Tiberius had decided to ignore my threat and rode off anyways. He wasn't too far away yet - Tony and I were able to get just close enough for me to touch his horse.
Look. I didn't want to possess the horse. But it wasn't like I could reach Tiberius; Tony could only go so far so fast. So when some of the horse's hair went flying up right near my hand, I grabbed onto it and switched.
I skid to a halt.
...Possessing an animal was weird, but it was thankfully more like possessing an inanimate object. There was a little bit of resistance, but I had the stronger will.
There was one little flaw in my plan: Tony didn't get the memo.
When my body went limp on top of her, she panicked. I wasn't sure how to describe a horse panicking, but whatever she did was definitely it.
James nearly fell off of Elliot as his horse came to a sudden stop. He grabbed Elliot’s neck as his upper body flew forward to steady himself and watched as Tony slowed and started trotting around and away with a nervous skip in her step.
Skull’s body was limp. He’d really done it. He’d possessed Elliot.
James groaned as he sat back up. He’d practically hit Elliot’s neck, and it hurt.
Tiberius might have been angry at me for possessing his horse, but I was a little more occupied by how freaked out Tony was. My body had practically slid off of her at this point - along with the blankets - and I didn't know if she planned on calming down any time soon.
Plus, she was getting too far away for me to touch my body. She had turned around and was heading back towards the clearing in her distress; if I wanted to get back into my body, I'd have to possess her and then my body because my body was dangling on the other side of her.
Now I was starting to panic, too, even though I'd never admit it. I didn't want my body to get killed while I was somewhere else. Then I'd be stuck as a horse until I could find something else to possess, and getting killed because I decided to possess a horse really hadn't been how I planned to go for the last time.
I really should have seen what was coming.
Magic relied on emotions, and my emotions were strong at that moment. I couldn't possess the ground, so the only other thing left for me to possess was Tiberius.
A second later, everything hurt.
I curled over in pain, which apparently was not a good thing to do when you're on the back of a horse. I - or Tiberius; I couldn't really tell who had the most control in that quick moment - went tumbling off of the horse's back, hitting the ground with a pain somehow even worse than what was already there.
James wasn’t sure what overtook him. He felt like all this time, he’d been managing. He was managing the pain, and he was suppressing his emotions. He’d passed out once in a dead man’s arms and vowed to himself to never let his guard down like that again. But this was different. It was everything unfiltered, but something didn’t feel right.
As he hit the ground he tried to force himself to his feet. Competence was something he had to fight for. Strength, a constant push.
But as he tried to reach out with his arms and curl upward, it was as if his muscles had been seized by something else.
No. Someone else.
Anger burned in his chest and he fought to take control of his hands. Of his mouth. His tongue.
“Ssssssskull!” he growled again through his teeth, his hands trembling as he slowly curved his fingers into tense arches, practically matching his curled up frame on the ground.
I was in pain, wet, and dirty. The last two things didn't bother me, but the first one definitely was not something I wanted to experience. As Tiberius struggled to wrench back control from me, I struggled to stand up. I knew he hated ever ounce of control I had over him right now, but did he really think I wanted to be stuck in his body when he was so injured? I regularly left mine to get away from the pain of injuries.
"I didn't want to control you," I hissed - struggling to get each word out. "I just wanted to possess your horse."
It felt so wrong to feel someone else’s words coming out of his mouth with his voice. Fortunately, Skull and James had the same motive in mind - to get Skull out of his body as soon as possible. So he cooperated in getting up to his feet, but he still fought back viciously for control. He would not let Skull use him, even if it was an accident.
“Looks like-“ he sputtered. “You made. A mistake.”
"I did," I said, yanking back control from him. I had no idea how he was able to constantly being in so much pain - I could only get through it because I knew I had my actual body a short distance away.
I started to head back over it, still fighting against Tiberius's need for control.
James willingly went in the direction of Skull’s body, but he hated with every fibre of his being that he did not have control of his own limbs. His own body. His own mouth. Though his movements were not his own, his blood boiled, and his heart started pounding. He wanted control back. He wanted this to be over.
He focused his will on his mouth so he could speak.
"I'm working on it," I hissed, irritation seeping into my voice as I approached Tony. She wasn't panicking as much now. I still didn't know if she could tell when I was possessing someone, but the way I was approaching her must have been calming.
I touched my body.
I didn't bother trying to push it back up onto Tony. I didn't want to strain Tiberius's muscles.
So when I switched back into it, I fell to the ground in a tangled heap of blankets and limps. Tony, thankfully, didn't panic this time around.
"There," I said, struggling to get myself free, "are you happy?"
James nearly collapsed when Skull left him. He fell to his knees and let out a strangled sound- something between a groan, a cry, and a sigh. He caught himself with his hands and took in deep breaths.
Gods, he was shaking again. He hated this.
“Happy is not the word I’d use,” he rasped, reaching for his side. His fingers came back covered in a deep red.
The Victorian-era swears I had been trying to keep in my head for the past week finally slipped out when I saw how Tiberius's hands were stained with blood.
I finally got myself free from my blankets and marched over to him - only to turn around and grab the bandages from Reed's pack.
"Take your shirt off," I said, holding out the bandages. "I'll change your bandages. Then we'll do what we did earlier when we first ran into each other - I'm not going to leave you until you're better. We'll find somewhere safer for you to stay and get better."
James kept his face down, eyebrows lowered and drawn together as he started to pull his bloodied shirt over his head. At this point, obeying what Skull ordered seemed to be the path of least resistance. Skull had gone out of his way to possess his horse, and accidentally possess him, and he didn’t want either of those things to happen again - or for something worse. He didn’t know what else Skull could do. He could shatter metal, he could make the air frigid with the chill of winter, and he could take over your very own body.
James wanted to leave, and he wanted to be alone, where he could let his guard down in at least some ways. But that did not seem to be the fate dealt out for him.
His face contorted into a pained grimace as he lifted his arms and pulled the shirt over his head. He let it slide off his arms onto the ground.
He tried to think of something to say to assert his choice in all of this, but to do so would feel like a lie. He didn’t seem to have control even if he tried. It wasn’t like he was trying to tear open his wounds over and over before they could heal.
I was starting to get the hang of bandaging wounds after taking care of his so much - it didn't take long for me to remove his old ones and replace them with new ones. I knew stitches were a thing you could do with really bad injuries; Cubbins had to get them a long time ago when he cut his hand looking at some ghostly artifact.
...But how exactly was I supposed to do that? Stitches were just sewing with people, right? I hadn't ever sewn before, but it couldn't be that hard - and Tiberius might have had experience with it.
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