synopsychic | Too Much Idiot [Jaunt Week 2]

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Too Much Idiot [Jaunt Week 2]

[While this is happening...]

[Bob's scratchy voice comes on the network, sounding slightly distressed.]

Hey, you know that angel that's been hitting people with that stupid aggravating whip?

Three guesses who picked a fight with him, and the first two don't count.

[There's a brief aerial shot of Casper, suspended in air with raven wings out. Bartholomew has reared back his whip but now there's tons of snowballs and water all over him.]

The fuck am I supposed to do with this?

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Casper's not hard to find. He's right on the floor of the entrance, bleeding from his wrists and neck and back. He doesn't have wings anymore, and he's curled up into a small ball. He's clearly rolled around on the floor a bit, the dirt dusting his clothes.

Bob sits nearby on a table and looks up at Gil. "I don't know that touching him right now is a great idea."

"Yeah, well. I'm gonna have to."

But he burns some Glamour first, so he has the reaction time and strength in case this goes poorly. He kneels down in front of Casper's face, and gently puts a hand on his shoulder. "Casper, it's okay. It's just me."

Caaper twitches hard, but doesn't respond verbally. He pulls himself up tighter and tries to turn his back more towards Gil. Fear is practically stinking up the whole room.

He reaches out on the psychic network, but the thoughts are faint and carry even more fear. 'Protect. Fail. Protected? Couldn't do it. Should have done it. Protected myself? Failing...'

"It's okay, Cas. Ease up, you're gonna be okay."

His hand doesn't move from Casper's shoulder, but he can't do anything to make it more reassuring. So instead he pulls energy from his dreamcatcher, enough to make a thick lump of goo. "I'm gonna put some shit on you, alright? It's gonna be on your whole neck, so. Try not to freak out."

And he carefully wraps Casper's neck in the healing ectoplasm.

He breathes in sharply, the fear just escalating. He twitches from pain, and a choked sob works his way out of his throat. He doesn't move away, doesn't fight back, but instead goes stiff.

'Danger. Doesn't matter. Do what you're going to do.'

Bob looks down at this, and mentally sighs. 'Kid doesn't do well with being restrained.'

"I get it, Bob, I was there for both his dungeons," he snaps at the bird. "That's not helping."

He takes his hand off Casper's shoulder and caresses his head, running his thick finger through Casper's hair in a gentle motion. "It won't take long, just. You don't have to hold it in, Cas. I got you." It's already partway healed, it won't take much longer.

'I know! For fuck's sake, I know, I just... he's panicking and I - The bird sounds distressed, far from his usual annoyed state, and his feathers are ruffling up.

Casper takes in little pained breaths, and while the goop seems to be healing his neck wounds he's pulled his wrists up against his chest tightly. 'Failed. I failed. I couldn't do anything. Tried to use what I learned. Didn't work. Supposed to stand up for people...'

Gil sighs quietly. Of course Bob was freaking out as well. "Bob, come sit on me. Seems like you need it."

He keeps stroking Casper's hair, keeping an eye on the goo's progress. He's not gonna let Casper scar over this. "You can tell me all about it in a minute, Cas, just relax. I'm gonna stop it hurting."

He eyes Gil for a moment and then flutters down to perch on his shoulder. He does his best to not dig in his talons, at least.

'Don't know if you... can. Cursed or something. At least on my back.' He does untense a little bit, leaning into the touch. He's still shaking slightly, but his breathing is evening out slowly as the pain around his neck starts to fade.

The goo finished soaking into Casper's neck and Gil eyes it critically, using the hand in Casper's hair to very gently turn his head a little to make sure there's no marks left.

"Why did you think that was a good idea?" he sighs, exasperated beyond hell. "Stay calm, okay, I'm gonna do your wrists now."

He gives Bob a little pat first, smoothing down some feathers before he pulls more goo out and wraps it around both of Casper's wrists.

Bob leans into the pat for a moment before turning his attention back to Casper.

Casper lets out a pained little noise - the wounds are much, much worse here. Whatever caused it dug in enough to cause huge, stabbing wounds - and he was clearly fighting against it by how much damage is around each wound. The damage is awful, and the fact that Casper didn't bleed out and can actually move his wrists would be an actual miracle on a normal person.

"Muh." Great start for intelligible speech, here. He switches back to thinking. 'I can take it. If I could get him to reverse it on them... it's okay.'

"That's not how it works, Casper," he replies coolly. "People care if fucking this shit happens to you."

