Chapter Text
When Sean wakes up the next morning, he’s only slightly less confused than he was the day before. And then it all comes crashing back. His back and neck are sore from sleeping on the rocky ground of the cave, and his stomach pangs with hunger. He’s almost forgotten that he hasn’t eaten since dinner the night before last. He pulls himself into a seated position and looks around. He’s alone except for Mark, who seems to be carving a new tick mark into the wall, across from the wall already covered in them.
“What’s the point of that?” Sean asks.
Mark stops and looks over at him. He shrugs. “There isn’t one,” he admits. “Not now that we know we aren’t missing anything. But that one,” he gestures to the other wall, “kept us sane. Like if we could track how much time we’d missed, we’d be slightly less lost when we got back.”
“Do you think it would’ve worked?” The logic doesn’t seem all that sound to Sean, but he wasn’t here for what looks like over a year with little hope for ever getting back and no idea how.
“Not at all,” Mark says, setting down the arrow he was carving with. “I mean, none of us really thought it would to begin with. It just gave us something to do.” He looks at the ground, a shimmer of light coming through the waterfall. “Syd should be coming back soon.”
“And Ethan?” Sean won’t say it out loud, but he’s worried. If Syd and Ethan’s argument last night wasn’t atypical of them, then they aren’t going to be able to survive this ordeal together. Sean doesn’t think they should split up, even if he’s the only one new to this place.
Mark shrugs. “I don’t know where he went, or why. I’ll probably go hunt him down when Syd gets back.” He pauses, glancing at Sean with an indecipherable look. “If that’s okay with you.”
“Why wouldn’t it be?”
Mark sighs. “I’m going to ask you something. And I just want you to answer me honestly. I promise I have a reason. Okay?”
Sean’s confused, but he suspects he might know where this is going. He nods in agreement.
“Did anything happen while she was staying in England with you?”
Sean groans, leaning his head against the wall. “No.” He looks at Mark without moving his head. “Have you been talking to PJ?”
“She seemed different,” Mark explains. He’s watching the entrance, like he’s making sure Syd doesn’t come in while they’re talking about her. “Brighter. Like she was before all this, almost. And so did you, for that matter.” He’s silent a moment, fidgeting with his hands. “Can I ask another question?”
Sean’s tempted to say no, move on from this. He gets enough from PJ, he doesn’t need it from Mark, too. Especially since Ethan’s stuck here with them. Instead, he says, “Sure.”
“Did you want something to happen?”
The denial gets caught in Sean’s throat. Because the truth is, he doesn’t know what he wanted. He knows that PJ seemed to want something to happen, he knows that Brad and Emma thought something was happening. He knows he hadn’t wanted her to leave. “I...I don’t know.” It feels weird to admit it.
Mark nods, but he doesn’t say anything because Syd’s climbing in, grinning ear to ear. “Six vials!” she declares triumphantly. “Six!” Sean doesn’t know what she got six vials of, but her excitement is contagious. He smiles back, and it becomes a little easier to ignore the emptiness of his stomach and the throbbing of his ankle.
She shrugs the bag she’s carrying off of her shoulder and opens it up, and Sean’s appetite almost disappears entirely. Inside is something wrapped in a bloodstained cloth, which Syd unwraps to reveal two skinned animals of some kind. They might be rabbits, not that Sean can tell without their heads. He manages, somehow, not to gag at the sight of it. “I also got breakfast!” And fuck, she looks so proud of herself for killing two innocent rodents, and Sean understands why she had to, he understands that it’s really the only way that they’d be able to eat, there isn’t an Asda or Tesco to run down to and buy some chicken or anything, but damn if it isn’t disgusting to see two dead animals just get pulled out of a bag.
“Why’d you skin them outside?” Mark asks, digging through the bag himself. He pulls out another cloth, one that isn’t covered in blood, and unwraps it to reveal a sizable pile of wildberries.
