Don’t break anyone’s heart, they only have one. Break their bones, they have 206

[EllisWilson]

Ray couldn’t stand (ha-ha zing) how smug she was. How she seemed to get a kick (ha-ha zing) out of fucking them over.

Them?

Right, two people now… again… whatever, the point was that Ray was somehow more miserable than when he got to the courtyard in the first place. More than that, however, he was feeling a greater fatigue. He looked from the girl rolling away to Arkadi, who had just given her all of their ammo for his sake.

“Didn’t have guns anyway…” Ray said, his words heavy and slurred. He lifted his hand up to the bloody hole where his ear was supposed to be and dipped a finger tip on its surface. The sensation of was like someone was jabbing him with a needle and it made him hiss softly before he pulled his hand away, examining it.

“Hmm.. blood.” He mumbled, thrusting his bloodied hand up to Ilya in a laborious fashion. He let it drop, grunting as he rolled onto his back. He was so tired, he thought. His head felt heavy too. Everything felt like he was floating in water, the only thing grounding him even slightly was the pain.

“Fuckin’… sucks…”

[CardboardAirplane]

"Could've gotten some later." He walked over to pick up the grenade launcher.

Well... What now?

"So anyway, like I said earlier, bad spot when you're relying on me of all people to save your life."

He let out a deep breath. Now that he was getting a look at Ray without the threat of getting shot at, he could fully take in the fact that this kid was missing an ear... What did he have to say about that?

"You should prooooobably do something about that." He vaguely gestured over towards the injury. "She shot you."

He's helping.

"Do you know how to like... Use anything in that First Aid Kit we got? Any know-how on what to do when you're bleeding... More than you should?"

Was that fatal? It was the head, but... It was also only the ear? You shouldn't be bleeding either, that's already a bad situation. Either way, he wasn't expecting Ray to be all that competent. Ilya wasn't either, but it was the better of two evils. Unless Ray miraculously had medical experience.

[EllisWilson]

“You did fine…” Ray said. If he were being totally honest, then he wouldn’t have just said that. Down an ear and Ilya had to give that bitch all of their ammo to get her to go away. She could’ve just shot the two of them and took everything, how the fuck did that even work? What’s he saying n- oh, right, actively bleeding everywhere.

“Uh…” Ray propped himself up on his elbows, shaking his head quickly to try and get it together. That was a mistake for two reasons, the first being that it splattered little blood drops all over the place. The second reason being that Ray was, quite suddenly, dizzy. Groaning, he sat up, swaying side to side. “Fuck, dude, just wad up bunch of gauze and tie to my head or something.” Ray looked over his supplies, which were scattered around. It looked like his fucking bedroom. He missed his bedroom.

Heaving himself into a crawl, Ray pondered whether or not any of this was going to linger when he got out. He wasn’t very in tune with the weird shit that CR did to you when you used it for too long, but he didn’t imagine that his ear would be missing in real life. One less thing to explain to Mom and Dad, at least.

“D’you know how to, fucking, you know.” He gestured vaguely toward his broken, flopping ankle as he started picking up his shit.

[CardboardAirplane]

It was as good of an idea as anything. Ilya wasn't entirely sure if more than gauze would be needed to really deal with this, but it wouldn't be bleeding as much. There were alcohol pads, were those used for this? What were those even used for? What the hell was benzoin?

As for the leg... Ilya looked towards the supplies. Back to the leg. Once Ray stopped picking things up, he took out the gauze and did his best to cover up the wound. The idea wasn't lost on him that he could simply take what he could and run. After all, he was pretty sure he lost his damn pizza, which was honestly so tragic. A travesty.

Thinking more calculated for a second, what was to gain, and what was to lose? Was there anything to gain that'd be worth immediately throwing Ray aside? He wasn't entirely sure if the gun was hidden or actually missing, but he was definitely sure that he'd be able to point it out if he saw it. He had reasons to keep this kid around. He might've been a bit of a liability at the moment, especially with a messed-up ankle. At the same time—and he realised this wasn't all that convincing—he was looking at the one guy he was pretty sure wouldn't be willing to shoot him on sight.

And—and this was purely hypothetical—if they had another Marnie, he knew he had someone he could run faster than.

"No clue. Maybe we find a crutch, crutch-like thing." He shrugged. "Gotta get moving though. Somewhere that's not like, 0 IQ, gives easy opportunity to shoot at us sort of deal."

[EllisWilson]

The minute Ilya was done patching him up, he immediately started picking at it. He picked up that stupid little mirror to get a look, and it looked about as shit as he expected. Whatever, at least he wasn't squirting blood everywhere. "You think anyone got given crutches?" Ray asked, shoving the mirror back into his bag. "I can't fucking walk on this thing, you know?"

He checked around to make sure he didn't miss anything, found that he didn't, and zipped the bag back up. Ilya's saying the shit Ray wanted to do earlier before Marnie fucking shot his ear off. Couldn't have suggested that earlier, bud? Fuck, he really needed to stick with this guy to get out of this place? The guy in the Pokémon hoodie?

He sighed. "Yeah, right, let's go. Help me up." Ray slung his pack over his shoulder and held a hand up to the Ilya. Fucking Ilya, Jesus Christ.

[CardboardAirplane]

Course nobody got crutches. What did he think Zeph was, nice? Odds are, they were probably just gonna have to find a cool stick on the ground. He was sure both of them knew that.

If he thought more optimistically, it wouldn't be that far off to assume there was probably some miracle medicine somewhere. It would technically be possible, wouldn't it? Even if Zeph was so hellbent on realism that they had to eat while they were here.

For now, though, it was better to plan like there wasn't. No use relying on help that'll never arrive.

Ilya wrapped one of Ray's arms around his shoulder and helped the other boy up. Slowly and steadily, while he let the other boy control the pace, Ilya started to lead the both of them out of the schoolyard.

(Ilya Arkadi continued at To-do list: get good (unchecked))

[EllisWilson]

Ray leaned heavily on Ilya, not wanting to have anyway weight on the bad ankle. That meant it would be slow going, but it was still faster than crawling everywhere, so there was that. While they were leaving, Ray fell into the thought process of who to blame.

Zeph would be first, obviously, but then right behind that was Ripley for taking his gun and Marnie for being the biggest bitch on earth. Shit, throw in Daniel too, cuz if he didn’t cave Sunny’s head in then there wouldn’t have been anything to freak out over. Oh, right, put Andrea on that list too for making him shoot her.

Àngel for making him waste bullets… Maybe Jill for getting held up in the first place? Fuck it, this was making his head hurt. Fuck the list, focus on the now, cuz the now is what you can change.

His last thought in the schoolyard was over just how to do that.

((Ray Sullivan continued elsewhere))