Who: Adam, Daryl, Christian What: Healin' Where: Adams place When: After this. Warnings: bras?
Adam spent the time between his brief conversation with Christian Westley and his scheduled appearance pacing. When he wasn’t holding Daryl, at least. She was still a wreck, though she was hiding it well for the most part. From time to time, she would burst into tears, and he would hold her, but for the most part, she appeared composed. Likely because she was throwing herself into her work to find the Night Terror.
When the knock finally came, Adam sprung from the couch. Daryl was too busy at her desk to notice, unsurprisingly, and so he went to the door alone. He opened it and examined the man on the other side of the threshold. “Christian Westley, I presume,” he said by way of greeting, trusting his ability would inform him if the man was a liar.
Stepping aside, he gave Christian an inviting gesture. “Please, come in. Thank you for coming.”
Christian wasn’t the kind of person who made house calls. In fact, this would be the first time, in the year that he spent here, that he visited someone else. His eyes had scanned the room numbers before he stopped outside the proper door, not hesitating to knock and, when the door opened and the man welcomed him in, he swiftly entered the room. He couldn’t explain the sense of urgency he felt, but the way Adam had sounded over the phone possibly put it there. Besides, despite his obliviousness, Christian knew that people didn’t invite complete strangers into their homes unless it was an emergency.
He had turned to face Adam when he was safely inside of the mans home, and he nodded at him before glancing around the open room. “No need to thank me, Adam.” He addressed the man by his name as if he was trying to remember it himself, but he felt like nothing else needed to be said. It wasn’t as if he was busy, so obviously he had time to help Adam and whatever problem he and his fiance had. It didn’t take him long to spot a third person in the room; a woman sitting at a desk, looking surprisingly composed for how urgent this all seemed to be. His head tilted in curiosity before he cleared his throat aloud, finally speaking to her. “...Hello. My name is Christian Westley, and I would very much enjoy to help you if you would allow it.” Though Daryl’s desk was normally in another room, the room that Adam had given her, she had actually gone through the torment of moving it into the living room shortly after her encounter with the Night Terror. She wanted to work, but the idea of being alone in her office was suddenly terrifying. She needed to be in the living room, in the wide, open living room, where Adam was. She hadn’t bothered trying to sleep after the ordeal, even though she was now running on a ridiculously low amount of sleep and a ridiculously high amount of adrenaline. Years of all-nighters and physical neglect had prepared her body for this, though she still looked like a broken doll in a glass case.
Adam had told her that a healer would be coming, and though she was apprehensive, she ceded to his judgment. It was strange how only in her most vulnerable did she trust most deeply. Whatever he chose to do, even if it filled her with an all-too-familiar spike of fear, would sit well by her. So when a knock sounded at the door, she ignored it, reaching a bare foot out to stroke the side of Toby’s neck as he looked up. The great dane was just over a year old now, and didn’t look at all like a puppy. He was massive, his long body and spindly legs sprawled out on the floor at Daryl’s feet. When he looked up, his ears stood erect, expression sharpening. Though it seemed he wanted to inspect the newcomer, he stayed put as Daryl tickled his neck with her bare toes, idly tilting her head as she finished typing a brief message. The world was certainly descending into chaos when she and Maxine Main had a perfectly polite conversation. Then again, perhaps that meant that the chaos was dissipating. Order, after all, was much better than disorder. And petty arguments were very disorderly.
Closing the lid to her laptop, she pushed her chair out from under the desk, turning to look at the newcomer coolly. Her expression was carefully arranged in neutrality, something she had practiced for years. Still, there was telltale puffiness around her eyes and redness in her cheeks that betrayed her frequent outbursts over the last several hours. Her dark hair was pulled into a sloppy pile at the back of her head, blunt bangs forming a severe line just above her slate gray eyes. The button-down shirt she had borrowed from Adam was clearly far too big for her, its bags and rumples exaggerating her petite size. From under the gaping collar, bandages stuck to her skin could be seen, forming a patchwork covering that ran beneath the fabric and spread across her entire torso. Jane had left Daryl a sizable collection of medical supplies, and Daryl was taking very much advantage of that.
Her bare feet slid over the floor without a sound as she approached the door, keeping Adam’s shoulder between herself and the newcomer. For a moment, her expression was utterly unreadable, her movements smooth and calm. She clasped her hands in front of herself, speaking in a hushed voice that seemed very much controlled. “Thank you for coming on such short notice, Mr. Westley.” Though she didn’t smile, she gave him a slight incline of the head that seemed to be her version of a polite smile. “Your generous offer is very much appreciated.”
