Hand Off

[Aaron Thorson]

Gunnar helping Azhure may not be working out too well, but he'd done wonders for Aaron; the hunter was given plenty of orders about taking it easy and not overexerting himself, all the usual doctor's orders that he never had any intention of following, but he felt fit except for a weariness that was unsurprising all around.  A good night's sleep would fix that, but he wasn't getting that just yet. 

It was a good thing the doctors hadn't stripped him down completely, since he jumped out of that hospital bed at the same time Eithne rushed forward to drag Gunnar away from the Lyr who'd just dropped him like a bag of bricks, headed for the Lyr even as Eithne tried to appeal to her about her health and pleased that even if his pants were bloodied up, he still had them.  Small miracles, since doing this naked would have been awkward.  Yep.

For as much as he was NOT okay with learning that he was bonded to an elemental now, he wasn't going to let the creature steamroll Eithne and Gunnar without him trying to stop it however he could.  Naturally, that was usually violence with him, but this required a little more tact.  Fortunately, he was somehow okay with that once he was standing between Eithne, Gunnar and the Lyr, watching her with a very careful and curious way about him.  He remembered her from the Coliseum and his near-death experience, of course, but the trauma that should have gone with that was weathered by the softness and comfort of her voice in the back of his mind and the deep, lingering sensation of a calm and soothing presence that had to be from her.  He wanted to refuse this weird, magical shit, but right then, he knew better than to be an ass and try to put her even more off-balance.

Whereas Eithne had kept her distance, he put his hands out in front of him and got a little closer.  He couldn't entirely alleviate her confusion because he only knew what Eithne had said about them getting here, but he could try to help her.  "Azhure," he started softly, not really knowing how he knew her name, but not questioning it.  She knew his, that much seemed to be a truth from deep inside, they knew each other because they weren't alone anymore, and that was terrifying.  "Aaron, I'm Aaron.  These are my friends, they're here to help you.  Us."

Was he calm?  No, not really, not entirely, but he was trying to project all of that deep, soothing feeling that he knew must have come from her essence.  He had this strange feeling that it could all turn into a raging mess if she freaked out, and he didn't want that.

[Deja Aretusa]

 Azhure had no use for the sheets on the bed, and so she began climbing out of it, as stark as a jay. "You presume to say my name," she snapped to Aaron, pushing aside a medical tray. "Stupid mortals, all of you!" The items on the tray fell to the floor with a loud clatter, but she ignored them as she stepped beyond, feet crushing against the broken glass and metal as though it were nothing.

Eithne began backing away until she got to the door, and it was a good thing, too. She was no match for Azhure, or her ire, and Azhure'd soon learn that hurting Aaron wouldn't do her any good. "Aaron, I don't think she's in the mood to listen right now. We may want to give her space," she said softly.

Azhure looked up at the girl and sneered. "Mood? I have no use of any information you could provide me. I demand you give me passage at once," she snapped. Azhure was under the impression she was trapped in the room; she had no idea she'd been bonded, but rather felt a strong draw to Aaron and assumed it was some sort of magical binding that was keeping her prisoner in the room itself.

[Aaron Thorson]

In those first few seconds, Aaron had a few thoughts on this matter.  First, there was the obvious fact that Azhure was naked and very, very attractive.  Being a man with a fairly normal sex drive, Aaron was interested and definitely noticed.  Then, the woman started talking, and his interest fizzled down to about what a magazine photograph would have gotten, despite the fact that she was right in front of him.  She was a total bitch.

She was also approaching like she meant them harm, causing Eithne to back off with her +1 (Gunnar) and Aaron to put himself between the pissed off lyr and his friends.  Whether he liked this situation or not, he wasn't going to let the supernatural creature hurt one of them worse than she already had. 

Yeah, she'd find out pretty quick that hurting him wouldn't do her any good.

