[Anthony] Aftermath
"Keep talking to me, Joule. I can't let you sleep out here."
I start at the sound of my name and shiver. We've left the dell and are working our way back up the defile. He's carrying me. I feel an irrational wash of stubbornness, of anger for not just leaving me to sleep when I'm hit with a moment of absurd clarity. You're half dead, Julia. He's saving your life. Don't be stupid. I grasp for something to say, something that will keep me awake. "So, uh. That's h-how you do a c-cleansing ritual."
Anthony smiles grimly. "You pull the earth from wherever it's still pure, and let it cleanse itself?"
It's a gross oversimplification, but that's essentially what I did. "S-sometimes. It d-d-depends on w-what it is and how it's b-been d-defiled." I'm having a hard time keeping the words in my head, and everything hurts.
Anthony's pace changes, quicker I think. I close my eyes because the trees bouncing make my stomach turn. "But here, the taint was... what? Localized enough that you could pull from around it?" There's an edge to his voice I can't identify. "Come on, Joule, explain."
Breathing the cold air hurts. Talking hurts. Pain keeps me awake. "P-part of it is that. H-here w-we had a s-situation w-where th-the t-taint is in th-the earth. Th-the Outsider w-wasn't here l-long enough t-to expand beyond this one p-place. If it had, w-we c-could have expected more c-c-corruption. "In a w-way, we were l-lucky that it's c-cold. Not as m-many animals t-to be affected. I'm t-told that water is worse. A river f-flows and corruption spreads th-that way."
"Right," he agrees. "And all the water here's frozen. Most of the animals hibernating or hiding. It helped, I get that." There's a pause and I open my eyes. His right shoulder and arm is covered in the sweater, his left is warm against my back and when I press my ear to his chest, I can hear the faint whir of its gears. He's not wearing a coat. "Where did you learn to cleanse like that?" he asks.
"M-mysterium Obrimos. T-traded him f-for some c-custom work on his car." I try to remember, take stock. The Jericho is back in my pocket, still pressed coldly against my hip. Shit. I'm going to have a bruise. I'm wearing one pair of snowshoes, he seems to be carrying his. Magic. He's using magic. "I still h-have your c-coat," I say, accusing. Of all the stupidly chivalrous things...
"I have no idea what you're talking about," he deadpans. I don't have the energy to argue with him, barely have the energy to answer when he says, "All right... tell me about... your time in college."
I talk. I talk and talk and talk while Anthony carries me, prods me when the world turns gray and black. All I want to do is sleep, to curl up and let this end. I imagine my mum and da, and talking to Yoav who smiles gently and sadly. Anthony asks me another question, forces me to think, brings me back to the place where everything hurts.
We walk for a long time.
When we finally see the jeep, it takes me a moment to realize what it is, what it means. Relief... We're almost there. We're almost there.
Anthony jars and jostles me more in trying to get the door open and maneuver me into the passenger seat than in the entire hike through the foothills. When he finally lays me down, he gasps with relief. I watch him, and only now do I realize how hard this has been. He stands with the door open, his face frozen with indecision.
I fumble at the collar of my coat and the zipper, but I can't make my fingers move like they need to. "Keys. Clipped in."
He unzips my coat, tugs it away from the gash across my chest which opens a new flow of blood. He stops short and stares, then growls low. "Joule, you're losing too much blood. I can stop it... but it's going to hurt like hell." Almost as an afterthought, he unclips my keys and shoves them into his pants pocket. Something makes a crackling sound.
I look at his pockets, try to parse out the sound, give up early. I meet his eyes, still brilliantly green, know that he's been exuding magic for hours. I try to take a deep breath, but it hurts, and it comes out ragged and harsh. "Do it," I tell him. Do it before I change my mind.
In answer, he unzips my coat all the way and gives me an apologetic grimace as he rips my sweater to spread that, as well, repeating the process until I'm down to my thermal undershirt, dark and sodden with blood. There, he touches my torso gently, so lightly that I barely feel it past the haze of pain. "Don't move."
I swallow hard, try not to do just that. With a curt nod, I close my eyes...
