It scares the hell out of me...

[recognize_an_opportunity]

Who: Meyer & Ned, possibly Bruce & Charlie later.
Where: Starting near the woods. A little too close to the woods.
When: Late evening, Day 81
What: Meyer got a little too close to an angry sabertooth tiger, and unfortunate mauling occurred. Ned is his rescuer.
Warnings: Tiger attacks, and all the blood and pain that they entail. Swearing. Angst.

Lying there, facedown in the dirt, unable or unwilling to move -- was he supposed to be playing dead? He couldn't remember. What had seemed very important at the time now seemed like nothing more than a hazy, half-formed thought. There was something you were supposed to do in a situation like this. There was a protocol, a way to survive being attacked by an animal, but Meyer didn't recall it.

He knew what to do when people attacked, knew that if you were outnumbered or overpowered to curl yourself into a tight ball and protect your head and neck, protect your vital organs. He'd managed to curl himself into a ball of sorts, protecting his face, but there was a screaming pain in his abdomen -- maybe his ribs, he didn't know -- that prevented him from curling himself up entirely.

Motionless, barely breathing -- was he not breathing on purpose, or was he losing the need to breathe? -- he wanted to reach for the gun that had been knocked out of his hand after firing one shot. The animal had been on him in seconds, knocking him to the ground, although from the noise it had made, the outraged and pained roar, he might have shot it. He hoped so.  

Maybe someone would hear the shot. Maybe someone would come. Maybe he'd die here. That thought enraged him; he'd fought tooth and nail to live his whole life, and now this. He moved his head slightly, trying to see if the tiger was still there; it was. It was watching him from a slight distance, and for a moment he thought about going for his gun, about finishing off the animal completely -- if he was going to die, he could take the damn thing with him -- but he couldn't seem to get up the strength to do. There was blood, he realized, blood all across his back where the tiger's claws had gouged him, blood trickling down his sides and onto the dirt, but that, he thought grimly, wasn't his problem. No, it was the problem of whoever showed up and discovered this scene, once the tiger gave up its waiting game and ate him like he knew it intended to.

He let his eyes slip closed. He let his breathing grow stiller. He hoped he looked dead. He wondered if he might be.  

Comments

[dowhatisays]

The wheelchair doesn't look like anything he's seen before, but he's with it enough to work out what it's for. It's a chair, it has wheels.

"Yeah, that works. Can you sit up?" He switches back to English, since Ned seems to be involved in the conversation now. It's fucking weird, he keeps forgetting he's even there.

[recognize_an_opportunity]

"Sure, yeah," he says, although he's not actually sure he can. He does manage to struggle up onto his elbows, barely biting back a groan of pain. The stitches seem to help, somehow, maybe just because he knows he's not bleeding all over the place, and the bandages help too, but there's no denying how much it hurts. He's glad, though, that he won't have to be carried.

Glancing at Ned, he nods. The wheelchair looks like a far better option than anything else, and as much as he's generally comfortable with accepting more help from Charlie than from anyone else, he's still not particularly interested in having Charlie carry him back home. He doesn't think Charlie would like it, either: he's pretty damn heavy for such a small person.

"Okay," he says, finally getting up the energy to sit up fully, although it takes some significant effort.

[nedofpies]

Ned rolls the wheelchair close to the table, looks for something he can use to cushion the back. Meyer might be stitched and bandaged, but his back must be killing him and Ned knows it. He spots a blanket folded up on a shelf, grabs it and drapes it over the back of the wheelchair. Then, when Meyer manages to sit up, he reaches a hand over to steady him. The gesture is not as automatic for him as it might be for some; his usual reservations about touch are still there, underneath the urgent desire to help. The hair on the back of his necks stands up, but he ignores it.

"Help me lift him down," he says to Charlie. They will be able to do it much more gently if there are two of them, and right now he's less concerned with making a nuisance of himself than he is with minimizing Meyer's pain.

[dowhatisays]

Charlie nods, and puts one arm under Meyer's legs and the other around his shoulders, high as he can to avoid the bandages. He pushes aside the part of his brain that tells him to tell Ned no, to say that Meyer is his and his responsibility. Because this isn't about him, and two is going to be easier on Meyer.

So they lift him into the chair together. Every noise of pain Meyer makes sends another knife into his gut, so he keeps mumbling to him in Yiddish, insults and pet names overlapping with each other, because talking is better than this ridiculous, repressive silence punctuated by Meyer, his Meyer, sounding in pain.

[recognize_an_opportunity]

He can understand why Charlie's helping him -- they help each other, that's what they do, that's what they've always done. Charlie's talking helps a little, mostly because he knows why Charlie's doing it, and it's strangely comforting. What he doesn't understand is why Ned is helping so much. While he didn't necessarily expect Ned to leave him to die in the woods (Ned's a nice guy, after all) he's not sure he expected Ned to stick around while he was getting stitched up, nor to help find a way to get him home.

The cynical part of his brain wonders what's in it for Ned, somehow believing that nobody would be so helpful and solicitous unless there was an ulterior motive, but nothing immediately occurs to him. It makes him take pause for a moment, completely ignoring the pain to focus on the fact that Ned might be helping him simply because he wants to. Does this make them friends?

His contemplation is broken by a stab of pain in his ribs as he's involuntarily jostled, and he can't help the sharp intake of breath as he's finally set into the chair. He's trying not to be dramatic about this whole thing, trying not to let on to too much pain, because he doesn't want to worry either of them. He just wants to get back to the house, just wants to sleep, wants to forget the pain and the embarrassment for now.

[nedofpies]

Ned mirrors Charlie's movements on the other side, being as careful as he can be not to jostle Meyer or put too much pressure on his wounded torso. Still, there's only so much either of them can do to cushion him, and Ned is only too aware of that gasp for air and the pain that must have caused it.

He can't understand what Charlie is saying to Meyer but the tone and pace of the words, the repetitions and cadences communicate plenty to him. It strikes him as curious for perhaps the first time that Charlie would know Yiddish. That can't be common, considering his own background and the time and place in which he grew up. Ned glimpses the look on Charlie's face as he's staring at Meyer, the focus of it, the worry and obvious love. It strikes him as particularly intense, but he doesn't think any more of it just yet.

Once Meyer is settled he lets go of him quickly, takes a respectful step back.

"Call me if-" he doesn't want to say if something goes wrong, substitutes, "-if you need anything." He addresses the words to Charlie, hopes that he will heed them, hear them through the haze of his concern.

[dowhatisays]

"Yeah. I will."

If he were paying more attention to anything but Meyer, maybe he would have seen that look Ned gives them, the one that seems to understand more than it used to.

But as it is he only nods, and wheels Meyer out into the night, back home.