[Tired has become the norm for Davesprite in Norfinbury. He sleeps poorly, subject to cold, frequent lack of even a bed, bad dreams, and a tendency to wake easy. For most of the past week he's taken to eating less for fear of running out of food, and only as of their find the night before has he started to change that habit back toward normal. He deeply misses the benefit of being able to carry all the junk he hauls around in a sylladex.]

[More heavily weighing in many ways is the emotional kind of exhaustion. It has its own causes still too numerous to list, but the worst one lately is the climbing death count the city has taken. You don't really forget the image of someone dead in the rubble.]

[But what is there to do about it? They can't stop to mourn when staying means death, when it won't bring Nat back any faster. So they moved on, found shelter, searched for anything of interest, and settled down when nothing immediate turned up. Davesprite took to poking at the network, but it's after a while that he hunts down wherever his remaining travel companion has settled. It's only practice that keeps him from a full frown as he approaches.]

Hey, Clint...? Have you talked to House any? He's not answering me.

[It's been impossible to ignore that Clint's pain seems to have worsened again. It's hard to tell, though, how much of his current voice is owed just to that.]

[Davesprite's jaw tightens. He stuffs his tablet away in a pocket and floats down to settle beside him.]

Should I even be surprised at this point?

[It's mostly rhetorical. And with Clint's difficulty speaking, he just keeps going.]

I'm starting to feel like days we only get one name are practically a blessing. Do I not recognize everybody on the list? Let's throw a party. I can glue up the most decorative bits of trash we've got if you bring the crippling existentialism. Nah, who am I kidding? Everybody's got their own supply around here. BYOD: bring your own depression. There's a betting pool going for who gets the most disturbing loss, and the prize is your own horror. I swear House is going for a record at this point. Is anyone keeping track? Fuck if I know, but why let that stop him? Because nobody fucking else can. Makes a dude wonder when he's next on the list. Only so much time before something else comes along, and we can't even trust the rubble to—

[His voice cracks.]

To stay out of it. Fuck.

[Breathe in, breathe out.]

Fuck.

[Davesprite stretches a wing to lay over Clint's back, the bird version of a casual, one-armed hug, and light enough that it hopefully won't add onto his pain. He has to wince himself in sympathy as Clint stops to bear through the ache of it.]

You've got it even worse than I do.

[He says it plainly, like a statement of fact over argument.]

Bad enough to keep losing people without... without pain, without it being Nat.

[Another pause. He's not crying, no, but the air rattles in and out of his lungs.]

I didn't think it was going to be her. Fucking rubble, you know? House was trying to tell me to climb that busted up wall of skyscrapers we found, and I told him no, but somehow it's Nat who gets... gets what happened, when she wasn't even doing the dangerous thing. Just some piece of of a dead building, and it...

[It keeps replaying in his mind. If he's not doing something else, looking around or messaging people, it's just there waiting for him, and talking about it to Clint means there's no escape.]

[That's what makes it harder. Clint as sad and mopey isn't really anything new, but there's a difference between more passive sadness or even arguing him out of a pity party/self-blame fest than what's going on now. Clint is actively crying, and for good reason, slumped against him like he's the strong one here. The thing is, as different as Clint is from Bro, he still pings a little of the greater idealistic image: a tall, blond, full-grown man who serves as a hero. This unabashed showing of emotional weakness cracks it right down the middle. Hearing him, seeing him, the narration enhancing the replay in his mind...]

[Davesprite shudders against the leaning weight of him.]

Clint—Clint, no, come on. Don't. She'll... She'll come back. She'll be fine.

[How's he supposed to be strong next to that?]

[Bag. Bag is a task. He shoves his thoughts out of the way as hard as he can for the moment and reaches over to pull it near.]

You want me to get the zipper for you?

[The less fumbling around he has to do, the better. It's words to say that don't relate back to what else is happening.]

[Davesprite's lips press tight and flat as he watches Clint unzip it. He's stubborn. It's not a surprise. Still, he takes the bottle as it's handed to him, with only the slightest sound of amusement for the situation. A fragment out of memory—keep twisting junior all you get is clicks. He applies his unhindered manual dexterity and opens it without trouble.]

How many?

