[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]

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."

[sanzo]

"As long as they don't get into my face," grumbles Sanzo. "Gods are always getting into business that isn't theirs."

When the stuff is done fizzing and all the blood and unpleasant things are cleaned away, Sanzo gives it all another do-over before looking for the bandages.

[amberdrake]

Drake hands them over next, too. This part, he would have asked for help with, because wrapping bandages evenly and with the right tension and then tying them off... one-handed? He could do it, but he was still tired enough to doubt his own dexterity.

And it was just a lot less fuss to have someone else manage it.

"I think our being here is proof of that," Amberdrake notes mildly, "although I have a hard time being mad at them over it, at this point. I shouldn't be glad for this situation; there are people relying on me on my world, and people relying on you on yours, but..."

But he is glad. Even if he suspects that makes him a selfish idiot.

[sanzo]

Sanzo bandages him without replying for a while. He's done this a lot, for himself and for others, and he'd probably be a decent field medic if that had been his calling.

But eventually he says, "So we make our own way, once we find out the limits of this place."

[amberdrake]

Amberdrake smiles a little at that, rolling his short sleeve down once the bandages are done. His arms being bare like this is more skin that he usually showed casually, ten years ago. And not a hint of apprehension can be felt; he's gotten over some of that, too.

"When we were on Haven..." it seems important to voice the thought, now, so he speaks slowly and carefully, "we both got into trouble, trying to protect the other at our own expense."

It was true. Amberdrake had tried to protect Sanzo from his own inadequacies, often by pulling away. Ducking under his mask. Literally fleeing, sometimes, as when the others had arrived. And Sanzo... hadn't that been why he'd initially allowed Kain to do as he had? To 'make peace'? To keep Drake from becoming collateral damage?

He's had ten years to mull these things over.

"But that was foolish, because it just makes the other person have to try harder to undo the damage the first person did to themselves while trying to protect the other. Does that make sense? It's a vicious cycle."

Ten years of relative peace has taught me more about these things than ten years of war could.

[sanzo]

Sanzo, after setting the rest of the bandages aside, doesn't sit down; he watches Drake even more closely instead.

"When did you get so cocky, asshole?" is what he finally asks, and it's surprised, approving, and a little disconcerted all at once.

[amberdrake]

"That isn't exactly a denial, dear-heart," he notes with a smile, because he's not letting Sanzo de-rail him quite so easily as that!

"Do you know how many times I almost got shot, yesterday?" Amberdrake asks, and then shakes his head a little with a glance at his bandaged arm, "And I don't mean that little thing. I had a gun aimed at my head at least twice, probably more. I didn't feel like doing anything about it, until you showed up."

[sanzo]

"Idiot. You're not a fighter, you shouldn't be on the front..." But that's hypocritical of him to say, isn't it? Hasn't Sanzo said to others to fight when they needed to fight? To risk themselves instead of sitting back?

But this is Drake, and...

"Shit." Relationships make everything so damn complicated.

"You're saying things that..." No, that's not the civil thing to say, either. "If you go out there without backup, I'll shoot you myself."

[amberdrake]

"You're misunderstanding me," Amberdrake reaches to catch one of his hands in his, "I'm saying that now that you're here, I will be careful. Because I don't want to hurt you by getting myself killed. And if you want me to be safe, you'll do the same. Because if I lose you, here, I... probably won't be far behind."

And he offers a rather affectionate smile up at the monk, "I know you hate discussing these things, but I want-- I feel it should be said. At least the once. If we're going to make our own way, let's do it without being idiots." This time.

[sanzo]

Sanzo doesn't pull his hand away. "Look at you, talking like a strategist now." And a lover, but he doesn't say that aloud.

At least his tone is a little more gentle, and his gaze betrays everything that he won't say-- but Amberdrake can feel all of it anyway, awkward as it all is.

"You've got weird taste in trash."

[amberdrake]

"I'm talking like a kestra'chern," Drake counters smoothly, "who's finally had time away from the war."

It's not like he'll ever be completely over it. The war haunts him, still, and it always will. But it isn't the entirety of his life as it was before. He'd never had a break from it, when Sanzo knew him last, never had time to recover at all, to mourn, to even attempt to heal.

"I have a family, now... people I don't want to lose. I've accepted that they don't want to lose me, either. And you're one of them." So there! "Ten years has given me a lot of time to think about what I'd say if I ever got the chance, you know."

[sanzo]

A lot of words crowd around in Sanzo's chest, or his brain, or wherever it is that these things get all tangled up. How can Amberdrake speak so freely? Why can't he?

"I haven't," is what he manages-- without self-pity, only plainly. That he cares is something that the kestra'chern can feel; that he loves him is something that saying aloud is entirely alien at the best of times, and yet he's here, his hand is in Drake's, and he's doing his inadequate best to listen.

But-- "I understand."

[amberdrake]

But Amberdrake honestly doesn't need Sanzo to say any of that out loud. And isn't that a large part of why they work? In many ways, it's not such a bad thing that Sanzo has gotten involved with a therapist.

It kind of takes a therapist to handle him, sometimes!

"Good," Drake smiles up at him, "so be careful, for my sake if nothing else. And I will do the same."

Look at them, being all adjusted and things. But there's enough trouble outside without them having trouble inside, too!

[sanzo]

"Get more rest," is what Sanzo finally settles on. "You look like shit."

It's not like he can't feel the weariness and strain lingering in Amberdrake, and, "If we're going to do things right this time, you can't be dragging because you're overextended. You have to be stronger."

[amberdrake]

"Fair enough," Amberdrake gives that captured hand a squeeze and then lets go, moving to get up. And Sanzo is correct, of course, because his vision briefly grays out at the edges when he stands.

And he trails off for the bedroom, because the couch is okay to sleep on when you can't move any further, but the bed is far better!

[sanzo]

Of course, Sanzo might then, still fatigued, join him; for he himself will not sleep on the couch.

He's subtle, after all.

Yeah.