Picnic After The Panic

[Catche Jagger]

James could do it, just grit his teeth and-

*CRACK.*

“MOTHERFUuuuhhhhh-!” James let out a sharp cry before bringing a hand up to his mouth to keep it clamped shut. That didn’t help much with the tears forming in his eyes.

James could feel the way his gaze shifted upon Fisk, becoming a glare. This hurt so fucking much, and even if he tried to help, James wouldn’t have wound up with a busted nose if Fisk hadn’t started that stupid as shit fight with Jasper in the first place.

There was an anger that filled him in that moment which he hadn’t yet felt in the game. Ivan had killed Giselle and Bacchia couldn’t help but keep being how she was, but those things hadn’t made him angry like this.

Everything about the moment just made James more pissed off at the leader of their gang, the fact that he definitely got high to deal with an injury that wasn’t even his, that he was trying to ease things with a friendly tone, but most of all that he wasn’t the one that had his nose fucking broken.

He… James needed some space. The situation or the pain or both were messing with him, making it harder to think straight, and he wasn’t sure adding cocaine to the mix was the best move.

Wiping away his tears and a bit of blood, James hopped off the table and turned to the others.

“I’m, uh, just gonna go for a walk alright. Shouldn’t be too long, I think. Tell Bacchia I’m sorry for not waiting up, I guess.” He spoke apologetically, hoping they’d get that he needed a moment, before taking his leave.

((James Highchurch continued elsewhere...))

[Primrosette]

((Bacchia Rubus continued from A Simple Favour))

Bacchia had heard their voices being loud off in the distance and she hadn't heard everything so clearly. The boys had definitely been arguing while she hadn't been in the picture and she wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not. Letting off some anger and grieving worked both ways. Not that she would really know that personally. Sure, she had times when she felt mad at anti-fans or just upset at other people being dicks or whatever. But her anger was normally more quiet unless her buttons were pushed over the top into her berserk mode.

She stepped out into the open and she smiled slightly, shaking her head at the destruction of chairs and other things that had taken some of the abuse. It looked like it was only Vasily, Keegan and Fisk. No James. Not like she could blame him for wanting to get away from them. Away from the insanity. It sure did feel intense and on edge for her to just stumble into such a scene. Normally, she would be at home with her parents and enjoying all the drama that had gone on. But now she couldn't even do that. She wondered if her parents were cool with her doing all of this. It's always more different when your own child is doing murders instead of someone else's child.

"So.... It looks like I missed some wonderful chaos between you boys." She commented with a sigh and she stepped forward to be beside the seat where Keegan was resting, glanced back and forth between Vasily and Fisk. Did they have a lovers' quarrel or some crap like that? It didn't matter as she had something more important than some shitty love advice. "Well, that's not important to me right now. I have something better. I have some good news that I got from talking to Emmy. Well, it's not that good for us really. But I think it will happen with some of you who will want to mourn a friend."

She paused for dramatic experience.

"Giselle is at the jetties that is east-south-east from this cruise. Do whatever you would like with this information, guys. I wasn't as close to her as you so it's not my place to interfere."

She was staring at Fisk as she was telling them this and she knew that he needed to know it more than the other two.

[ItzToxie]

“You go on ahead. We’ll be right here when you get back.” James was gone. Vasily wanted to go and look for Bacchia. All in all it wasn’t a good time.

“Look man, Bacchia was right behind us when we were leaving. I know you probably didn’t see much, but if something did happen we’d have heard it.”

Fisk turned to sit down before he remembered he yote the chair. He looked at the area where the chair was, but now it wasn’t, before sighing and sitting in the seat James was at. He wasn’t using it right now anyways.

He sat there, staring at the metallic glint of his shoes before he heard more footsteps. Speak of the devil. “See? She’s fine.”

Bacchia had some news. The good part? They knew where Giselle was. She was close too. The awful awful part? The difference between finding her and Ivan, and coming across Jasper was basically taking a left or a right.

Fisk almost buried his head in his hands. “I-I gotta go see.” He stood up, grabbing Jasper’s trophy. “You guys wait here, I’ll only be a minute. When James gets back let him know I’ll start the funeral once I get back.”

He made his way to the stairs him, James, and Bacchia went up. The same stairs they went down on the hunt. “You guys, uhh you guys take charge while I’m gone.”

And so he made his way to the fork between two routes. He went the other way this time...

((Fisk Bateman continued elsewhere...))

[Primrosette]

"Fisk, wait a sec-"

Annnnd he was gone.

Bacchia let out a small sigh as she watched him leave on his own and she thought about following him. But then she knew that leaving the other two on their own would not be a good idea and she honestly just needed a break. Her side was hurting like hell and the cuts on her left hand was still bleeding a bit. Drip, drip. On the deck.

She hissed slightly and she moved to sit down on the seat from Keegan's side, about four or five inches away from him. She placed the sword down on the ground and she didn't care that much. It was safer there near her side.

