nagi doesn't slap the plaster on, as much as nudge it into place. he lines the gauze pad up over symon's cut to his satisfaction before pressing the edges down to adhere it in place, with the same unthinking, practised care he would give if he were attending to a scuff on his shinx.

“there, all better.” absent-minded and gentle, until he remembers just who he's talking to and withdraws both his hands, rocking back down onto his heels from his tiptoes.

the plaster looks secure enough; no loose edges, nothing to go catching on twigs, or slipping off with an accidental flex. good enough for now — he stuffs the bag of napkins, the box of plasters and empty bottle back into his pack.

and just in case,

“i can take the lead from here,” nagi motions at the trail ahead of them, obscured in tangled branches and sprawling roots. “i’m… closer to the ground. easier to see the tracks.”

i have a limited supply of plasters and don’t want you stabbing yourself. he’s trying so hard to be nice.

symon blessing

☉

deep in the jungle, air thick enough to drown in, who wouldn't be sweating? nagi looks like a wet rat. [break][break]

nagi is also oblivious. [break][break]

"it's fine." wry, dry and mercifully unaware of the cause of symon's sudden change in demeanour. "you don't have to be considerate about my feelings when i made the first dig." [break][break]

it's disingenuous, perhaps, given that he'd spent nearly their entire time together bristling over symon being symon — but, symon is, objectively, very tall. he is short, in comparison. he has had enough time to make peace with that simple fact. [break][break]

with that, he slips his comparatively-shorter body past symon, taking point along the narrow trail. without symon to bulldoze through the hanging branches, nagi does his best to bat away the tangled vines with the sturdiest stick in his collection, trudging along the path and squinting down at the tracks in the dirt. the journey forward is slower, but it's still better than the alternatives, which his imagination readily supplies: symon impaling himself on a branch. symon with sepsis. symon breaking his neck. [break][break]

waist-deep in the metaphorical swamp of his overthinking, eyes pinned studiously to the tracks along the ground, it takes him longer than it should to notice a breeze cutting through the still, stale air of the jungle, rustling the leaves overhead and cooling the sweat encrusted on their skin. [break][break]

ahead of them, flickering into view from between the overgrowth and overgrown leaves, is a clearing. there's the sound of running water — light shimmering as it reflects off the surface of a small, flowing stream.
[break][break]

[attr="class","ooc"] symon blessing [break]


[attr="class","pkspr pkmn-litwick"]

the voice in nagi's head snaps, low and mean. you can't care about me; we barely know each other.[break][break]

he knows at once that it is an unworthy thought. sometimes, nagi reminds himself, some people are kind for the sake of it. if anyone, symon seems like the sort. symon isn’t callous, isn’t cruel — is absolutely undeserving of nagi’s reflexive scorn. so, nagi sucks in a hiss of air through his teeth; wraps up that thought and tables it for later.[break][break]

later slips out of his mind when he feels symon’s knuckles against his arm, and he raises his head to takes in the clearing before them. his brain lags behind his optic nerve; he whips his head to look at symon and back towards the clearing. mouth agape, blinking furiously, ready for the world to pull the carpet out from under him and have the mirage dissipate before their eyes. [break][break]

it doesn't.[break][break]

the surge of relief makes him boneless. he takes one shaky step into the clearing, and sinks down onto his haunches. presses his fingers into his eyes, and says in one breath, muffled into the skin of his palms: “ohmygodwe’renotgoingtodie.” [break][break]

[break][break]

[attr="class","ooc"] symon blessing [break]


[attr="class","pkspr pkmn-litwick"]

 the clean scent of fresh linen overpowers the stale, sharp-sour tang of sweat; nagi inhales a deep, shuddery breath, and feels himself sag towards the dirt, soothed by verm's aromatherapy in spite of himself. gravity is an inexorable downwards force; sticky, tired and overheated — nagi wants, so badly, to rest. [break][break]

he could lie there, face-down in the soil, until the week is up.[break][break]

if only.[break][break]

but he can’t — won’t allow himself to be a burden. nagi scrubs a sweaty hand down a sweatier face and straightens his knees, heaving himself to his feet as his thighs protest. stepping lightly around the grass — giving verm a slight, sheepish nod of thanks as he passes — he picks his way out of paradise and back into the jungle after symon with heavy feet. [break][break]

“sorry, i…” he stops some ways behind symon, waving a hand in the air to indicate a broad, encompassing that thing, from just then. “i’m fine. i’ll help.” [break][break]

“what do you think we’ll need?”[break][break]

nagi runs through a catalogue in his head: sherlock for fire; the stream for fresh water. shelter would be the next most pressing thing on the agenda — but even the sparsest shelters are… regrettably outside of nagi’s skillset.

