walksthebounds | (no subject)

Jamie has gotten them out of the sticky situation with the tickets, and then out of the station and safely into the city. This would normally be the time for some well-placed boasting, and Jamie is about to do just that -

- when he catches sight of a canal running over the street, over the tracks, on a set of yellow arches.

They are more than familiar.

Home.

The word only rings in his head for a second - long enough for his heart to start racing and ever-present Hope to flare up in him like a beacon, higher than ever before - before his brain catches up with him and starts pointing out the far too many ways things that are wrong, wrong, wrong. The trains are wrong. The clothes are wrong. The machines buzzing about everywhere, they're all wrong, and the buildings are wrong, and even the arches, now he comes to look closely at them, are different from what he remembers, must be. It's not his Home. Can't be his Home.

Get ahold of yourself, Jamie, he thinks, trying not to double over with disappointment - it's not like he's not been through this before -

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Standing in a ring at the center of a set of unfriendly attackers - it must be taking Joris right back. Jamie doesn't blame him, not really, or at least, he understands it. He knows how it is. The memory of Them doesn't leave you that easily.

But the fact remains that Joris is being an idiot, and it appears to be up to Jamie to stop him from making a mess of it, as always. Cursing, he charges his way through what feels like sixteen boys and dives for Joris, grabbing for his arm to stop him doing anything Jamie knows he'll regret -

Joris' eyes flicker sideways to Jamie-

And if that is not the stupidest thing he has seen Jamie do so far, running up to someone holding a knife-

Well, he certainly has no plans on hurting Jamie.

Even if he is still trying to quickly figure out what exactly his plans here are.

"For shame! For shame! A man's hand against his brother!"

Nobody was expecting that.

Joris especially.

He jumps, and-

Do not ask him how, as the demon knife was no where near Jamie, Joris would swear to it-

there is some sort of fizzle and twist and the demon knife slices right along Jamie's arm.

It doesn't actually hurt all that much. The knife is sharp enough for that.

However, his arm is now pouring blood, which is probably not a good sign.

Jamie recognizes this, dizzily, and remembers to clutch at it to try to keep the cut closed as he stumbles back against the wall.

That was-

He wasn't-

It couldn't-

But he did.

Joris stares at Jamie with dawning horror.

"It only takes a touch!"

He would have dropped the knife, if his training had not been so ingrained.

"I've killed you!"