My body erupts with pain, shards of fire splintering inside me. It hurts, oh, Christ, it hurts... and then it recedes, leaving me with only the ache of my savaged arm, the sharp torment of my chest, and places on my body that throb from the impact of his fingers. I recognize the scent of Forces, of the treatment Anthony performed for himself weeks ago.
Anthony has a hand on the dashboard, and for a moment I think that it's perhaps the only thing holding him up. "Okay," he says with exhaustion like I haven't heard since he showed up on my doorstep, bloody and half dead. "You should be alright for a while. I'm... I'm sorry -" he cuts off sharply, then eases me fully into the seat, puts my hand in my lap and closes the door. In a moment, he is hauling himself into the driver's seat with another crackling. He glances at me while I lay my head back on the headrest, mutters something I don't quite hear, and then reaches across and buckles my seat belt for me.
"Th-that's quite a trick," I say. He starts the truck, buckling his own belt across his lap, turning on the heater as high as it will go. I try to sit up, but only manage weak kicking, and decide to let the seat belt do the work.
"It's... it does the job okay." He is quiet, but there's something else in his voice, a trace of hatred and aimed entirely at himself. I try to hang on to that thought as he puts the Jeep in gear and starts down the hill fast, a look of fierce concentration on his face. I watch him for a long moment, feel the stillness of his magic.
"You won't... do either of us any good... if you get us both killed by... by plowing into a tree," I chide him. I'm not dead yet. We're almost there. I'm still wearing his coat around my shoulders. Don't be stupid, Anthony...
He's distracted when he answers. "I see Forces by touch... er... well, you know what I mean. I'm watching the friction of the tires, and I can nudge it back if it slips."
I snort, but even that hurts. If I close my eyes for a moment...
"Joule!"
I wake with a start, claw my way back to consciousness. I've slipped down in the seat, can't pull myself up. "Here. I'm here."
"Keep talking. You can't sleep, not yet." He swears under his breath. "You're going to tell me how to disassemble an engine. In detail, down to the fittings."
Somewhere in my head, I know he's right, despite how much I desperately want to give up. "Engine. Right." I take a breath, nearly ask what kind, and then realize it doesn't matter. Pick one. "Start by draining the oil..."
He gives me something to concentrate on, something I know well. I take my time, try to form the words carefully and without stuttering. At least once, I catch myself falling asleep and shake my head to clear it. Once, I realize that I've been speaking in Hebrew, and force myself to figure out when I started and repeat myself in English while I think about Yoav. Anthony asks me a sharp question every time I falter. It irritates me, but I try not to snap at him. Don't fall asleep.
We're passing the turn off for Red Deer Trail when Anthony starts shivering hard. I'm describing a diesel cycle and why they're interesting when I realize it and I frown at him. "We're almost there," I tell him. Close.
"I know," he says, his control shaking. Beads of sweat stand out on his forehead, and I know then that my recitation is as important to his focus as it is to mine. I continue as if I hadn't stopped, but know even as I do that my pauses are longer and the words come slowly.
Soon, we coast through the streets of Great Falls. Anthony takes the correct streets and I sigh with relief. Home. Home will make it better. I close my eyes and start in on the pitfalls of the Wankel rotary engine and how I would redesign it.
The jeep shudders to a stop and I open my eyes. Anthony is already out of his seat, takes our packs over one shoulder. I grasp clumsily at the door handle, but can't seem to make it work; he opens my door while I watch him, propped up in my seat, held in place with the belt; holding my head up is starting to be problematic. He unbuckles my belt, puts his arms around me. ""It's gonna be okay, Joule. We're home, we're safe." His words break something inside me, the last will I had. He hesitates, then leaves me where I am to open the office door and disappearing inside for a moment. He returns without the packs and a torn expression.
"I..." He bites something back. "I'm trying to figure how to get you up the stairs."
Fuck. Stairs. I have those. Like the fucking matterhorn...
"The hell with it." He moves me so my back is to the door and then lifts me with large, strong hands placed under my thighs. "Just lean against me, and this will work out."
