By the time he was aware of the burn in his lungs and his two feet beating the ground below him, he had already broken the tree line and was racing towards the gnarled, metal sprawl of the Junkyard. He did not stop, even as he began to lurch forward as he reached the high gates of the Eclipse home base. The panicked Ares, dried blood caked on his upper arm (was it his or that- that things'?), stumbled into one of the guards arms, who barely caught him in time before he fell to the ground.
"Ares! What's wrong?" Ares sucked in a breath, but all that came out were pants and gasps. He could feel the guard turn their head, shout something that sounded like an echo through a thick fog, "Someone get Dr. Donnaghan!"
Dr. Donnaghan? No. He needed to see Etienne right away. A trip to Ian would take too long, for the peril that awaited the Eclipse.
"No. I need to talk to Ettie." Despite the anxiety, his light-headedness, he gripped the front of the guard's shirt and pulled them down so Ares could drill his demanding, wild gaze into their eyes. "Where is he?"
"The Boss? He should be in the Commun-"
Ares was running. Past the shocked guards at the gate, the handful of Eclipse hovered like pack animals over what must have been a newly-procured wreck of a vehicle. He ignored the questions, the concerned and curious gazes, and burst into the Communal Hall. He scanned the inhabitants, the ache in his stomach deepening as he could not find Ettie.
Thankfully, he spotted the back of a familiar sandy colored head and sped towards him. Ettie would have surely heard the clamor Ares made, stumbling over chairs and bumping into table edges, but the youth did not stop until he was gripping Ettie's shoulders and looking up at his Boss with wide-eyed hysteria.
"Ettie," he said, his voice full of unfound command. "I need to talk to you."
TAGAres Wheeler NOTES N/A
Not an uncommon sight to see, Étienne found himself in the Communal Hall that day, wandering amongst the gatherings of Eclipse members and drifters alike. He participated in a few of the sales personally, but for the most part he simply stood back and watched as money traded hands in both directions. They'd gotten a few new recruits into the organization lately, and he wanted to ensure they had a good business sense about them before he entrusted them to do sales on their own. A bit of a control freak perhaps, but considering it was him that would be forced to listen to the nagging of the advisors should they be short money, he wasn't about to just put his neck on the line for them. Not until he could trust them.
It was during a routine sale of a motorcycle — his back to the door as he talked to the drifter in front of him, arms crossed over his chest in a sense of arrogance — when commotion from behind cause the Boss's attention. Slowly Étienne glances over his shoulder to see what the ruckus was about. It's not like a lot of noise wasn't common in the Communal Hall, after all, but the screeching of tables and chairs being roughly shoved aside caught just about everyone's attention, including the man he was talking to. He's surprised by who he sees: hadn't Ares headed out earlier that morning to do some looting? Sure didn't take him long to get back.
He's about to greet the young man when Ares suddenly throws himself at Étienne, just about knocking the blond backwards as fingers desperately grip his shoulders. The Boss takes a couple stumbling steps backwards before he regains his footing, a frown creasing his expression now as his grey-blue eyes meet the almond eyes of Ares, staring up wildly at him in a frenzied expression. Étienne notes the sheer panic in the younger man's face.
“Wheeler, calm down, get a hold of yourself,” he sighs, using his lover's surname in a more formal tone, what with all the curious eyes pinpointing the two of them. Étienne scrubs an exhausted hand down his face — what now? — but immediately begins pulling Ares towards the back end of the Communal Hall, past the public area and into the winding halls in the back where only Eclipse members were aloud.
“Alright then, what's so important that you just had to go and make a scene like that?” he questions with a sigh as soon as they're alone, leaning back on a wall to face Ares with his arms crossed once again, boot up against the wall. It's not like this was the first time Ares had done something like this before. What was it this time? Aliens?
The wide-eyed looks of surprise and mutters from those around him were unheard, unseen. All that mattered was that Ettie know this, and why Ares had not stopped running for close to four miles to deliver him this message. Etienne told Ares to calm himself, but he could only managed to release Etienne's shoulders and take a half step back. The color drained from his face, the shaking of his fingers, it was clear that the looter was still upset, as he was pulled from quivering feet into the communal hall's back rooms.
In other circumstances, this would have meant something else entirely, something that would set Ares' cheeks ablaze and his heart racing for other reasons. But the cold fear, the unknown terror of what awaited them, Ares could not even stomach such an idea as he wrapped his arms around himself, a ghostly look in his eyes as he faced Etienne.
"Etienne, I-I- saw something while I was out there." His voice shook and cracked, his throat uncomfortably dry from the exertion and panic. He coughed but it did little alleviate the sensation. There was a look of pain in his face, and a renewed shiver in his shoulders, as he recalled the memory of eyes turned yellow, teeth turned sharp and humanity turned to something horrible. "It was- it was like an Infected. Only it was a man before. A man that I-I spoke to, had a whole talk with. We were going to escape together and-and- I got hurt and then he just... turned into something."
Ares had to grasp onto something, anything, to steady himself, which happened to be a pipe arching from the same wall Ettie leaned against. "I.. I tried to speak sense into him, I really did, bu-but he wouldn't listen." His voice was small with guilt.
Posted 10-08-2021, 11:23 AM
This post was last modified: 10-08-2021, 11:24 AM by Ares Wheeler
what crawls in the night
