[complete] I'm home again, I won the war, and now I am behind your door.

[amberdrake]

Who: Amberdrake and Sanzo
What: Drake's been out Healing people since the riots began, and is finally hitting the bottom of his resources when a familiar face shows up. Sanzo always had a particular timing...
Where: Ludmead.
When: Very late on the night of the arena riots.
Warnings: A little gore and violence at the start.

Amberdrake's vision is finally starting to gray out, inkblots of darkness spreading at the corners and sometimes blocking the middle, making his balance skew way to the left, or way to the right. He doesn't have to see with his eyes to Heal, so here he is somewhere between Ava's place and his own little rental house, patching some poor sod up who couldn't quite make it out of the line of fire quickly enough.

There's a gunshot, and Drake barely has the presence of mind to flinch at the sound or at the burning line of white-hot fire slashed across the outside of his arm. He's too distracted by the fact that the man his Gift was threaded into just died. Bullet to the skull, his Gift informs him as it happens in such excruciating detail, millisecond by millisecond, that even the seasoned war-Healer feels supremely nauseated.

Just as when he was Healing Wolfgang earlier today -- when there was still light and his eyes still worked properly -- he can feel a gun aimed at his own head. And just as then, he doesn't really react. Later, he'll tell himself that he was too distracted by withdrawing his Gift from the dead meat beneath his hands, but right then...

He doesn't really have a reason to care, now does he? For one tiny moment of loneliness-fueled self destruction, he can't be bothered to so much as duck.

Get it over with.

Comments

[sanzo]

There's another gunshot, but it comes from somewhere behind Drake, and the scream when the bullet hits cuts through the air like a ragged wet slash.

The sound of the shot, too, is oddly echoing, hollow, a distorted facsimile of the usual whipcrack sound. But its target might not have been killed; there's no telltale sickening thump of a body to the ground.

"Oi."

Low, rough, and yet measured, just one syllable, and yet the familiarity is unmistakable.

[amberdrake]

Drake finally pries his hands off the cooling body before him and sits back on his shins. The ping of a familiar presence against his raw, battered shields, and the sound of that voice...

But it's been ten years. He's probably hallucinated this presence before.

And I must be hallucinating now, Amberdrake thinks, because it's reasonable, isn't it? His Gift is blacking his vision out and making his hands shake, he's so drained, and when he raises a hand to the line of fire on the side of his arm he feels hot blood.

"Hello?" Surely it isn't as dark here as he thinks it is. Even though it's late, late at night, there should be lights of some sort, shouldn't there?

[sanzo]

"There was this calling," continues that voice. Even if it's dark, it's hard to see precisely whom it might be, since they're backlit-- by a streetlight? The moons?

"A voice, calling. Screaming. I've been looking for it. I was going to silence it, but now I don't feel like it."

The words are almost dispassionate, but the heart and mind behind it are not. The tumble of emotions there are as violently intense as any raging mob's.

[amberdrake]

That's an awful lot of words for a hallucination. Amberdrake blinks his eyes, hard, forcing them to work again for just a moment--

And stares at that backlit figure.

"K-ke'chara?" Drake's own voice isn't all that controlled, at this point. There's a lot of painful hope there, even if he's internally bracing against the crushing disappointment that he's pretty sure is about to hit.

[sanzo]

A long, pale, thin hand extends out of the light. Followed by an arm, and then the rest of whatever's behind it: a blond young man in cream robes, standing over Amberdrake like a headstone over a grave.

"This isn't where we're supposed to be. Let's go."

[amberdrake]

Drake braces himself, and then reaches up to grab onto that hand. It's real. Holy crap. It's real. The Healing Gift is still active, and immediately registers its own work. There, where Sanzo's right hand was cut off, once, and Amberdrake had fused it back on...

"If this is a hallucination, I don't want it to end," the kestra'chern says shakily, "Is it really you? I--" he tries to get up, and fails.

[sanzo]

Sanzo shifts his grip, and moves to get his shoulder under Amberdrake's arm. Grunt! He takes the bigger man's weight, though he almost stumbles himself--

For he isn't in great shape, either. There's blood on his robes, though not all of it is his.

