2020-02-12 - In a Dark Wood

Joe opens that door between realities and plunges through it, and for a moment, his guts twist in revolt. They grind in his belly, screaming What are you doing?? He feels time and space tremble, unsure what to do with him, then it makes a decision, and spits him out, here.

It's the forest he left behind, but it's also not. Things which shouldn't grow here do: strange, Southeast Asian vines, desert flowers, contorted hazelnut. They're in a mishmash with those which would be expected (Sitka spruce, Western redcedar, Nootka Cypress) and things which simply shouldn't exist at all. Something white and willowy twines around a pine tree like a vine, bearing glowing orange blooms, but seems to writhe in the corner of Joe's eye. There are ferns that look brittle and gray, almost like they're made of ash. There's something like a madrone, but the silvery bark is too metallic and it's weeping...red sap...blood?

The animal sounds seem normal at first, but even a few seconds listening to them will reveal their strangeness. Noises he's never heard in all his travels. Tortured, distant cries. Mournful howls.

It's dark, but a blade thin crescent Moon over head, tinted silvery purple, shines more hazy Earthshine than it should. Plenty for him to see by, if still an uncertain, dusky, dangerous landscape.

His first act, once he's sure the Marine hasn't plunged through after him....is to restring his bow and nock an arrow. Yes, it's entirely likely that even a razor hunting head won't faze what dwells here, but it's better than nothing. He doesn't pull out the tiny flashlight in his coat pocket, though. Suspecting that light might draw attention that'd turn out to be profoundly unwelcome.

Joe glances back over his shoulder, but the door he came in through, that strange, shimmering surface, is gone. He could perhaps turn right around and try to open another.....but few predators in the world are more patient than a sniper, and it's all too likely, to his mind, that Ruiz will just be waiting there.

The forest continues to murmur around Joe, only slightly perturbed by his arrival. As he looks over his shoulder, he sees the wane Earthshine and moonlight reflects off a set of eyes: something like a cross between a jumping spider and a marmoset. It's worrying away at a large, hairy, pod, not unlike a rambutan, but then it notices Joe. It yelps, high and piercing, drops the item. Dinner now a decided low priority, it launches off the low tree branch it was on and into deeper cover. The movement draws a hiss from something else, and he feels a winged shape whisk by overhead, the brush of something soft like a moth's wing.

He sees, at some distance between the trees, a light. It's hard to gauge what it might be without getting closer--the foliage is much too dense--but there's a game trail leading in that rough direction.

This is....nothing at all like hunting buck in the pine woods of south Georgia. If he hadn't been so badly frightened, it'd be an occasion for wonder. For exploration, under the light of an alien moon. But now, having so recently been prey, he's wary, all his senses straining. He keeps the arrow nocked, and moves as quietly as he can....heading in the direction of that light.

The forest over here is dense, but Joe's got a game trail on his side. It's not the most readily used game trail, though; vines, brambles, and stray branches litter it here and there. He does a good job of avoiding most of them, be he feels a light scratch as a long branch bearing pinnate, lobed leaves in deep, dark gray with brilliant yellow spines coming up along the central vein. It stings at first, drawing a little blood, and the branch curls up and pulls back as if it's been damaged somehow.

The light grows brighter the closer Joe gets. He can begin to see it's a fire of some sort, large--campfire sized, easily--but shifting in midair somehow. He can't quite tell what's holding it aloft due to the various trees between here and there.

He hears no voices or other sounds, but gradually, the crackle of it burning reaches his ears.

He's loath to come out into the light, proper. To expose his presence to whatever might be watching. The thing's scratched him on the cheek, one of the few areas exposed in his winter gear...he wipes impatiently at the graze, since his scarf has already been pressed into service over the bullet crease on his leg.

So he contents himself with observing, for now.

The firelight...begins to move. As it does, its source gradually comes into view.

It's a large deer, or an elk, or maybe a little of both; certainly, it has some of the visual elements of both. It's dark brown to creamy white, but at the neck that gives way to black soot, like the rest of its head is made from coal. The fire Joe's seen is blazing from the tops of its magnificent crown of antlers. Its eyes glow luminous yellow orange, the same color as the fire.

It's passing through a large glade of winter-dead grass with a still, black pond at the center. With each step the creature takes, the water on the surface of the pond trembles.

The human hunter goes still, barely daring to breathe. Even narrowing his eyes, as if to hide the wet gleam there. A stag isn't generally a threat, but....they're not generally on fire, either. If he didn't have his hands full with the bow, he'd probably be fumbling for his phone, to take a picture.

