Survival Of The Fittest

((Following a conversation with MK Kilmarnock, this post is out of order))

"Is it."

The voice was flat, calm, as Hansel raised an eyebrow, his left hand still gripping the barrel of the Winchester. He sized Gray up, pondered, the spiking panic of his first few moments in this house fading into an oddly familiar numbness, a tranquility that seemed intensely inappropriate and yet...

...comfortable.

He shifted the barrel of the gun so that it was in his right hand, his left falling on the sights, gripping it loosely as his gaze travelled down Gray's body, towards the FAMAS.

Then, he struck.

One booted foot lashed out to attempt to hit Gray's knee in the side as Hansel lunged forwards, looking to elbow check Gray off of the gun.

His gun.

'Yeah, it's fine where it is... you tell him!'

The thought-out response to Gray's assertion was a vivid one. Sean practically mouthed it out, his body feeling tense and jittery from waking up to the situation that had been thrust upon them. Sweat trapped between his neck and collar, giving him an unscratchable itch that he could only hope would go away. That or he'd be distracted by something else.

As fate would have it, Hansel had a response to Gray too, and his wasn't quite as content with leaving the gun where it was. When he said those two works, that simple 'is it', Sean could feel his own body coil like a spring in anticipation. Some of it was fear, but most of it was a terrible rush of excitement that he couldn't explain through his barely-awake body. He thought he knew what might happen next and he WANTED it to happen.

He got his wish when Hansel made his move. He kicked out in a jerky move, a sudden attack right at Gray's leg. Sean remembered him favoring the same leg in the living room, but the memory came as a flash, something more intrinsic than visual. Everything was just a quick bright blip before shooting off to the next instant in time due to how fast it was all moving. And so, before he knew what was happening, he had thrown the door open and was charging headline down the hallway.

"YEEEEAAAAAUUUUGH!" Sean screamed as the coolest battle cry he could possible think up in less than a tenth of a second, kicking off the floor and throwing his entire body at Hansel with arms and legs outstretched.

Gray should have seen it coming. The sudden calm in the room after the tension in the beginning. They'd both assessed the situation and come to a conclusion. Hansel said two words and Gray's brain didn't click, then he moved and Gray caught up with what was happening too late. Hansel leg kicked out and connected hard with his knee. There was a sickening crunch as the boot connected with it and Gray went down.

He had always had that niggling thought in the back of his mind that told him his knee would be the thing that got him killed, and here was the proof. He was about to get shot because his knee had been wrecked. As luck would have it though and Gray was genuinely thankful for luck. Sean chose that moment to burst out of the bedroom screaming. Gray didn't stay and watch instead he rolled away and pulled the FAMAS with him.

Propping himself up against a wall Gray lifted the FAMAS up high, wincing as he caught his knee. It sent pain shooting up his leg from just the stock of the gun bumping into it. That wasn't a good sign. Making sure the FAMAS was propped up steady Gray breathed out and pulled the trigger, hoping the sound of the gunshot would stop Sean and Hansel in their tracks.

As Gray went down, Hansel staggered forwards, shifting the Winchester to bring it to bear. He had it half up and almost in Gray's face when a sudden weight latched onto his right arm, preventing him from pulling the trigger. Whoever it was was clawing, gripping him, hanging off of him with their entire, not insignificant weight. Hansel swung around, staggering backwards and slamming into the wall near the door, feeling the weight of a body hit it first.

"Get off of me," he grunted, just as the FAMAS exploded in the room.

Ringing erupted in his ears as he pitched forwards and slammed backwards, attempting to dislodge or seriously injure his attacker.

Without thinking, Sean had positioned himself on Hansel's back. Then again, it went without saying that he did such a thing without thinking. Had he put any thought into this, he probably would have recognized it for the incredibly stupid idea it was in time. Now, he was committed to the act of stupidity, praying it was staving off something horrible.

Sean tucked his head in close to Hansel's left shoulder, squinting his eyes as tight as they could possibly squint in anticipation for the violent thrashing that was bound to follow. He wasn't disappointed, his back being smashed into the wall with significant force. It was enough to push some of the air out of his lungs, but not enough to dislodge the arms wrapped around the larger boy. His grip only tightened with the impact, and again still when a gunshot went off. Who fired, he had no way of telling. Could have been Gray with the automatic-looking gun, could have been Hansel with the other rifle-type thing.

Then Sean acted without thinking again.

Out of panic or whatever nameless emotion it was being driven by his fighting animal instincts, Sean bore down with his mouth and clamped his teeth right on to Hansel's shoulder, somewhere between the blade and his neck where the collar sat. The metal scraped against his right cheekbone and all-in-all it was just a superbly uncomfortable position to be in, but he held on for lack of any better idea.

"RRRRRRGGGGGGH!" The growl was Sean's only vocalization, feeling more like a rabid creature than a human at the moment. If the shoe fit...

The feeling of the smaller boy against Hansel's back slamming into the drywall sent little shocks through him, accompanied by minor pains as Sean's bony body rammed into his own. Gray had his gun, and that was unacceptable. He needed it back. He needed to get this little shit off of his back. He needed to get the fuck out of-

"MotherFUCKER."

Lurching forwards, Hansel dropped the Winchester and hauled Sean's arms over his head, sending him sailing across the space as he lifted a hand to the sudden pinching pain near his neck, on his left side.

He dropped to avoid potential fire from Gray, scooped the Winchester, his bag, and bolted for the door, both wounds on his left shoulder bleeding profusely.

((Hansel Williams, I don't feel we did wrong.))

The gunshot hadn't stopped them. They continued fighting, Sean holding onto Hansel's back for dear life and Hansel struggling to get the smaller boy off. Gray couldn't fire another shot at the pair because he ran the risk of hitting Sean. Although as soon as he thought about the problem Hansel yelled out in pain and threw Sean off his back. Gray had to push himself off to one side to avoid his friends flying body. The movement cause his leg to explode in pain again but he grit his teeth and pushed himself back up into a seated position.

