WHO: Thorne Proudfoot and Ford Harper WHAT: Thorne has a hunch WHEN: Wednesday, August 21, 2019 WHERE: Brightstar Reserve Medical RATING: It's Thorne. So Language. Also feelings. So many feelings.
After receiving the third passing comment that he was looking a lot better since they last saw him in Medical, Thorne was working on a hunch. And when he worked on a hunch, he went to ground. Ferreting out information, collecting data points, and analyzing the results. The picture was about as clear as mud, but when he finally sat back Thorne could only come up with one fact: something very clearly was fucked up.
Clutching the ward map that Ford had bled on and unwittingly provided the key to an invisible lock, Thorne banged into Medical. At least being a frequent face had some benefits. They didn't question him too much when he just walked past the desk and back to where long-term patients resided. From there it didn't take long to locate Ford.
"You look like shit." Thorne hung just inside the doorway, observing the other young man for a few minutes. "And I mean, I know what shit looks like, so….."
Ford groaned as the door swung open to reveal his twin brother. He'd been hoping he could get all of his levels back where they needed to be and get back to Andi and Bettina's couch before word got around to anyone else he knew—but obviously that had been wishful thinking. "Not my fault your ward experiment went sideways. What happened with that, anyway? The last thing I remember is...well, I'm not even sure how to describe it, really. It felt like I was holding magic."
"You more or less did." Thorne dropped into the chair next to the bed and put his feet up on the end of the bed. He shrugged. "We ended up being the grounding wire for the magic. Like a lightning rod and electricity. Zero out of ten, would not recommend."
Cocking his head to the side, he simply looked at Ford. Because as someone who was an expert at talking around subjects he didn't want to actually think too hard about, it had pretty easy to notice that the other man hadn't addressed why he looked like shit. "So yeah, I'll take the failed experiment. But I'm up and walking around and you aren't."
"I could give you a gold star," Ford suggested, keeping the words light even though a lump was settling in the pit of his stomach. He could hear the competing voices inside his head, one that sounded like him, and the others that sounded like Healer Strand, Andi, and his parents, but nothing that they said made any difference whatsoever, because his entire world depended on the wizard standing at his bedside—and he was too much of a coward to do anything about it. "But I know you well enough to know that's not why you're here. So why are you?"
Thorne dropped the wadded up ward map onto the bed, the bloodstain had oxidized and no longer bright crimson. "There's something weird with your blood. Like, I knew there was something off when we were unlocking this thing, but I was otherwise occupied." His fingers skittered over the stain, bits of dried blood flaking off. He looked down and considered before popping them into his mouth. The idea of ingesting blood might have grossed him out, but he couldn't deny that his sense of smell and taste were heightened. He had to use what tools were available to him. But it didn't give him much more information than what he didn't know. "Yeah. Still weird."
Ford groaned again, and this time he sank lower on the bed and pulled the sheet up higher. It was only with effort that he kept himself from pulling it over his head, because if he could have figured out a way to disappear just then, he would have. "Of course you would go around tasting my blood. Of course you would." He was shaking, and he wound his hands together under the covers so that it wouldn't be visible, but he suspected that Thorne could pick up on the elevated heart rate all the same. "You couldn't just get some strange story from the rumor mill like a normal small town resident."
He closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the pillow, as if he was looking at the sky. "I have a rare form of leukemia. Joys of being half-vampire, am I right?" He couldn't bring himself to care that the joke felt flat. "It's not responding to treatment anymore."
"I never got over the stage of putting things in my mouth that don't belong there." Thorne's voice was deadpan and straight, despite the multitude of directions he could have gone with that. "And rumors don't serve me any purpose. I thought it best to go directly to the source."
Thorne took the news of Ford being sick without any visible reaction. He'd had a lifetime of being sick, really it shouldn't be a surprise that the other partial-vampire had his own health battles. "What kind of treatment?" he asked, genuinely curious. Were Ford's healer as generally incompetent as Thorne's had been in the past?
