#session 3

Cleo stood next to Martyn, handing over endstone blocks while he finished up the underside of the small structure he was working on.

Martyn grinned at her as he reached up to place a few more blocks. “It’ll take more then a few deaths to knock me over. I have yellow blood running through my veins, I’ve never felt more- ah!”

Martyn crumpled with a pained gasp, his hands dropping his blocks and going to clutch at his ribs and chest. Cleo whipped around, sword instantly in hand, seeing if anyone was around. No one was in sight, and they couldn’t hear anything over Martyn’s labored breathing.

“Well, it seems like a feather would knock you over now, you idiot! I knew you were putting on a face for the others, you can’t fool me. Come on, we need to go inside, now,” Cleo helped him to his feet carefully.

“God, Cleo, really I’m fine,” Martyn said through gritted teeth.

“Martyn!” Cleo growled. “I will end your lives myself if you don’t get inside now!”

“Well, when you put it like that…” Martyn said with a stab at his usual bravido, and he walked into their house with Cleo’s assistance.

Martyn collapsed onto the bed while Cleo whirled around the room, their mind buzzing, closing the doors, grabbing a potion bottle and bandages with shaking fingers.

“What hurts, Martyn?” Cleo asked, stalking over to him.

“I think I got burned when the bed blew up in the end,” Martyn said, eyes slightly wider then usual as he looked up at Cleo. “All the deaths I had today… it hurts. No time for my body to heal up. Damn it, you read me like a book. Thank god we’re on the same side.”

“Take off your shirt, let me look,” Cleo said, turning away and looking out the window.

In the distance, they could see Joel making some final touches to the Rejects’ base. Bile rose in their throat as they thought about the aggressive barter for diamonds Cleo and Martyn had done with the Rejects, how wrong it could have gone. Martyn had been so weak, had used it to his advantage, but it the Rejects hadn’t been fearful of a red name Martyn…

“You really don’t have to do this, Cleo.”

Cleo turned back around and gasped at the sight before them. Martyn’s skin was pink with burns and claw marks. With two of Martyn’s deaths so close together, his body was bound to be slower on the healing, especially as a yellow name. Yellows’ bodies were notoriously bad at natural healing, as their bodies prepared for the adrenaline of their red life. Like the frail and sad death before the rebirth.

Cleo sat on a block next to the bed, scooting it as close as they could. Their instincts took over, with so many life series and teammate’s injuries under their belt, and began tending to the wounds.

“You’re all I got, Martyn,” Cleo said after a couple of minutes of silence.

Martyn chuckled, then winced as Cleo applied the potion to the biggest burn on his torso.

“Something funny?” Cleo asked, gritting their teeth as they worked, trying not to wince with every one of Martyn’s. Very old habit, they supposed.

“No, no, it’s just… new idea for us, huh? I’m all you got? You’re all I got? No secrets, no other real alliances that we steal away for, no divorce quartet.”

“I told you, Martyn,” Cleo said quietly. “I am loyal to my team.”

They pressed a bandage to his chest. His heart was steady, pounding away with that same loyalty to him that Cleo had.

“God, that smarts.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. You are probably the only thing keeping me from going red now, causing as much chaos as possible, get put down like a wild dog. You’re even tending to my wounds, how domestic of us. Ow!”

“The jokes never cease with you, huh?” Cleo instantly wished they could take back the heat in their voice. They dabbed more lightly at the second, smaller burn below Martyn’s ribs.

“I’m sorry. Force of habit.”

Cleo shook their head. “Don’t be. I just can’t lose you. Do you understand that?”

“I do.”

The two fell silent, and Cleo moved to the smallest wound, an enderman scratch on his cheek. Every time Cleo had to patch someone up, they always had a moment of suprise at how alive the other person was. Living skin, breath moving in and out of their nose and mouth. Things Cleo had lost long ago. Martyn was no different, but there was that aching familiarity, like his skin could be theirs too. His heartbeat had once been theirs, his feelings and pain. The soulmate bond had been long since severed, but it never had really fully gone away. Cleo wondered if Martyn felt it too. Being so close for arguably the first time, it felt scarily natural to fall in with Martyn.

“I am going to stay alive for you, Cleo,” Martyn said softly when Cleo pulled away. “No more danger, not even for a laugh.”

“Not for a while, anyway. I’ll fend off anyone who gets close,” Cleo said, standing up. “We go out together, okay? Wait for me.”

Martyn chuckled, moving to lay against the pillow. “I’ll wait for you.” His body seemed to sink into the mattress.

“Go to sleep, Martyn.”

Martyn’s eyes were already closed. “Good idea.”

He was asleep in moments, the exhaustion of his many deaths clearly more then his body could handle.

Cleo cleaned up after themselves, putting away the potion and bandages. Their hands shook as thoughts unwanted crept in through the shadows, thoughts that had been kept at bay all session by Martyn’s voice. The terror of seeing him die over and over. Desperately and recklessly threatening and intimidating anyone who came near them both. Cleo kept looking back at the bed to make sure he was actually there. He was, every time. It only reassured them slightly. Anxiety clung to them like a mourning veil.

Cleo sat at the foot of the bed when all was tidy, watching Martyn’s chest rise and fall. They pulled out their communicator.

</givelife inthelittlewood>

<command invalid>

</giveheart inthelittlewood>

<command invalid>

“Worth a shot,” Cleo whispered, putting down the communicator. The screen had become blurry with tears anyway. Couldn’t see a damn thing.

I laughed so loud at this moment

Bonus mad little mumbo

How I made him under the cut

blacked out and woke up with this an hour later <3

This is the literal horror movie. The irony of them joking about being safe here. The realization that it's snails from all the puns and the horror at the deaths. And then Lizzie yelling "RUN!" before Scar even sees what's digging through a wall.

I have been running around far too much. VP and I tried to go beacon turning. Didn’t work out. Then I went tome hunting with a handful of people. We found one, then got some bad news from Devereaux, and went home.

Speaking of bad news.

They turned Lucielle. She seems fine with it - Devereaux said she had asked for it? Or something like that? I’m not sure. But he also said that the vampires are now trying to get there to be an equal number of humans and vampires, because they think that’ll make it so we can leave. I don’t know how much I believe that. They’re looking specifically for volunteers, at least.

Oh, also. People found books about a cure for vampirism. 3 of them — apparently the whole set.