◙ 03

[mortalcoil]

[he wakes up choking.

It's like he's picking up right where he left off. Panicking, clawing, fighting for air. There is no voice, but there is still sound for the book to catch. The kind of struggled breath that comes from barely fighting back sobs, air thick in the lungs, raw in his throat as he tries desperately to come to his senses.

He's just not used to this. Breathing. Feeling. Suddenly existing again. As bad as the nightmares have been, this is abruptly worse.]


((ooc: Coil's back! ...not that many people knew he was even gone, or anything. Robin is finding him in person, but if anyone says anything over the journal, he'll get back to them after he can find a pen))

Comments

[birdsbirdsbirds]

[that still bothers him. he wants to reach out for Coil's hand and get him to settle, or help ward off... whatever it is that's still following him around. even if it's really just night-sickness, he would love to do... something.

but he can't see it. he could if he was... hm.]

Hey, Coil. [he brushes the kid's bangs out of his face for a moment.] Those wards you've got up... do they keep magic and auras inside the room?

[mortalcoil]

[he balks and winces, but it's before Robin even touches him. It's in reaction to what he's being asked-- really realizing for the first time that someone else is in his room, seeing the runes that he hadn't had the chance to hide before he died.

Looking across the room toward the window-- ah yeah, he's within sight of one right there. The harsh furrowing of his brow that follows is his silent equivalent of a curse. He'd been so clumsy...]

[birdsbirdsbirds]

[that look... he lets the other's bangs fall back in his face, looking a little sympathetic.]

Hey, I would have found them anyway. I'm kind of sensitive to that stuff.

[mortalcoil]

[he's glancing up at him-- not quite sheepishly, but definitely looking for... something.

Answering anything about it is something he has a hard time with, even to Robin, even in the state he's in]

[birdsbirdsbirds]

[usually he can read him pretty well, but this time? he's just not sure what Coil is looking for.]

I'm not gonna... tell, or anything. If that's what you're worried about.

[mortalcoil]

[he's... not really sure either. The reassurance doesn't feel enough, but he doesn't know what else to ask. He wants to know why Robin is asking, he wants there to be something that Robin can say to make it feel okay to answer anything about... but it's not possible, and he can't articulate any of it anyway, so it really doesn't matter, does it?

All he knows, really, is that if there is anything Robin can do to help the situation, he desperately wants it.

So, huddling up in the blanket--he's so cold and nothing looks real--he just nods. Presumeably in answer to Robin's original question]

[birdsbirdsbirds]

All right. Good...

[he's hoping that's what he's nodding about, anyway. he's still debating whether or not he'd want to show him--only two people know, after all, and it might freak him out more than he already is...

in debating, he instinctively reaches over to wrap his arm around Coil's shoulder. maybe another moment of attention with the cloth. with this, it's effectively a waiting game.]

[mortalcoil]

[if he's worried about what Coil might think about it... it's questionable that he's even aware enough to remember it as something real.

There's only a vague shift of his body--more towards than away--when Robin slips an arm around him. He's too wrapped up in staring at nothing, zoned out in that detached way that says that he thinks it's something.]