Chapter Text
The snow beneath his feet was deep, annoyingly so as he trekked further amongst the barren trees, ice frozen to their thick branches and icicles sharp and glistening. John hated the winter, it wasn’t even just a case of being honest. The cold was a brutal mistress, sinking into his skin and dragging claws along his flesh; biting fangs into his exposed cheeks where her sister wind caressed and kissed.
He wasn’t out here per choice - the harvest this year had been wholly unkind and the grains were nearly run through. It would be another month before the thaw would come and relieve them of their frozen hell.
It wouldn’t be enough, even if they rationed.
A few of them had gathered ‘round in the early morning. There were more than a few hunters among them, despite the small size of the village. John was one of the younger fellows of the group, but he wasn’t a stranger to doin’ his part. They’d all set off in different directions, John taking to the northern trail that led up towards the mountains. It was just a matter of finding anything out here, is all.
He’d mostly stuck to the path, eyes searching for tracks that weren’t smoothed over by wind before he’d found a cut in the snow that led off the trail - deer prints. He’d turned back for a moment to face the village in the long distance, plumes of smoke billowing from chimneys amongst the backdrop of fields before making the call. There was no telling just how fresh they were, other than maybe a day's worth if he were unlucky - but a deer could feed them for a few days if it were fat enough.
Be a bit of a bitch to drag back, though.
He’d set off the path with nothing but a hope that that would be the most of his worries, following the zigzagging path as he sunk deeper into the trees, eyes ever searching for a sign of a light brown coat amongst the bark.
It wasn’t until dusk began to set in, the chill burying into his bones with a tremor that he began to lose faith. It would be well into nightfall by the time he made it back to the trail now, and he bloody well had nothin’ to show for it. He curses into the frigid air, watching the hiss of breath catch on the wind before it bleeds into nothing. He’d have to double back then, with nothing to do but keep scout should some unfortunate bastard wander across him - Pray some of the other hunters had managed a catch if he should still be so luckless.
He’s a quarter turned before his ears snag on the faintest of sounds, an echoing crunch of snow nearly lost to the song of a calling owl. A jutting cut of stone stands to his right, a cropping of bare underbrush nestled along its base that obscures his view, but he knows the noise hadn’t traveled from much farther beyond that. As quiet as he can muster, he creeps slowly towards the scrub, drawing an arrow from his quiver and settling the nock snug against the string.
He holds his breath as he peers around the rocks and through entwining twigs, spotting the doe as she paws at the ground, digging for whatever was left of the vegetation beneath. Her eyes don’t catch his movement, but he can see the way her ears twitch in his direction that he was on borrowed time. The angle is bad but he has a fear that a misplaced shuffle would send her to scatter. With a grit of his teeth, there isn’t much left for him to do but take his chances.
He lets out his breath, a shaky thing, eyes down sight as he pulls the bow taut. The doe’s head perks, wide black eyes staring him down unseeing from where he lay amongst the brambles, chewing the deadened grass. He lets her calm, lower her head back to nip against the ground before he releases the arrow. It sails soundlessly, a startling contrast from the thunk of it piercing through skull and the lazy answer of the body dropping, unmoving.
He grins wildly at his triumph as he scrambles to go collect his prize. It was smaller than he had allowed himself to hope for, but coupled with a few other successful hunts they would be steady for a bit. He kneels down beside the doe, taking in the way the eyes peer into the world with no life behind it and allows himself to feel a sort of pity for the poor thing.
“Ye won’t go to waste, pretty girl,” He whispers, brushing a thumb down her snout before yanking the arrow out from below her ear. He doesn’t quite apologize, hard to be sorry when the only other option is starving to death, but he supposes it was still a loss of life - just a different kind.
He makes quick work of binding the doe for carry, night was crawling in fast now, before heaving her as best he could over his shoulders. It was uncomfortable with his quiver and bow squashed against his spine, but he would make do.
He begins the long haul back towards the trail, running calculations through his mind as he hums a folk tune. He’d probably spent the better half of the day hiking from off trail, not to mention the walk back down once he found it. It would be worth the trouble, of course, once the poor deer had been gutted and portioned, but he was still looking at a hell of a stretch - With extra load to boot, not that he wasn’t pleased about that. He’d thank his lucky stars that he kept to staying on the fitter side of things, or else tonight would have been a special kind of hell.
He thinks he’s making good time, the corpse bled of warmth by now but the exercise keeping him from succumbing to the frigid air, when a feeling of wrongness settles somewhere deep in the pit of his belly. The night was unforgiving in the veil of black that had siphoned away the light of the moon, clouds heavy overhead with what John hoped was a storm saved for morning. He hadn’t missed how the winds had picked up to the point of nearly howling, knocking ice from the branches above with the way it rattled them. He’d been keeping his eyes overhead, lest a stray bit make way to cleave his head open, and hadn’t been paying much attention to his other surroundings - but he could feel the way the night was closing in now.
He picked up his pace.
Panting, he listens around him. He was making an awful lot of noise for someone so deep in the woods, alone, and try as he might to calm fear that was clamping down on him he couldn’t shake the feeling of something. He couldn’t go much faster.
