middleofsomewhere | So Familiar a Gleam: Conclusion

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So Familiar a Gleam: Conclusion

Time to leave!

There is not much of the city left, but the park is holding together as those anchoring help those who are not voidtreckers through back to where they belong. Monsters continue to attack and a little further out there is a battle of hearts and minds being fought with the mass of colours and chaos.

Eventually, after the bulk of citizens had been evacuated everyone with SCA's on would hear Jin-Roh's voice after a few frantic beeps, as Chiff aligned everyone's SCA's. "We are almost done here, if you are with anyone not tethered to a voidcraft get them to the evacuation point, as quickly as possible."

Anan pulls out of the anchoring point to call out to any defenders in the park. "Come on! Anyone who isn't a voidtrecker! It's time to go."

Luckily those off fighting the entity headed the message and made their way to the park as Jin Roh spoke again.

"Everyone else get ready. When we call it you need to leave. If you don't have your SCA on then get to someone who does."

As the last people rushed to the park Anan calls out again, through her SCA and outloud to the park. "You need to unanchor, before you can evacuate. Everyone be ready."

She goes in again though, because there are some last people, those from the large battle, getting through as another message was called.

"Almost there. Be ready. On my command..."

Anan unanchored again. "Quick everyone unanchor."

"NOW" Jin Roh's voice came through strong on their SCA's. Hopefully those with SCA's would grab those without.

There is some outside help as well, the train pulls anyone who is unconscious or still under the entity's control, forcibly evacuating them. This includes Wei Wuxian, Lan Wangji and Zagreus.

Luggage Carriage

There has been a mass evacuation before and that was crazy enough but since then the population of the train has almost doubled and now it is an extremely tight squeeze as everyone crashes into the luggage carriage at the same time.

The train jerks and rolls as they enter into the void at breakneck speed and again as they seem to slow, rather than speeding off though the void.

There's a crackling from their SCA's. "Voidtreckers? Voidtreckers come in!" Anan's voice. "Please tell me you made it..."

There's only a few moments of signal and soon they are flying though the void again, away from the strange non-world, the entity sealed for now. To new adventures, but first hopefully some time to recover from all that has happened.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Those are some very pointy elbows and bony ribs and bony, knobby shoulders Devero has appeared up against in the luggage car. Koumyou lets out his breath in a whuff as the car just... fills the entirety the fuck up.

Of course he's been pinned to a wall. That's preferable to being sandwiched between people, at least-- with most of them being strangers and all...

But that's someone very big smushed against Koumyou's back.

Help.

"Dev-chan?" he asks, hopeful it's his big guy is who's squishing him and not someone who will be a lot more awkward about all this.

The big body at Koumyou's back doesn't respond immediately, but that's mostly because his brain is sudden;y working very... very...

slowly....

"Nng. Koumyou? That you jabbin' me?"

"You're squishing me!"

Look, he understands the situation. He does. Something like two hundred people just popped into existence in one car. Dev's not doing it on purpose any more than he's jabbing the big guy on purpose.

He wheezes, "Are we at least near the door?"

"Sorry," he says distantly. "Lot of people in here." With an effort, he lifts his head and looks up and down the car. "...About halfway."

"Fuck."

Koumyou rarely curses so plainly in public, but there it is.

"I'm getting us out of here. Up and over. Don't freak out, okay?"

Sutra tendrils unfurl from nonexistence, slip around both of them, and lift them up out of the crowd... carefully. Everyone's so squished in together if he doesn't do this with enough care, they're both going to lose a shoe or something.

Devero's not sure he could spare the energy to freak out even were he so inclined. As it is, Koumyou's warning is enough for him to expect the sutra to come into play, and he's ~~limp~~ compliant as the strands of paper lift him. "Careful," he murmurs with automatic concern, looking around.

Unfortunately, they're not the only ones who've had this idea-- a couple of the fliers are hovering above the rest of the crowd as well. Even without company. the amount of airspace between the crowd and the curved ceiling of the carriage is certainly... restricted.

Devero makes an effort, again sort of automatically, to pull his legs up. It fails, mind and body too exhausted, and he swears wearily. "Careful with my feet," he adds. They're dangling about chest height for most people if he's upright; someone he nudged unintentionally is already looking askance at him.

It's very restricted, but it's better than the alternative!

"Got it," another tendril of Koumyou's sutra loops under Devero's ankles, curling the big guy up in the air, just over people's heads.

Determinedly, Koumyou starts moving them toward the door, tendrils of sutra sliding down between people to touch the floor, and others latching onto luggage racks and even the walls themselves for purchase to help hold them up.

It's not flight, after all. It's just limbs. Extra, literally paper thin limbs that Koumyou is very glad can't feel things. That would make slipping them down between people extra creepy, wouldn't it?

Yeah it sure would, wouldn't it.

Devero slumps quiescent in the grip of the paper. Even if he weren't too exhausted to be able to fret, he trusts in Koumyou's precision and expertise when it comes to the deployment of his sutra. He's just going to hang tight and let Koumyou maneuver him out.

Eventually, somehow, he does just that. Maneuvers them both out. There is probably some squeezing at the end, because of the lower door frame, and then...

They're out!

And rather than set them down on the floor, Koumyou just spider-skitters them down the length of the triage car, the dressing car, and then--

Finally, they're at the door to their room, and he sets them both onto their feet, ready to help hold Devero up with his flesh and blood now instead of the paper.

Dev tries to remain alert for the trip but it's a struggle. He has to expend approximately 0 effort to be carried along, and it's still a struggle. It's a good thing Koumyou's braced to take his weight because he pitches into the wiry priest as soon as he's on his feet, although he does try to also pitch into the doorway at the same time.

