Jude was glowing. Literally. That was the only thing that remained from his previous power, and in the dark, it looked like something out of this world. Sveta smiled as he turned to look at her, and nuzzled her cheek into his palm. The glowing really suited him, in a weird way. He was smiling, and she was smiling too.
And he sneezed.

>> "Bless you."

Sveta blinked. So up close she couldn't really make out his face - the glow was just enough to ruin her night vision - but she was pretty sure she did not sneeze. Oh well. It was probably a language thing.

Leaning in, she planted a kiss somewhere she hoped was his cheek.
...
Wait. When in the past ten minutes did Jude grow so much facial hair?...

One moment he was all lined up for a smooch, the next he face was getting smashed nose-first into the dirt and something was both pushing at his head and pulling at his hair! Not in the pleasant Svetlana's fingers sort of way, in a more possibly-trying-to-kill-him kind of way. He blew air out of his mouth with his lips pressed together and it made a sort of trumpet noise. He really hadn't planned on kissing dirt.

That same soft whuff sounded closer to his ear and it dawned on him. It was an animal trying to eat him. Somehow that wasn't any more comforting.

Then something else happened entirely. He felt it like a shove all over. He heard it too. Sort of a whoosh over his head. He got shoved mostly down and HARD. Every bit of breath got driven from his body and Svetlana was ripped from his grip.

An invisible supernova of force out in all directions from... a moose?

The only thing more shocking than kissing an animal she did not even have an English word for was the fact that said animal (that shall be named deer for all intents and purposes) promptly went haywire just like a mutant would.

Whu...

She felt the force of the deer hit Jude and push him face first into the dirt; since she was sideways and a little bit farther away, it rolled her away from him until she hit the bushes nearby with a yelp.

The surprise was greater than the pain. And the anger was greater than both.

Can't a girl just have a peacefully crazy one-night stand with a guy without being attacked by mutant deer?! Or whatever that animal was.
Strong is what it was, most of all.
Strong and... telekinetic?...

"Jude?!"

Coughing. Dirt inhalation. And the stupid thing was STILL eating his hair!

"Gah!" The sound only came out because the moose was pulling his head back by his scalp. Which were being nibbled by teeth. He tried to move, to swat at the thing or just plain old get up, but he had to be impacted into the dirt by half a foot at least. His arms ached. His freaking everything ached.

"It's eating—!" Whump. The thing dropped his face back into the dirt like a sack of dung. Guess he didn't taste good. A hoof sounded somewhere close. He felt the dirt shifting near his leg. Uncomfortably close. He coughed and raised his head on his own this time. "Svetty, run!"

The deer was eating her... Jude.
That was bad.
Do deer even eat people?! Aren't they supposed to be vegeratians or something?

Whatever it was, something was definitely up with that deer. The powers, for once. It was still pushing against her like a wall, keeping her from standing back up. Sveta did math. She had kissed that thing, bleh, by the way, back on topic, the force should calm down soon... it's not like she made out with it for hours.

>>"It's eating—! Svetty, run!"

As if. Sveta rolled up into a ball under the bushes and counted. Once the blasts were over... maybe even the deer would calm down a little. She just really, really hoped Jude could survive that long.

Damn.

Pound, pound, pound, pound. His face went right back into the dirt. Deeper and deeper. The moose stood its ground for a while. Looking out after a hopefully fast running Svetlana.

He coughed. He inhaled dirt. How long could the thing keep this up?

It leaned down, took a sniff and the pulsing slowed. Jude was either too far down or not worth eating anymore.

The moose started to leisurely walk off toward taller grasses.

Jude coughed from the bottom of a cartoonishly deep Jude-shaped hole and even that hurt. What exactly had just happened?

It felt like an eternity until the force push, whatever it was, faded away. Sveta peered out from under the bushes. The beast was walking away.
She rolled onto her stomach and waited till it was probably out of earshot. But not a moment longer.
Scampering to her feet she ran over to Jude and knelt down at the edge of the crater in the dirt.

"Jude?..."

I was with this guy in the park and then a mutant deer appeared and killed him.
Just another entry on Svetlana's long list of messed-up relationships.

"Jude please be okay..."

Well, he was coughing. That meant he was alive and could breathe. "Uuhhh." Okay. Talking. Kind of check on the talking. The real trick was moving. He felt like jelly. He'd just be run through the power wash. A deep tissue massage given by a moose. Who knew?

> "Jude?..."

It sounded like a Disney Princess was up there. So worried. So girly.

> "Jude please be okay..."

He wondered if his bare back looked as bad as it felt. "Did you get ze license..." He wheezed and twitched a finger. Hey. He could twitch his finger! "...of zat semi truck?" He was trying to make it better by making her laugh. Making her worried wouldn't really help him feel any better.

Juda coughed. And twitched. That was better than lying still, but only barely.

>>"Did you get ze license... of zat semi truck?"

That did not make her any less worried.

"It was a deer." she noted, her brain going into problem solving mode, the problem being Jude, lying half trampled to death. She looked around; there was a light among the bushes, coming from the flashlight that had rolled away. She went to retrieve it and then came back to see just how bad the damage was, careful not to shine into his eyes.

"Talk to me."

"Big deer." He conceded. If it wasn't so chilly, he would consider sleeping down here. It was nice, in a way, and at least it didn't require any moving.
 
He heard her leave and when she came back there was light. His back and arms were lobster red with the tiniest pin pricks of blood oozing from the pores. Darker shades lurked beneath the skin, but not enough time had passed for a proper set of bruises to form. On top of it all, little orange glowing lines spiderwebbed at random and made everything just that much harder to distinguish.
 
> "Talk to me."
 
