remind her. Though no one else really knew this, but that particular knife of hers was a gift — the only gift — she had received from Patriot. It was less of a present and more of a command within itself. He had given it to her to keep her ass out of trouble, and that was what she had done. When he had given it to her, he had sworn that if she had ever pulled it on him, he’d turn and cut her down then and there. If this wasn’t Patriot, he could either try to run, try to disarm or otherwise incapacitate her, or maybe even go the route that Patriot had promised to do. If it was Patriot playing some game, she would have placed a seal on her own life. But what was it if it was nothing but confusion?


And so, without a single intention of causing harm, she — with practiced speed and deftness — drew the weapon and held it, half-menacingly, out at her side. Her expression was one of dark expectance, like someone who had just insulted one of the more dangerous individuals around and was waiting to see what would happen. And that is what she was doing.



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#12
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_____Yeah, he had been down this road before and not all that long ago. Laurel sighed, finding his own frustration and wished there had been some way to outwardly show it beyond that repeated sigh. Had he been smoking, he would have thrown the cigarette astray and into the world, letting it tumble end over end. Drinking, he probably would have smashed the bottle to get a makeshift weapon to fight with. But this was Nikita and desperately in the back of his mind, not the person he wanted to fight. She did have skill where he did, she had speed and size on him too; though his advantages could have fallen in that range too.


_____His eyes traced the glint of the steel up to the hilt, before letting his gaze go up the length of her arm, for once studying her built in an entire different light. There were some things he was careless about, but when he was on the other end of something that could very well end him, it was a different story. Travelling companion or not, friend or not, she was sick, she was screwed up. Setting his jaw, Laurel felt his hackles rise defensively despite the clothing being a hinder. It was better that way, it masked his reactions. “You don't know what you're doing,” he started to say, finding his voice to be much stronger before. “Put the knife away.” This time around, it was much firmer. He wasn't asking her to—he was telling her.

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#13
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She did know what she was doing, and her test had been successful. But perhaps not in the way that she wished it to be. He had not responded how Patriot would have, which meant that, for some reason, he wasn’t Patriot. It was around that time that his voice began to shift, the timbre changing from the steely tones of the werewolf to the far more warm tones that felt painfully familiar to her. “Who’re—” she attempted before placidity continued to encroach upon her. Her right arm lowered to her side slowly before her hand unclenched in a single motion. The knife fell to the mud next to her foot, and she made no move to pick it up. Her body seemed to relax in a single motion as her breath left her as if someone had forced it from her. She wobbled slightly, and then her eyes closed, open, and saw.


“Laurel,” she said, finally, with recognition. Nearly two years of memories came rushing back in the space of a second, nearly knocking her off her feet. She swayed once more, catching herself and trying to focus once more. She immediately realized what had happened. She had been half-dreaming in reality, and she had thought that Laurel was Patriot. The comparison nearly made her want to scream. On the other side of the coin, however, it also made her want to break down. She reached up and pulled the bandanna from her head, turning half-way away from Laurel as she began to tear up, pressing the rain-sodden and worn piece of cloth to her eyes as she began to cry fully. They were bitter, however; full of frustration and sorrow and fear. Fear of what she could have done, or what else could have happened. Fear of how ill she was, or how ill she might continue to be.


She was ashamed as well; she hated to show weakness in any way, and this was pretty much the epitome of it. And yet, even though she would will with every synapse in her brain for her body to stop, she couldn’t. She couldn’t remember the last time she had cried, actually; all of that emotion had to escape eventually.



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#14
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_____Had they been human, he may have remarked that the colour literally ran out of her face. It was an interesting show, watching how reality seemed to bend back to normal, watching how frustration was slowly replaced by recognition and then a mixture of other emotions that he hadn't been able to pinpoint immediately. Partially because she had turned away from him then and pulled her bandana over her eyes, but also because he had let his gaze wander away, letting it go towards the trees and the shafts of light that had broken through the cloud cover. How appropriate, he thought a bit more bitterly than he should have.


