((Will and Jackson are the amazing @crash-bump-bring-the-whump‘s ocs and Ruin you know what you did))
Zuriel doesn’t know how anyone can be alive in that wreck below him, but they’re alive, and in pain. He touches down outside the car and knocks carefully at the window, looking in at the victim. He can’t believe how much pain is roiling out from inside, how can th- His heart stops when his eyes land on the person in the passenger seat.
The reaper in the passenger seat.
It’s Will.
“Oh, heavens,” he breathes. The door is too warped and twisted to open out towards him, so he wraps his fingers around the edge of the door and yanks, ripping it away so he can get to the wounded reaper.
The moment the door is open, Will starts to panic. “Please, take me, jus- just me, y’don’t need him, jus’ me, please-” Breathless pleas tumble from his lips, and they break Zuriel’s heart. Of course- his holy magic. Will thinks he’s Daniel.
“Will, Will, it’s me, it’s Zuriel,” he hurries to reassure him, taking one of his hands into his own. Brushing Will’s unmoving fingers over the scarred tissue left from their shared time together in the lab. His friend’s hand doesn’t so much as twitch underneath his own, and his words are babbled over by more begging, getting more and more heartwrenching and desperate.
“Will, please, Will, listen to me.” His hand travels up to Will’s face, and he lightly brushes the scarred back of his hand against Will’s cheek. The reaper freezes at the touch, the pleas dying mid-word. “Will, it’s me. Can you hear me?”
Will trembles against his hand, and Zuriel gently cups his face into his palm, his thumb brushing over the reaper’s cheekbone. “Will?”
“Zuriel,” Will breathes, going slack against the seat. “He-ey.”
“Hey, Will.” Zuriel’s other hand hovers over him, trembling slightly. He fights to keep his voice from doing the same. “Will, how- how do I help you? Do you want me to heal you? Or- or-” He knows the other option. He’s seen it a couple of times himself. “I can heal your spine, so you can- you can take out your soul?” He’s not going to offer his sword, he knows about Will and blades.
“Save your magic.” Will cracks one of those small, painful smiles that are so familiar. “Trust you,” he wheezes.
Zuriel hesitates. “Will, do you- are you saying-?”
“Zu-uriel…can, can you…you grab m-my soul…? Ple-ase…?”
Zuriel’s heart breaks a little, listening to that raspy, cracking plea. He can’t say no to that.
Zuriel places his hand on Will’s chest, palm flat, and takes a deep breath. Then he pushes, just a little, and his hand slides into Will’s chest. It only takes a moment for his searching fingers to find the soul, and he plucks it from its place as gently as he possibly can.
The second his fingertips brush his soul, William takes a deep breath and relaxes. With a breathy, “Tha-ank you, Zuriel,” Will’s body dissolves into purple smoke in front of him, and he’s left with a marble-sized orb nestled in his palms.
Zuriel cradles his soul close to his chest, awed and humbled by Will’s show of vulnerability. “Thank you for trusting me,” he whispers to the purple smoke clinging to his hand as it rolls down his fingers towards the corpse in the driver’s seat.
The corpse that suddenly gasps and starts moving.
“Oh! Oh, heavens, can you hear me?” He hurries closer, looking over the man. How- he felt nothing from the other side of the car just a moment ago, but now there’s pain, and fear, and confusion, and distress.
“Will?” The man turns his head just a little and his eyes settle on Zuriel. “Who-?” The man blinks up at him, and Zuriel’s eyes widen at the sight of the mile marker sticking out of the man’s ribs. Oh, dear.
“My name is Zuriel, I’m here to help you.”
“Will, where- where’s Will?” Those eyes focus on him warily.
In response, Zuriel holds out Will’s soul for him to see. “I couldn’t leave him like that.” With utmost care, he tucks the smoky orb into the pocket of his tunic, right over his heart. He won’t allow anything to happen to his friend.
He moves to the other side of the car, using his sword to split the door in two when it doesn’t open for him. “Okay, this is- it’s going to hurt, I’m sorry. I’ll heal you as soon as I get you off of that thing.”