[break][break]

[attr="class","ooc"] symon blessing [break]


[attr="class","pkspr pkmn-litwick"]

with a slow blink at symon's biceps, nagi's thoughts drift, buoyed away by the heat-haze. i wonder if he's strong enough to open a coconut with his bare hands.[break][break]

what the FUCK, nagi.[break][break]

he whips his head away before he can be caught staring. "right. i'm going to —" he gibbers, the red peeling on the bridge of his nose blending with scarlet rising high on his cheeks. "— leaf. leaves."[break][break]

— and flees into the underbrush. [break][break]

in a frantic attempt to derail his train of thought, he casts his gaze around, searching. his eyes alight on a cluster of fronds, glistening with dew, wide and large enough to use as an umbrella. stooping over, he bends low in the dirt to snap the fronds off at their stalks, gathering them into a bundle under his arm. snap, rustle, snap; the motion repeating until the heat drains out of his face. [break][break]

he's rising to his feet, a canopy of green dangling above him when a image fizzes into being from the back his head:

a leaf large enough to use as an umbrella?[break][break]

isn't that…[break][break]

he backtracks his way down the path to symon, knees coated with mud, dwarfed by his overzealous bouquet of leaves bundled under one arm. the other arm holds a single, swaying frond aloft over his head by the stalk. face as still and cool as a midwinter pond, he says: "totoro."

[break][break]

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[attr="class","pkspr pkmn-litwick"]

for all his whinging, the sight of symon returning to camp in one piece — no sepsis, no displaced bones, just the gleam of residual nanab juice in his hair — is a welcome one. the armful of berries and coconuts he cradles as he returns is a reassuring bonus. [break][break]

oh thank god, nagi repeats to himself again. the whorl of worries he had been tangling since he arrived on the island loosens, slowly but surely. we’re not going to die. [break][break]

slowly but surely, in spite of himself — nagi starts to smile. [break][break]

“at least it wasn’t a durin berry.” [break][break]

tipping his frond parasol to shelter his companion under its expansive shade, nagi reaches out for the offered berry with a muttered thanks. it’s sunwarmed, juice trailing out of a small split in the skin; the tacky surface of fruit catches against his fingertips. misshapen, but still edible. [break][break]

his stomach rumbles. loud as a thundercrack, even with the ambient noise of the jungle around them. [break][break]

“ah — ” [break][break]

at his shoulder, sherlock — silent until now — starts shaking with laughter; delighting, as always, in nagi’s mundane miseries.

[break][break]

[attr="class","ooc"] symon blessing [break]


[attr="class","pkspr pkmn-litwick"]

is there something on my face? [break][break]

symon’s steady, warm gaze prickles where it rests; nagi lifts his shoulder to scrub at the side of his cheek with the sleeve of his shirt. the fabric comes away clean, and nagi blinks, before shaking his head.[break][break]

“nah. you need to eat too.” [break][break]

maybe more than nagi does; he’s no expert in bodybuilding — obviously — but maintaining that sort of muscle mass had to require some sort of specialised diet, surely. “and anyway —” [break][break]

thighs protesting every inch of the way, he lowers himself to sit by symon, depositing the bundle of leaves in a neat pile beside him. clamping the nanab berry between his knees, he drags his nail down the split in the skin, gingerly strips the peel off the top of the berry — and huffs to himself in childish triumph as the fruit comes free. [break][break]

sweetness bursts bright against his tongue when he takes his first bite. self-control and simple self-consciousness keep nagi from wolfing the berry down in one swallow, but it's a near thing. he finishes it in seconds. [break][break]

it’s getting late. they still have to set up shelter; find a place to sequester their food; prepare a fire — a laundry list of tasks unfurling in that part of his brain where the panic button is always depressed.[break][break]

but still: this is the kind of sight he would never have seen from his tiny, square apartment window in kalos, or the street-facing balcony of his motel room. he tilts his head up at the sky, gaze tracing over where the darkening lavender fades into orange, the sun sinking beneath the mountains in the distance.[break][break]

“... pretty.”

[break][break]

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[attr="class","pkspr pkmn-litwick"]