It’s not that he ever really thought it was a game; he just hasn't had time to think much about it period. The last two hours have been an exercise in rolling with the punches, a combat technique he has always been exceptionally good at. He remembers being dragged down and an awful lot of adrenaline-dulled pain and just red, red everywhere, hazing out into grey. Then dreaming, he thinks, though he can’t remember of what.
(And then? Waking up into another layer of the nightmare?)
Byron pushes away from the door, wanders a little woodenly into the room. Flips on a light when he finds it. There’s a mirror over the bar, reflecting a dozen bottles he can't drink from anymore. Off to the side, a closet mostly full of spare costumes; it’s not like he lives here.
Not like he ‘lives’ anywhere, anymore.
He sighs--it takes effort--and pushes a hand back through his hair. Takes a look.
(The ropes had freaked him out, he won't deny that. But the quiet was worse--the quiet of his own body, without any of the usual thrumming that he never even noticed until now, now that it's gone silent. It's like he's lived his whole life to the step of some jazzy backbeat, all confidence and energy, and now it's dropped out, leaving the rest of the music to find its own meter.)
His face is a disaster, so he avoids it for the moment; lets the robe fall open so that he can get a look at what he already knows about. It’s a half-bandaged mess, the gauze stained mahogany, the skin of his abdomen a deep bruised blue where it runs under the bandages. There’s been some attempt made to stitch some secondary tears, one long run of them snaking around the bottom edge of his ribs all the way to his kidney and another dipping below the waistband of his shorts; he pulls the band down over his hip to see how far it goes. But it’s like sloppily sewn fabric, the edges loose and unmended, raw.
He’s not a vain man, he tells himself, but he also knows that if he really wasn’t, he wouldn’t need to say it. His body has always been pleasant-looking, he thought; not conventionally, but in a sort of svelte, catlike way that drew exactly the attention he wanted it to. Now, it is a monstrosity.
One knee is skinned, an incongruously mundane injury, and otherwise he’s riddled with defensive wounds on his arms and his hands--he remembers, vaguely, trying to shield his face and neck, though it obviously did fuck all good--which are, at the moment, mostly covered. He peels the dressings away, mechanically, ending with the mass of them covering his middle.
(And why had he been under their teeth in the first place? Some kid, cornered on a flight of steps, unable to get through the door into what was likely not even his house. Byron hadn’t even thought--just dived in and busted a way through, and when they’d pulled him down he’d shouted, screamed, hoping one of his teammates would be close enough at hand--)
It’s as awful under the gauze as he expected.
He covers it back up; lifts his face to meet the one in the mirror.
(The kid got away, at least. He thinks.)
His hair is a mess of blood and dirt, always unmanageably thick but worse like this, and all he lets himself think in the first few seconds is no big deal, just wash it, it’ll come clean just fine even as his hands are going on autopilot to peel away the loose dressing circling over his eye.
And god, even if he truly wasn’t vain, he thinks--one eye stitched closed, the socket swollen, and the other staring back at him in a glassy, dead white--this would be too much.
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timeasmymeasure
part 12
Date: 2013-05-24 12:26 am (UTC)It’s not that he ever really thought it was a game; he just hasn't had time to think much about it period. The last two hours have been an exercise in rolling with the punches, a combat technique he has always been exceptionally good at. He remembers being dragged down and an awful lot of adrenaline-dulled pain and just red, red everywhere, hazing out into grey. Then dreaming, he thinks, though he can’t remember of what.
(And then? Waking up into another layer of the nightmare?)
Byron pushes away from the door, wanders a little woodenly into the room. Flips on a light when he finds it. There’s a mirror over the bar, reflecting a dozen bottles he can't drink from anymore. Off to the side, a closet mostly full of spare costumes; it’s not like he lives here.
Not like he ‘lives’ anywhere, anymore.
He sighs--it takes effort--and pushes a hand back through his hair. Takes a look.
(The ropes had freaked him out, he won't deny that. But the quiet was worse--the quiet of his own body, without any of the usual thrumming that he never even noticed until now, now that it's gone silent. It's like he's lived his whole life to the step of some jazzy backbeat, all confidence and energy, and now it's dropped out, leaving the rest of the music to find its own meter.)
His face is a disaster, so he avoids it for the moment; lets the robe fall open so that he can get a look at what he already knows about. It’s a half-bandaged mess, the gauze stained mahogany, the skin of his abdomen a deep bruised blue where it runs under the bandages. There’s been some attempt made to stitch some secondary tears, one long run of them snaking around the bottom edge of his ribs all the way to his kidney and another dipping below the waistband of his shorts; he pulls the band down over his hip to see how far it goes. But it’s like sloppily sewn fabric, the edges loose and unmended, raw.
He’s not a vain man, he tells himself, but he also knows that if he really wasn’t, he wouldn’t need to say it. His body has always been pleasant-looking, he thought; not conventionally, but in a sort of svelte, catlike way that drew exactly the attention he wanted it to. Now, it is a monstrosity.
One knee is skinned, an incongruously mundane injury, and otherwise he’s riddled with defensive wounds on his arms and his hands--he remembers, vaguely, trying to shield his face and neck, though it obviously did fuck all good--which are, at the moment, mostly covered. He peels the dressings away, mechanically, ending with the mass of them covering his middle.
(And why had he been under their teeth in the first place? Some kid, cornered on a flight of steps, unable to get through the door into what was likely not even his house. Byron hadn’t even thought--just dived in and busted a way through, and when they’d pulled him down he’d shouted, screamed, hoping one of his teammates would be close enough at hand--)
It’s as awful under the gauze as he expected.
He covers it back up; lifts his face to meet the one in the mirror.
(The kid got away, at least. He thinks.)
His hair is a mess of blood and dirt, always unmanageably thick but worse like this, and all he lets himself think in the first few seconds is no big deal, just wash it, it’ll come clean just fine even as his hands are going on autopilot to peel away the loose dressing circling over his eye.
And god, even if he truly wasn’t vain, he thinks--one eye stitched closed, the socket swollen, and the other staring back at him in a glassy, dead white--this would be too much.
*