Syd shrugs. “I forgot how good the air feels here,” she says. “How good the sun feels. Didn’t wanna come back in here yet.” Sean thinks it might have something to do with her not realizing that Ethan had gone out, too. She grabs two stones of flint and kneels by the remains of the fire, getting a new one going faster than Sean would have thought possible. He supposes it comes down to practice, in the end.
Mark sighs and sets down the berries. “I don’t suppose you saw Ethan while you were out?” He seems to ignore the way that Syd stiffens, since Sean doubts that he missed it entirely.
“Didn’t even know he’d gone out,” she says stiffly. “But it’s a cloudless sky today, I’m sure he can take care of himself.”
“That’s not the main concern here,” Mark points out. He looks at Syd, concerned, but shakes his head as if clearing his thoughts. “I’m gonna go find him, see what he’s doing. We need to have a team meeting, anyway.”
“Breakfast will be ready when you get back, I’m sure,” Syd replies, intent with what she’s doing at the fire. Sean’s pretty sure she’s cooking the maybe-rabbits, but he’s doing his best to not pay attention. The smell of cooking meat is making his mouth water though, despite how he felt at the sight of the dead animals.
Mark looks like he wants to say something, but he just gives Sean a look that means something , even if the Irishman doesn’t know what, and leaves.
“You should probably unwrap your ankle,” Syd says softly. “Let it breathe. I doubt you’re planning on moving too much, anyway.”
“Not like there’s anywhere to go,” Sean points out, reaching out to reach the bindings without shifting his leg too much. “Not exactly looking to climb down for anything, and the cave’s only so big.”
It’s weird, a twisted version of small talk that the two never really used anyway. It was always a greeting and a quick catch-up, but even then, the answer to how are you always included an explanation attached. Sean doesn’t know what to do with this kind of conversation; it burns out too quickly.
“I’m sorry,” Syd says suddenly, and she sounds so sincere, like she actually thinks that whatever this is, it’s entirely her fault.
“For...what?” Sean asks. He doesn’t know how to tell her that she can’t possibly be responsible for this, considering he still isn’t sure what this is.
“That you’re stuck here. That I didn’t think to have food ready when whoever else showed up.” She’s silent another moment, messing with the meat on the fire. “That you’re caught up in mine and Ethan’s drama.” Sean doesn’t know how to tell her that it’s entirely possible that he may have placed himself in that last position himself.
“You shouldn’t apologize for things you aren’t responsible for,” he says instead. “Unless you’ve got magic powers and brought us all here yourself, you’re just as much a victim as I am. And you couldn’t have known how many of us were coming, or how far out we ended up. There’s no point in making food for someone who might not even show up for three more days.” Although, if they had been three days out, Sean’s not sure he’d have made it here at all.
“No counter for that last one though,” Syd says wryly. “I got here pretty well before sundown last night. I could have at least gathered the berries last night. If nobody joined me, I could have eaten them myself.” She looks up at him and smiles, a self-deprecating one that doesn’t even come close to her eyes. Sean doesn’t think he’s ever seen her look so despondent. Even directly following the break-up, she didn’t look so hopeless as she does now. “How are you doing, though? Really?”
There it is, the how are you that’s always more sincere than it ought to be. He just doesn’t know what the answer is. Confused, scared, unsure, worried...a lot of negativity swirling around his head that makes his whole positive mental attitude difficult to maintain. But he doesn’t want her to know that he’s not doing very well at all, because he doesn’t want the three of them to think that they need to worry about him. Everybody seems so stressed and worried about each other and themselves that if Sean lets slip that he’s one more shock away from falling apart, he’s worried they might all self-destruct with the added concerns.
“Better than expected,” he says vaguely, and he supposes it may not even be a lie. He’s still breathing, not having panic attacks and not paralyzed by fear. The only thing physically wrong is that his ankle is still sore, and that’ll heal soon enough. Syd shoots him a look like she doesn’t believe him, but she doesn’t call him on it. Maybe she figures there’s truth to the saying ‘fake it ‘til you make it’ and is just planning on letting him be until he adapts like the others.