"Give you passage?  Leave.  You can go whenever you want, nobody's keeping you here," he snapped right back, and her increase in bitchiness may or may not have had an effect on his mood.  Hope for both of their sakes that they wouldn't end up bleeding into each other that way, or their future arguments were going to be worse than they were already guaranteed to be.  "In fact, go.  Get out, we don't want you here and we're not telling you what you don't know."

Was he helping?  Probably not, but at least Azhure was slightly more likely to believe that she was able to leave.  Since the only one present with any kind of magic was in a heap on the floor and Aaron himself had always been the magical equivalent of a particularly dense rock, Azhure wasn't trapped there by any doing of theirs.  Aaron likely could have eased the situation with a quick explanation, but why do that when she was being so nasty?

[Deja Aretusa]

 She looked at Aaron, tilting her head abruptly as though she couldn't understand why he was deigning to speak to her at all. Of course, Azhure had been, for the most part, a rather solitary creature. Being around people at all aside from Verity and the ilk at Midnight was a culture shock. She leveled her gaze on Aaron for a moment, but seemed to focus past him, to Eithne.

"It doesn't suit you," she said, a knowing tone. "You should be far away from here, with the others."

And, of course, nobody knew what she was talking about, because nobody knew about Eithne and Murph except for - well, Eithne and Murph. And possibly Noelani, of course, but it wasn't a loudly-discussed topic that they had two creatures straight out of folklore in their employ. If it were common knowledge, they'd be getting grabbed instead of Aaron.

Eithne's eyes widened, and she held her hand up. She shook her head ever so slightly at Azhure, who she prayed would get the hint. Gunnar may or may not have known; as he had healed both Eithne and her brother before, he could have sensed their energy was different, but Seelie Glamours were strong, even strong enough to fool a Smoke witch at times.

"Azhure, is it? Please, you've been injured. We're not going to try and hurt you, or keep you here. But I think... I think you may need to sit down and rest before we give you the full story on what happened earlier," she said, palms open, fingers splayed as she tried to impress upon the Lyr the image of calm, blue water.

Azhure narrowed her eyes. "I will sit because it suits me," she said sharply. She turned on the ball of her foot and took a few strides back to the bed, dropping down on the edge of it and crossing one slender, tanned leg over the other. She continued to eye-fuck Aaron, though, which, for Aaron, probably made a lot less sense than it did to Azhure. She didn't one-hundred percent understand that she had bonded to him, but she felt connected with him. She wanted to touch him, to see if it were real or her imagination, but he was so loud and obnoxious she felt revolted by the idea.

Eithne knelt down by Gunnar, careful not to touch him. "I'm not sure what I can do for you," she said. "But I'm going to assume you don't want any water." She paused, looking at Azhure for a moment. "Can you help him?" she asked, though her voice sounded doubtful.

The woman on the bed looked at her critically, then at the man on the floor. He had been trying to help her - to heal her, actually, but unfortunately he was no match for her natural ability. He offended her considerably less than the other blonde man in the room, and so she stood and walked the short distance to him, then stuck her hand out and touched him on the shoulder. Gunnar would feel the oppressive, sinking sensation of her ability siphoning off of him, as though he were surfacing from a too-deep dive and the pressure of the water was melting away with every foot closer to topside.

"There," she said. She stood next to them, awkwardly, as though she were unsure of what to do next, and then went back to the bed. When Aaron stared at her as critically as he had been, she suddenly felt as though she wanted to cover up, and it angered her. She had never in her life felt obligated to wear clothing, but she didn't realize his anger through the connection, which was like a fresh wound, open and festering, was affecting her. She grabbed the bed sheet and wrapped it around herself rather skillfully, fashioning some sort of toga - that actually looked good.

Of course, Azhure looked like a swimsuit model, so she could wear a burlap sack and probably look good.

