Tick, click, tick, click, tick, click-

Gress had turned it into a patterned game, focusing on the timing of organising medicine in the shelves between the second movements of a clock. It kept him focused, distracted from the earlier events.

Tick, click, tick, click, tick, click-

Glass vials and IV bags, plastic bottles of various pills, sealed and sterile tools, ampoules, cartridges, tubes. The case of medicine was tightly packed, laden with life saving supplies. He glanced over his shoulder at the pair of bedded patients. The immediate benefactors of the supplies.

Tick, click, tick, click, tick, click-

Not like they earned it. Each painkiller, drop of antiseptic and thin suture used on them was a potential life lost in Ingram. Especially if they were forced out into the wild. Because of him. Gress hit himself on the bad shoulder, a frail attempt to banish the thoughts.

Tick, click, tick…tick…tick.

It stopped his steady organising of the medicine. It wasn’t required of him, he’d just asked Doctor Bedan for something to do, something that’d somehow help someone. It didn’t help him, at least. His arm still pulsed and ebbed out disgruntled pain, his jaw still echoed with discomfort, swollen and warm. That white-haired one had a hell of a punch. He’d started to look at the patients behind him.

It’d taken Bedan hours to settle them all, swapping between surgeries to halt whatever was causing one to crash before moving to the other. It wasn’t until they’d all finally stabilised that the old Doctor allowed himself to sit down for a smoke and exhaustion did the rest to carry him to sleep. Gress was left behind to manage the chore-like aftermath.

He was standing over the thin, small one. Their upper chest was heavily bandaged over, an arm slinged over their chest. They got off lucky, the squashed bullet and bone splinters were removed cleanly, aside from a large chunk of the clavicle missing they’d made it out tentatively safe.

Gress looked past the curtain between the beds, over at the larger man and the wheelchair that was already parked beside him. Outside in the waiting room of the small doctor’s surgery, the Red Shoulder was sedated against the seats, ligaments and tendons in their arm shredded, the puncture in their lung sealed with effective, and expensive, filler.

Maybe it was a penance, to see what he’d done to them, or a reward, seeing the ones that tried to hurt him and his town brought low. Maybe it was just the exhausted demands of a doctor, turning to the one that always asked how he could help. All it was now was silence, silence and darkness. At least until the small one started to stir.

Brown eyes flickered open, the panic of unfamiliarity setting in quickly. Raz started to look around, wincing hard when they moved their shoulder in the wrong way. They couldn’t see Tonio, couldn’t see anyone, not until-

“Oh, you’re awake.” Brown eyes met glowing gold in the dark, and panic turned to terror, Raz tried to back away, scramble from the creature, it only served to send ringing pain through their body.

“No no, Shh-shhh!” Gress tried to plead, before realising what was making them panic. He sighed, holding his hands up and stepping backwards.

“It’s okay. You’re safe, I’m not here to hurt you.” He spoke sternly and clearly, just as Bedan had taught him to deal with panicked patients. “You’re okay, you’re safe. Don’t panic.”

Razgrith stopped trying to scramble away, holding their pained collar while their chest heaved.

“...Do you need more painkillers?” Gress calmly asked, keeping his voice low.

Raz hesitated. They definitely needed some kind of pain relief, the ache becoming clearer with each lucid moment,, why was the Splinter asking? They risked a tentative nod, more out of curiosity than demand. Gress didn’t lower his hands, slowly walking to the side of the cot, letting the injured see he wasn’t a threat. He slowly lowered his arms, hiding the corrupted one back under his cloak before taking a medicine cup from the side table.

It was awkward to rotate between the cups one handed, passing Raz the medicine, taking the cup, then replacing it with water. They patiently managed, and after choking down the numbing opioids, Raz managed to meekly mutter out thanks.

“...I’m Gress, by the way.”

“...Raz, Razgrith.” Weak, choked, and dry. They passed the cup back to Gress, a refill, then another before choking on the water.

“Don’t rush, we’re not going to run out.” Gress offered a small, gentle smile, barely visible in the windowed moonlight. To his relief, it wasn’t met with discomfort or fear, and in fact was returned. It didn’t last long, realisation ran through Raz.