Mark and Ethan return, Ethan looking like a petulant child who would rather be anywhere else. Syd removes the meat from the fire and lays it out on a smooth stone that Mark hands her. Sean really feels like he’s in some sort of movie, some Lord of the Rings inspired garbage that he would only half pay attention to.
“Mark said something about a plan?” Ethan says. He sounds disattached, like he doesn’t care one way or another. If there is a plan, it’s news to Sean, and probably something that Mark and Syd came up with last night when they were out of the cave.
“Sure,” Syd agreed, pulling the cloth of berries closer to the center of the group. “We need one.” Ethan scoffs. Syd closes her eyes and breathes deeply through her nose.
“What?” Ethan demands, like he doesn’t see what the problem is. “We go to the village, we ask about where the Soothsayer is these days, we go to the Soothsayer. What more do you want?”
“Well, for starters,” Mark says, calm as ever. Sean can see by the set of his jaw and shoulders, though, that he’s not that far from following in Syd’s footsteps and punching Ethan himself. “We don’t know how much time has passed here. We don’t know if the village is still standing, or even if the Soothsayer is still around.”
“Not to mention we need to teach Jack to defend himself,” Syd adds, and that’s news to Sean. He supposes it makes sense, though, that they don’t just want to be acting as his bodyguards or something. From the sounds of it, the four of them last time were a team, so Sean needs to be capable of joining that team himself.
Sean thinks, for just a second, that Ethan’s about to consider splitting up; that two of them go into town and one of them stays with him in the cave. Sean does not want that, if only because he feels like there is no way to split them up where they all win. If Mark stays behind, then that leaves Syd and Ethan going off by themselves, and Sean’s pretty sure that Syd would kill Ethan if Ethan can’t get his shit together. If Mark goes with Ethan, Mark might be able to talk some sense into the younger man, but that leaves Sean alone with Syd. Even if Sean were able to sort out his feelings, now is probably the worst time to do anything with them. And if Syd goes with Mark, that leaves Sean alone with Ethan and his possibly-romantic feelings for Ethan's ex. Also, Ethan's being a real fucking ass right now and Sean can't be sure that Ethan wouldn't take it out on him, possibly-romantic feelings for his ex notwithstanding.
Thankfully, Ethan doesn't suggest splitting up. He doesn't really suggest anything at all, just waves his hand in a go on gesture.
"So what's the backup plan if the village isn't there?" Sean asks, when nobody else seems to be planning on breaking the tense silence. For lack of anything better to do, he takes a chunk of the mysterious rodent Syd cooked up. It tastes gamey, and he can't really say he's a fan.
"There are other villages," Mark says slowly, like he's trying to work out the plan as he goes. "I think I can vaguely remember which direction we went after the Soothsayer last time, but that was a one time, one way trip. The best thing to do would be to go in that direction until we find somebody to tell us whether it's the right way or not."
It sounds less like a plan and more like guesswork, but that is what Syd had said they did last time, when they first found the village at all.
He can tell Ethan has some sort of cutting response he wants to make, but the younger man seems to realize that he's about one wrong word from getting punched again, possibly by more than one person. So instead, he just says, “And what if nobody finds us?”
Syd shrugs. “We’ll burn that bridge when we get to it, won’t we?”
“Or we could cross it like normal people,” Sean points out, because he doesn’t like the idea of fucking up when it could cost them the way home. “That is always an option.”
“But where’s the fun in that?” Syd pouts. The atmosphere in the cave gets infinitesimally lighter, for just a moment. But then Syd sobers up, and says, “We’ll find a way home. Whatever it takes.”
Nobody looks over at the wall with all the tick marks on it, like none of them want to consider that what it takes isn’t the only thing to consider.
The first time Jack leaves the cave is on day six. He’s been hobbling around the small space until he’s walking almost normal, so Mark and Syd help him climb down the slippery rocks that jut out from the cliff-face. He stumbles once, but Syd hadn’t expected him to make it down without any incidents whatsoever, even if his ankle hadn’t gotten twisted on the trip in.
