rage, rage against the dying of the light.
For some unknown and absolutely stupid reason, people liked to forget that Gunnar was a Diamond and not just a healer. Perhaps it was because he was technically a Smoke (even though he didn't carry the name like his sister had decided to) and they usually kept to a pretty strict 'no killing' policy, or it might have been the fact that Freyja followed that code (as far as most of them knew), or even just that assumption that healers and doctors wouldn't hurt people because they spent so much time fixing them. He didn't know, but Diamond's healer was as much a member of the guild as anyone else, and he had a kill count of his own despite usually being there to fix his teammates up. Freyja was the exception to Diamond's rules and not even technically a member so much as an assistant, or employee. He wasn't sure how Jordan worked it so that the Smoke witches didn't freak out over two of their children being pulled into all of this violence without demanding the training that all Diamond members received (Gunnar included), but he was usually glad for it. He didn't want his sister pushed to the limits that he'd been, and he was a little afraid that she would lose something of herself if they tried. He loved her the way she was, and he knew that quite a few others did, too.
That was actually why he'd gotten Benjamin as his vampire transport, though Irene would have actually been his first choice if her husband hadn't insisted. Both of them could keep a secret (Irene couldn't keep one from Benjamin, he was fairly certain, but he didn't think that was mutual), and at least Benjamin didn't care so much for Freyja that he'd let it cloud his judgment on the situation. Ronan would have been completely out of the question and in fact, Gunnar didn't plan on telling him a damn thing about this because he was pretty sure the paladin would undo whatever he managed to accomplish here, which he wasn't okay with even without knowing quite how difficult it was going to be. He liked Ronan, but that wasn't a conversation he planned on having.
He did
not like Dmitri right then, and on the subject of secrets, that was likely why Freyja had kept this one from him. That bothered him, he couldn't lie, but when his sister was half-dead from trying to stop this idiot from dying really wasn't the time to hash it out. He had an Arun witch that had turned vamp and he knew what Freyja had been trying to do as well as what he was about to attempt, and any extra effort he had wasn't going to be put into an argument. He was okay with threats as long as they were his, though they weren't empty in the slightest. He'd kill Dmitri without a second thought, Diamond's interest in the man completely disregarded, and nothing about this was going to be comfortable for either of them. He made it sound like it would be intentional, and it was true that he wouldn't have caused himself more pain and energy loss to supply Dmitri anesthetic qualities if he could have, but he honestly wasn't going to be doing it on purpose here. There wasn't a damn thing he could do to make this not hurt, but let Dmitri and Benjamin think it was intentional. Maybe the fucker would think twice before getting his sister into situations like this.
"Check on Freyja. Make sure she's comfortable and let me know if she gets any worse," he instructed Benjamin, and for a guy who didn't often take orders from anyone who wasn't considered his boss, he hadn't ever seemed bothered by Gunnar giving orders regarding medical situations. He hesitated like he was considering disagreement, probably because he was leaving the guild healer with the very potent blood composition with a very badly damaged Arun
vampire who currently had a very strong urge to rip into anything alive and filled with blood, and that was a perfectly legitimate reason to doubt Gunnar's decision, but he shook his head. "He's not going to bite me, trust me. There's nothing you can do here, so you might as well keep an eye on her. Just don't touch either of us, whatever happens, or you'll contaminate the process and no offense, but there is nothing on your end that can possibly help if that happens."
"You say not to take offense, but it still sounds like I should," Benjamin responded, straightening where he'd been leaning on the wall waiting to figure out if he needed to restrain Dmitri, but he didn't sound upset over the 'offense'.
"I've never seen you get offended over the truth. Or offer to be a giant battery."
The only response he got was something resembling a shrug as concession that Gunnar was correct before the vampire went to tend to his sister, and at least he knew that Benjamin's ties to Diamond and better, Irene's fondness for Freyja, would make him care for her well enough until he was finished here, and hopefully the warning would be enough. If nothing else, Benjamin wasn't in the habit of offering use of his energy or efforts for nothing, and this situation was little enough that he didn't mind, but grabbing either Gunnar or Dmitri in the next few minutes would be a massive drain, and
nobody wanted to see the results of that.
In all honesty, Gunnar wasn't incredibly excited to see the results of any of what he was about to attempt, but for his sister, there wasn't actually much he wouldn't do. There was a chance, what with the secrets she was so
obviously keeping at this point, that she didn't understand that as well as he'd have liked, but if this didn't sell that point to her, nothing would. Dmitri was still on the floor, which was where Gunnar wanted him because it gave him the height advantage if the bastard tried to fight him (which was likely), but he wasn't going to stay there long. With little more than a deep, gathering breath, Gunnar reached out to press one hand to his forehead and the other to his chest, over his heart, and opened up.