The resounding crack that reverberates behind him makes him still, heaving as he stares wide eyed beyond him. There’s another crack, a rustle of deadened twigs and he free’s a hand to grasp at the hilt of his hunting knife, the deer sagging awkwardly down his back. Slowly, carefully, he turns - begging the night to be kind enough the sight to see anything beyond a few feet in front of him.
The night is not his ally as he searches, too dark and too many shadows stretching across the earth to find whatever had made that noise. A sound to his left makes him twist, the brush too dense to see properly but he holds the knife steady in front of him. It had to be a hell of a beast to be making that kind of racket.
He makes a show of taking a slow step backwards, and then another, his heart thundering in his chest, thudding in his ears. He’s about to take another, hightail the hell out of there when a yowl holds him still.
He can see it out of the corner of his peripheral now, the slinking mass that steps from between the trees. He tilts his head towards it, the mountain lion that stalks low to the ground, teeth bared and eyes challenging. It yowls again, a warning maybe.
“Bloody fuckin’ hell,” He curses, voice low. How long had the damn thing been stalking him, the blood dried now but the scent surely clinging to them as he had spent all his damn time worryin’ about ice? The bastard was absolutely massive.
It’d be a loss, but he’d have to toss the deer - hope the corpse was enough to sate the beast while he made a booking for it. The snow was thicker here, but hopefully a peace offering would be enough. Slowly, he shucks the ropes, laying the deer down gently behind him. The mountain lion doesn’t even take its eyes off him, stalking closer even as he fumbles to keep out of reach.
“Aight ye fuckin’ cunt,” He murmurs, adjusting the hold on his knife. “Dinnae have to even work for it, now did ye? Piss right off then.”
He jerks his head towards the doe, but the lion shows no interest in an easy meal.
“Git oan wae it,” he whines, baring his own teeth as the lion lets out an angry, drawn out wail, swiping at him and nearly catching his thigh. He thrashes his knife out, swinging wildly in an attempt to deter the damn beast but the movement only makes it angrier. It keeps him in a close game of cat and mouse, swatting and stalking as he blindly backs away. He keeps the knife between them, though he doesn’t know how much good it will do against the damn thing.
He’s caught between a curse and a prayer when the back of his heel catches on a fallen branch. Wildly, he looks away to jerk his boot from the jagged limb - which is enough of a distraction that he can do little to redirect the claws that sink across his ribs, tearing deep along the bone and through the tender flesh of his belly. He cries out and gives under the weight of the beast moving in, wrist smacking painfully against the trunk of a tree and sending the hunting knife from his grasp.
He fumbles blindly for it as his other hand pushes away the jaw that snaps and froths, pain a secondary concern even as he feels the blood seep its sticky warmth into the greedy, hungry linen that covers him under his winter pelt. Adrenaline keeps him fighting, but somewhere outside of himself, the part that is wholly human and mortal, he knows he’s dying. Knows that he’s too far from home with too much blood to bleed. Knows that the storm in the morning will keep any eyes blind from seeing that he doesn’t return, and by the time someone does notice, his tracks will be buried and lost.
John is aware he’s dying, but he knows he won't go out anything less than as though he was coming out of it alive.
He gives up on the damn knife, bringing a fist to knock mercilessly against the eye socket of the animal. It howls in its anger, twisting its head about as though it can't decide whether to shake off the blow or bite at the fist that rears back again to hammer down against its snout. The hit snaps its jaws with a clack, and John brings up his knee to dig into the flesh of its rib cage.
He tries to pry the bastard back, really he does, but he’s losing far too much blood far too quickly to keep much strength behind it. His heartbeat is a rapid, throbbing sound deep in his skull and he knows his panic, for all its push behind his fight, is just feeding into the wound. Black, darker than the shadows of the night, is beginning to creep along the corners of his sight, spotting in and out.
The lion writhes against where he barely holds it at bay, his strength ebbing with each flicker of his vision. The jaws lunge for him, inching close enough that he can only breathe in its rancid breath.
He knows his fight is nearly done. It was only a matter of when.
His arms tremble from exertion and his kicks are too little to even affect the lion now. In a strangely calm train of thought, John wonders if it would truly even hurt to give in. There would be no peace for his final moments, not so long as this beast still wanted him. He wonders if it would be worth it to spend the last of his life in struggle.
John feels his eyes close without much thought as to why, and feels his arms sag against the weight he had been trying so desperately to fight.
There's an agonizing stretch of time, between the last of his strength giving away and the wait for teeth to sink in and tear his skin.
But he waits.
The sound that causes John's eyes to flutter back open in fuzzy confusion is akin to the heavy hand of a butcher's cleaver, a sickening thud of meat and marrow. He can't see much beyond a face full of jagged teeth, but he feels a new soak of warmth along his shoulder.
His mind is dull, slow and stumbling as the releasing squelch echoes high into the tree tops. The heavy weight he had been fighting not moments ago seems to double as the lion topples on top of him, head lolling to the side and giving John an eyeful of its thick neck nearly halved from its body.
