Partner

I had to stop a few times because... well it's the same scene!

What did I do when I stopped, you ask? I threw a glow bracelet at a fan and thus made a game with my sister about it all. It was all very childish but it was amusing and it wasn't this.

Now. Now?

READ SEQUEL.

Well. Not right this instant. Next chapter. I'm sure we all know where this is going.

Read, Review and Enjoy... er... sort of...




A survivor.

He stood in a puddle of blood mixed with mud. Rivulets of watered down blood ran past him, trickling into the puddle. An errant leaf, dead and nothing more than a skeleton, floated down one of those rivulets and into the puddle, grazing over the top of a bare, scratched foot. Pale skin hardly covered by the tattered shorts the male wore. Male only because his chest was flat. Arms hung to the sides, too thin, too fragile looking.

The males eyes were not a shining sort of colour, like the other Sidhe Mik had met. Instead those eyes, a swirl of blues and greens and yet no one colour at all, were matte, there was no sheen to the eyes. The hair was hacked off, spindly bits of varying lengths. Dark hair, speckled in colouring, blacks and browns and all the shades of a tree trunk.

Those eyes were sunk into the skull, dark rings under the eyes and sunken cheeks. The male opened his mouth, revealing jagged teeth and gaps. Missing teeth.

Something Sidhe weren’t meant to have.

Across the male’s chest was a red slash that slid up to and around his neck. Or… down his chest? No blood oozed from the wound. No blood at all.

The hair stood up on the back of Mik’s neck as he looked the male up and down and wondered if telling the others to leave would draw the male’s attention. With how fast Sidhe could move?

Paw stepped up beside Mik. The man dared to glance away from the male and to his lover.

“Say something to him,” Mik muttered to Paw.

Paw spoke to the male in Sidhe. The male’s head cocked to the side, his eyes peering at Paw as the wound up his neck pulled open. Spots of blood appeared on the already red flesh, trickling down and joining other spots and then welling over the side of the wound.

Paw tried again and the male bore his teeth, hissing out at Paw.

Paw sighed and cocked his head just slightly towards Mik, “Shoot him.”

“He’s a survivor,” Mik responded quietly.

“Then do your people magic and make him sleep,” Paw responded in a quieter tone.

Mik turned to the man behind him, “trank.”

The man upholstered his gun and handed it to Mik, handle first. Mik took it, cocked the gun and checked for the fluffy little end of the dart.

“What’s it take down?” Mik asked the man.

“One shot takes down a grown man.”

Mik sighed, “Not really in like with shooting someone twice.”

“Once,” Paw murmured, “body’s bad damages.”

“Very well. I shoot, you distract until it kicks in,” Mik raised the gun and the strange male bent just slightly, hands away from his sides, “it’s sickening when a Sidhe knows the purpose of a gun.”

He made like he was dropping the gun and shot the male in the hip instead of the shoulder. The sound of the gun startled Mik. He had fired such an archaic weapon before but that had always been while wearing proper ear protection. The shot echoed off the buildings. Mik winced at the idea of having Paw’s better hearing.

The shot struck the male in the hip and forced him back a step. The male staggered back and tried to step forward. A shudder went through the thin body as Mik raised the gun again, just in case. Even as he raised the gun, the male dropped into the muck with a groan.

“MEDIC,” Mik screamed behind him.

He moved to the male’s side, turning the creature onto its back to keep it from inhaling mud. There was no weight to the wasted body. It flopped into the muck and Mik worried for a moment about whether the creature could even be saved.

Essuan could only heal so much and the body could only give so much over to the healing.

The medics rushed in and Mik stepped to the side, allowing them to put the male onto a stretcher and run off towards the helicopter with him. Mik followed closely behind and Paw lagged, following but not getting too close.

“Stats are holding,” The lead medic called to Mik over the sound of the helicopter’s blades, “he should make it to the program building at least. Permission to fly sir.”

“If this Sidhe doesn’t make it to the program, I will hold you personally responsible,” Mik called back.

He didn’t think the medic understood, as the man gave Mik a thumbs up and then climbed into the helicopter along side the male. Mik rushed out of the helicopters winded area and watched it take off. As the beating of its blades faded, he turned to those gathered. Taln and Lillow each had a camera around their necks. Lillow was already snapping pictures of Mik and Paw. Taln was wide eyed.

The young man had never seen any kind of destruction before.

“Taln, Lillow,” Even as Mik pointed out and gave orders as to where to take pictures, where to collect bodies and the types of evidence that had to be collected, Lillow snapped pictures, “Taln. Snap out of your daze.” The young man jerked as if someone had prodded him and pulled his camera up, turning it on.

All moved about their designated assignments.

Another helicopter came flying overhead, Mik looked at Paw, “that’s likely for us, Auhi.”

Paw sighed and slid in beside Mik, taking the man’s hand. Paw pecked Mik’s cheek.

“I will stay with Lillow, it would be best.”

“Of course, I will go ahead and make certain the male makes it.”

“Mik…”

Mik looked up at the helicopter and then back at Paw, “Mm?”

“That male is broken.”

“Broken?”

“Fallen.”

A shudder ran down Mik’s spine. The man swallowed his question before it rose to more than a dim thought. A soldier who went mad on the field, who cracked under the pressure was not referred to as ill or broken or damaged. He was said to have fallen.

With medication and the right doctors a fallen man could return to some kind of normal life.

Within the confines of a mental institution.

“We, Sidhe, do not suffer a fallen to live,” Paw murmured, casting his eyes downward, “but program will not simply allow us to terminate him, he is… there…”

“Are you giving us permission to keep him alive?”

“Only if you want him to kill someone,” Paw murmured, “and when he does that,” Whisper met Mik’s eyes, “you will find that my will cannot be ignored.”

Mik clenched his teeth together. The change was startling and yet oddly arousing at the same time.

“I understand, Whisper.”


.