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So here he was.
Standing about ten feet away from the river, running calculations in his head. Calculations that he hadn’t really put to use in about a month, give or take. The last time he really had to run quick calculations was the nineteenth of June, which in a handful of days would be a month. Next Sunday, if he was thinking correctly?
Timing didn’t matter in particular right now. All that really mattered was him and the river in front of him.
Slasher had never been taught to swim. Perhaps a mistake on his mother’s part [...his mother, who hadn’t spoken to him in about the same time as rounds hadn’t been going on. Was she angry? Or…
…was there…more at play?]
…Off topic. Off track.
Perhaps not being taught to swim was a mistake on his mother’s part. A mistake that would end in an escape from a search party ending in a watery grave and him being dragged…here.
Sometimes he still felt like water bubbled in his lungs.
He shook himself out with a huff. He had not been taught to swim. He had failed to learn something that nearly everyone learned, and it ended in him gaining a fear of something as simple as water. Any time he was more than knee-deep, he felt that annoying bubbling fear that came to the surface like he never did from that lake. It burned his lungs like when he wordlessly screamed for air until the dark engulfed him. The survivors took advantage of this fear at times in rounds, even though there was a unique…regret for having to do it whenever he looked at their faces. Why would they regret taking advantage of a weakness to be able to live?
Slasher would never understand them. Any of them.
He took a step towards the river. He was going to get over this fear no matter what it took. He was going to stand there, waist-deep, until he stopped trembling and convinced himself it was–
He was abruptly scooped off his feet and dragged back away from the river by the back of his jacket like a kitten’s scruff, some great big whine emanating from whatever had grabbed him. He was gently bundled into the side of a spike and quickly checked over with a set of claws and a few great big sniffs, like some big scared dog was desperately trying to protect him.
Ah. Yeah, that was about as close to a big scared dog that would want to desperately protect him as he could get. John.
Slasher pushed John’s head away from him with a huff to assure he was alright. He couldn’t be mad at John for bundling him away. He had long since learned of exactly how John’s state worked, and considering the fact that the eye on the man’s uncorrupted side of his face could be described as looking like the lights were on with no one home, Slasher was aware that at least for now, he was dealing with what was effectively an animal. An animal that he very much so could reason with, but an animal nonetheless.
Clearly satisfied with checking that he was alright, John set Slasher down and used the side of the massive claw that had replaced his right arm to try to nudge him away from the river. Slasher, however, set his hands on the spike, shaking his head and then pointing back at the river.
John let out another loud whine.
Slasher pointed again.
Begrudgingly, John stepped to the side, letting Slasher slowly inch towards the river again. Okay.
He took a breath.
The water was clear, and he could easily see the bottom. It was about twenty feet across, and he knew that at its deepest, Sixer could stand on all fours and have it come just about up to her shoulders. This…wasn’t exactly comforting, considering that he was well aware that in that stance, Sixer measured ten feet at the shoulder, and Slasher was…notably only about five feet tall [which he found humor in, considering he was supposed to be some sort of super soldier or something akin to it. Whatever they called him.], meaning the river was nearly about twice as deep as he was tall.
He wasn’t going to try to swim today, merely get himself at least waist-deep, as he had decided earlier, so he didn’t need to worry about learning something he had no idea how to go about learning. Maybe eventually he’d ask someone here for help learning. Someone had to know how to swim, right?
…Anyways.
They took a step and let their feet shuffle into the water, ignoring some quiet little nonononono panic in their head. It’d be fine. It’d be fine.
When he got knee-deep and the fear surfaced even more, he took note of the fact that John had followed him into the water, staring at him with an almost expectant look, like he was waiting for Slasher to turn tail and run, but not…judgementally. It was the nice sort of expectant look, like when you were waiting for someone to ask for help when they needed it most and you were willing to help.
With another breath, Slasher stepped further, and John followed.
When he was waist-deep, he stopped and held his positioning, staring at the clear water and once again running calculations in his head. Thinking about how wide across it was. Thinking about how deep it was.
Thinking about how long it’d take if he slipped into the deepest part for the air to stop bubbling, how long until someone came running for him and how well could he scrabble at the river rocks until he could claw his way back to shore and–
Unthinkingly, he frantically grabbed at John’s sweater-vest, something like a huff and a hiss at the same time escaping his throat, a frantic wordless get me out of here and–and…without hesitation, John nudged him upwards, allowing him to rest on his shoulders as he wordlessly walked back to shore.
