In time you'll find, I've got baggage too

Maea

give me shelter, or show me heart

It was... eerie, to have him obey so easily. The stubbornness drained out along with the blood, weak enough that he couldn't do anything except give in to their ministrations. Maea gave the gryphon a sympathetic glance as she was told off for worrying, understanding the urge to keep Sunjata still all too well. 'Better' didn't really mean much, and even in this gloom, she thought he looked pale. Faint. Even his voice was not as strong as it usually was.

Her fingers were cold as they laced into his, her lips dry and cracked from too much salt. It was hard to say how much daylight there was left, but the girl hadn't tried to wash the sea from her body or hair; it tangled like saltlocks down her shoulders, the cut up trousers showing off most of her legs, with the pockets hanging visible down the thighs.

When he asked about her wound, Maea shifted her position a little, and pulled up the blood-stained bandage for him to see. The tooth-marks had closed, but only looked day old at best. The muscles around them were swollen and bruised, and dried blood still clung to her skin. It was... not pretty.

"Patched up... you're not much better off," she told him. "You lost a lot of blood... the healer says you might be down for a few days." It might take them a while to get back home. Wherever that was from here... Maea still hadn't figured out exactly where in Torchline they had ended up yet.

"Are you thirsty?" Reaching for something behind her, she produced a mug and a pitcher of water. Filling it, she offered it to Sunjata, with a hand ready to support his head, should he wish to drink.

watch me fall apart
and I'll be yours to keep

SUNJATA

the flood

but is this what you want? what you wanted?
do you need love? am i enough for you?

He was pale in comparison to the usual bronze warmth that radiated from him. The warmth that usually came from him as muted, cold perhaps even. But he doesn’t seem to notice (he simply just doesn’t care) he focuses on the way she shifts to lift her leg to where he can see it. His hand squeezes hers gently, lips parting to apologize or something again – until she tells him he’ll be down for a few days.

That can’t be right.

He exhales a deep sigh. “It’s not the first time I’ve lost a lot of blood and blacked out.” He tries to assure her. “Three days seems excessive.” He rumbles, glancing away from her to the walls of the shack again, a muscle feathering in his jaw. He doesn’t know what he’ll do if he’s stuck to remain here for the next few days. Doesn’t know what they could have there to make him fully better – aside from Loren… But, well, wishful thinking he supposes.

Perhaps he’s relied on the technology from back home and the healing magic like Loren had here to fully think it’ll take him a few days to heal. It doesn’t lighten his mood any. But she asks him if he’s thirsty, and he looks back to her with a shadowed gaze as she produces a mug and pitcher of water, eventually nodding and letting her help him sip from the glass. It smooths out the burs in his throat, the sharpness of the intakes of breath, and he settles back in the bed – wincing lightly with a shuddering gaze as the bandage scrapes against his wounds. Haai nestles in closer to him, trying to remain as close as she could, offering what warmth she could.

in time you'll find i've got my baggage too

Maea

give me shelter, or show me heart

Maea did not respond right away. Just helped him drink, then produced another blanket and spread it over him, when she felt how cold his skin was. Clammy, not at all hot and soothing like before.

"It's... not just your blood loss," she said quietly, when he was settled back down. "They were worried about your knee.. the one that got bit. We might... have to take you to Loren, if it's to heal correctly." Licking her lips, Maea finally spared herself some water. Hadn't touched it before, unconcerned with herself while he remained unconscious. "The rest... is just to make sure you don't walk too much on it."

There were the other wounds as well... deeper than she'd realized. For any stronger healer it would have been nothing, taken no effort, but this elder... were barely proficient at the base level. Had exhausted himself just to keep them both alive.

The girl pulled her knees up to her chest. Gingerly, grimacing when the motion pulled at the wound. Looked away, down at her feet.

"I'm sorry."

watch me fall apart
and I'll be yours to keep

SUNJATA

the flood

but is this what you want? what you wanted?
do you need love? am i enough for you?

