Starting Point for G007

[MethodicalSlacker]

Violet sat and watched as the two set about propping Dante up. There really wasn't anything she could do. The gun was too important to her survival for her to let go of, the thin line between life and death. If she lost it, she might as well give up. It'd be like a total party kill in Fire Emblem. Might as well start over, 'cept there was no save to reload. This was the real, real life. At least Dante was doing better. It looked like he might make it, and if he didn't, then it didn't really matter whether or not Camila or Blaise held her accountable because she herself indeed did. And tomorrow morning, the announcements would hold her accountable as well. She knew that usually there were players, and player-hunters. There would probably be a few of the latter around, and she didn't want to wind up a target of any of them. Feeling sick, Violet rubbed her temples.

Suddenly, her eyes widened. Even if the people immediately around her were fine, they were still out in the open, defenseless and vulnerable. They needed someone to keep watch, and so far it seemed like Violet was the best one for that. She reached into her bag and pulled out the manual for the gun, hoping for some information on how to reload it properly. Sure enough, there was a short diagram of the various parts of the gun, and a series of instructions on putting more bullets in it. Cartridges? In video games, it was basically just dakka dakka dakka, so the terminology didn't matter much.

As the two kept him level, Violet took the gun and some bullets out, informing the other two of her intention of keeping watch. It still felt sort of shaky to hold the thing aloft so readily, but hopefully she wouldn't have to fire it again. If she did, at least she now knew what it felt like. It was a complicated mess of magazines and cartridges and all sorts of terminology, with levers and bolts and all that. Violet just followed instructions, the technical mumbo jumbo going over her head. Firearms were kinda like magic. This one was sorta like a magic staff, with a fire-bolt spell formula or something like that.

And by the time she got the gun loaded and figured out where the safety was, flicking it on so she didn't get a repeat of the earlier accident, and placed the gun down behind her bag, just out of line of sight, someone had appeared to train its sights on. Lorenzo Tavares, approaching the group, looking warm and friendly. Last time someone warm and friendly had appeared, she had shot them, and it turned out terrible. Did that mean that it'd be terrible every time? Not necessarily—he had a weapon on his belt, tucked away, and it was a weapon that relied on getting close, so—

Violet didn't know what to do, but she put both hands on the gun. Keeping it hidden was useless, because if he showed up to attack, it'd take longer to get it out. Talking was not a free action. But keeping it hidden might be some leverage. Lorenzo probably could figure out they had it, from the big open gunshot wound, but he didn't know what kind of gun it was. That could be useful, right?

"Hi, Lorenzo, yeah," Violet called out, "we're okay."

She felt backed into a corner. The only way out was either through the group or through the water. She could feel some sweat forming on her forehead. It was a little hot to be wearing a flannel.

"Um, you might want to keep your distance," she added.

[Emprexx Plush]

It should come as no surprise that Blaise had little sentimental attachment to their hookups. If it suited them and kept things uncomplicated they could stroke your hair and tell you how beautiful you looked, or lie in your arms making appropriately satisfied noises. If they absolutely must they could engage in a sort of light pillow talk. Anything more risked giving more than the illusion of sway to their partner. Their last thought before they fell asleep was always of themself. They made certain of it. What may be surprising, then, was that they had watched Dante sleep more times than they cared to remember. Not a regular occurrence, but over the years he'd found multiple excuses to drift off in their presence and each time they were transfixed.

They conjured a terrible excuse the first time. He had approached them like he had approach anyone in their school who could be vaguely misunderstood as female, and they had called his bluff. When he didn't push them any further they wanted to believe it was because he'd recognized they weren't a victim. The innocence, the carelessness, it had to be the facade of a predator, no? What sort of cartoon character come to life could inhabit such a space earnestly? They couldn't remember where or when it happened, a dull party more likely than not, but his eyes had fluttered just so and their attention had snapped to his corner. They were filled with morbid curiosity, they had to know what game he was playing now. By the time he'd startled awake half a minute later, they'd seen nothing but how easy peace seemed to come to him. Repeat viewings did not satisfy their curiosity, and it never would be; Blaise could not understand how a person like Dante existed. Nearly everyone presented some kind of threat, even if they were unaware of it, even if they lacked the intent to use it consciously. Not Dante, though, as far as they could tell. Dante posed no risk to anyone or anything but himself. They loved that about him.