"Sorry," he mumbles, even as he grabs onto Koumyou's blood-soaked robes for support.

"It's alright, I've got you," Koumyou manages to get a hand onto his ticket and boops the door with it, bodily dragging them both inside once it opens and dropping them both onto the bed.

They can clean the bedding later.

"Rest now."

Will it count as rest if Devero pretty much passes out then and there? It's uncharacteristic of him, to say the least, but he's so profoundly drained that as soon as his brain registers that he's somewhere safe with someone he trusts, it just...lets go.

Mark one big soldier as down for the count.

Koumyou isn't nearly as wiped out as Devero, having chosen to mostly fight instead of anchor. But he's still exhausted, and passes out shortly after Devero.

He wakes up a long while later but still sometime before Devero does, and sits up on the bed, reaching to remove Dev's footwear for him.

It's not difficult. Devero's so deeply asleep that he's limp when Koumyou starts. Not until his second boot is coming off does he even start to stir, mumbling muzzily and kicking that foot half-heartedly.

Koumyou finds the mumbling and half-hearted rabbit-kicking weirdly endearing, of course. He ruffles Devero's hair for him and finishes pulling off his shoe.

He kicks off his own boots over the edge of the bed, and slides up onto it a little less haphazardly, dragging Devero with him.

The priest isn't nearly as wiped out as Dev is, but he's still just as tired as he normally is after a mission. For much the same reason, too -- he hadn't really done much anchoring, if any. He'd just fought.

A lot.

Which is a pretty typical week for any Sanzo priest, really.

Devero grunts and squirms a little as Koumyou re-positions him bodily on the bed, still without waking. Also without waking, he turns to face the priest, burrowing down against him heedless of the blood-stiff robes that Koumyou's still wearing.

Sorry, holy man. Your soldier's still out.

That's alright by Koumyou, and he dozes back off for a time as well.

But eventually, he does wake back up, and this time when he sits up he tries to wake Dev up by shaking his shoulder.

"Wake up, sleeping beauty..."

It's been A While since they got in here and passed out. Devero probably needs things besides Just More Sleep, and Koumyou's in a decent state to play fetch for him.

Devero shifts restlessly under Koumyou's shaking hand, and at first it seems like he might be waking. But no-- he heaves himself over to one side and curls up, embracing his pillow in his sleep.

Except... his shifting continues, muscles twitching and trembling in tiny, uncoordinated movements. His face creases and he mumbles again; not meaningless sleepy sounds this time but words, slurred by slumber to incomprehension.

Koumyou's sleeping beauty is dreaming, and it does not appear to be a restful one.

Koumyou hesitates for a moment, then leans down to try to understand any of it. If it seems like it's a nightmare, he'll be waking him up quite a bit more urgently!

He mumbles and mutters and twitches erratically, giving no obvious clues as to the tenor of his dream for another long moment.

But then his whole body lurches and he flings up a hand blindly. "Don't-- please--!" he bellows, loud enough that he startles himself half-up off the bed right there.

Oh shit! Koumyou jerks back out of the way, and immediately asks, "Are you okay?!"

"Ghh--" He swings his head over towards the priest like it takes an effort. "Koumyou--?"

Hang on, he's buffering. And when awareness loads a little further his face crumples and he reaches out, grabbing up handfuls of robe to either side of the breastplate his Sanzo's still wearing. He hauls him close and buries his face against his neck.

"Don't leave me alone," he begs, still half-caught up in a too-vivid dream.

"I won't," Koumyou promises, cooperating with the hauling and laying back down, partially curled over Devero as if to shield him from something.

Physically, that is.

"I'm right here, my sweet Devero. We're both okay."

Well. As okay as either of them ever are, but he's not going to split hairs on that.

Under his Sanzo is even better than against him. Trembling and dream-addled, Devero curls himself as small as he can in Koumyou's embrace. "Okay," he whispers shakily, his breath coming in harsh pants, on the verge of panicked hyperventilation.

But as he wakes up, he realizes that he's
--not trapped in a oubliette narrower than the span of his arms, walls of concrete and stone seeping water from myriad cracks, bars set overhead and above those are faces he recognizes around the rim of the pit, looking down at him--
--Doc Nat's expression sardonic, Adís distant and calculating, Ále watching with grim satisfaction as he scrabbles up to the bars--
--water reaching hungrily after him, Entrapta shaking her head sadly, Rich with disappointment on his face, Trunks turning away with a scoff--
--breathlessly Devero is begging, apologizing, promising to do better, be more, change whatever he needs to change, his hand thrusts as far through the bars as it will go but he can't even reach the lip of this hole much less the people standing above--
--Koumyou putting his arms around a solemn boy and a haunted man with identical piercing eyes and golden hair while the water rises to Devero's knees, his hips, buoying him up to the bars then crushing him against them as every single person turns and quits the edge of the pit--
--choking as the water laps against and over his face, begging the only person left to him as she watches him drown with her ice chip eyes and shark's smile--
on the train.

He's on the fucking train and Koumyou's holding him and that was all, "A dream." Raspy and hoarse, still gulping in air but at least starting to calm down. "It was a dream."

He twists under Koumyou, now feeling smothered by the priest's weight, and pushes himself up gasping. "Rust and fucking ruin," he swears breathlessly.

Koumyou does, of course, move off Devero as soon as he starts to twist and push. He sits up onto his shins on the bed, a concerned expression on his face.

"Do you want to talk about it, or just let it fade?"

He knows how shitty dreams can be, after all.

I

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