[Aaron Thorson]

Gunnar would have LOVED to hear about Eithne being far away with the others, because yes, he was aware that she and Murph had different energy signatures and he didn't entirely understand why.  There weren't many things out there that they could have blood from without being completely infected by it, such as the shapeshifter and vampire situations, so the fact that they seemed so human and then had something else showing through was weird to him.  Maybe some distant relatives were witches?  It was possible, but he should have recognized the signatures, in that case.  It made no sense, but he tried not to dwell on it because he wasn't about to pry; even if he did find out at some point, he wouldn't tell because of that whole Oath thing as a doctor, so the secret was safe.  Anyway, it didn't change the fact that he was insanely attracted to Eithne, nor did it help him while he was on his ass on the floor at her feet.

Aaron was the closest to helping Gunnar at this point, and only because he was trying to make a human shield out of himself.  He wasn't the best meat shield in the guild because he couldn't tank as well as someone like Benjamin (which was ironic, considering their personalities; you'd have thought that Benjamin was easily damaged based on his approach to battle and that Aaron was the near-invincible one), but he was better than Enya if the shit hit the fan and Gunnar was screwed.  Hopefully, the guy would snap out of it soon and be alright.

Orrrrr, Enya could just get the Lyr to help him.  That was cool, too, even if Aaron wasn't so sure about letting her touch Gunnar again so soon after she put him on his ass.  Honestly, it was worrisome because Aaron had never seen that happen before; Gunnar was like the energizer bunny, he just kept going and going until everyone was healed, and that was without energy drinks.  Giving that dude a Red Bull might not actually give him wings, but he could put a small hospital out of business.  Seeing him dropped like this made Aaron seriously wonder what the fuck he was supposed to do with this bitch who was supposedly bonded to him now, especially if she was going to be a danger to people around him.  Was his life over as he knew it?  He really didn't want to be the first person Diamond asked to leave.  That shit just didn't happen.

"Awesome, her highness sits," he muttered under his breath, because yeah, this was going to suck, and no, he couldn't help it because she was making him want to shift uncomfortably with the way she kept looking at him.  At least she seemed to have helped Gunnar, who gasped like he hadn't been able to breathe properly since he dropped, and looked a lot more aware, if exhausted.  That made Aaron feel a little better about the continued intensity of her gaze and the way that he kept wanting to stare her down.  He almost couldn't help himself, especially when she was utterly naked, so that when she pulled the sheet up around herself, he averted his eyes suddenly like he was actually ashamed of the staring, but when he glanced back, he realized it wasn't entirely the fact that she was naked that had him staring; that mattered, of course, but it wasn't the whole reason.  He still felt drawn to her, like magnets in his eyes or something weird like that.

He'd never been the poetic sort, but you get the point.

"Uh.  Thanks.  For helping him," he said, awkward and unsure if he was really mad at her, or if she was mad at them.  Was this what people bonded to vampires felt like?  Christ.

[Deja Aretusa]

When Aaron thanked her, she didn't know what to say. She wanted to say something horrible to him, to hurt him with her words and make him feel as disgusting as she suddenly felt. She had never, that she could recall, felt so vulnerable or open in her life - even as a youngling. It had all come about very quickly, too - one moment she was sitting there, then the next she felt as though her skin was crawling.

She looked at Eithne, who was busy helping Gunnar stand up and help him get brushed off. She wanted to talk to the girl, specifically, about what had happened. The odds of getting her alone, however, were slim - she could see that the man who had been on the floor cared for her, and after he had provoked her powers, Azhure wasn't likely to get any one-on-one time with him standing by.

"What happened to me?" she finally asked, and her voice was quiet. The thing about a water elemental is that they're very much like their domain; Lyrs tended to be not emotionally unstable, but rather very quick to change how they felt (act and react), and despite changing all the time, they greatly dislike it when it happens without their control. "Why do I feel so awful inside?"

At that last remark she looked right at Aaron, who she had narrowed to the source of her anguish. She wondered if he came closer would the feeling worsen? She had never before in her life been nauseous until the very moment where she pondered. It was as though she were picking up on how much shit she was really in without really understanding it.