A boot thuds heavily into the lion's ribs, kicking the rotten bastard over until its lifeless corpse rolls off of him.
John feels strangely cold without it.
He follows the boot up a seemingly endless expanse of leg, over the broad chest of a hulk more giant than man. It's not a face that peers down at him, not one made of flesh anyway but rather bone. The piercing white of the front of a skull, the rest hidden under black cloth.
John has heard legends before, of the grim reaper coming to collect his dues when a poor sod like himself is at death's door. But for all the tales, he doesn't think he's ever quite heard one where the reaper had traded his scythe for an axe and was built thicker than an ox. A small trivial detail, but at least they had gotten the imposing part right.
The reaper makes no movement, doesn't utter a sound. In his hazy mind he supposes it makes sense. There isn't a job to do until he's dead.
"Dun suppose you'd be willin' to overlook this one, aye?" He slurs, or he tries to, unsticking his tongue from the roof of his mouth and floundering around the words.
He doesn't get a reply, but through lids that fight to both open and close, he knows the giant had bent down. He feels more than watches as his pelt is peeled away from his skin, not having the energy to even wince at the prickle of pain as the blood unsticks from the tender wound.
"Guess not," he murmurs.
When his eyes slip close for the final time, his last sight is of two dark eyes peering down at him. His thinks about how strange it was that a reaper should be gifted with one's so pretty.
He remembers nothing after that.
-
‘It’s blistering hot’ is John’s first coherent thought, a stark contrast to the muddled flurry of vague concepts that hang on the fringe of both dreams and nightmares.
A heavy weight presses down all around him, a stifling maze as he tries and fails to push off the wretched trap he’s become entangled in. His forehead is sticky with sweat as he struggles to pry his arm free to swipe at it, hand a kindling against the fire of his skin. ‘A fever,’ he notes amongst the delirium, arm flopping back down beside him.
It’s the last thought before he’s lost again, clinging to the back of his mind as he wades through visions of lions and reapers and axes and does.
-
He dreams of spring. Of waking to the interior of his cabin that lays on the fringe of the village before it bleeds to him underneath the radiant sun, warm against his skin as he tends the soil of Price’s farm. He dreams of sweat gathering at the base of his neck, the dirt clinging to his hands but when he goes to wipe the grit from his palms he finds them stripped of skin and muscle, bone yellowed and cracked with age.
The alarm that rattles through him turns to confusion as Price’s voice calls from the barn, however when he twists where he stands he finds not Price, but another. A ghastly form that changes and molds even under the weight of his stare; A being more wisp than man.
But even as it shifts, one part remains - a skull without jaw, eyes sunken deep within its sockets. It moves, caught between a transition of close and far and lingering in the middle distance, as though its existence were a flickering flame, lost from its wick and fleeing to find a place to catch.
Somehow, the place it decides to ignite and burn settles just beyond John's grasp. He stumbles, reaches for it without intention but it flickers away again, his fingertips grazing smoke. It disappears so quickly John would think it a ghost.
It doesn’t come back.
-
When he comes to again, it's to soft shadows flickering against the walls, a fireplace dim where a log cackles and burns. A howl of wind batters against the simple, single room cabin and through the iced over windows, John can barely make out the furious gale of ice and snow that churns just beyond it. His body feels heavy and damp, the lingering remains of sweat sticking the furs laid upon him to his skin. The room is empty save for the organized clutter that lines the walls, homely and strange all at once.
John is alone.
He kicks back the furs in an attempt to rid himself of the blasted heat that is choking him. The movement reminds him of many things, namely the injury that takes up much of his torso and he chokes as he feels the cuts shift and split as he tries to sit up. He doesn’t make it far before his resolve sputters out, flopping back against the meager pillow out of breath.
As the pain subsides, he looks down to where the makeshift bandages wrap around most of his bare belly and chest, the cloth stained with dried blood nearly black in the meager light of the room. He would need new ones if he had splintered open the scabs, which he was sure was the most likely outcome to his useless fidgeting.
His face feels hot to the touch as he runs his fingers across it, and he sluggishly recalls the fever. It hadn’t quite broken yet, if the ache in his joints was anything to go by, but he knew it was well on its way out.
He scratches over the stubble of his chin as his eyes flicker around the room, taking in the various objects, the fur pelt on the floor as a makeshift rug. By the door he spots his quiver and bow, although the wood is splintered and halved. He mourns the loss but reckons he could maybe find a way to salvage it.
He finally catches the sight of a waterskin graciously left by the bedside, reminding him of the way his tongue sticks to the roof of his mouth, uncomfortable and dry. It’s a struggle to reach it, and even worse to find a position where most of it doesn’t end up on the bed but he manages, drinking greedily until the pouch is empty and limp.
He places it back as carefully as he can manage, hoping the owner won’t mind, before he settles back down with a sigh. He can’t begin to imagine where he is, or where the keeper of the cabin could even be with the rage that thrashes about outside. He vaguely recalls his earlier delusions, and wonders if it was the man who had kept him or if he had brought him to the shelter of another. As John’s consciousness begins to ebb and flow away from him again, he reckons he’ll owe him his thanks either way.
