EMET ONLY KNOWS ILLNESS in the abstract, prosy metaphors and medical definitions; but the onset of a fever doesn’t seem like an inapt comparison to the onset of his friendship with Wren Jones. A slow crawl, only noticed after you’ve started burning. Friendship in itself is tricky vocabulary to navigate. Uncommon, often fleeting. Something else seen more in concept than execution. So he’s not sure how he managed to agree to get on plane with her and land themselves in the apartment of some washed up TV psychic.
The evolution between offering a stranger a place to sleep to killing to keep them alive moves in leaps and bounds. In hushed promises and hot morning tea, the kind he left her in a chipped mug on the bedside table. She got the mattress, of course. Even though it’s little more that. He’s never grown used to luxury, and she, who appears bred with manners and money, seems to have grown used to being on the run. He remembers what that’s like, even if it was more than 70 years ago.
When she admitted her true identity he wasn’t shocked, it takes a fugitive to know one, and the abuse of power like Elijah’s comes as no surprise.
Maybe it’s not so miraculous he followed her out here. He’s always wanted a place to belong, even if it’s in someone else’s narrative.
They wade through the bodies of Demetri’s would-be assassins: two men in all black, minor genetic enhancements, but not enough to stop 9mm point blank to the chest. The man they’ve just saved from sudden death is still hiding behind the overturned sofa, his low whimpers giving his position away.
Emet crouches down to search one of bodies, allowing Wren and Demetri to reacquaint themselves without him looming in the background.
WREN IS NOT A WOMAN IN INFINITE SUPPLY OF FRIENDS: vulture - culture tabloids etched her face across front pages ( the media circus mimed out her history, a shoddy replacement of her life steeped in silence ; HATEFUL, UNHINGED, BASTARDESS, BRIDE, BRIDE, BRIDE --- ). perhaps that is the reason they had rooted together, an entanglement of growing tree - trunk - bodies [ they have only been sharing soil for a little while, but wren knows she will not let him wither --- and he, in turn, lets her flower against him ] --- LONELINESS. if they had nothing else, they had their loneliness, a horrid weight to carry upon their back. SHARED NOW, WASN’T IT? --- yes, she liked to think so.
SHE DID NOT DECIDE ON BRUTALITY: it had picked this life for her, its gallows - bled hand curling her towards demetri in his hour of need ( the truth is she will leave most of the heavy lifting to him --- i have choked too often on thoughts of killing to bathe my hands in this unseasoned redness ). instead, she kneels beside demetri and checks him over ; the process is harder on someone else. she has to look at them in parts, unfused from their wholeness, to subject someone to the splitting of the body that she has suffered through. ‘ you’re going to be okay, ‘ wren assures, seeing a splatter of blood raise up from demetri’s thigh [ there is fragmented conversation passing between them, splintered explanations, her shirt ripped and wrapped around his thigh --- an attempt to apply pressure ].
WREN’S EYES DO NOT LEAVE EMET: he exists at the side of her gaze, a constant presence ( you take your gaze from him and he might disappear --- we cannot let that happen now, can we? ). searching bodies: a smart move --- one she wouldn’t have thought of. ‘ emet, i think he needs the hospital. ‘ it is not emet she signs: one fist pressed to the side, the other in a wiping motion ( protector ). IT IS EMET IN THEORY: it is what emet stands for. a hand lays against demetri’s shoulder, the man’s hands half - rolled back into his head, a position of dazed vulnerability.