His gaze flits over to her as he settles back down after drinking the water. A dark brow lifts when she mentions that the blood loss wasn’t all of it, and of course he should have thought about that – with the way his leg was bandaged. But at least the bleeding had stopped, and he sinks back to look to the ceiling, stroking Haai’s head softly as she licks the salt from the skin of his arm, sniffing at a bandage in her idle distraction. “I can fly.” He rumbles, as if it means more than having to worry about walking – why worry when he had so many shifts at his disposal, wings at his beck and call to take him away from being trapped in a shack for a few days when so much could be happening.

Of course, Sunjata can’t see the rampage across his back, that some of the feathered tattoos there would be missing ink because of the crescent shaped scars when fully healed. He has no way of knowing other than how they feel, and really – it felt no different than the gunshot wound to his thigh that had torn through muscle, had lodged the bullet inside and had to be removed before it caused further damage.

These were just sharks.

He keeps his gaze to the walls of the shack until she sinks down and pulls her knees up to her chest, looking away from him. And when she apologizes, only then does his head snap to her, hand reaching for her with confusion furrowing his brows. “What could you be sorry for?” He asks. As far as he was concerned the entire ordeal was his fault. Sure, he could have waited and fended them off from the reef probably until Haai could join them and blaze a path of fire or the sharks simply lost interest… But he hadn’t.

“You’re okay, that’s all I care about.” A softer offering. Perhaps showing her just how much he valued himself in comparison to those around him, that he cared far more for the wellbeing of his own than whatever happened to him.

in time you'll find i've got my baggage too

Maea

give me shelter, or show me heart

Maea frowned at the ground at his grumbling. Was sorely tempted to tell him how foolish that would be... but thought better of it. He had just woken up, tired and in pain and not at his best. Told he had to stay put. She wouldn't like it either, not one bit.

Biting her lip, she shrugged as he turned to her, taking the blame of this whole ordeal onto himself. As always. When reality was, it wasn't him at all this time. "I dragged you out here," she reminded him, still refusing to look at him. "I'm the one who wanted to go this far out. If not for me, you wouldn't be here. Wouldn't be this hurt."

She was okay, sure, but he was not. And it was Maea's fault. Because she had been reckless, overconfident, so sure she could face anything and overcome it without any problems. And it had almost gotten him killed.

It was the second time he got hurt because of her.

watch me fall apart
and I'll be yours to keep

SUNJATA

the flood

but is this what you want? what you wanted?
do you need love? am i enough for you?

He focuses on her as she refuses to meet his gaze, and something about that upsets him more than it should. The fact that she could think he was upset with her about the circumstances. No. The mention that she was the one that wanted to go this far, that if it wasn’t for her – and perhaps he’s delirious and still recovering, but it’s like he’s looking into a mirror. He tears his gaze away from her to look back at the wall, exhaling a small sigh from a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.

“I wanted to.” He tells her, as if it makes all the difference. It doesn’t, and he knows this, because that’s exactly how he thinks too. It’s like asking Peter and Adam to come help hunt for a dragon to bring to a shrine. It’s like how he’d broken down in that tub with her, covered in that cannibals blood, and telling her that it had been his stupid idea to do it in the first place. Which… It had been, but that wasn’t the point.

“It’s not your fault I got hurt.” He manages to grind out, focusing on one of the lines in the wall and the ceiling, as if it held all the answers in the world he could find. “I was being reckless, which if you remember, was right after I promised you I wouldn’t be.” It was a coincidence that things had happened so poorly. It was both their faults and neither of them at the same time. But he can’t shift enough to reach for her to pull her in, to tell her that it was okay – nor did he think he could with the state of his spine and back, his stomach and legs.

Perhaps that annoys him more, flickers that temper of his that he’s held so tightly close, so well under wraps.

in time you'll find i've got my baggage too

Maea

give me shelter, or show me heart

There was a tightness in his voice she wasn't used to. A cadence to his breath that was unfamiliar, and she didn't know what it meant. Just heard him keep taking the blame onto himself, again, and when she glanced up, he was staring into the ceiling. Not looking at her, not reaching for her.

She swallowed. Hugged her knees tighter. "You were just trying to get us out of there. Drive the sharks away." A quiet protest, refusing to accept what he was saying. "Just because I stupidly cut myself with a knife, like I'd never held one before..." And there was a tone of disgust in her voice at that. Contempt, even, that she hadn't even managed such a simple task as opening a clam without making a mess. "I'm sorry. If I'd been more careful..."