“Tonio, where’s Tonio?” They croaked out, Gress deflated, figuring who they were asking about. Raz’ eyes followed him to the cot beside them, the Splinter pulled back the papery curtain parting the beds. It wasn’t a good sight, several more bags and tubes splayed out from Antonio’s body. A vitals monitor with a dying screen glitched out parses of information. Injured on both front and back, he was held up on his side, exposing the patched chest to his partner, and hiding the horrific injuries on his back. A weak, shattered whimper escaped Razgrith.

“...He’s alive. Alive, and stable.” Gress affirmed, wincing at the pain in Razgrith’s face. He opened his mouth to detail the extent of Antonio’s injuries, before forcing it shut. Razgrith’s weak, shaky hand reached out from their cot towards Tonio, wet eyes gleaming in the moonlight. A weak, choked sob came from Raz, and sickened Gress as his arm purred in response.

“Stay still, I’ll try to make this gentle.” Gress stood, trying to affirm Raz’s worried gaze with as much care as he could. The thunk of castor brakes was booming in the small room, Gress went from bed corner to bed corner, flicking them up with his foot. “Don’t tell Doctor Bedan about this, he’ll have a fit. But, this is more important, our secret.” Gress continued with a wink, moving to do the same to Antonio’s bed.

Razgrith watched the Splinter out of the corner of their eye, keeping their main focus on Antonio. They struggled to hold back soft weeps at the Gress’ actions, seeing how slowly and gently he moved their cots closer together. Making sure no cables were snagged, that the intravenous tubes stayed as steady as possible, every care taken to not disturb the doctors work or the unsteady patients. A rare act of kindness, crowned with the Splinter making sure Antonio’s arm was as accessible as possible to Raz, gently stretched out towards them.

“How’s that?” He asked, stepping backwards.

Razgrith took Antonio’s limp hand in their own, clasping it tight. They were beside each other again, where they belonged. Their matching rings glinted in the moonlight. Wet trails started to mark Razgrith’s pillow.

“...I’m sorry this happened. Really.” Gress offered, eyes turning downwards. Razgrith didn’t respond, focused on the familiar, rough hands of their husband, the faint pulse they could feel in his wrist. “...You need rest, both of you. The Doctor will be back in the morning to check on you.” He started to leave, interrupted halfway to the door.

“Thank you.” Razgrith whispered, breaking from looking at Tonio to give Gress a teary smile. “...Thank you.”

Gress released a tight sigh of relief, and offered Raz a small, smiling nod, they rapidly returned it.

The Splinter slowly closed the door behind him, wincing at the tiny sobs audible through the door.

“Getting a bit friendly, aren’t you, freak?”

Gress sighed, turning to Kirche with a tight frown. She was handcuffed to the waiting lounge, having proved to be a combative patient. Her injured arm was hung in a sling, IV tubes hanging loose and disconnected beside her.

“Forgetting who put them in there?” She continued with a feral, trembling scowl.

“I didn’t pick the fight, I just ended it. Don’t start it again.” Gress bristled, the surgery was no place for this. He forced himself calm before starting to leave, he jumped at the rattling of metal. Kirche tried to lunge from her seat towards him, sneering at his reaction.

“What’s wrong, scared of a second round? I’ve still got another arm.” Kirche raised her middle finger from the restrained hand, red at the wrist where she’d been fighting against it.

“And if you’re smart and mind your manners, you can keep it.” Gress tried to stare down the belligerent woman, her high chuckle showed him how effective that was. He turned away from her, gritting back frustration and ignoring her venomous words goading him back.

Gress shut the door behind him a little harder than he intended, then sighed and fell against it. The silver moon met his gold eyes. Stirring thoughts started to creep in, from the back of his mind crawling forward. He shut it out quickly, walking away from the surgery, walking somewhere, anywhere. He just needed something to do. He focused on the feeling of the building walls, the feeling of dirt shifting under his feet, the cool night air against his face. Seeking any sensory input that he could grasp onto.