As Daryl had approached the door, so did her shadow - her massive, blue merle shadow. Toby stood at her side, his back easily comparable to her upper thigh. Though he didn’t growl, he fixed the newcomer with a sharp gaze, leaning slightly into Daryl’s leg. “I hope you don’t mind dogs. I can put him away, if you would like.” With someone in the apartment who actually knew about healing - or medicine, he wasn’t sure if Christian had no medical knowledge at all and frankly didn’t care quite that much - the bandages he had helped Daryl with now looked sad and pathetic. They looked like something desperate middle schoolers would throw together. He frowned minutely but removed the expression a second later in favor of a more neutral one.
Shifting closer to Daryl, he placed a hand on the small of her back. Between himself and Toby, there was enough of a warning presence about her. This is mine, his body language said. Aloud, he directed his next statement to Toby. “I can take care of him while Mr. Westley examines you,” he said, waving his fingers toward Toby. Toby ignored them.
Chuckling quietly, he glanced at Christian. “How would you prefer to do this?”
Christian stared at the woman as she slowly walked her way over to him, and his eyes flickered down to the massive animal that shadowed her feet. Well. That was quite comforting. The fact that the dogs teeth looked large enough to snap his neck certainly put him at ease with the fact that he just stepped into a strangers home. Perhaps this was a bad idea...
However, when he saw the look on the woman's face, and they way her eyes were stained with tears from before he had arrived, Christian knew he couldn’t leave. His eyes moved back to the dog, but he shook his head, obviously a bit uncomfortable. “No. As long as he does not eat me, I am fine.” It would have been funny if he wasn’t serious. But he was. He had hardly noticed Adam’s protective stance over his fiance, which was possibly due to the fact that not only was Christian oblivious to the concept of women, but he was much too distracted with the size of the animal at his feet to take concern.
When Adam spoke again, however, Chris finally tore his eyes away from the large dog and he began to study Daryl. Perhaps it wasn’t polite to stare, but the way that the small bandages were poking from the collar of her shirt made him curious, and he glanced at Adam before he spoke directly to Daryl. “We have to do this in a way where you’re most comfortable. I don’t know where your wounds are and how bad they are, so you’re going to have to tell me exactly what you want to be done.” He paused for a moment, and he looked around the place. It was nice. Neat, and orderly. The concept of having a wounded woman, who seemed to have been crying, in the middle of it, didn’t sit right with Christian. He wanted to ask what happened, but with the way everything was going, and how calm the other two people in the room were being, it seemed as if that was the last thing he should have inquired. Because the quite that surrounded them wasn’t natural. It was forced, which meant that, directly under the quiet, was something that they were trying to hide.
Christian cleared his throat, for lack of something better to do, and he glanced back at Adam. “Is there anywhere that we could sit comfortably? My abilities are effective, but from what I know so far, skin to skin contact has to be involved.” His eyes moved to Daryl, and he obviously didn’t understand why this sounded as bad as it did. “Wherever you’re harmed, I’m going to have to touch you to make it better.” “He won’t eat you,” Daryl said matter-of-factly. “In fact, he’s going to give us some time to talk.” She slid her fingers over the dog’s head, drawing his gaze upward. With her free hand, she pointed to the dog bed in the corner of the room. “Go to bed, Toby.” Her voice was firm, firmer than one would expect from a woman that seemed as close to shattering as she. The dog looked at her a moment before padding off to bed, his gait lazy and loping. As he reached the corner, he collapsed, a tangle of limps sprawling out onto the floor.
Daryl stayed quiet as the others spoke about the particulars of this, and once they had both fallen silent, she spoke up. “We can sit on the couch, if you’d like.” She looked down as she began to walk towards it, gaze on the floor. The most uncomfortable thing about this wasn’t that she would have to remove her shirt, or that a strange man would have to touch her skin. Adam had aided her in being less sensitive to physical touches. No, the worst of this was that someone she didn’t know would see her like this - weak, vulnerable, pathetic. He would see her skin ripped open, the red-hot lines tracing a sadistic map on her pale skin. He would see the angry swelling and inflammation her skin had started, its last-ditch defense against an attacker her body couldn’t see. Christian Westley was going to become more intimately acquainted with her than even her own cousin was, and it was profoundly disturbing.