[He's not about to let him fuss trying to fish them out or even shake them out onto his palm. He'll keep pressing until Clint complies, and add an extra pill if it seems like he's docking himself to try to act less affected.]

[He's glad enough for his sense in it. He takes them, hands them over, watches Clint take them down. The sight makes him swallow uncomfortably.]

It hurts just to watch you like this.

[He recaps the bottle and sets it down.]

But this isn't "normally." [A quiet but stern protest.] I wish I could do more.

[But it's MN poisoning, and he has it too. How would Clint benefit from the blood of a paranoiac? Even if his blood were clean, they don't have the means to. No syringe, no other transfer system. He's useless but to hand him pills and do the things he aches too badly for.]

[Still, it gives him another topic to ask about.]

How bad did you get hurt when you were out doing the superhero thing?

[Davesprite cringes progressively through it, wincing. It's worse than he expected, but perhaps it makes sense for a mundane hero in a world where superpowers are real. Maybe even without the superpowered folk, for some.]

Jesus, and I thought I've been through bad shit.

[He rubs subconsciously at an ear. He'd wondered for a while about Clint's deafness, if it was inborn or caused by something else, but it felt more polite not to ask.]

How'd you get un-disintegrated? [Pause.] Reintegrated? Whatever you call it.

Wait, he's from your world?

[Guess who's slow on the uptake?]

But reality-bending... It sounds crazy, but then I've seen crazy shit. I saved John by changing the timeline. Jade could shrink planets down to the size of golf balls. I was on one when she first did it. Felt like... like nothing meant anything anymore. Like she could do anything. She went god tier, but she went even beyond that because of other circumstances.

[He remembers it intensely, the sight of Jadesprite becoming Jade again, the gleaming newness of her robes, how she moved things around simple as a child handling toys. Even years later, knowing the limits and having experienced her powers more times than he can count, it's that first memory that sticks with him.]

I'm glad you were saved.

[Davesprite puts his hand on Clint's shoulder there at the start, not a pat or a squeeze to spare him the risk of hurt, but a kind of gladness. Living is definitely better than dying.]

Pretty much. And if it weren't enough then, three years of living on a gold ship flying through a green void, popping between boat and the planets she brought along would do it.

[It becomes almost mundane after a while.]

[He glances more directly at Clint for the question.]

I got—

[Pauses, catches himself.]

I've fallen down the stairs a bunch. Had a whole joke about it in my webcomic, first page. Sweet Bro wants to play video games, goes to head downstairs, goes tumbling ass over ugly head the whole way down. And Hella Jeff yells over at him, "I warned you about stairs, bro! I told you, dog!" But it just keeps happening, shitty jpeg montage while Hella Jeff keeps it up. "I told you, man! I told you about stairs!" There's a whole bunch of other context behind that one, why video games, why it's such a non-joke, but that's not really the point right now. Wasn't any four-flights-and-hit-a-car, but it still fuckin' hurt, you know?

And... Back when Bro died, that was... We were fighting this game enemy, Jack Noir. You know how prototyping makes a sprite what it is? The ones before you enter the game affect what powers the enemies have, basically. Bro and I ran into each other, Jack showed up, we started fighting him together. But about midway through Jade's dog, this omnipotent thing called a First Guardian, he prototypes himself to try and keep her safe during the entry process. But Jack gets the benefit of that. He was pretty damn strong already, right? But you give him that, and...

[He swallows, Adam's apple bobbing at his throat.]

He stabbed Bro through faster than I could do anything, and before I could get away, he sliced my right wing off and stabbed me in the gut. Bled like the worst kind of head wound, 'cept my head was fine. Probably would have died from it if I were still completely human back then.

[Davesprite shrugs at him, wings shifting with the movement.]

I'd already been at the game for a while before that happened. Alternate timeline, you know? Fighting monsters, all that.

But I'm glad, too. Kinda surprised I survived it.

[He makes a thoughtful noise. It's weird to think about. He hasn't been injured as badly before or since then; the only time close was when Jade killed him, and then he had no time to deal with the wound. Sburb had other things going on, and he couldn't stop to do much more than bandage himself before he was going on again.]

[Clint, however, turns the subject the other way. Davesprite blinks and glances back.]

Yeah. We lived on the top floor of our building, and there was an extra flight up to the roof.