Not too far off, something else is happening. The thin point in the Veil ripples, parts, and Itzhak Rosencrantz steps through. He looks around the night forest, tense and wary. (He'd tried a couple times to get Ruiz to tell him what happened, to no avail.) The strap of his violin case is slung across his chest, and he carries his fiddle in hand, along with a bow. Not a usual bow, this bow. It's strung with brilliant orange-red hair. What little light there is from the thin moon sets the hair to shimmering.

He sets his fiddle under his chin, the bow to the strings, and plays to the forest. It's a lively little reel, and it's from a Pogues song, 'Should I Fall From Grace With God'. If Joe's in earshot, he'll know it.

The sound of that fiddle brings the flaming deer creature to a halt. It turns to look toward the source of the sound, ears swiveling forward. The flames dance under the dark sky, reflect by the mirror of the pond's surface.

Between the notes, a gravely voice says just to Joe's left, "Do not trouble him."

The sound of music has him raising his head, not at all unlike the hart, listening. Reflex says to turn, draw, and fire. But control....control is not lost. Not yet. The pilot doesn't even turn his head. He just cuts his eyes to the left, to see who or what is speaking.

Itzhak doesn't get a response to his fiddling, which is good in one way, since nothing is coming to fight him, and bad in the way that he still doesn't know where Joe is. Still playing (if I should fall from grace with God where no doctor can relieve me, if I'm buried 'neath the sod, but the angels won't receive me--), tapping his boot in time, he follows the music, closing his eyes. The fiddle music, imbued with his presence, reaches out--and skims right over Joe. Itzhak misses him entirely. No Joe found. Itzhak sighs through his teeth, mutters, "You're really makin' this hard on me, Cavanaugh." But he keeps playing.

To Joe's left, maybe two feet away, is a figure, hooded and cloaked in black, their features invisible save for their eyes, which shine pale gold in the shadows cast by the thick, rough cloth. Plants spring out of the seams and weave: crab grass, ferns, feverfew.

"Now it is the ending. The wheel turns. We will see what comes next." They nod towards Itzhak. "Go. Before your clamor turn him from the path."

There's a rustling in the glade. Something is coming out of the pond, and the flaming deer has turned its attention to it. Some manner of wolf, water plants dangling from its neck and legs, its body a ghastly blue white, almost translucsent.

Frighteningly reminiscent of the wolf of fire. But Joe doesn't argue with the figure. He simply inclines his head in assent, and turns to head for the sound of the fiddle.

He doesn't call out to Itz, though. No, he reaches out, mentally. It's a night of firsts.

Good thing too, because Itzhak's bow squeaks to a halt. Oy vey, THAT does not sound welcoming. He falls silent, hand on the strings of his fiddle to quiet the resonance. Welp he's not going to stand here where he was just making a racket! He steps carefully away, trying not to let his boots sound too loud, but it's really not something he's familiar with, this stealth in the forest stuff.

Then, thank God, he catches the tickle of Joe's mental presence. Fractal tendrils, infinitely complex and rather spikey, erupt to twine around him and pull him in. Itzhak's kythe is all fractals, apparently, a universe of them above an ocean of Penrose tiles. Fear swims in the depths like bioluminescent whale sharks. <<There you are, for fuck's sake.>>

Behind Joe the deer of flame faces the wolf of water, which has come to stand on the pond's surface. The dip their heads to one another. A quiet handful of seconds pass. Then they lunge at one another, the wolf ducking and snapping, the deer's fiery antlers lowered to catch the wolf.

When Itzhak stops playing, the moaning, keening cry redoubles, falls silent. The hiss of water turning into steam, the snarl of the wolf and grunt of the deer, mingle with the forest around them.

As Itzhak walks, he hears a branch snap nearby, and a low, gurgling purr. "Againnnnnnnnnnnnnn," a voice murmurs from behind him.

That hurts....and it's not precisely the kind of pain he likes. The sense of somehing flinching away from that touch, but not refusing the link. Injured, raw. <<You're here.>> An obvious thing to say, but his relief is profound.

Coming quietly into the fiddler's presence. He's got a longbow, for crying out loud, an arrow on the string. Of all the things to bring in past the Veil....

