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badwolf52 · 10 days ago

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the world (it burns through me)

Chapter 32: Darlin’

Ao3 | 1.9k Words | Darlin’s POV

Fall set in with a shiver.

TW: medical talk, discussion of injuries, discussion of drug usage, tattoos, discussion of rehabilitation and physical therapy, reference to nudity.

Thank you for everything, everybody.

“He’s strapped down tight. Those cuffs won’t give and his legs are bad enough that he won’t get very far even if he did slip ‘em. There’s talk among the nurses that he may not last the night with all of his injuries combined. But it’s up to you.” Colm had his arms crossed over his chest. Lit by the shitty hospital fluorescents, he had a serious, noir look to him that you thought he would probably enjoy. Self important asshole.

“If you want a few minutes alone with him,” David hadn’t taken his hands off of you since you returned to Dahlia Gen, and he squeezed your shoulder hard as he spoke, “I can make sure whatever happens is left off of his chart.”

“And should he, God forbid, expire in the next hour or so… well, his body has been through so much.” Colm shook his head, a false what-a-shame expression coloring his features. “It was only a matter of time.”

The first thing Quinn had done upon regaining any sense of awareness was ask for you. And not by any stupid nickname, you, your name in full with what Colm reported to you was startling clarity for a man covered in third degree burns. He had never sought treatment for the injuries he sustained in the ambulance crash months ago, and his ribcage was warped. It was clear a lung had collapsed at some point and had been reinflated if the track marks on his chest were any indication. The head wound you’d given him in Room 13 of the Moonbound Motel was still knocking around. The laceration on his scalp hadn’t healed and was going green around the edges. An infection so close to the brain was asking for trouble. He was using and using hard, enough uppers to move his corpse and enough downers to get him to sleep what precious hours he afforded away from his pet project of staging your murder/suicide.

He had planned to die in that house with you and Sam tonight. You couldn’t say with any confidence that, when you walked into that kitchen, that hadn’t been your plan too. If Sam hadn’t been there, you might just have let it happen.

“Is he gonna live?” You asked softly, speaking for the first time since you screamed yourself hoarse on your front lawn. Colm blinked.

“We don’t know. He could.”

You took a deep breath. You leaned into David and he took your weight without question.

“I don’t wanna see him.” You replied. “I don’t wanna see him until I’m testifying against him in a court of fucking law. And you can tell him exactly that.” Colm nodded and turned back towards the heavily guarded room.

No matter where you went in the hospital that night, you could hear Quinn wailing your name.

___

Porter Solaire was a miracle worker, and he had worked through the night to make sure that Sam had as little scarring as possible when all was said and done. You were certain that Sam was doomed to be your mirror image, but by the end of it, all there was only a bundle of tight skin where the ‘Q’ had been. It wasn’t pretty by any stretch of the imagination, but it wasn’t Quinn’s mark either. Porter was certain that, if Sam let him, he could handle the rest of the scar tissue with little interruption to Sam’s life over the course of the next few years.

You didn’t know if Sam would take him up on that or not. Either way, when you ran your hand over the bundle of numb skin, Sam always crushed his face into your palm until he could feel it.

“I’m not sure about the ‘Q’ yet. But the… yeah, I like the scythe design.”

Little had laid out a series of stencils, all shaped specifically for your face, and was staring at your features with worrying intensity. Summer had come in full force, and after several months of recovery, although their voice still rasped and their arms were weaker than before, they were released back into the wild, as they liked to say.

“And you don’t mind the date I tacked on? I can cut that part out.”

“No, it’s good.” You nodded. “I told you I wanted something for him.”

“I just thought it might be a little… much? Right next to a literal scythe?”

“That’s why I like it so much.” You grinned in reply.

Little Shaw’s touch was much lighter than Quinn’s. You barely flinched as their needle danced across your face. So much of their physical therapy had surrounded sketching. They had had to relearn how to draw essentially from scratch, let alone how to tattoo. David said that most of their PT frustrated the fuck out of them, that it was like pulling teeth getting them to do it, but that he had never had to fight to get them to sketch. Their sole focus during their recovery was to perfect designs for your coverups.

Finally, they said they were ready. They called the artist they had been apprenticing for and set a time after hours to use her studio.

Quinn was in jail. He had a fancy, rich person lawyer who was demanding a quick trial, but there was a lot of evidence to gather as the state figured out exactly how much they could charge him with. You knew that you would be called to testify. When you saw him again, you didn’t want to have his marks carved into you. You wanted your own.

Little worked slow and meticulous, taking plenty of breaks to stretch their arms and hands. You watched each of their methodical stretches, the thin, light scars that cut straight down their forearms and interrupted their tattoos moving in perfect synchrony.