He could see Hansel moving to run so he made a snap decision, one he hoped was right. He aimed the FAMAS at Hansel and pulled the trigger. The gun roared into life again. The barrel kicking up from the recoil. In the time it took Gray to get it back under control he couldn't see Hansel anymore. So he had probably missed him.

Lowering the FAMAS Gray breathed out a sigh of relief. They had ended up going toe to toe with the most dangerous person on the island and had both survived. That was something to be thankful for. His luck had seen him through again, mostly intact. Using the stock of the gun he pushed himself up onto his feet and gingerly put weight on his left leg. It was broken, he knew that much. It wasn't the first time he'd broken it or any bone for that matter. But it was bad, he didn't know how badly and he didn't really want to know. All he knew was that his knee had gone from a potential problem to an actual one.

"Sean, you ok man?" Gray asked in between hops as moved across the room. He hadn't seen where Sean had gone after Hansel had thrown him. Gray just hoped he wasn't badly hurt. They needed to leave as soon as possible; the house they were in was nowhere near as safe as he had thought it would be.

"Give me... a sec to get back to you... I've gone to get groceries..." Sean mumbled. He felt like he had been flung across the whole room like he was in a cartoon or something, flattening against the wall and slumping to the floor in an uncomfortable position on his neck. In actuality he had probably gone something more like two or three feet into the wall of the hallway... but the smacking-into-the-wall part and the flopping were totally real. Hard to deny that much.

The boy uncurled himself once he had determined he didn't have a snapped neck from Hansel going all judo-master on him. Given that he still had a pulse and Gray had called out to him, excitement flickered from somewhere deep inside him. The two of them had just survived one of the most... active people on the island. That had to be worth something.

When Sean actually looked at Gray, though, the way he was hopping around on one leg worried him. The guy's leg was bad enough but Hansel must have roughed him up real bad before he could join the fray. "What about YOU, though?" The hectic pace of the situation was enough to make Sean forget all about how, just a matter of hours ago, he wouldn't have cared if he lived or died.

Sean was ok. That...that was good. It meant they'd actually gotten away from a fight with Hansel Williams with both of them alive. It was more than a lot of other people on the island could manage. Hansel had a body count that was scary but they'd avoided becoming just another statistic.

The adrenaline was wearing off and it meant Gray could seriously assess the situation with his knee. In short, it was fucked. Whatever had gone wrong with it after coming into contact with a car had been made one hundred percent worse by Hansel stomping on it. He couldn't put any weight on it. So it was broken, the real question was how badly was it broken?

"I'll be fine. Just need to wrap my knee up. Give it some support." Gray managed to say in between hops. He managed to get around the sofa to his bag. He rummaged around for his first-aid kit as he continued. "Get your stuff. We aren't safe here." Popping the lid open he pulled out the bandages and put them to one side.

Rolling his jeans up Gray sent more pain rushing up his leg. His knee was a mess, instead of being a solid piece of bone it felt like it had turned to mush and looked to be off to one side. Gray wasn't a doctor though and didn't want to mess with it too much. After pushing what he thought was his kneecap roughly back to where it should have been he wrapped it in bandages. Making sure it was cushioned adequately and tightly bound, Gray put bandages back in the first aid kit and put it away in his bag.

Standing up made Gray realise that the bandages really didn't make much difference. If it made a difference at all he couldn't tell. It still hurt almost as bad as when the car hit him and walking was still basically impossible. It didn't matter though, they had to go; they had been found twice over the course of a day. A third time could lead to a fatality.

"Let's go Sean." Gray said as he half hopped, half limped out of the living room and out of the house. It had been an insane evening and morning though. So at least things were staying exciting.

((Gray Emerson continued in Tragedy + Time))

While Gray tended to his leg from his seat on the sofa, Sean watched from the middle of the room, staring down blankly at the horribly twisted wreck that was Gray's knee. It seemed awful to think of it, but given the lack of blood from the injury, it provoked very little a response. Sean knew it was a horrible injury; he had the common sense to know that knees definitely should not have bent like that. It just happened to be that he felt wired in a way that, without that spark of red, there was no ignition to trigger fear or anxiety or anything like that. How he was trying NOT to think of it was that it was nothing compared to Aria's body, or Sara's body.

Gray was giving it his all at patching his own leg, and Sean was so lost in fighting off making the contrast between the bloodless knee and something a bit more carnage-filled that he nearly forgot about all of his first aid training that he received during the time he was with the Boy Scouts. It had definitely been a while and he wasn't super confident that he'd be able to do any real patching, and up to this point, the opportunity to test this had never actually come up. By the time he even thought about breaking the skills out here he had already missed the mark - Gray was on his feet, albeit in great pain.

"Yeah. Got my stuff. Just a bag, really," Sean said quietly. All the excitement was over, so his mind began to fall down from that jittery high. He couldn't get lost in a cloud of many thoughts as easily as he could just minutes before. Now his mind was beginning to wander, once again focused on unpleasant things. This time, it was just a tad easier to pull himself away, given they had something they needed to do. They needed to get moving to prevent another attack like the one that Hansel just pulled.

"Hey, Gray..." Sean began while locating just where his bag had made off to, picking it up. "I know it's, uh... wow, I'm not good at asking this... but just in case, with stuff- I mean, for stuff, you know."

Still stunk at the talking thing. Rightio, then.

"Look, um, I'm probably going to... need... my gun." Sean's voice trailed off into quietness and uncertainty, afraid that Gray would probably say no.

He wouldn't blame him.

((Sean Mulcahy, continued elsewhere))