Easier said than done. He coughed and that hurt. He just wanted to curl up in a  little ball and sleep. Only, the thought of moving made him want to cry. Also, men shouldn't cry in front of their lady friends. He lay still for a while in his little crater, gathering his gut for an attempt at getting up.
 
His shirt was… where was his shirt? It had been close to his head. He moved one hand around blindly and moved from the wrist only until he found soft cloth. It was dirty. He was probably filthy too.
 
"I'm okay." This time he didn't have the same conviction behind his words, but keeping the talking brief made it not so bad.
 
"Too bad, Sebastian…" Yeah. That was too bad. There were no ambulances this far out. No stretchers, no wheelchairs, no help beyond Svetlana, whom he didn't want to burden. 
 
So that meant he had to move. He gripped his shirt in his hand and moved to push himself up. One arm worked just fine. One arm did not. His ribs and back felt like they were on fire and he tried his best not to make sounds that would scare Svetlana, but there was some definite strange breathing happening. Mostly because his nose seemed to be bleeding like a faucet.
 
He felt sluggish as he sat up. His hair was everywhere, plastered in odd directions with moose spit. His legs seemed fine. Maybe the pants had helped. Or maybe they made it so that they couldn't see how red his legs were. The front of his body didn't look nearly so battered, excepting his nose.
 
Jude put his shirt and sweater next to him on the ground, with him sitting inside the crater that put the ground somewhere around the top of his hips.
 
Was there a hospital he could go to? He was a legal citizen technically. But if anybody looked him up he would be 12 on paper. He didn't know any healers personally. Future Sight would have helped him find one, but that would mean introducing Svetty and Alister which still sounded like the worst idea ever.
 
He sort of zoned out as he considered his options. None of them made him happy.

Wow. That looked horrible.
Not to mention horribly painful.

Sveta winced, watching him sit up; she wanted to help but probably touching him anywhere would have made him hurt more.

>>"I'm okay... Too bad, Sebastian…"

He was definitely not okay. He was everything but okay. He was as far from okay as you can get.

"Easy" she muttered, looking at his face and his wounds "Jude, that looks really bad. You need a doctor, or a healer."

Yeah, and they were in the middle of nowhere.

"So, here is two things I can do." she said, gathering herself "I can call an ambulance and they can take you to a hospital. Or I can call Doc at the Mansion and ask him to come for us and heal you."

Yeah. Because she would so love to see a pissed-off, sleep-deprived mutant healer right now.

His back was probably the worst, but his nose was bleeding really bad too. Looking around or her handbag, Sveta rummaged around till she came up with a handful of tissues.

"Try not to move a lot" she muttered, wiping his face as carefully as possible. He had a decision to make.

He closed his eyes and let her fuss at him because to do too much else hurt. Only when she dabbed at his nose did he suck in breath. His poor nose was swelling now and that was slowing the blood flow.
 
His head was swimming. There was too much to consider. An ambulance would ask questions. DocProf would take them back to the Mansion afterward. Ambulances cost money. DocProf would tell Ghost's dad and then he would have to meet grandpa as a grownup. Ambulances took people to hospitals. Which also asked questions and cost money… and used human slow healing and drugs (which also, for the record, cost money).
 
It took him a long time to come to any kind of answer. "Whichever… iz faster." Which really just meant he didn't want to think about it anymore.
 
Also, was there a way to lay down? He felt less horrible sitting up, but it made him more woozy.

Whichever is faster.
Human ambulance sucked. They might be fast enough, but they were definitely not healers.
When you have been living with mutants for a while, you get spoiled in that regard.

"I'll call Doc." she nodded, findig her cellphone. Walking away from him she wandered around till she had reception, and dialed. It took some time. Doc was obviously not in the habit of picking up his phone at... whatever the time was right now. She kept ringing the Mansion till someone picked up and then went to wake up Doc. What followed was long minutes of hurried explaining and directions and a whole lot of apologizing, and then Sveta flipped the phone shut and came back to Jude.

"He will be here as fast as he can." she said, sitting down next to him. She could see him sway "I don't think lying down is a good idea" she muttered "Come on, you can lean against me. And we'll need to keep you warm."

When did the air get so chilly?...

Faster healing meant slower getting to the scene of the crime. More pain now for less later.
 
That deer had better not come back or else… Or else they would boost it. Yeah. That would show it who was boss. What started as a semi-hysterical giggle ended up being a cough. 
 
This was also not what he had planned for this evening.
 
While Svetlana was away on her call, he tried to at least smooth his hair down. Lifting his good arm anywhere near his shoulder or higher proved to be a bad idea. Also, bending was a bad idea. Stupid deer ruining the best moment of his life.
 
Svetty invited him to lean on her. Jude tilted foreword until his forehead hit her shoulder. He was tall enough now that this would have made him bend some and hurt if he hadn't been sitting in his little crater.
 
She talked about keeping him warm, but the colder her got, the number he became. Numb was just dandy even if it made his jaw chatter.
 
"Tell me… a story?" Something to think about besides this.
 
Slowly the crickets started back with their chirruping.

She could tell that moving hurt him a lot. His face was cold to the touch and she could feel him shiver, although she was not sure if it was from the cold or from the pain. Probably both. Reaching out with her free hand, she pulled the pile of clothes closer. His shirt and sweater were dirty; they did not look like putting them over his wounds would be a good idea. Then again, she needed to keep him warm. She shook the jacket out with one hand and turned it around until it she found the side that was relatively unharmed; she pulled it over his shoulders as carefully as she could. It probably still hurt a lot.

"I'm sorry."

>>"Tell me… a story?"

"I don't know how to tell stories" she confessed, shifting around to try and make him more comfortable "... okay, there is one. But if I tell it you promise not to go to sleep? Bo always went to sleep when she listened to me."