For close on a week it's been just like this. Freddie and Cook, tucked up neat in this inexplicable hut, playing at something approaching normal. They lounge and swim in the ocean, and Cook disappears three times a day to fetch them meals he couldn't possibly have made himself. The shower out back is cold but works, and though the world has dwindled, Freddie feels warm and sated, heavy with contentment, his skin sunwarmed and cares far, far away. He hasn't questioned Cook's need to keep him tethered, hasn't yet felt the need to explore further than the glittering shoreline he'd appeared on and the thin strip of jungle between it and their home
( ... )
"Shit," Cook mumbles, mildly startled by Freddie's reaction. If he's honest, he had expected a scolding, that tight-lipped, disappointed look Freddie sometimes got directed at Cook once more. Hell, it would have been welcome at this point (not that it wasn't in some way every other time). But the concern's a little much and given how his head is feeling, the world threatening to tip itself over every so often but righting itself just in time, his powers of comprehension are sluggish.
"Fight," he manages after a pause. Cook rubs at the back of his neck and heads for a pinched bottle full of water. He chugs down half of it and feels better for it before he speaks again. "Crazy fucker stabbed me."
Freddie's mind goes immediately to Foster. There's no place else for it to go, his death still so fresh that he has to work at thinking about nothing just so that he doesn't think about anything. For a moment there, he looks like he might genuinely run, right past Cook and out the door, terrified of being cornered.
For a moment, he has to talk himself out of actually doing it.
"What?" he exhales, but it's just a word, just the first expression of disbelief and terror he latches onto. It doesn't mean anything and he's not expecting an answer.
"We have to get out of here, we can't stay here," he ejects in a rush, and launches at the door, catching hold of Cook's uninjured arm with shaking fingers as he goes. It's too small in here, no back door, no other way out, nowhere to run. They have to get out, and get out now.
"What?" Cook sputters in reply. The bottle falls from his hand and thuds dully on the ground before he can get a hold of himself, get a proper hold on Freddie. He digs in with his heels, leans his weight back to counteract Freddie's forward momentum, and turns to wrap his injured arm, decorated with thin trails of drying blood, around a skinny waist. There's a surge of pain through his weak limb, but Cook grits his teeth and holds on.
"Sarah killed it," he explains hurriedly. Maybe Cook would have expected this, this flight reaction from Freddie, if he had been thinking properly, but when's Cook ever doing that? Now he can only assure his friend that nothing's coming after them in the middle of the night. "It's dead, Freds, it's not coming here."
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"Fight," he manages after a pause. Cook rubs at the back of his neck and heads for a pinched bottle full of water. He chugs down half of it and feels better for it before he speaks again. "Crazy fucker stabbed me."
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For a moment, he has to talk himself out of actually doing it.
"What?" he exhales, but it's just a word, just the first expression of disbelief and terror he latches onto. It doesn't mean anything and he's not expecting an answer.
"We have to get out of here, we can't stay here," he ejects in a rush, and launches at the door, catching hold of Cook's uninjured arm with shaking fingers as he goes. It's too small in here, no back door, no other way out, nowhere to run. They have to get out, and get out now.
Reply
"Sarah killed it," he explains hurriedly. Maybe Cook would have expected this, this flight reaction from Freddie, if he had been thinking properly, but when's Cook ever doing that? Now he can only assure his friend that nothing's coming after them in the middle of the night. "It's dead, Freds, it's not coming here."
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