Chapter Text
A small section of large digital monitors nearby tracks the rescued agent's temperature as it sluggishly creeps downward. His pulse and blood pressure remain too high, however, and as soon as they arrive back on base, John is whisked away and into a private room, or at least a room with one bed, unlike the shared, far larger rooms elsewhere in the medical wing. It’s not really too private, as there is a big window that spans along a good portion of the wall shared with the main hallway, not that it particularly bothers Nuada since his focus is entirely on his unconscious lover.
Nearly three hours go by in silence, save for a nurse intermittently entering during her rounds. During the short span of time, the worried immortal scion observes as John’s fever steadily falls from alarmingly high to what the medical staff call ‘just low-grade’. According to a doctor, there seem to somehow be no severe effects from the sustained high fever, which may indicate that it was magically induced, otherwise, a number of functions in John’s body should not have survived intact. (There had also been a short conversation wherein Nuada was assured that there were no physical signs of any type of abuse— except for the new scar tissue dead center of John’s sternum, which had helped immensely to ease a great portion of the elf’s stress.)
Whatever gods had intervened in the younger man’s fate and kept him from further damage, Nuada is thankful— well, for that as well as for John having made him his emergency contact and medical proxy at some point over the last few months of their relationship.
In any case, medical staff stop in and check John’s stabilizing vitals with decreasing frequency, until there are noticeable lulls in the rounds they make that bring them to this slightly off-set room. According to Abraham, who had stopped in earlier, several of John’s initial teammates from the ill-fated mission lay elsewhere in the main part of the dedicated hospital wing. His keen hearing registers the sounds of several of them rousing, or else already moving about and even speaking to one another.
How is it that they are awake, but John is not? The official theory that John’s state is some sort of magically-induced sleep does not quite ring true to him, somehow, not when all traces of that dark magic from the Zinco Corp campus seem to have finally fallen away. No.
Perhaps… perhaps John needs help finding his way back to the waking world from wherever he is.
He will do his best in his endeavor, he determines, moving to the door to open it. There are none in the empty hall this far past supper time, and so nobody witnesses him easily turning the outside handle of the locked door hard enough that it breaks off into his palm. Stepping back into the room, he drops the metal object into a small garbage bin before making his way toward the prone form laying flat on the uncomfortable-looking bed.
Beneath his over-pale eyelids, John’s eyes move rapidly, as if he is dreaming, and Nuada can only hope that his restless slumber is at least marked by pleasant visions. Based on the slight pinch between his brows and the small frown he sports, it doesn’t seem likely.
Finally taking off his gloves, Nuada comes to stand at the bedside, drinking in the still sickly features of his lover and wondering what had happened in the intervening handful of hours between the kidnapping and the rescue.
If he is unsuccessful, he is sure Nuala and Abraham will both be willing to lend any aid their particular gifts are able to render, but first, he must try to bring John back.
“Ah, Beloved, if you would only just open your eyes. Please, John. Mela’ess, come back.”
Carefully brushing lank, brunet locks back from an overly warm forehead, the elvish prince bends to press a lingering kiss just below the younger man’s hairline. Because it is past his peripheral vision, though, Nuada doesn’t notice several of John’s vitals begin to skyrocket at an alarming pace on nearby digital displays.
What he does notice is John abruptly waking up with a choked off inhalation that soon turns to panicked gasping as wide green-blue eyes meet his own.
“Nuada?” he whispers hoarsely, seemingly a bit disoriented.
Before Nuada has a chance to respond, though, something flashes in John’s gaze and his body goes completely still for a moment. In a blink, an odd, golden light begins to steal over deep larimar irises, eventually leaving them imbued with an inner light reminiscent of white-blue fire.
“Nuada,” John repeats in a hurried tone, raising trembling arms to try and ineffectually push Nuada away with hands that Nuada carefully captures in his own. “You… have to go! I— I don’t know what’s—”
And then, as in a dream, everything is completely changed the next second— no blank spot, no hiccup in his memory, just the sound of a klaxon blaring and the smell of burning. When the elf cautiously sits up from his sprawled position, he notes that the fabric along the front of his tunic is still hot to the touch, with two roughly palm-shaped areas at his sternum scorched a darker hue. Small particles of glass tinkle as they slowly fall to the ground from the back of his clothing and even his hair when he shakes his head.
There is a ringing in his right ear that makes it difficult to hear Director Manning’s blustering as he comes through the swinging double doors at the hall’s end, but Nuada is more preoccupied with visually retracing the trajectory he must have taken though one of the large panes of glass that line the wall that John’s room shares with the main corridor.