-
When he awakens for the third time, John realizes he isn’t alone this time.
The storm still bats against the window, but it had calmed considerably into a light squall, nothing at all like it had been the last time he had awoken. A rustle of movement jostles on the fringe of his peripheral and he lulls his head to catch it, quietly taking in the man that sits on the rug, slicing a hunk of meat into smaller portions and adding them methodically into a pot on the floor.
He doesn’t acknowledge John, whether because he thinks he’s not awake or because he doesn’t care. He’s fully dedicated to his task at hand, and John takes the time to take him in.
Strangely, he’s still wearing the skull, the rest of his head wrapped in black cloth, hiding his features. The only thing left uncovered about him at all really are his eyes and the hands that are at work, and John only knows about his eyes because he had seen them before. Right now they are hidden deep within the sockets of the mask, turned away from him.
John’s mouth feels like it’s full of cotton again, and he glances to find the waterskin still placed by the bedside, although it had seemingly come to be full and plump again. His eyes flick between it and his host, not wanting to disrupt the man or potentially startle him. If he’s being honest, he doesn’t right know what kind of situation he’s in, although he can bargain with himself that the fellow probably didn’t save him just to axe him the moment he woke up.
He clears his throat, a timid trade with himself, and watches as the man's hands still for only a moment before they go back to work, the only acknowledgment that he had heard John at all. He clears his throat again, unsticking his tongue and attempting once again to sit up. He grits his teeth, wincing at the pull of his wounds, but manages to make his way up with only a bit of struggle, huffing as he settles his back against the crude wall behind him.
When he looks over again the man has stopped his cooking, eyes indecipherable, assessing John and seemingly had been since his struggle had started. John smiles sheepishly at him, grunting as he reaches for the waterskin and awkwardly raising it in a sense of cheers. The man simply turns away from him again.
John drinks, grateful for the cool water as it slides down his parched throat. In his eagerness to down the drink, a rivulet escapes the corner of his mouth, beading on his chin. He swipes at it before capping the pouch again, and sets it back on the floor beside him before turning back towards his silent companion.
Conversation wasn’t John’s strongest quality, or so he’d been told anyway. Usually just sayin’ whatever the hell was on his mind whenever it came to it. He’d never had much tact, and he didn’t really believe in startin’ now. With the man offering nothing in his place, John didn’t have much choice but to fill the empty space.
“Dae ye hiv a name?” He asks. He has enough shame to know that it’s probably not the best way to start, but if he was gonna thank him, he wanted to do it properly.
The mask tilts slightly in his direction, but not enough that John can see beyond the black inside of it. He doesn’t know why he had hoped for something different, but he isn’t deigned with a response. It’s a bit rude, actually.
When enough time passes that the room has settled a little too awkwardly, John tries again.
“Ye do have a name?” He questions, drawing out the syllables slowly. Maybe the man didn’t speak his language, or heaven maybe he was mute. John couldn’t be sure when the man made no indication of anything else.
Still, silence only greets him after he speaks, and John winces at the communication barrier. It would make things difficult, sure, but he’d just have to manage. Either way, even if the man didn’t understand him or whatever that barrier was, John was raised better than to quit now.
“Aight, well. Either way ye have my thanks. I was a right goner til ye turned up,” He laughs lightly to ease some of the tension out of the air, and subsequently his chest as the man turns fully to look at him. His eyes give nothing away, the stare sharp enough to cut with how deeply they pierce into John. He doesn’t know what it means, can only stare back with an awkward small smile, hoping to convey that he appreciated the help more than he was thrown by gaze.
After a long moment, the man turns away with a grunt, the only tell that he had understood John at all.
John counted his victories where he could, and watched him as he hefted the pot onto a rod over the fire, setting the meal to cook while they settled back into silence. With nothing to do and no conversation to sate him, John let his mind wander around the mystery of the man. He had so many questions to voice, with really no hope that he’d ever get a response to them. The main thing that tugged at him was the whole name situation. He needed something to call him.
He tosses a number of ideas to the side as the soup begins to boil, its aroma wafting through the air and filling the cabin. He feels his stomach grumble and sheepishly doesn’t meet the eyes that turn his way again. It had been god knows how long since he’d had a meal to eat, and he wasn’t about to assume that any of the pot had his name on it. He’d already taken the man's only bed, dirtied his cloth, and drank his water. Despite the wound, John didn’t want to overstay his welcome, and didn’t even expect that he was welcome.
His thoughts turn to how he was gonna go about getting home. It’d be a bitch, but he figured if the storm let up sometime in the morning he’d be able to set off. He’d at the least make it by nightfall, depending on how far away the cabin was from the village. Then he’d go about getting stitched up by the doc, and hopefully be in good enough shape come Spring to help Price with the farm like he did every year. It had become routine for them, and he knew how much Price depended on him.