“Looks a little less scary, in the daytime,” Jack points out, and Syd huffs a laugh.
“Lack of monsters will do that,” she points out. She adjusts her quiver of arrows where it hangs over her shoulder, for lack of anything better to do. “So. Where do you wanna start?”
Jack shifts some more weight to his injured ankle, and she sees him wince, but not as bad as a week ago. “Maybe we should save sword-fighting for another day,” he decides. Syd doesn’t say, but she thinks they should avoid walking too much, too, so that really just leaves archery. It’s up to Jack, though. If he wants to learn to navigate these woods, how to identify plants that are safe for human consumption and those that aren’t, then that’s his choice. “Always wanted to learn to shoot a bow and arrow anyways,” Jack adds.
Syd grins up at him. “Excellent! Wait here!” She turns and climbs back into the cave to grab another bow. Back on the ground, Mark and Jack are having a silent conversation. They’ve been doing that a lot, like an ongoing conversation that Syd keeps interrupting. She couldn’t say what that conversation is about, but it’s definitely happening.
She hands Jack the spare bow (it was Amy’s, when she was here), and says, “We’re gonna have to walk a bit to get to the clearing. Think you can make it?”
“Probably,” Jack says, and he’s already being frustratingly vague about his injuries and limits regarding them. He’ll fit in fine, then. “Lead the way.”
The woods don’t have footpaths or clear trails anywhere, which makes navigating tricky and walking dangerous (as evidenced by the fact that Jack’s got an injured ankle). So Syd keeps an eye on him, makes sure he doesn't trip over tree roots or overgrown shrubs, as well as making sure he doesn't cut himself on anything poisonous. These woods can be deadly.
They get to the clearing, and Syd has to look away from Jack, the way his face lights up when he sees the sky for the first time in almost a week. The sunlight slants from the way they came, dappled on his face between remnants of shadows from the trees.
Syd left Brighton feeling like the whole trip had been a mistake. She hadn't been looking to kickstart a new relationship, especially not with one of Ethan's friends. And, while it’s true that nothing actually happened with Jack, it certainly didn’t feel like an honest statement to say that something didn’t happen, either. They parted ways with something thick and difficult to navigate hanging between them. Not romantically entangled, but not strictly platonic. Schrodinger's relationship.
Which wouldn’t be too bad, except Syd’s pretty sure that Mark and, worse, Ethan can pick up on it. Ethan’s been avoiding all three of them, which isn’t exactly a great idea but probably for the best, and not even because of whatever weird atmosphere floats between Syd and Jack. Anytime they try to have a conversation about plans and figuring out where to go next, what to do if there’s no village or no Soothsayer, Ethan lashes out, and Syd’s constantly half a second away from punching him again. She doesn’t need to keep punching anything, considering that she’s the most proficient with a bow, and she can’t very well use one if she breaks her hand. Mark also always looks like he’d be right behind Syd in punching Ethan, so leaving him to work through this alone is really the only option. But damn, if it doesn’t make Syd feel like the shittiest person in the world.
“Ankle still good?” Syd asks, trying to get off that train of thought before it leads somewhere dangerous (more dangerous than it’s already gone).
“Be in trouble if it weren’t,” Jack responds, which tells her that it’s not great but not bad enough that he finds it debilitating.
Syd accepts the answer with a shrug. “Alright. So, first thing’s first.” She shrugs the quiver off of her shoulder and digs, finding the spare arm guard she always kept there in case the one she usually wore got damaged. She hands it to him. “It goes on the arm that holds the bow steady.”
Jack takes it and clumsily puts it on his left forearm. “Don’t think Legolas had one o’ these,” he mutters, causing Syd to snort a laugh.
“Pretty sure elves are natural born archers, so they’ve probably got really tough skin on their forearms that prevents the bowstring from ripping the skin to shreds,” she replies, even though she’s kind of talking out of her ass on that. “We, however, are mere mortal humans, and the skin’s really sensitive on that part of your arm.”
