Cracks and Light

Who: Brian and Hunt
Where: Hunt's house
When: A little before noon

Of all the people he'd called the day before, the only one Brian hadn't heard back from-- didn't know was safe and alive and all that-- was Hunt. And that worried him, because Brian didn't know the scope of that hypothetical spell he was under, nor did he actually know what the man was and wasn't actually capable of. If Hunt had been okay, surely he would have called back.

So Brian left Domino dozing in the dark, found some clean clothes by feel alone without turning on a light to "activate" the shadows he knew were hovering around somewhere, and left without so much as touching the door, leaving slumbering boyfriend, injured familiar, and various shadows behind. They'd have to find him first, to start up the fight again, and now he was all the way across town. He appeared in bright sunlight on Hunt's front porch and knocked. He just hoped the guy was home....

Hunt was home. He was home, sat in the corner of his room, in the total darkness, curled up in a corner. He didn't know what was going on. All he knew was that he was bleeding, gashes down each arm, one down his back, his t-shirt ripped to shreds. All he knew was that things got worse when he turned on the light, so he'd spent the day and the night sitting in the darkness.

He didn't know what time it was now - he didn't know how long he'd been unconscious yesterday, he felt like he didn't know anything at all. He felt like he'd lost his mind, or something wasn't firing right. He'd picked up the phone to call Brian. or school maybe - someone. Sometime. But he'd dropped it and he couldn't find it in the dark. He'd switched the light on to see if he could find it, but then there'd been blood and pain and - darkness was the only option. Darkness was what he had and he was clinging to it right now.

Nobody answered the door. Brian knocked harder, but still nothing. He scowled at the doorknob. Hunt's car was here-- so logic stated so was he. Not at the school, not at the store... here. Which wasn't boding well. "Hunt?" he hollered, and tried the knob. If he had to throw the bolt and turn the mechanisms himself, he would, but he didn't think Hunt would like him breaking in... unless he was in trouble. In which case... hell, by now he might not be able to care if Brian broke in.

Damn, what a dismal thought. Brian threw the bolt with a twist of willpower and came inside. He'd take his friend's anger over his friend's dead body lying there for longer any day. And he'd take his friend alive over any other option. "Hunt?" he called again, creeping through the dark house, calling up a light that made his hand glow rather than flipping any switches. Any shadows here wouldn't attack him until he attacked them, anyway. He just hoped there weren't any, and Hunt was just sick in bed, or something.

The alarms at the property started screaming as Brian walked down the hallway, tripped into live by the breaking of the seal on the doorway. In his room, Hunt put bloody hands over his ears and buried his head into his knees, shuffling back into his corner more. He heard the voice, but it didn't register, not yet, not yet.

"Fucking hell, you have an alarm system?" Brian groaned, and paused long enough to find some of the nearest speakers via their sound waves and short them out. That at least made it a little less deafening, at least. "It better not be wired to the police, or I'm going to fucking kill you myself," Brian grumbled, and went further into the house, killing speakers with his mind as he went and getting closer to the bedroom. There, the only closed door inside the house, he knocked again. "Hunt? Hey, man, you in there?" he called through the door, trying not to sound worried or annoyed, both of which he felt in spades.

Hunt, his hands still pressed to his ears, was aware that the alarms were growing quieter and quieter and he wondered absently if he was pressing that hard. He pressed his hands against his head more - it hurt, but it cut out the noise - he didn't want the noise. He didn't want anyone to know he was here. They might switch on the light and the light hurt. He didn't understand why. It shouldn't be like this, he had eleventh grade modern history right now. He should be standing at the front of the class - he'd planned a pop quiz. or was that yesterday? Or tomorrow? When was it? What day? What time? He heard his name called again and pressed his hands harder against his head.

Again Brian got no response, and his immediate reaction to that was to flip the lock with his mind again and push the door open, shedding the light from his glowing hand on the bedroom within-- on the unmade bed, on the broken lamp, on the bloodstains on the carpet-- on Hunt huddled in a corner with his hands pressed over his ears--

--on shadows. Fuck. The one nearest Hunt went up in flames before it could attack, almost on instinct more than real intent. He could not let Hunt be hurt more, Hunt who probably had no idea what was going on.