"You pick the place. Jeep's not here, nor the others, so we're on our own."

[sanzo]

"Landlords bleed," grunts Sanzo. "That's all I've gotta know."

He then proceeds to kick the door in. Gently, so it just flies back with a CRACK!!! but still actually stays on its hinges. If anyone was behind it, they're probably missing a few teeth and maybe a nose or two.

[amberdrake]

But either Amberdrake has actually managed to stay off the radar, or the militia are too busy rounding up the injured people at the various hospitals. Or something else, who knows? Either way, the place is empty, and dark.

Drake holds his breath for a moment or five, then lets it out and reaches in to hit the light switch. Look at him, using modern switches and things.

It's a single story little place, and Amberdrake has turned the living room into a work room of sorts, in lieu of any better ideas. Most of the furniture isn't his, although there is at least a couch. Which, when he stumbles in and towards it, still leaning heavily on the monk, he makes sure to haul him down onto as well.

He's got his arm 'round Sanzo's shoulders and behind his neck. The priest isn't going any damn where until he lets go, too, at least not without injuring the kestra'chern.

[sanzo]

Sanzo doesn't fight it, doesn't argue, doesn't snap out insults; he's fallen into his gang's arms before when he'd finally been through enough, and he's considerate enough to offer the same.

He closes his eyes and breathes, accepting and acknowledging Amberdrake's presence as much as the feel of his body, if not more.

He's battered, too, though the kestra'chern might actually be in worse shape, especially mentally. It hasn't been a decade for him.

[amberdrake]

"I apologize for being so familiar," Amberdrake says while being so familiar. It's not just that he sat down and dragged Sanzo down with him, but because while he says it he actually reaches to touch the monk's face. He still can't completely believe he's real.

And he still can't see all that clearly, although the bright artificial light in here helps a lot. The fact that he didn't have to crawl here under his own power has helped, too, letting him recover just a fraction of his normal energy. Just enough that breathing isn't dangerously difficult now.

"You're exactly the same as I remember you. I must seem a stranger."

[sanzo]

Sanzo stares at him in his usual way: guardedly on the outside, and maybe even on the inside a little. He knows that Amberdrake has a family back on Velgarth!

What's one shitty monk by comparison?

"You're still the same grabby, sappy guy," he finally allows. That face has aged, but not unpleasantly so, even if the gap makes Sanzo even more of a young punk in Amberdrake's eyes... "Nothing's changed."

[amberdrake]

Amberdrake... should have something to say about all that unsaid stuff. He's a kestra'chern. He knows it's there, and knows he should have words to put to it.

But he's also a Healer who has effectively driven himself into the mud; his eyes won't focus properly and his hands have just a bit of a shake to them that has nothing to do with how emotionally taut he currently feels.

"I am not at my best just now," he laughs a little at himself, there. Way to understate things, Drake. "But I never took this off," and he holds up the hand with that silver lotus ring on it. "Never, except for giving massage."

How to put it? He's had a decade to get over a lot of his war trauma, and to pick up new trauma along the way. A decade to unwind a little bit and assess things.

"I told you before that I'm yours until you no longer wish to have me. That, too, has not changed, enar ves'tacha."

[sanzo]

The movement alerts Sanzo, whose sleep had been right at the very edge of unconsciousness; had that been a threatening movement, he'd've fired off a bullet before he'd even been awake.

His empty hand shifts to rest on Amberdrake's hair, for he's sleepy enough to forget some of his usual reserve, though as the kestra'chern keeps moving, his touch slides away, back to his side.

"What're you looking at," he grumbles drowsily. Mornings are not his forte.

[amberdrake]

"Go back to sleep, ke'chara," Drake isn't going to even try to actually stand up, yet. He just reaches for his battered backpack on the ground and drags it closer so that he can retrieve the thermos from inside.

The contents having been refreshed so expertly halfway through last night's ordeal is undoubtedly part of what's saved him from full-on over-extension. He's definitely going to have to contact that dark-haired alchemist, once he's recovered and the city has calmed back down again.

But that's just a passing thought, right now, as he takes a pull of the foul-tasting stuff. It's a testament to how often he's been in this state that the taste itself doesn't wake him right the fuck up!