I don't lean so much as collapse against him, but he moves carefully, nudging doors shut with a foot. His arms tremble a little as he backs up my steep stairs to my loft. Despite his attempts not to jostle me, every movement is a wave of pain. By the time we make the top of the stairs, he sags against the wall, letting my feet touch the floor, but holding me upright.
"Okay," he murmurs, "Okay okay okay... let's see."
We're home... but we're not done yet. Only magic stands between me and bleeding to death, and I can't even conceive of how I'm going to stitch myself up. First things first. "Bed. Box in the loo."
They're the only words I can manage, but Anthony understands them well enough. "Right, yeah." He pulls me into his arms again and steps across the room in only a few steps, lowering me onto the bed. He pulls the covers over and then nearly runs into the tiny bathroom, rattling and thumping until he emerges with my kit.
What next? "Plug in the space heater. We... both need to get warm. Towels under the bed. Warm them on the heater." I close my eyes tightly, pray for it to end. When I open them again, a flash of irritation crosses Anthony's face and strangely, that hurts more. "I... I hurt, Anthony," I tell him. I don't know what else to say, what else I can possibly do.
The hard lines of his face soften, and for a moment he looks about to cry. He lays his warm, mechanical hand on my forehead, brushes his fingers against my cheek. "I've got you, Joule. I'll take care of you."
All my fear and pain and exhaustion come to the fore, and the tears I've been holding back break. I hadn't realized how much effort it was taking, but the first release is a relief. Anthony leaves me to my tears while he turns on the space heaters and warms towels on them. As the room heats, he efficiently strips off my outer-layers, chafes his hands against my thawing limbs, leaving my injured arm aside. He carefully doesn't look at my face, and right now, I don't blame him. His awkward squeeze of my shoulder, though, undoes me. I cry fresh tears, grateful, at last, to be able to cry, to not pretend to be brave. I choke back a sob, which proves to be a terrible idea; fresh pain erupts and this time, I give into the sob.
Anthony puts his hand on top of my head, and I feel the wires in my head buzz and crackle with electricity; my hat isn't insulating anymore. He kisses my forehead, a quick peck of lips against skin. He brushes his unscarred cheek over the spot. "I'm not going anywhere."
I swallow, let the tears flow. "O-okay."
When he pulls away, he is all brisk efficiency again. He pulls supplies from my kit, stacks them on the bed next to me. I don't look at them, am afraid to look at them. "I guess this goes both ways," he murmurs quietly. He begins to strip my boots and socks, gently divests me of my pants and the thermal layer I wear underneath, cold and wet and the top covered in blood. He chafes my feet and legs again, covers them in warm towels, but this time the chafing leaves a subtly numb sensation.
"What... did you do, there?" I ask him as he lays a cloth across my hips.
"Dulled your nerves a little. Another trick from training... it helped us sleep through the bruises." His reply is quiet, distracted while he takes my thermal apart with a pair of surgical scissors. He lifts my torso, gently pulling away the ruined cloth and laying a hot towel on the bed underneath me. He rubs and wraps my right arm with little fanfare, lays a hot towel across my chest, and again I'm grateful, and know a little of how Anthony must feel every time he looks at the scar across his stomach.
When he finally rubs my left arm down, it ignites with imagined fire, then dulls gently. I gasp, and he murmurs a sibilant word. "I can't do it too much, or it'll kill nerve endings." I nod as he turns my arm over in his hands and inspects it carefully. "Oh, babe... you're going to have a couple of crazy new scars. Let's see what I can manage."
I nod, concentrate on the rafters, the exposed pipe and insulation of my warehouse loft. It needs to be cleaned and I resolve to do it before I leave here. "I've never been pretty," I murmur, accepting the new scars. No different than the old.
I see a flash of movement out of the corner of my eye, then my left shoulder erupts in a sharp pain and my arm goes numb. I cry out, but it is more from surprise, the sudden gasp that puts strain on my chest. I don't look because I don't want to see. Let him do it.
"Port. Storm. It'll do." He puts fingers to my chin, turning my head a little more so I see even less of his work. I study the wall, an industrial gray, as if it had been painted in gray primer but never painted over. He tugs uncomfortably at my arm, I smell antiseptic, but feel no pain. Grateful. I am grateful.
