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He hacks, brain rattled beyond its limits.
Guy groans, rolling onto his back, the dirt and slick of the city caking itself on his skin. He’s noting that he’s seeing twice as many trash cans in this alley way than before when an ugly, piercing pain gnaws through the fuzz of his mind. He grabs his shoulder and squeezes it in a vain attempt to cut the feeling off at the source. He inhales sharply, gritting his teeth and swallowing the blood pooling in his mouth. Heaven forbid he bit his tongue.
Though his senses are dulled, he knows something is broken. Most certainly. He wants to believe he’s being childish about it. But it hurts. His sneakers scrabble against the wet pavement. Gaining no traction and sliding every which way. He presses his check into the ground, huffs an exhale and pushes up, the toe of his shoe digging into the ground of the alleyway.
He bit his tongue and he’s laying in a puddle of unknown, wet substance. Likely water. His senses haven’t necessarily…rebooted…yet. So he’s not ruling out anything else just yet. Another day of saving the world.
Another white hot flash of pain has him muffling something between a grunt and a scream. Guy digs into the meat of his shoulder, breathing raggedly. Hard enough it almost overpowers the sound of rubber soles on wet concrete. He cranes his neck, nose and brow scrunched up. Push through he thinks to himself, catching a glimpse of a soggy striped prison uniform. He is coming. Again…
His instincts scream at him.
Danger.
But that can’t be right. Cody is not a dangerous person. He’s a good man, rowdy, but good. With nothing in his heart, but the desire to help clean his city up.
Guy scrambles enough neurons together to try and meet Cody again. Nails digging uselessly into the concrete as he struggles to get his knees underneath him. The pain pulses in his shoulder and he chokes off the yell, losing his footing and jolting forward. Front teeth kissing the asphalt. His sixth sense is sounding off red alerts, anxiety zipping through his cloudy mind. He thrums with the need to get up, get moving, run away. His body and brain are disconnected. Forcibly unplugged by his best friend of many years.
There used to be a time when he had fun doing this with Cody. When they were younger and Cody was a little quicker, more energetic, and keen to show him new tricks on a punching bag. Even back then he felt that he might be holding something back. In the way, the frenetic energy never fully died down after nights cleaning up the streets. In the way, he’d check Guy just a little too hard, a little too close to the ribs, the stomach, the liver. They used to spar.
Now Cody is giving out beatings and not the type that you can walk off. There’s no passion in this fight. No feeling. This is the beating of someone who is bored. Chasing down any feeling with a nonchalant recklessness you don’t gain from the outside world.
Nothing is moving the way that he needs it too.
Not fast enough.
It’s shameful.
A derisive snort cuts through the frothy greymatter milkshake that is Guy’s brain. The sound smothered by his ringing ears. A warm hand touches his back and shakes him roughly.
His shoulder throbs. He gathers his legs under his body. A twisted kowtow he’s been forced into on sheer brutality alone. Focus. He tells himself. Zoning out the hurt and pressing his free hand into the ground. The grime of the city has never been more inviting, even dirty asphalt can be soothing if your entire body is one big bruise. His jaw unclenches and his body sags. Welcoming the wet on his overheated body. All the fight seeps out of him and into the streets of Metro City.
Really, he had just come to talk. He was looking for Cody. But only to talk. Just to understand. With everything going on he could understand why Cody did what he did. Acted the way he acted. But it didn’t change the fact that this wasn’t who he was. To up and disappear and fight and fight and fight. All night for nothing and no one but the sake of it. If they could just talk he was sure that they could come to some sort of understanding. That he would listen. They’d been friends for so long, it would make sense if he listened to Guy. Cody would certainly listen to reason, see some sense, change. Guy would work double time to get the charges cleared. Somehow. And. Maybe. if he felt like it. He would come home. And things would go back to the way they used to be. Of course. That was only if he so chose to. Cody was a grown man with at least some ability to see some sense.
Plus things are strange without him around. It’s not the same. Like the foundation of the city itself is crumbling.
A sense of normalcy is what every human needs to function. Routine is the basis of all stability.
But normal is relative, apparently, and Cody is no longer stable.
It hurts, but the cold ground calls him back to consciousness. Lifts the veil on his senses little by little. It feels good against his skin. Like a frying pan dipped in water. A solid, unyielding thing to ground him. Decades old worn down gravel scratches his already aching forehead. The heat of his breath sticky against the back of his hand. Hair clings to the temples and disgusting oil slick seeps through his gi. And his shoulder. Guy feels his stomach contract, acid trying to bully its way up. His whole body hurts, there will be bruises tomorrow…And the next day. For a few weeks to come.
But that is in due time.
Slowly, the world regains some texture. The bricks are rough and the number of trash cans go from two too many to one and a half. Finally the world is righting itself.
When his vision tilts all his dreams and nightmares come true. For a second he is weightless, one blissful second. But as all things he’s pulled back to earth. Cody’s lips are moving, but whatever he’s saying is drowned out by the stabbing feeling in his arm. He heard Cody has started carrying a knife on him. If he had the energy he’d reach out for Cody’s wrist where it’s balled up in the front of his gi. But he doesn’t. So Cody shakes him, speaks louder, and jostles him. The pain rocks through him like a bomb. All consuming. Too much, too rough. He retches the burn of it in his throat, the nasty taste of stomach acid crawling its way out his stomach and over his tongue.
When he hits the ground and watches Cody’s shoes stumble backwards with his lunch down the front of his uniform, pettily enough, he’s glad he got this one thing.
It’s what you deserve.
As quickly as the thought comes, it goes. Cody is another victim of the system. Another soul lost to the path of good intentions.
It felt good getting all that out, his stomach is empty but he feels a bit lighter. The pain still throbs less intensely than before.
All is quiet except for the occasional sound of a car passing by, water dripping from the gutters on to the trash cans below, and Guy’s brittle breaths. From where he’s laying he can see Cody’s shoes, frozen in place in a pool of vomit. Chains rattle softly, a ragged annoyed huff cuts through the air, and Cody’s shoes. Cody. stomps forward. Foot landing heavy right next to Guy’s head.
Too quickly, too heavy, too close. His whole body jolts and cringes inward before his brain can react. Guy flinches, whole body folding in on itself to cradle his arm closer to his body. Chin to chest, protect the head. Guy tries, he knows, Cody isn’t really a problem. Just a danger to himself and the general evil-doer. Cody knows when enough is too much. But right now his body is at its limit.
All he can see is the dirty knees of his gi and the feel of body heat behind him. Cold steel gently touches the back of his neck and he sighs with relief.