It took them an hour and a half (far too long by their own estimate), but they eventually pulled back and nodded once, definitively. They produced a hand mirror.

The lines of the scythe were thick and sure, the blade cutting over your eyebrow and covering up PRECIOUS with its masterful shading. If you looked hard enough, you could still pick out a few of the letters, but most of them were hidden in the shine of the blade. The handle ran from your temple down your cheekbone and had a lovely wood-grain pattern to it with fine lines. The grey stipple shading they had done made it look solid and three dimensional.

Next to the handle, the first digit kissing the delicate skin under your eye, were the numbers; 0903.

“Asher,” David sighed, “if you ask me again, I’m demoting you.”

“And who, exactly, is going to take my place?” Ash grinned like he’d just won the argument. You snickered from your spot at the kitchen island, ‘helping’ David prep breakfast for the morning shift by testing the sausage for any poisonous links. Late summer sunrise streamed in through the windows. The light softened David’s features, catching on the hair that had grown to the middle of his back in the almost year that you had been home. His shoulders were low and loose, and though he feigned annoyance, you knew that he was perfectly happy in this moment.

“Milo.” David replied without looking up from the frying pan as he flipped a pancake. “Or Christian.”

“Chrissy?” Asher gasped, offended.

“Hell, I’d get Frank back on the force if it’d stop you from asking me about that damn calendar.”

“It’s a tradition!” Ash cried. “Come on! All I’m asking-”

“No.”

“-is whether-”

“No!”

“-whether you want briefs-”

“Asher!”

“-or a speedo! That’s all!”

David threw the perfectly cooked pancake right at Asher’s face. It made impact with a satisfying clap.

Fall set in with a shiver. The trees turned colors slowly and then all at once. It got harder to get out of bed in the mornings.

On Milo’s recommendation, you rented a little townhouse near enough to the station to walk until you and Sam could figure out the whole house-burned-down situation. It was a vast improvement on sleeping at the station, especially since the Shaws were in the same boat. Too many firefighters in the firehouse, it seemed. You had had one too many screaming matches with David and Milo had conveniently found a townhouse in your price range that he and his partner had toured, but geez, it just was not their style, plus they already had the condo-

Always the peacekeeper, it seemed.

You and Sam had essentially nothing to your name when you moved in, although Vincent had kindly gifted you a set of brand new furniture that he insisted he ‘just had laying around.’ You were fairly certain the Shaws were getting similar treatment, since Little was nowhere to be seen in the 10-19 and David finally stopped carrying himself like he hadn’t gotten to fuck his partner in three months. Again.

You accumulated the things you needed. Two coffee cups stolen from the station. A set of plates from the thrift store. A couple of throw blankets. A rocking chair for the porch.

It got harder to get out of bed in the mornings because Sam clung to you when it started getting cold. Fucking doctor that he was, his hands were freezing and he sapped up your warmth even in his sleep. You always woke up tangled in him, his fingers pressed into your skin, your legs thrown over each other’s, your head nestled against his.

His hair had gotten long since the fire. He’d gotten it twisted recently and you spun one of them between your forefinger and your thumb as you waited for your second alarm to tell you that it was really time to get up. You used to sleep to the very last second that you could afford in the mornings, but recently you’d found yourself setting an earlier alarm just so you could lay there and breathe him in. His scent, his touch, his warm breath against your chest.

It was autumn again. So much was yours.

Eventually, your phone buzzed, and you went about extracting yourself from Sam’s death grip. He grumbled and huffed as you squirmed off the bed, stopping to adjust the blankets back around his shoulders.

You only had one early shift a week without him, but you didn’t hate those mornings. You liked having to move slow and quiet around the house. You liked being careful not to wake him as you got ready. You had your coffee on the porch in his rocking chair. You waved to a neighbor as he stepped out to gather his newspaper. You made your way inside and got dressed, stepping back into the bedroom to tell him that you were leaving. You hated to think that he would wake up alone and not know where you were for a moment.

Jane Ere was sitting, spine cracked and open on Sam’s bedside table. He had been making an effort to read some of what you liked recently, and you’d conceited to reading some of his stupid, old man war novels. You liked All Quiet on the Western Front, although you wouldn’t admit it.

You snagged the book and tore out of the blank pages at the start. Sam always had a pen laying around to take notes with. You scrawled out your message and folded the paper messily before shoving it into his hand. You had terrible chicken scratch, but you left him this note pretty often. He would probably be able to decipher it.

You- you strange- you almost unearthly thing!- I love you as my own flesh.

“Gotta go, Doc,” you pressed a kiss to his temple as you straightened. Sam mumbled something into his pillow. You smiled broadly. “Sure thing.”

You walked to work in the brisk morning air. It was autumn again. And so much was yours.

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