He asks me questions, things that are banal; which cars are easiest to fix, what gets better mileage. I think about them, give him slow answers; my head is fuzzy and my chest aches more and more, making words ponderously difficult to find. When he is finished, he wraps my arm in gauze and tapes it while I try to answer his last question past the latest wash of pain.
There is a pause after his last question and before he draws the rapidly cooling towel from my chest. He examines it closely, traces the jagged line of the wound with a fingertip, while I turn my head to watch him and it. This is the first I've really looked at it, the claw mark that flayed open my left breast, scraped across my sternum and stopped at the ribs a couple inches below my right breast. Anthony shudders involuntarily before he is done and it makes him scowl.
"Are you alright?" I ask him quietly.
He takes a slow breath, then nods, standing as he does so. He brings the next round of towels from the heater and brings them to the bedside. One, he folds and places on the floor, the rest he puts on a chair that he drags from the table, then he strips off his sweater and thermal, followed by his soaked jeans, showing lacerations that cross his chest and back, one on his right arm. The then puts one towel on the seat of his chair, another goes over his waist and finally one across his shoulders. He holds the remaining towels to his chest and shivers.
“You’re hurt,” I say. How did I not see that?
His voice is muffled by the towels. “A little. Your cleansing killed my infections same as yours, so it's nothing to worry about.” He lays the remaining towels across my stomach, my shoulders and neck, leaving my chest exposed. "I... I can't numb this one like the other. I'd stop your heart if I tried."
I nod, accepting it. "You've done what you can."
"I have to clean and stitch it... there's nothing else for it."
I look up at him, will him to stop talking and just get on with it. "I know." I look away again, study my wall.
"I'm right here," he murmurs helplessly, and starts in on cleaning the wound.
We don’t talk; Anthony is silent and I hurt too much to make coherent sounds. He holds me down and somewhere I recognize that it’s meant to be gentle. I can’t tell anymore, can’t make the distinction. My mind struggles to stay here, to not remember other places where I’ve hurt, where I’ve been hurt. My spine tingles.
Finally, when he is finished and the wound is coated in a cold gel, he leans back and lays his right hand against my cheek. His fingers are finally warm from the work. I’m too tired to look at him, too scared. “Oh, hell,” he whispers and takes a long breath. "It'll be okay, sweetheart, I promise. Just be brave a little while more."
I gasp for air and hurt again. "I- I don't have anything left." I squeeze my eyes shut and moan when he draws the edges of the wound together and begins stitching with gentle, uncompromising hands. I blink, see my gray wall, and then the world slips sideways and I see nothing at all.
-=-=-=-
I feel the buzz of electricity, hear an odd pinging noise. I open my eyes to find Anthony’s metal fingers intertwined in my hair and supporting my head, realize that the pinging comes from my electricity and his arm. The pain isn’t gone, but it is less; considerably less. A dull line runs diagonally across my chest and my left arm tingles, the forearm burning and itching… but it is better. Everything is better.
“Is it done?” I ask. I sound faint and weary even to myself.
“It’s done.”
I try to lift my head but find that I still can’t quite manage it. Anthony eases my head up, holds a glass of cool water to my lips. I sip at it weakly, never happier to taste clean water. He helps me drink until I’m done, ignoring the constant pinging that cannot be comfortable.
"Okay. You don't have painkillers worth a damn, so we're gonna do this almost the way I was taught. Also, I'm not getting hypothermia today, and neither are you. Lay on your right side." His voice is soft, matter-of-fact, and he helps me turn until I’m curled on my right side. He pulls the blankets over my shoulders, then slips into my narrow bed beside me, spooning against my body in a long line. I stiffen for a moment when I feel him against me, terrified for a brief instant, then relax. It’s fine. We’re fine.
“Can I sleep now?” I murmur into my pillow. My bed has never been so inviting as it is right now.
Anthony’ slips his warm metal arm around my waist. His fingers press against my skin a few inches below the line of stitches. "Yes. You're safe now."
I fall asleep to the sound of a quiet chant, a perfect lullaby.
