Latent Dream (Summervale) [Cramler] [M]

[GoblinFae]

Fletcher smiled at him and Theo burst into tears. The weight of the months of their deteriorating friendship that had resulted in his disgusting, violent, on cruel outburst on the training grounds followed by his own guilt-filled pity party and broken hand slammed into him all at once. Oh how he had missed that smile, had missed his friend and their bond. To have it now when he deserved it the least just made him cry harder. His medicine was precariously abandoned so he could bury his face in his hands while sobbed all the harder. 

"I don't deserve it...or you. I have been so awful to you and I'm so sorry. I'm a terrible friend."

[Nightcrawler]

His face fell like a stone. He was sure that hand hurt like hell, but he hadn't been expecting it to bring Theo to tears like this. The medicine jerked and splashed with every sob and threatened to tip over altogether. Fletch stood and strode to retrieve it, setting it gently back on the bedside table. He'd just turned to return to where he'd been sitting when Theo spoke.

The weight of it could have crushed him. His lips parted but no argument emerged, and for a moment, all he could do was watch on in horror as the damage he'd done came pouring out. If there was ever a sign that he was poison to this place, this was it. He made his way slowly back to the chair he'd dragged up next to the head of the bed and slumped back into it.

"Theo. No."

He rubbed his face, trying desperately to come to grips with how much he'd hurt the man he'd tried to keep safe. He didn't know where to even begin to fix it in this moment, so he waited, patiently and silently, for the man to finish.

[GoblinFae]

Without being able to see through his tears and hands, Theo completely missed Fletcher's protests and so continued to sob and apologize without interruption. "First there was the..." he quieted as he signed the word for 'kiss' before continuing, "and then you got in trouble when I promised you everything would be okay and it wasn't and I was too cocky and let my ego get in the way. Everything's been falling apart and it's all my fault. I thought if I just gave you space it would be okay but I should have just apologized sooner. And I'm so, so sorry. I've ruined everything. And I said such horrible things to you. I called you the worst names. I've never even used those words out loud before and I was so mad and I took it out on you. And then I went and had another pathetic pity party," he spat the words flailing his right hand up into the air only to whimper-groan at the pain and bring both hands back into his lap.

Sniffling and with red, teary eyes Theodore finally looked up at his friend and met his gaze. "This is not how friends behave. I am so," the breath caught in his lungs making his words shutter and shake, "so sorry. For my actions. My words. Everything."

[Nightcrawler]

His jaw worked like a fish before he closed it and let the man finish. At the mention of Theo kissing him, he cocked his head and frowned — he'd quite honestly forgotten all about that, but clearly Theo hadn't. Every other thing he said echoed his own thoughts, and by the time his friend had finished, Fletcher had leaned forward and now peered at the man intently.

"Theo," he grunted. "Is that really what..."

He sighed, groaned, and rubbed his face. "Shit," he muttered into his hands before dropping them to his lap. Behind them, his face had fallen into that haggard look that aged him a decade beyond his years. "Is that what you thought this was about?" he asked. His eye flitted anxiously to the door, then back again. He tried to find some way to explain, but the thing he wanted most to say aloud kept getting stuck on his tongue. "I'm the one who should be sorry," he rasped. "I wanted to fix this. All I did was tighten the leash. And the Baron, I — "

He paused. Swallowed. His eye went wide as he fell back into memory for a moment before pulling himself together again. "Can you trust me when I say that it's not you? That it's nothing that you've done? That it's...him?"

[GoblinFae]

He stared intensely at the other man, his face a mask of guilt and sorrow that turned into compassion. Theo wanted nothing more than to ask if he could hug the other man, to seek comfort as much as to provide it, but he knew better. It had ended so poorly last time. Just as today had gone so terribly because of him.

"...will you forgive me then? Just as I forgive you? I...I want my friend back and I don't even think I deserve that, but I am selfish and spoiled and I want that Jack. The leash means nothing unless I'm alone. The changes," he sighed and looked to the side some and shrugged before continuing, "I hardly notice them. They come, they go. It has been like this in varying ways my whole life. But, I can see how that is entrapping for you."

Theo licked his lips and picked at his bandaging as he hesitated anxiously. "Will you tell me now what he said to you that upset you this deeply? If it was about me, I assure you it was nothing I have not already heard before," the nobleman added with a very calm and resigned expression.

[Nightcrawler]

Fletch blinked rapidly, taken aback by the fact that his friend still blamed himself. "There's nothing to forgive. We were drunk and you were...in the moment. It happens, and truthfully I forgot you even did it. And today, I was an ass. I was awful. You called me as much. If you'd broken my nose over it, I'd consider it fair payment."

