The Party's Over [for losthunter]

He's still in shock.

There's a part of Jim that consciously knows this. His body has been locked into fight-or-flight mode for hours upon hours, his hands still trembling from the adrenaline, exhaustion held at bay by survival instincts that haven't realized that the danger has passed. The Halloween costume that Hunter had worked so hard on is damn near unrecognizable, only the paint-streaked pants clinging stubbornly to his hips, his feet and chest bare save for the bloodstained cloth wrapped loosely around his shoulder. Rusty brown specks of dried blood still cling to his face along with thicker, tackier stains on his hands, unmoved by the... fur... that is no longer adorning his skin.

His senses feel... off. As he numbly follows Hunter into the Nexus apartment on autopilot, the vibrant colors of the artwork in the studio damn near leap off the canvas at him, but sounds seem muffled, scents almost impossible to pick up, his body still struggling to cope with the sudden change back to human norms. His bones ache beneath his skin, a dull throbbing in his limbs and chest, his blood practically burning in his veins as his boosted immune system destroys the last traces of the worgen's curse, a low-grade fever the only outward sign of the fierce battle being waged beneath the surface of the skin.

Part of him wants to reassure Hunter that he's okay, to deny he's in pain, to pretend like nothing ever happened. That it was all some horrible nightmare. But he can't. He's filthy and bloody and shell-shocked, and phantom echoes of ravenous hunger still pick at him like vultures picking at a carcass. He's not starving anymore. He knows that. His body knows that. But he can't forget how it felt, not when the wounds are so raw, freshly ripped back open after years of coping.

He comes to a faltering stop inside the apartment, fidgeting, uncertain, struggling to determine what comes next. How to even begin to move forward from here.


[Trigger Warning for disordered eating and PTSD]