A strange thing to admit, but no one could hear it. Like Dante, it would do no harm.

Perhaps that was why they preoccupied themself with other concerns until he closed his eyes. Even if it wasn't, it made a good story, no? Pleasing to the ear, humanizing. How much of it was true an hour ago was irrelevant, it was true while it had their attention and when it no longer did it would not exist. Such is life. For the moment they let their fondness show with an affectionate ruffle of his hair. If he woke up they would try to remember to be better to him. If he did not, it was convenient that Violet had chosen to stay with them. The ebony and gold chain hanging in their vest was one of the few effects they still appreciated about this ensemble. It didn't suit the grungy, not-like-the-other-girls pastiche Violet's mother had selected for her, but it would still accent well choked taut against the bruised and breathless skin of her neck.

Ah, they were getting ahead of themself. Dante would be fine. No need for such dramatics, they were on vacation. The arrival of a familiar voice cemented that feeling almost as quickly as Violet's boorish demands demolished it again. Their eyes rolled so forcefully they threatened vertigo. "Really?" Their voice started as a quiet hiss, but whatever biting retort they had for her deflated into a sigh. "Best to listen to Little Sureshot darling," they called over their shoulder. "She's most dangerous when she isn't aiming at you."

[Cicada]

The flirt was just beginning to come to by now. Camila's attention had been mostly directed his way in the silence- she'd become increasingly uncertain that giving him the painkillers had been correct. Far be it from Camila to linger on her mistakes, but she had little else productive to fill the time.

Camila had always assumed strategic foresight came in tranquil moments, born of dispassionate temper. Only in these past minutes had she become consciously aware of herself planning under such duress. She saw the future in infected wounds and poisoned blood and it seemed too dramatic, but it was still a map into the future. Cynical, pessimistic, but perhaps she'd be better ready for what was to come if she was so weary. Scared of it instead of welcoming. She didn't care for it, but that discomfort would keep her focused.

This, for example. Camila finished wiping at her bare, bloody skin- she'd been so slow to finish. She put her bloodied rag of a shirt aside.

Lorenzo was vaguely familiar, of the faces she'd seen so far. She'd dealt to him or his friends at a party at least once, collected his name on a tab. Payments and inventory kept names in order in her thoughts. She had no immediate reaction for him aloud, nothing about him struck her as odd. His lack of a shirt, his possessing a weapon, all already particularly normal things to her. Even this early on. It must have only been one or one half hours passed since she'd woken- the sun was only a bit brighter in the sky.

Not yet enough there to warm her cold-running blood.

She shifted a bit, sat beside the injured one's head. A hand waved in front of his face.

"Wake up," quietly. "We have company."

[Fenris]

He lost some time.

He wasn't sure how much. All he knew was he felt Blaise and Camila, and then he felt them elsewhere, like they moved but in a piece of time that he wasn't a part of. It was weird. He didn't open his eyes, because the sun was bright, and because he wanted to stay here in his head where it didn't hurt quite so much. The ibuprofen hadn't done a lot, if it had kicked in yet. He didn't know that either. It took time but his time was already being taken. He was starting to feel less cold, so that was a positive. He smelled salt and iron and didn't know how much was the sea and how much blood, sticky and cooling on the boards beneath him.

The sea smelled nice, he thought. The blood was less nice. His breathing was shallow, still. He wondered if yelling or freaking out would help more than just laying here, with the pain, which was really bad even though he was trying not to think about it, but it might scare the others so even if it did help it wouldn't be worth it.

