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One moment everything is fine - sure, there's an alien, but they're trained for that - and the next it's not. Guizo is riffles through his pockets for ritual components and Xande skateboards off to intercept.
First thing first, douse himself in ash and cast speed. Second thing second, find the damn-
A thud.
Probably Xande's bat sinking into paranormal flesh.
"Nice going, Xan-"
And then Guizo looks up.
"Shit, Xande!"
The alien has Xande pinned to the floor, beating him again and again. One claw is pressing hard on his chest, which the other slams his head into the floor over and over and-
Xande is fighting back, hissing as he digs his own fingernails in and kicks and wriggles, trying to get free.
Guizo searches faster. Many of his supplies are already low, but... there! The rings.
He shoves them on his fingers, the metal already sinking into his flesh as he points his camera and zooms in on the alien. All Guizo has to do is get inside it's head-
It's been maybe five seconds.
Xande isn't fighting back any more.
Guizo cannot afford to think about that; he focuses on the alien, reaching out for it's mind. He twists it, and enters, and unleashes the horrors of reality into that which shouldn't comprehend.
The alien screams.
Guizo doesn't stop to look as he runs not away from, but towards it.
Not stopping for more components he casts the same ritual twice more. Seeing the alien begins to ooze from the eyes he performs a final casting.
The doesn't bother to even look as the alien explodes - head first - into gloop. His eyes are only for Xande, unmoving on the floor.
"Xande!" He calls, dropping to his knees beside him. "Xande!"
No response, not even a flinch, not even as Guizo shakes his shoulder.
Around them Guizo can hear... things.
Scuttling in the walls, something overhead.
He scrapes the worst of the alien goop off of his best friend, finds the blood beneath it. Scrapes it away from his nose, his mouth, tries not to stop and stare at the blood. His eyes are shut, his body is limp, he is bleeding from the chest and the head-
The scuttling grows louder, and they don't have time. Guizo struggles to remember Dara's lessons, but he can see a door to the outside world. They've only found aliens inside the building complex, if they get outside...
Picking Xande up means scraping his hands in shattered glass. Guizo does not care, he just heaves his best friend over his shoulder and runs.
Xande is heavy, but Guizo is scared; he slams the bar on the fire escape and almost falls as he staggers into the night air.
Still not safe, still not safe...
They're on the wrong side of the building for the comfort of the van. He tries for his walkie talkie, only to remember they are jammed - the reason the two of them were so far from the group in the first place.
Okay. Not that. Just get somewhere... somewhere the aliens can't get them.
There are cars here.
Guizo... he might not know how to drive, but he can break in just fine. His hands burn as he picks the lock - right, right, alien goo in the glass scrapes is a horrible idea - but he ignores it. Get it open, get it open, hide them both-
With the ritual, every second feels like an eternity.
With the ritual, Guizo has time to get them away.
The lock clicks, and Guizo pulls open the door. He uses the angle to pull open one in the back, instead, slamming the driver's shut as soon as another is open. He needs the back seat, not the gear stick; the last thing Xande needs is a car crash.
Guizo wants to think Xande moans as he hoists him into the back of the car, but it's more likely to be the things in the building. It doesn't, they don't-
Just get inside, just get inside, get them both in where there's metal between them and any claws and then pretend they're safe and do something about all of this!
Slam the door shut, scoot back and pull Xande's head into his lap, call his name and hit his arm and call his name and Xande won't wake up, Xande still isn't waking up, what does he do, what can he do, Xande won't- his best friend wake up.
He doesn't... He needs to do something, what is it that you do?
Bandages. Right. He has one of the first aid kits with him, and he knows how to do that. Xande has blood on his head and hid chest, so...
There's more blood on his chest. Guizo tugs a limp Xande around, trying not to think about that as he pulls off his shirt. Then, he grabs gauze, and bandages, and a bottle of some sort of cleaning thing. He pours some of it on the wounds, wipes it up with some gauze, then uses clean bits to cover where the alien's claws dug in. He holds them still for a few seconds, trying to work out what to do.
He needs Dara. He really, really needs Dara.
Or Xande to be awake. Xande could heal himself. Guizo does not even have the components to attempt that ritual. He would try! For Xande he would try, but-
But for now it's bandages. Wrap the bandages around to keep the gauze in place, then carefully, carefully look for the source of the blood on Xande's head.