[Aaron Thorson]

Not that it would make Azhure feel any better, but Aaron was feeling pretty unhappy right about then, too.  He didn't realize that they were a great big cycle of shittiness, but each time he felt worse, she felt worse and in turn made him feel worse and then her.  It was not cool in the slightest, but what was even less cool was that he was pretty sure he didn't like her at all, yet he wanted to get closer to her, to lay his hand against her arm, to see how she felt, and that was BULLSHIT.  This was NOT acceptable, and ANGER is much better than VULNERABLE, damn it!

She looked at HIM when she asked what happened and why she felt so awful, and he rolled his eyes without thinking about it.  She felt awful, yet he was the one who'd spent how long in Midnight's Coliseum and then almost died?  "You bonded me to yourself.  After you stood in the audience and watched me kill things and get my ass handed to me in Midnight's playground.  Also after I took a few crossbow bolts to the torso.  I'd say thanks, but I'm pretty sure both of us are going to wish you just let me bleed after this is all over," he told her, and yeeeah, letting Enya do it would have been a better idea.  Tact wasn't Aaron's strong suit unless he was really trying, which he did occasionally.  All Diamond hunters were qualified to take command of a guild in place of a guild leader, which meant that Aaron knew how to be tactful if he had to.

Hey, at least the pink elephant in the room was gone, right?

Yeah, based on the way Gunnar coughed and glanced away, he was thinking that he shouldn't have done it like that, but it wasn't like Enya had been all that gentle about telling him.  Of course, he wasn't a superpowered elemental badass who'd dropped the megahealer without trying.  Damn it. 

"If it helps any, I'm sorry.  I didn't really do anything, but it sucks and I didn't mean whatever I might have done?" he offered, hopefully before she lost it.  He was trying.  Kind of.

[Deja Aretusa]

 Azhure had not been expecting what Aaron was going to tell her, if only because she'd never had the desire to bond someone before. She'd seen others do it, and she'd watched them die, and she'd watched them suffer, and she'd watched them become every bit as human as the humans to which they were bonded. She'd watched them wither away to nothing after their bonds had died. Azhure had gone many, many years without ever having fallen in love, or even in intense like with a human, because they were fragile and their lifetimes, to her, passed in the blink of an eye. The only one in the room who even stood on the same plane as her was the girl, and the girl seemed very intent to hide what it was she possessed.

Fine with Azhure. One less potential enemy she'd need to worry about.

When Aaron did drop the bomb on her, she only looked at him, her plush lips motionless as she sucked her cheeks in every so slightly, creating more definition of her high cheek bones. It was as though she were frozen for those few seconds as he tactlessly told her what had occurred. Either Aaron did not realize, or did not care, that her life was much more affected by this than his was. Becoming bonded made you weaker or frail, in the eyes of others, Azhure could be a target. Bonding stripped you of who you were and made you a shell, filled with the thoughts and feelings of someone else; in this case, someone that she did not know or care for in any way. It was effectively mind rape, at the most basic level - and it would be slow and arduous, and every moment of every day.

Her eyes, the colour of green glass, widened just enough to show - not fear, but just heightened emotion altogether. Her heart was racing, though, so much so that it made her hands and feet tremble. She broke eye contact with him, looking away, at anything anywhere away from him. She didn't cry, simply because she was made of water and could control that aspect of herself, but she felt like she might just lose that control. Her eyes felt moist, but no tears came. She had to maintain the idea of dignity, at least.

"I require clothing," was all she said, her voice as shaky and frail as as child's. It was uncharacteristic, and even in the short time they'd known her they could see that.

[Aaron Thorson]

Well, Aaron and Azhure were on the same wavelength about one thing, and that was the subject of bonding.  He'd never had any desire to be bonded to anyone else, and he wanted nothing to do with magic.  That whole 'magical equivalent of a particularly dense rock' thing?  He was not only cool with that, but really, honestly preferred it.  He liked not being at all magical, and he was so completely a null that Enya had dubbed him 'pristinely ungifted', which he'd proudly taken as a compliment.  He didn't have a problem with other people being magical because, damn, someone had to do it, but he didn't want to be that person.  If it bit him in the ass, so be it, he'd take it, so long as he didn't have to do the magical shit.

