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The vicious snap of the metal jaws come so hard and fast that it drives the air from Etho’s lungs immediately, destroying any chance of them screaming as they collapse to the forest floor in writhing, choked agony. The burning races up from the bear trap teeth in Etho’s leg through his whole body, his claws scouring the ear and back arched tight as a bow, warring with the simultaneous urges to fight or flee with the knowledge that any twitch of his leg drives the maw deeper.
Etho screams now, sobbing pressed face-first into the earth, and through it still twists around to grasp at the bear trap. The first attempt is weak, hands too shaky, and after that everything too quickly becomes slick with his blood. The metal teeth surely scrape bone, and Etho’s white fur is quickly becoming dyed with his own gore.
His fingers slip from the trap and he just tries again, chest heaving, the whole world blotted out into nothing but ringing, pain, and the thing eating away at his leg, eating him alive. The teeth slice at his gloves and fingers when he finally grips it and pulls with all the strength he can muster.
It hurts just as much starting to come out, but the leverage is wrong. The mouth snaps closed again, and Etho jumps back from it, and pins his face against the grass, failing to hold back another wail.
Desperation makes them put their hands on the trap again, but the tremble in has progressed too much and they get an array of new cuts with no hope of finding purchase again. Etho’s hybrid hindbrain screams more, and everything smells like blood. He can’t be trapped, he can’t be, he needs to get out, some way, any way —
“Etho!” The shout comes through the trees and then Joel is bursting into view. He’s breathing hard and all but skids into the dirt at Etho’s side. Etho holds up his blood-soaked hands to keep Joel back, as if the trap will come to life and take a bite out of Joel too.
“Oh, fuck,” Joel chokes out, crawling closer. Etho can’t speak, just manages a broken whine, dropping his hands down to the ground again to keep himself up. “Oh, fuck, Etho.” Joel says between gasping breaths. “Okay. Okay.” He adds the last words like he’s psyching himself up, and Etho could imagine that tone for something so normal that it almost makes Etho become hysterical with laughter.
Joel looks back over his shoulder, checking for pursuit, eyes flying wildly about the terrain, and then his focus comes back to the bear trap. There’s not enough time. Etho’s animal brain screams that they’re going to die and there are black spots in their vision.
“I’m so sorry, this is gonna hurt,” Joel warns as he grabs one side of the trap. The teeth nip at Joel’s hands and he doesn’t even flinch. “When I get it back enough, you’ll have to pull yourself off.”
Etho thinks that they nod, but the hysteria is swiftly bleeding to shock. Or it’s literal blood loss. Etho doesn’t know. He has to get free. Any chance, he has to.
Joel groans with the effort it takes to fight the trap’s springloaded strength, and it does hurt, exactly as he warned, the trap coming back with shrieks like a fucking ravager pulled off its prey too early. Etho’s been chased by angry ravagers and this is so, so much worse. Etho yanks his leg off the opposite teeth with no pause for the least damaging way to do it, no time for rationale, only a need for escape. It rips and claws at his ragged flesh for once last bite of its meal.
Etho scrabbles a foot away, hearing the CRACK as the trap snaps back together in a final, deafening boom, left hungry, and collapses into the brush without even being able to check that Joel has all his fingers, hyperventilating and barely conscious.
But Joel is on Etho again in a second, still apologizing. He’s pulling off his yukata and fully rips off a sleeve as he rambles.
“I haven’t made a tourniquet before—” Etho tries to not fucking scream about the sensation of metal gnawing off slivers of his femur. “But I know the steps, I don’t think we have time for full bandages, but we gotta move, okay? I’ve got you. Just try and stay still.”
Joel is largely a blur above them, with only his most familiar aspects the things Etho can pick out as meager comfort. His eyes (panicked right now), his hands (bloody and weirdly steady), Etho can focus on these things instead of the blood pooling in his boots or soaking into his tail, or the ragged mess of his right leg that doesn’t even look like it belongs to a person right now.
Etho knows Joel did a decent job with the tourniquet when the sense of his fucked-up leg go a bit more numb, and Joel looks down at Etho without seeming quite as pale and nauseous. It’s bad. But Joel doesn’t seem to think Etho’s going to die of blood loss here and now. That’s good, Etho thinks distantly. Better anywhere else but here like the wounded animal he is.
Etho still misses it the first time or three that Joel tries to coax him into getting up. Etho’s head is lolling against Joel’s chest as Joel’s tone turns pleading, and Etho tunes back in.
“—have to keep movin’, Etho, I know you’re probably cold and it hurts but we need to try and meet up with someone. Anyone. They’ll come back around to check the traps and we need to be far away from here.”
Etho manages to tighten their grip on Joel’s sleeve, and Joel cradles the back of Etho’s head, leaning Etho back so Joel can see his face.
“Etho?” Joel asks hopefully. “Are you with me?”
“Yeah.” Etho forces the word. “Let’s go.”
Etho’s injured leg drags, not carrying any weight, but with Etho’s arm slung over Joel’s shoulder they still limp along at a pace with Joel not complaining for a moment about how much of Etho’s weight he has to carry. They’re probably leaving a trail, Etho thinks faintly, blood and footprints, but the others are out there, hopefully in better shape. There’s always a fighting chance.
“You’re doing great,” Joel encourages as they move. “I’ve got you.”
And Etho murmurs back, “I know.”