[ his grip is iron and unyielding, arms heavy and steady despite the occasional shudder, adrenaline or pain or emotion, even he can't tell. He could crush this boy like an egg, break him like so much tinder and twigs and all it would take is a little effort, a little intent.
With a shaky breath, he lowers his head, pressing a bruised cheek against tangled matted hair.
I messed up he thinks, through the stacatto pulse beating loud in his ears. He won't trust in me like he used to. ]
[the hold is likely not meant to be a trap, but the effect is just the same; Badou breathes shallowly, waiting to be released back into the world (far from domesticated, far from placated, but gone still even so)]
[it's not a conscious thought, because his mind is a dull buzz of adrenaline pumping and dissipating into nowhereeverywhere, like sewage into a sea]
[ he stays for a second more, maybe two, before he lets go. Sways back onto his heels and then, slowly, miraculously, back to his feet. His body groans and grumbles and complains in protest; he tells it very firmly to suck it up and shove off. ]
Go back to the house.
[ he tries to soften it, but his throat makes the words catch, come out gravel and sandpaper. It makes him thankful for the night that hides the worst of the veritable deathmask that is his face. ]
[but his teeth snap on it, tear it apart before it can get out, that naked vulnerability too easily preyed on (besides, what difference does it make? you'll still be you when you get there)]
[Badou wipes an oozing arm on his shirt, picks a direction -- it isn't the way he came -- and starts to walk off]
[ he could go after badou, chase him, bodily haul him back to 1470 and toushirou and carol or he could take him back to heart-attack manor and pray the world didn't implode from the force of two different monsters in the same general space.
he could, and he doesn't. tired and weary and smarting every which way, he limps back to the car.
the first time in a decade he feels closest to defeat. ]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Re: action
With a shaky breath, he lowers his head, pressing a bruised cheek against tangled matted hair.
I messed up he thinks, through the stacatto pulse beating loud in his ears. He won't trust in me like he used to. ]
Re: action
[it's not a conscious thought, because his mind is a dull buzz of adrenaline pumping and dissipating into nowhereeverywhere, like sewage into a sea]
Re: action
Go back to the house.
[ he tries to soften it, but his throat makes the words catch, come out gravel and sandpaper. It makes him thankful for the night that hides the worst of the veritable deathmask that is his face. ]
Don't tell Carol.
Re: action
Re: action
[Badou wipes an oozing arm on his shirt, picks a direction -- it isn't the way he came -- and starts to walk off]
Re: action
he could, and he doesn't. tired and weary and smarting every which way, he limps back to the car.
the first time in a decade he feels closest to defeat. ]