Augusnippets Day 21: Delirium
cw: dissociation, scattered narrative, past torture, infected wounds, substance dependency, needles
for the @augusnippets challenge // word count: 410
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He dreams of rescue.
It's almost funny; he used to dream of rescue all the time, back when he was with Vic. Wake up and tamp it down and stop the tears before they fell; chase it away with extra training before breakfast, forget.
Here in this cell, it doesn’t hurt so bad. Maybe it's because he knows it's a dying dream, and he's just grateful it's a pleasant one. Peace before the ending.
The spy (Sahota) (Ander) doesn't blame his team for failing to find him.
He could never blame his other team either. They didn't have the training, the knowledge. Just a bunch of kids; it wasn't their fault.
It isn't their fault.
Joy is kneeling over his body, checking his pulse, fingers grazing over the wounds that cover him
(branching pain, he screams when she brushes the bad one, just above his hip)
Jericho eases arms under him, lifts him, pulls him into a broad, warm chest. The spy (Sahota) shudders from the sudden heat, he's been cold for so long—
(is this how it feels to die?)
He can't hear what they're saying, but he can hear the worry. It's exactly how he would've staged it in a daydream, if he could've got his wits under him. Held, warm, surrounded by a gentle fear for his well-being. Hands are careful around his wounds, careful not to jostle his broken leg. He drifts somewhere else, and then his wounds are being cleaned.
(He would've thought the dream would end there, warm in someone's arms)
Smells the antiseptic, screams as it's applied.
Antibiotics, someone says, the only word he’s made out so far.
He's in pain, they hurt him, says the other voice, they hurt him so much.
Once upon a time the spy might've recoiled from the words, insisted he was fine, unbreakable.
But he is. They did. He only wants to sleep, someone watching over him to keep the monsters away, and the hands that keep him steady are gentle.
Sahota is vaguely aware of a needle at the crook of his arm, a pinch he barely feels. A second follows it.
The relief is near instantaneous, a different kind of comfort flooding his veins, warmer than the arms that carried him from the cell, whisking him away from the pain, so potently good
(the creature stops clawing at his chest, momentarily content, wide awake)
He feels it. He's felt everything.
That must mean…
that must mean