'Verse: Resistance, co-author @whump-sprite
AU: Anders finds Ariadne broken instead of Alex, a version where Alex gets involved in healing her
Timeline: About 2 weeks after Taryn broke all of Ariadne's bones
Responsible
[Prev]
It’s been more than 24 hours since Milonas received any healing. Alex lies awake in the dark, watching the street-lamp-shadow of the blinds shift with the slight draft through the window. Every so often a car passes, and the second shadow from the headlights slides from one end of the wall to the other.
He should have insisted on seeing her today. He’s barely drained, he could have spared her some magic. Anders says he’ll stop letting Alex heal her if he isn’t very careful with his magic, but would he really?
Whenever he closes his eyes he can see the erratic rise and fall of the pieces of rib under her skin. The hard edges shifting beneath the purple bruising.
He fixed that more than a week ago, but the image is seared into his mind.
He’s seen plenty of horrors of course, but Taryn did this.
Milonas is probably awake too. She doesn’t get much sleep. She’ll be lying awake too, looking at the bare ceiling of a cell, the bars between her and the world. Alex shudders.
Where are you, healer?
Her voice in his head is cold and condescending, laced with sneer.
You can do better than that. Pathetic excuse for a healer.
Should he try to tell her that he was busy elsewhere? There’s no reason that she’d care. It won’t be good enough. He’s deluding himself if he thinks she will care, just because he is trying to be kind to her.
She deserves to know that it wasn’t just cruelty. That he didn’t leave her to suffer because he wanted to.
In the end, he gets up a little after five, unable to stand lying in bed a moment longer. He showers, and eats a bowl of cereal without tasting a single mouthful.
Almost 36 hours, now, since he gave her any healing. He always tries to spare a little magic to soothe the inflammation and the spasming muscles, so as to reduce the pain. She hasn’t had that in more than a day.
Who do they have guarding her? Have they remembered to check that her morphine hasn’t run out? Would they care if it did?
In 17 the guards would let themselves in sometimes to kick Alex just for fun, even when she wasn’t there. How many Resistance warlocks have a grudge against Milonas? She’s defenceless.
It’s too early to ask to go over. But as soon as Anders will be awake, Alex will go over. He won’t make her wait any longer.
What are you waiting for, warlock? Get on with it.
He means to put the TV on, but in the end he just sits on the couch, consumed by his own thoughts.
Anders picks Alex up in his car. He tries to make conversation, but Alex has nothing to say. He just stares out of the window, trying to appreciate the view of street and sky, but taking nothing in.
He can feel the disapproval radiating off Anders. He doesn’t think Alex should be healing his Interrogator. He thinks Alex is… sick in the head for even wanting to. But who else would do it right, knowing what she is?
Taryn is at the safehouse where they’re holding Milonas. She sits at the kitchen table, nursing a mug and scrawling something that looks at a glance like some spell diagram onto looseleaf paper. Her head snaps up guiltily as they walk in, eyes wide and wounded. Alex freezes for a second, then turns his head away.
He can feel Taryn’s eyes on him. From the corner of his vision, he can just see her put her hands on the table as if to stand up, then change her mind and hug them to her body instead. He doesn’t acknowledge her.
She’s not his sister. Not the sister he thought he knew, anyway. How could she be his own flesh and blood and do something so awful? In Alex’s name? How could she imagine he would want this?
He has imagined Interrogator screaming. He’s wished for it. But not like this. Even she never hurt him like this.
“Want to take her breakfast?” Anders suggests.
Alex wasn’t going to waste time on it. She doesn’t care about breakfast, she cares about less pain. But he finds himself nodding to the suggestion. And when Anders grabs a pack of Instant Oats from the cupboard, Alex dutifully goes through the motions of making up a bowl.
Get on with it, lazy piece-of-shit healer.
He doesn’t look at Taryn, although it’s hard to force himself not to. After a minute, she gets up silently and leaves the room.