As she lead the two others to the couch, she began to unbutton the shirt, her back still to them. As she snapped apart button by button, the shirt began to slide over her shoulders, revealing more and more of the makeshift bandages that Adam had attached to her skin. Finally, as her knees brushed the couch, she undid the last button. She folded the shirt neatly and laid it on the nearby endtable, glancing briefly over at the other two. She was clad in a black sports bra slid over the net of bandages. They ran the full length of her back, down her arms, across her stomach, and partway across her chest. It would be easier to measure the skin that wasn’t bandaged. The bandages whispered in her mind, playing images of her injuries over and over in the back of her skull. A part of her would be relieved to be rid of them, though it did feel almost as if she were preparing to molt.
Sinking to the couch, she looked up at Christian. “I would...like for you to attempt to heal all of it, if you could.” Her gaze darted over to Adam, briefly wary. “But I wouldn’t want to force you to overexert yourself. These abilities can be draining in their own ways, I am aware.” It was harder than he expected to let someone he didn’t know anywhere near her. He had thought that, armed with the knowledge he was helping her, it wouldn’t matter quite so much. But it did.
He paced, agitated, while Daryl removed her shirt. She took her damn time about it, when all he wanted her to do was hurry up so they could get Mr. Westley out of the house and he could go back to cuddling her. He supposed that he could still hold her hand, but that hardly counted. Turning on his heel, he paced in the opposite direction, arms crossed and brow furrowed as he watched Daryl undress. At least it was his shirt she was taking off. That counted for something. And Mr. Westley didn’t seem particularly interested in her body. At least, Adam didn’t think so. A single leer, though, and Mr. Westley would receive an intimate introduction to his fist.
That, for some reason soothed him. His pacing slowed into a meandering walk, and he swung toward the kitchen. “I’ll get everyone a glass of water,” he said. The offer was by no means altruistic. He was going to the kitchen to get himself a glass of whiskey. The rest of them could have water - no one was using their power on Daryl drunk. And Daryl didn’t need to be drunk.
He poured two glasses of water and one of whiskey, downed the glass of whiskey, and then poured another. All three glasses carefully in hand, he returned to the living room. The two glasses of water he placed on the table without regard for coasters. The glass of whiskey he took with him to his favorite armchair, which he dropped into with an intense look on his face. He suspected he was brooding. He didn’t care. Christian didn’t know what to do at first. This woman was walking away from him... and removing her shirt. Now, in this case, the removal of her shirt would be more than necessary, however, it didn’t help the fact that she was removing. her clothing. in front of him. He really should have prepared himself for this, but despite his logical reasoning, it still didn’t make this any easier. Christian didn’t know what to expect, and when Daryl had neatly folded the shirt and put it aside, he calmly stepped forward to get a better look at how many bandages she was wearing. It was an interesting concept, that the first time he saw a woman shirtless, her skin was completely covered in wounds. He wasn’t a hopeless romantic, but Christian never thought that his first time seeing a shirtless woman would be like this. It was, in some ways, disappointing. But then again, Christian wasn’t looking forward to anything in particular when it came to situations such as these, so there wasn’t much to be disappointed about.
He had noticed the moment Daryl had started to unbutton her shirt, that Adam had begun pacing. It took him a second to realize why, but when the fact that this was Adams fiance undressing dawned on him, he looked at the other male in the room and he stated, very seriously, “You do not have to be concerned. I have no intentions on doing anything more than medical.” He nodded, as if his statement had made everything much better, now that his disinterest was clear. Despite his words, however, Christian’s eyes had moved to the coaster-less glasses, and he had to fight a twitch. It wasn’t his home, nor his table. Therefore, he had no right to speak. So, instead, he distracted himself by sitting next to Daryl, and he tried to find the largest bandage on her body. It was a bit of a lost cause. “I can try to heal all of it... but I would need coffee. A large amount of caffeine.” He reached out to gently touch a bandage on her skin, but he pulled his hand away in fear of hurting her. “Perhaps you should remove some of these yourself.” Though Daryl felt as if a down blanket had been draped over reality, she wasn’t completely oblivious. She had expected Adam’s agitation the moment she began unbuttoning his shirt, but it couldn’t be helped. If Mr. Westley’s ability required skin-to-skin contact, then that was what she would provide him with. It wasn’t ideal - especially as she imagined that him touching her raw wounds would sting terribly - but she was at least capable of understanding the need for compromise. Adam, on the other hand, seemed to have difficulties with it.
As her fiance excused himself to the kitchen to get water - which she imagined was only a half-truth, judging by how agitated he seemed - she glanced to Christian, voice low. “He’s conflicted. Don’t worry, he’ll simply brood when he finally settles.” And sure enough, he returned, alcohol in one glass and water in two. As he set the glasses down on the tables without coasters, Daryl let out a small sigh. Without saying a word, she picked up one glass and then the other, setting them down neatly on coasters.