Maea couldn't hear it. Didn't realize she was repeating the same words as him, the same destructive line of thinking. It had been a while since she felt the tug of her own darkness, but there it was. Perhaps a lifetime of living with it did not wash away in a season. Rivers or no.

watch me fall apart
and I'll be yours to keep

SUNJATA

the flood

but is this what you want? what you wanted?
do you need love? am i enough for you?

She hugs her knees tighter, and when she speaks it grinds more and more against him, against that mirror he sees when he looks to her. And it flares that temper in him as nothing else had, to hear her say it. “Stop.” He says, some demand to his tone, not like he usually held with her. “Just stop.” He clenches his jaw, not wanting to be a dick about things but not being at his best to handle it.

“You have nothing to apologize for. You didn’t do anything wrong.” He finds the lines in the wall uninteresting and he looks back to her, a sharpness to his gaze. “It was an accident.” He reiterates. A sternness to his tone as he focuses more intently on her, a hint of his panther form seeping through. He tries to urge his point home, that it wasn’t her, it was a combination, and he harbors no anger toward her.

But he wants no apology either.

in time you'll find i've got my baggage too

Maea

give me shelter, or show me heart

Sunjata had never used that tone with her. Not even once. Nor had she heard it from him before either, and it made her flinch. Shoulders rising up to her ears as she seemed to shrink. Not away from him, just... diminish somehow. Retreating a little, into a shell that was all too familiar.

Her eyes darted to his face, then away. Stomach clenching, her teeth worrying at the lip again, biting it near to bleeding. "Okay," she said, near whispering. "I'm sor - " Maea interrupted herself before she could apologize again. Searched for something else to say, some word that might release the sudden tightness in her chest, make the air of the room seem easier to breathe. "Okay." It was the only thing she could think of. But it did not help.

watch me fall apart
and I'll be yours to keep

SUNJATA

the flood

but is this what you want? what you wanted?
do you need love? am i enough for you?

He makes her flinch, makes her retreat – he can see the dimming. And he tears his gaze from her to stare back up at the ceiling – doing exactly what he’d tried so hard to keep on a leash – a short one, to reign it in when he could. But here? With all the news of not being able to leave, of maybe not being able to walk right again? He wonders quietly how Amalia managed to do it and still be so kind to him when he’d met her.

If only. If only.

He manages to slip his hand out from under Haai, to try and rest it gently along the top of her knee. “I didn’t mean to.” He says softly this time, swallowing down that burst of a volatile temper – one that Melita showed many a time – and he closes his eyes tight. “It just –” He stumbles over the words, shaking his head slightly. “I didn’t mean it.” He didn’t mean to snap at her, didn’t mean to be short. Didn't mean to make her question herself that way.

in time you'll find i've got my baggage too

Maea

give me shelter, or show me heart

The silence dragged on forever. Maea kept swallowing, not sure what to do. This wasn't like her. The guilt, yes, the self-blame and the whining, absolutely, but this... flinching away? Was that really her? Didn't she use to be stronger than this, even before being pulled out of her shell?

Actually... no. Much as it pained her to admit it, she.. had not. The shell had been there for a reason. To shield her when these kinds of tones were used more often. By a father that was always in a hurry, by a sister-in-law whom she could never please, and everyone around her that wasn't Noah. Amalia, Evie, Rory... Ah, so this was how it had felt. She almost didn't remember what it felt like anymore. To have a voice that didn't matter.

His hand touched her knee, had reached for her without Maea even noticing, and again she flinched. But Sunjata's tone had softened, said he didn't mean to... and she wanted to believe him. Did not pull away from his touch, at least, but... for perhaps the first time, she did not lean in to it either.

"It's okay..."

But she still couldn't look at him.

watch me fall apart
and I'll be yours to keep

SUNJATA

the flood

but is this what you want? what you wanted?
do you need love? am i enough for you?

She flinches again when he touches her knee, and he realizes even more that the tone that had slipped had been that of his own father – the very same that had chastised him, had used that tone because he knew it would stop the further arguments, the points of view. And he’d never wanted to do that, never wanted to be someone that made others feel small in that aspect.