"So I'm just going to tell you two this now. Thanks...." She bite down on her lower lip awkwardly and she knew that she normally was not a person who liked to say thanks for other people's help. But she wanted them to both feel better. She didn't want them all angry, closed-off or depressed over losing just one of them. She needed them to keep living. Not just for her sake, but also for themselves. "Thank you for helping us out with the Jasper drama. We all would have been fucked if Akeno got her hands on us."

The hand felt like it was throbbing.

"Can one of you help me out with this?" She asked, pointing at her blood-red hand on the inside of it with her other dominate hand. "I can't really do it single-handedly and I would really appreciate it."

[MurderWeasel]

"Yeah," Keegan said, "give it here."

It felt like he'd been silent longer than he actually had. It felt like a lot of things. He wasn't even totally sure if he'd been sulking and stewing or pulling himself together and fixing his mentality. It probably didn't matter. Had it been the right choice to let James and Fisk run off on their own? He couldn't really say. It had been the easy choice, and after the day they'd had, Keegan was just about out of energy and stamina for anything difficult.

He dug the first aid kit out of his pack. It took a while and hurt, but both of those things felt more muted and further away than they had in previous hours. This damn robe was sweltering and he should've taken it off but that was also more effort than just vibing with the mounting heat exhaustion. Vasily or Bacchia or someone would probably tell him if he went especially flushed or pale, or pour water on him if he actually did pass out. And if he died, at least he wouldn't have to deal with all this uncomfortable tension anymore.

"I think everyone's kind of on edge," he added, needlessly.

It felt a little easier to be direct about the social situation with Bacchia, even with Vasily right there. It wasn't because she was a girl—the sort of low-level sexism that suggested women were more emotional or whatever sat poorly with Keegan—but rather because she seemed actually somehow less complicated than the others. There was no push and pull between machismo and fear and impossible-to-articulate fondness. She did things straightforward, whether it was saying thanks or murdering one of her own friends, and regret and ambiguity didn't seem to weigh too heavy on her.

She probably just had a better mask than the rest of them.

Keegan scooted around to find a better position, and the soles of his shoes rubbed against the plastic of the chair with a sharp, unpleasant squeaking sound.

"And the cover was all Vasily," he added, nodding to the boy. "You know me, I'm just the moral support."

[Yonagoda]

He shrugged. Keegan beat him to it when Bacchia asked for help.

That’s alright. If that made Keegan feel happy and important and whatever, good for him.

“Moral support’s important.”

Vasily just sat down of a chair and watched the scene in silence after that.

He still felt kind of like shit- that sort of feeling of when you want to take words back or realized how you could have worded things better after an argument- except that could really apply to his entire situation right now.

[Primrosette]

"Giselle is a part of the reason why we are falling apart a little and we need to have some closure on that chapter. I might be sounding a bit cold-hearted, but that's the truth. We need to say goodbye to her and move onward with our lives. Our best thing to do is, well, survive for her and for ourselves. Yes?" Bacchia said it all so simply while she edged her seat closer to Keegan so that he didn't have to move that much and she held out her hand towards him carefully. "Fisk and James just need more time to get through their emotions. Seeing how they both reacted. Jasper was an unfortunate soul who got mixed up in our mess."

Jasper really hadn't deserved the wrath of Fisk at all. But she still went through with it because she was only following Fisk's orders and she was going to make sure to have a talk about Fisk's so-called leadership skills. She was having doubts of her own but she wasn't going to manipulate Keegan or Vasily into taking her side. No, this was her own problem with Fisk and she wanted to do it privately. The others didn't need to know unless they really wanted to ask her about how she felt about Fisk.

"But yes, mortal support is very much a key factor for any group. So I'm glad that you had Vasily's back." She nodded to Keegan with a small smile and then she glanced over at Vasily. "It was clever on your part to just shoot at the threat, Vasily. Good job, I'm impressed."

She needed to keep their spirits up for the time being. Being this nice was not something she did a lot, but it felt nicer than just putting them down like they were lowly dogs.

"So... What were you two doing before everything went down?" She asked curiously.

[MurderWeasel]

Keegan just got to work on Bacchia's hand without talking much. Sterilize, clean, bandage. This probably would've grossed him out a couple days ago, but after what he'd been through he was entirely out of fucks to give about a little blood and some split epidermis.

He wasn't dwelling on it, honest, but Bacchia really wasn't in that bad shape. Neither was Fisk, or even James—not compared to how they could be, at least. Nobody else had gotten shot yet, was all Keegan was saying.

But there was no resentment, especially in Bacchia's case because she wasn't whining or making excuses or acting like she was suffering more than anyone else. No, as always she seemed unperturbed and content to assess things bluntly, which honestly made Keegan feel a little guilty. She seemed awfully sincere in crediting him for the moral support thing, which was truthfully just code for "I didn't do shit." Keegan ran into this sometimes, a certain tendency to say things that seemed like obvious jokes to him but weren't so easily parsed by others, and he never was quite sure what to do with that.

Whatever. The rough gauze went around and around, Keegan's hands working quickly against Bacchia's slender fingers. He couldn't see any more blood, and she was changing the topic to something he was way more comfortable talking about. What they'd been doing before? He'd take that subject over Giselle and his own inadequacy any day.