Glancing to Mr. Westley at her side, she nodded. “Very well.” She looked to Adam, settled in his favorite chair and brooding away. “Adam, would you make Mr. Westley some coffee please?” She imagined that giving him a task to perform would help settle him, or at the very least get him to stop scowling. When she was satisfied that Adam would at least not be glowering and frightening off the healer, Daryl tentatively reached back to peel away the bandages starting at the nape of her neck and disappearing beneath her bra. She flinched, making small sounds of discomfort as the bandage peeled away from her skin with audible crackling. By the end of it, her eyes were wet with fresh tears, the sting of the wounds licked by the open air.
The wounds were medium in depth, clearly red and sore. They were long and continuous, running down her spine with eerie precision - there was no way that they could be fatal, planned perfectly to hurt and torture without killing. Dropping the bandage onto a nearby table, she glanced to Christian over her shoulder, voice quiet. “It’s all like this. If it’ll be too much for you in one sitting, simply say so.” Of all the things. Of course she would put the glasses on a coaster. A faint smile on his face, he rose from the chair. It was good to have a bit of normalcy in all this oddness. “Very well,” he said, making his way to the kitchen.
In the kitchen, he plugged in the coffee maker and began fixing a very strong brew. From time to time, he peered through the open areas that looked into the living room to keep an eye on what was going on. His hands were busy, and that helped mellow him out significantly, but trust wasn’t something that came easily to him. He might have extended more trust to a healer who came through Orin, but this was just someone off the forums. There was, at the very least, little duplicity in the man. Whatever he said was true, and realizing that soothed Adam a little more.
When the carafe was filled with dark coffee, its rich smell wafting through the apartment, he sighed with contentment. He poured a bit of the coffee into his half-empty glass of whiskey and then poured a mug for Daryl and another for Mr. Westley. He figured the coffee couldn’t hurt her.
Returning to the living room, he set the two cups of coffee on a few sheets of paper spread across the table, and he settled once more in his chair. He kept silent, not wanting to disturb Mr. Westley’s work, but his eyes sought out Daryl’s.
Christian seemed a bit more comfortable when Adam became less tense, but his forehead creased into a frown when he heard the sound of adhesive being torn from skin. His eyes moved to Daryl’s body again, and the moment he saw the wound his lips parted in a shocked awe. When he saw the patchwork of bandages on her he didn’t know what to expect. He had guessed that whatever this was wasn’t the doing of birds, but this was...
“An animal did not administer these wounds...”
He said it under his breath, quietly, more to himself than anything, and after realizing that he had spoken he looked at Daryl apologetically. “I apologize, this just... this is not what I expected.” He didn’t ask where they came from, because he doubted that he would be told, but the way the wounds were administered were almost... surgical in the way that they avoided anything vital. “I can try to heal a lot of it. Like I said, the caffeine will keep me awa- oh. Thank you.” His attention was turned to Adam when his mug was placed down, and Christian sipped it before placing it back on the sheet of paper, and finally turned to the woman in front of him.
“Hold still. I don’t believe that the process of healing hurts much, but it is difficult to do on a moving target. I’m going to touch the cut now.” He stated his actions for several reasons. One, so Daryl would be prepared for the contact on her wound, and two, so Adam wouldn’t beat his skull in with a very hot coffee mug. His touch was gentle, and it was obvious that he was doing the best he could to avoid hurting her. His fingertips just brushed against the cut, and for a few moments, nothing happened, other than Christian’s stare becoming more and more intense. Finally, he felt the warmth spread through his veins, and for a moment he considered that Daryl could probably feel the heat of his touch as his fingertips began to light from the inside out. His jaw became tight, but it only took moments for the large, precise incision to mend, without scar.
Christian’s fingers dragged down the length of the cut, slowly healing whatever he touched and he used his second hand to gently tug down the thick band of Daryl’s bra so he could heal under it. After about a minute, the large trail of open skin, from the nape of her neck to the middle of her back, was healed, and Christian let his hand fall to reach over for the coffee. He sipped it, but he still seemed fairly alert. “Your wounds are deep but they are just skin. It would be much more tiring if it was something more complex, such a bone.” He set his coffee mug down and glanced at Adam. “I think I could heal them all tonight, if you both have the patience for it.”