The oatmeal goes on a tray with a fresh jug of water and the morning’s drugs. Anders carries it, because Alex’s hands are shaking. Down the steps they go, into the basement that houses the Resistance’s only holding cell.
At least, the only one Alex knows about. But he didn’t know they were catching people to mindfuck, either.
He should be grateful. He is grateful. They got him out.
Milonas lies on the bed, as always, because it’s not as if she can take herself elsewhere. Wide, dark eyes watch Anders and Alex with distrust.
“Hello,” Alex mumbles weakly. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here yesterday. I’m here now…”
Sometimes he slips and calls her sir or interrogator. But not with Anders watching. If he thought she was forcing him to do that… Alex doesn’t know what Anders might do.
“Good morning,” she answers, just as faint and unenthusiastic as Alex.
He expects her to ask him where he’s been, to demand an explanation. But of course she doesn’t. She’s not in control here. She’s afraid.
But she doesn’t flinch from his hand as he carefully lays it on her nearest arm. That’s… progress. Alex sends a careful, restrained wave of numbing through her whole body, pulling his magic back before her injuries can suck too much out of him. If his magic didn’t already tell him exactly how much pain she was in, it would be evident from the candid whimper of relief as her body goes slack.
“This isn’t enough morphine,” Alex says, already checking her IV.
“I asked if she needed more,” Anders returns. “She said no.”
“She needs more.”
Anders doesn’t argue, but Alex’s mind fills in the disapproval. Wasting resources on a federal interrogator. She wouldn’t be so generous for any of them. She never has been.
It’s not a waste, Alex insists, but there’s no one to argue with but himself.
“Thank you,” Milonas recites dutifully as Alex tops up her medication.
There’s no feeling in it, neither warmth nor resentment, and no life in her eyes. It’s hard to reconcile with the harsh, domineering woman of his nightmares. But of course enough pain will do that to anyone.
“Water?”
“Yes, please.”
Alex has made progress on her right hand. She can pick some things up now, but even a plastic cup of water is heavy. Alex holds it for her, and she drinks with her eyes half-closed, trying to avoid looking at him.
“You can leave us,” Alex tells Anders. He doesn’t look round. He doesn’t want to see the concern, or pity, or suspicion on Anders’ face. Surely he doesn’t have to point out, again, that Milonas can’t hurt him.
After a second, Anders grunts agreement. “Let me know when you’re done. I’ll take you home.”
Once Anders is gone, Alex again expects to be questioned. What were you doing yesterday? Why weren’t you here? But his Interrogator is as silent as ever, eyes fixed on the wall somewhere off to the right of Alex.
He takes her right hand carefully in his, feeling the tremor of pain and uncertainty – or is that his own shaking? Probably it’s both.
A quick sweep of his senses through her body checks for anything new or newly worsened since he’s been gone. No one else has hurt her, at least. The long bones in her legs aren’t beginning to heal as well as he’d like, so he spares a little more magic into the major breaks. Then he settles in to work on her hands.
“Thank you,” she murmurs again.
The urge to apologise again is rising in Alex’s throat like bile, but he swallows it back. She heard him the first time. Just because she didn’t acknowledge it, doesn’t mean anything. He doesn’t have to apologise to her anymore.
Even with her broken, trembling hand between his fingers, it’s hard to believe he doesn’t have to apologise anymore. Even if not for his failure to be here, he feels responsible…
“I can’t be here every day,” he tells her instead, a compromise with his guilty conscience and his sick, fearful need to appease. “We don’t have enough healers, so… sometimes I’m needed elsewhere.”
“Okay,” she agrees.
Alex pauses to search her face, but there’s nothing. Just… the same words Alex knows too well. Okay. Thank you. Please. Yes sir. She called him “sir” for a while, before he told her not to.
After everything he’s done for her, she still sees him as a monster. Or… as a captor. The walls and the bars press suffocatingly close.
“I won’t hurt you,” he snaps, balking from the insolence in his tone even as he keeps talking. “Even if you’re – rude to me. I’m not like that. We’re –”
But Taryn is like that.
“I’m not like that,” he repeats instead.