Except, was that really an option now?  Oh, God, don't tell him he had to deal with magical shit, please.  He didn't want anything to do with it.

Just as quickly as he'd gotten angry at Azhure and the situation, enough that he dropped that bomb so insensitively, he felt almost sick thinking about it.  She was a Lyr, an elemental.  It was an elemental that had made the vampires what they were, and that was diluted or something, wasn't it?  Was that how it worked?  He was bonded directly to the elemental herself.  Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck.  Here he was comparing it to the bloodbonds that vampires had, the humans that shared their lives and feelings and thoughts or whatever the fuck, but that wasn't it, was it?  The vampires were bonded to the elemental through blood, and here he was, bonded to this elemental through what, water?  Lyr didn't work through blood, not as far as he knew, though there had been a lot of it.  He didn't know or really remember the tears, so that was beyond him, but god, he was so screwed.

His heart was racing and he wasn't even paying full attention to her at this point, instead thinking that maybe he should have listened to the doctor's orders for once as he backed up a little to sit down in the chair that Enya formerly occupied.  Azhure calling for clothing didn't even really hit his mental space as anything more than a 'oh, clothes would be good' as he ran his hand through his hair and worked over just how screwed he was in his mind.  So screwed.  Screwed times infinity.  Tenfinity.  Holy fuck, would this fuck up his lifespan?  What was going to change?  What wasn't?

[Deja Aretusa]

 Eithne was in the process of helping Gunnar to another room, but she really didn't want to leave them alone in there with eachother for very long. She also didn't want to risk Nicolette getting in there and opening her mouth, come to think of it. With a quickness, she sent someone to grab clothing for the elemental; she had no idea what size she was, but she went ahead and guessed 'small'. The woman had wrapped the toga skilfully enough that something such as a sari wouldn't be too much of a stretch. When the woman came back with a plain black one, Eithne released a sigh of relief, took it, and went back in.

She was shocked to find the two of them on opposite sides of the room, totally silent, and avoiding eye contact. Aaron had finally sat down and was alternating between nervously running his hands through his hair and leaning forward to rub his eyes; Azhure had her elbows rested upon her knees and was leaned forward slightly, eyes glazed as she stared off into nothing. She looked like a toy that had lost its wind-up key in mid-motion for the way her body sort of hung forward.

"Here," Eithne said, handing it out to her. At once, the Lyr looked up, then stood without a further word to take the clothes. She dropped the sheet wordlessly, then slid into the soft material of the sari, running her hands along the soft, silken material. The top was simple, nothing more than a thick band of fabric that wrapped over her chest, and the skirt was long enough to hang at her feet, despite her height, which was in her legs. Azhure could not help but feel as though she had been given black to mourn the passing of her freedom, and stared down at the floor until Eithne cleared her throat.

"I need to move you guys from the infirmary now that this is all... sorted. Maybe somewhere where you can talk?" she asked, squinting her green eyes hopefully.

Azhure's head snapped up, and she looked from the fae to the human, quiet for several beats of the heart until finally: "There is nothing to discuss. Nothing can be done to reverse this." She said it dryly, as though she had accepted the fact that she had no way to escape it unless she were to terminate her own life, which she had far too much pride to do. She had heard stories of Djinns freeing themselves from their Meisters after waiting patiently for the right moment, but Djinns also had so many loopholes that Lyrs did not. Azhure could never imagine being anything other than water, but were she to choose, she would choose those demons of air and flame that tricked men into wishing themselves to their deaths.

"I should like to lay down in a bed," she said suddenly, realizing that Eithne was basically kicking them out of the infirmary. If she didn't speak up, she would end up put somewhere else even more cramped or uncomfortable.

"Yeah, I have the perfect room for you," Eithne said, already making plans to take her to the room with the large fish tank and the waterbed. She hoped Azhure wouldn't be terribly insulted by it. To Aaron, she only nodded. She'd have to give him what she and Nicolette could dig up later, but right now, the duo needed to talk. Not needed to in the sense that there was much unsaid, needed to as in needed to strengthen their bond before both of them just became ill and vomited up their intestines. Well, not that graphic, but - it would be bad news bears if they didn't try to familiarize with eachother, period.