But also, he was for sure gonna have a little fun with it.

He looked away from his work (he was almost done anyways) and shot Vasily a big old only-slightly-forced grin. He gave an exaggerated wink and then wondered if that was in bad taste when aimed at a guy who couldn't return it properly and then made himself stop thinking about that by powering right on through.

"What we were doing?" he said. "Vasily, I dare you to explain that. And make sure you tell the truth."

[Yonagoda]

Just, um… Playing truth or dare,” he said, words trailing off a bit. Vasily wished he could wink back at Keegan but he settled for a grin- slightly fake and not reaching his eyes.

He wondered if he should tell Bacchia that she didn’t really get his strategy- if he was just shooting at, say, Jasper to kill everybody in a 10 foot radius might just be swiss cheese.

Vasily decided against it.

It was too quiet.

“So… Giselle’s funeral, and then we get back to killing people? Is that all?”

Too monotonous. It didn’t really feel like a method to the madness or whatever. There was this near-robotic cruelty that didn't sit well with him. Sticking his hand in Calla's guts didn't prepare him for this weird quiet pressure. He shouldn't have anticipated ultraviolence; maybe it was this dissonance that he should have readied himself for. It was awkward in the worse ways to feel awkward. Vasily had anticipated this game to be like a show, some kind of violent explosion of injury and emotions and whatnot and what he ended up with is quietly thinking about what's the best way to kill the most people. There was so much time to think and fuck around and it should have been a blessing but it just ended up making everything even worse.

“We really should ‘least make a schedule.”

He tried to shut himself up by starting to eat the chips again and forgot to ask Keegan if he can dare him back.

[Primrosette]

Truth or dare, huh?

Bacchia chuckled slightly at the thought of the dares and truths that the boys might have done. She wished that she could have that kind of moment to breathe with life. Even if it was something for only a few minutes or so. She could still felt the soreness from her side and her ribs were reminding her of her failure. They really had almost lost everything against Jasper and it was sinking in more. They really did need to plan things better.

But first, Giselle's little funeral.

"We definitely do need to say our farewells to her. We could also maybe make it fun. That's up to you guys really." She suggested as she was watching Keegan working on her hand and she hoped that her injured hand wasn't going to be a nuisance. "Killing people.... Hmm. We really need to work on who we go after a lot better after that mess. But first, we should focus on one thing at a time."

She wanted to keep Ivan off of her mind for a bit.

"Let's just focus on ourselves for now. Do you two want to keep playing your game until Fisk or James come back?"

She was worried about Fisk's emotional state as an unstable leader and she knew that that was funny coming from her who was as bloodthirsty for murder and death. Although, she wasn't feeling like that right now. She felt too exhausted to even think about killing anyone personally. And what about James? What was she supposed to do about him? She had let him down by refusing to listen to his pleas back there and she had to make up for that somehow. She also hated that he got himself hurt just for her.

Keegan and James.

She wished that they would never put themselves in danger for her again. But she didn't have the heart to tell them that yet.

[MurderWeasel]

Somehow, the oppressive heat seemed to lift. Keegan shook his head and wiped his hand along his hairline and surprisingly he wasn't actually dripping sweat all over the place. Bacchia's hand looked a lot better, which was to say it was hidden under bandages and thus the problems were now out of mind. Fisk and James were still off on their personal missions of grief, but that was okay—as long as they didn't die. It was probably simpler to navigate an interaction with just Bacchia and Vasily, because both of them were easier for Keegan to predict and know how to deal with. They seemed right on the same page when it came to his loose methods of coping by kicking the can down the road.

"We could, I guess," he said to Vasily, "but I think we can take it as it comes. Probably do everyone some good to rest, deal with the mask thing—"

No, he wasn't letting go of that.

"—and figure out how to balance our tactics going forward."

Which was code for, if they took every fight they came across, they were all going to be dead by the halfway point.

Fisk liked to frame things in terms of hunting, but they needed to make that metaphor a little more literal. The further up the food chain you moved, the less fair hunts became. By the time you got to people, in modern society, it was brutally imbalanced. One side got camouflage, lures, and shotguns. The other side was a duck. That was what they needed to be going for. Like, Keegan wasn't the only one who had to read "The Most Dangerous Game" in freshman English, right? The moral of that story was clear: never take your superiority for granted. And what they'd been doing wasn't even at that level—they were hunting bears armed only with shivs. It was a miracle that five of them were still left.

But those were conversations for later, for a reunited group. For now, it was Keegan and Bacchia and Vasily, decompressing.

"And," he said, shifting gears slightly less than seamlessly but what could you do, "I'm there for continuing the game. But there's no 'you two,' going on. You're here now, Bacchia, so you're in."

He gave the most sinister grin he could, as he dodged two stones at once.

"And I think it's Vasily's turn to decide someone's fate. So, then, what'll it be? Truth or dare?"

((FR03: Keegan Garcia, FR02: Vasily Ivanov, and FR06: Dieffenbacchia Rubus continued in With Friends Like These...))