asher_talos | [For Danica]

[For Danica]

Asher's patience was thinning. He stood on the dock, facing the boat and waiting for Onyx to jump down out of it. Going from steady ground to the boat was never any trouble for the dog, but disembark from it was always a completely different story. It was embarrassing, Onyx whimpering and whining, preparing to make a leap for it only to have the next wave roll in and then back out again, sweeping away any bit of courage he might have gathered.

After a few minutes of watching the pathetic display, Asher usually found that the best incentive to get him moving was usually to abandon him, to just start walking and leave Onyx to fend for himself. The whimpering inevitably got worse, but by the time Asher made it to the end of the dock, Onyx was usually galloping his way up right behind him.

This time wasn't any different.

"Idiot," he said on a breath, almost a little disappointed when there was no sound of a splash, just nails shuffling over the wooden planks of the dock. Then again, the last thing he wanted to be dealing with was the smell of wet dog.

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Once Danica had started running it was hard to stop, not before she'd reached somewhere, anywhere, that wasn't in the fucking forest. When she finally broke free from the trees and the bushes, it was onto an unfamiliar strip of sand, nothing to hear but the sound of the sea and her own laboured breaths. She made a decision between left and right and stuck to it, following the coast around knowing that at some point she'd end up where she'd started from that evening.

The grip on her arm was so tight that when she went to remove her hand, skin stuck to wound, a stomach-churning squelching noise as she peeled her palm away. Both arms were streaked with red, fresh drops of blood slowly rolling down wrists and knuckles to fingers, onto already drying patches on gun and camcorder. The pain from the gouges was constant but it kept her mind focussed. She wiped at her eyes with the back of a hand and pushed her hair off her forehead, gritting her teeth against her anger. Her dress across the front was torn. Fucking ruined. And she'd been forced to leave her shoes somewhere along the beach, the heels sticking in the sand, having made running impossible. Nobody did this to her, to Danica fucking Talos, and got away with it. Vengeance spurred her on, until the boat came into view some distance away. She hated the idea of anyone seeing her looking like this, but one person out here in the darkness was better than a hundred in the light of the Compound.

She coughed, squinted at the far-away figure by the boat and ran a little faster. "Lew!"

Onyx sprinted ahead excitedly, well before hearing the voice belonging to the figure and slowing slightly upon the approach.

Asher couldn't see too far ahead, but with that voice and that fucking name, he didn't need to see to know who it was. Between searching the guy out at parties and now being mistaken for him, Lew Ashby wasn't gaining any popularity points with Asher, even if his sister felt differently. "Not Lew."

As soon as she spotted Onyx, Danica knew her mistake and she couldn't have been more fucking thrilled to have been wrong about something if she tried.

Her skin was bone white and she shook all over, stumbling a little over the uneven, sandy ground. Onyx started making a racket around her feet, barking up at her, and though she was weakened through shock or bloodloss, or a combination of both, she struggled to compose herself before calling out her brother's name. The undeniable hint of rage simmered beneath the surface of her strained voice.

His stride switched to a jog when it became apparent that Danica's slight unsteadiness on her feet wasn't due to his sister's usual stubbornness and refusal to wear anything but heels despite all the sand around. When he was close enough to see the damage, he nearly stopped in his tracks, knowing it would only look worse the closer he got.

He was afraid to touch her, possibly hurting any further, but wrapped an arm around her waist to keep her balanced while trying to avoid her arm where most of the damage seemed to be. "Jesus fucking Christ! What the fuck happened to you?!" She looked as though she'd taken a few trips through a paper shredder of all fucking things.

Reluctant to accept Asher's help with walking, Danica tried her best not to lean her weight on him out of pure stubbornness. Only he could probably tell how successful she was being.

She was far too occupied with being pissed the hell off; it helped block out the pain too. While she intended to thrust the still-cocked gun at her brother, her arm only got half way up and she ended up pressing it against him weakly. Her teeth clenched against the words she only wanted to have to say once. "Take him. The fuck. Out." She didn't care what Asher had to say about it. The fucker had ambushed the wrong person and Danica wanted to make sure he knew it. "NOW!"

