Drabble. Directly Pre-Rufus Collapse.
He listens. To the beep of a small machine dispensing morphine through an IV and ignores the crawl of his skin at the idea. He breathes, and it’s the smell of burnt flesh and harsh cleanser that fills his nose, cloying and bitter and enough to gag upon if he’d eaten, but he hasn’t. Food is sawdust in his mouth and his throat is dry, has been dry for days. Weeks.
Grey looks as his namesake, ashen against linen and bandages. Eyes milky white and wet, unseeing. Never seeing again. He knows Tseng is here by presence, footsteps, scent, and remains silent when the man sits beside him. He knew. Doctors knew better than to be hopeful for a Turk. It was a miracle he was still alive, after all.
A hand, frail looking but still strong rose in search and Tseng gripped it dutifully. He understood the overwhelming fear the surrounding darkness created, the uncertainty, the need to be grounded. But his own dance with shadows had lasted a mere month. An excruciating thirty days, living on a ‘maybe’ and ‘perhaps’, but the chance, and so the constant struggle to regain what was lost continued, and in the end the bandages had been peeled away and he had blinked into concerned, controlled blue eyes, and the world was right again.
It would never be right for Grey again.
Words were spoken that had little meaning, needed to be said, but then silence fell between them again and, eyes still staring unblinking at the ceiling, the other man finally relaxed against the bed, lines of tension falling from his face and body, erasing the years that had been prematurely gained. He released Tseng’s hand and laced his fingers over his stomach as Tseng reached into his pocket and removed a syringe, ignoring his internal shudder of revulsion. This was duty.
There was no heart monitor to stop and scream dramatically; only a man far older than his years slowly watching a chest rise, and fall, rise, and fall, then rise no more. When he left the room, it was emptier than when he arrived, and the nurses did not even have a last name for their paperwork.
He wanted to get drunk. He wanted to scream. He wanted to punch and spar until his knuckles were bloody. He wanted to kill those who had done this. Those who could ever do this to any of his men. Destroy them all.
He tightened his tie and made his way back to the office. Because that, too, was duty.