When he lurches forward unsteadily to re-enter the room through the now doorless doorway, he finds a set of soft hands offering him support: Nuala. At the threshold, they both pause for a second to take in the quivering figure half-collapsed against the wall inside the heat-ravaged operatory. Their keen eyes just catch a pair of gigantic, white-gold, feathered wings fade from the air behind his back, and along with them, a seemingly sourceless, warm golden light.
And then John begins to collapse, like a marionette with its strings cut, and Nuada dives forward with supernatural speed to intervene before anything besides his knees can hit the hard, concrete floor.
“John,” he croaks, his voice raspy like he’s gone without water for days.
Nuala rushes to his side, where John is cradled carefully over his lap.
As the crowd at the door begins to spill in and medics finally deem it safe enough to re-enter the room, Nuala lays one hand over John’s forehead and another on Nuada’s bare hand, so that she can communicate without having to speak.
Eyes a few shades lighter than his own bore into Nuada’s as does his sister’s mental voice.
~ * You must leave— with John— as soon as possible, brother. True, the BPRD has seen myriad races within its many facilities’ walls, but I fear what they might do if they discover what now resides within these particular walls. * ~
Swallowing down shock and dawning comprehension, Nuada dons the mask of a trained warrior and sends an unperturbed wave of acceptance-determination-assent through their twin-bond.
~ * It will be done. Now quickly, let us enact the one plan you have always wanted to try the other way around. * ~
Confusion paints Nuala’s face when Nuada begins to transfer the weight of John’s upper body and head over to her grip, a mischievous twinkle in his eyes just barely discernable.
And then he keels over where he sits— dramatically— and she gets to play her part— one she has wanted to play for at least a century or three.
“Help! She says, desperately, even while gently setting down John’s head, which Nuada had trusted her to keep intact. “My brother— he’s been affected by whatever did this to Agent Myers!”
“What the hell is going on in there?” the aggrieved bureau director, Tom Manning demands where he is trapped, still outside the doorway. “Can somebody— I’m trying to— just what is going on with Myers in there?”
Out the corner of her eye, she spies a familiar balding head between gaps in the crowd—comically the man must be on his tip-toes to try seeing over and past the gaggle of gawkers at the glassless window.
With over a millennia of practice as a diplomat, though, Nuala effortlessly keeps the laughter she wants to release contained for later on when she recounts (or shows) this chaotic circus to her Abraham.
“Oh— oh no,” she says sadly, beseechingly gazing up into the doctor’s eyes. “You cannot separate them: the magic will not allow it!”
With a sympathetic nod and nary a question for further detail, the doctor shortly has John atop a fresh, uncharred hospital bed, and Nuada on another one only a few feet away. Watching her brother’s face, she can see his brow momentarily furrow ever-so-slightly as he exerts his considerable control over his body to no doubt slow his heartrate and other vital signs down enough to appear to be properly unconscious to the mundane.
“I— oh, I cannot stand to see my brother in such a state. I must consult with my contacts about possible causes and cures. Please excuse me,” she says in a voice seemingly wavering from emotion, gracefully standing up to her full height.
A single, poignant tear slips down her cheek.
Nuala thanks a nearby member of the staff and then easily breezes by Director Manning, who is clearly struck dumb at the sight of the typically composed royal dignitary rushing past while holding back tears. After the strategic retreat, he barks out orders to the throng of people in an effort to recover the ‘clusterfuck’ of a situation— human idioms are so colorful— and to please follow the Princess’ directions lest there be a Diplomatic Incident.
(“We can’t afford another scandal—public or private! Hell, we can hardly literally afford to keep that cat-hoarding, cigar-smoking menace fed! Please, just find a new, private room for these two— I don’t care where! And if— oh, sorry, yes, of course Nurse Damiani, I’ll just get out of everyone’s way. Yes, I do understand that all of your staff and patients need clear and quiet hallways. Where’s a good place to stand? I, uh, just have a few more points…”)
Once the already light foot traffic along her route dwindles to a trickle, Nuala picks up her skirts and books it back to the library and Abraham’s oldest tank, allowing the director’s voice to completely fade away with distance.
Her mind is spinning, as she is certain Nuada’s must be, too, back in the medical wing. Everything— absolutely everything has changed.
But that is only fair, for who would ever have thought that they would cross paths, here, with something as exceedingly rare as a phoenix?
FIN