There was no judgement, just a simple whine as if to ask if he was okay as John headed back in the direction of the cabin. Slasher made a quiet hum of reassurance.
He’d try again some other day.
Sonnellino was casually sitting on the couch in front of the fireplace when John trotted into the house, Slasher on his shoulders. He raised an eyebrow, a sort of half-held laugh exiting through his nose as a huff. John lowered himself down to let Slasher slip off to sit in front of the fireplace, and Sonne realized with a hum of questioning that Slasher’s clothes were partially wet. Last he remembered, Slasher was afraid of water. Unless…?
“Let me guess, trying to get over your fear?” he questioned. Slasher nodded, but didn’t turn to face him. Sonne hummed in response, “Seems you did at least somewhat good. Got about waist deep?”
Another nod.
“Good on ya.”
Suddenly, John’s attention was turned to him. The great lumbering beast of a man trotted over, regarding Sonne with a small handful of sniffs, like he was searching for the smell of something. Sonne took an interested mental note of the fact that his corrupted eye was slightly shut, something that usually entailed a bout of lucidity was incoming sometime soon, which was…good. He couldn’t entirely remember the last time John had been fully lucid.
John swung his head to look towards the kitchen, then back at Sonne expectantly, like he had a question.
“...I’ve eaten today, if that’s what you’re getting at,” he assured. He had breakfast when he woke up a few hours ago, some leftover sausage and egg mix that someone had made.
John snuffled with crystal clear annoyance, as if trying to ask how long ago that was, or as if he didn’t believe Sonne at all. He suddenly began nudging Sonne, some sort of weird imitated chirping escaping his throat as Slasher made a sort of hissing laugh from in front of the fireplace. Sonne was practically forced off the couch and towards the kitchen with no regard for his protests, John not stopping until the two of them were right at the fridge.
“Alright, alright! You big lug,” Sonne pushed John’s head away with the firm thump of his foot, “You are needlessly pushy when you get concerned over people.”
John raised his head with a huff like he was proud of that fact.
“Insufferable,” Sonne tried to hide the smile on his face as he opened the fridge and dug through it. Seemingly satisfied, John wandered off again.
Azure found himself at his garden more often than not ever since rounds had stopped happening.
He knew they were coming back at some point soon, he could just feel it, but for now, it was…strangely peaceful. He’d talked to Chance a few times since the break started, mostly exchanging information about how everyone was doing, passing information that certain people hadn’t been telling everyone.
He was shaken out of his thoughts by heavy footsteps and a weird sort of coughing bark, and he turned around to see John standing there expectantly, as if waiting for Azure to invite him over.
“Ah,” Azure smiled, “Hello John, how are you doing today?”
John made a snuffle and trotted over, inspecting various flowers. Azure stared at him for a long minute, trying to figure out what he was doing. Notably, there was something…different about his face. Like he was in a sort of strange half-lucid state, which Azure found interesting. To his knowledge, John only had two states–being completely there and basically just a scared man, or being nothing but a beast. The halfway sort of look left him curious, and with perhaps an idea.
“...Do you want to make a bouquet?” he asked, seeing John turn to blink at him. “Just a simple bundle of flowers,” he clarified, “I can help you pick them out.”
After a moment spent thinking, he decided to fish just a bit, just to see exactly how lucid John was right now.
“Maybe you could even…give it to someone?” Azure offered. John stared at him before nodding with another firm snuffle. Interesting. He’d have to talk to 1x about that later.
He stood up and dusted himself off, picking up a pair of smaller gardening shears, the smaller kind he used to make bouquets of his own. John stared for a moment longer before starting to wander through the grotto, occasionally stopping to stare at some flowers before moving on.
Eventually, he stopped, staring at a cluster of deep red flowers.
“Carnations,” Azure hummed, “Quite beautiful, in my opinion…though I suppose I’m biased and believe all flowers are beautiful.”
John nearly nudged one of the dark red carnations with a claw, but paused, as if he was almost afraid that he would hurt it. Azure felt bad for him, horribly imagining how he would feel if he were afraid to touch any flowers. John stared at him expectantly for a moment, tilting his head in the direction of the flowers, as if confirming these were the first ones for the bouquet. Azure leaned down to carefully snip a few, holding them gently.
“Right,” he nodded, “just show me what you want next.”
