Brune hisses out a breath and massages the smarting bruise on his hand. "...My fault. I shouldn't have been fiddling." His white-faced look of terror says otherwise.
Still massaging his bruised hand, Brune leans back over Alex, careful not to touch them this time. "I assure you, that was entirely my fault, my dear fellow," he says, a bit shakily. "A natural reaction to being prodded at. I should have asked. Are you all right? Any pain?"
"You're a good doctor" Darrion says absently, though his voice cracks on the word "good". He stares out the window, not sure what else to do now that he didn't find food.
Brune still looks a bit pale. His hand twitches instinctively, clearly wanting to take their hand and examine it for bruising or cuts, but he holds himself back this time. "Well," he says, "I think I have a possibly ridiculous idea, before we arrive."
He reaches behind his neck and starts to take off the necklace.
Think of Clarisse, Brune internally coaches himself, think of anything but this, hold it in, you can be all right for their sake, now... He pulls off the necklace in one quick yank, with a strange kind of detached awareness, and leans in to put it around Alex's neck.
Brune is hyperventilating, near tears, more viscerally panicked than you've ever seen him; the prospect of having made a medical mistake is suddenly crashingly real. "I put it on him - oh, CHRIST -"
Startled by the abrupt change of scenery, Alex looks around to get their bearings and for something that could've caused it. Their eyes land on the objects in the sand.
@Sciborg A pressure builds in your head. The roar of blood in your ears. At the very edge of your hearing, there's almost a... low, repetitive chanting.... and then it suddenly releases, with a vague impression of frustration that fades away, leaving only the sound of your heartbeat in your chest.
@Ginger You recall what happened in the car immediately beforehand. You can surmise that that had something to do with it.
Brune is nearly sobbing in panic, his whole body shaking; he seems on the verge of collapse, too petrified to even know what to do or start giving chest compressions. "Alex, oh, Christ, I'm so sorry..."
"...I did this... I did this to them..." Brune crumples in on himself like his body can't take what's going on any longer, and he buries his face in his hands with muffled heaving sounds.
Darrion's bowtie unravels in his hands, prompted by shearing in two through the loop he was tugging at more. It feels like a metaphor for how this car ride is going.
Alex states at the three objects warily, recalling Brune's description of his dream and how touching the necklace yanked him out - they don't want to make the "wrong" choice, but they're angered at how little information they have to go off of.
Carefully Darrion folds the bowtie up and drops the remainder into his bag. He starts quietly sobbing, a few tears falling into his bag as well, the others just onto his clothes. The bowtie was a present from Aunt Ophelia...
Brune sits shivering, nearly catatonic. The smell of antiseptic and blood, seemingly from nowhere, is registering, dully, somewhere in the back of his mind. There's screaming in the back of his head. Nothing in the car seems to be real, to be really happening. ...did this...
...not real... not real... Brune's hands are clenched, white. They feel damp. He is certain that if he looks down, he would see blood, even if he knows it isn't there. ...oh, God, snap out of it...
Some part of his flailing mind that has been drowning in the darkness cuts ferociously into the static in his own head, fierce and angry. You're a doctor, damn you. Do your job! The suddenness of it jerks him back out of his trance, slightly. He blinks, as if he was falling and has just hit the ground, and seems to return to earth, just a little.
Alex is certain that whatever cosmic force has been toying with them wants them to make a choice on this island, but they're irrationally determined to find some alternative. Unfortunately, no alternative is presenting itself.
"Pulse," Brune says, in a shockingly calm voice that is entirely the opposite of how he sounded earlier. He leans forward swiftly to check Alex's heart rate, trying to measure if they've gone into arrest.
The sudden lack of radio jolts Darrion out of his bowtieless funk. He shakes his head to clear it, then asks, "Wha' just happened? Sorry, was out of it"
Heart is beating steadily, if weakly, still under the symptoms of malnutrition. Alex's eyes are rolled into the back of their head and they're not responsive, but they're alive and not in immediate danger.
"Not in arrest - heart's beating. Feet up," Brune says, still in that strange, calm voice. He lifts Alex's feet to the same level as their heart, propping them up on the seat, and loosens their collar to give them more air.
Brune's facial expression is utterly composed, and so is his voice. He looks at Darrion. "It's all right, lad." It's delivered in an odd, detached way that almost sounds like he's talking to someone else. "You'll be all right. Are you hurt?"
Brune nods, as if listening kindly to a patient in distress, and gently unties his own tie, holding it out. “You’re welcome to borrow mine until we get there, lad.”
"It's all right, lad." Brune's voice is soothing, entirely calm, as if a coin has flipped in his mind. He reaches over to help Darrion put it on. His demeanor makes it seem like he's completely disassociated and is simply retreating to the mode he knows how to be - a doctor. "We'll be fine. Remember how to breathe?"
