Closed to Jo: I'm waiting for this ice age to arrive

[victoryorvalhalla]

Ice Age - How to Destroy Angels

It was a split second, the loss of a footing with the added stength of a shove by two supernatural powerhouses. Thorfinn had pulled back to hit someone else and ended up losing his footing falling against one of the two women. Shoved out of the way before either could really pay mind to the small blonde he never regained his balance. These were not the type of shoes he was used to fighting in. Instinct called for him to grab his knife stab something to regain his footing but it was just to fast to much for his small frame.

A loud bang barely registered over the sound of the brawl. One of the nearby booths had cut his fall short in the worst way, the bang was his forehead hitting the edge of the booth. There was nothing he could do or think, it was instantaneous. It was to much for his neck, a clean break. He was gone before his body hit the ground at an awkward angle, his father's blade slid from his hands, sliding under the booth as the small body laid there. With only four minutes until it would vanish.


-----

Four hours didn't really register for him. No bright light, no heavenly voices, no Valkyries. Nothing like the boastful stories passed around camp fires.

He was back home, laying in a pile of hay, listening to the man raiding outside of the barn. It was strange but oddly welcomed after so much strangeness in his dreams.

'where did the little bastard go?'
'same place he always goes when the jobs done.'

It was Bjorn's voice, that same quiet command to leave him alone and let him sleep. Which meant in about twenty minutes he'd wake up to screams. But something wasn't right. He couldn't put his finger on it.

Wait no. They were all dead. He remembered it all suddenly. his blood running cold as he started to push himself up in time to see a wicked grin.

'Figured it out did you, boy?' No it couldn't be, not him. 'Time to get up, good things don't come to lazy layabouts.' Thorfinn could only stare in horror at the man making his way to him. 'THORFINN! IT'S TIME TO GET TO WORK!' His voice bellowed.

Thorfinn's eye's shot open with a strangled gasp.

Electric lights were almost to bright for his eyes as he flinched form them, closing his eyes to stop the sharp pain. Reality sinking back into him. He wasn't in Mercia, or England. He was on Mundus. He was still in that strange world that had taken him... Askeladd was still dead, Bjorn was still dead.... everyone was dead and yet here he laid flinching away from the bright lights in the ceiling.

It was about then that he started to feel sick to his stomach, and the realization dawned, he wasn't alone.

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[victoryorvalhalla]

He stayed quiet a moment watching her. He never cared to really clean beyond the basics he does to the room itself, watching her scrub at the floor with the towels he felt bad, more than just physical but just bad all together.

"My mom was really sick when I was home, I never remember a time where she wasn't sick or weak. She always smiled though. Little bothered her, but Ylfa, she was fire in a human body. She had opinions and strength none could match. I adored her when I was a child... we fought constantly, but I loved her Jo. I dream of returning to her and Mother so often... and in those dreams I always see them die." He admitted shifting as a sharp pain shot through him he kept himself from puking and that much was clear He pulled the cover higher so just his hair was sticking out.

"Mother wanted more children...." He muttered through his pain. "I almost killed her when I was born, she could never bare children again after me... My point." He started, as that scarred arm shot out for the silver bowl. "I think of you like I think of her... your not Ylfa, you never could be, your more." He was glad he had pulled the cover up. He didn't want her seeing his face... but the noises that followed, the sound of it hitting the bowl. Least he was right that he could aim.

[tobeclosetohim]

She can't help listening. There's rage, but it's banked, and it's false. She knows that, too. Like a mask she can cloak herself in, it covers everything beneath it. A gaping crack that she cannot see to the bottom and does not want to. It will only serve to do worse to the future. Like all of this. And, still, she can't help listening. About his mother, and his sister, the past he rarely talked of, for whatever reason he felt compelled to tell her now.

Except whatever isn't right, but she can't look at that, or him, or Merlin. Even if she knows she should.

She should tell him a lot of things. Maybe starting with the one where he picked wrong.
Where things do not go well with those who pick her. Because she shouldn't be.
Picked. The last one lay deep in the ocean, before burned to ashes.

Her head washed her this way and that, like the roll of the ocean under the boat she never stepped on, and the scent of once-upon-a-different-universe ocean salt on the rim of the hat she refused to clean. Or let anyone touch. Or had ever even explained to anyone. Nor spoken Jack's name once here yet. It did her no good to dwell, and she'd thought only Gabriel could rouse him to her thoughts.

But, this, too.


This, too.


Jo cringed a little as he threw up again, the blanket shuddering as he tried to hide, making her feel even less like she should be there, forcing him to handle more in his space than there had to be. She folded the worst into the middle of the towels, as she pushed up, "You should rest some more, Thorfinn. It looks like you're going to need it."