He glanced over at Daryl, before asking her calmly, “How does that feel? No discomfort, I hope.” Though Daryl certainly wasn’t in a cheerful mood, she found some odd comfort in how Adam’s demeanor changed just slightly. The tension in the room was thick, and lightening it even slightly was a relief. When he returned with the coffee, she glanced up at him, capturing his gaze. Hesitation, appreciation, and an unnerving amount of trust were all visible in her eyes before she glanced away, attention back on what Mr. Westley was saying. “This is an unusual situation,” she finally said, glancing to the other man over her shoulder. “Thank you for persisting.”
When his fingers lighted on her skin, Daryl tensed, holding perfectly still. The site was raw, and though his touch was gentle, she still visibly flinched. It was insult to injury, someone seeing her like this even after the Night Terror had reduced her to a pathetic mess. But she reminded herself that Mr. Westley was a professional, someone that clearly had experience with seeing people in her state. So despite the sudden urge she felt to hide in the bedroom, Daryl stayed still, eyes closed, as the warmth spread from Mr. Westley’s fingers to her back. It was surprisingly comforting, like being wrapped in a blanket.
By the time he was done, she had nearly fallen asleep, head jerking unexpectedly as she jarred herself awake. A momentary flash of panic crossed her face as she realized that she might have gone back to sleep, back into his world, before she settled. “We have infinite patience for such a generous offer,” she said absently, brushing her bangs from her eyes as she turned to try and see his handiwork. Unfortunately, it was out of sight, and finally she simply turned her back towards Adam. “It feels perfectly normal.” There was a sudden lightness in her voice that bordered on hopeful. “As if nothing had been there before.” Another man might have dozed in the time it took Mr. Westley to heal the first cut, especially considering how little sleep Adam had managed to get the night before. But he was too intent on what was happening, too concerned for Daryl to let himself relax for a single moment. In the following days, he suspected he would experience some rather bothersome back pain, but it was worth it. For her, it was worth it.
He studied every minuscule movement Mr. Westley made, and had he been the honest sort, would have admitted it was fascinating. He wasn’t honest, though, not about things like that, things that might give another person an upper hand. So he sat and watched intently, with an indolent expression on his face, sipping his whiskey. In his pocket, his work phone vibrated at least five times with phone calls and another ten or eleven alerting him to an email. They were unimportant; he ignored them.
When the first wound was healed, he rose, moving to Daryl’s side. It was remarkable. There wasn’t even the faintest trace of the cut. “Excellent work,” he said, gently running his fingers down Daryl’s spine, carefully avoiding the remaining wounds. “Like Daryl said, if you think you’re capable of doing everything, you’ll find we’re quite patient people. I’ll make coffee as you need it.” Leaning down, he kissed the crown of her head and returned to his seat.
“I’m glad you’re comfortable.” He said it with a soft tone to his voice, and he watched closely as Adam examined Daryl to make sure that she was alright. It was foreign to him, the sight of a man and a woman like this. His mother had died when he was very young, and his father never remarried. All of his brothers were much too brutish to attract a woman’s attention, and Christian himself was.... well. He didn’t consider himself as ‘fiance’ material. It was a bit heart warming, really, the way that they comforted eachother. It wasn’t like in the movies, when someone cried into the shoulder of their partner... it was more subtle than that. Small glances, endearing looks, gentle touches... everything for them seemed to mean much more than what it really was to the naked eye.
Christian had to fight off a blush when he realized what he was thinking about, because he was sure that blushing while Daryl sat there shirtless would not have come off well. So, instead, he smiled when Adam approved of his handiwork and he nodded, muttering easily, “I have enough for now, thank you.” He tilted his head in a mixture of curiosity and concentration, and he very slowly began to tug off the bandages that Daryl wouldn’t have been able to reach. He moved slowly, knowing that, although it was painful, it would have been much worse if he just ripped them off. After he was done removing them, and he could see the strategic, eerily perfect incisions, he began to work again, starting on the larger cuts before moving to the smaller. It took him about an hour, and two cups of coffee to keep him alert, but after it all, Daryl’s back was completely wound-free, her skin smooth and without blemish.
“I think that I’ve finished your back.” He said it softly, glancing over at Adam before he nodded to the man. “Thank you for the coffee, it helps.” The feeling of her skin knitting back together, the warmth washing over her back, was both interesting and exhausting. She could feel her cells merging again, the area smoothed over by whatever supernatural force controlled Mr. Westley’s ability. Though Daryl had never believed in “magic” or “spirits,” her time in humanity had showed her that rules could still govern what was once thought to be nonsense. Her ability shouldn’t, for all intents and purposes, have been possible. Inanimate objects didn’t have souls, or eyes, or feelings. And yet every one she touched gave her a memory, every object had an insight to share. While she wasn’t the sort to just dismiss and accept what she didn’t know, Daryl had conceded that much.