Alex stares at the nonsensical information in utter bafflement. The sand grains shift slightly under their feet. They unlock the phone and, opening the Calls app, thumb in *#*#4636#*#* - the USSD code for cellular modem diagnostics - as if they've done it a hundred times before.
"Is anyone else hurt?" Brune's hands are entirely steady, no shaking at all - back to being a surgeon again - as he performs some other checks, pressing on parts of Alex's arm to test the blood flow and see how quickly it fills itself back in when disrupted. "They're dreaming, I believe."
Brune moves to Alex's fingers, pressing on the fingernails and the nail beds to test capillary response, utterly serene. It seems like they are entirely unconscious motions, like he's doing them in his sleep.
"Fascinating. Did you put me up to this, hmm? Is this your doing? People always ask me questions, maybe I oughta ask some of my own." Alex puts the phone on speaker and checks if their web browser can load any pages.
...remember... Brune's glassy, unseeing stare suddenly seems to get some life back into it. He blinks again, and the familiar, haunted look seems to creep back in. He looks down at Alex as if he hadn't been seeing them properly until now, and hastily lets go of their arm, not wanting to spook them again.
"I am Darrion Jenny, PhD student, fashion enthusiast, Kiko's friend, bi, ..." Darrion mutters his identity under his breath as a way of grounding himself
"Of course. And then of course I would have... yes." Brune sounds vaguely like he's rationalizing his own behavior. "You're free to keep it, lad. I have more."
"So what difference does it make, you bastard? If I'm some unthinking playpiece in your sick game? Make your choices yourself." Alex practically spits the last sentence, and is ready to hang up the call.
2
The shaking of the ground makes them stumble backwards, almost on top of the three objects.
@Sciborg Jack stops his arrhythmic steering wheel tapping, and says "Isn't the point that Alex needs to eat...?" Pausing, "Or do you need me to go collect it?"
"Well, we'll have to bring it to them somehow. I don't suppose you mind a beach visit. We can't take them out of the car, though - too many questions." Brune looks out at the water. "Although no one in this town seems particularly bothered by strange happenings."
Whatever it is on the other end of the line begins to laugh. And continues to laugh, the volume increasing, until it is clear that it's no longer coming only from the phone. The ground shakes and quakes, the sea around you roiling and steaming, until you lose your balance and fall on the sand.
The water begins to flood in, burning and hissing, the waves rocking you.
You have about a second until all of the other objects are gone in the water. Do you grab any of them, or do you let them sink and take what happens next?
"Mr. Rivers is fetching us something that might fix that, I believe." Brune shifts as much as he can and angrily makes another swipe at the necklace, seeming determined to get it himself, before finally managing to loop a finger through the links and snatch it up. "You certainly sound better."
"Seafood, yes." Brune lifts up the necklace with relief and looks cautiously at Alex. "I don't suppose, with a reaction like that, we should try it again...?"
@Mithical approaching the front of house "I need 3 lots of your set meals ... Yeah, the seafood samurai and the ..." Jack checks the menu, "two of the rogue Ronin" He can barely sleep his eyes from rolling
"...We can wait for Mr. Rivers, then, and see how you feel, my dear fellow. I apologize for subjecting you to it unwillingly." Brune looks back down at the necklace, fingering the links, trying to count how many are still gold.
Brune stares at the necklace, seeming suddenly distant again. He can't stop ruminating on the tie that Darrion is wearing. Try as he might, he can't summon any memory of giving it to him.
Alex is silent for a moment. "I trust your judgement, but-" They touch one of the dark links. "-I suspect that this necklace can only... protect us so many times."
Darrion is actually feelings comparatively fine - being outside and free to move and just waiting for someone else, is great. Like when you submit a paper and now it's the reviewers' problem, not yours.
"...Hm." Brune finally seems to remember he's supposed to be getting out of the car, and hastily drags himself over to the doorway to aim for the chair. "My apologies, Mr. Jenny."
With a mighty heave, Brune lifts himself down into the chair and adjusts himself instinctively, seeming relieved to have mobility again. He looks out at the water again, seeming wistful. "We never got a chance to bring you to Kiko, I'm afraid."
First, the sound of a foghorn. From out over the water comes the deep blast of a foghorn, despite no fog being visible from where you are - it's evidently coming from a bit deeper out, but the sound traveled enough for you to hear it.
"Don't be fine. It's better not to be. People who are fine are the ones who end up in my ward more often than not, because they ignored their pain and didn't come sooner." Brune attempts a bracing smile. "I'm not fine, if you haven't noticed. I haven't been for quite some time."