Itzhak softens the contact, realizing Joe is literally a naked fledgling. The universe of fractal transforms, becomes something...well, not gentler, exactly, but more concrete, more tolerable. A sea cave, open to the sky, sunlight pouring in and lighting up the water as it hisses and seethes in and out. Wildflowers grow through the pebbly floor, reaching always towards the light. Itzhak's mental voice is a violin, and it sings through the cave. <<I'm here. Thank God you're okay.>> He's about to do or say something else when...

Againnnnnnn.

The soft curly hair on the back of Itzhak's neck stands up. The kythe flashes alarm at Joe, the inner violin playing a high frightened note. "Okay," he whispers, swallowing. "Just one more," like he'd say to Miriam or Hunter or Philly. "You like the Pogues?"

*SNAP* *CRACK*

The owner of that voice slowly trundles into view. It's a strange combination of things: a shaggy, bear-like body, some manner of bare predator skull for a head, and great, curling ram's horns. Blood and viscera smear the white bone face; dark, red-black eyes gleam in its eye sockets. It's grizzly sized, easily, and slowly lumbering towards them. It stops just out on the game trail. That hideous face stares at Joe for an unnervingly long time, at his bow. Then, "Sinnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnng," it gurgles, and waves a paw at Itzhak. "Mooooooooooorrrrrrrrrrrrrrre."

It paws at the ground, restless, digging long, deep furrows. Those claws are huge.

Fear like a flash of heat lightning. Joe.....this time, the freezing isn't deliberate. It's wholly reflexive, like a rabbit under the hawk's shadow. Itz can feel control asserting itself - you don't get to do what he used to, if you're prone to panic. But this is horror beyond war and injury, beyond the impersonal deadliness of space. It's looking at him. It sees him, and suddenly the Marine with the rifle is very, very much the lesser of any number of evils.

Then he raises his head, just a fraction, nostrils flaring, and cuts his eyes to Itz. Hands still steady on the bow. Wordless question, in their link - what now?

And what is Itzhak, mechanic, fiddler, and repository of an ocean of glimmer doing? Why, he's bargaining with the damn thing. Spine and shoulders stiff with fear, he's saying to it, low and croony as if he was coaxing one of his pet reptiles, "You gotta sit still and be very good while I sing, and then we gotta go home." Trading a song for their lives; it's a bard's bargain. But he sure as hell doesn't make the beast wait further for its serenade. He just starts singing the first thing that comes to mind. As it happens, that's more Pogues.

It was Christmas Eve, babe
In the drunk tank
An old man said to me, won't see another one
And then he sang a song
The Rare Old Mountain Dew
I turned my face away
And dreamed about you

Got on a lucky one
Came in eighteen to one
I've got a feeling
This year's for me and you
So happy Christmas
I love you, baby
I can see a better time
When all our dreams come true...

Then he swings his fiddle to his shoulder and plays.

The creature grunts, shakes its head. "Hoooooooooooooooooome." It pats the game trail, sending up dust. But Itzhak starts playing, and the beast seems mesmerized. Those ugly eyes flick to Joe, waiting to see if he'll sing as well. Do they both make the enchanting sound?

It croons, and eerie undertone beneath the fiddling, the accompaniment of the wild Veil. Ravenous, volatile, mounstrous, it sways to the music as though it were a snake and Joe and Itzhak the charmers.

Joe's voice is raw, untrained, but he can carry a tune. And he'll take the female part in that duet, without hesitation, without shame. There's fear sweat shining on his face, but there's no tremor in voice or hands.

Then he says, as if he's really not able to help himself, "I'm really better at Johnny Cash, honest."

Itzhak manages not to laugh. He's had a lot of practice, what with the stupid shit people in bands get up to during shows. He trades the lyrics back and forth with Joe (you're a bum! you're a punk! You're an old slut on junk, lying there almost dead on a drip in that bed!) and then they both sing the chorus:

And the boys of the NYPD choir are still singing 'Galway Bay'
And the bells are ringin' out, for Christmas Day!

Then he's fiddling again, making his instrument roar, because God damn if it ain't the best cure for being terrified. Swaying, smirking (that's his violin face, he can't help it), he plays, and he sends to Joe. <<The door. Bring us out.>>

The creature regards Joe as he leaves off singing to talk about Johnny Cash. There's a hint of disapproval? contemplation? in those red-black eyes. But Itzhak keeps playing, and it croons and whines along. "Mooooooorrrrrre," it gurgles, standing on its back legs, stepping a little closer. As it moves, they can see...bits of it shedding behind it, floating away in the night, like its coat is made of soot.