But there was nowhere to go, nothing to do, nobody to talk to. Not really anyway, he couldn’t bring himself to wake any of his townsfolk, and the Red Shoulder was hardly a healthy choice for conversation. Sharp cackling echoed in the distance of his mind, and brought his attention to the deep claw marks in the brick wall beside him. His chest dropped, memories started clawing out from the pit of his stomach.

He rushed away from the gouges, normally he’d just go home, find a book from the old collection he’d inherited and fall asleep to visions of a different, better world. That would work on better nights, nights where he wasn’t at odds with himself. He’d go there, grab one for some kind of distraction, but he wouldn’t be able to stay there, he needed to keep moving, keep distracting himself from himself.

---

Soune had spent worse nights in worse cells. But she’d also certainly had better wardens.

Or at least, wardens that didn’t casually read outside her cell.

She just stared at Gress through the bars, incredulous at the sight. She’d woken up to it only a few minutes ago, in the off-yellow hallway on an old plastic chair, he just happily sat there, humming while thumbing through the novel on his lap.

“Can I help you?” Soune finally asked. Gress snapped up with raised brows.

“Hm? Oh, probably not.” He simply replied with a soft smile, then returned to his book.

Soune pulled a hand down her face, feeling the exasperation of the day already. She fell against her scarf, bundled up to bolster the flat pillow of the cell bed. The wraps on her hand had come loose, and the grazed skin of her knuckles was red and dry. She looked over to him again, cheerily lost in whatever story he was reading. Not even half a day since this man had run through her teammates like they were nothing, not half a day since he’d been cackling to himself as he caved Scirocco’s head in, and here he was. Humming and casually relaxing outside her cell.

Soune rose from the bed, rolling her neck as she did. He didn’t take his eyes off the book, it took her taking the few cramped steps forward to the bars and slamming her arm against them to catch his attention.

“Do you need something?” He asked, blinking in surprise. Soune had to keep her mouth shut from baulking at the statement.

“An explanation would be a start!” Soune started in a snarl, Gress closed his book and shrugged his good shoulder.

“Of what?”

“Do you want a list?” Soune scoffed.

“Yes.” Gress responded flatly. It took Soune back from her baffled rage, reducing it to sheer confusion. She stepped back and fell onto the side of the bed. Leaning forward and not breaking eye contact

“Let’s start from the basics, why are you here? Where’s the old lady? And what do you want?”

“I was bored, Auntie El’ isn’t on until Dusk shifts, and…nothing really. To go back to reading, I guess.” He stated it all with a shrug.

“You’re bored? So what, you stalk women in cells for your kicks?” She asked, bristling, the man’s entire attitude was so blase. It infuriated her.

“No, there was just not much else to do. You’re better fun than staring at a wall all night.” He looked up to see the look of disgust on Soune’s face. “...That sounded bad, didn’t it?” He received no nod in response, just more baffled silence.

“I wasn’t sitting here watching you sleep if that’s what you were worried about, that’s creepy, I’ve been in the office all night. Moving all the stuff out from that cell gave us a chance to organise. Just knowing I wasn’t alone in the station…helped.”

He stretched his own neck out, Soune noted the marks on his face extending down the side of it, heavier on the corrupted side. “Then I got bored of that, tried to take a nap, heard you stirring and yelling, came to check on you but you’d settled down. That was about…thirty minutes ago. I stuck around to make sure you didn’t start up again.” Gold eyes settled on her, Soune saw the pity in them, it made her sick. “Bad dreams?”

“None of your damn business if they were! And I'm awake so you can leave.” Soune crossed her arms, scowling at the man.

“Sore subject…well, I’m sorry to be the one to remind you, but you are still a prisoner.” Gress rested his chin in a hand, growing irritated with the belligerence.

“And you’re a guard? What happened to the one that got shot?”

“I’m a little of everything, I fill the gaps for work around here. Davey’s off sick-” Gress straightened, lowering his gaze at the woman. “-And saying he got shot is a funny way to put it. The way I remember it, I saved your life at the cost of hurting a friend of mine.”

