wc: 1347

its my birthday week :)

Grian fought. That was all he knew.

The next week went by in a blur. He attended no meetings, just trained the soldiers and trained himself.

Years of relaxation and made him soft. The Leader would have been disappointed, he thought to himself, and flinched when he remembered that the Leader was dead. I'm the Leader. His staff clattered to the floor. I'm still disappointed, though.

The training dummy in front of him was barely recognizable, its feature-less face and wooden chest slashed to bits. Grian sat there, staring at its destroyed form, thinking, this is what I do to everyone. They're cursed by my touch. Maybe if I... he closed his eyes. If I died in that cell all those years ago, everyone would be okay. X wouldn't know me... Mumbo, Scar, everyone... they'd be safe. They wouldn't be roped up into this mess.

He opened his eyes again, staring down at the sword and into the eyes of his reflection. Xisuma was right. One person couldn't save everyone. In the end, either he'd be dead, or he'd be alive to see everything crumble to ruin.

The door creaked open. Grian didn't even need to look up to recognize that the quiet footsteps were Xayla's. Back then, those footsteps were his only hope. Now, he wished that they never came. That she never nursed him back to health the first time, or the second, or the dozens and maybe hundreds of times afterwards.

They'd thought he was unconscious when they found him with his wings gone and clothes bloody, but he'd been awake for every second of agony. Everytime he thought he could drift off and perhaps forget the pain, something would twitch, and his vision would flash white, but he remained painfully alert.

The undeniable relief when Xayla's footsteps came for the last time to his little cell was overwhelming. He couldn't see, could barely breathe, couldn't move or speak- but he remembered every step and the searing agony that came with it. He wished he didn't.

"Grian?" Xayla's voice floated in the air, his ears barely picking up on it. "How long have you been in here?"

His head suddenly felt heavy, all of the adrenaline leaving his body in an instant. She gave him a hand to stand up but had to immediately support him when spots danced in his vision.

She frowned and put a hand on his forehead. "Are you okay? I thought I told you that you couldn't exert yourself too much. You're still healing."

"But Xeluph isn't," he mumbled propping himself up on her shoulder.

"You look terrible," Xayla informed him. She checked his forehead again. "And you might have a fever again. I'm gonna check your bandages. When was the last time you ate?"

He managed a shrug. She sighed and shook her head, half guiding and half dragging him back to his room. Inside, his stomach roiled just seeing how weak he was now. In the past, he was much stronger. When his wings were severed, it seemed that most of his reserve was sapped as well.

When they made it back to his room, he basically collapsed into bed, prying off his boots and tossing them into the corner. Xayla sighed again and made her way back to the door.

She paused, one hand on the handle. "I..." Another pause. "I hope that you know that it's not your fault. And that we... we need you, but if you. Uh. If you need something else... you're free to leave."

Grian's eyes drifted closed. The fireplace in the corner crackled, making the room almost too warm, but his chest was very, very cold.

~~~

Xisuma felt very, very cold.

Ever since the fight with Grian, he'd felt uneasy. Whether it was the fact that he'd stayed in the Watcher world instead of taking Grian right home or that he just felt bad about arguing, he felt like he couldn't rest or relax until something was done.

After an hour of stewing in the small room he'd been given to share with Scar and Mumbo (both of whom were fast asleep), he gave up entirely and quietly crept out. He remembered there had been a library of some sort, he just had to find it... somewhere. There, maybe he could get his thoughts together, and maybe even get information.

...He doubted either of these things would happen.

Xisuma made his way down the hall, hand tightly grasping the handle of his sword for some semblance of reassurance. It didn't last long, however, when he neared the opening to all of the floors.

He knew the library was down, but he saw the hospital hallway just across from the dorms, and immediately thought of Grian.

He's probably not even sleeping, Xisuma thought to himself wearily, trying to push Grian from his mind. He's been training for so long. And anyway, it'd be weird to walk in on someone sleeping.

Yet he still found himself standing in front of Grian's door.

There was a small window above the handle of the door, but it was covered with a black curtain. Xisuma pressed his ear to the door, listening.

"..-ease..."

Xisuma immediately sucked in a breath, straining to hear whatever conversation was going on on the other side.

"..stop..."

Confusion muddled Xisuma's thoughts.

"...i'm sorry...."

The confusion was quickly replaced by fear, replaced by anger and the need to protect.

Before he even knew what he was doing, the door was banging open, the knob bouncing off the wall on the other side. Uncaring, Xisuma rushed in.

There was only one person in the room, Grian, who was in the bed. Xisuma relaxed, almost turning away.

"Don't leave me," came Grian's voice.

Xisuma's eyes shot to the bed. Grian was awake, his own eyes locked on Xisuma's, irises glowing a dull purple.

Xisuma carefully made his way to the side of the bed, the strange eyes tracking his every step. They were muddy with a dreamy haze, and X realized that Grian wasn't even awake.

"It's okay," X murmured, sitting down in a chair next to the bed. "I'm here."

"No," Grian gasped, eyes widening. The hair on his forehead was slick with sweat, hands trembling they shot out of the covers to grasp Xisuma's. "You can't... can't be here. Not for... not for me."

To Xisuma's shock, tears filled in the man's eyes. He looked down and noticed that for one of the first times, Grian's arms were bare, the tunic he was wearing having no sleeves. The air seemed to leave X's body when he saw that they were covered in scars.

Burns, cuts, old wounds that nobody had ever had to see, all exposed and in their full glory. Xisuma's stomach turned just thinking about how they could have been inflicted.

"Don't go- no, don't stay- don't-" Grian's eyes squeezed shut, his head turning on the pillows. When they opened again, they were glowing brighter.

Xisuma peered a little closer, eyes widening to see golden flecks in Grian's irises.

Before he could react, he became suddenly aware that the hand he was holding was scorching hot. One second, he was trying to comfort Grian from nightmares, and the next, the smell of burnt flesh was thick in his nostrils, his good hand clutching the wrist of his bad one.

The injury was not his first thought, though, seeing as Grian's hands as well as his eyes were glowing bright gold.

Xisuma scrambled backwards, good hand running along the wall to find the call nurse button before smacking it a good three, four times. Almost instantly, Xayla burst into the room.

Grian was sitting up, his head in his hands and eyes wide, tears spilling out onto the sheets. He was repeating something, and when Xisuma strained his ears, he could barely make out the word to be no.

"Get out of here," Xayla hissed at him, and he took a hesitant step towards the door. "Are you deaf? I said get out of here!"

He turned tail and ran.

ik its been a bit since last chapter (sorry!), i was on vacation and school ended and a bunch of crazy stuff happened !! 

i hope i can somehow make uploads more frequent as i really hate just disappearing on yall like this :( i hope yall understand

thank you for reading! have a good day or night, wherever you are!

-Ete