Normally, he liked to start up a little slow, feel out the wounds with the deeper connection he achieved this way and then pump energy into the places that were most pressing and stream smaller amounts into less important injuries to achieve an all around wellness. At the end, he would offer up a scan and work out anything else he could find, making a session with Gunnar far better for the body and general wellness than any spa day and a surefire cure for a horrific hangover (a fact that certain people he worked with hadn't ever forgotten after the first time). He was disciplined, thorough, and
very good at what he did, but there were still a few creatures that he approached very warily, or sometimes, not at all. Azhure nearly sucked him absolutely dry the first time he'd met her, and Isabelle had tried to burn him up from the inside out when he'd tried to help her.
He'd since learned how to approach many different types of magical make-ups for healing and he was no stranger to hostile magical defenses, but Aruns were sometimes especially nasty and he tried to avoid healing vampires when he could. They were undead, which by his standards essentially made them
dead, and they recovered from serious injuries with blood intake, so that was typically what he prescribed. They had emergency stores in the infirmary back at Diamond to take care of that, and he'd even been an emergency donor himself in the field once or twice, but sometimes, it was serious enough to require something more hands-on, like Taro when Sutherland had skewered him. It was a tricky situation, feeding energy into healing without getting drawn into what actually made them vampires to begin with, because he could throw power into that all night with some of them and only make everyone involved miserable. It was trying to heal away what they
were, and he'd heard of Smokes trying to reverse vampirism, sometimes at the cost of their own lives and usually with no success, but it gave him a place to start here.
Actually, he was starting with the wound Freyja had, since the gold firestone was healing because Dmitri had turned after feeding, but it was still a slow, painful and very dangerous injury. Even for him, it wasn't something that would just close right up without any serious fight, stubborn as the gold variety was, but he shoved power deep into that hole, and it closed up right there near his hand. That was the easy part, and where he would have withdrawn with any other vampire, but crossing that line hadn't been Dmitri's intention, and while he'd absolutely passed what should have been the point of no return, Gunnar drew in another deep breath as he gathered strength, and then he shoved with that magic hard and fast, trying to get as much to happen as quickly as possible, because Arun magic would fight his every step of the way.
Much like with Isabelle, he got the impression of heat and burning, fire despite the overwhelming and all-consuming darkness, and it was so very
very hungry. It was a fire that would turn him to ash if he let it, but did not offer the light and comfort in the night that was so badly needed in this place. He had to bring his own light, and as a Smoke, he came prepared. He plowed ahead, more and more of his ample energy stores being pumped into the man beneath him, and his hands were heating up to painful levels, probably both for himself and maybe even for Dmitri, but it was nothing compared to what was happening internally. Gunner himself was silent, but he was lighting up all of the places that were dark within the Arun, smashing through barriers and attempts made by the other man's magic to push him out.
Here was where Gunnar's power could be truly realized by someone who could so easily dismiss him otherwise. He didn't come across as much of a fighter because he was the healer, but the strength he held within him was staggering, or he wouldn't even be able to attempt this. At some point that he hadn't even noticed, Dmitri started to scream and flail, grasping at Gunnar's wrists with the intent to yank them away from his skin, which finally forced the healer to change his grip, but all he did was pull his hand away from the Arun's forehead and slam both hands into his chest with a force that was uncommon out of him. It slowed Dmitri's fight for a brief moment with a gasp out of the man like the wind had been knocked out of him because Gunnar used the physical force of the blow to shove
more magic down into his patient, but it didn't last. The Smoke ignored his physical struggles, his own heartrate and breathing running fast and sweat forming on his head and between his shoulders, running down his neck to his collar, but the only thing that was important right then was that near bottomless darkness and chasing it out.
At least, that was the only thing that was important until Dmitri caught him in the side of the head with his knee during a particularly impressive bit of struggling, and that was what brought Benjamin to their side as the healer faltered. He barely through a hand up to stop the vampire with the demonic taint from touching him despite his earlier warning, but Benjamin didn't need any additional reason to back off a step again; he'd been watching the entire time, and he had no desire to get drawn into what looked like a surprisingly painful battle, but if Dmitri took Gunnar down physically, there wasn't much the healer was going to be able to do when he was so metaphysically involved. Benjamin had seen the Smoke get hammered on once, and only once, because he'd been attacked in the midst of healing someone when they were all too involved to get there in time, and it had been a messy, nasty situation that he had no desire to explain to Jordan when they returned.