Most of it comes from the back, an ugly wound where Xande's head was beaten into the concrete again and again. There's a little on the front, too, scratches from the spikes on the alien's face.
Okay, okay, that's... It's bad to have a head wound and not be conscious, but... But Guizo can fix this.
Well, no, Guizo can't fix this, but he can pour more cleaning whatever on the wounds, and wrap them up in bandages, and keep Xande safe in the car.
He bandages Xande's head, then settles it carefully onto his leg. The position is awkward, with Xande's legs uncomfortably folded and pressed up against the door, his head and his shoulders over Guizo's lap.
What else... Looking through the medical kit, Guizo cannot find anything else he both knows how to use and would help. He abandons it in favour of putting pressure on Xande's chest wounds - you do that to bleeding things, right? - and then-
Right. His camera. He should put his camera somewhere he can reach it if there's a problem.
It goes up on the parcel shelf - in reach but out of the way - and he returns to doing what he can.
Which... There isn't much he can do. Just hold Xande, and pray, and listen for any sign of anything other than themselves.
Time drags on, and Guizo is scared to breathe. But he needs to breathe, and the best way to make sure he's breathing is to talk, right?
"Hey, Xande," he tells his best friend. "It'll be okay. The others will find us soon."
Xande doesn't usually reply when Guizo rambles; it's okay that he's still silent now.
It's okay, it's okay, if Guizo keeps telling himself it's okay, then it has to be, right?
How do you tell how long it has been, when you and your unconscious friend are alone in a stolen car at the edge of an alien compound at one in the morning, with no clock and no light but for one torch shoved - turned on - in the pocket on the back of the driver's seat?
You can't.
Guizo sits there, and he keeps pressure on the injuries, and he keeps talking and talking, telling Xande the entire plot to the film he fell asleep during last week. Xande keeps saying he'll finish it sometime, but everyone knows he never will.
It's fine, it's okay, if he just keeps talking-
"Hello?"
Guizo freezes, taking a few seconds to realise that the noise is Chico's voice. It comes from the walkie talkie somewhere on the floor; he tries to move Xande as little as possible as he scrabbles about, desperate to find the stupid thing. Xande's he abandoned back inside, but his should be somewhere-
There!
People are still talking, Chico saying something about checking in and Lírio replying, but Guizo does not care for that. In his panic it slips slightly in his hands, but he manages to fumble into pressing the correct button.
"Dara!" he yells into it.
That alone is enough to shut everyone else up.
"Guizo?" she replies, but he's already carrying on.
"Dara! Dara! Xande needs help. He- We need help, please, Dara!"
"What's wrong?" He can almost see her swinging her gun over one shoulder and checking her shoes in preparation to run. "Where are you? What do you need?"
Where are they, fuck, where are they, all the pairs ended up more split than they meant to; Guizo and Xande stayed near the outside of the buildings, but that does not mean he knows where they were. He looks around, squints into the moonlight, and... A sign!
"We're at the main car park," he tells her, then adds "hiding in one of the cars. He... he won't wake up. The alien bashed his head into the concrete and he won't wake up."
"Is he breathing?" She immediately asks and - and fuck, fuck, Guizo never checked, he never looked, why wouldn't Xande be breathing, Xande has to be breathing, he's Xande, he- "Guizo, is he breathing?"
It's too dark to see really, but Guizo forces himself to pay attention for a moment. He relaxes his wrists where they sit on Xande's chest and... And okay, okay, its... It's not good, Xande isn't moving Guizo's hands very much, but he is breathing.
"Yes- Yes, he's breathing." And he IS breathing, Guizo can feel that, every motion of his hands where he puts pressure on the chest wounds proves it. "It sounds bad, but he's bleeding too and Dara, what do I do?"
When Dara replies she sounds a little less stressed, but no less dire. "What have you already done? How long ago was he hurt?"
"Got him into a car, where we're safer. I- I cleaned and bandaged what's bleeding, pressure on the worst wounds, right? It can't be comfortable jammed in like this, but he isn't waking up." Guizo pretends that no sobs escape him. "I don't know. It's dark. A bit ago? The alien goop has dried?"
"Has he shown any sign of awareness at all?" Dara sounds so serious, and this time when she talks Guizo can hear the sound of trainers on concrete. She's coming, she's coming, Xande will be okay. "Squeezing your hand, flinching in pain, anything like that?"