He heard voices but they were far away until one of them was right there.

Dante opened his eyes, squinting at the light of the sun. It had moved, he thought, but maybe he hadn't, his memory was pretty bad. The clouds had definitely moved. He didn't see the dog cloud anymore, anyway. Company was nice, unless the company shot him again, he guessed. That would be a bummer. He couldn't move his body—well, maybe he could, a little, but it didn't seem really worth it to try, so he just turned his head as far as he could without jostling the rest of him. Blaise was holding his leg up. He kind of wanted to wave to them but he'd been here the whole time so that'd be weird maybe. He was still woozy.

There was someone else approaching. It wasn't Aurelien. For a second he thought it might be, for some reason. He didn't want to think about Aurelien. He didn't want it to be Aurelien except he did kind of except he didn't. When he turned his head it felt like his brain went in the other direction and he felt a little nauseous but that was fine. It was fine.

It was Lorenzo. He recognized the hair. He was a nice guy. Partied a little hard but so did Aurelien. Aurelien. Where was Aurelien?

He opened his mouth to say something but he was paralyzed all of a sudden.

[Tonyksin]

Well, at least now he had a vague idea of who had the gun.

Violet told him to keep his distance, and Lorenzo listened to the girl, stopping his approach. He let a lopsided grin grace his features, and held his hands up in a sign of peace. Realistically, that was the furthest thing from his mind, but they would have no reason to suspect him. Blaise had called the goth girl a sureshot, and when he took in the scene all evidence seemed to point towards Violet being the one to open up that hole in Dante’s leg. Lorenzo was surprised. Who knew she had it in her to pull the trigger on someone like him? Dante was probably one of the least threatening things on this island, body size notwithstanding. He was basically a teddy bear with a dumb grin. The worst he could do is apologize you to death.

So whatever had happened, it must not have been in malice. Otherwise, why would she still be here?

Good. That made things a bit more simple.

Lorenzo took a look at Dante. He looked pale, and that hole in his leg was grotesque. It was probably painful, and he must have lost a decent amount of blood because of it. All things considered, he was pretty much already dead. Even with Blaise and Camila nursing him, he’d be impossible to move, let alone fully treat. Kid was a goner.

And if he died, that made Violet a murderer. Which would give him a ‘justified’ reason to smash her head open like a watermelon. Or a pumpkin, he supposed. More on theme. It couldn’t hurt to sow a little doubt and a pre-emptive need for justice. Lorenzo stared at the wound on Dante’s leg and twisted his face into one of concern, hands still up in the air.

“Is he gonna be okay? Who shot him? Someone attack you?”

[MethodicalSlacker]

The questioning was getting to her. The questioning that Lorenzo was doing, that was, and the lack of questioning from her own side too. Were they really so unbothered by his perfect timing? How long had he been watching, waiting to know that they weren't watched by someone else first? Enough time to ascertain that they were in dire straits, and maybe to overcome any kind of weariness he had, or reservations about whatever it is that he planned on doing. Two girls, a wounded guy, and someone who seemed altogether disinterested. Easy targets, and most of them had their back turned to him, sorta. Metaphorically, if not literally. She didn't know what exactly it was, something in his tone, maybe, but Lorenzo's presence was really starting to worry her. He was absolutely radiating bad vibes right now, and she was not a very big fan of that. What was the deal with the lack of shirt, anyway?

And the hands, dear goodness. Violet pouted as she thought. That was really overselling it. She never asked him to raise his hands.

She did the mental math. Any potential leverage she had by masking the kind of gun was outweighed by making the gun known. Maybe that's what he wanted? She didn't want to give it to him. Without it, she was as good as dead, and if he took it he might make sure of that. He probably didn't need to, with that thing on his waist.

If only things were different.