“I am an Irishman ,” Jack counters. “We’ve got a constitution you can’t beat!”
“I’m sixty percent Scandinavian and twenty percent Irish,” Syd says, just to be contradictory. “And I think the Celts favored swords over bows, anyway.” She hands him an arrow. “So. Shoot…” She points across the clearing. “That tree.”
“What, just like that?” Jack asks. She can tell he didn’t expect to just…get into it like that.
Syd shrugs. “Sure. We’ll work on form and technique after I laugh at how bad you are.” Actually, more like after I see what you’ve got wrong and what you’ve got right , but the slight inclination towards being an asshole is more organic, more like what she’d be like if they were on an archery range for no reason but to have fun. She raises her voice, shouts, “CLEAR!” just in case Mark or Ethan are on the other side of the clearing for any reason. The last thing she needs is for Jack to miss the tree entirely and shoot one of them in the leg, or something.
Jack’s form isn’t too bad; he clearly watches a lot of movies with archers and so has a reasonable idea on how he should stand. His aim sucks, and he doesn’t pull the string back nearly far enough, so the arrow barely makes it halfway across the clearing. It’s pretty underwhelming.
“That…wasn’t that bad,” Syd tells him encouragingly. “Your form was actually pretty close.” She wants to start with one correction at a time. “Let’s fix that first, ‘kay?”
She steps up close behind him, and valiantly ignores the fact that he very clearly has not bathed in the past week. Okay, so after this, they’re getting him to the creek. Fuck.
She has him raise the bow again, without the arrow this time, so she can adjust his stance bit by bit until it’s exactly where it needs to be. She’s close, practically plastered behind him. “And then you pull the string back, as far as you can.”
There’s a scuffle behind the tree line, and Syd steps back and has her own bow drawn before Jack even has the chance to react to it.
“Who’s there?” she calls out, and Ethan steps into the clearing with his hands up.
“Just me,” he says, looking down at the ground. Syd lowers her bow, puts the arrow back in her quiver.
“Sorry,” she says, after a tense moment.
“Can’t be too careful,” Ethan says with a shrug, and it feels like a truce. “Mark said Jack’s training started today, so. Wanted to see how that was going.”
“She didn’t laugh when the arrow only went three feet,” Jack says, and Syd can tell he’s trying to ease the tension by studiously ignoring it. “So I’d say pretty well.”
“We fixed his form,” Syd explains, a little bit more specific so that Ethan knows where they stand. It’s not that she thinks he’s more desperate to get home than the rest of them, but she knows that he’s coping the worst. Worse even than Jack, who’s taken this all in stride after that first night. Jack might actually be taking this better than any of them did on their first time, but that might be because he’s got the three of them, who do know what they’re doing here now.
She pulls another arrow out of the quiver and hands it to Jack. “Try again.”
Jack’s form is much better this time, but his aim is still off and he still doesn’t pull the string back far enough. Both of those problems can be fixed with practice.
Ethan nods, but he doesn’t seem satisfied. Syd doesn’t think he ever will be, so long as they’re here and not actively moving towards the Soothsayer.
Syd just wants to go back to the way things were before Kirana, the first time.
But they can’t; too much has changed between them, the air constantly charged with tension born from something beyond their control. Syd had blamed Ethan for everything in the early days: blamed his obstinance, blamed his desperation to pretend, blamed his delusions. But that was how he was coping, and she felt like the single worst person in the world—in both worlds—for blaming him for trying to handle this in the only way he felt he could. This whole thing is bigger than they are, and the fact that they’re back tells her that there’s something that they missed .
“I’ll uh, I’ll leave you to it, then,” Ethan says, a bit awkward, and for a moment Syd thinks that she might be able to get him to talk . But she lets that moment go, lets him turn and walk back into the trees.
They have to talk. They do. Syd knows that they need to, to sit down and have an honest to God conversation where they act like fucking adults, and they have to do it before they actually leave for the village because they can’t avoid each other once they leave the woods. Not without splitting up, and that’s not an option.