The sound of movement wear Joe saw the wolf and the deer brings the beast to a halt. In a few seconds, they see a procession of a half-dozen figures, all hooded and cloaked in black, walking through the forest. One is cradling something in its arms: an egg, the surface a swimming blue and red, marbled texture the sparkles in the Earthshine.

The beast watches the egg, lowering back to all fours heavy limbs. "Beginnnnnninnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnggggggg..." it whispers. Itzhak's music and the gleaming egg being born away by the dark-robed figures have its attention split.

He tries. But he's so new....and he doesn't have panic as a goad he way he did before. Joe's mental voice is small. <<I....>> A sense of spasmodic effort, but it goes nowhere. <<I can't.>> God, how he hates admitting that, with every fiber of his being.

Then, a beat, and <<.....where is Javier?>>

Again Itzhak's power, trembling with eagerness, twines into his music. The raw potential of the man is overwhelming, a meteor tumbling silently towards an unsuspecting planet. He plays and the Veil shivers in response, opening for him, loving him, adoring him. <<Go,>> he sends, a sharp rill. <<It's distracted. Go!>>

The question of where de la Vega is will wait, it seems. Itzhak fades the song, eyes on the skull-beast, and walks backwards towards the door he's made.

When Itzhak opens the door, the procession with the egg stops, and they all turn to look at him, their eyes glowing in the darkness of their hoods.

The beast turns, surprised by the sensation of the border parting. "Nooooooooo!" it wails. "Hoooooooooooooome!" It stands on its back legs, huge, skull-face opening in a bellow, eyes blazing with black-red flame. "STAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!" That roar redoubles in their ears, becomes a deafening cacophony of voices--theirs, others.

Somehow, he has will enough not to shoot at it. It's abided by the rules, more or less. It didn't attack them. But he's got the bow up and drawn, even as he backpedals for the door Itz has created. The Earthshine gleams off the edge of the arrowhead.

Then he's out, into the forest of the ordinary world, nearly stumbling...gaze never wavering from that thing's eyes.

Itzhak makes a throttled chirp of terror in his throat, hazel eyes going real wide. All the creepy-ass cultists staring at him and the skull unhinging to roar at him and NOPE he's scrambling for the goddamn door. He flings himself out after Joe, landing in a skid of cold mud and loam on his knees, fiddle and bow clutched to his chest to protect them. The door shimmers and seals behind them. Itzhak whimpers, jaw clenched, starting to rock back and forth.

"NoooooooooooOOOOOOOO!" The beast flies after them, jaw gaping. "DOOOOOOOON'T GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" The final syllable stretches and becomes a human voice, though not the same for each of them: Itzhak hears his long dead father, crying for him to not go; Joe hears Jake, lost to him in Afghanistan. They pass through the door, and the sound warps and stretches, becoming a high pitched whine.

They spill out into the real, and the noise vanishes. Their last sight is the beast's bare, bloodied face snapping at Itzhak's slice through the border.

He hasn't heard that voice in waking life in nearly eighteen years. O'Bannon's a name on a stone in Arlington and a photo on a mother's wall. But it raises the fine hairs on the nape of his neck, nonetheless.

Now that they're out in the real world, though, something reasserts itself. Outlining the problems, goals, solutions. So he comes forward to all but lift Itz to his feet with a strength surprising in that thin body. Riding on adrenaline, the timer running - he knows shock and aftermath are coming, and they need to be near civilisation when it happens. His own face is a set mask, eyes blazing, pale and drawn....and his voice is almost brusque. "Great job, Rosencrantz. Let's get out of here." All but frogmarching the musician back down the trail.

Itzhak reacts kinda badly to Joe hauling him to his feet--he breaks free, snarling at him, "Don't fucking touch me!" His kythe goes staticky, holding on only long enough for it to be clear to Joe that he's not waiting on that shock and aftermath, it's happening right the hell now in the form of a meltdown. Then the connection dissolves, leaving Itzhak standing there shaking. "I'm sorry," he mumbles, and presses his hand over his face. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry..."

The sun is just sinking below the horizon, by the time the intrepid pair tumble back out into the underbrush. It's cold, it's wet, and now it's fucking snowing on top of it all. But it can't be more than fifteen minutes, twenty at the most, since Joe first slipped sideways through that narrow tear.