He’s so lost in thought, tossing between names and thoughts of the village, that he doesn’t notice when the soup is done. It’s only when a bowl of it is thrust under his nose that he jolts, looking between the meal and the eyes of the man that holds it out to him, confused. When he doesn’t take it right away, he watches as the eyes tighten in annoyance, shaking the bowl in front of him as if to say “Are you gonna take it?”
John scrambles to gingerly wrap his hands around the bowl, not missing the way the hand retracts violently from where his fingers had grazed it. He goes to smile at the man in apology, but finds him already going about ladling his own portion before settling back on the rug with his back turned to John.
“Aye, thanks,” He murmurs instead, helping himself slowly and blowing across the steaming bowl in an effort to cool it faster. He burns his tongue when he makes to sip the broth anyway, but can’t be damned enough to wait. As he gingerly brings the spoon to his mouth, his eyes flicker to where the man sits, the partial skull sitting at his side while he hunches over. John can tell from the way the cloth is situated that at least part of his face is free, and he can’t help but wonder why he doesn’t just take it off.
He sighs before his mouth can spout off any more nonsense and leaves the man well enough alone. It was none of John’s business anyway.
After the meal, the man leaves again without so much as a word. As the door shuts behind him, catching on a whistle of wind before it closes, John wonders if this was a habit of his - always coming and going despite a stranger lingering behind in his cabin. As though he were haunting the place instead of actually living in it.
‘Like a ghost,’ he thinks, before a small smile stretches across his lips. That would make a perfect name for him.
Ghost.
-
As Ghost disappears, John sleeps, his body needing the rest as it went about working through his healing. He would need it if he were expecting to make the trip back home once the storm petered out. He isn’t roused again until the soft shut of a door alerts him to one of Ghost’s returns, hauling in a bundle of firewood that he dumps unceremoniously on the floor next to the fireplace, sending it to scatter.
“Welcome back,” He mutters groggily, rubbing at the crust sticking to the corners of his eyes and yawning.
Ghost looks at him briefly, but doesn’t say anything before flopping back onto the floor, pulling a knife from somewhere under a black, makeshift cape that still had snow clinging to its cloth, melting rapidly now in the heat of the cabin. He pulls the smallest and shortest log to him, and sets to work stripping it of its bark, flicking the pieces into the fire as he goes.
John watches him work and notes how methodical his movements always seem to be. Precise, as though he had done each action a thousand times. It’s strangely calming to witness his process, and with sleep still clinging to the back of his mind, John nearly gives in to the sound of the knife whittling through the wood. From the rough shape of it, he can’t tell quite what the man is carving just yet, but he’d never done the craft himself and couldn’t help but be a little curious.
If he cares that John is watching, he doesn’t make a show of it, carving each strip and tossing the slivers away before going back to it, over and over again until a rough shape begins to take form. John can’t help but think he would have sliced off his thumb by now, with how clumsy he tended to be with smaller, more delicate things like this. His hands weren’t made for the finer craft of things, but somehow Ghost’s were, despite how much larger they looked than John’s. He wondered if Ghost would mind teaching him before he shook his head of the idea. He had done him enough favors.
He turns from Ghost to look out the window. Night had fallen long before John had woken, and he was lost to the time of things as it were, but now that John was awake again he was presented with a new problem.
He needed to fuckin’ piss.
Moving was already difficult, and he hadn’t made sight of what had necessarily happened to his clothes, stripped of everything except his undergarments. He does a cursory look around the room in search of them, but finds not a hint of familiar cloth in any of the corners. He sits up with a groan as his wounds sting and curse him for his movement, noting how the sound of stripping wood halts just long enough until he gets his bearings.
When he looks over at Ghost, he is back to his task like he had never even stopped, but his face is turned away from him again. John pulls the furs close and over his lap, as though to hide even a sliver of his modesty. “Aight well, what have ye done with my clothes?” He asks, hoping he doesn’t come across as impolite.
Ghost looks over at him then, pointedly dropping his gaze to where the bandages wrap around his chest, before looking up at him with a blank stare. John doesn’t know if he’s asking him to clarify or if he doesn’t even understand what he’s asking.
“Need ta piss, and I ain’t goin’ out there like this,” He says sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck and jutting his chin back to where the window sits frozen over, frost and the shadow of night hiding anything outside from view.
Ghost makes a grunt of acknowledgement, understanding maybe, and jerks his head towards a lone chamberpot in the corner of the room, hidden deep into the shadows where the firelight barely has the strength to reach. John feels a swell of embarrassment at the prospect of what the other is asking him to do, and shakes his head.
“Think I’ll take my chances with the snow, mate.” He mutters sheepishly.
Ghost huffs, and from the quick shine of his eyes John thinks he had maybe rolled them at him before his hulking form is uncurling from the fire, standing up and looking down at John pointedly, annoyed, before he stomps across the room. He unsticks the door - a flurry of snowflakes engulfing him, wind whipping in like greedy hands seeking to steal whatever warmth the meager fire had gifted them - before slamming the door shut behind him, gone.
