[semi-open] never betray the way you've always known it is

[scowlish]

Who: Onni, Lalli, Reynir, Genji, anyone else involved with Lalli's Great Escape
What: catch-all for threads related to the fallout of Hotakainens failing at feelings during the epidemic
When: November
Where: around Anchor
Warnings: emotional constipation?



❄ Lalli's Great Escape

Comments

[killedwithlove]

"I promise," he whispers to her. "Just focus on breathing, head back, shoulders wide, open your chest to breathe. Close your eyes and count your breaths, nice and slow in, nice and slow out." He tucks her hair behind her ear and gives her a small smile. "I've got this."

He can handle Lalli for now.

[tenuefarfalla]

She can breathe. She can do that. Head back, shoulders wide, though she can't manage to uncurl the rest of the way. She feels safer, tucked up in half of a tight little ball.

Cole knows what to do because she does. He can be her hands. Most importantly, if she's all right, he'll go to Lalli, so she has to be all right. She presses shaking hands against his chest, nods her head. "'M fine." She's not, but she will be. She wants to be. That must count for something. She'll be fine.

She gives him a little push, even though she doesn’t want him to leave. She doesn’t, but she does. She wants him in two places at once, which he can't be, and she wants him taking care of Lalli more. That's what’s most important right now. "Stay with him. He's not safe until his fever breaks."

[killedwithlove]

"You're not, but helping him will help you." He touches her cheek gently. "I'll be right there. You can see me. And you know I won't let anything happen to either of you."

She knows that, he hopes.

But he moves back to Lalli, keeping track of when he needs his next dose of medication and keeping the water at the right temperature.

[tenuefarfalla]

Cho nods her head. Cole is right. She'll feel better if she knows he's focused on Lalli, what he's feeling, what the fever is doing to his body. She also knows that she's safe with him, that he won't let anyone hurt her, that if the man who broke the door down comes back, he'll protect her. It's fine. They will be fine.

She counts her breaths, in and out, as measured and even as she's capable of. She hugs her knees to her chest, not as tightly as she'd like to, because she's still trying to keep her head up and her shoulders back, and she watches Cole look after Lalli. That's what she focuses on, keeping the thoughts of what he needs clear in her mind, blocking out the rest.

It helps. It helps a lot. She sinks into that focus, and she waits.

[arcadedragon]

Genji is always silent, it's a force of habit and he wouldn't know any other way to be, but he's not trying to be stealthy as he approaches the room where Lalli is. Instead of making a dramatic vent-based entrance he comes in through the front door like a normal person, eyeing the three people in the bathroom before getting closer.

No one seems to be injured, Lalli is back in the tub ignoring all of them and hasn't been messily murdered by the other person who'd shown up with knives drawn. Good. After he'd gone to retrieve Onni he'd had a minor panic that he shouldn't have left, that the new person who'd shown up was the actual threat and might have been there to kill Lalli and whoever that woman was with him. He'd just been so confused by the entire situation that he'd left without really thinking it through. So he's more than a little relieved to find that everything seems to be fine.

He ignores Cho completely, stepping into the room around the fallen remnants of the door to address Lalli directly, "Lalli? I brought Onni with me."

[scowlish]

Onni is a lot more stable now than he had been earlier. It isn't just that Genji had gotten back to him about Lalli earlier. Being able to vent some of his frustration and fear at Reynir both by words and crying had helped, and that's a strangely new experience for Onni. But, at least for now, he's leaving that on the back burner to be thought about later.

Right now, he's going to see Lalli. So he steels himself as he follows Genji into the bathroom where they've had his cousin, his expression neutral though the remnants of his emotion are written all over his face - his eyes are puffy and red-rimmed, still a little glassy, his cheeks are flushed, his hair is a mess.

Stopping at the door for a moment, he clenches his fists at the side as he sees Cho sitting on the floor looking blank, and Cole beside the tub. That's a little shock, surprise and then a feeling of something like betrayal that he swallows down, and he furrows his brows, mouth set in a straight line. But he lets Genji do the talking at first.

[lallipop]

Lalli turns over automatically at the sound of his name, it managing to penetrate even the shield offered by the headphones. It's not enough to prepare himself, because at the sight of Onni standing there and how awful he looks, his heart drops into his stomach.

His gaze follows, focusing intently on the bathwater as he silently removes the headphones and sets them aside. He just can't look at Onni right now. So he looks at Genji instead.

"What's your name?"

[arcadedragon]

Lalli is coherent, but the fever is apparent, the sickness a lot more obvious without the adrenaline rush of tossing blow dryers around. His eyes flick to Cho and then Cole trying to figure out who these people are and why they're there. Why they're still there after Lalli said he wanted to talk to Onni.

Genji had planned to leave immediately after reuniting them, and it seems improper for anyone else to be there. But that isn't his call to make.

"My name is Genji. I am sorry we are meeting under these circumstances." For all of them really, but mostly Lalli who he'd been intent on rescuing. He wants to ask if there's anything Lalli needs, but Onni is there now, its not Genji's place to care for him

"Would you like your blow dryer back?"

[lallipop]

That... knocks him completely off the rails. For a moment he just blinks at Genji in confusion.

"That's not mine. I just found it. Um."

He'd meant to apologize to Genji for involving him in this, or thank him for getting Onni for him, or something, but now he just feels uprooted. Way to ruin his momentum, Genji.

"Sorry for throwing it at you. Can--can everybody else leave, please."

He glances at Cole and Cho to make sure they know he means them, too. He hopes Cole can help her; that's another hurt he's caused, if not. He still doesn't look at Onni, but Lalli hopes he knows--he needs to stay. They need to talk without any chance of an audience.

[killedwithlove]

Cole helps Cho up, speaking softly and soothingly to her, voice gentle and warm. With Lalli less fever ridden and Cole here with Cho, something might become apparent to Lalli. Namely, that Cole is a spirit. A very peachy coloured spirit with a pale, warm glow to him.

Cole also bends to catch the ipod in his fingers, pushing it into Cho's numb hands and hold them closed around it with one of his own much larger hands.

He gives Lalli a small smile as he leaves. The look he gives Onni is cooler. Sadder. Then he scoops Cho up into his arms, because she's shaking too hard to really function, cold with terror.

And he steps outside with her.

[tenuefarfalla]

It's easier to push the fear aside when Genji leaves - not far away, but away. She doesn't even care that he simply vanishes, she's just glad that he's gone again. She feels like a rag doll, soft substance and no strength in the frame. When Cole attempts to move her, she lets him. She's worried for Lalli, can't push that away. The illness that keeps coming through their little community is a bad one, and she's spent far too much time with him already to not care about him. Cole is here, though, and Cole can feel the hurt in people. He wouldn't be taking her away if Lalli's health was tanking - it was the urgency of that concern that brought him to her in the first place, so she trusts the lack of it now. She holds on to the logic of that. Cole knows. Cole always knows.

When he lifts her, there's a moment of startle, panic, a touch of fear. She's not expecting it. It passes quickly, and Cole can probably reach all the way into her past, to the child that wanted to be held. She's safe here. They're all safe. So she closes her eyes, and she leans her head against his chest, and when she can feel that they've taken enough steps to leave the bathroom, she lets go of that tight feeling in her chest, like her soul is holding its breath, and she lets herself cry.