reformingfury | (no subject)

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Dave wakes up groggy and sore in the infirmary the day after Halloween. He barely remembers what followed after the shed. How he got here, if he was brought by a friend or if he walked in in a near-catatonic daze after he emptied his stomach, not even who bandaged up his burnt and scratched up skin. Looking around him, he hopes that he’ll at least know that Maxxie and the rest are fine. And that whoever he talks to can tell him that he wasn’t wrong in what he did. That it wasn’t real. That what Dave did was just in self defense and an accident. That he isn’t actually a killer.

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"Thank god. If someone else got hurt..."

He swallows hard, trying to think of where to start. Dave typically doesn't hold things back from Bay, but he has no idea how to tell her what happened at the end of last night.

"I tried to look for Maxxie when I thought no one was coming for me after all. Or at least not yet. When I got back, they were waiting for me, and there was Max and... he started saying some shit and it wasn't the real him. The real one came out and helped me get away from the hockey teams that were going to beat the shit out of me, and we tried to run to the caves, but the lights went out, and... Shit."

Maxxie. They beat up on Maxxie before he got dragged off to the shed.

She'd never been very good at comforting but Bay reached out anyway, taking his hand. There were no easy platitudes that Bay could drag out while she searched for something more meaningful to say, so she was just quiet for a minute.

"It sounds really messed up," she attempted. "All of last night was."

She wanted to say that it wasn't his fault–and she did really believe that–but that didn't seem to be the time to say.

"It was." He rolls up a sleeve, showing bandages over some of his burns. "This shit wasn't even from the guys from Lima. They're from some fucked up plants that tried to kill me when I was looking for Maxxie."

Dave covers up his injuries again, squeezing Bay's hand in case that was the wrong thing to show her.

"You... didn't happen to see where Maxxie was coming in to see me, did you?" He's scared to hear the answer in case it's negative. What if she didn't see Max somewhere else in the clinic? Would she have just missed him? Or was he lying in the caves, still injured and alone after he was dragged off to confront his dad?

Or did he somehow find out what had gone down in the shed and decided to not visit him, now that he's a killer?

The best description for the sound that Bay made was a squeak. She tried to bite down on the sound and pretend like it wasn't alarming--it wasn't like she'd never seen an injury before--but it wasn't pretty.

"I...haven't seen him, not yet. But I think everyone's got kind of a collective hangover right now."

"Fuck," he chokes out. Dave moves to get up and out of the bed, but he winces from the soreness from his bruised sides. "Help me up? I gotta find him. Those guys that dragged me off in the caves... they got him before separating us."

Bay frowned, hands on her hips as she weighed the options. Dave was hurt and there was no way that he should go traipsing around without the first clue on where to find Maxxie. On the other, there was no way he was going to recover when he was sitting here worrying.

"Are you sure he's not just somewhere. Um...safe?"

He shakes his head. "Last place I saw him was the caves. I have no clue where he could be, and I think he would have gone after us if he was fine after the others got to him..."

The doubt is now in his head, though, and he feels something new twist in his gut. Part of him hopes that if he was fine and capable of going after him, that Maxxie had simply decided to listen to what he said and stay safe. Maybe even try to send out help?

But none came for Dave when he got out of the shed. He got to the clinic on his own.

"Please. If I can't go, I need you to check. See what happened and make sure he's ok."

Without giving it a second thought, Bay held out her hand, little finger crooked out for a pinky promise.

"I'll do everything I can to make sure he's okay. You take care of you, okay, big guy?"

Just about every bit of Dave would rather see Maxxie is find himself, but he knows logically that he can't move out of bed right now. Not if he doesn't want to hear it from Bay. She's doing this to calm him down, give him more certainty about everything. So he reaches out his own hand and links their pinkies.

"I think I take care of myself a little too well now, after last night. But if I can't check on him, I know you can."

Bay held up three fingers, hoping that Dave never thought to ask if she'd ever been a scout because the answer would have been a resounding no, touched with absolute failure.

"Scout's honor."

"Like you were ever a scout," he says with a brief and tiny smile. It felt strange but comforting that he could at least manage that little bit of banter.

"Thanks, Bay."

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