And the romance begins.
Cartoonz pulled Delirious to his feet after having put his mask back on and they went outside the hideout after Mark, Jack, and Avery. The five of them were now leaving to look for some more generators and hooks, and hopefully some supplies as well. Cartoonz had already been worried by Delirious' shoulder injury, but when he noticed that he was limping slightly, his worry only increased.
"Hey, Del," Cartoonz put his hand on Delirious' shoulder to slow him down a little. "Why are you limping? Were you caught in a trap at some point?" he asked.
Delirious sighed. "Yeah, but I'm fine. It doesn't hurt anymore. Though it still stings a little sometimes." he said.
"Do you know how bad it is?" Cartoonz asked.
Delirious huffed in slight annoyance. "No, I never looked. Why are so concerned for me all of a sudden?" his words came out harsher than he'd meant, and he immediately bit his tongue at Cartoonz's light flinch.
Cartoonz looked away from Delirious for a moment, and when he looked back at him, he was staring at the ground as they walked. Neither of them said anything else after that, mainly because Cartoonz was called up front by Avery, who needed to ask him something. With Cartoonz up front with Avery, and Mark and Jack just behind them, Delirious was left behind in the back of the line.
And Delirious took full advantage of it.
He stopped and waited for the others to pull ahead of him quite a ways before taking off in another direction. He knew that Cartoonz was just worried about him, but it was getting on his nerves for some reason. Delirious wasn't even sure why he came with them on this expedition, since he wouldn't actually be able to do anything.
With his shoulder torn apart on the inside and his arm completely limp and useless, Delirious was nothing but a drag-around at this point. A waste of space. He couldn't even fix that first generator he'd found in the beginning, and with Cartoonz here now, that made four others. There were only four sides to a generator, so he would be left out anyways.
In truth, Delirious wanted to prove to himself that he could still do something useful, otherwise it would seem pointless to save him. He tightened his grip on the hook in his hand and felt determination spread throughout his mind and body. Although it was a bit scary being on his own, now, Delirious wasn't going to let anything stand in his way.
He was able to disarm a few bear traps on his private travel by using the hook. Unlike with the first trap, Delirious used the curved end to press the trigger plate. That way, he could pull it out from the bottom of the trap and keep going. At some point, Delirious was actually starting to regret having wandered away from the others, but then he found a generator that was still untouched, and his regretful thoughts vanished.
When Avery called Cartoonz up, he ran straight ahead to catch up to her, leaving Delirious at the back.
"How are you handling everything so far?" Avery asked.
Cartoonz thought for a moment, then shrugged. "I don't know. Okay, I guess," he said.
Avery nodded. "I just wanted to be sure, because, well. . . because all of this doesn't make any sense," she said.
"No kidding," Cartoonz muttered.
"I-" Avery began, but was interrupted by a sudden shout.
It came from Jack. "Hey, there's a hook over there!" he cried, pointing.
Avery and Cartoonz looked, and they too saw the menacing object.
Avery looked at Cartoonz and sighed. "Well, I guess we should go dismantle it."
She and Cartoonz quickly caught up with Mark and Jack, who had run ahead. Jack and Avery were the ones who got to work with taking it down, while Mark stood beneath the beam to catch the hook when it fell.
Cartoonz watched for a minute. "At least whatever is putting us through this decided to make things easy on us, huh, Del?" he said.
Silence.
Cartoonz looked around. "Del?" he continued looking around in confusion. "Delirious!?" he shouted, spinning in a circle now.
Mark and Jack looked over at him, and Avery paused in her task to do the same.
"Where the hell did he go?" Cartoonz looked at the others, who were just as puzzled. Then Cartoonz suddenly realized what must have happened. "Oh shit!" He started scanning the dark forest desperately.
Avery finished taking down the hook before she, Mark, and Jack came over to Cartoonz. "What's happened now?" she asked.
"Shit," Cartoonz growled. "I shouldn't have taken my eyes off of him!" he exclaimed. "Now Delirious has just up and disappeared!" he put his hands up to his forehead in panic and practically fell into a sitting position.
"Hey, hey! We'll find him!" Avery said quickly, placing her hand on Cartoonz's shoulder.
"But how soon?" Cartoonz looked up at her with extreme worry in his eye.
"The sooner we start lookin', the quicker we're likely ta find him," Jack pointed out.
"Yes," Avery pointed at him in agreement. "So let's start looking right now."
Cartoonz took a deep breath and stood up again. He followed Mark, Jack, and Avery as they searched through the trees. He was the one to keep his eye peeled the most, knowing that he would know Delirious when he saw him. They looked around for a while, before any hope of finding him began dwindling.