_____But he hated it when someone started crying, he really did. For a few seconds he simply stood there, caught between one awkward reaction and another, before he finally stepped into action. If she were going to morph back into whatever it was that she had been minutes ago, she probably would have by now. He bent to pick up her knife, but didn't hand it back to her so readily; Laurel thought it may have been a good idea to hang onto it too, just for now. Just until he was reassured on more than one mental level. It was equally strange to have a hold on it too, it felt much heavier than it looked and for that reason he thought it to be more dangerous.


_____After all, had she taken a pretty good swing at him with it, who knew what the outcome would have been. In such a close proximity, he could pick up on the great range of her emotions, he could fathom the things that she was feeling and it kept the frown on his face. “You okay?” He wanted to ask her if she was herself, but he thought maybe that was a bit insensitive. Though she may have asked him if he thought it was obvious. But he felt like there should have been something more, but unfortunately stood there grasping straws.

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#15
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She knew if she truly allowed herself to break down here and now, she wouldn’t be able to piece herself together for some time. So, therefore, she started to fight to compose herself once more. It was incredibly difficult — like trying to pull a semi truck behind you while going up an incline — but she managed to overcome it and force the tears to stop. She lowered her hand, nervously wringing some of the rainwater from the bandanna that she still held loosely. Her narrowed eyes were originally fixated on the ground, but she forced them up to face him once more. He held her knife, which made the tears start threatening her again. She managed to keep them at bay. His question shook her once more, and she, after a few moments of deliberating, shook her head slightly. “I could have hurt you,” she rasped, as if that was the answer to the question. Partially, to her, it was. She wouldn’t have forgiven herself if she had hurt him, and she was pretty far away from forgiving herself for even having the chance. Her face grew pained, and she quickly unlatched the sheath for the knife from her belt and held it out to him.


Nikita had never consciously gone without her knife for a single day since Patriot had given it to her. No one but she would realize how much it took for her to give it away like that. And yet, she couldn’t trust herself with it at all at the moment; not when she had pulled it on anyone. It would be best if he held onto it for the time being.


“I’m going… crazy,” she said, voice barely stretching over a whisper. To her, it was finally admitting it. She had been thinking that she wouldn’t get to this point — that they’d discover some kind of treatment before she started to lose it. But of course not; there was no reason why she would be spared while there were three others who had fallen ill just a short time before she had that had to be confined. She took a rattling deep breath, focusing on keeping a grasp on her composure.



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#16
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_____“Yeah, you could have,” he said, not really going to lie about that. She could have screwed him up pretty bad, no doubt about it. “But you didn't,” and that was the thing that mattered most. She had come around to her senses either because he had stalled her long enough or the thing that was making her sick from the inside-out had retreated its attack. For now, maybe for a few minutes, maybe forever, who knew. Though he was surprised to see her hand over the knife's sheath, his expression didn't reflect it.


_____Slipping the knife into the sheath, he let out a sigh and shifted his weight uneasily between his feet, the new found tension in his body didn't want to let up for anything. It was a mixture of things, worry for starters, the pessimism-realism that seemed to flood most of his thoughts, and perhaps even a little fear. No, not just a little, he had a definite fear that was beginning to take root. “You're not going crazy,” he said after a pause, listening carefully to way the she was bottling things up breath by breath. “You were already a little crazy to begin with; we all are,” and he let out a bark of a laugh that sounded far more genuine than he was. They were all a little crazy, they had gone crazy a lot time ago.


_____“C’mon, let's go back to the camp site. I can't really throw you in the shack or the shed because there's no room, so I guess I'll just have to keep an eye on you another way.” Too many years of going through the motions of bad things had gave him a knack for sounding like everything was okay. But if keeping an eye on her got him sick in the long run and he turned out to be some sort of monster that he didn't know about, well, then it was going to happen. Laurel weighed his chances in a couple of steps as he slung an arm around Nikita to herd in towards home; he figured out the percentages in his own little ways. They said he was probably already on its own slippery slope of dissent.