If only they weren't here with collars on their necks. That was the only reason anyone was going for it—the idea of being punished if they didn't. Right? Without the collars, they'd have none of that, and they could just wait it out. She'd be able to help everybody, and she wouldn't need to be so antsy. Her knowledge would have come in handy in a group that wasn't person-she-shot-plus-medics and it still might, if she could work her way out of this mess.

Violet exhaled, and a tremor ran down her body once more. About a quarter of her was saying that the best way to help people was to set them free. Another ten percent was screaming at her to help herself to that same fate. Five percent said that she should take her chances swimming. Yet still, ten more percent wanted her to extend an olive branch to Lorenzo, to pretend that the bad vibes she felt weren't seriously keeping her from doing that.

A whole fifty percent of her was in agreement about what to do. Melee weapons meant close quarters. Sub-optimal for obvious reasons. And the people that were next to her, she knew they were good. They proved themselves. Her luck had run out, or should have by now. Taking a chance on someone that her aura sense was telling her was bad over the safety of people whose actions spoke for them was a small brain move.

She took the gun up from behind the bag and pointed it at Lorenzo, standing up to full height. With the combined height of the elevated pier and her own string-bean stature, she towered over him. He really wasn't that much of a threat, in this scenario. If anyone was watching with a ranged weapon, she just made herself a really big target. Then again, if she left here, that's all she would be, continuing on this neurotic track. What did chaos magick advocate for? What did all magick advocate for? The self, the self, the self. This was all ritual. That must be it. The bead of sweat that was just moments ago in the process of formation finally broke and rolled down the side of her fate. Later, she'd have to take the flannel off.

Her heart was pounding, but her hands were steady now. She desperately hoped there was a later.

"I shot him," Violet said, trying her best to project her voice.

"By accident, but I know how to use this thing now.

"Turn around, and walk away, please. We don't need any more, um, hands on deck. Pun intended. Har har."

Violet paused. There was a possibility her hunch was wrong. He could really actually be good people, and she could be a big meanie right now. It probably didn't look like it, but Violet really didn't want to have to hurt him! Which was, generally, a different feeling from Dante. Those two extra words did a lot, they did. But in case he really just wanted to be near them, she figured she'd leave open one door. Just the one. He was plenty strong on his own, but not strong enough to shrug off a bullet to the chesty area. Or head. She'd have to find a place to do target practice at some point.

"If you want to stay, put that sheathed weapon thingy somewhere out of reach. Like, several meters away? In the sand. Put it down bladefirsty or something like that."

[Emprexx Plush]

"That's about enough."

Blaise let Dante's leg down gently. Someone had to step into the middle of this madness and it might as well be them. They appeared to be the only one paying attention. Lorenzo was making a big show out of his surrender and asking questions he was smart enough to know the answers to already. There was a problem here, and as much as they loved him Lorenzo had a habit of solving every problem he encountered with either his fists or his cock. Neither was welcome at the moment, so keeping him at a distance was preferable. It wasn't going to stop him from taking a run at Violet, but they could at least buy some time to get Dante out of the way.

Speaking of Violet, she was making her own production out of keeping him away. The suggestion he disarm would likely be as well received as theirs to her. They hadn't seen what he had yet but if Dante had been enough to rile her it could be anything from a soggy paper bag to a small nuclear device. That made it difficult to read whether her fears were well founded or not, which in turn called for first hand appraisal. A languid stretch and a turn let them size him up themself. Armed, shirtless, sand sprayed all over him worse than Blaise's vest. Their eyes narrowed. Something was very, very wrong. "You need to stay back," they warned in a low, cautious voice. "If Dante gets a better look at you, the shift in his blood pressure could kill him."

It wasn't just their word. They had professional backing on the matter. Blaise nudged Camila's bare shoulder and looked at her expectantly. "You're the doctor. Please explain to this man the medical risks his abs pose to our patient."

[Cicada]

Camila's response to the joke was her lowest priority. Her evaluation was a long moment of silence, and no more than that but still a moment of hesitation too long.