“Well I’m glad somebody's friends were able to make it through last night.” Soune met his glare with stone resolve.

“Your friends aren’t dead.” he added lowly.

Something heavy lifted from Soune’s chest, relief washed through her, then annoyance.

“Why didn’t you start with that!?” She barked, snapping Gress’ attention back..

“...Probably should have, yeah.” He shrugged again, returning to his book. She sighed and fell back against the chilly brick walls, letting them cool her anger.

“...Are they alright?” She asked the ceiling

“What?” His head turned up slightly towards her, caught by the sound of her voice more than the words. She turned to him.

“My friends, are they alright? Alive is one thing but…” It felt wrong to call them her friends, as a full group, anyway, but it had caught Gress’ attention fully.

There was a heavy pause, Gress opened and closed his mouth a couple times, trying to articulate the facts in as soft a way as possible.

“Just say it.” She demanded, not raising her voice.

“...The redhead’s arm is pretty badly damaged. It’s intact but-” Gress cocked his head, remembering what he’d gathered from Bedan’s mid-treatment ramblings. “-Lot’s of nasty damage in the arm, nervous and vascular, and the tendons in her hand got hit badly too. Nothing we could really fix here, but she kept it so…” Gress shrugged, his gaze starting to wander uncomfortably.

“And the others?” Soune snapped him back on track.

“Razgrith got off luckily, the bullet hit the clavicle and caused it to break up, but nothing major was hit. The big one… Antonio…” Gress dug his hands into the fabric of his cloak, his jaw turning tight in shame and anger. “A fractured sternum…” His throat warbled, struggling to get the words out. Soune noticed a wetness in his eyes.

“...What else? I saw his back.” She said slowly, sternly. Not raising the question of how he knew their names. A problem she’d ask them about instead of the bizarrely behaved Splinter.

Gress’ lip’s trembled for a bit, he looked around at anything and everything but Soune. The image was clear in her head, the three bullet wounds in Antonio’s lower back, slowly leaking blood through his clothes. She wasn’t an expert by any means in biology, but she knew vitals.

“...he’s not walking again, is he?” Soune spoke the words for him, struggling with it much less than Gress. The Splinter just shook his head slowly.

Silence hung between them for a while, interrupted occasionally by Gress clearing his throat or sniffing uncomfortably.

“...They’re alive though. I suppose I should thank you for that.”

“Don’t - It wasn’t me… They got hurt because of me, it’s because of the town and Doctor Bedan they’re alive.”

Soune couldn’t really come up with a response, running over the twisting facts in her head. His claim of guilt rubbed her the wrong way; factually, true enough, it was because of the fight with him they all ended up where they were - but they were the ones who attacked the town.

She sighed, not wanting to deal with the stress of the blame game. In the end, they had a job, and they failed. This was the consequences of failure.

“Hey…I’m sorry about pushing you in our fight, by the way.” Soune rubbed the back of her neck as she changed the subject, remembering the frustration she’d seen in the man. “The holes or portals whatever…they got me a bit caught up in figuring them out.”

“Hm?” Gress perked up out of whatever thoughts he was stuck in. “It’s fine, I guess…It was kind of nice, actually.” A growingly familiar soft smile grew against the dark lines. “...I was showing off a bit by the end.”

Soune smirked back, huffing out a laugh.

“You generally want to be winning before you show off, you know?”

“Yeah that wasn’t my smartest move… But neither was moving when the twitchy man had a gun on you so…” He trailed off, staring at the incredibly interesting nothing down the hallway.

“Yeah…Thanks for that, by the way. Not ready to die just yet.” Soune stood from the thin bed, pacing the cell to stretch out.

“...Auntie El said you stopped me afterwards, but you didn’t ask about the other one.” Gress’ smirk dropped. “I don’t remember much after seeing Antonio get shot…I’m not sure I want to.”

Soune paused her pacing, studying the Splinter for a moment. His head was back in his hand, absent eyed and mulling over something, dredging up memories of the night. She’d seen the look before, the look of pained introversion. The lines on his skin feathered with his jaw, the subtle pain of thoughts best left forgotten.