John sits still for a moment, running a hand across the stiff muscles of his neck and wincing as a particularly loud howl whistles through the silence of the cabin. He hadn’t bloody told the bugger to fuck off, now had he? But what was done was done and John wasn’t a fuckin’ mind reader. No tellin’ when the giant would come lumbering back in.
It’s a struggle to stand, his legs wobbly from disuse and the action leaving him breathless, but he manages to stumble across the room, taking extra steps to avoid the knife and project that lay in his path. He makes quick use of the chamberpot, wrinkling his nose at the way the sound fills the room. It was still awkward, even without Ghost at his back, and there was still the mystery of what had happened to his clothes. With nothing but his undergarments he felt right bloody fuckin’ naked. He was well enough now that there wasn’t an excuse for it, no matter how many furs and pelts were piled on the bed. As a secondary thought, he’d also need to change the bandages now that he was well enough to tolerate it, although he didn’t know if he was in any predicament to be making demands.
John finishes up, steps over the abandoned log and settles back into the bed again. He waits for the Ghost to return, which isn’t much longer after he’s sat, and as he receives a narrow look for his privacy, he raises his head defiantly.
“Thank ye,” He starts, unapologetic even as he fiddles with the heavy fur across his lap. “If you don't mind, I would still like my clothes. And I should probably change out the bandages, if ye have more cloth.”
Ghost makes a motion with his hand that John doesn’t know how to decipher, and at his blank look Ghost rolls his eyes again. He looks away for a moment, like he’s trying to decide on something, before he finally seems to give in to whatever internal battle he had been fighting.
“They were…unsalvageable.”
The words come out stilted, as though he hadn’t spoken in a long time. His accent is thick, his voice gritty and deep, but John can’t help but think it fits him.
Despite his internal cheer that he had finally managed to make the giant talk, John is soft with his reply.
“Aye,” he nods after a moment, not wanting to make a big deal of the new dynamic that had shifted between them, potentially scaring him off. He fiddles with the fur again for a moment, stroking the fine hairs delicately before asking again. “N’ the bandages?”
Ghost is silent again for a moment, not meeting John's eyes before there's a slight dip in his head, turning back towards a set of crudely carved drawers and rifling through them before producing a linen sheet. He sets back on the floor, wiping the knife from earlier across his pant leg on either side before setting to work cutting the cloth into long strips. They sit in silence as he works, John holding his tongue that he could do it himself, before he finishes slicing through the old cloth. His eyes glance up at where John sits, lingering on his dirtied bandages.
John takes that as his queue to remove them, wincing as he struggles to unwind them from where they’re fastened. It takes him longer than it should, pausing as the last of them stick uncomfortably to the scabs that adorn him. It’s his first look at the damage as he pulls the last of it away, and the sight is about as gruesome as he expected it to be.
The wounds are deep and long, scabs dark and lined with angry, inflamed red skin and dried blood. Thankfully infection hadn’t seemed to set in, or at least he didn’t think it had, it was hard to tell by how thick the dried blood was. He needs to wash the remaining filth off, and he looks to Ghost in silent question, one he seems to understand.
He tosses a strip to him, tilting his chin towards the waterskin at his bedside. John takes the hint and makes work of pouring the water slowly, allowing the cloth to soak in most of the water without dribbling too much onto the fur below. With the cloth properly damp, he makes work of cleaning the best he can, grinding his teeth when the cloth catches and snags gingerly on the wound.
When he’s finished, he tosses the newly bloodied scraps with the old ones, looking back at Ghost expectantly for the new bandages.
Ghost doesn’t hand them over, instead crawling over til he’s in John’s space. He’s confused by his intentions, if he’s being honest. John had thought he had demonstrated well enough that he could manage the task on his own, but as Ghost settles down in front of him, John doesn’t know what to make of the expression in his eyes.
They glance up from his chest briefly, as if to ask him a question that John only barely understands. He raises his arms slightly, hesitantly, and Ghost nods before he begins to wrap the strips around his torso.
He’s surprisingly gentle about it, although he wraps them a bit snugger than what John could have managed. His head hangs low, obscuring his eyes as he works. John notes how deft his hands are, never grazing even the slightest bit of skin, keeping a distance even at the intimacy of the task. It wouldn’t be the first time John had noticed that he didn’t like to touch or be touched, but it did bring a sense of resolve that that would be a boundary that he had set.
John keeps his arms hanging awkwardly until the last of the strips are applied, the final edge being tucked soundly into one of the other bandages. As Ghost pulls away from him, it's with a disguised sort of haste that John wasn’t sure he would have noticed if he wasn’t expecting it.
Before he can say anything, he watches as Ghost rifles through the drawers again. It takes him a moment to find what exactly he was looking for, but as it passes he produces a shirt, old and sewn in patches where it had fallen apart. He holds the cloth for an intimate amount of time, another decision, before he turns and tosses it his way. John snags it from the air, wincing as it tweaks his injury uncomfortably, but he puts it on all the same, reveling in his newfound sense of decency. It strangely fits, despite their difference in size, but he figures perhaps Ghost had just outgrown it.