Thank you.
I start at the sound of my name and shiver. We've left the dell and are working our way back up the defile. He's carrying me. I feel an irrational wash of stubbornness, of anger for not just leaving me to sleep when I'm hit with a moment of absurd clarity. You're half dead, Julia. He's saving your life. Don't be stupid. I grasp for something to say, something that will keep me awake. "So, uh. That's h-how you do a c-cleansing ritual."
Anthony smiles grimly. "You pull the earth from wherever it's still pure, and let it cleanse itself?"
It's a gross oversimplification, but that's essentially what I did. "S-sometimes. It d-d-depends on w-what it is and how it's b-been d-defiled." I'm having a hard time keeping the words in my head, and everything hurts.
Anthony's pace changes, quicker I think. I close my eyes because the trees bouncing make my stomach turn. "But here, the taint was... what? Localized enough that you could pull from around it?" There's an edge to his voice I can't identify. "Come on, Joule, explain."
Breathing the cold air hurts. Talking hurts. Pain keeps me awake. "P-part of it is that. H-here w-we had a s-situation w-where th-the t-taint is in th-the earth. Th-the Outsider w-wasn't here l-long enough t-to expand beyond this one p-place. If it had, w-we c-could have expected more c-c-corruption. "In a w-way, we were l-lucky that it's c-cold. Not as m-many animals t-to be affected. I'm t-told that water is worse. A river f-flows and corruption spreads th-that way."
"Right," he agrees. "And all the water here's frozen. Most of the animals hibernating or hiding. It helped, I get that." There's a pause and I open my eyes. His right shoulder and arm is covered in the sweater, his left is warm against my back and when I press my ear to his chest, I can hear the faint whir of its gears. He's not wearing a coat. "Where did you learn to cleanse like that?" he asks.
"M-mysterium Obrimos. T-traded him f-for some c-custom work on his car." I try to remember, take stock. The Jericho is back in my pocket, still pressed coldly against my hip. Shit. I'm going to have a bruise. I'm wearing one pair of snowshoes, he seems to be carrying his. Magic. He's using magic. "I still h-have your c-coat," I say, accusing. Of all the stupidly chivalrous things...
"I have no idea what you're talking about," he deadpans. I don't have the energy to argue with him, barely have the energy to answer when he says, "All right... tell me about... your time in college."
I talk. I talk and talk and talk while Anthony carries me, prods me when the world turns gray and black. All I want to do is sleep, to curl up and let this end. I imagine my mum and da, and talking to Yoav who smiles gently and sadly. Anthony asks me another question, forces me to think, brings me back to the place where everything hurts.
We walk for a long time.
When we finally see the jeep, it takes me a moment to realize what it is, what it means. Relief... We're almost there. We're almost there.
Anthony jars and jostles me more in trying to get the door open and maneuver me into the passenger seat than in the entire hike through the foothills. When he finally lays me down, he gasps with relief. I watch him, and only now do I realize how hard this has been. He stands with the door open, his face frozen with indecision.
I fumble at the collar of my coat and the zipper, but I can't make my fingers move like they need to. "Keys. Clipped in."
He unzips my coat, tugs it away from the gash across my chest which opens a new flow of blood. He stops short and stares, then growls low. "Joule, you're losing too much blood. I can stop it... but it's going to hurt like hell." Almost as an afterthought, he unclips my keys and shoves them into his pants pocket. Something makes a crackling sound.
I look at his pockets, try to parse out the sound, give up early. I meet his eyes, still brilliantly green, know that he's been exuding magic for hours. I try to take a deep breath, but it hurts, and it comes out ragged and harsh. "Do it," I tell him. Do it before I change my mind.
In answer, he unzips my coat all the way and gives me an apologetic grimace as he rips my sweater to spread that, as well, repeating the process until I'm down to my thermal undershirt, dark and sodden with blood. There, he touches my torso gently, so lightly that I barely feel it past the haze of pain. "Don't move."
I swallow hard, try not to do just that. With a curt nod, I close my eyes...