“Yeah…probably not. It was messy.” She matched his grimace at the words, realising she probably shouldn’t have said anything. His facial movements grew more pronounced and worried. She really didn’t want to be caught in this cell if whatever overtook him with Scirocco made a return.

“...Hey, you’re meant to be my guard, right?” Gold eyes flicked to her, curious about the subject change. She leaned against the bricks near the cell door, casual and cross-armed.

“I guess so, I wouldn't really put any weight on it though…” He muttered, turning away and back to his own thoughts.

“Well, I’m thirsty.”

“There’s a sink in there.”

“And hungry.”

Gress sighed, staring at the smirking woman. The kitchenette of the station was currently full of storage, blank only around Eleanor’s wretched coffee setup. There were a sparse few places in town to get food, chiefly a bakery, but-

“That eager to get rid of me?” He questioned, leaning forward.

“Not really, you’re better company than none. I just hope you can make better coffee than your Aunt.”

Gress raised from his seat with a small, perturbed smile, pocketed his novel and met Soune at the cell door. She left the wall to stand across from him. He was about a half head taller than her, brought slightly lower by a poor posture.

“You’ll rot in this cell if she hears you saying that.”

“Our secret then.”

Gress broke his gaze away, staring away in thought.

“...I was going to take some food to your friends later, but now's as good a time as any, do you want to go see them?” Soune raised an eyebrow. Her suspicions of the man waning away, just turning into more questions.

“You’re the first guard I've ever met that offers an out within about twenty minutes of conversation.”

“Auntie El did say you were free to go whenever you felt like it.”

“Oh?” Soune leant her arm against the cell door, leaning forward with a smirk. “So you were keeping me locked in here for your own reasons.”

Gress stepped back, flushed but chuckling.

“She also took the keys with her so…bad luck.” He shrugged, and Soune stepped back with a sigh.

“...Didn’t take you for a liar.”

“I’m not, but it’s still bad luck for me.” Gress shrugged his corrupted arm out from his cloak, he crouched to eye level with the locked latch. “Because now I'm going to get in trouble…”

Soune leaned her head in to watch, a claw tip pressed into the gap between the cell door and bars.

“You had it figured out pretty well, which was scary, but I've still got a few tricks.” He dragged the tip down, the sound like cutting glass made her wince. He placed his hand flat against the gap, the crackling sound echoed through the bricks, followed by a sharp snap. “Aaand severed.” Gress rose, effortlessly opening the cell door. He gestured her out with a smug smirk.

“You are a show off aren’t you?” Soune turned to retrieve her scarf before leaving, not letting Gress see her smile.

“Years of practising, and nobody wanted to see it.” Gress shrugged, covering his arm again. “Creepy this, freak that, not the right crowd.”

Soune crouched in the entryway to investigate the latch. The iron bolt was cleanly cut, no. Not cut, Soune realised. Cutting left marks, scratches, signs of a tool. The bolt had simply separated.

“Don’t get me wrong, It’s creepy as hell- you’re breaking the rules of…everything.” She stood, looking at the disappointment in Gress’ face. She met it with a smirk. “But it’s still amazing.”

Gress beamed, gold eyes proud and unashamed.

Soune stepped past him, pausing with realisation.

“It’s a bit late but I'm Soune, Soune Argent.” She scanned his face for any semblance of familiarity with her last name. There was none, it was relieving in a way, not having to live up to the name with somebody who knew of it.

“Nice to meet you, Ms. Argent, I’m Gress. Just Gress” He offered with a small, awkward bow to gesture her towards the exit. Soune snorted a laugh, making him straighten up and blush, turning his attention to something invisible on his cloak.

“Just Soune, please.” She flicked the tail of her scarf over her shoulder, walking for the exit with Gress at her heels. She looked over the red fabric at him with a soft smile. He returned the expression.

She had to force the smile to remain steady when she saw the faint, wispy slivers of warped space flicker around his left side. Coalescing above and behind his head.

She could swear she saw them forming a grin. Gone even faster than the instant it had appeared. An ephemeral sneer of unreality.