Hunt flinched as the light from the doorway spilled into the room. Flinched and drew back, waiting for the first shot of pain to come - pain went with light and it did come, a raking pain across the side of his head, swiping his hand away from his face. The move lost momentum half way through as Hunt heard a whoomph noise and felt the heat.

That was new and Hunt looked up, seeing parts of his bedroom smouldering and catching light a little and through the smoke he saw Brian. What he didn't see were the six other shadows coming toward him. At least, not as shadows. What he saw were intruders, armed intruders, his brain providing him with an explanation now that there was no way to avoid the subject altogether. But even as his spelled mind did that, he cowered away from the fight, huddling in the corner, useless.

Fucking... seven of them. Seven, total. Fuck. He'd deal with the rest of the bedroom once no one was in danger of dying. Brian summoned the breadknife back to his hand, from where he'd left it on the bedstand, and stabbed the nearest one through the back. It died before it could turn on him. "Hunt, move-- Hunt, fuck, get behind me, get behind the bed, something!" he growled, sending another one up in flames as another two turned to face him, and him really in no condition to be fighting. He'd have to rely on willpower alone-- and he was due for a backlash today. Maybe he ought to have brought Domino. Hell, maybe he should have thought ahead period.

Hunt didn't move, staring up at Brian as though the world was imploding, his mind unable to deal with what he was seeing. The breadknife was one thing, he could have had that on him, but the flames - how... He pushed himself up the wall onto his feet, but didn't move as he watched... He didn't know what he was watching. Intruders, but, maybe, that - he didn't know, they seemed to be dark. Ninjas, his mind desperately tried, trying to make sense of what he was seeing.

Brian's next attempt at making shadow-person flambé sputtered out after a spark in the face of Hunt's disbelief. Brian started backing up, sparking under one of the others who hadn't yet turned on him, though a spark was all that happened. Maybe-- maybe if he could get them all to follow him. To go out into the hall, into the living room, get them away from Hunt. That was all that mattered, getting Hunt safe. Maybe getting Hunt to close his eyes again would help.

"Hunt, get behind the fucking bed!" he shouted back, hacking at a clawed arm that reached for him. At least these things weren't all that fast. "Or in the closet, Hunt, get in the closet and close the damn door!" A little protection for the man, maybe that'd help.

Hunt's brain was sparking. Sparking and dissolving as the things that suddenly seemed to have no form turned on his friend. Hunt didn't hear the cry he gave as he threw himself suddenly across the room, tackling the nearest shadow from behind and ripping its head around. The move would have broken a person's neck and the shadow did drop, yet there was no sound as Hunt moved onto the next, pulling the shadow back. It turned to him, attention on its new attacker as the claw raked around towards, Hunt's face.

"Hunt, no--" Too late to stop him, Brian just started setting more of them on fire. Hunt wasn't looking, Hunt wasn't watching, maybe something would work this time. No disbelief to fight with. One more flared up and disappeared in smoke, another sparked but didn't catch. They only had two left, now, the one still advancing on Brian and the other clawing at Hunt. Who was attacking-- god, that was weird. But welcome.

Hunt had lost it now, his brain entirely shut down, not sparking at all, his instinct taking over, rationality disappearing ahead of it. He reached out as the claw came round, muttering words he didn't remember hearing before under his breath. The cord from the fallen lampshade flicked out of the wall, snaking across the carpet at speed. It left the lamp behind, transforming as it did into a thin and twisted rope, spiralling up the body of the shadow and wrapping around its neck, pulling tighter and tighter until the thing dissolved.

That had Brian stopping and staring, his own attacker briefly forgotten. Had Hunt just... cast a spell? What the hell else could it have been? He only snapped out of it when he got a good swipe to the face, and he had to get back to defending himself. He couldn't think about that now, he had fighting to do. And dammit, he wasn't in fighting trim-- not like he really ever was, with the fucked up knee, but he was usually better than this.

Hunt stepped through the dissolving shadow and muttered again, the rope moving across to repeat the same move on the other shadow, pulling both ends of the rope tight without touching it until the shroud eater's head near enough fell off as it dissolved. Hunt looked across at Brian in the suddenly otherwise empty room, smiled for a moment - and then collapsed.