Gunnar, having weathered the blow despite nearly losing his footing in the power struggle within, shoved again to put Dmitri's magic on the defensive, and he actually crawled on top of him in the moment of quiet in the physical world that followed. It was only after he was straddling the man, hooking his feet back to hold Dmitri's legs down and away from hitting him again, that he went back in full-force with a pained sound of his own and a clenched jaw. That darkness had pushed him back some, and it was only pumping ridiculous amounts of his own energy into him that had him regaining any of that ground. He wanted to rage out at the Arun, to tell him to stop fighting him, but he knew that it wasn't his fault; Arun magic automatically fought against any invader, regardless of the intent, and it took care of itself. That was where the vampiric taint came in handy, because if something was too much for the witch to handle, the vampirism stepped in, and as long as they didn't feed, backed away again without much trouble. They were incredibly self-sufficient, until they simply couldn't do anymore. Then, they fought the damn healer, like now.
Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage, against the dying of the light.He didn't know why those lines of the poem were ripping through his skull at that exact moment, but he heard it reverberating through both of them and there was no denying just how applicable it was.
Do not go gentle... he thought, and he struck again, Dmitri's scream echoing distantly in his ears, but it was like hearing a much louder, closer shriek from within as the heat rose and the light grew. There was just
so much, and his shoulders were burning with the exertion, as was some his mind. There was a migraine growing and blood sliding down from his nose from his efforts and the side of the head where Dmitri had hit him, but he could feel the body beneath him nearing its limit. It felt like dying, and probably looked it from the outside, but Gunnar could see and feel the difference internally. He didn't know it, but Benjamin could see it in the wash of magic emanating from them both, and he was both impressed and slightly concerned. There was a light growing around Dmitri that was invisible to the naked eye, but Gunnar was dimming, giving far too much of himself, which was the problem. It looked like it was working, but would the Smoke survive it?
He still didn't touch them, however, and was certain to keep a very panicked Freyja from rushing either of them as they watched as Dmitri's body suddenly seized, then went totally slack beneath Gunnar, who looked very much like he wanted to relax at that exact moment. He didn't, his now trembling form still hunched over the other man, and Benjamin could feel him take advantage of the moment presented to him to just open up and dump everything he had into the Arun while all of the shields were down. It took about a minute that felt like forever to Gunnar when he was literally filling Dmitri with his own life force, but the man's body jerked as though he'd been hit with an electric shock, gasping for air as his lungs demanded it and his heart kicked into a rapid beat that would slow as the seconds passed.
Gunnar, for his part,
finally relaxed, dropping sideways off of the Arun and just laying there on the floor. His eyes were closed and his lips parted, breathing labored enough that he reached up like his collar was too tight, though that didn't help in the slightest. His heartbeat was cutting an erratic pace, too slow and then too quick, struggling against the rest of him when he'd passed off all of what kept everything in perfect working order. In that same distant sense that he'd heard Dmitri's screams, he heard his sister now, but Benjamin kept her off of him and Dmitri was moving, so he didn't actually care what was happening. He needed air, needed light, needed more than he had, but he weathered those first few minutes where it wasn't quite certain that he had enough left to keep breathing, and when Benjamin could see that light stop flickering and turn to a very pale, but steady, glow, he released Freyja to tend to both of the men she cared about.
"I'm moving Gunnar to the bed. We'll wait until he's steadier before we go home," he told her, moving to do exactly that, and he wasn't leaving any room for argument. She'd run long enough, and now her brother had very nearly died to take care of what she loved. Something would be done about it, and it wasn't happening while Gunnar was unconscious and trying to survive something that didn't look like it should have been possible for one of his line.
Shouldn't have been, but the Arun that was sitting up and whose heartbeat Benjamin could hear from across the room, strong and now steady, said all that was necessary about what was possible and what wasn't. That Gunnar himself looked practically dead even after Freyja carefully wiped away the blood didn't suggest it was something the Smoke might want to do again, but that he'd done it once was enough. Even Benjamin was impressed, and that didn't happen often. He wouldn't be forgetting about this anytime soon, and for very different reasons than Freyja or Dmitri.
Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage, against the dying of the light. It echoed still in Gunnar's mind, a mantra to keep breathing, to take control and steady his heart, to keep the darkness out even though the stillness was so very tempting, and it was nearly two days before he woke up, still pale and looking like he'd been on death's door, but very much alive and with a light to his eyes that Benjamin did
not miss and would not soon stop wondering about. Something more than mere healing had been done.