[Theo comes rushing up, squeezes him above the wrist, and Viktor snatches at his arm in return. His grip is tight, verging on unkind. It pulls to keep him close—staring, blazing angry, his mouth a thin twist, parting for teeth—until the facts of physicality assert themselves, and Theo wrenches free of his grasp. With this jerk, the crutch falls away, lands with a clatter.
He did warn him.
The oily vegetative smear left on his skin invites him to consider collapsing, which he declines for whole seconds, improbably long. He staggers one crooked step, and it's a corpse's movement, at once stiff and loose, wrong in the shoulders, one foot turned in. Heavy eyelids, too much white beneath them. His mouth barely opens,
no subject
He did warn him.
The oily vegetative smear left on his skin invites him to consider collapsing, which he declines for whole seconds, improbably long. He staggers one crooked step, and it's a corpse's movement, at once stiff and loose, wrong in the shoulders, one foot turned in. Heavy eyelids, too much white beneath them. His mouth barely opens,
the moment hangs,
and then he drops, loose as a doll.]