#queue strikes back

Elia leans on the fountain’s crumbling wall his breathing rough and shallow. He holds his own arm to his side, focusing firmly on the ground, struggling to steady his breathing--as if getting air in the right way will alleviate the pain. His vision swims a couple times and his head is fuzzy. Maybe that’s why he’s almost convinced the pain will go, if he can just breath right and wait it out...

A shout makes him jump and his injured arm lurches on instinct towards the sword on the ground beside him. The sudden gesture burns and Elia chokes on a curse and curls back in on his injury. He can’t tell completely what happened, but it certainly feels like the beast took a chunk out of him. 

Elia tries once to argue with Mihai, to say that he did kill the beat in the end, that he’s injured, not dead, but Mihai stifles the protest quickly. Talking over the pain throbbing through his shoulder is difficult, so Elia resigns to sit, silently and patiently, while Mihai wraps up the injury. 

His brow furrows when Mihai, strange fellow that he is, kisses his new bandages. Elia blinks and frowns, wondering if the injury is worse than he thought--enough to make him a little delusional. 

Breathing hard through his nose, Elia grabs Mihai’s jacket and pulls himself upright. Blood loss and pain make him sway, but he manages to stand on his own power. 

Well, at least no one is watching Oikawa, this time. Jamie takes a step back and almost regrets agreeing to an alien movie marathon. 

Almost. After a moment of  thought, during which he reconsiders a great many of his life choices, Jamie takes the “ring” from Oikawa and looks it over. 

His own words are still ringing in his ears. A ceaseless echo in a voice he barely recognizes. Did he really just yell at Oikawa? Swear at him? He must of, because he can feel the remnant shout in his throat. He opens his mouth, habit driving him to apologize, but he can’t find the breath to actually say anything. His lungs are too tight, his heart is too big. Can you choke on your own insides?

The party was just too loud. The music thumped in his bones and the conversations swirled around his head, everyone was moving so fast–how could anyone keep track of what was going on? How could anyone see straight? It hadn’t been too bad at first. Oikawa had brought him to other parties that rattled him from the outside in, but he survived. Maybe he didn’t do much more than hide in a corner, watch, and listen, but he survived…

He’s not sure he will this time. 

Too loud. Too many people. They shoved him with their shoulders because he was in the way, they looked at him like he as a clown. Was there something strange about his face? Could they see how much he didn’t want to be there? Or could they just tell, with some part of their soul, that he didn’t belong?

And he knew he didn’t whenever he tried to join in the conversation Oikawa’s friends were having. He couldn’t find the words, he couldn’t make his voice loud enough–after being asked to repeat himself for the hundredth time Jamie just shook his head and smiled and stopped. The music pounded along with his heart, or maybe it was the other way around, but his bones trembled either way and it was hard to breathe….

Every time someone laughed his throat closed and he wondered if they were laughing at him. His head felt thick, and his chest just hurt…Eventually, he had to leave or he’d crumble. Oikawa found him only a couple minutes later, panic still shivering through his body.

So embarrassing. So pathetic. 

@viiorels

Did Mihai just shush him? Elia grips his pillow tightly, feeling very much like a child who as just chastised by his elder--even though he and Mihai are close in age. 

He does not, however, shush as Mihai told him to. Instead, he paces between the tent they had picked and the edge of the clearing, pillow in one hand and his chain sword in the other. He peers around the trees, frowns, and scrambles to the other side of the clearing, checking the bushes there as well. Elia has been up since dawn and really should lie down--but he can’t relax. 

Elia continues his patrol like a toy wound up too tight, tapping the tip of his of his sword rapidly on his boot. What is chill?

His eyes adjust to the light and the grogginess of sleep retreats--and Jamie looks at Lenalee again in the gloom of their shared room. Somehow he had missed the trembling in her hands, hadn’t noticed, at first, how pale her face is. Jamie bites his bottom lip and scoots over without any more questions, making enough room for Lenalee to sidle in beside him. 

It’s so unsettling to see her eyes, usually bright and smiling, touched by fear instead. he glances at the window, where the rain hits hard but the skies are calm and quiet otherwise. 

“M-maybe it was jus’ the wind,” he says, rather vaguely. She might really be worried by thunder--but something in his gut makes him doubt it. He still shifts his pillow towards Lenalee and, though he hesitates, eventually reaches out to squeeze her hand. 

Elia hauls himself up off the floor, where he had been getting more intimate than he’d like with Krory’s entire backside. He prods gingerly at his ribs, which feel like they were crushed but, more likely, were only slightly bruised at most. He’s survived far greater trauma. Being squished by someone much taller is just more humiliating. That almost makes it worse.

“The only thing wounded,” he says once he’s caught his breath, “Is my ego.” 

It really wasn’t Krory fault-- neither mushing Elia like a bug under his offensively tall frame nor being offensively tall in the first place. Genetics clearly just favored Krory, however unfair that might be. And crushing Elia, well, that was just a by product of a crowded lunchroom and Krory being too kind to elbow his way through. Which is silly, when you think about it. Krory is tall enough to wade through any crowd he pleases with relative ease--if he’s going to be unjustly tall, he should at least take advantage of it. 

Elia waves the older exorcist off, though one of his palm is still pressing against his sore ribcage. 

“I don’t need the infirmary. Not unless she has some medicinal herbs that will make me grow.”

He doesn’t need to be as tall as Krory--but matching his brother wouldn’t be so bad. Yes, it would be nice to at least be as tall as his brother...Lost in the daze of wistfulness, Elia bumps into Krory(again) and squawks when he bounces back, smacking his hip on one of the tables. He might as well have been a dandelion walking into a tree. 

It had taking more than a little effort to ask Krory to read, in the first place--but far less than it would to ask most anyone else. Despite being much taller, much older, and very slightly...vampiry, Krory reminds Jamie a lot of himself. He’d never say it out loud, because i would probably offend him, but it certainly makes him easier to talk to. 

As for the book...Krory certainly seems like he comes from a place of standing. It’s the way he dresses and talks. So...he must have had a good education, right? Jamie had honestly tried reading the book on his own. 

He sits crossed legged in front of Krory, as attentive as a five year old at story time, and quite embarrassed for it, but eager to listen nonetheless.