The man wheezes, looking uncertain, but his eyes go to the purple light in his pocket, and he nods.
Zuriel wraps both hands around the protrusion, eyes focused on the area between the man’s ribs where the mile marker had entered his body. He’s going to have to be fast with his healing magic, he has no idea how this man is still alive.
With a grunt, he pulls at the marker. The man groans in pain, and the sign inches forward, but it’s still embedded. Zuriel frowns. He has to get it out with this next try, he won’t force him to suffer any longer than he has to.
He braces his feet against the side of the wrecked car and yanks. This time, the blood-covered mile marker slides free from the man’s chest and Zuriel staggers back with it. The man in the driver’s seat makes a cracked sound of agony that morphs into a scream, arching in the seat.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I know that hurt, the worst is over now.” The sign is discarded on the ground without a second thought as he wraps his arms around the man, takes a moment to grab Will’s cane, and pulls him out of the car. That’s a lot of blood. “I’m going to heal you now,” he makes sure to tell him, just to give a warning.
He presses a hand over the wound and focuses, concentrates, calling golden healing light to his fingertips. It spreads through his body, knitting torn flesh together and banishing the aches. Zuriel stays like that for a several moments, channeling his power to seek out the injuries, his arm, head, torso. Finally, the light dies, and Zuriel blinks away his dizziness.
The man lifts his head a little, looking disbelieving. A hand tentatively touches the place on his torso that had been bleeding so profusely before he looks up at Zuriel. “Thank you,” he says quietly.
Zuriel smiles in response. “I’m going to bring you both to a safe place, is that okay? I doubt you want to stay by the freeway all evening.”
A bewildered nod from the man, and Zuriel unfurls his wings, tightening his grip on the man and double-checking that Will is safe in his pocket before he takes to the skies.
It doesn’t take long for Zuriel to find a suitable clearing, and he touches down lightly on the grass. A whispered command word, and the pocket cottage unfolds into existence, door already open for him and his newest charge.
He sets the weakened man on his bed and perches in a chair next to it. “Poor thing, you must be exhausted. What’s your name?”
He groans, blinking open his eyes to look at him. “Jackson,” he answers feebly.
“Jackson.” Zuriel smiles gently at him. “My name is Zuriel. I’m a friend of Will’s.” He watches that sink in before he continues. “You can rest now, if you wish. Is there anyone you want me to call for you? Anyone who might be worried about you, anyone you want to come here?”
Jackson fumbles in his pocket, coming up with a cell phone. “Brian and, and Elliot,” he says, his voice cracking on the last syllables. “Eme-ergency c-contacts.”
Zuriel nods and takes the phone from his shaking hand, placing his other hand on his shoulder as he summons his healing again. Warm light travels through his fingertips through Jackson, and he watches the man relax under his ministrations. “Rest,” he says again. “I’ll watch over you.”
Jackson’s out like a light before he can finish the sentence.
Zuriel heals a little more until he starts to feel dizzy, before he pulls his hand away and turns on Jackson’s phone. He doesn’t need to search for Brian and Elliot’s contacts, not when the screen so clearly displays twenty-seven missed calls. He calls the first number on the screen and gets an answer immediately.
“Jack, thank god! When you didn’t answer our calls, Elliot and I thought-”
“I’m, I’m not Jack, I’m sorry,” Zuriel interrupts the frantic voice gently. “But he’s safe.”
The voice pauses. “Sorry, who are you?”
It takes a few minutes to explain the situation, but he gives the owner of the voice- Brian, directions to the cottage, along with multiple reassurances that Jack and Will are okay, and in return receives a promise that “Elliot and I will be right there!”
Once he hangs up the phone, Zuriel checks on Will’s soul, still safe and sound in his pocket, and puts a hand over him protectively. “You’re safe now,” he can’t stop himself from whispering. He won’t let anything happen to him, not while he’s under his protection.
On the bed, Jackson isn’t showing any signs of nightmares, so Zuriel rises and goes to the kitchen. He’d better get started on dinner. He’s going to have a lot of guests.