Staying awake for an hour was proving to be more difficult than she thought it would. She dozed regularly, drooping and lilting until realization kicked back in. But by the end of the hour, she was wide awake again, immediately craning her neck to try and see Mr. Westley’s handiwork. “It’s perfect,” she said breathlessly, reaching back with one hand to tentatively brush along her lower spine. Though her expression had been grim ever since Mr. Westley’s arrival, her mouth suddenly curled in a small smile. She glanced to Adam expectantly, turning her back for him to better see. The Night Terror’s mark on her skin was being eliminated, slowly vanishing. Eventually, it would be as if he had never touched her - that, she imagined, had to be the greatest insult she could deal the man. Obscurity and utter nothingness. Passing the hour watching Mr. Westley work was a fascinating way to spend his time. The way Daryl’s skin knit together under his touch was bewildering, though he supposed no more so than any other power Creations acquired this side of the portal. Still, a gift for healing was remarkable. And remarkably useful. Adam made a mental note to add Mr. Westley to his list of useful tools even though he suspected he’d never need a healer for the less savory work he did.
When her back was healed, Adam rose and made his way to her side once more. She turned her back toward him, and he smiled, the expression more animated than her own, but still reserved. “Magnificent work,” he said, in much the way someone would comment on a painting or a sculpture. He ran his fingers from the base of her spine to the nape of her neck and released a quiet sigh of relief. He wouldn’t have cared if she scarred, but he understood why she didn’t want those scars. They would be a reminder. And they would be a sign of victory. Without them, it lessened the Night Terror’s attack.
“Truly, you have an amazing skill, Mr. Westley. I’ll go make you another cup of coffee.” He placed another kiss on the side of Daryl’s head, lingering just a moment to whisper a riddle in her ear. It was one of his own devising, something he’d concocted while watching Mr. Westley work, and he thought it would be sufficiently difficult to keep her occupied for the next hour or two.
Christian had moved back a bit to allow Adam to study the woman, and he waited patiently before receiving his approval. He merely nodded when Adam offered to make more coffee before he stood and moved to Daryl’s front. It then occurred to him, while sitting in front of a strange woman without a shirt in the home she shared with her future husband, that perhaps he should feel a bit awkward doing this. Beside the fact that he hadn’t the foggiest what had caused such a wound in the first place, he also knew nothing about this woman, or Adam, or what they did, who they were... that didn’t seem to matter much, however. A wounded person was a wounded person. At the thought of that, Christian vaguely wondered if Rome was in his home right now, raiding his food before leaving again. Well. At least he wouldn’t go hungry.
“Please hold still.” He said it gently and he began to heal the wounds on her stomach, small scratches and gouges that looked like they had been made with a medical tool, and his eyes moved up to hers to make sure she was alright. Now that he was facing her, it made it a bit easier to make sure that he wasn’t causing her discomfort. “How long have these wounds been here, if you do not mind me asking...?” The riddle whispered in her ear made Daryl’s eyes widen, her gaze locked on Adam as he walked out of the room. She smirked faintly, mind already whirring at a thousand miles per hour. She barely noticed that Mr. Westley was sitting in front of her, the warmth in her stomach something that she could easily block out. Her gaze settled on a wall opposite them, past Mr. Westley’s head. Expression blank with an unnatural sharpness in her eyes, she sat perfectly still as she saturated herself with thought.
The question made her blink, shaking her head slightly. Drawn from her thoughts, she looked to him, holding her breath momentarily. “Approximately twenty-four hours. A bit less, I suppose. The inflammation is still obvious, I believe.”
Christian nodded softly when she stated how long she had the wounds, and he shook his head, mostly to himself in disbelief than anything else. He couldn’t imagine trying to move with all of these wounds, it would have had to have been quite painful... His eyes moved back up to her face, hardly noticing the distance stare of concentration that she had, and he glanced back down at her body before he said, very softly, “You do not have to answer this if you do not want to.” His eyes didn’t move from his shining fingers, his concentration still on her skin as he continued.
“But what evil did this to you?”