She didn't care who was facing them down, who was wielding the gun, who was shirtless or otherwise. She sought to reduce the people to numbers because that was simpler to process, easier to balance at a mere glance. She'd gotten this far in life without that reductionist mentality being wrong.

At a glance she easily knew who she sided with. It was two to one- the flirt didn't matter when he wasn't the one who could make his will known with his fists. Two people wanted Lorenzo gone, and one of them was armed. Negotiations carried the risk of being fatal when weapons existed on both sides, whether Camila trusted anyone involved or not. Trust in another was no guarantee- one always had to be willing to assume the worst.

... Additionally. Camila didn't want to deal with even more people. She meditated on the influence of that clear-cut bias, the force that wound up her gut into a few too many extra loops of intestine. She acknowledged it. Let it go.

She stood a bit taller, also asserting her pretense in the scene. That, framed as watching over the ramparts formed by the wall of their gun-wielder. She silently nodded her assent in tempo with the others...

"Yes. Getting over-excited in even an amorous way might worsen his condition."

She'd had to acknowledge it at some point. Just after everything else.

[Fenris]

Dante wasn't sure what he was supposed to do now. The others were talking to him. Lorenzo. Not anyone else. They were telling him to... leave? Violet was, anyway. Blaise told him to stay back and Camila agreed. He wasn't sure why, but he couldn't really see what was happening, either, they were blocking his line of sight, maybe he was holding a gun or something, but... he didn't sound that way. He sounded concerned. He'd always been friendly. It felt like a good idea, to maybe stay together, with as many people as possible, but also he maybe didn't get a vote since he couldn't move anyway. He hoped Lorenzo didn't have a gun. He didn't think he'd shoot them on purpose or anything but he could panic with the others telling him to go away and someone might get hurt and he didn't want that especially because he didn't think he could do anything to help in his position.

All he really wanted to do was help. If he couldn't move or speak that was kind of a losing battle, so he needed to fix the easier one. He licked his lips, tried to swallow, cleared his throat a little. Opened his mouth again and managed not to immediately give up and go back to gritting his teeth. Being shot really hurt it turned out. Crazy.

"S'okay?" He was mumbling, but it was the best he could do. Blaise and Camila could hear him, at least. "Lorenzo's okay? Right?"

He probably wasn't all that convincing, but he felt bad. Being alone somewhere like this had to be real real scary. Making him go off alone felt wrong. It didn't have to be more complicated than that. Right?

[Tonyksin]

“Hey, now. Let’s not do anything we’d regret.”

It would be a severe understatement to say that Lorenzo was unhappy with Violet pointing her gun at him. Honestly, he could do without it. His face, which was previously looking quite concerned, fell away quickly into a cold, dead stare, locking onto Violet. So she shot Dante; information he already concluded, but even so it was interesting to hear her admit it. Did she think she was being intimidating by adding some extra bass to her voice? She sounded like a child playing pretend. She tried her best to turn him away, but unfortunately for her she made a rather severe miscalculation.

That stopped being an option the moment she pointed that rifle at him.

Lorenzo went to speak again, but she continued before he had the chance. Now she was offing him an ultimatum; leave his weapon in the sand and he could join them. If he wasn’t doing his best to remain calm and collected, he would have laughed in her face. Blaise took that as their sign to join the conversation, apparently. However, Lorenzo was a bit annoyed to find that they also seemed to want him to stay away, even through their humorous words. Blaise was all about Blaise, after all, and it seemed that hadn’t changed even being here. He’d say he was surprised, but he wasn’t, not entirely. Sure, he may have held onto some small hope that their general appreciation for one another may have still existed to some degree, but deep down he knew that when the chips were down, everyone only looked out for themselves.

The fact that they were right to be wary of him was besides the point.

Lorenzo put down his hands, finally, and stared down the barrel of Violet’s rifle. He narrowed his eyes and put on a small smile. He reached down and patted the still sheathed maul on his side, directing her attention to it.