“Thank you,” He says for what feels like the hundredth time, hoping his appreciation is enough for such an obviously uncomfortable act for the man. Ghost doesn’t go about giving him any sort of response again, just settles down against the rug and picks up the knife to go back to his whittling.
Knowing now that he can talk, John feels an insatiable want to hear him speak again. He knows that it probably isn’t something the other wants nor will really indulge in, but John has never been much of a quitter in his lifetime.
“What’re ye makin’?” He questions into the awkward air, trying to find some semblance of balance between their apparent different wants. He figures either Ghost will answer, or he won’t, and John will just have to live with whatever the man decides.
And Ghost doesn’t answer, not for a long while as his movements come slower now, more careful. They sit in their tiny silence for about as long as he can stand, before Ghost finally gives him one of his stilted replies.
“A spoon,” He rumbles, shucking a chip into the fire that gobbles up the shaving hungrily.
When John doesn’t reply right away, not knowing quite what to say, he clarifies.
“There’s only one.”
John recalls the last meal they had shared, and is reminded vividly that he had seemingly been gifted the utensil. He nods, taking in yet another act of kindness that was such a stark contrast to the way the man presented himself. John didn’t know what to make of the contradiction or the revelation besides a quiet, “Ah.”
They fall back into their quiet companionship and John falters to find another topic to broach. He supposes he’s bothered the man enough, clearly uncomfortable with their transitional dance if the way his shoulders lay hunched and tense is anything to go by, but John is too awake to fall back asleep now.
He knows he’ll probably be gone in the morning. Ghost had done enough for him after all, and he didn’t even know how to go about setting their dues even. The man clearly enjoyed his solitude, had to know of the village if they were situated so close together, but John reckons he would remember such a strange person as Ghost if he had ever decided to visit. He doesn’t know how he had accumulated all his various items, but that would just have to be one of his many mysteries.
He considers asking Ghost if there was anything he needed, anything at all that John had the means of gifting him for his kindness. As he studies the room again, he can tell the various odds and ends are homemade, staggered between other crafts that John wasn’t sure he had the tools out here for. He wants to ask, but he tempers down his curiosity if only for the sake of not angering his host.
As he runs his fingers along the fur blanket again, he’s reminded about Mrs. Price, and how long ago she had given him a quilt after his first year helping her husband tend the farm. It had been an act of thanks, in a time where money had been tight for the village and there was little they could pay him for his work. He hadn’t accepted the pitiful amount of coin, but she hadn’t let him refute the blanket. He thinks about where it lays across his bed at home, and wonders if he could convince her to make another. It would take time, and there was no telling if Ghost would accept it, but it was one of the few proper things he could then hold in his possession if he did.
As though he can hear John’s thoughts churning about him, the whittling stops as Ghost glances over at him again. Perhaps he had expected him to go back to sleep after they had changed over his bandages, or perhaps he was just surprised John could stay quiet for so long without being comatose. Either way John shrugs his shoulders lightly, drumming his fingers against his knee.
“Just thinkin’ is all. Wanted to know if ye needed anything,” it's a bare bones response, and it's one that leaves Ghost staring at him again as if John had just spout absolute nonsense. John fumbles under the gaze, wondering if maybe he had.
“Ya know, as thanks.”
“No,” Comes an automatic answer, and John is surprised at how readily available the reply had been. It throws him through a new loop, the way the word is nearly spat as if the thought was insulting. John can’t read Ghost nearly well enough to understand why reciprocating the generosity would cause the reaction it had, but he knows well enough to lift his hands in gentle surrender, allowing the man his refusal.
It didn’t mean John wouldn’t find a way. Ghost hadn’t known him long enough to be able to gauge the stubborn streak that John had carted with him all his life. Stubborn to a fault, as his mother would say. As bull-headed as his father had been. Ghost could fight him tooth and nail, but John knew he’d repay his dues in time all the same, whether Ghost liked it or not.
-
John was beginning to wonder if the man ever slept. He himself had gotten enough rest it would seem, because as morning began with deep red skies dotted with wispy gray clouds, he still couldn’t seem to find the fatigue to sleep, and Ghost had made no attempt after finishing carving the simple spoon. He was still at work, sanding it now, and John didn’t know how he wasn’t right fuckin’ exhausted.
Not that John hadn’t been taking up his bed from the moment he had arrived. If he were being honest he felt a little bad about it. Appreciated it all the same, grateful for the rest and care his body had desperately needed, but if the man didn’t get rest soon John wouldn’t know how to begin taking care of him.
He shuffles the blankets to the side and sits with his legs folded on the edge of bed. With the sun rising, it would be about time for him to move on anyway. He gets up slowly, careful of the way his injuries shift under the bandages, but the scabs weren’t as stiff as they had been the day prior, so he counts the win even as the pain coaxes the wind out of his lungs. He allows himself a greedy breath of air, steadying his hand along the wall before righting himself. Ghost is looking at him again in question, his hands poised mid task like he was waiting for direction.
John looks to the window, a little brighter now, and then back at Ghost. He smiles in a way that he hopes is convincing.