His words were soft, but solid, as if he had been hesitating to ask the question but, when he did, he was sure that he wanted an answer. He looked back up again, meeting her eyes calmly, and there was nothing in his that meant ill-will. In fact, he looked quite concerned... probably because he was. The idea of anything running around that could do something like this greatly disturbed him, and, briefly, he wondered if he would be able to do anything about it. “Because, forgive me for saying, but I highly doubt that you willingly took this damage to your own body.” For most of the night, Daryl had been distant. She only seemed truly present during her brief exchanges with Adam, the gazes and brief kisses. But Mr. Westley’s question brought her back into the room in a way nothing else could have. Her eyes widened, jaw tightening, and it seemed as if she were internally fighting something.
Her first response would have been to decry the idea that evil existed. Good and evil, black and white, they were just myths. Life was a sliding grayscale, of course. Evil was something that people invented to give themselves something to fight against. It was complacency and security, trust that they were doing something productive by fighting something that was bad. But after sitting in that man’s head, feeling what he felt and laughing at that girl’s terror, she had begun to wonder. And now, wearing the wounds inflicted on her by the Night Terror and his gleeful sadism, she had to wonder. Just wonder. What if evil did exist?
If evil existed, there was also good. If morality existed, then there were rules outside of her own that needed to be abided by. Without morals, she was free to construct her own universe. With morals, she was bound. She had come to accept that she wasn’t the only conscious mind in existence, glancing to Adam briefly as she thought of it. So if there was another conscious mind, another brilliant mind, could evil exist? Could the Night Terror truly be a monster?
She glanced back to Mr. Westley, her gray eyes shrinkwrapped in tears. Her expression fell, pride and stubbornness beginning to crack as the thoughts consumed her. What if she had been wrong? What if she had always been wrong? It was more terrifying a prospect than the state of her arms, more gruesome than the tale of torture written in her skin. Her lower lip quivered as she looked down, trying to will herself to protest. “There is no evil,” she wanted to say. “There is only action and reaction,” she wanted to tell him. She wanted to pull that naivety and idealism out of him and crack it in half over her knee, show him that good and evil, right and wrong, were arbitrary. Mr. Westley was here because they would help him in turn one day. He offered favors to get favors. Mutualism. Symbiosis. Cold, calculating logic.
It took her several seconds to realize that she was crying, and even longer to realize that she was gripping the cushion of the couch tightly enough to whiten her knuckles. She spoke to Mr. Westley’s abdomen, as it was easier than lifting her gaze to meet his. Face red and blotchy, eyes bloodshot, she could barely choke out the words properly. “The Night Terror,” she finally said, wiping her eyes with the back of her free hand. “I met the Night Terror.”
Christian didn’t know what he had expected as an answer, but he didn’t expect this. In hindsight, really, he should have, shouldn’t he? Whatever had done this to the poor woman, she couldn’t have been okay after. This wasn’t a fall, and scrape on the knee. This looked like purposefully inflicted pain.
This looked like torture.
He stared at her with soft eyes, and he seemed surprisingly calm as her tears began to well. He supposed that normal people why try to comfort her, and tell her not to get so upset. But then again, why wouldn’t she? Christian would certainly be upset if he was in her situation, and, thinking of it that way, it almost seemed heartless to tell this woman not to cry. His hands gently moved on her body, his touch careful to stay as respectful as possible as he gently placed his grip on both of her arms. It wasn’t until this moment that he realized, he didn’t even know this woman’s name. Or, perhaps he did. Perhaps he had forgotten it. Which was possible, but unimportant. It wasn’t something that he needed to know.
He let her be for a moment as his hands warmed and gently healed the wounds on her arms, and he stared at her softly as he mulled over what she has said. Night Terror. What was that...? Perhaps a bad dream. But dreams didn’t do this to someone... nightmares did, and if this came from a woman’s nightmare then he didn’t want to know what it was about.
“Well after I’m finished, it won’t even look like the Night Terror ever touched you.” His voice was calm and collected, his eyes soft and caring. He spoke to her as an adult, but he was being careful, as if she was a harmed child. Because he could see, that some part of her, was not alright. “See? Look.” Christian looked down and cracked a very rare smile as he saw the flawless, unmarred skin of Daryl’s arm. “You can’t even tell that he’s touched you there. Or here.” His eyes moved to her other arm, which was also healed. “You’ll be good as new.” His attention, which had been wandering, was piqued at Mr. Westley’s question. It was arrested when Daryl trembled, and demanded when she began to cry.