A short way off, someone's seated on the broad flank of a collapsed fir. Hood up, the remnants of a cigarette at his lips, and a rifle draped from his shoulder in a sling. The sound of voices has him dropping his smoke, grinding it out beneath the heel of his boot, and unslinging his weapon. Then he's pushing to his feet slowly. Steps right over the branch that was going to snap underfoot, dark eyes on the smudge of movement near the edge of the treeline. How he manages to make so little sound in the snow is.. well, he used to be a scout sniper for the Marines. Old habits die hard.

Bear monsters, stags with burning horns, the burgeoning egg of who the fuck knows what....he's going to have that meltdown later. But later is not yet....and this, this he knows how to do, even if the form of contact is new.

For even as Itz dissolves the link, there's only a beat and he's reforming it. He's a cool, resolute presence, his own fear and pain and skin-crawling revulsion all chained and caged like wayward dogs. Order imposed, not in those fractals but regular, shining patterns. Like a trellis to grow those twining vines on, there's a sense of support. Of scaffolding, of pillars holding up a foundation.

<<Later, Itzhak. Lean on me. I'm here. We can make it. But we can't stay here. I'm wounded, it's cold, and I don't know if Javier is himself. We have got to go. I don't know how you got here, but I've got my bike and it can carry two.>>

He's got the bow slung across his body - he can't help Itz and keep it in hand. Effectively unarmed again.

Itzhak's mind latches on those beautifully regular patterns like a desperate reticulated python, loops and coils of pure psychic muscle. Like a python, he's extremely heavy. He gasps shudderingly, the apologies trailing off as Joe supports him. Rubbing his face (and smearing mud on himself), he can't find words, but intention pulses through the kythe. Intention, and the image of his truck. Then a feeling of ?? and he looks at Joe, eyes wet.

He doesn't know why Javier isn't himself. But Joe's urgency gets through to him and he gets moving, even as he's trying to tell him, in animal-like impulse flashes, that Javier is in fact right here. His free hand flashes out, signing 'J'.

Ruiz follows at a distance, gaze intent on the pair. They're moving slowly, enabling him to make up for lost ground.. though not as quickly as he might otherwise, if it weren't dark and snowing. Two hundred feet. A hundred. The gap is inexorably closed, no attempt now to conceal his approach.

It takes him a moment to understand, and then Joe's head is coming up.

A flare of imagery in their kythe, flickering fast - Javier driving him. Shooting to herd him like a wolf herding game towards his waiting pack. That blankness, that nothing....not the volatile soul they both love so desperately.

Then it resolves into a command. <<Itz, go. Go and don't wait. I'll get my bike>> Mental voice terribly gentle, as he tries to hide the shadowplay behind the words....maybe he can distract Javier long enough for Itzhak to get away. <<Don't come back, understand? He's not himself, right now.>>

He doesn't wait on a reply....he's dropping the link and reaching out, in turn, for Ruiz.

Itzhak would make an absolute terrible soldier, really; he balks, silently protesting in flashes of sign. Not right, he signs, one-handed, shaking his head. That can't be right. That's not Ruiz, doing that. Them. He signs that as the letter T, and a swoop of his palm for 'bad'.

Joe's attempt to reach the far stronger mentalist's mind should, by all rights, be turned away. But for whatever reason, it slips through relatively unfettered; that reason becomes quickly, frighteningly obvious. The wolf that guards the fractured darkness of his mind is wounded. Instead of a great beast with a mouth full of knives, all guttering flame and star-bright eyes, it looks haggard and weak. Listless, barely even raising its head to fend off the intrusion that weaves its way through.

The man keeps on moving, boots crunching the snow, and the outline of his bulky frame clearly visible now. Along with that rifle slung across his shoulder as he prowls along after the pair. Not in any great hurry, he keeps a steady distance between them. Looking, maybe, for an unimpeded line of sight?

Jesus Fuck, civilians. Always civilians. They never can follow orders. "For fuck's sake, Itzhak. They're driving. RUN." He's not skilled in the mental aspects....and there's bleedover from one to the other. For as he strikes in at the cop's mind, there's the crawl of electrical arcs up his hands, blue-white, Jacob's Laddering between his shaking fingers. Like glowing inchworms.

The image in the mental realm is absurd bravado, like a newly hatched eagle chick trying to hiss and squeak and threaten with pinfeathered little pinions. The firebird mantles, though, half-spreading its wings, puffing up those dark feathers with their shining edges. Trying to lure and hold the wolf's attention.

Almost an audible voooooop happens as Itzhak's words come back online. Power on! He snaps, "No," and then looks startled at his own voice. He clears his throat. "No. I can handle him. And anyway, I ain't gonna leave him."

