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Micah wasn't really awake. He was being jostled and he couldn't breathe very well and everything was fuzzy around the edges, and everything hurt. He'd been ... what? Fighting? Something about fighting, and a vague and half-formed thought about hitting his head being bad because something about bruises. Nova was alternating between hissing and calling his name, but he was having trouble paying attention.

A jolt, and another larger jolt, and then his face was slapped, and he groaned in confusion, opening his eyes with a large effort and squinting. There was a person crouching over him, and for a moment he was relieved because someone had come to help him, and then the face over him resolved into red and white hair and a bunch of scar and his eyes came open fast, because this was probably not help. "Ssshhhhit," he heard himself say, and his hands scrabbled for purchase on the cold ground.

He's nuts, Micah thought dizzily, and well yeah duh, and didn't know he was THIS nuts, and he stilled like a rabbit trapped by a coyote, the white-eyed stillness of something that knows it can't escape. The boot pressed the air out of him, and when the pressure was released he gasped frantically for air, unable to help it but otherwise staying still.

"Can, yeah," he sputtered hoarsely, and wished fervently that he hadn't said anything about dragging anyone out of the wards, because he didn't recognize where he was and he was pretty sure that that was exactly what had happened. Nova?

No shield, she whispered, sounding small and scared. No be dumb. No die, I not go sleep again.

There was the urge to say something stupid. There was always the urge to say something stupid, right there pushing itself right past the slow build of actual terror. Micah opened his mouth.

NO! Nova shrieked.

Micah closed his mouth and swallowed hard. He swallowed his pride past a sore, pained throat, and made himself say, "I .. take it back. I was the ... " It stuck in his throat, burned his mouth. "I was the retard." Some of the fear burned slowly away from the back of his eyes with fury at this humiliation. He wasn't strong enough to spit in Rep's face and refuse, not and live through the experience, but someday he would be.

Oh it felt good to hear the little s**t say it, to snarl out that he took it back and ate his words, to watch dignity get set aside in favour of survival. He felt powerful, invincible, as if he'd taken something more than a victory from their fight. There was always this moment, a moment where it didn't matter that he wasn't beautiful, that he wasn't female, that he wasn't all the things he would never be. He was hideous and terrifying and he could make even the perfect people kneel.

"Too ******** right." Rep said smugly. "I like you better like this. Much more ******** agreeable."

But he didn't move away, seemingly unable to just concede that he'd had his fun and made his point. Hard wired into Rep was something dark and impossibly curious and for every inch he gained in ground, securing it and deeming it safe, he knew there was another inch he would never know if he'd have gained if he quit.

"And what do you think of me?" he purred, husky and ominous, staring at the man under his foot.

There wasn't any movement out there, but there was a small crater in the snow on one of the fields. Harrison made his way towards that.

He didn't get too close to the edge, the snow was all powdery and not tightly-packed and crumbled easy. He got far enough so he could make sure nobody was down there.

There were a bunch of scuffled footprints and trails, but one lead off the field.

Harrison squinted at it.

Just one? By itself?

Harrison sure hoped the other guy wasn't buried out here somewhere in a ******** snowy tomb. There were ways to die even with the wards.

"Rep!" he called out into the blustery weather.

Rep might have heard a faint sound on the wind.

Like the voice of his conscience.

s**t s**t s**t, it hadn't been good enough, what did Rep want him to say, how much of this was he going to have to stand and would anything be enough? Micah was starting to think he wasn't getting out of this, and his hands lifted to grab at thin air as threads of darkness started to wind their way into the corners of his vision, the boot on his chest keeping him from getting any good air. The panicky terror of being unable to breathe robbed him of thought, and he barely heard what Rep was saying, heard nothing else.

Suddenly the boot was off him and he was being hauled to his feet and dusted down as he gasped for breath, shaking and folding over to prop himself up with his hands on his knees. Someone had come looking. Someone had come looking for Rep? Micah didn't bother with saying anything. He straightened up slowly and just breathed.

Rep did indeed stammer nervously for a bit. "Well he like er like fell and like skidded and it was just a big old ******** mess like, completely ******** disastrous and s**t man." He beamed at Micah before looking back to Harrison and seizing hold of the cocoa like it was a lifeline.

"The kid was a ******** arsehole to me, but its ok he made it up we are mates now." and he took a nervous sip of the drink and made a face. "You didnae put enough sugar in it." he said.

Harrison accepted the ten and very carefully dug a five out of his wallet, giving Micah his exact change.

He replaced the wallet and patted his pocket.

"Well I didn't put maple syrup, pixie sticks, and half a dozen kit kats in there," Harrison said, "but its the last sugar outpost you're going to get without a walk.

He eyed up Micah.

"You look....intact," he hedged.