But for now, Syd’s going to train Jack to use a bow and arrow, because even with whatever it is that’s hanging between them, being alone with Jack is far less daunting than being alone with Ethan.
Sean maybe should have said sword. He’s pretty sure that would have put him alone with Mark, who’s entirely too observant for Sean’s liking at the moment, but at least it wouldn’t have put him alone with Syd, plastered along his back and talking softly in his ear as she adjusts his shoulders and helps him pull the bowstring back all the way to his cheek. It’s far too intimate for him to pretend that he feels anything other than strictly platonic feelings.
And then Ethan showed up, and that was probably the most awkward encounter of Sean’s entire fucking life. Because Sean knows, he knows , that Ethan saw the way that they were stood entirely too close together. What’s Sean supposed to say? ‘Hey I’ve got a crush on your ex, I hope we can still be friends, everything will be great!’ He knows something closer to the full story, this time, knows that the two of them fell apart after they were here the first time because they both coped with what had happened differently, but that doesn’t make any of his earlier reservations about starting something with Syd go away .
Syd has him return to form again, and makes him hold it while she makes minor adjustments. His left arm starts to shake, unused to being held up and out the way that it is now. Sean feels like that’s pretty counterproductive to aiming, but Syd doesn’t say anything about it. What she does is hand him another arrow, shows him the best way to nock it so that it’s easiest to aim, takes a grip of his left bicep so his arm isn’t so shaky. Tells him to breathe, and when to let the arrow fly.
It goes about three quarters of the way across the clearing, and it looks like it would have been about a couple feet wide if it had made it that far. Sean refuses to concede that it’s probably got something to do with the way Syd’s hand on his arm is making him flustered. It wouldn’t help anything.
“That’s a lot better!” Syd says, giving him a wide grin and stepping back. Sean doesn’t respond, but he hopes the look he gives her conveys his disbelief. “No, really,” she insists. “It went a lot further!”
“I suppose,” Sean allows, because he doesn’t know what else to say. “Aim’s still shite, though.”
Syd shrugs. “You’ll get it. And,” she leans in closer, lowering her voice to a conspiratorial stage whisper, “Mark’s way worse.”
“That’s not true!”
Sean and Syd both turn to find Mark leaning up against one of the trees behind them. He’s eyeing Sean like he thinks there’s something more happening than archery lessons (which, to be fair, Sean isn’t even sure he could argue that point without feeling like he’s lying anymore), but he doesn’t voice whatever it is he thinks he sees. What he does say is: “I’m only a little bit worse. And I’d have at least hit a tree.”
“Oh, look at that,” Sean mutters teasingly. Then, putting on his very best impression of Mark, which is a truly terrible Warfstache impression at its heart, he adds, “I’m Markiplier and I’ve got such big biceps I can shoot an arrow for miles !”
Syd giggles, and Mark has a look of (mostly) mock indignation. “I didn’t say miles!” Mark argues. “The clearing’s only, like a hundred feet. Syd’s the one that can shoot an arrow for miles, make fun of her!”
“It wasn’t miles ,” Syd says. “It probably just got lost in the grass, and at any rate, it was once .”
Sean turns to Syd, and it occurs to him that it’s a little strange that she hadn’t demonstrated for him before asking him to shoot the first arrow, or afterwards. She’s been arranging and rearranging him like some fancy mannequin, but he hasn’t actually seen her shoot anything.
“I’m not making fun of her ‘cause she ain’t a showoff,” Sean says, wrapping an arm around Syd’s shoulders in a purely friendly gesture. “‘At least I’d hit a tree,’ honestly .”
“I don’t need to brag or show off,” Syd says, and Sean can hear the grin. “He already knows how great I am.”
Sean’s heart stutters, because it almost sounds like she knows , knows he’s got a crush, knows what he’s been thinking, knows what he and Mark talk about in hushed tones when she leaves, and then he remembers . Remembers that, a week ago, when it was so dark that he could barely see Mark and Ethan, a moonless night in the dark woods, an arrow that missed him so narrowly and hit the monster that must have been right behind him. That was Syd . Even in the dark, she’s got the kind of aim that Sean will never be able to compete with.