My body erupts with pain, shards of fire splintering inside me. It hurts, oh, Christ, it hurts... and then it recedes, leaving me with only the ache of my savaged arm, the sharp torment of my chest, and places on my body that throb from the impact of his fingers. I recognize the scent of Forces, of the treatment Anthony performed for himself weeks ago.
Anthony has a hand on the dashboard, and for a moment I think that it's perhaps the only thing holding him up. "Okay," he says with exhaustion like I haven't heard since he showed up on my doorstep, bloody and half dead. "You should be alright for a while. I'm... I'm sorry -" he cuts off sharply, then eases me fully into the seat, puts my hand in my lap and closes the door. In a moment, he is hauling himself into the driver's seat with another crackling. He glances at me while I lay my head back on the headrest, mutters something I don't quite hear, and then reaches across and buckles my seat belt for me.
"Th-that's quite a trick," I say. He starts the truck, buckling his own belt across his lap, turning on the heater as high as it will go. I try to sit up, but only manage weak kicking, and decide to let the seat belt do the work.
"It's... it does the job okay." He is quiet, but there's something else in his voice, a trace of hatred and aimed entirely at himself. I try to hang on to that thought as he puts the Jeep in gear and starts down the hill fast, a look of fierce concentration on his face. I watch him for a long moment, feel the stillness of his magic.
"You won't... do either of us any good... if you get us both killed by... by plowing into a tree," I chide him. I'm not dead yet. We're almost there. I'm still wearing his coat around my shoulders. Don't be stupid, Anthony...
He's distracted when he answers. "I see Forces by touch... er... well, you know what I mean. I'm watching the friction of the tires, and I can nudge it back if it slips."
I snort, but even that hurts. If I close my eyes for a moment...
"Joule!"
I wake with a start, claw my way back to consciousness. I've slipped down in the seat, can't pull myself up. "Here. I'm here."
"Keep talking. You can't sleep, not yet." He swears under his breath. "You're going to tell me how to disassemble an engine. In detail, down to the fittings."
Somewhere in my head, I know he's right, despite how much I desperately want to give up. "Engine. Right." I take a breath, nearly ask what kind, and then realize it doesn't matter. Pick one. "Start by draining the oil..."
He gives me something to concentrate on, something I know well. I take my time, try to form the words carefully and without stuttering. At least once, I catch myself falling asleep and shake my head to clear it. Once, I realize that I've been speaking in Hebrew, and force myself to figure out when I started and repeat myself in English while I think about Yoav. Anthony asks me a sharp question every time I falter. It irritates me, but I try not to snap at him. Don't fall asleep.
We're passing the turn off for Red Deer Trail when Anthony starts shivering hard. I'm describing a diesel cycle and why they're interesting when I realize it and I frown at him. "We're almost there," I tell him. Close.
"I know," he says, his control shaking. Beads of sweat stand out on his forehead, and I know then that my recitation is as important to his focus as it is to mine. I continue as if I hadn't stopped, but know even as I do that my pauses are longer and the words come slowly.
Soon, we coast through the streets of Great Falls. Anthony takes the correct streets and I sigh with relief. Home. Home will make it better. I close my eyes and start in on the pitfalls of the Wankel rotary engine and how I would redesign it.
The jeep shudders to a stop and I open my eyes. Anthony is already out of his seat, takes our packs over one shoulder. I grasp clumsily at the door handle, but can't seem to make it work; he opens my door while I watch him, propped up in my seat, held in place with the belt; holding my head up is starting to be problematic. He unbuckles my belt, puts his arms around me. ""It's gonna be okay, Joule. We're home, we're safe." His words break something inside me, the last will I had. He hesitates, then leaves me where I am to open the office door and disappearing inside for a moment. He returns without the packs and a torn expression.
"I..." He bites something back. "I'm trying to figure how to get you up the stairs."
Fuck. Stairs. I have those. Like the fucking matterhorn...
"The hell with it." He moves me so my back is to the door and then lifts me with large, strong hands placed under my thighs. "Just lean against me, and this will work out."