“Unfortunately, I can’t drop my only means of protection in the sand. I mean, you said it yourself, you already shot someone, and now you’re pointing that gun at me. Why would I let myself walk directly into danger with no means to defend myself?” He cocked his head to the side, and let the hand patting the maul come to rest on his hip, just above the weapon.

“And as much as I’d be more than willing to leave and move on, Vi, I can’t do that.” His other hand he shook arm back and forth, fist mostly closed with only the pointer finger out, making a ‘no’ motion.

“You see, with that gun pointed at me, I’d be pretty stupid to turn my back on you. After all, what’s stopping you from shooting me in the back the minute I start to leave?” He wasn’t even lying. That was a real concern.

“You already shot one person, you said it yourself.”

[MethodicalSlacker]

I don't think I would regret it if I shot you.

She didn't say that, but she really, really wished that she could.

It felt like the whole pier crew was in agreement. Well, Dante didn't really know what was going on, so Violet was going to veto his vote of "wait but I thought Lorenzo was cool" because delirium was a thing that happened sometimes. Blaise and Camila were masking things in humor, but it didn't take with Lorenzo at all. In fact, he just got really serious. It felt more and more like Violet was onto something, here. Lorenzo probably thought, coming up to them, that they'd be easy targets, that they were busy, socially, with the wound, and that he'd be able to slip by their better judgement and whack 'em dead. Now, disappointed by the lack of that happening, he was trying to weasel his way up here by making her sound like the evil one.

"I said it was an accident," Violet said, "You're trying to make it sound like I did it on purpose, to make me look bad, and, um, and that's some bull! If it was on purpose, why would I stay and guard the person I shot?"

This was all too familiar. She felt like she had seen footage of fights like this and read about even more of them. Violet wouldn't stand for it. It didn't matter what she would do when she left the pier—she would leave the pier, and she would keep on living—it didn't matter if she decided to help people, or run off and be alone, or play the game, because right here, right now, Violet was making a stand for someone who still needed help really badly. At the very least, he needed someone by his side with a stick that had some bullets in it that they could point at people and tell them to shoo.

"If you turn and leave," she continued, "and I mean really go far, far away, I won't have any reason to shoot you. I just want to make sure Dante's okay. I need you gone for that to happen—not dead, or wounded, just gone.

"And, um, don't even think about coming over here, now that I think about it. That stopped being an option when you started being weird."

[Emprexx Plush]

Their joke had done little to diffuse the tension, even with the assistance of a medical professional. It could be said that Lorenzo was being uncharacteristically serious, but could they blame him? Violet may have only wounded Dante but she had thoroughly murdered the mood. Dante wasn't any better, while his puppy dog innocence was charming at home it was an irritating distraction right now. The plus side was that there was no point in arguing with him, he'd do what he was told regardless. That wasn't going to stop him from mewling about it the whole way though, just the thought set their teeth on edge. Somehow Camila managed to be the only person they weren't irritated with in this clusterfuck, but they had little faith that would hold out. How many times could they be expected to think 'this is exactly what I wanted to avoid' before they snapped?

Hmmm. They'd lost count, actually. Now seemed as good a time as any. "Let me offer a proposal. If she shoots you, I'll strangle her to death. If he rushes you, I'll smash his head in." Their tone was deadpan and drenched with contempt as they looked between Lorenzo and Violet. "Is that what you want to hear? God you're both insufferable. You shot someone trying to put your gun away, and you probably had your shirt stolen by seagull." Lunacy. Absolute lunacy. None of them could have been awake for more than an hour or two and they were already swaggering around like a poorly conceived action film. "Neither of you has the balls to do half what the other's thinking. Have a drink, fuck off, kill each other, I don't care, but get it over with already."

Blaise dropped to the pier on their knees for effect. It hurt, but they lacked a mic and the whiskey was too precious to waste. They took a swig as they settled in next to Dante and muttered "Fucking children..."