Mark scoffs. “Yeah, okay, don’t let it inflate your ego or anything.”
Sean feels Syd shrug. “Gotta compete with you somehow.” She ducks out from under Sean’s arm, and he tries not to pout. “Got that massive ego to match your massive head.”
“Okay, ow ,” Mark says, putting on an overexaggerated expression of hurt. “Anyway, I just came by to check on progress.”
“It’s being made!” Syd says cheerfully. “So we’re doing great!”
Mark doesn’t leave them to it, choosing instead to watch them for a while. After about five tries, Sean gets an arrow to the other side of the clearing, but it hits the ground just before it hits the tree he’s been aiming for. A few more arrows and they start to hit the tree but bounce harmlessly off of it. Sean doesn’t start whining, nor does he accuse Syd of setting him up for failure, because he’s sure that it’s possible for someone that isn’t him to get an arrow embedded into the tree. It does, however, feel like he’s not going to be able to do it.
On one occasion, the arrow whizzes past the tree and disappears into the forest. Syd pats his shoulder, which is sore from the effort and strain he’s been putting on it. “Call it a day?” she suggests.
Sean wants to argue, wants to stay until he gets it , but he’s getting so tired. And he’s hungry. He gets why there isn’t a lot of food here, gets that they have to hunt and scavenge for each meal, but fuck if he doesn’t hate every second of it. So he just nods at her, hands her the bow back. He makes to step forward, to start collecting all the arrows, but Syd holds him back.
“I’ve got it,” she tells him. “Just go with Mark.”
Mark, who’s still watching, and has probably been cataloguing Sean’s every reaction to every time he and Syd make some kind of physical contact. Sean does not want to just go with Mark, because Mark is going to want to talk about Sean’s feelings.
Sean does not want to talk about his feelings.
He doesn’t seem to have a choice, though, because Mark just grabs him by the arm and starts leading him through the trees, away from the clearing and closer to the sound of the rushing water. “You have not showered in a week and you smell,” Mark says, matter-of-factly. “I’m sure the reason Syd didn’t say anything to you is because she’s very nice and doesn’t like telling people that they smell like something rotting, but I swear to God, you’d smell better if you’d been dead a week in the desert.”
Sean knows he smells bad, but he thinks Mark’s overselling it a bit. He doesn’t say anything, though, because. Yeah. He needs a shower. Not that there’s any shower nearby, but he’s smart enough to put two and two together and guess that Mark’s gonna throw him into the river until he smells a bit better.
“Don’t we get the water from that river?” he points out, because he’s gotta be contrary somehow .
“We get our drinking water further upstream,” Mark explains. “Right at the base of the falls. How’s your ankle, by the way?”
Sean shrugs, hoping that he’s doing a good job of downplaying the way that it’s been throbbing incessantly since about right after he and Syd started walking towards the clearing. It does not seem to appreciate the uneven terrain or the constant weight being put on it, but he supposes that it could be much worse. He’s pretty sure that he’ll probably be fine, because if not then they’ll all be fucked. “‘S alright,” he says, noncommittally.
Mark eyes him critically, and sighs. “Yeah, okay,” he says, and Sean knows he doesn’t believe him in the slightest. He doesn’t really think Syd did, either. “Are you at least good enough to stand in the creek long enough to get somewhat clean?”
Sean shrugs again. “Probably. You gonna rescue me if I can’t?” He flutters his eyelashes, putting on his best innocent princess look. He’s pretty sure it conflicts wildly with his beard.
“Absolutely not,” Mark says, but Sean can tell he’s joking. “I’m gonna let you drown.”
When they get to the creek, Sean feels only a little awkward stripping down to the thin shorts that act as a fair substitute for boxers. He’s pretty sure the others (at least Mark and Ethan; he refuses to think about Syd) are going commando, but Sean’s been wearing shorts under his pants to try and cling to some sense of normalcy here. He wades into the center of the creek, and even at its deepest point it only comes up to about his hips. The current’s stronger than he’d expected, but not so strong that it’ll sweep him away.