[Aaron Thorson]

See? Enya had the clothes thing sorted out just fine, so Aaron didn't have to bother himself with female coverings, which was a good thing.  He was only good at taking them off, and only when sober at that, so trying to get him to figure out that a sari was clothing and not just a weird-sized sheet would have been impossible; many lulz were going to be had at his expense at a later date.  In any case, he was mentally flipping out over his current situation while she basically did the same thing, and only looked up at Enya with any real focus other than being aware of who was in the room with him when she spoke up about moving them from the infirmary. 

Fantastic idea.

As though he's previously forgotten, he remembered that the infirmary meant that he was at the guildhouse and had wonderful, quiet, spacious quarters of his own that held a lot of weapons that he could just to occupy himself, or a comfortable bed that he loved and could totally crash out on.  He had TV, movies, games, whatever he might want that didn't include Midnight, Lyr or anything other than following the fucking doctor's orders and forgetting about this craziness.  Perfect plan.

He had a damn good idea what room Enya was talking about when she said she had the perfect room, but honestly, he didn't care where the Lyr went.  He didn't understand anything about proximity and had no clue how likely it was that he'd be crawling into her room and probably even her bed for some contact of some sort that evening, and instead took her saying there was nothing to discuss as the final bit of encouragement needed for him to leave.

"Seconded," he agreed, and then got up to vacate the infirmary for her, headed for his room and some time to himself.  Or at least, that was the plan.

[Deja Aretusa]

 Eithne shook her head as Aaron took right the fuck off, around the corner of the hall before she and Azhure had even exited the door fully. Whatever, let him run. He'd have to deal with it sooner or later, so she couldn't fault him for wanting at least a night to himself, although she was pretty certain they needed to be in closer proximity than the distance between the two rooms. Of course, vampires and their blood bonds could be halfway around the world - but that was after several weeks, at the very least. She'd just have to do more research on it, honestly.

"This way," she said, guiding the elemental, who walked at a measured rate. "Aaron will come around. He's what I refer to as Pristinely Ungifted, which means he has no magical talent whatsoever; no aptitude, and in fact, is immune to much of it. It's one of the reasons he isn't attracted to me," she admitted, knowing Azhure already had figured her cover. "Anyways, this is going to be really hard for him to swallow, so just ease off of him for a few days. He doesn't even know you. Aaron's not a one-date sort of guy, if you get the idea. He's like the opposite of my brother. I mean, he's still a guy, but the likelihood of him having several illegitimate children all over the world is next to nothing. Aaron's kind of absorbed in his work a lot, so he doesn't really get out. You're a gorgeous girl who he's suddenly stuck with. Get my drift?" she asked.

She turned around, noticing Azhure had fallen way back, and stood in total shock as the woman put one hand on the wall to stabilize herself before falling right the fuck over. When she hit the ground, she began shaking - seizing, in fact, which freaked Eithne the hell out, because she'd never dealt with a seizure victim before. She ran back to her and reached out to touch her to try and stabilize her, but hesitated, realizing that she could end up killing herself by accident in the process. When she realized Azhure's eyes had pretty much rolled back into her head, she did the only thing she could think of.

"AARON! AARON! COME QUICK!"

[Aaron Thorson]

Everything Enya had to say about Aaron was pretty much true, though he'd have probably preferred it if she didn't broadcast such personal habits as all that; her brother had a reputation for having all sorts of fun, mostly just because he was Irish.  Actually, entirely because he was Irish, Aaron and Taro had decided.  Yeah, Enya was also Irish, but it was different because she wasn't anywhere near the Irish stereotype that Murph was.  Starting with his name, Murphy O'Shea and his red hair all the way to the accent that sounded like some New York or New York/Irish mixture when he was sober and could consciously try to mellow it out (and sounded straight up about-to-start-speaking-leprechaun-Irish when he was sloshed, which made Aaron wonder just how much Murphy wasn't telling them about his background) and his ability to drink on an almost supernatural level, Murph was the perfect stereotype of a hard-drinking Irish badass.  He even got into fistfights and was thrilled when his St. Patty's Week celebration started with an ambulance at his favorite bar, and carried an actual flask.  With Murphy around, being the party-type of guy was impossible because keeping up with him landed you in the ambulance. 

