Lost and Found

The air is thick with movement. It’s saturated in noise, dripping with the rowdy cheers and cries of the multitude of people crushed together into a humid crowd, and there’s something vaguely claustrophobic about the whole experience. The need to hurl out the latest meal asserts itself in between his ribs, rather rudely shoving against his insides. Determined little bugger, that one. Everything honestly felt like scrambled goo, and his head was not feeling so hot either.

Nasty thing, that headache. Jax squeezes his eyes shut instinctively, revelling in the cold palm of darkness pressed against. He must have forgotten to take his pills again, he thinks. The familiar nausea comes and passes, like a tidal wave drawn by the moon, except that his own fortune wheel is discombobulated and non-linear, and as a general rule, doesn’t follow any logical pattern. 

It’s not a leap or bound to assume that fate has it out for him. He wonders if that’s what it really wants; wind him up, and watch him go. 

He’s jostled into the next writhing mass of folks in the next second, a sharp blow of the elbow of some passerby to the soft skin of his gut, and he’s wheezing up a storm, and swept along the living stream of bodies. His eyes fly open. The sunlight happily digs its way into the sensitive film of his eyes. That drumbeat in his head worsens.

Panic claws it’s way up and through, in a rising swell of bile and nausea creeping up the back of his throat. The taste is sharply sour, like spoilt milk cuddling into clumps of sticky bacteria. 

Breathing is not a chore, but bringing himself under control certainly is. 

It’s a struggle. He struggles to hold back the pained grunts that his throat insists on making. He struggles to control the wild rush in his veins, fighting against something that feels like ice thirstily swallowing up his blood and marrow. Most of all, he struggles not to let go.

He’s losing his grip.

He wandered deeper into the heart of the throng, sweaty bodies pressing up against him in what should be a direct violation of personal space. He bites back on a harsh shiver, clamping down his teeth and lips into a narrow, tight line so as to keep the building pressure inside. He wants to leave, but there’s nowhere else to go, though. 

Glancing back and forth, he tries to search for an exit, or anything even remotely resembling one. Smears of colours steal his focus, amidst the plethora of noise and air - the distortion of colour and light ensconced the world around in a refracted image. The atmosphere shuddered with heat, shimmering slightly as it simmered high on both the bright sunlight as well as the sheer body heat.

He’s lost, and he doesn’t know where to go.

The innate power of his magic thrums underneath his chest, racing harshly against the pulsating branches and arterioles of his circulatory system. The strength that it takes away with it is consuming, and he can only be a distant spectator to the delicate strains of shattered webs radiating from his body, glimmering far away into the bruised lungs of the sky.

It certainly turns a few heads to look in his direction. The taste of the acrid loss is seared in now, supplemented by the rapid deterioration of his life supply. He tastes, sees, and feels everything keenly, amplified up to an almost frightening degree. His vision begins to blur; a thick and sickeningly cloying sensation that makes him gag.

“Hey,” Someone says in alarm. He squints, but can’t make out any features amidst his ongoing minor breakdown. “Hey, man,” They say again, “Are you alright?”

They sound kind, he decides fuzzily, and pitches forward with a gurgled choke.

He never comes in contact with the ground, however. A heavy weight pulls him back from the edge, encircled around his waist and arms. The contact burns his skin, and he flinched away with a muffled hiss. It actually feels like a human noose splitting him in two, like white-hot vines dragging him towards the earth to bisect.

“Shit, hold on.” The panicked breath floats by him. He doesn’t catch it, not completely, at least.

The sun shines down at them. Now that he actively has a better look at it, he can see the world in its monochrome entirety; not entirely shades of grey, but darker, more sinister overtones. The sky is slate. Stitches of thin, reedy light thread the wide expanse above, overwhelmingly bright. It highlights the flaws with startling clarity; the veins of wounded purple linings, alongside the sickly yellow and enrages pulsating bruises of the shadows caused by the sun’s radiance.

It’s beautiful, in a very ugly way.

The sight is hypnotising, and even more so that his focus on the surroundings so he doesn’t actually notice that he’s been moved by that Good Samaritan, until the underside of the red canopy of one of the vendor’s stores eclipses his sight. He blinks, slowly. Overwhelmingly, bright red, but still equally bland. It looks worn down, patchy and used.

The rush that follows soon after is unlike the previous. It gives, but doesn’t take and he leans into that heady rush of cold water streaming through his head, radiating ice from the touch of the person still gripping him tight. He’s tense for a few moments, before he gives up on the fight and finally sags into the odd embrace.

He breathes in, dragging in the air through the congested airways until the chilled breeze tickles the insides of his chest.

Feeling marginally better, Jax croaked out, “Personal space?”

“A thank you would be nice. You’re welcome, by the way.”

He blinks away the wet sheen clouding his vision, and focuses on his saviour for the first time. He opens his mouth, closes it. A faint flush runs along his cheeks. His mouth goes dry.

Recognition hits both of them at once like lightning. 

The sensation is electrifying, like surges of ice stroking up the back of his spine. He looks back into startlingly amber eyes framed by dark curls, and something inside of him shifts, before settling in heavily as if it was always meant to be there, like two puzzle pieces clicking into place. 

Wordlessly, Jax pulls off the blue strip of cloth entwined around his wrist. Pale skin peeks out, revealing a distinct mark there; the image of a raven sitting atop black antlers.

He hears a quiet hiss of breath, equally tremulous. 

His saviour does the same, removing the red cloth, to reveal the exact same mark.

They stare at each other. 

“Holy-“