When Sean asks what passes for soap here, Mark just lobs something resembling a pinecone at him. It lands in the water, so Mark probably wasn’t actually trying to hit him, and it floats away as Sean scowls at him. “Alright, I get it. Jesus.”
Even without soap, the bath helps a lot. Sean feels the grime and sweat and grossness wash away, and he crouches down so he can submerge his head to get his hair wet. When he resurfaces, he sees that Ethan has joined Mark, and is holding a change of clothes.
“How’s it going?” Ethan asks him, and it’s almost friendly.
“Great! I feel like a real boy again!”
“He declined the pinecone,” Mark says. “But at least we got him in the water.”
Sean scowls. “Fuck off,” he shouts. “I haven’t been able to leave the cave because the two of you couldn’t be arsed to help keep me from tripping when we first arrived!” He hadn’t meant for it to sound quite so much like he was guilt tripping them, but there wasn’t much to be done for that.
“We apologized!”
Sean debates whether or not to mention that while it’s true that Mark apologized, Ethan did not. Ethan hasn’t said much of anything at all. He decides not to say anything that could start an actual argument.
“I’m just sayin’, ain’t my fault I haven’t bathed in a week.” He doesn’t think he smells much better now than he did at the outset, since there isn’t soap and there also isn’t any deodorant, but at least he doesn’t smell so strongly , and he feels cleaner. It’s an obvious improvement.
When he feels as clean as he knows he’s going to get, he hauls himself back onto the riverbank, trying not to wince when his ankle twinges. He can tell by the twin looks of concern on Mark and Ethan’s faces that he doesn’t do a very good job.
He gets dressed as quickly as possible, holding himself steady on a nearby tree as he pulls on the pants Ethan had brought. He feels like an extra in Lord of the Rings in these clothes, or maybe a cheaper ripoff, wearing a costume that isn’t meant to be looked at too closely. It fits the general theme, but only at a glance.
They’re shitty clothes, with the pants already wearing out at the knee and a hole in the shirt, under the right armpit.
Mark and Ethan help support his weight on the trek back to the cave, and Sean wants to try to say that it isn’t necessary but he needs to accept that it kind of is. He’s gone from occasionally pacing around the cave out of boredom but mostly staying off his feet to a whole day putting weight on his ankle. It’s starting to hurt like a motherfucker. He’s not looking forward to climbing back up.
Syd’s got a fire going, and the smell of something cooking is filling the space. Sean needs a little bit of help from Mark to get up inside, but he thinks that’s less the ankle and more the lack of upper body strength. He’s even able to walk himself over to the opposite wall, where he usually sits.
“So. How’d it go?” Syd asks, poking at whatever it is that’s over the fire. Sean thinks it looks vaguely birdlike, and there is a pile of feathers on top of the chest.
“Great,” Sean mumbles, settling against the wall. It’s actually starting to feel comfortable, sitting on a stone ground and leaning against the uneven stone wall. He thinks it’s some kind of form of Stockholm Syndrome. “I feel like a human again.”
“You smell like one, too,” Syd offers, grinning up at him. Sean makes a face at her and flips her off.
Sean starts to drift off to the sound of Syd and Mark talking, catching Ethan up on how the archery lesson went. The gist of it is that he did pretty well, will probably be reasonably okay at it after another couple lessons. He doesn’t feel up to another couple of lessons just now, sore and achy from holding his arms up for longer than he normally does.
He wants to learn swords. He’ll be even more sore and achy, he knows, and it probably involves a few hours alone with Mark, but knowing how to swordfight would be an awesome skill to have.
After some more conversation that Sean hears but doesn’t register, there’s a hand gently shaking his shoulder. Syd’s watching him with a soft smile that makes his heart stutter. “Food’s ready. Then we’ll let you sleep.”