"We might have to split up," Avery said nervously. She didn't like the idea of separating, but then again, no one did. Not here at least. "We should find Delirious faster that way."
And so, Mark, Jack, Avery, and Cartoonz split up. While the others went in mostly opposite directions, Cartoonz started heading towards a bright light in the distance. It was much closer than he'd thought, and when he finally reached it, he discovered that it was a fully repaired generator.
Cartoonz kept going, heading straight ahead. He could see something far off, and began to recognize it as the mine entrance as he got closer. Deciding to search in there first, Cartoonz veered off his current path towards the mine, trying to ignore the eerie noises and feel of the forest around him.
When Cartoonz finally reached the mine entrance, he got the weirdest feeling ever; that he shouldn't go in. There was a chance that Delirious was inside, though, so why he felt like going inside just wasn't the thing to do, Cartoonz didn't know. His head was telling him to go in, but his gut was saying something different.
Despite himself, Cartoonz listened to his gut and turned away from the mine entrance and headed in the opposite direction. He suddenly recognized the area as where he'd gotten The Trapper all confused and turned around before. Now that he wasn't running for his life at the moment, though, Cartoonz was actually able to take a proper look around.
The trees parted around him, forming a small clearing, and other than the mine entrance, there was nothing else. Wait, there was something else. Upon closer inspection, Cartoonz realized that it was a generator. He wanted to repair it, but Delirious was most important right now. Even so, Cartoonz found himself slowly moving towards the machine. There was nothing around it, and he was about to turn around to keep looking for Delirious when he noticed something.
It was a flicker of movement, and Cartoonz stopped. He looked towards the generator harder, and then realized that what he was seeing was a leg. Getting excited, Cartoonz got closer and paused just beside the generator.
Delirious was sitting against the generator with his legs brought up to his chest. His forehead was resting on his knees, and his right arm was over the back of his head. Cartoonz heard a sniffle and felt his heart breaking.
"Del?" Cartoonz whispered softly.
Delirious' head shot upwards and for a moment, he looked terrified. But then he calmed down again when he saw who it was. "Oh. . . Cartoonz," he sighed. "What do you want?" Delirious adjusted his position so that his legs were out a little, and lay his arm in his lap.
"I was looking for you," Cartoonz explained. "We all are. Do you have any idea how worried you've got us all?" he demanded.
Delirious sniffed, but he didn't answer. After a moment, he looked up at Cartoonz again. "What are you still doing here?" he asked, the question startling Cartoonz. "Shouldn't you go look for the others?"
"Yeah, I should," Cartoonz sat on the ground next to Delirious. "But I'm not going to go anywhere unless you're with me."
Delirious groaned.
"Del," Cartoonz started, and Delirious looked at him. "Why did you wander off in the first place?" he asked.
Delirious stared at him for a couple of seconds. "I don't know. . ." he said finally.
"I get the feeling that you do know," Cartoonz pressed.
"Why is this so important to you?!" Delirious demanded.
Cartoonz didn't flinch by his sudden outburst, though. "Because you're important to me," he said.
Delirious went quiet, then he said, "I. . ." he tried to think of the words. "Ever since I got hurt, I haven't been able to do anything useful, and I really think that I'm just slowing everything and everyone down."
Cartoonz blinked, but he let Delirious continue. "It's just that. . . when I woke up here on MacMillian Estate, I found a generator and wasn't able to repair it because I've only got one arm." Delirious coughed lightly before adding, "An arm that I'll never use again. . ."
"Hey, that's not true," Cartoonz assured.
Delirious basically turned on him. "What do you mean it's not true?! I can't even feel anything from my shoulder down!" he exclaimed.
"Well, when I was told about what happened to your shoulder at the hospital, they said that you'll be able to use your arm again, just not fully without a lot of fucking therapy sessions." Cartoonz explained.
Delirious stared at him in slight shock. "Wait, you're serious?" he asked, feeling hopeful. Cartoonz nodded, and Delirious sighed with relief. "Of course, that all really depends on if I'll even get out of this alive." he pointed out gloomily.
"Well, for now you'll just have to do what you can-" Cartoonz began.
"Which is nothing," Delirious interrupted. "I can't use my arm, so I'm totally useless!" he choked. "It's like I'm not even worth saving at this point. . ." Delirious started sobbing behind his mask.
