Mage!reader that everyone thinks is just a healer.
Mage!reader who, despite what their file said, has been around long enough that even though magic is largely accepted now, they can’t get over the fear of the pyre. Of what would happen if the team knew that they could do things that made reattaching severed limbs look like a cakewalk.
Until Soap dies. And, despite everything, Reader can’t let him go. Can’t accept the pain in the rest of the team’s eyes.
The tears in Ghost’s.
No one but Reader is really sure what happened. One moment, they were all standing/crouching next to Soap’s corpse and Makarov was getting away. Then they were back at base. Or, Ghost, Gaz, and Price were.
Then Soap appeared seconds later, in a shower of colored sparks they all had come to associate with Reader’s healing magic.
And he was fully healed. Alive. Moving and breathing despite the bullet that had stolen his heartbeat mere moments ago. Despite the injury and blood loss that Reader had said couldn’t be healed.
Apparently the bomb had gone off. But the only evidence of that was the scorch marks on the ground, like someone had dropped a sparkler.
Makarov hadn’t escaped that day, either. But any intel he could have had was useless. Poor bastard wouldn’t stop screaming about the demon with glowing eyes that had killed him. About the creature that had let him get a taste of the other side, only to snatch him away and trap him in a body that only stopped hurting when the demon allowed it.