Rising from his chair, setting his glass of whiskey aside, he strode around Mr. Westley to Daryl’s side. Silently, he sat beside her, picking up his shirt and carefully dressing her. When he was finished, he turned his gaze on the healer and inclined his head. “Thank you,” he said, his voice surprisingly gentle for all the intensity written on his face. “Both of us appreciate this more than we can express. I realize you said you didn’t work with the intention of getting paid, but I would like to give you something for your trouble.” He made a vague, open ended gesture with his hands. “Is there anything you’d like from us?” Of course it would look like the Night Terror had never touched her. That was the point. She had to erase him, take his mark away from her, eliminate him completely. That was the biggest insult to a man as arrogant as he. If he stopped existing, he couldn’t lord himself over anyone. If she erased and subverted him, he was nothing. And yet the tears continued, sobs wracking her frail body.
His small smile was a strange comfort that she knew shouldn’t have been. But smiles were a universal human constant, signs of happiness and reassurance. It was normal for her to be comforted by it, which disturbed her all the more. She was common now. Smiles comforted her, and she cried when she was hurt. What was wrong with her? She’d become so pathetic.
As Adam dressed her, she made a few small sounds in Mr. Westley’s direction, attempts at communication that failed. She tried to thank him, or agree, or say anything. Instead, she collapsed back into Adam once he had buttoned up the shirt. Fingers finding his shoulder, she held on, crawling into his lap and trying to quiet herself.
Christian moved to allow Adam to dress Daryl, and he watched carefully as the small woman moved into the gentleman’s arms. It took him a moment to realize that Adam was asking if he wanted to be compensated, and he put his hand up, shaking his head. “No, there is nothing that I need.” It was true, really. Christian had what he felt he needed. His cat, his home, his television, his food, and his job. What else was a man supposed to have?
Well. He could think of one think. Which was odd, because Christian rarely, if ever thought about that one thing. He softly smiled at Daryl, comfortingly, before he glanced over at Adam again and he said calmly, “I very much appreciate the coffee. I think it’s time for me to go now.” He nodded to the man before standing, taking his long coat and shrugging it on before he looked around to make sure he had all of his belongings. He glanced at the door and he began to walk towards it, before he paused, and he looked back at Adam softly. “You have my phone number. I trust that if you need anything else, you’ll contact me.”
He didn’t know why he said it, but he felt obligated to. He had no idea what was going on. He didn’t know why this woman was cut, or why they were so tense, or why she seemed so... broken. But he did feel as if, despite all of the things he DIDN’T know, he saw something here that was rarely, if ever, seen by other people. The state of their home, and the way that acted together... these people were not creatures of emotion. And yet there she was, crying on the couch. It looked unnatural for her to be doing so, and Christian felt as if his eyes had been stained with an image that was unseen by others. That, above anything else, made him feel obligated to be available to them if needed. “Her healing should stay as such, but if I missed anything or anything else is needed, I’m upstairs, room 604.” He nodded softly to the two of them. “I hope to see you both again on a better occasion...” Gently pulling away from Daryl, his fingers lingering as long as possible, Adam rose and moved with Mr. Westley to see him to the door. “Of course,” he agreed, “we’ll be sure to let you know if anything else happens.” A wary glance over his shoulder was the only indication that he thought something else would happen again in the near future, but it could easily be read as concern for his fiance.
Putting a warm, if slightly forced, smile on his face, he opened the door to the apartment and stepped to the side so Christian could easily leave. “We are, as Daryl said, very grateful. And I do mean it. If you ever need anything, please don’t hesitate to ask.” He said it with a solemn air; he was a man who took debt seriously, and when someone did him a kindness, Adam always felt he owed them something in return. It was in part why he was so insistent on some form of payment - he hated owing anyone.
Christian nodded politely when Adam spoke to him and he stepped out, saying in a calm tone, “Well I need nothing right now. But I’ll be sure to find you if I ever do.” He gave Adam a soft, almost comforting smile, before he gave the man one last nod and turned to walk down the hall. He heard the door close, and the thick silence thereafter was almost unnerving. So unnerving, in fact, that Christian slowed his steps, until he was standing still in middle of the hall. What had he just seen...? Whatever it was, he had a small voice telling him that it wasn’t normal, and yet, he was alright with that. That wasn’t the part that unnerved him. Perhaps it was the warmth in the room.
By warmth, Christian supposed that he meant the way that Daryl and Adam acted towards each other, and for the first time in his life, Christian felt surprisingly alone. He would think that, at the age of thirty-six, he should have experienced something like that with another human being by this point in his life. But he hadn’t. ...He didn’t dwell on it. He began walking again, the thoughts of whatever could have made those wounds spinning through his mind, until he was home, free to sit on the couch and pet Jimmy until he fell asleep watching the History Channel.