With one hand and a bit of careful shuffling, he manages to slide his leg under Casper's head as a pillow. "Raidou's overlay warned me about that fuck, anyway," he says. Maybe talking will help distract Casper from the pain. "He basically said he's a fucking bastard, and he's one of the guys who had me fucking strapped to an operating table on the GRID. He's bad fucking news."

'I know they do. But I care if it happens to other people, and I'm a lot harder to kill if things go badly.' There's some annoyance bleeding through on the network, but it's relatively mild.

'I'm pretty sure it's Barry... he seems okay normally. Guess he just has shitty infiltration luck...' He jerks in pain again, and there's faint mental cursing in German and... something that sounds vaguely Scandinavian. '... The fact that I landed in here from a drop in the air isn't doing me any favors, I think.'

"Harder doesn't mean impossible, for fuck's sake. You think I'm easy to kill either?"

But he won't press the issue, instead focusing on Casper's wrists. "I thought you could heal, why are these so bad?"

'... I was trying to bust out. And the more I get hurt the stronger I get, so I was pushing more. I can always... regrow things other than that one leg. So I'm not... that worried. But... kind of...' He takes a moment to focus on not twitching so much. '... Underestimated how much pain... it'd be...'

"Yeah, no kidding." He starts running his free hand through Casper's hair again, but his eyes don't leave his little brother's wrists. Smaller surface area, but uglier wounds... "Anything else you need me to fix up?"

He leans into the touch again, and Bob leans over to preen Gil's hair a little bit, beak carefully darting around.

'Unless you've got some changeling magic that can pull curses out of things... but I'm guessing that there'd be way too heavy of a price.'... I can heal most of the rest... need to recover a little. ... Burnt some power out during that fight... was already low from the walkabout. Think I got some back for that display, though.'

"Maybe ask Jules, my shit's all for hurting people." It sounded more like a Goblin contract anyway; remove someone's curse at the cost of taking it on yourself twice as bad. "But I'm already here and you need to rest. I can heal you up all the way."

He turns a little, ignoring the pain in favor of looking up at Gil. His face is a little less pale, his breathing a little less shaky.

"... Sorry." He lifts his hand so he can look at the wrists, which are mostly healed up. '... I'm sorry I made you worry.'

Mostly isn't gonna cut it for Gil right now; he's going for full. He huffs quietly at Casper's apology. "You're gonna do that anyway, I've been told that it's a little brother's job to make the older one worry. But seriously, you really need to learn how to pick your fights better." Pick fewer. Put some back.

He pulls a bit more goo out of his dreamcatcher. "Try and lie low for the rest of this one, yeah? If he catches you again I doubt it's gonna end well."

'I know I do... it's just hard to pull back from fights when I get into them. That's not a personality thing, it's literally a Norse thing.' It sucks sometimes. Why is his family like this? '... My other form changes are like... either dogs, a dream body, or that changeling form.' None of them are great options.

Bob just looks down at Casper, and he sighs. 'Or possessing Bob, but that's got disadvantages too and I can't do it for a really long time.'

"Just avoid that fucker, then. Teleport out again if you have to, just stay clear."

He's silent for a few moments, watching the goo work its magic on Casper, before he continues, quietly. "I don't wanna lose more friends. I don't care if you come back. That's not the point. You could have died, Cas, and it would've been so fucking pointless."

'... At least I tried. If someone's punishing people so unfairly, what the fuck am I supposed to do? We're supposed to try to make shit better in these worlds. ... And leaving someone like him in power seems like a bad idea.'

He's quiet, closing his eyes. 'I don't want to die again, either. I don't even know what would happen. ... To me, or to Bob. I don't know how I'm possessing myself from afar, and a new body might not have that connection that my mother set up. I might be trapped inside him. ... But I don't want to just live my life not trying to help people.'

"You're supposed to not go in, guns blazing, expecting that you'll be able to take him out single-handedly. This is the kind of shit you have to plan ahead for, preferably with a group."

...if he'd had any worries whatsoever that Casper was part of the Tower incident before, he sure wouldn't now.

The last of the goo sinks in, and he lifts Casper's hands by the palms, checking his wrists gently. "Turn these for me, tell me if it still hurts."

'... I know. I'm just scared of losing people. I'm not scared of losing me as much...' But Gil knows that, and he moves his wrists as requested. 'They don't hurt. ... Just my back.'

He lets out a few long breaths, and then Bob speaks up.

'Hey, kid. You know how you can do that shut off emotions trick? ... Do you think you can shut off other stuff?'

Casper opens his eyes and raises an eyebrow at Bob. '... I don't know...'

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cw: some injury description

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