"I don't know." It's dark, it's so dark, Guizo doesn't think he would be able to see if Xande did. "I don't think so?"
"Okay... Okay," and Dara's breathing sounds wrong, too. "Turn him on his side, and keep putting pressure on those injuries. If he stops breathing, I taught you what to do, right? I'm on the far side of the complex; radio again if anything changes, but I can't run and talk."
It's a huge complex. Even at a sprint it will take a long time for her to get to them.
Guizo tries not to think about that.
"Guizo? Do you understand?"
"Right. Right." He understands that this is really really bad. "Side, pressure, watch breathing."
"Exactly." She replies "And Guizo? You need to breathe too, okay? I'm coming, it'll be okay."
Dara's lying to him; she's terrified as well. Still Guizo nods, and says, "I'll see you soon."
"As fast as I can."
And then she is gone.
Nobody else picks up their walkie talkies, nobody else dares use them, just in case something does happen, just in case... just in case...
More time passes, in something of a blur. Guizo's run out of things to say, feeling dizzy himself, but the backs of his hands have scabbed over and he cannot risk letting go of Xande to get a drink, so he stays frozen as he was.
Xande keeps breathing, Guizo keeps breathing, they keep on breathing together.
When things do finally change, it happens all at once. Guizo is staring at his hands but not really seeing. He can't really be seeing, because one moment everything is still, and the next his arm is pinned to the bed.
Alien?!
No, Xande.
"Xande! Don't move! God, Xande, stop moving!"
But Xande doesn't hear him, shaking and staring at their hands as though he's never seen them before.
"Xande?"
"Gui?"
And Xande's voice is a tiny, fragile, broken little thing right now. Confused and small and laced with pain.
But it's Xande's voice, and he's talking.
"Xande, God, Xande..."
Xande's awake, Xande's awake, it'll be okay now... Maybe. Hopefully. Heads are dangerous, Guizo knows that, but Xande is awake and moving and staring at the car in confusion but, yeah, it's nothing like where he passed out.
Guizo gives him a moment - the head injury can't make his reactions to noise better - letting him chest himself over, touching his forehead and finding the bandages and shuffling around.
He's supposed to lie down, Guizo's pretty sure, but for the moment...
Xande says something else, and it takes Guizo a second to work out that he's asking where the alien went.
He remembers before. Okay, good, that's good right? If he remembers before?
"It's dead," Guizo reassures him. "You kept it busy long enough for me to explode it's brain. But how are you feeling, man? You should lie back down; Dara will yell if you're sitting up when she gets here."
Too much? Probably too much.
Still Xande turns and stares at Guizo and, fuck, his pupils are kind of wonky. It's okay, it'll be okay, Xande's awake now and Dara will be here soon, they just... Need to keep going until she tells them what to do. Xande probably needs the hospital, but Dara's still a damned sight better than Guizo at this.
Being actually trained, and all.
"Darazcoming?" Xande's expression shifts, and Guizo cannot help but laugh at him.
"Of course that cheers you up!" Of course that of all things is what Xande latches onto. "Yeah, she's coming. I managed to get you back and patch you up. Walkie talkies started working again about... a few minutes ago? Lírio broke whatever was jamming them. Dara's heading back to help, but she was pretty deep into the place so it could be a while."
Almost definitely too much; Xande does lie down, but doesn't answer. Instead he keeps wriggling, even as it's obviously hurting him. Everything is probably hurting him with injuries like that, but-
But moving is bad. Guizo's pretty sure moving is bad. Sure he dragged Xande over here from the complex, but that was because of aliens. Like this-
"Hey, don't move. Xande, you've got to lie still, you'll make things worse."
He tries to nudge Xande into being still, and eventually he is.
Guizo looks, and- and, fuck, there's blood on the bandages.
He doesn't want to move Xande as much as it would take to change them, not when Dara will be here soon, but he grabs more gauze and presses down where the blood is leaking through. It's probably fine, right? Xande probably just pulled and dislodged some scabs, right?
Xande wrinkles up his nose, and if he wasn't so scared Guizo would laugh at him. Instead he keeps his hands where they are, pressing down, and then-
"Gui?"
Big eyes are staring at him again.
"Still here," Guizo tries to smile at Xande, tries to reassure him. "What do you need?"
"You'urt?"
The words are messy and slurred, but Guizo understands.
"No," he lies. "No, I'm not hurt."