Ford opened his eyes again, mostly because getting that sort of question was not what he had expected. Then again, the things he had imagined ran the gamut, but mostly trended toward the negative side, so this rather neutral question threw him more than an extreme one would have. "All of them?" he said, not sure he could even list it all now. "Potions, spells, No-Maj drugs. Four healers over five years. They'll help for a little while, but not as much as the healers expect, and rarely for as long as they expect."
“So like a wizard or no-maj then.” Thorne crosses his legs and topped the chair back precariously. “I mean, leukemia is a blood disorder when it comes down to it. Shouldn’t they be treating you like a vampire? Surely Strand has thought of that. He’s not that dim.”
It was all very surreal, Thorne decided. The person in front of him was his mirror but was very much looking at the prospect of death in the near future. It had been years since Thorne had done the same, he almost forgot what it felt like. It was not an emotion he wished to revisit. “Isn’t it nice that Fate thought to copy/paste nearly 24 years ago. That bitch.”
"If you can point me to a healer who knows anything at all about treating a vampire, then let's go." Ford shook his head, a mix of frustration and exhaustion with the topic. "It's not the vampire that's the problem, and it's not the human that's the problem. It's the fact that I'm both. All the treatments fight each other." He shrugged at that, feeling strangely self-conscious despite talking to one of the few people on the planet who could theoretically understand.
"Guess it's a good thing the mold broke after us?"
Thorne snorted. “If I ever found out there’s a third one I’m going to sue for illicit use of genetic material by way of clone.” He really didn’t think that was going to happen, but with everything that had been going on in recent months, the impossible was suddenly looking more and more likely.
He looked down at his hands, veins bright against pale, cool skin. “Do you need anything from me? Blood? Bone marrow? I mean, I have a whole host of shit going on, but at least it’s not cancer.” For all of his health issues and his comments regarding his body being defective, at least Thorne could claim that his body wasn’t attacking itself. Small miracles.
“Or.” He looked behind him to make sure the door was closed. Some people simply wouldn’t understand what he was about to say. “Or do you just want to be selfish enough to live your last days however you want? Like, do you want to see the Pacific Ocean or some shit? Or maybe smoke a giant bowl of some really fucking awesome weed. Whatever’s on that bucket list.”
Ford stared at his twin for a thirty seconds before he could even open his mouth to speak, and when he did, he only managed a few stuttering sounds before he had to turn his head away and attempt to regain his composure. "Bone marrow," were the shaky words he managed through clenched teeth. He swallowed hard and forced himself to look at Thorne again. "They aren't sure it will work, but it's...it's the last option."
Another swallow. "If it...I don't want to spend the rest of my life in a hospital. I want—" There were so many things that he couldn't think of even a couple to mention. Even if he could have, naming them seemed so final, in a way that nothing else so far had. He shook his head, too overwhelmed to keep the tears from spilling over now. "I don't want to die."
His twin nodded slowly in understanding as he rolled up his sleeve. As if they were going to do the tricky procedure right then and there “Then we’re breaking you out as soon as possible, brother.”
Ford laughed and swiped at his eyes. "Who are you?"
“Well, I’m not the tooth fairy. Boogieman, maybe” Thorne shrugged. “Who do I have to call to get this process started?” Leaning forward slightly, all four legs of his chair fell back onto the floor with a slight thunk. “Is it Strand? I bet it’s Strand.”
"Yeah, he's been my healer here. Has all my records and stuff." Ford sat up, ignoring the protest of his muscles and the lightheadedness that hadn't quite gone away. "I wasn't sure I'd like having a brother. Only child and all." He used his shoulder to once again attempt to dry his face. "But that's what I want, no matter what happens. A chance to find out."
Pausing at the door, Thorne looked back at Ford. Brother. He had a brother. Well, he'd had brothers for years in Ethan and Fitz, neither of which he would trade for anything. But… there was someone else like him in the world. That was new and baffling and a whole new puzzle to solve. "I check one thing off my bucket list each year. I was thinking of invading Roswell and Area 51. If you want to join me."
Rather than give Ford a chance to actually answer, Thorne was out the door and yelling for Strand. Where was the wayward healer?
"Only if I get to do the apparating!" Ford called after him before flopping back onto his pillows and giving in to his emotions all over again.