The rest caught up with him: a knife to the chest from which guilt spilled forth. The leash means nothing unless I'm alone. He averted his eye. Theo didn't understand. He didn't know. It was still for the best if Fletcher left before this place undid what little good he'd built around himself and drew forth that selfish, harsh, and blackened core. He owed Theo an explanation, it was true. But he wouldn't say it now. They'd talk about it later. Even if that subject pained him just as much as the topic at hand.

"I..." He stared down at his hands and picked at his cuticle as he tried once more to focus. His thoughts slid around it again. "Fuck," he muttered. He returned his gaze to Theo, though his head was still hung like a guilty dog's. "I know I owe it to you after how I've been. Believe me. But that's a thing I need to loosen with whiskey."

That gave him a thought, and Fletcher cocked his head. His smile returned, albeit a tired one. "Have a drink with me some night after my shift's done. Maybe I can tell you about it then."

[GoblinFae]

Theo looked embarrassed but nodded along. "Aye, that I can do, although you owe me nothing...not even your friendship."

He sighed and leaned back against the headboard some looking utterly exhausted beyond belief. "It's good to see you smile again though." Theo gave a half smile back in return. "I missed it."

[Nightcrawler]

"Erm." Fletcher's smile turned strange, like he couldn't quite comprehend what he'd just heard. "...did you?" He blinked rapidly again and then stared at Theo as though it was the first time he'd truly seen him. Like he was putting pieces together again. "Huh," he grunted at last. "S'pose looking's free."

He shrugged and stood, rather unbothered considering the conclusion he'd just spoken aloud, and went to retrieve the medicine. He held it out to Theo again, brows raised in a mock warning. "Right. I think you've avoided this long enough. You know Ven was a healer, yeah? So you know I was stuck with one for over ten bloody years. So I know some tricks to getting medicine down a gullet. Don't make me use them."

[GoblinFae]

"Mhmm," he hummed back, not at all catching on how it sounded. Theo raised a brow back at Fletcher's declaration while eyeing his movements. The return of the teacup though caused a slight grimace and another sigh. 

"He got sick often too then? I've heard healers are always bad about taking medicine." Theo attempted a half smile but gave up as he continued to refuse the cup and instead stared at it in contemplation. "What's in it?"

[Nightcrawler]

"Mm." Fletcher's expression darkened, though a trace of the smile remained. "No. He was a little too good at taking medicine, actually," he replied. Some part of him left again, and the dead-eyed man who remained by the bed held that medicine out as though he'd become a statue. Then he breathed in deeply and came to again and squinted at the glass. "Mandrag — mandra-something. Healer said it was for pain. I'm supposed to give it to you every eight hours. So you and I are going to be spending quite a bit of time together, I think. Now. You going to make this easy, or am I doing it the hard way?"

[GoblinFae]

"Mandragora," he corrected with a deep scowl. "You can put it down, Mr. Daw. It won't be necessary."

'I don't deserve it.'

His words may have come off calm and clear but his left hand still picked anxiously at his bandaging, causing the edges to fray. Theo's thoughts still oozed with self-disgust and a desire to punish himself for his perceived misdeeds.
 
'Besides,' he reckoned to himself, 'what's the worst Jack can do to me? I broke bones punching a tub after months learning how to throw a proper one. I'm clearly too fragile to be manhandled and too exhausted to give chase. He's bluffing.'

[Nightcrawler]

Fletcher grunted. After a moment's consideration, he spoke up. "Mm. Yep. He said you might do this. The stubborn bit." He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, then tilted his head a bit as if to say, 'Well, I warned you.' He set the medicine aside again and made his way around the bed to the door, hesitated in front of it for a moment, then locked it. As he returned, he removed his coat and laid it carefully over the chair he'd pulled up. He retrieved the medicine and turned back to Theo.

"Last chance. It's going down the hatch one way or another, Theo. I'll not see you screaming yourself hoarse over this hand when it really starts to get bad."

[GoblinFae]

His brows did their best attempt at becoming one with his hairline at Fletcher locking the door and taking off his coat. It seemed all very dramatic of the man in Theo's mind. Yet, still he held his ground. He was not going to drink the medicine. You could not pay him enough to do so. 

Sighing, Theodore rested further back against the headboard and eyed Fletcher through drooping eyes. "You can say you put up the good fight and be done with it now, Jack. Pour it into a plant or off the balcony but I'm not drinking that," 'ever again.'

[Nightcrawler]

"It's nothing to do with who thinks I've been a good little nurse," he muttered, looking slightly affronted. "It's to do with you." He sat down on the edge of the bed next to Theo and cast one last resigned glance. Then he grasped the man's face by the cheeks, split his lips open, poured the shot in, and held a hand over his nose and mouth. He quickly set the glass aside, then scooped up the back of Theo's head and held him tilted further upright so he wouldn't choke. Every motion in the act was gentle, and by his expression it was plain that he didn't like doing this to a friend. But neither did he give any indication that he'd relent until Theo swallowed the medicine.

