#earth wind n fire vc: the 21st of september—

[vastiitas]

Exhaustion crashes down with the crushing weight of a waterfall; some awful, angry force that would see you drown in the watering hole before it ever considered betraying the relentlessness of gravity. Cole's vision warbles, the floor between dead bodies rocking to motion sickness as his focus flickers and gutters on a dying wick.

He tip-toes the idea of teetering into oblivion when Colt's abrupt arrival is announced by a swinging shoulder-to-shoulder slug, snapping into his consciousness with the sudden brusqueness of a jump cut, and whatever fucking adrenaline that'd shot through him just now has left him both simultaenously hollowed out and too heavy all at once and his body sags pliantly, gives too easy.

His brother's voice sounds like a concussed radio, dingy audio waves slipping in and out of coherency, moth-eaten by white noise. He registers the urgency, the anxious hoofwork and animal whinnies of distressed horses, but it's too damn far away, watered down and distended by interference film.

Something about going. Something about walking.

He mutters something along the lines of "Ok", mumble-mouthed and breathy, and tries to pry himself up by an awkward grip on the table, crowbaring his weight off a palm heel shuddering against the wood top. His head pounds, baying, a log split beneath the solid weight of an axe bit, and it nearly cripples his vision black again.

He thinks Colt might've asked him 'bout the whole face-being-bashed-in thing, but he ain't too sure and thinking too hard on it threatens to squeeze his brains into popping right out of his skull, so he trips over his own words in a haggard-beat drawl that's rode this rodeo before, sloppy with a sluggishness inundating his consonants: "Jus' knocked me 'round lil bit." Happens, sometimes. Just happens.

"Where're we," He staggers, gropes a blind hand on Colt's arm to compensate for the sudden careening as his boot toe wedges into a dead body, and something dimly registers in him that the poor bastard known as Colt Cassidy is still alive and kicking, thank fucking god, he's still alive and kicking and breathing and his fingers curl into a subconscious squeeze on the other's arm , the son of a bitch — "Where're we goin'—"

The sting of welling TEARS mixed with coarse dirt clamp the boy's eyes shut as he's ground further into the parking lot by a scuffed boot. There's an undeniable sense of dread that instantly cloaks his entire body — drowning out the taste of iron on his tongue, the PAIN in his shoulder, any thoughts in his head...it weighs down his limbs like they're suddenly made of LEAD.

But there's an anger simmering in his chest — heated by penitence, by his obedience to just lay down and die, and RAGE against Cole's attacker. BASTARD — thinking he can lay his hands on his brother...it ignites fury, and it comes barreling in as an aching will to FIGHT BACK.

His free hand balls into a fist looking to swing as the rest of him writhed under the pressure of the older man's boot. He'd manage to wriggle his arm out of the attacker's grasp just as the deafening crack of a heavy hammer shudders through him, breath hitching with the rest of him — frozen solid in his groove in the dirt as he waited.

For a moment, the air is still — filled with nothing but the cries of two onlooking horses still hitched to a post at the other end of the lot. And it stays like this for what felt like hours. Colt wondered how long this would take, wondered how long he had until his body registered...wondered until his thoughts were silenced by the solid THUD of the man's body hitting the ground next to him, sending another jolt through the boy's body.

He scrambles away and eventually to his feet, adrenalin wreaking havoc on his veins, shaking his hands and weighing down his boots — they drag through the dirt as he staggers over to the table, Colt fumbling over himself in an attempt to get away from the corpse he can't seem to peel his eyes from. He practically trips onto the bench to crash next to his brother, dislocated shoulder bumping Cole's, the pain knocking him out of his daze.

There's a frantic look in his eye as he glances over the other, finally looking him over for injuries — which prove pretty difficult to miss, yet difficult to make out exactly what was wrong. Crimson painted the table, and the entirety of Cole's front, worsening by the second. Wide-eyed, his gaze drifts past the wounds, over the other's head and towards the corner store. Surely they've got something in there that would help, at least stop the bleeding. Oversized window panes provide a clear view of the back wall, Colton franticly scanning over what little product he can make out before locking on to the clerk behind the counter — phone in his hand, eyes just as WILD as Colton's...

"We gotta get outta here..." A realization that's mumbled under his breath, and repeated with obvious urgency. "C'mon, we gotta go! W-what'd they do t'you? Can y'walk?" he spits out, good hand tugging on Cole's arm for answers.