He sighs. “I was working to make a antidote before it became too bad…” he mutters. “And trust me…I’ve been tryna use my blood. As you can see…but-“ he stops mid sentence, tears in his eyes. He gasps as Tohru walks in, spinning around. He pulls Yvonne away. “Stop-“
Yvonne whirls on Cathal, whipping the barrel into his head to try and get him to let go.
"Do not touch me." she growls, backing away from both the men.
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Tohru narrows his eyes, strangely unfazed by the cold metal resting against his chest.
"Do it. See what happens to you."
He has one hand around the metal of the barrel as he responds to Cathal. He lets go when Yvonne moves.
"You weren’t the only one. My university had a med school, and all the students were putting their all into it. I learned a bit on the search from one of the professors who was with us until she was infected herself. It's no more your fault than any of theirs."
He yelps, covering his head. He was shaking now as memories flooded his mind.
(Tohru does not handle Traumatised Teen™ very well XD)
Yvonne stares at both men intently, skirting around them before bolting up the stairs, leaving them alone down there in the dark.
(Nahhh he's definitely the type who is NEVER having kids, and he's almost always been the youngest in most situations growing up so has a bad habit of expecting adult behavior from everyone and gets really annoyed when its not like that :///)
Tohru's facade fell away a bit, relief flooding over his body.
"Shit… well… she probably hates my guts… but I got her out of here," he murmurs, crouching down to the floor.
He finds himself looking around at the experiments in the room. He's entranced, almost. None of the people he knew ever got this far.
(He legitamately might've gotten a ACP slug through the chest if he'd reached out in the wrong way when he lunged; suffice to say she placed the barrel to his chest as a warning)
Yvonne grabs her gear and runs out the bunker.
Trianna had awoken sometime during all of this, and could only listen as the chaos unfolded around her.
She hears Yvonne running, but knows she can't stop her.
(Poor Cathal isn’t taking this whole thing very well- this is his 3rd panic attack too in just one day- you guy’s will learn later why this happens-)
Cathal whines, pulling at his hair. More and more memories flooded his mind. His breathing quickened to short gasps for air and his whole body trembled. After only a few moments, he collapsed onto the ground unconscious.
(Not my man being like "well, if she shoots me 🤷♂️" He's all bark.)
Tohru lunges for Cathal, diving to keep his head from hitting the floor. He skids across the ground, scrapes digging into his knees. His hand rests under Cathal's head. He's shaking again, but finds it more important to take care of his new companion at the moment.
"Teddy!" he calls.
At least, he hopes the dog can be there when Cathal wakes up. In the meantime, he keeps Cathal somewhat upright.
Teddy whines from upstairs, staying put where he was. He was only following what his owner told him to do. He was trained to really only follow Cathal’s commands, no matter how much he wanted to come and help. He looks around for Trianna, whimpering.
Trianna hears Tohru call for Teddy and leaps int action, rushing towards the voice, stopping when she hears Teddy's whines.
"C'mon, bud. Let's go help Cathal." she murmurs, flinging herself downstairs.
Teddy whines, shifting. It was clear he wanted to help, but he was still unsure.
The pitch in Tohru’s voice rises a little.
"Tria-" he starts, when he sees her approach.
"Trianna, that punk got into some shit she shouldn't have, started shit again, and Cathal's freaked the fuck out and I think he had a panic attack, and he passed out because of it. I-I stopped him from hitting his head, but I've never had to deal with this before," he rambled, trying so desperately to slow his thoughts.
His thoughts went to Teddy.
"Wait… Ted's trained to not come down here. Maybe we should move him upstairs?"
Trianna looks at Tohru, then back up the stairs.
"Too slow. I'll get Teddy down here. As for the Scottish girl, she's somewhere. God only knows where. Maybe she climbed into the damn vents." she sighs, rushing back upstairs and kneeling in front of Teddy.
"Hey, Teddy, I need you to listen very carefully to me, okay? You are allowed, just this once, to go downstairs. Don't sniff anything, just go straight to Cathal. Okay?" she murmurs.
Teddy looks at her, then darts for Cathal, curling up into his side and resting his muzzle on his lap. He whines softly, nudging into his owners side.
Trianna smiles, knowing she'd done pretty much all she could.
She goes down the stairs properly this time, and "looks" over where she'd heard Tohru earlier.
"So what all happened?" she asks quietly?
Tohru takes a moment to respond. He doesn't know everything, but he can sum it up.
"The kid tried to explore deeper into the bunker. She… shot at something? Maybe the lock on the door?" he starts, "Anyway, cat's out of the bag now, so I might as well tell you too. He has a lab of sorts down there, where he's been looking for the cure, and he didn't want her going down there. She didn't listen and we got into an argument. She pointed her gun at us again- because why the hell wouldn't you point guns at people? And well… now we're here."
He holds the back of Cathal's head still, not wanting him to wake up with it resting on the coldness of the floor.
"I probably said some things I shouldn't have, but… but we just can't have whatever she thought she was doing. It puts us in more danger."
Trianna tilts her head.
"What did you do when she pointed her gun at you?" she asks. She didn't care about the lab - she just wanted to know what events had led up to Yvonne hiding.
"Told her to shoot me and see what happens," Tohru says, rubbing the back if his neck, "In hindsight, probably a really dumbass thing to say, but high on adrenaline, just trying to make sure she doesn't destroy any of the stuff down here… that's all I could think of. She may be what… sixteen? But I have to keep in mind she was probably in middle school when all of this started."
He puts his free hand on Teddy.
Teddy instinctively growls, but then stops when he notices it was just Tohru. He nuzzles closer to Cathal’s side. It was pretty obvious to teddy that his sleep deprived owner wouldn’t be waking up anytime soon.
"No, what did you do that made her point her gun at you?" Trianna asks quietly. "I know you were just trying to keep everyone safe, but this is very important that you explain exactly what events led to her pointing her gun at you."
Tohru stops to think for a moment.
"I don't… I don’t really remember all that well," he replies, "I told her not to touch anything, and went down into the- oh… I moved too fast. She probably thought I was going to try to hurt her. I know she couldn't have known, but I wasn't even going to touch her unless she started messing with the stuff down there. And even then, just wrangle her enough to get her out of the lab. So alright, yeah. Poor decisions were made. I probably escalated instead of deescalating. Fucking hell…"
Trianna nods thoughtfully. "It's highly likely that she's been assaulted in the time since this shitshow started by other male survivors. She probably learned how to use a shotgun for self-defense, and chose a 4 gauge specifically to stop whatever's threatening her dead in its tracks, quite literally. After all, a 4 gauge loaded with buckshot can put a hole through steel if you want it to. And a slug? Well, you aren't getting up and running, that's for damn sure. But you couldn't have known that, so I don't blame you. If, or rather, when, she comes back, you should apologise."
"You think she will?" Tohru asks, "I absolutely will apologize if she does. I really need to- to do better. I've been a traumatized teen too. For wildly different reasons. But she deserves compassion, not whatever it was I gave her."
He leans his head back against the wall.
"What do I even say to her?"
Trianna nods. "Don't expect an apolgy from her immediately. Remember, she may have been the one to come down here, but you're the one who was starting to seem physical towards her."
She shrugs. "That's up to you, kid."