entrancelogs | + Your imagination can't hurt you! +

[The look she gives back doesn't reveal anything about whether it was intentional or not--it wasn't, she's not in a particularly joking mood, but she frowns when he completely fails to so much as leave a scratch. Not surprising, but disheartening. So she pulls out her gun and points it at the sky.]

Cover your ears.

[Not much in the way of warning, but Tim takes it. He shuffles back until he's pressed up against the wall, hands clamping over his ears, eyes screwing shut. He doesn't mean for the tension to vibrate up his shoulders and tighten his spine, but it coils sickeningly in his chest regardless. The crack of a bullet, the yell, the scared, panicked sounds of a man who knew he was about to die, hands clasped over the red as it swelled and drooled out between his fingers -

Doesn't matter. It's not real. It's not here.

It's not here. He ekes the words out between gritted teeth, low and taut]

Go ahead.

[An interesting reaction, and one George makes a mental note of for that time in the future when Tim is the most interesting mystery she has to explore. She did not expect him to show signs of trauma at the sight of a gun. If he'd asked her not to, she probably would have--she doesn't actually think it'll actually do any good anyway--but if he's not going to actually protest, she won't call attention to his reaction.

Not now, anyway.

She slips ear plugs in, does two short blasts into the air, puts the safety back on, and holsters the weapon. Then she glances over at Tim, frowning slightly and hoping he just opens his eyes and realizes she's done. She'd really rather not resort to physical contact to get his attention.]

[Even braced for it, it cuts across his awareness with a harsh bang and a dozen unwanted memories come singing into his head along with it. He tries not to flinch, and fails miserably.

He's hearing a continuous tone.

He drops his hands when it seems to be over, glances at her cautiously.]

Anything?

[Aside from...ow, fuck, his ears?]

No. We have to assume no one's coming.

[Maybe it'll turn out she's wrong and someone will bring a rope. It would be nice if she could have that sort of optimism. She frowns and stares around the cave, making estimates in her head. It's small enough that she's already uncomfortable with how little personal space she has. It's not quite large enough that she could lie down comfortably.

She spreads her arms, seeing if she can touch both sides at the same time. Not quite.]

If it were a little smaller, we could probably brace against one side as we climbed. But it's not quite that small.

Great.

[He's hearing a continuous tone.

He traces fingers over the ridges and bumps in the stone again without much direction to the act. He's got no experience with shit like this, and that's probably getting to be glaringly obvious. Which is just, you know, fantastic.

His brows knit together as he glances at George, reluctantly.]

And if we, uh...braced against each other?

[Her shoulders tense. It... well. She can see how it would work. If it was Shaun, not someone she doesn't really know and really doesn't like, she'd immediately agree to try it. But it's not Shaun, and she really doesn't like it when anyone else touches her.]

That... sounds like it'll take a while.

[Which is a ridiculous, nonsense excuse and she knows it the second it's out of her mouth.]

[It's obvious from the body language that she likes that idea about as much as he does - which is to say, not at all. He shrugs, one corner of his mouth twisting in apparent discomfort.]

I...really don't like it any more than you do, honestly.

[Honestly, huh? That's a joke, coming from him.]

But I don't really see any other options. Do you?

[She steals another look around the pit, but...]

No, I don't.

[She doesn't like lying to herself anymore than she likes lying to anyone else, though that one is sometimes harder to avoid. She exhales, tugging her sleeves down a little further. Do this, uncomfortable as it is, and she can get out of this pit and find Shaun. And once she finds Shaun, she can forget about this nightmare.]

Fine. We'll probably have to link arms. And be careful not to jar my head enough to make me lose my sunglasses.

I'll do my best.

[It's tempting to snap the words out dryly, but he does his best to level out his tone, if marginally. If she's just as decidedly uneager to engaging in this somatosensory nightmare then...well, it'll make dealing with it marginally easier, maybe.

He's got no idea.]

Figures Wonderland makes us do the one thing we hate.

Bet you anything it's on purpose.

[It would be a terrible bet to make. George turns to face the wall and grits her teeth. She also doesn't like turning her back to him. She might be a little paranoid, perhaps, but in her line of work and world paranoid generally translated to alive.]

Let's just... get this over with. How the fuck does this work?

Wouldn't be surprised, really.

[Wonderland seems to take a sadistic sort of pleasure in inflicting the precise things it knows they'll hate on them. He realizes his hands have flexed into fists, his shoulders taut, and he tries to breathe out, loosen the invisible grip he's assumed on the empty air.]

Never really done this before, so, uh...do we just...link arms? And try to...brace ourselves against each other?

I guess. I haven't done this before either.

[She sounds annoyed, which is about partly how she always sounds, partly how she's feeling. At Tim, at Wonderland, at the entire goddamn situation. If she gets out of this, she's adding rope to her field gear.]