[sanzo]

"And be stared at by your creepy face? No thanks."

Sanzo rubs at his eyes, and then mutters after a longish pause, "...We're disgusting. Do you have any toothpaste?"

[amberdrake]

Drake just points toward the bathroom, cracking a giant yawn into his other hand as he does so. It's a small house, so there isn't much of a trek from here to there.

"Part of why I picked this place is the big shower," he says after taking another pull of that horrible goddamned tea. "And the big water heater. Have fun."

Because Amberdrake sure as hell isn't moving yet, thank you.

[sanzo]

With much creaking, cracking, and groaning, Sanzo takes his old man-esque self off to wash.

But not before pausing, and this time deliberately -- if hesitantly -- reaching out to touch Drake's cheek.

Maybe he, too, hasn't been quite convinced that his companion is real.

[amberdrake]

Amberdrake captures that hand, very briefly! And turns his head to brush his lips against the monk's fingers.

"I'll find you a clean set of scrubs and set them outside the door," he says after letting go. Look at him, all prepared for trouble as usual.

[sanzo]

Sanzo eventually emerges from the shower all clean and scrubbed, and even though his hair is damp that stubborn cowlick remains.

If this were the road, their reunion would be easier-- climb into the Jeep, bullshit about nothing, fight a lot of demons, and then sleep. Or, in their previous demesne, return to Sanzo's temple, bullshit about nothing, and then go to bed.

But it isn't. It's a new, unfamiliar place, and it seems to the monk as if he's standing on slippery ground despite Amberdrake's words.

Interpersonal communication is not his forte.

So he does what any reasonable person would do under the circumstances: he heads to the fridge, digs a mayo jar out of his sleeve -- where did he fit it under the-- wait, he doesn't even have sleeves, so where...? -- and puts the jar in the fridge.

Now, it is his fridge, too!

[amberdrake]

Drake has, by then, cleaned up and changed into his latest set of scrubs, and has been sitting on the couch mercilessly cleaning out the bullet graze wound on his arm. He can't use his Gift to burn out infection, so it's up to old fashioned scrubbing with a bottle of stuff that stings like mad and a bunch of sterile cotton balls.

He pauses mid-scrub and watches this little ritual with faint amusement, but no argument. "So I won't have to argue you into staying here, then?" Drake asks, quite deliberately giving Sanzo the 'well since you want me to stay here anyway, I'm just being generous' out.

[sanzo]

"You'll just get into more trouble if I leave," grunts the monk, like he's not a shining example of this, too.

"This place is no good, though. Needs more servants." Though if he had more servants, he'd be grousing that they're too noisy and nosy and get in the way.

He turns to look Drake over critically, and then wordlessly walks over and holds his hands out for what the kestra'chern's got in his.

[amberdrake]

"I really would get into more trouble," Amberdrake isn't even kidding! Though he's pleased at the solution, and doesn't bother to tuck that behind his kestra'chern mask.

In fact, he hasn't been bothering with that mask since they met back up. Perhaps its less of a permanent fixture, now? Something he takes out when it's needed, and not something he holds his crumbling sense of self together with?

Ten years is a long time. Drake hadn't even been sure of anything still existing under that mask, ten years ago.

"We can go somewhere else, if you like," Amberdrake offers, handing over the cotton balls and peroxide. His scrubs are short-sleeved, and he's rolled up the little sleeve there is to keep it out of the way of cleaning the wound on his arm. "Once we can afford to, of course. The inn you woke up in is no good; the militia poke around there a lot."

[sanzo]

Sanzo starts cleaning out the wound, a little less gently than the kestra'chern might have, but thoroughly all the same.

"No buddhist temples?" He hadn't found any, and it had been easy money: show up, take over, rake in the donations.

He's noticed those changes in Drake, of course, but he says not a word now.

[amberdrake]

"Not that I've encountered," Amberdrake doesn't complain about the cleaning; he doesn't care as long as it doesn't get infected! Not being able to use his Gift on himself is as exasperating as always.

"They have their own gods here, and their own religion. It seems other religions are allowed as long as they don't get too 'uppity'." That is absolutely a technical term. "Just as well for me that the Star-Eyed is far from the jealous sort."