Cartoonz leaned closer to Delirious and lifted his mask up, revealing Jonathan's face beneath. He let the mask rest on the top of Delirious' head while he took his hand and brushed his fingers gently over Delirious' face, wiping away the tears. He hated seeing him like this, but he managed to remain calm and not break dramatically over the huge amount of sadness in Delirious' eyes.
"Don't ever say you're not worth saving, Del," Cartoonz said, putting his hands lightly on Delirious' shoulders.
Delirious looked at the ground. "But. . . what the hell am I supposed to do now, huh? I'm useless, Cartoonz." Delirious sobbed again.
"There are still plenty of other things you can help with, Delirious," Cartoonz said softly, wiping away some more of Delirious' tears. "You just have to figure them out, is all."
"Who am I kidding?" Delirious said suddenly. "I can't even fix a single stupid generator!" he pounded his fist on the machine behind him angrily.
"All you need is a little help, Del. Not everything is always possible alone, y'know." Cartoonz took Delirious' mask and used his jacket to dry the moist inside. "Tell me, what you have done with just the one arm?"
Delirious sniffed before saying, "That first generator I came across, I did what repairs I could," he turned his head to look at Luke.
"There you go, now you're thinking positive!" Luke said happily.
"Measly repairs," Delirious grumbled.
Cartoonz took advantage of the extra comment, though, by saying. "Well, those measly repairs have us all one step closer to escaping."
Delirious was quiet for a moment, and then to Cartoonz's surprise, he laughed. "You're just not going to give up are you?" he chuckled.
Cartoonz glanced to the side and then back at Delirious. "Give up on what?" he asked.
"On cheering me up," Delirious huffed. "You're just going to take everything I say and turn it into something positive until I fucking feel better about myself, aren't you?"
"Pretty much, yeah," Cartoonz said.
Now Delirious was really laughing, and Cartoonz couldn't help but smile. "That's just typical of you, Luke!" Delirious giggled.
"Yeah, yeah, I know," Cartoonz rolled his eye. "Will you help me with this, Del?" he asked Delirious suddenly, gesturing at the generator behind them.
Delirious looked at the broken machine and then at Cartoonz. "Why should I?" he asked.
"I can't do it on my own, that's why," Cartoonz teased.
"You can't or you won't?" Delirious questioned.
"Both," Cartoonz stated.
Delirious chuckled again, but before he could get to his feet, Cartoonz had suddenly grabbed his face in his hands. He held him there for a moment or two, looking into his eyes.
"C-Cartoonz?" Delirious stammered, confused.
"Do you know how much you mean to me, Del?" Cartoonz asked.
"Uh," Delirious thought for a second. "A lot?" he guessed stupidly.
Then, Delirious' eyes widened with shock and his body stiffened when Cartoonz leaned forward a little more and their lips touched. Eventually, his eyes rolled upwards, his lids closing and his body relaxing as he fell into the kiss. Cartoonz was ever so gentle with him, and Delirious actually felt a little disappointed when they parted at last.
"You mean that much to me, Del," Cartoonz said. "I love you, and nothing will change that."
Delirious gazed at Cartoonz's face, feeling a new wave of emotion washing over him. He'd never felt it in this way before, but he knew that it was love. He'd always loved Luke, but never in this way. But now that seems to have changed.
"Why didn't I ever see it before?" Delirious mumbled.
"Huh?" Cartoonz was puzzled.
"I really can't believe that I never saw it in you before now," Delirious said.
"What are you talking about, Del?" Cartoonz asked, getting only more confused.
"I really wish that I had seen that what I needed was you, man," Delirious stated.
Now Cartoonz understood what Delirious was saying. This time it was Delirious who kissed him, and Cartoonz practically had to pull them apart just to breathe.
"We should really fix the generator," he said.
He laughed when Delirious' face turned bright red, which only made it go redder.
Delirious stood and moved to one of the generator's sides while Cartoonz took the other. In truth, he knew that Cartoonz would cheer him up. He always found a way to do so, no matter what was going on or what the case was.
It was one of the qualities that Luke had that Jonathan liked. He knew that he could always count on him when things went wrong. He could count on Cartoonz to help him through hard situations, and to comfort him when something had him greatly upset, like he just had. And now it would seem that he was even more important to him than ever before.
Hopefully Cartoonz would stay alive so that he could stay by his side, and Delirious never let a single thought of him getting killed enter his mind as they ran from the newly repaired generator.
Through his sister he had met Cartoonz, and after that they became friends. And then it turned into best friends, and then somehow Cartoonz ended up like a brother to Delirious. It seemed a little strange if you thought about it that way, but now Cartoonz was more than that. He was everything that Delirious had been looking for.
To think that what he needed in life had always been there.