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#17
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He was right; she hadn’t. And even if he had been Patriot, for any reason, she probably won’t have been able to hurt him either. At least she had still kept a hold on that slight shred of morality that she still had. She stared intently at the ground, her arms returning to her sides once Laurel accepted the sheath from her and put the blade away. She attempted to smile — though it wavered like candle flame in a breeze — at his next few comments, knowing that it was probably the truth. She had to think that many of the Hollow’s residents weren’t exactly sane, but that didn’t really seem to matter at all. They all got along well, when they weren’t withering from the inside out from disease. And, on that overly cheerful note, her small frown made a triumphant return to rest on her face.


Laurel’s way of understating things was probably something that saved her a load more grief — at least she could fool herself into thinking that he thought it wasn’t a big deal. She stuffed her bandanna into a pocket of her jeans — not really thinking to bother to put it back on — as he approached the last few steps and reached out to sling an arm comfortingly (or at least she perceived it that way) around her and began to subtly guide her back towards camp. She willingly allowed him to steer her, not really focusing on anything else but moving one foot in front of the other in the direction of what was home.


“Sorry,” she mumbled, scarcely over her own breath, a few minutes into the journey back to the camp. She then repeated the word in a string that lasted a few moments, shaking her head when she reached the end of the prolonged sentence. Though she was with reality now, she wasn’t totally back to herself; she found it necessary to apologize, and profusely. For everything, really. And not just to Laurel; to everyone.



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#18
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_____“Don't be,” he firmly said, “it's not your fault. You didn't know what you were doing.” Though he imagined, she surely knew what she had been seeing. Unlike Ahren, she had caught the pieces that were out of places, she had come crashing down through the ceiling of the stained glass dome between reality and fantasy. She could apologise all she wanted to, but he didn't see anything that was there to be forgiven. They all had lapses of judgement, whether or not it was when they were of sound mind or they weren't. But it wasn't like he was going to stand around and let her beat herself up verbally either.


_____Again, he returned to believing that things could have been worse. They were worse now that he knew exactly which path of illness Nikita was really on, but so far he could count his lucky stars. Tonight, tomorrow, they were all new chances to roll the dice, more chances to end up lucky or just the same old odds of rolling snake eyes. “But aside from feeling like you're going crazy, how are you feeling?” She was a little topsy-turvy on her feet than she was before, but she didn't sound nearly as bad as she had a week ago. Or maybe it had only been a few nights; he didn't remember.

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She nodded dully at his first statement, shutting her mouth and not saying anything as they both ambled on. She was almost completely absorbed in foreign thoughts when he interjected again, and she sighed. “I’m not sure, actually,” she said, somewhat surprised at how her voice didn’t sound nearly as raspy as it had before. He was right; she seemed to be improving in some aspects, while deteriorating in others. “I thought I was getting better, but I guess that only went as far as physically. I’d been having those weird daydreams for a while now, but they hadn’t really… done that before.” She shook her head, her eyes tracing her path in the ground. It had been so strange; she had completely lost all of her memories of the last year or so, and she had been completely transformed and transported back to that person she was and that time she had lived in. What kind of illness was this, that tampered with the mind as well as crippled the body?


Eventually the woods cleared out a little bit to where she could see camp once more. The faint rain and otherwise thick mist had kept many either away or indoors, so it was mostly deserted. She didn’t really pause; she only waited to see which direction Laurel would steer her towards. She hadn’t really thought that far ahead — her mind, or what little she could devote towards conscious thought, was very occupied at the moment.



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_____Whatever it was, it seemed to bring out the things that he had never wanted to know. The things that he had never dug into, things that really didn't mean anything to him. Ahren had obviously killed in his past and it seemed like Nikita had some rocky patch in her own life. It left him wondering if there was anything in his background that he was honestly hiding; anything that he could have possibly forgotten about in any other limelight. As the camp came back into sight, he noted how quiet it was, how merely idyllic it seemed to be. Even the sick had quieted down a bit more, no doubt what was being passed around was helping.


_____“Who knows,” he answered, “whatever this thing is, it's throwing more curve balls than a pitching machine.” One minute they were violently ill, unable to keep anything in and down their throats and now they were running loose across the countryside seeing things out of their past with no recollection of the present. Letting his arm slip from her shoulders when they were back in the depth of the camp site, he sighed and looked around. “Whatever Endymion and Ahren's kid have been giving out seem to be working though. So maybe it'll help you too.”

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