Ugh, let's just--

[She grits her teeth and moves to link arms with him. Amazingly, she's actually more comfortable with physical contact with strangers than a lot of people of her generation, but there's accepting the need to stand in a crowd or shake hands without panicking as perils of her career, and then there's pressing your back against someone else's back and linking your arms and she has to not think about this too hard and just suck it up. Her intimacy issues can fuck right off until she has time to deal with them.]

Sooner we do it, the sooner it'll be over.

[She's right. Much as it chafes, as he knows it'll make his skin crawl, there's no alternative here, and it's the quickest way out of his hell-hole - or literal-hole, as it were - so they might as well buckle down and do it. He swallows hard and follows suit, ignoring the way the hairs on his neck prickle, his fingers curling into his palms until the nails are biting into the flesh there.]

All right. Just move - move steady, and we'll be outta here soon.

[It's mostly a mumbled reassurance for his own sake as he plants one foot against the wall of the hole, grimacing and trying not feel exceptionally foolish.]

Ready?

['Cause Tim sure isn't.]

Does it matter?

[They've got to do this whether they're ready or not. It feels so ridiculously stupid and... undignified, not that it should matter in a situation like this. She grits her teeth and puts a foot up against the wall herself, then leans back against him. She tries not to tense too much as her back makes full contact with his. She tries not to squirm as she puts her weight on him, trusting him not to step away and let her fall. Not that it would benefit him to do that in any way, but he could, and there wouldn't be a damn thing Georgia could do about it. Besides maybe punch him afterwards.]

Okay. I'm lifting my other foot now.

[All right. Yeah. She braces against him, and he braces back, evenly, trying not to press back with too much strength, not that he has much to go with. His lungs are gonna kill him by the end of this.

God but she could just lean back and send him crashing.]

All right. Go ahead.

[He'll put his up last, he's decided. He's probably sturdier, easier to bear the weight that way.]

[Putting her other leg up feels like the hardest thing ever, not in terms of the effort involved but because it very literally means putting all her weight on someone else, but she grits her teeth and forces herself to do it.

It's not comfortable, it's not pretty, and she's got more expression on her face than anyone but Shaun has seen in a very long time, but hell, Tim can't actually see her face. She braces herself as well as she can.]

Okay. Your turn.

[Don't you dare drop her.]

[He sucks in a breath before complying - she can probably hear him, feel him breathing, maybe even the way the blood is thudding in his veins in a way that's almost painful. Just - all right. Lift his foot and place all his weight on her, counterbalance the pressure they're both applying on each other, even if it screams against every instinct, and then he's -

He's done it. It'd be fantastic if he could feel any sort of triumph for the maneuver, but all he's got available is exhaustion and a grim realization that they've only just started to make progress.]

Okay. Step one.

[She pushes back, bracing with her abs, until he's up.]

Huh, I was pretty sure we were gonna immediately fall on our asses.

[There's a long way to go there, they still might. She carefully drags one foot up again. At least she's in great shape. Her upper body strength is lacking, but this depends more on legs, and knowing you're likely to be running for your life is great motivation for spending a few hours on a treadmill every day. She's got good endurance, too. Everything she needs to not die in the field. If one of them punks out, it won't be her.]

Keep going.

[Tim, physically, is something of the opposite. He's well-accustomed to running for his damn life, heavyset as he is, but his endurance only goes as far as his survival instinct. His lungs are already threatening to contract in a series of explosive, painful wheezes.

He swallows down the urge to cough, and complies. The further they get off the ground, the more it'll suck if he fucks this up.

He should probably not fuck this up.]

Yeah. Yeah, okay. [There's a rasp to the words, and goddamn but he hates his respiratory so much right now.]

[....she can hear that rasp. It doesn't stop her from moving, but it makes her frown, and glance backwards as much as she can under the circumstances.]

You doing all right back there? Cause if you need a break you should say something.

[The last thing she wants is to stop and be like this for longer than absolutely necessary. Well, that's the second to last thing she wants. Taking a break would be better than falling and having to start over again, assuming they didn't end up too injured to go on.]

[He almost shakes his head before realizing that'd be the most useless gesture possible when she's facing away from him, so he sucks in a deep breath before responding, painful as it is.]

No. No, it'll just - it'll make it harder to keep going if we stop.

[Forward momentum. Get it over with as quick as possible.]

Okay, but if you do need one, tell me. I don't want to fall because you couldn't get over your stupid pride or something.

[One step at a time. Don't think about how he's wheezing. Just focus on moving.]

'S not pride.

[It's just - it's strategy, isn't it? It's basic science. It's costs versus benefits. It's not gonna get better, he already knows it. It's not gonna get better. He's just gonna have to keep going and hope that he makes it to the top before anything worse happens.

Not that he'd call himself an optimist. But he can keep going, can't he? He can keep going, so he will. He'll keep going.]

I don't care what it is. I'm not fucking dying because you can't hack it and don't know how to pace yourself.

[At this height, she doubts they'd actually die, but she's also not risking it.]

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