Wait, no!
The mere thought of anyone crowding him in made him feel sick to his stomach.
But he probably did need help, right? Especially since he didn't know what was happening. Maybe someone could tell him that at least.
For some reason, the idea that he may be having a heart attack crossed his mind. The tight feeling in his chest, the shortness of breath, and the profuse sweating had him almost convinced. But twenty-one year-olds didn't just get heart attacks out of nowhere, did they?
Bean tried to pick Tohru up and she was right. She couldn’t carry him by herself. “Guys, Tohru can’t move! We need to get him inside!” she yelled, barely keeping her balance as she tried to hold him up. It was definitely not easy.
Kas hesitated before coming over to assist Bean, grabbing Tohru's legs to help drag him inside. He knew that he was strong enough to assist, especially under normal circumstances, but he was still worried that his injured leg might make this harder. "Let's go." He said stiffly to Bean.
Bean nodded as she started heading inside, slowly so that her and Kas can keep their balance and so that they don’t drop Tohru. Once they reached the couch, Bean set him down on it as she turned to Kas. “We need to get the others!”
Tohru, shaking heavily, let out a breathless cry. He did his best to pull away from them; he did not want to be touched.
"Don't-" he snapped, turning his head away.
Tohru felt even worse with all this attention on him. And clearly no one else knew what was going on either, so their presence didn't exactly help.
"What about the others?" Kas asked, shifting his stance so that he wasn't putting weight on his injured leg. "They can all walk on their own. They'll be fine. Just yell at them to come in or something." He grabbed his bow and arrow and headed into another room to slip out the back door.
Bean nodded. “Yeah, just…we need to figure out what’s wrong with him,” she choked out. She was scared. She had no idea what was bugging Tohru but she wanted to help. She wanted to make sure he’ll be okay.
Despite his (very weak) fighting, Tohru was now inside, on the couch, still freaking the fuck out, and now feeling even more closed in.
He flexed his hands, trying desperately to get feeling back into his fingers, and found himself curling back up. Otherwise he felt even more exposed and uncomfortable.
Tohru turned away from Bean, pressing his cheek against the back of the couch and leaning there.
Kas slipped out the door while the others were distracted, sighing as his stomach growled. There's a lot of people here… I'll need to bring back something bigger for the others as well. Fruit snacks aren't enough to keep us alive. He headed into some nearby trees and spotted a deer. It was a doe, but he wasn't too concerned about it. They were in the apocalypse, after all, so he wasn't really worried about getting arrested or anything. He docked an arrow into his bow and crouched down, pulling it back. After a few seconds of making sure his aim was right, he let the arrow fly into the deer's heart. Got it…
(Feel free to throw your girl in aha)
Bean sat next to Tohru as she tried to figure out exactly what was wrong. “Where does it hurt?” she asked, politely as she put her hand on his forehead. She didn’t know too much about medicine, that was more of Lilac and Hailey’s department. She was a fighter not a healer. However, she was determined to help in any way she could.
Lis had been trekking through the woods towards the farmland ahead. There would probably be shelter there. As she traveled, though, she decided to catch some food. She stopped when she saw the deer. While she didn't immediately need all of it for herself, she figured she could dry out the meat into jerky to make it last. Then she wouldn't have to hunt again for a while.
She drew her gun up from its holster and clicked off the safety, and that's when the doe fell to the ground.
"Hey, what the actual fuck?!" she shouted.
She grumbled to herself and started walking towards the deer, ready to meet whoever shot it. Maybe she could ask for a small portion to keep for herself. After all, she'd almost caught it too.
Tohru pressed a hand to his chest to answer her question, and he squeezed his eyes shut again. With the other hand, he gripped tightly onto the couch arm.
Kas was still kneeling on the ground, breathing heavily and clutching his knee with his free hand. God… it's gonna be hard to get up. He looked up when he heard a voice and footsteps. Oh god… I can't fight in this condition. Uh… "Hello…?" He called out awkwardly, wincing as his voice cracked. Great… now they're gonna know I'm a stupid little kid too.
Bean took a deep breath. “Okay, so your chest…we might need to see if anything’s broken…” she muttered. “You might also be having a heart attack but that shouldn’t be likely…” she sighed as she left to get an ice pack. She figured it might be able to help a little as she tried to figure out what else to do. When she came back she pressed the ice pack against Tohru’s chest. “Sorry for not knowing much…” she mumbled.