Laugh all you want, but Aaron had learned his lesson.  Any time he even got it into his head to keep up with Murphy, he'd lost all of his money in pool to either Murph (who could do ANYTHING while completely annihilated except remain upright for an entire evening in a bar stool) or Taro (who was a rotten cheater and telekinetic), and that was on an easy night.  There had been worse ones, and he kept making the pool mistake.  He sure as hell wasn't going the 'one-night stands' route, because even if he didn't know how many Murphy had gotten, he'd seen the bastard get yanked off by pretty girls often enough to wonder what the fuck was going on.  Murphy wasn't the ugliest dude he'd ever met, but he really didn't understand what women saw in him.  Whatever, he wasn't competing.

Okay, so Enya was totally right and he'd have had no arguments if he'd been asked.  No legitimate arguments, anyway.  He'd dated here and there, but it was difficult to get a real relationship rolling when you had a job like his, and he really wasn't the kind of guy to have a whole pile of bastard children all over the place.  He wasn't used to having women in his space, especially not extremely attractive women, so yeah, he wanted a little time alone.  That and a nap. 

Definitely a nap, as lame as that sounded.  Maybe Gunnar had been giving him good advice for once when he said to take it easy (that was a lie, Gunnar always gave good advice that Aaron never listened to, but the consequences were only occasionally instantaneous and unpleasant), since Aaron was about halfway to his room when he started feeling crazy nauseous again, and not in the 'thinking-too-much-about-crazy-shit' way, but the actual, physical, 'i'm-gonna-puke-my-guts-out' way.  He sped up, because he'd be damned if he didn't make it to his room and the comfort of his own bed before he crashed out, but the closer to his room he got, the sicker he felt.  By the time he got there, he hit the trashcan by his bed and filled it with more seawater (seaweed included this time, which he choked on and had to actually yank out of his throat), then crawled into his bed to basically be miserable.  Then puke again.  All in a matter of just a few minutes before someone was banging on his door and telling him the Lyr had collapsed, that Enya needed him immediately.

Yeah, because he was getting up.

"Go 'way!" he shouted, face pressed against the side of his pillow, but it wasn't like he could honestly just ignore it, especially since whoever it was just kept banging on the door.  "FUCK!"

Getting up felt, at that very moment, like the most difficult thing in the world for him, but he crawled out of bed and threw his door open, not even bothering to close it or interact at all with the baffled medical technician that covered the infirmary when Gunnar was busy doing other shit.  Instead, he went back the way he'd come, back towards where he'd left Enya and Azhure, and his pace picked up as he went because -- SURPRISE! -- his ailments eased as he got closer to the two women.  By the time he reached them, already realizing on some level what the problem was, that he wasn't the only one suffering and seeking to ease both of their conditions, he dropped to his knees beside the Lyr and pulled her up against his chest.  Honestly, he didn't know how this was supposed to work or if close contact was even what was necessary, but he'd been thinking about it almost non-stop since he'd been healed, so there had to be something to it, right?  God, he hoped so, cause if he puked seawater one more time, he was going to lose it.

[Deja Aretusa]

 It's good that Aaron deigned to stop trying to get some of that pesky rest he so deserved and came back out to help, because Eithne had not one fucking clue as to what she should do. She didn't want to touch Azhure, but she was running out of choices. Not only was the woman seizing so badly that it made Eithne want to cry, she was seeping water from every pore on her body - it looked like she was about to lose control of her physical form, but her hands were scrabbling at the hardwood floor, bending her fingernails back or breaking them off entirely, as she tried to connect to herself and stop from turning into a fucking puddle of water.