I don't lean so much as collapse against him, but he moves carefully, nudging doors shut with a foot. His arms tremble a little as he backs up my steep stairs to my loft. Despite his attempts not to jostle me, every movement is a wave of pain. By the time we make the top of the stairs, he sags against the wall, letting my feet touch the floor, but holding me upright.
"Okay," he murmurs, "Okay okay okay... let's see."
We're home... but we're not done yet. Only magic stands between me and bleeding to death, and I can't even conceive of how I'm going to stitch myself up. First things first. "Bed. Box in the loo."
They're the only words I can manage, but Anthony understands them well enough. "Right, yeah." He pulls me into his arms again and steps across the room in only a few steps, lowering me onto the bed. He pulls the covers over and then nearly runs into the tiny bathroom, rattling and thumping until he emerges with my kit.
What next? "Plug in the space heater. We... both need to get warm. Towels under the bed. Warm them on the heater." I close my eyes tightly, pray for it to end. When I open them again, a flash of irritation crosses Anthony's face and strangely, that hurts more. "I... I hurt, Anthony," I tell him. I don't know what else to say, what else I can possibly do.
The hard lines of his face soften, and for a moment he looks about to cry. He lays his warm, mechanical hand on my forehead, brushes his fingers against my cheek. "I've got you, Joule. I'll take care of you."
All my fear and pain and exhaustion come to the fore, and the tears I've been holding back break. I hadn't realized how much effort it was taking, but the first release is a relief. Anthony leaves me to my tears while he turns on the space heaters and warms towels on them. As the room heats, he efficiently strips off my outer-layers, chafes his hands against my thawing limbs, leaving my injured arm aside. He carefully doesn't look at my face, and right now, I don't blame him. His awkward squeeze of my shoulder, though, undoes me. I cry fresh tears, grateful, at last, to be able to cry, to not pretend to be brave. I choke back a sob, which proves to be a terrible idea; fresh pain erupts and this time, I give into the sob.
Anthony puts his hand on top of my head, and I feel the wires in my head buzz and crackle with electricity; my hat isn't insulating anymore. He kisses my forehead, a quick peck of lips against skin. He brushes his unscarred cheek over the spot. "I'm not going anywhere."
I swallow, let the tears flow. "O-okay."
When he pulls away, he is all brisk efficiency again. He pulls supplies from my kit, stacks them on the bed next to me. I don't look at them, am afraid to look at them. "I guess this goes both ways," he murmurs quietly. He begins to strip my boots and socks, gently divests me of my pants and the thermal layer I wear underneath, cold and wet and the top covered in blood. He chafes my feet and legs again, covers them in warm towels, but this time the chafing leaves a subtly numb sensation.
"What... did you do, there?" I ask him as he lays a cloth across my hips.
"Dulled your nerves a little. Another trick from training... it helped us sleep through the bruises." His reply is quiet, distracted while he takes my thermal apart with a pair of surgical scissors. He lifts my torso, gently pulling away the ruined cloth and laying a hot towel on the bed underneath me. He rubs and wraps my right arm with little fanfare, lays a hot towel across my chest, and again I'm grateful, and know a little of how Anthony must feel every time he looks at the scar across his stomach.
When he finally rubs my left arm down, it ignites with imagined fire, then dulls gently. I gasp, and he murmurs a sibilant word. "I can't do it too much, or it'll kill nerve endings." I nod as he turns my arm over in his hands and inspects it carefully. "Oh, babe... you're going to have a couple of crazy new scars. Let's see what I can manage."
I nod, concentrate on the rafters, the exposed pipe and insulation of my warehouse loft. It needs to be cleaned and I resolve to do it before I leave here. "I've never been pretty," I murmur, accepting the new scars. No different than the old.
I see a flash of movement out of the corner of my eye, then my left shoulder erupts in a sharp pain and my arm goes numb. I cry out, but it is more from surprise, the sudden gasp that puts strain on my chest. I don't look because I don't want to see. Let him do it.
"Port. Storm. It'll do." He puts fingers to my chin, turning my head a little more so I see even less of his work. I study the wall, an industrial gray, as if it had been painted in gray primer but never painted over. He tugs uncomfortably at my arm, I smell antiseptic, but feel no pain. Grateful. I am grateful.