Lis walked up to the deer, but no one had come to get it yet. She couldn't find the hunter at first. Not until Kas called out.
"Oh, hi there!" she replied, trying to push aside the frustration, "Guess you got to her first, huh?"
She shrugged a bit.
"Are you traveling alone, too?"
Tohru somehow didn't think that would help. But might help was better than not trying at all. His back stiffened at the mention of a heart attack. Oh god, he had been right probably.
Numbness was starting to set into all his extremities, and now his face as well. When Bean came back, he hesitantly accepted her touch, but the ice didn't really help. It was just shockingly cold.
"Uh… well… I was." Kas grabbed onto the tree next to him and managed to drag himself to his feet, although he was still wobbling dangerously. "But a group of people seem to have decided they're keeping me or something as of like… uh… an hour ago tops?" He was still breathing heavily from getting to his feet, and he kept his weight off of his injured leg. "They don't have any real food other than like… fruit snacks… so I figured I should do something about it. I'm supposed to be laying down, and they don't know I'm gone I don't think, so… y'know. Who're you?"
When Bean noticed the ice wasn’t doing much, she started to panic. “Oh god, oh god…” she mumbled. She didn’t know what to do. She tried putting wet washcloths on Tohru’s forehead as she went to get some water for him. She couldn’t call 911, since they were in an apocalypse, so she also went looking for some aspirin.
"Oh, me? I'm Lis. I was traveling with some people for a while, but I uh… I left during the night a few days ago because who wants to spend their dying moments surrounded by world-class assholes, ammirite?" Lisa explained, "Anyhow, you definitely need that deer more than I do. I'll carry it back, and you're supposed to be resting you said- so maybe sneak back in and I'll cover for you? As far as they know, I was just hunting and I'm sharing my kill. I'll scope things out, and if they seem nice, I could always use another group to travel with."
She gave a slight smile.
"If that's all good with you, of course."
The washcloth didn't help, but it at least felt nice on Tohru's hot face.
He pulled the cloth over his eyes and laid down, still curled up in a little ball.
Kas nodded along a bit as Lis spoke, feeling a bit more amiable towards her than usual. He tended to like people who were willing to help in more subtle ways, especially since it wouldn't get him in trouble for being up. "Uh… yeah, sounds good to me. It seems like they like picking up random people they come across, so I'm sure you'll be alright." He stood up straighter and tightened his grip on his bow, trying to not look like he was in pain. "They've got a fair few people with them. There's uh…" He considered for a moment, trying to remember. "Luka, his two sisters… three adult guys, I think, one other teenage girl… some goth kid who's probably younger than ten… that's all I can think of. Pretty sure that's everyone."
(Not Kas only remembering Luka's name 😳👀🥱)
"Gods, a lotta kids, huh?" Lis replied, "They could probably use an extra set of hands then."
"Anyway, you can go on ahead, and I'll carry this doe in."
Lis bent down and hoisted the animal up over her shoulders, grunting as she stood up. It was quite heavy, but she could definitely carry it up to the porch, which would be better than dragging it up through the leaf litter and dirt.
When she finally made it to the porch, she put the deer down on the wood.. That was exhausting, but manageable for sure.
She knocked on the door.
Kas slipped through the door before Lis and stood in the living room for a moment, but went to open the door for her after a moment. "Hey, there's someone here!" He called out to the others, pretending that he had been in the house the whole time.
Luka rushed over to the door. “Who is it?” he asked as Bean sighed. She had no idea what else to do. “I’m sorry I can’t help much…” she whispered to Tohru. She felt terrible for not being able to help as much as she would like.
Kas stepped aside so that Luka could see, leaning against the wall to help his leg not hurt as much. "A woman. I'm gonna head back to the couch. My leg is hurting." He said before wandering back into the living room.
Lis looked at Luka.
"Hey! I was just hunting in the area and looking for a place to stay tonight. I noticed there were a lot of people in and out of this place, so I figured I should share my kill," she said, motioning at the dead deer on the porch.
"May I come in, or are you guys not too keen on having strangers here?"
Tohru shuddered a bit, shaking his head dismissively. It wasn't her fault, after all. Not at all.
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