i had some free time so a drabble happened. this is set right after alex and taryn are rescued from the feds.
The first two days, Alex mostly sleeps. The beds at Daniel’s house are far bigger, more luxurious, than anything he’s used to, even from before the feds. Taryn gives him magic while he sleeps, and then comes to Daniel, offering to help. To cook for the safe houses, to teach the children, to work her way up to real missions. She doesn’t understand, Daniel says.
You’re here to recover, for now. You’re not here, so we can use you. I want that to be crystal clear. Your brother? He never has to heal again.
Taryn says that, to Alex, when he finally wakes up. He’s told to go back in the bath, inhale more of the oil and the steam, and dress in Daniel’s old clothes. You never have to heal again.
It’s a relief, a weight off his shoulders. His magic, which their mother had always told them was a gift, now felt a curse. It’s tainted by nausea and pain and the terrifying inability to breathe.
The third day they both go into the backyard, with Daniel. Barefoot, the grass winds into their toes and they squint in the sunshine, unused to the light. Alex sits down in the grass, then lies down, cradling the earth with his body.
Taryn runs across the yard, then returns, quickly winded. She hasn’t run, hasn’t even walked more than a few steps, in six months.
The next day Daniel takes them to walk into town. Pick some clothes, he says. Anything you like.
Alex picks baggy jeans and button-downs, Taryn goes for anything as long as it’s black. They shop in thrift stores, even when Daniel says anything you like. They don’t want to abuse his generosity.
Alex tries to recover. Tries to feel the sunlight, taste the salt in the food, stop jumping at shadows. But his hands shake. His breathing wheezes. He’s forgotten what it feels like to not feel ill. And now that he’s no longer at death’s door, unconsciousness is no respite. When he sleeps, after the third day, he dreams.
He’s thrown into the cell, with Taryn. She’s slumped, unmoving, in the corner, lips blue, face gray, eyes open. Chest not moving. Vicious fingerprints line her neck. “No… Tare…”
“You didn’t do your job,” Roger explains with a nauseating smile.
Alex tries to scramble towards her, to heal her. He knows, he knows there is no spell that can bring her back, not from here, not from death, but he has to try —
But his body is weak and heavy, the floor of the cell is quicksand. He can’t move a muscle, he’s plastered to the stone. The more he struggles to move closer to his sister, the more he falls away, slides away.
Alex melts, sinking, into the floor of the cell, and suddenly Neil’s hands, his lips, are on his bare, cold skin, and he’s screaming.
“Alex. Alex. Wake up.”
“N—nnn —“ He pushes Neil’s hands away, weakly, but somehow, miraculously, they leave him alone.
“Alex, it’s me, just Tare, wake up.”
Alex opens his eyes, sliding up from the depths of where the cell floor ate him alive, into the bed in Daniel’s house. Taryn’s there, standing, breathing, alive, hands up in the air — she’d tried to touch him, and he pushed her away, so she let him go. “Tare, I, I…”
Immediately, he wants her close. Alex reaches out his hands, craving that comfort that he’d pushed away from the depths of his nightmare. Taryn slowly takes both of his palms between her fingertips, soft but firm. “I’m here,” she assures him softly. “We’re safe. We’re safe with the Resistance.”
“Tare…” he whispers again, and crumples towards her, head falling onto her shoulder, shaggy dark hair fanning over her neck. “I — I dreamed — they killed you —“
“Never gonna happen,” says Taryn, stroking her fingers over the back of his chilly hands. “I’m fucking invincible, Lex.” She smiles, trying to make light, but her eyes are concern and anger and fire.
Each point of contact with his sister brings heat to his chilled, exhausted body, to his hands, to his forehead. Alex leans into the touch, gulping down shuddering breaths that rattle in his tortured lungs. She’s alive. Alive. He didn’t fail her.
“S-stay with me?” Alex stutters.
“Of course.”
Taryn helps Alex lie back down, running warm fingers over the back of his neck, through his hair. Alex breathes, and slowly, his inhales and exhales move from gasps of terror to low, calm, slight wheezes.
He stays awake, though, staring at the crack in the door where a little bit of light slips in. He listens to his sister’s breathing as she drifts off. He makes sure, over and over again, that the next breath still comes.