[Cicada]

Lack of relevant commentary on the seagulls quip aside.

There was a marketplace wisdom to bluffing, an art to haggling back and forth, and normally such did not involve the particulars of guns. An impasse could be solved by lowering a price, reevaluating a value. In this case Camila couldn't see much room for give on either side. It was almost hilarious in a way that shirtless boys and seagulls were not- the bid price was so... low. Let him in, or see him go. It sounded trivial out of context, but Camila was quickly internalizing a crucial fact of her new environment- a weapon changed context, completely.

Camila believed her fairly sensible genderneutral ally was wrong on at least one count. It did not take bravado- it just took any emotion, felt at the wrong time.

"They are right. This can be quickly ended. You-" She pointed at Lorenzo. "Your issue at stake is solved if you leave without turning your back."

"And you," she quieted, spoke only loud enough that her voice didn't project, but dripped into the tall ones ear... dripped up against gravity, more accurately. "Don't make threats you aren't prepared to keep."

A moment of hesitant consideration, then her hiss of a whisper:

"If he stays, fire a warning shot. But try not to make it look like you don't know how to aim." A threat lost it's value if that threat was meaningless, after all.

She was unconvinced that either side would back down, not without the stakes making themselves more obvious to their minds still operating on the wrong landmass. If this came to something, she was already regretting having ever been involved. A bit too willing to make things that weren't her business hers, she chided herself. Idly, she found the flirt's hand by dropping into a squat- still engaged, alert. She squeezed at it reassuringly- she didn't know what it was about him, she certainly wasn't attracted to him. But he did have a quality she found endearing, at least idly. It was like the teddy bear hanging on to her waist. Harmless, innocent. Unlike everything else sharing this lonely stretch of beach.

[Shiola]

It wasn’t hard to keep an eye on him at a distance, and Tyrell had been doing so for some time now. Much as he'd wanted to wait for a more opportune moment, it was now clear that the situation he had been observing was escalating rapidly. It was time to act.

((Tyrell Lahti continued from Make It Clean))

As he closed the few dozen yards between himself and the pier, Ty began to piece together what was occurring – some kind of standoff. Violet had a rifle pointed at Lorenzo, and he was beginning to hear the various threats and innuendos cast between different members of the group. Things were tense.

Good.

Ty adjusted his grip on the crowbar, holding it at his side as he continued to walk at a steady, brisk pace towards the pier. Though he made no overt gestures of hostility, the look of intense hatred in his eyes was completely unmistakable.

You’re the only of us who really deserves this. You don’t get to go home.

[Fenris]

Maybe it was more complicated than that.

He could see Lorenzo better now, peeking around the others' legs. He hadn't moved, but he was saying stuff, indistinct to Dante's ears. Violet was telling him to leave. Camila was too. Blaise was... too, sort of. Blaise said a bunch of things. He didn't know. This was a lot to try to keep up with and he was still very tired, and he'd thought he'd been getting warmer but it was still too cold. He wanted a blanket but he was pretty sure none of them had one and anyway it would probably be warmer if they were away from the water but he couldn't move either, so maybe that wasn't all that helpful.

He was making all of this hard for them, wasn't he? They could just leave if he wasn't here. The thought made him scrunch his brow. Maybe he should tell them to go without him? He'd probably die here if they did. But they wouldn't, at least. And maybe he could figure something out, if he tried. He didn't think he could sit up yet but maybe in a little while. He probably couldn't walk but he could hop around a little. Yeah, he'd be okay. Maybe.

There was a hand touching his and he felt a surge of warmth go through him but it was the wrong hand. Too small. He squeezed it back, anyway. Camila was trying to help. His eyes hurt from the effort of keeping them open. He saw someone approaching, behind Lorenzo, and he couldn't tell who it was, but he knew who it wasn't, which was the important part. His eyes were watering. It wasn't from the pain.

Then, they closed, his grip on Camila's hand loosened, and he slipped back into unconsciousness.