Eventually, after…what felt like carefully considered ages, Azure was carefully wrapping the stems of a cluster of flowers together in twine, creating such a delicate bouquet that rivaled the flower choices of some of his own personal ones. Carnations, chrysanthemums, peonies…and of course, roses.
John stared at the bouquet for a solid moment before he gently held out a claw-hand, as if silently asking to hold it. Azure passed it over, and John simply…stared for a moment.
And then, he began to walk.
Azure took a moment to try to figure out where he was going, and they realized with a start that he was heading for the barrier between the two sides of the lake. After a bit of walking, just before he got into the tree line, he looked back and snuffled, tilting his head as if to ask if they were coming. Azure quickly headed after him, and once they had caught up, he casually continued onwards. Azure was…puzzled over what was going on in John’s brain, but at the same time, they didn’t want to stop him to ask him, not wanting to risk shaking him out of the state he was in and leaving him completely feral.
Eventually, they reached the barrier, and John stopped.
He stared expectantly, as if wanting to ask for something and not having the words for it.
…And yet, somehow, someway, Azure could figure it out.
“I don’t…know if I can,” he stared at John, seeing that just nearly the man beneath had broken through. John made a whine, as if asking him to just try.
With a sigh, Azure crouched down, breathing out as he closed his eyes, desperately trying to do anything, anything to make a trail. Force flowers to bloom, anything.
Only at the sound of footsteps did he let up the effort, breathing out heavily as he tried to not collapse backwards. It was fine. It was worth it.
One look at her face.
That was all it took.
He knew it had been hiding her face from him, and now he knew exactly why. He just had one single look at her face, and…he was himself again.
Jane. His wife.
He glanced away just for a second to stare at the flowers in his claws, hearing Azure mumble something about heading to the cabin and walking off. As rude as it was to really think about, he didn’t particularly care for whatever Azure was doing.
“I g…ot youuu fffflowersss,” he tested his voice as he glanced back at her, hating how much it hurt to speak. He didn’t care how much it burned his throat, he was going to speak.
She was just…staring at him. Part of him wanted to shrink away, to apologize for how he looked and sounded, but then she stepped forwards, gently reaching her hand out for the bouquet. He passed it through the barrier, remembering that while people couldn’t pass through, things could.
One of his claws brushed something.
And then he realized with a start that he had graced Jane’s hand. Not with the sharp tip of a claw, no, but rather the side. He hadn’t hurt her, thank everything, but he realized that somehow, someway, The Corruption counted as a thing.
His hand could pass through the barrier.
He was so, so thankful that he knew that outside of rounds, The Corruption couldn’t hurt anyone but him. It was dormant.
Hand trembling, he passed it through until he couldn’t anymore and his actual skin hit the barrier. It should have terrified him, giving him the knowledge that his coated hand no longer counted as part of a living being and therefore was most likely necrotic underneath, but he didn’t care. All he could think about right now was her.
“John…” her voice was barely a whisper as she gently grabbed his hand, allowing him to move to hold her face.
She was beautifully soft, just as he remembered her being. New scars criss-crossed her skin, but in a strange way, they almost suited her. If he had it his way, nothing would ever hurt her, but something had to happen, at least it looked like she wasn’t bothered by the marks it left, considering how she willingly had them on full display.
“Hhhhow did…yyyou get evennn prettier?” he asked, as if she could come up with an actual answer.
“You always guessed I’d age like fine wine, didn’t you?” her voice was half choked with tears through her smile. Tears he desperately didn’t want to see fall, no matter if they were good tears or not. Probably a mix of both, if he were to take a guess.
And so they sat like that for a long while, Jane with her head in his hand, and John desperately wishing he could pull her into a hug and never let her go again. They sat until John’s arm grew tired from holding it out, and yet he refused to pull it back and away from her.
“We’ll get out of here,” Jane nodded against his hand, voice much more firm than it was, “We’ll get out of here, and I’ll find some way to fix you.”
“Ifff anyonnne can do ittt,” he stopped for a moment to breath, trying to shake away the pain, “It’llll be yyyou.”
He knew that eventually he’d have to go back to the cabin and resign himself to disappearing back under that feral beast until he re-emerged however long from now it was. Eventually he’d have to leave her again and know that the thing that was puppetting his body would hurt her over and over again.
But for now, he had her, and that was all he wanted to think about.