It's obvious that Guizo is bleeding from his hands - wounds he never bothered to bandage in his worry for Xande. Usually Xande would immediately call him out on it, but like this...
"Wait!" Guizo suddenly remembers Dara, the walkie talkies, and it's a good enough reason to make sure Xande doesn't realise and panic. "I should let Dara know you're awake."
He keeps one hand on Xande's injuries as he tries to find the walkie talkie. Xande's is still on the floor of the building - once the other's are here, they can go grab it and Xande's skateboard and bat - but his is shoved just behind the medical kit. He grabs it, and flicks the button.
"Hey, it's Guizo. Dara? Are you there?"
There's silence just long enough that Guizo is worried the walkie talkies broke again, before he ears "Guizo! Is everything okay? I'm coming as fast as I can, just there's a lot of stairs. I'll be another ten minutes, can you manage that long?"
She sounds exhausted, out of breath, possibly even hurt herself.
And... like the world has ended.
Oh, right, she's ten minutes run from them and he probably didn't phrase that well.
Still, before he can correct her, Xande steals the walkie talkie.
"Hi Dara!" he manages, though her name is a little patchy sounding.
"Xande!" Relief, Dara's voice is full of relief and Guizo can picture her sagging from the weight of it. "Thank God, you're awake. Guizo you should have started with that! After what you said last time! How are you feeling, Xande?"
"Hurzizzy."
Hurts, and dizzy.
No shit, but Guizo still feels terrible about it. If he'd organised his bag better, gotten those spells off faster, something-
"I'll be there soon," and she will, hopefully soon enough. "It'll all be okay, I'll be there soon... Tell Guizo that now you're up to give you two of the pink pills from the back pouch of the medkit, there should be some water there too. It should help a bit, at least until I can see you."
Is that a good idea? Well, if Dara says so.
"Pink pills, back pouch."
Guizo waits one second to be corrected, and when he isn't he goes searching the medical bag. The water bottles are pretty obvious, the pils...
He finds them in a little plastic packet labelled 'paperclips', and probably did actually used to store them too. He fishes out two of the pink ones and clips it closed again, before turning back to Xande.
He and Dara had said a little more, but they're quiet now.
Guizo maintains the quiet as he helps Xande prop himself up, and gives him the pills and water. He regrets it almost immediately - Xande does successfully take the pills, and seems to be sipping the water for comfort, but he's shaking. A lot. And his coordination is all screwy.
So he sits there, watching Xande closely as he remains slumped against the backrest and sips at the water. It's reassuring, really, watching the simple motion again and again and again.
Eventually, Xande of all people breaks the silence. "You'rebe'ngw'ird."
Oh really? Guizo is being weird?
"I'm trying not to hurt your head more, idiot."
Xande obviously tries to punch Guizo's arm for that.
Guizo pretends he hits, for both their sakes, then returns to making sure there's pressure on the chest wounds.
The angle is really awkward, though, so if Xande is up to having opinions...
"Stay sat up, or lie down again?"
What Guizo expects is an answer.
What Guizo does not expect is for Xande to collapse into his lap. He panics for a second, before realising that that was just Xande answering.
"Better?" he asks.
Xande mostly mumbles when he replies, but Guizo likes to think it is an agreement.
Okay, okay, he can do this. He can cope with Xande being hurt and bleeding in the back of some broken into car with a really good medical kit but no idea how to use most of it. Sure, sure, it works. It's... He can do this.
... He can't do this.
"... Shit, man, you scared me," Guizo tells Xande, because it always makes him feel better even if it'll make Xande's headache worse. "That was a lot of blood, and you weren't waking up, and I was out of ashes, and there was alien sludge all over you! I managed to get you out, and I picked the locks to get us some protection at least, but... But-"
"Sorry," Xande butts in, before Guizo can actually cry.
"Nah, it's fine," Guizo takes a deep breath, and forces the tremble out of his voice. "What else was I going to do? Leave you? I wasn't going to do that."
Xande would be dead if Guizo had left him.
Guizo would die too, if he had left Xande to the aliens.
"Could've," Xande tells him, because he's always wanted Guizo to run and be safe.
"Nah, I couldn't; you're my best friend," he replies. "I couldn't do that to you."
"Sap."
Okay, okay, Xande clearly is feeling a little better; Guizo laughs, and ruffles his hair, and tries very hard not to start crying all over again.