CLOUD RAP [open + injury]

[Luca]

Inky darkness encased him. It brought with him a comfort, an escape from all the things he was running from. Hands that he was far too afraid to look at played gently with his fur, calming him and distracting him from the pain that he could no longer fully convince himself that he liked. He wasn't quite sure why his lungs burned so much, but he knew that it would be okay. The sweet voice he could hear echoing in his ears was telling him that much. He could trust her, but then why did he feel so anxious all of a sudden? It was almost like he knew he had to be somewhere else, like the distant ringing of a call that he knew he had to answer. He frowned and tried to open his eyes, but it was a little harder than he had first thought it would be. The slight tingle of anxiousness began to grow with every pulse of his heart, adrenaline seeping into his bloodstream and overtaking his thoughts with a primal panic that he couldn't quite understand. He opened his mouth but all that came out was the sound of rushing water.

Water, the ocean, his face. Luca's lashes finally fluttered open, and for a moment the abyss around him opened, revealing a wall of foreign eyes staring right back at him. He didn't have enough time to feel afraid before he was back in the world of the living, coughing and spluttering violently to get the last remnants of water out of his airway. He took a deep breath of air, panting with a desperation that he would have found embarrassing if he weren't too busy processing his surroundings. His panicked eyes flickered from one clanmate to another, and he would have scrambled away from the group if his body hadn't already given up on him. The best he could do was squirm around until he was hit by Junji's voice, the angel's sweet tone instantly locking the hellhound's attention on him. He exhaled raggedly one, twice, but then his breathing fell relatively even. The presence of the one he admired was definitely taking a positive effect, allowing Luca to reluctantly lie still beneath the crowd's scrutinising gaze. At least Junji's wings were providing him the slightest bits of shelter.

Now that he had remembered where and who he was, he had time to process everything else, like the fact that the vision in his right eye was nothing more than a dark blur. He blinked pitifully up at Junji as the angel applied the final touches of the poultices, his features relaxing somewhat as he took a moment to calm himself and listen to the song that the pale feline was singing him. He recognised it, of course, and his heart fluttered briefly in his chest. Now was a bad time to blush, but he definitely did so, his teeth coming down gently on his lower lip as his tired eyes examined the worried soothsayer's face. "Junji," he hated how rough his voice sounded, the femininity he had grown so used to stripped by the harsh events prior. He found himself smiling, despite everything, a lazy ray of sunshine falling over his bloody maw. "I love you... so, so much," his words were soft, different from the casual way he usually uttered the phrase. Clearly, he was still a little out of it.

Now that the poultices were done being rubbed in, however, he could finally investigate whatever was marring his vision. He lifted an impossibly heavy paw and all but slapped it onto his face, instantly registering that the cut over his eye was a bit more severe than he had been hoping for. The smile was gone from his face now, replaced with the faintest hints of a pout instead. "My eye," came the husky whine, the pain of this realisation carried very obviously in his voice. Even though he no longer possessed his powers of hypnotism, his eyes were still very important to him. Without them he felt vulnerable and ugly, too much like that monstrous true form of his that he hated so much. He frowned and tried to roll over and stand up, but all he really succeeded in doing was flailing in the sand a little before falling still again. He didn't want to be in front of everyone for any longer, he wanted to be at home.