Panting a bit, partly out of breath and partly hurting, Brian started to smile back, incredulous and grateful and relieved that Hunt , seemed okay-- until the man crumpled. "Hunt!" he yelped, and dove to try and catch him, but with bum knee and bloody face and wounds bandaged from the day before and that morning, he was nowhere near fast enough. Instead he wound up on his knees next to him, bad one all but screaming at him, feeling frantically for pulse. "C'mon, man, don't crap out on me now...."

Hunt was out cold, but definitely still alive, his pulse strong and regular. Appearance-wise though, he was in a bad way, his clothing ripped, his torso covered in dried blood, the fresh wound on the side of his head still bleeding. The other cuts over his upper body had dried up, but they were still visible.

"They got you good, huh," Brian muttered sympathetically. "C'mon, man, let's get you cleaned--"
His fingers touching Hunt's shoulder, to start to heave him up, sparked with static painfully. "Shit!" He shook his hands violently, stung. Aw, hell, that had better not be his backlash....

Hunt jerked, his eyes flying open for a second as he focused on Brian's face, then his gaze lost all focus again as a moan came from his lips. His head felt like it was going to explode, he didn't know where he was, who he was, what was happening. Nothing felt right, the same, everything was changing, not stable, shifting, whirling around him with no signs of stopping.

Looking down at him at the jump, then wincing at the moan, Brian tried to pat his cheek, but sparked him again and growled with frustration. Gloves... did the man have gloves anywhere? "Stay here, man. I just need to get something so I don't keep zapping you...." He had no idea if Hunt even heard him, he looked pretty feverish-- and Brian knew what feverish looked like, given all his experience with it-- but he resisted the urge to touch him again and went hunting. Even oven-mitts would do. Hopefully, anyway.

Hunt rolled over on the floor and curled up into a ball, moaning all the while, his eyes firmly closed, his fists balled. Inside his mind scenes snapped and vanished, reappeared. He had no idea what was fantasy, what reality; what was dream and what was memory. Voices called to him out of the blackness, words and phrases, illusions dissolved and reformed, attack and counter attack as the spell tried desperately to hold on to the fraying edges of itself, to rebuild the walls of illusion and protect the fragile mind within.

Limping as fast as he could, pulling out every drawer he could along the way with bloody hands and mind both, Brian found a pair of leather gloves in a little chest of drawers in the hall. He tugged them on even as he spun and limped back the way he came, fighting to get them on. "Hunt-- Hunt, man, it's okay." He crouched beside him again, shaking his shoulder. He got the shock himself, but it didn't go through the leather to Hunt. Thank god. "C'mon, work with me here, you're messed up and I gotta get you cleaned up." Just what he'd do with him after that, he had no idea. He couldn't leave him here, he obviously wasn't in any shape to look after himself. For now, though, he'd have to make do with bandaging him up before the shadows came back. He could probably get him up in a fireman's carry, but it would hurt both of them.

Hunt didn't move. Couldn't, his mind closing in on itself, shutting out the world with its truths and its lies, desperately trying to save what could be saved, shedding reason and purpose and trying to rally some kind of response. Hunt didn't even heard his friend, all sense of outer presence shut down for now.

Sighing, Brian crouched down further, ignoring his knee and knowing he'd pay for that later, and levered Hunt's arm over his shoulders, heaving up with all the strength he had left. It took a lot of panting and a lot of staggering, but he did finally get his tense, unresponsive friend to the bathroom and propped up on the toilet seat. Getting him cleaned up with gloves was an interesting task, but he managed it. Hunt had a whole hospital's worth of bandages and first aid supplies, it seemed like, so that was no problem. He took the liberty of smashing the mirror and shutting all the doors, in the hopes that it'd give them a little more time. Then, just in case, he shut off all the lights and doused his own hands of their glow.

And, belatedly, he got around to calling first Domino, to let him know where he was, and then Isabella, because... well, maybe she'd know what the fuck had just happened. That kept him occupied for a little while, at least, sitting in the dark, his cell phone light even blacked out with a thought, while he waited for Hunt to come around.