#Talbot Bonnaire (OC)

[ostensiblywhump]

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Whumpuary day 9: trapped under rubble | gunpoint | out of time

Word count: 865

Content warnings: major injury, vomiting, blood, fear of death

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Oh. That’s … a very large rock.

Then his vision dims, and goes even more topsy-turvy than it already was, and—

Talbot snaps into lucidity with his body screaming at him. A sharp bit of what is probably shattered cobblestone is digging into his cheek, and his tongue is gritty with dust and minerals. He spits out the taste—splutters, more like, then retches when his stomach takes that as permission to rebel, the movement jostling every hurt in him. He doesn’t bring anything up except the acrid warning of bile in the back of his throat; he didn’t eat breakfast today. Probably. He probably didn’t eat breakfast today.

His eyelashes are choked with dust too, when he blinks heavy eyelids. It is incredibly tempting to let that weight win, let it sink him down into sleep, into the embrace of the harsh ground. Especially with the strengthening sunlight driving a spike through his eye. Ow.

He cringes into the cracked cobble in an attempt to get away from the light; it only serves to send a jolt through his body again, and his leg reminds him, very loudly and un-ignorably, that it is present and does not like existing at this moment. Well, that makes two of them. If his leg was an actual person. And not a leg. Which is not sentient. Or at least can’t be assigned … something values. Cannot be personified. Have personification.

… He may be concussed.

The light is very upset to be ignored. So is his leg. Definitely concussed. Except for the leg; that’s not a concussion symptom. What is up with that stupid thing, anyway? Stupid leg. Check that, why is he concussed? He should … find that out. Ugh.

Cracking his eyes open again is an immediate regret, as is starting to crane his neck. He’s basically one giant bruise, sharper sensations in his head (concussion) leg (who knows what) and lung. Lung? He breathes in, and it’s shallow, quick, comes back out in a weak cough. It rattles faintly, wet. Punctured lung. Not something he can solve. He keeps slowly shuffling around, abused bones creaking at every motion.

Oh. That’s … a lot of debris. And a very large rock. Well, a very large piece of wall, more like. And a flash of yellow, made nearly indistinguishable from its gray surroundings by the powdered rubble settling on everything.

Tal snaps his head over, cringes when it makes his head spin and his next breath to come out more ragged, but it is a yellow thing—an important yellow thing, actually, because it’s a head of familiar blond hair, Ruika’s characteristic fluffball hairstyle, nearly buried under the wreckage of the house Tal is starting to remember they were in. He can only see that hair and a scraped-up, dirty arm, poking out of the debris and angled towards where Tal is.

His heart leaps up to join the bile aftertaste in his throat—neither Ruika’s arm nor his head is moving, not a quip coming out of that mouth that doesn’t know how to stop running any more than the boy it belongs to. With everything covering him, Tal can’t even see if he’s breath—

“Ruika,” he mouths, too choked by dust, by injury and fear, to make any noise. He coughs, swallows dryly, gasps an inhale that hurts to make so deep, and his next attempt is audible, if raspy: “Ruika.”

Nothing.

“Ruika,” Tal says again. “Ruika. Ruika! Rui—”

“Well, isn’t this a sight to see.”

The kick of adrenaline makes his turn hurt less, as Talbot stares at the last person he’d want to see approaching, uninjured and swaggering towards him with a grin on his face. Their target, the man they were trying to find. The one that probably made the house explode on them. (The one who killed Ru—no. No counting bodies before confirmed death.)

“Wouldja look at that!” the man says, stopped just out of arm’s reach of Tal. Not out of striking distance, if Tal actually thought he could muster enough concentration to manipulate blood. “Two of my worst inconveniences, all wrapped up and presented at my feet.”

Tal doesn’t answer, too busy trying to scrape together some kind of offense. No way can he get the knife sheathed at his belt before this man (what was his name?) fouls the attempt, and it’s very hard to do hemokinesis when you’re concussed and don’t really have the blood to spare. Also, fuck this guy and his attempt to make Tal beg, he’s not getting shit out of oh hell that’s a gun.

“Nothing to say?” the man says, barrel of the gun pointed straight at Tal.

“Not to you,” Tal says, and the gun’s safety audibly clicks off. Oh. Maybe he should’ve tried begging. Or talking, or taking a swing, or trying to hold out for Piri, or literally anything to make this man decide he’s more useful dead.

“Then I guess this is goodbye,” the man says, mock-regretful, and as time slows down, Tal watching the man’s trigger finger tighten, all he can hope for is Piri to pop up and pull off a miracle.