[GoblinFae]

One moment Fletcher was sitting down on the bed and Theo thought he had given up and the next his hands were all over him and the cold, bitter tea was in his mouth. The closing of his airway was completely unnecessary as the nobleman immediately swallowed without any fight or protest. Overall, Theo had remained completely docile in his bodyguard's grasp as if completely trusting the other man.

His eyes however did widen massively in surprise even as his cheeks flushed. Due to unfortunate experience with being forced to take his medicine, Theo would have to say that Fletcher's approach was certainly the most gentle and caring attempt he had ever experienced and he wasn't entirely sure how to feel about that. The hand at the back of his head wasn't helping matters either.

He placed a gentle hand on Fletcher's wrist, his fingers resting lightly and his thumb barely brushing the man's pulse as he nodded his head to indicate it was done already. "Well that was...cold and gross. Thank you...for taking care of me."

[Nightcrawler]

He nodded and uncovered Theo's nose and mouth, lowering the man's head back onto the pillow. He was genuinely surprised that he hadn't gotten kicked, hit, or bitten for what he'd just done — though he made that strange face again at Theo's flushed cheeks. "Thank you?" he chuckled. "What — as in, 'thank you sir, may I have another?'" He slid from the bed and made straight for the door to unlock it again before settling once more into the chair and crossing a boot over one knee. "I wasn't joking. You live with a healer for that long, you learn what to do with the stubborn ones. Especially when the healer is the stubbornest of them all."

[GoblinFae]

"No!" Theo scowled darkly at the question. "Just...," he grunted, flustered and unsure how to explain all the things he was feeling. That gentle hands had felt almost intimate for the touch-starved man and that had it not been medicine poured down his throat, Theodore might have considered he was about to be kissed. He flushed deeper at the thought and fussed with the covers, trying to get them settled over him with only one hand.

"Just that could have been very violent and you weren't and...you cared enough to see it done. Others give up easier because not worth it to them."

As Fletcher returned he looked to him and nearly missed what the man was saying as he was too busy noticing how his bodyguard had resumed the seated posture he took when he was feeling comfortable as opposed to the stiffness that had seemed to harden the man with the oncoming winter's chill.

"Mm, but you said he was good about taking his medicine. Or do you mean he could out-stubborn his patients?"

[Nightcrawler]

Fletcher raised his chin and squinted down his nose as he tried to read between the lines. "Are you telling me that someone hurt you before?" he asked. His voice was dead calm, but there was a danger to the way he'd said it. It was the same way he talked about men who got too close to Neish. After a while, he appeared to let it go, but the thought tempered his smile. "I suppose I would have done, once. We're both lucky you didn't know me in my younger years. I was a vicious little prick. As for Ven..."

He trailed off and averted his gaze. That was also something he owed to Theo. The closer mid-winter came, the more frightened he was of what it would do to him, and of what he'd do to others. Theo deserved to understand. But... "It was a joke in poor taste," he muttered. "And if I've got to have a drink in me to talk about...your dad...this is a thing I'd need the full bottle for. So maybe some other time, Theo. Yeah?"

He returned his attention to his friend. "Shouldn't you be resting?"

[GoblinFae]

Theo gave him such an unimpressed look. "I could not be more reclined than I currently am, but you are welcome to try." Sinking further into the pillows he sighed and considered what he had been told. It was easy of course to accept that Ven was not a welcome topic as much as his own father was not one. But, had he been hurt before? There was such an intensity in Fletcher's gaze as if the man was a hunter ready for the kill.

"I was a very sickly child. At some point the pain...you'd rather drown in it than the medicine. I have always hated how numb it makes me feel. And this one," he nodded towards the tea setup, "I am very familiar of its effects. You could say there was once a time when I had a spine and would fight you tooth and nail to keep from taking my medicine." Theo smiled slightly in memory. "I admit I had not expected such results from refusing to take it as an adult though."

[Nightcrawler]

The weight of Ven's memory lifted just as soon as it had settled in between them. On the contrary: Fletcher had never known anyone to refuse numbness for pain, and he included himself readily in that sentiment. It took a kind of strength that he'd never possessed in all his years, yet Theo did. And that, he...admired.

He cleared his throat. "Thought I was going to get bit, honestly," he agreed. "But...I was given orders and I intend to follow them. He seems like a decent man, your healer. He gave you this stuff for a reason: it'll hurt worse before it gets better. And I — "

He stopped himself. Frowned. Sighed and shook his head. He kept running into new threads of this web. How impossible it seemed, now, to extricate himself for Theo's sake. "Seems you've made a loyal dog of me, sir. You've got me talking like I've gone soft in my old age," he snorted before continuing on. "I'm sorry to have forced it down you, but I'll not see you in that kind of pain. So this is happening every eight hours, whether you refuse it or not."