[victoryorvalhalla]

It took him a few moments, the feeling was worse than having bones broken if he had to decide which was worse. The burn, the smell, the everything of it all. Once he stopped and the shuttering calmed he shifted so he could move the bowl to the bedside table. His hair and the cover still hiding his face away.

He was still not wanting to look weak and yet he was. For once so very weak.

The arm vanished back into the blanket as he shifted, those tired eyes peering back at her through it all, Sylvi pushing herself into the blanket with him as he shifted one of his arms to accommodate her.

"Jo," he started taking a breath watching her through his hair and cover. "I don't want you to worry." He added low. "what I mean... its the same. I cant put it in words."

Sylvi calmed mostly from the fear rolling from him. Thorfinn wasn't one to be fearful, but illness was a worse death sentence than being injured. He knew what had happened. He doubted there was anything anyone could do and yet he was more fearful of being ill, the idea of going again.

"...Where is everyone? It's to quiet for this time... whatever time it is." He was used to the sounds of the bar under his feet. A secret she knew, muttered in passing once or twice. He hates the noise, he loves the noise. Its normal, it grates his nerves. Always at war with himself. Tonight he was to sick. "Freya, I was supposed to have a drink with her when the fight stopped Jo. She has my phone." Something he had only ever handed off to Jo when he went to do something he thought would break his life line.

[tobeclosetohim]

Fresh and acidic, it pulls at her guts, absently, like a hand fondling a cord, but nothing comes. Like a bucket on a dry wellspring. Jo stood watching him, as he set the bowl on on to the bed table, wondering less about his words and more about emptying it, or just waiting, coming back and emptying it in a little while, in case he still wasn't anywhere truly near done.

But, also, about the likelihood of it getting knocked over on the floor, or tipped on the bed in a too frantic rush.

"It's still early," Jo shook. "Not yet dawn even. It's only been four or five hours since--" You died, she doesn't say. She could make herself. She could, but she doesn't want to cut herself on it yet. It's already repeating over and over in her head. Suddenly blurring the boy in this bed with the boy on the floor, head lolled at it's incorrect angle. "I'll find Freya and get your phone back."

She turned for the door, the thing she could make herself do, if not the first yet. (Even when her mind reminded her, she never spoke of Merlin's dying and coming back either. Not to anyone who hadn't been in that room when it happened, ie Balthazar, or on the steps when he came back, ie, Amy. And not ever since.) Jo pressed her hands too hard on the towels, making when give wetly between them, and she grimaced. "Sleep for a little, and I'll bring it up to you."

[victoryorvalhalla]

He peered at her still from under the blanket. He didn't dare nod with the way his head was pounding. Listening to her, while once more trying to will his body to behave. He had a feeling he was a long way from done, which is why he had sat the bowl where he had.

"...I died." He said it softly. "She told me to tie my shoes and I didn't listen... when I knocked into that woman, I caught my show string to." He remembered it to. "I got in the way." He seemed to be just piecing things together.

When she lifted the towels he felt sorry, he hated putting thing kind of stuff on anyone much less someone he cared about. "...Once I'm better I'll do a better job this time, Jo." He spoke quietly pulling the cover more around him so he was fully hidden. "I wont be a terrible brother again. I'll do right by you."

[tobeclosetohim]

Those first two words shouldn't contract in her chest, but they do, and for a second she's there, again. The wrong side of the room. The middle of a fight still. Doing the thing she swore she wouldn't. Using Gabriel for everything he'd offered to the bar -- to her, her so much more than it, as Merlin's voice reminded her over and over, she'd slipped too far inside of him, his interest of, control over -- staring at that fallen body.

Not giving a damn what burned, broke, or was used for that second.

If you were you'd be sleeping now, Jo wants to grouse, but it's not quite annoyance.

She hasn't heard enough of his voice yet. Blood and vomit, and long nights, and even whatever this is, this his illness, and this what this change happening between them, or happened long before and unknown by her, doesn't change that. And she isn't sure she can look at it head on quite yet. Not and him.

"Worry about it later, Thorfinn," Jo said, generally enough, as she opened the door. "Tomorrow, since you still have one now."

[victoryorvalhalla]

He listened from under the blanket even as bad as he felt he still knew pretty much exactly where she was in the room. The sound of the door opening and her words hitting him. The cover over his head just so she wouldn't see the tears brimming his eyes. The pain was horrid and he was to proud. He was schooled well in holding his voice level. Betraying nothing when it came to himself. Pain he could usually walk through with no problem. BUt this sickness and pain was hell.

"Thank you, Jo. Goodnight." He spoke softly shifting despite the pain, he tended to always sleep on one side over the other. The tiny for of Sylvi could be seen moving under the blanket to try and get comfortable. He'd be asleep in minutes until Merlin's voice hit him.