Yup. Terrible soldier. That's why he strides right past Joe to put himself between him and Ruiz. "Hey," he calls to him, tone remarkably like it was trying to wrangle the skull-bear-thing. "Hey, krasavets, you doin' okay?"

The darkly-dressed figure stops cold when Itzhak addresses him. His attention had been turned on Joe, vacant eyes looking like they wanted to swallow the blond whole. But when Rosencrantz turns to him, calls to him like the damned fool he is.. there's a twinge of something in the other man. Like, for a moment, he considered smiling. A thought, an impulse, gone.

Instead, a surge of emotion that builds and builds like the tide coming in to shore. It starts as maybe a tingle in the pit of Itzhak's stomach, a chill racing up his spine. A remembrance of the first time they touched; Javier shoved up all close and personal, with the guy's arm jacked against his shoulder and that look in his eyes.

Lust. Desire. Longing. It screams through him, choking out nearly all else, as de la Vega stalks in closer, closer, until no more than fifteen or twenty feet separate them. The wolf in his mindscape studies the firebird for some long moments, and then simply melts away without a sound.

"Bullshit you can handle him, you fucking idiot," Joe breathes. That's close enough. Ruiz's breached the twenty foot limit, so even if he brings that rifle up....Joe can possibly cross the distance in time. Not that he's much more use as a melee fighter, but it's something. He's slipping the knife from its sheath, subtle as he can, trying to keep his mind blank, not to wholly telegraph what he intends. But he's closing the distance, in turn.

Itzhak shudders and gasps again, this time in quite a different tone. A blush blooms up his neck, all the way to his scalp; he tips his head back, baring his throat, that magnificent nose lifted. "Yeah?" he murmurs, voice gone sultry, eyelids low. "Yeah, you wanna c'mere and do some a that to me, baby?" Both arms reach for Ruiz, the fiddle and bow still in his left hand. "C'mere. Come over here and make me your bitch." Answering lust makes his voice thrum in his long throat.

The rifle, though, is left in its sling and draped along Ruiz's side. He doesn't draw his sidearm either, though the glint of it is obvious under his unzipped hoodie. No, he slides his gaze to Joe, watches the man for a long while in what could be termed speculation. Then prowls on in toward the pair with a crunch of frost and twigs underfoot, lips parted, breath fogging the dark, still air. Ten feet, then five. The scent of him; soap and nicotine and cordite, mingled with the dampness of the forest in his hair and on his skin.

Then his voice, pitched rough and low, "You should run." His head shies away, like a horse fighting the bit. "Or kill me," he tells Joe, with a quick glance toward that half-concealed knife.

His face is cold, remote. "Do I need to? What're you going to do?" Tone almost conversational, as if he had no doubt at all that he could. "Your boy doesn't understand. And I won't run unless he does."

Then there's an acid edge of something like contempt. "Do what you need to do."

"That's right," Itzhak murmurs, shivering not with cold or fear now but with sheer desire. His eyes are hot on his lover, and is that...yep, that is definitely a tent he's pitching. "I'm not runnin' away from you, meyn tsimbrik. Ever." Then--why is he making everything worse??--he hums something low and sweet.

And a branch underfoot leaps up from the snow and mud and slams Ruiz in the head. Thunk.

What's he going to do? Start to say something; you've always been-

And then that bough hurtles up to meet his head, catches him across the back of it, and drops him to the ground. Out fucking cold. How long they have before he wakes up, pissed the hell off, is debateable.

The pilot is on him in an instant, taking pistol and rifle. The former he stashes in his coat pocket. The latter he unloads, flinging the rounds he finds into the underbrush. Then he's rummaging pockets and boots like a desperate thief. Looking for weapons, keys, phones. "Do you know where he parked?" he asks Itz, expression still intent. He's sheathed the knife, absentedly. As if he hadn't been perfectly prepared to do some grievous bodily harm.

Itzhak whimpers as Ruiz goes slumping to the muddy ground. He turns a little green. "Now I know how Roen feels," he whispers, eyes closing, "because I wanna throw up." He rubs his eyes with the still-moderately-clean back of his wrist, nodding. "Yeah. I can feel it. C'mon. We can cuff him. Then I'm taking him home. Alexander...Hya...somebody can help him. Christ, I hope they can help him."

He's pale but now he's determined. He and Joe manage between them and get two hundred pounds of unconscious, murderous Mexican home.