“I should be setting out, if I want to get back to the village by sundown. I -”
“No,” Ghost says simply. He sets the spoon down lightly before standing himself. Imposing in a way that he shouldn’t be, only having about two inches or so on John. He looks down at him, eyes narrowed again in that way of his that John doesn’t know how to decipher, but still John holds his ground. It would be unreasonable for him to stay any longer, they both had to know that. Not only that but John couldn’t be sure the man had gotten a decent night's sleep since he’d carried him here.
“I’m right enough now that I can make it back,” John argues, folding his arms across his chest. A shield between them, despite Ghost having not moved from the rug.
“You can barely stand,” Ghost scoffs, turning away from him then to take his own glance out the window, assessing, judging by the way his eyes linger.
“I’m fine,” He bites back, cross at the way that sure, Ghost was right. It’d been a bitch to get even this far. But he was made of sterner stuff, as Price would say. The cold would numb him through until he couldn’t feel anything and then he’d be right as rain.
It was a shoddy plan, fine, but he knew he could do it.
“Lay back down,” Ghost orders, feeding him that goddamn look again, and John feels just about as bull-headed as everyone says he is. He frowns and raises up his chin, a little bit cocky considering the man could easily take him down a peg if he really wanted, but he would stand his ground on this.
“Ya can walk me if you must but ’m going -”
“There’s another storm,” he drawls out, annoyed. After a moment's consideration, he continues, “And I'm not dragging you anywhere. Lay down.”
John feels his nose flare with the breath he huffs out, being ordered about like a damned dog. He notes, somewhere briefly despite his anger, that that was the longest sentence Ghost had ever spoken to him, but his ire is an all consuming thing.
He points to the window, nearly clear skies peaking above the frost of the glass and he knows they both know it.
“The storm’s past. It’s -”
Ghost grumbles somewhere low in his throat, eyes ablaze with barely contained emotion as he stalks across the room. He leans in close enough that for the first time, John can tell that his eyes are a deep brown. Close enough that his breath would caress his face if the mask weren’t always fixed in place. It startles John into a quiet thing, muting the buzz of anger long enough that shock could settle in its place. Ghost doesn’t touch him, but it’s only by inches.
“There’s. Another. Storm.” He enunciates slowly, voice deep and gritty and truly such a raw thing. John wonders if it pains him, having to speak so much to him when he clearly doesn’t share company all that often. Enough so anyway that his first reaction to John at all was not to speak, but to instead ignore him.
“I dinnae understand,” He argues still, softer now that his anger had been whisked away to somewhere else. Ghost lifts his head, eyes heavenward as if praying for a moment, before his hand whips out to grab the scruff of his neck, fingers curling deep into the shirt as he stalks them both over to the window. Despite the aggression of his actions, he’s still mindful it would seem as John stumbles and winces, placing a hand to his abdomen as if it would keep his wound from spreading. He takes them slowly, and John doesn’t fight him, his only choice being to follow.
He lets go of John as they get to the window, pointedly turning his head in the direction he wants John to look. John tilts his own along the glass, looking out to the right and finding nothing but twisting tree branches and -
Dark gray clouds, heavy and practically black in the early morning. A storm front.
John closes his eyes and rests his forehead against the frigid glass. Ghost seems to get the hint that no, he wasn’t going to argue anymore about returning back to the village, and disappears from his side, seemingly sated.
John stands there until the chill nearly freezes his skin to the window, before mumbling out a quiet, “M’ sorry.”
He stays in place, not sure Ghost had heard him, before an equally quiet voice calls back to him.
“Get some rest,” Is all he says, and John shifts to look at him, surprised that that of all things would be his response. He had expected, if he was being truthful, anything other than the soft reply. It was as though he had never even been angry in the first place.
Ghost’s back is curved away from him where he’s sat in front of the fire again, the sound of sanding filling the room as he goes back to work. John stays at the window, reminded of his earlier assessment of Ghost’s pitiful sleeping habits, and makes a decision.
“Why don’t ye,” At the sound of the sanding halting abruptly, John clarifies. “Get some rest, that is.”
When Ghost doesn’t move, doesn’t reply, John continues. “Well I've been taking up the bed, haven’t seen you rest since I got here.”
When he still isn’t graced with a response, John considers that maybe he had come to a different conclusion to his offer, and sighs. “I won’t go anywhere, ‘m just not tired is all.”
Ghost sits up a little bit straighter, mulling over the words, maybe. John can’t be sure of much of anything considering the man. He had been an enigma since he’d gotten here, and John wasn’t much sure if he would ever begin to make sense.
Finally Ghost twists from where he’s sitting, fixing him with one of his long stares, before gesturing slowly back towards the bed.
“Get some rest,” He says again, and that's the last thing he seems to have for him before he turns his back on John again.
John sighs but does as he says, walking back over to the bed and shuffling the furs back before crawling in. In the quiet of the room, nothing but the cackling of fire and the soft scrape of bulrush against wood, John thinks he can hear the distant howl of wind through the trees.