Nightshift 40: East Wing, Hall A (First Floor)
[from here]Itachi walked down the hall at his usual pace, it not occurring to him to hurry, even though Sasuke might be following him. He kept his eyes front, scanning for any potential enemies, but his ears were finely attuned to the potential of footsteps behind him
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...And stopped a few paces into the hallway. Empty.
"Ok, catch your breath. You alright?" Badou grinned. "I didn't know those stubby legs moved so slow. Maybe I should have carried you after all."
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"No, no, I can run on my own," Artemis said, giving Badou an irate look. "...so. Your doctor."
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Badou tilted his head back and blew smoke into the air. "I thought we agreed last night that you weren't going to borrow more trouble? What if you need to outrun it?"
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"I didn't borrow it this time, it was merely a coincidence," Artemis said, waving the comment away and crossing his arms. "And if I need help running, I'll be sure to ask--how does that strike you?"
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Artemis probably wasn't going to let it go until he was sure Badou was fine. And he was fine. But he figured the sooner he stopped being a pussy about the subject, the easier it would be to convince Artemis of that fact.
"There's not much to say about it besides what I told you already. I thought she was something - someone else, but she's just using the information they gave her to fuck with her patients. She played me. That's all." He hadn't come to that conclusion when he'd talked to Artemis last night, but he'd gotten most of what he wanted out of the bulletin post. He flicked his cigarette away and didn't light another one. "I'm just really pissed off. I don't know if they found that shit in my head or if they ripped it right out of my partner's when they took his goddamn spine."
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"Anything's possible," Artemis said truthfully, his tone surprisingly sympathetic. "The first time I met with my new doctor, he used... something to wipe my memory of the session. That wasn't just information used to toy with me--that was something else altogether. The same might be true of your doctor... considering the state of your wrist."
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He seemed to reconsider and lit up another cigarette before offering his wrist to Artemis. It made sense now why he was so worried about a little bruise. "It's not that bad. She just grabbed it a couple of times and squeezed really hard. She might have a crush on me." Ha, bad pun. The bruise was still black but he thought the old scar from the knife wound looked uglier. "I don't think she would have bothered to sedate me that way if she could do anything fancier."
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Badou let him look, calmly puffing away at his cigarette. He even shook his head at the assurance. He wasn't a delicate flower and Arty was no bruiser. Besides, the whole point was for Artemis to see that he didn't need to worry --
Badou reacted without thinking, dodging sideways with a curse when the sparks leaped out of Artemis' fingers. He was more startled than anything, and he felt stupid for moving at all since he wasn't hurt as far as he could tell. Damn, Arty was a walking fireworks display these days.
He took a step towards the boy, slightly cautious in case he was freaked out enough to bolt. "Ok. It's ok, come back here."
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"It wouldn't have hurt you," he said, probably more for his own benefit than Badou's. "It... it was trying to heal your wrist. I think. Magic will usually heal any wounds the carrier obtains automatically, but for other separate forms, physical contact and the commanding thought are necessary. I don't know why that happened."
Or why it hadn't happened before when Badou had come into contact with him to ruffle his hair, pull on his face, tackle him, et cetera. He hadn't been thinking about Badou's injury then, he supposed. And when he had been, his hands hadn't been very close. The injury was also, comparatively, very minor. There were so many variables, it was impossible to know what had caused it specifically.
"But it wouldn't have hurt you," Artemis repeated, still sounding a little shaken. He didn't want Badou to think that he would have hurt him--even involuntarily.
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So, ok, he was a freak and he could probably accidentally kill him but that was almost everyone Badou knew. The redhead looked perfectly calm. Instead of arguing or agreeing with Artemis he said: "So you can heal now? Huh, that's cool. Does it drain you out?"
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"However, it's a physical entity, and thus it can be depleted," he looked at his hand sadly. "I used all of it after Mello stabbed me. There wasn't enough to heal Renji when he was dying the next night."
And now he had it back. Too little too late, obviously. "But considering it's acting more virulent than usual, I don't think it's safe to use it to heal anyone until I can test it."
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"So test it." He replied, sounding slightly exasperated for the first time. He held out his wrist again. "Don't get me wrong, I don't want to die, but if you're going to figure out how to deal with this you might as well start somewhere and this thing is annoying. It's better than fucking up a stab wound or something, right?"
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On the other hand, how exactly could he botch healing a bruise? It wasn't exactly brain surgery. After worrying his lip for almost a full minute and staring intently at Badou's wrist, he finally gave in.
"Alright," he said finally. "If it's annoying you, I'll take care of it." He winced mentally at how much that sounded like he was passing the buck to Badou. Concentrating on keeping the magic at bay, he raised his hands around Badou's wrist (and really, it felt like he was a giant bladder in extreme pain). His forehead started to take on a light sheen of sweat as he physically tried to keep it inside. But it wanted to get out. There was too much of it inside him, and the magic was aching to get out and do its job.
Finally, Artemis let it go with a small, soft mental command: HealMuch like a very sensitive faucet, the ( ... )
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He heard himself murmur, "Damn, that's really good." But by that point he was opening his eye again and reminding himself how insanely stupid it had been to close it. Hadn't they gotten a little sidetracked?
"Hey, don't waste it all." Artemis was working hard. They should have done this in a room where it was safer... Come to think of it, they really shouldn't have tried this at all. A little too late for that consideration as usual.
[Internal bleeding? It's hard to mess up bruises. XD Maybe he can be confident enough now to mess up something more dire in the future. :|b]
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As if on cue, Artemis turned away, cutting off the magic flow. He took a few deep, shaky breaths. He wasn't tired or even overexerted. The stress of the situation and the effort he'd expended had tired his mind and his muscles. He was, however, feeling a little less like an overfilled water balloon.
He turned back when he felt it was safe and he had a hold on himself. "It's okay, right?" Badou wasn't screaming in agony, so perhaps he'd done it correctly this time. "Is the bruise gone?"
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