He asks me questions, things that are banal; which cars are easiest to fix, what gets better mileage. I think about them, give him slow answers; my head is fuzzy and my chest aches more and more, making words ponderously difficult to find. When he is finished, he wraps my arm in gauze and tapes it while I try to answer his last question past the latest wash of pain.
There is a pause after his last question and before he draws the rapidly cooling towel from my chest. He examines it closely, traces the jagged line of the wound with a fingertip, while I turn my head to watch him and it. This is the first I've really looked at it, the claw mark that flayed open my left breast, scraped across my sternum and stopped at the ribs a couple inches below my right breast. Anthony shudders involuntarily before he is done and it makes him scowl.
"Are you alright?" I ask him quietly.
He takes a slow breath, then nods, standing as he does so. He brings the next round of towels from the heater and brings them to the bedside. One, he folds and places on the floor, the rest he puts on a chair that he drags from the table, then he strips off his sweater and thermal, followed by his soaked jeans, showing lacerations that cross his chest and back, one on his right arm. The then puts one towel on the seat of his chair, another goes over his waist and finally one across his shoulders. He holds the remaining towels to his chest and shivers.
“You’re hurt,” I say. How did I not see that?
His voice is muffled by the towels. “A little. Your cleansing killed my infections same as yours, so it's nothing to worry about.” He lays the remaining towels across my stomach, my shoulders and neck, leaving my chest exposed. "I... I can't numb this one like the other. I'd stop your heart if I tried."
I nod, accepting it. "You've done what you can."
"I have to clean and stitch it... there's nothing else for it."
I look up at him, will him to stop talking and just get on with it. "I know." I look away again, study my wall.
"I'm right here," he murmurs helplessly, and starts in on cleaning the wound.
We don’t talk; Anthony is silent and I hurt too much to make coherent sounds. He holds me down and somewhere I recognize that it’s meant to be gentle. I can’t tell anymore, can’t make the distinction. My mind struggles to stay here, to not remember other places where I’ve hurt, where I’ve been hurt. My spine tingles.
Finally, when he is finished and the wound is coated in a cold gel, he leans back and lays his right hand against my cheek. His fingers are finally warm from the work. I’m too tired to look at him, too scared. “Oh, hell,” he whispers and takes a long breath. "It'll be okay, sweetheart, I promise. Just be brave a little while more."
I gasp for air and hurt again. "I- I don't have anything left." I squeeze my eyes shut and moan when he draws the edges of the wound together and begins stitching with gentle, uncompromising hands. I blink, see my gray wall, and then the world slips sideways and I see nothing at all.
-=-=-=-
I feel the buzz of electricity, hear an odd pinging noise. I open my eyes to find Anthony’s metal fingers intertwined in my hair and supporting my head, realize that the pinging comes from my electricity and his arm. The pain isn’t gone, but it is less; considerably less. A dull line runs diagonally across my chest and my left arm tingles, the forearm burning and itching… but it is better. Everything is better.
“Is it done?” I ask. I sound faint and weary even to myself.
“It’s done.”
I try to lift my head but find that I still can’t quite manage it. Anthony eases my head up, holds a glass of cool water to my lips. I sip at it weakly, never happier to taste clean water. He helps me drink until I’m done, ignoring the constant pinging that cannot be comfortable.
"Okay. You don't have painkillers worth a damn, so we're gonna do this almost the way I was taught. Also, I'm not getting hypothermia today, and neither are you. Lay on your right side." His voice is soft, matter-of-fact, and he helps me turn until I’m curled on my right side. He pulls the blankets over my shoulders, then slips into my narrow bed beside me, spooning against my body in a long line. I stiffen for a moment when I feel him against me, terrified for a brief instant, then relax. It’s fine. We’re fine.
“Can I sleep now?” I murmur into my pillow. My bed has never been so inviting as it is right now.
Anthony’ slips his warm metal arm around my waist. His fingers press against my skin a few inches below the line of stitches. "Yes. You're safe now."
I fall asleep to the sound of a quiet chant, a perfect lullaby.
Thank you.