When Aaron showed up, Eithne actually jumped back a foot or two, which was good, because he just came right up in that shit like he knew what he was doing (he didn't). When he just reached over in the most not-givingest-of-a-fuck way, though, that was when shit got real. Azhure's Kong fucking Kong of a seizure slowed to a steady, but heavy, trembling, and she looked like she'd just fallen into a river. She proceeded to throw up over Aaron's shoulder, thankful that seaweed was all that had come up (she'd thrown up a sand dollar before and fuck those things), and then the very second she was done vomiting, she began crying. Uncontrollably. And she was holding onto Aaron so tightly she might have actually left bruises on his arms when it was all said and done, but at the moment, that may not have been the first thing on his mind (it certainly wasn't on hers, though the well-being of others rarely was).

Whatever she was saying didn't make any sense, literally, as it was in an ancient language, but Aaron might get the gist of it - she was sad. Really sad. Sad to the point where if she said what she'd just said in English it might have made him cry. She couldn't stand to look at him, or anyone, and when her green eyes met his for a second, there was a clusterfuck of - just - misery, or hopelessness, even despair would have not been enough to describe the tiny galaxy within her eyes.

"Uh, you can carry her to her room," was all Eithne said. "But I'm gonna go ahead and say unless you want to do this," and she made a motion at the huge mess on the floor, "every hour on the hour, you'll stay close by until Nicolette and I can figure out what to do about this." She spoke in a largely authoritative manner, with cadence and tone not unlike her brother. Yes, Eithne had lost her patience after having the shit scared out of her.

[Aaron Thorson]

Honestly, it wasn't like Aaron had a clue, either, so Enya didn't have to worry too much about fucking it up herself; his saving grace was that it was his proximity that would ease the situation, so he just dove right into the mess Enya was trying to deal with and scooped the Lyr up.  With their bodies pressed together like that, he felt less like throwing up again himself and...apparently, she felt more like doing it, since she did it.  Right over his shoulder and down his back, though like his own, it had the distinctly weird sensation of being cold seawater.  And seaweed, which was gross, but it didn't feel to him any of the times like he was really vomiting so much as rejecting a hell of a lot of saltwater, so the fact that she'd basically just puked down his back didn't gross him out as much as it might have if it was actual vomit.  Shut up, it was how he was rationalizing it without thinking he needed a shower immediately.

It wasn't like a shower was a realistic goal, anyway.  Azhure was clinging to him, shaking hard despite being done with her seizure-style symptoms, rambling in a language he didn't understand, and crying hysterically.  Really, he should have been focused on calming her down and remained calm himself, especially since he didn't speak the language she was speaking, but that...didn't seem to matter.  It made no sense and he didn't consciously know what she was saying like he'd have known if she was speaking English, but with the emotions running so high, the two of them being so physically close and neither of them realizing they should even try blocking each other out (he wouldn't know how to, anyway), it was somehow leaking through to him.  He didn't actually know what she was saying, but he understood.

Did that made any sense?  The sadness wasn't just hers in that moment, but allowed to wash over him like a fucking tidal wave that took his breath away and threatened to drown him for a moment, then succeeded when he regained his bearings for just a second and then made eye contact with her and was totally swept away.  He didn't make any indication that he'd heard Enya speak over the sound of water rushing in his ears and the horrible sadnessmiseryhopelessdespairohgodlostdyingwhywon'tsomeonehelpme washing around and through him.  He might have unwittingly saved his own pride when he shifted his weight to the side, leaning against the wall and pulling her more into his lap, then burying his face into her neck and wet hair where the tears that followed could be lost against her skin.

He had no idea what he'd just done, what they'd just done.

All he knew was that he wasn't letting her go until some of this eased up, and then, yes, he'd do as Enya said and take her to bed with him so that there was no more explosive vomiting or any seizures.  He'd never had a seizure and he didn't want to try it out for the first time today; he'd already tried out tears for something other than horrific pain, and that was unpleasant enough, however unprepared for it he was and unable to stop it.