They had their voices, and gods knew he was one of those unheard ones. So his hand leaves her knee to pull both of his hands to his face and rub at it, despite the way it puts pressure on his wounds. “I’m sorry Maea.” He says weakly, wondering if it even matters anymore. Perhaps it’s better that she’s seen this side of him now, before the house, before everything else – for that time when it inevitably slips again and she realizes that there’s that other side of him.

“It’s not okay, I shouldn’t have done that.” He admits, somewhat muffled behind his hands. They lower to his neck, and he shifts his head in the pillow of the cot to look at her. “I just… I’m not at my best, and you know I get those tendencies to drift to that place too.” He trails off, searching her face as he frowns briefly. His voice grows quieter next, revealing a deep set fear, bright and shining against the dark of everything else that surrounds them. “I don’t want you to ever feel like that too… That it should have been you instead. I’ll be okay. I’m sorry.” He finally says, some hint of desperation in his voice again but this time it urges something else.

Please look at me. She’ll see the regret swimming in his gaze.

in time you'll find i've got my baggage too

Maea

give me shelter, or show me heart

He apologized again. The hand left her knee, and she felt something gray and dusty crawl through her. Like guilt, like weariness and the taste of old fear. Of course he was cranky. Injured, tired, in pain... and here she was, whining about her own problems. Expecting him to behave like normal, to remain the steady rock, the calm, cocky, confident Sunjata... how arrogant of her. Jigano was right, she really was inconsiderate.

Maea took a deep breath, and pushed the hurt back. Swallowed it, stuffed it away. Doesn't matter, doesn't matter. Don't make it about you. Looking up, she did meet his gaze. Saw the emotions reflected there, the genuine regret, the fear of pushing her away. Ah, it made her feel even more guilty.

But at least she did not have to fake the smile. It was small, yes, and only just reached the eyes... but it was there.

"I'm tired too," she told him. Tried for that understanding she usually was so good at. "And I was afraid... I thought I'd lose you. You were bleeding so much, and I-I... couldn't do anything." Her voice cracked and she had to look away again, but only to blink her eyes dry. To steady herself with deep breaths. The helpless frustration was there again, and along with it came the guilt. The knowing that if he had died... it would be on her. Because she had been there, unable to protect him. Unable to save her most important person.

No doubt he could relate to that.

watch me fall apart
and I'll be yours to keep

SUNJATA

the flood

but is this what you want? what you wanted?
do you need love? am i enough for you?

She takes a deep breath and he focuses on her a bit more, trying to relate just how much he regretted the sharpness of his words, the flash of a man who would have bled oil should they make him bleed. That wasn’t him, it wasn’t Sunjata. But it was a part of him, half of who he was, the attempt at trying to replace his father by making a smaller version of himself.

Only Sunjata held too much of the caring part of his mother – and that part is shown here in the regret, in the knowing that he’s upset her. And while the combination might have made a nightmare, it was who he was. And he couldn’t change it, in the end. He could simply try to make it better, to be better. And he had, for awhile.. Until now. Until too much blood loss and being told more unfortunate news after another, and the worry of losing her while she worried about losing him in turn.

It was enough to make his head spin.

And the small smile hidden within the colorless hues of her eyes, behind white snowflake lashes are good enough. And his gaze shudders and he swallows hard, relating to her words in a way that made his skin crawl beneath the blanket she’d so tenderly placed upon him – and he had been an asshole to her after that. He reaches for her again, trying to pull her up to him, to the other side where Haai didn’t lay so he could have his two girls close and nearby, even if it hurt at first to move against the wounds to his back. He didn’t care.

“Kom hier liefde.” He says to her, slipping back into Korofi. Come here love. It’s close enough, he thinks she might understand it, even with the way his lips churn and spin the words. “You did what you could, and look.” He says, trying to bring in that optimism. “I’m here, I’m okay. I’m safe. What would I do without you?” He says softly, brow lifting in that effort of trying to be him beneath the exhaustion and the weight of everything.

The weight that Maea may have felt the feeling he’d felt when he’d held Lusea as she bled to death on that marble foyer’s floor. But he’s here, alive, well enough. Sometimes that was all it took.

in time you'll find i've got my baggage too