Asher took the gun, cursed silently and slipped it down the back of his pants. He wasn't sure who (or what) the hell he was supposed to be taking out or where Danica had even gotten another gun from, but right now, he was just worried about getting her to the clinic.

"No, not now. What the fuck's the matter with you? Come on." There was only so far anyone could get on the island. Once she was taken care of, he had all the facts and it turned out someone did have something coming to them, then Asher would happily deliver it, but that was just going to have to wait. "Watch your arms."

If trying to hold her up didn't sit well with her, Asher was pretty sure she was going to hate him once he swept her up off her feet and started walking.

She did; for a split second as her feet left the ground all the hatred transferred straight to Asher. He was bruising her fucking pride a lot more than any of the wounds were hurting her.

"Put me the fuck down!" Her stature was hardly an advantage when she started kicking but futility and fatigue meant it didn't last long. Threats were all she had left. "I swear to God, if you don't kill him I'll do it myself," she glared, very real fury in her eyes, "and then I'll come back and shoot you." It didn't matter that they both knew the second part wasn't true; it felt good to say.

The red light was still on the camcorder when she deposited it between them. She dropped her head into a hand, only then noticing how big the tear was in her dress, and the scratches and shallow grazes along her stomach. She touched one, brought back blood and grit on her finger, and held her head again, feeling for perhaps the first time in her life genuine shame and embarrassment in public. It made her sick.

"No. And I've got your gun. Again." He couldn't believe her; there she was, practically bleeding to fucking death all over them both and she still had it in her to argue with him. If nothing else, he was just glad the yapping meant she was conscious. He was keeping calm now, but he'd probably lose it if she stopped talking. "Why the fuck do you have a gun? Again."

And why did she keep saying he and not it when it looked like a fucking animal had attacked her?

Danica didn't answer right away; the moving motion was making her nauseous and with nothing to focus on like walking her head was stuffing up, getting dizzy.

She cradled her worst arm into her, held it by the wrist to stop it drooping down lifeless. Just what she needed to stop herself looking retarded... "Because you took my fucking one away from me." She had to get another one from somewhere; she just hadn't known this particular somewhere was going to come back and bite her in the ass.

"I know what I did, Dani!" And maybe he regretted it a little now. If he hadn't taken it away from her, though, someone would have turned up dead months ago, he knew it, and she would have been rotting behind bars for God only knew how long. "That doesn't fucking help me here, okay?" His steps were surer once they were off the uneven sand, and he was able to pick up his pace slightly when he was on a trail. "Where's it from? Who the fuck is he?"

Sure, he could go around shooting males at random, but he only had so many rounds of ammo to get though in his small arsenal, which was now up to three. Besides, if Asher was going to do something, he preferred to get things done right the first time around.

While Danica had thoroughly planned on pretending to pass out just to give her brother a heart attack and thus seek revenge for not putting her back on the fucking floor, she hadn't intended for it to happen so literally. It was like falling asleep, nodding off, her head suddenly dropped back, her arm fell down and Asher slipped away, into the darkness.

She regained consciousness within a few long moments though, pulled herself back out, eyes opening slowly. It was harder to fight it, to concentrate. "He wants it back." It was ironic how, after centuries of being a vampire, the sight and loss of her own blood could affect her so strongly. With her head now propped against Asher's shoulder, she felt her eyes slip shut again but this time there was the image of the masked man behind the lids and the rage she felt kept her just the right side of conscious. "Video." If he heard it, that one tiny, little word would tell him all he needed to know. Fuck the details.

Asher could hear his own heart thundering in his ears even over all of his swearing and shouting her name when Danica had gone limp. Relief didn't even begin to explain what he felt when she finally snapped back. "Fuck. Don't do that again, Dan. Do not. We're almost there. Just stay awake."

The video, what this guy wanted back, he'd worry about deciphering what all of that meant once she was taken care of.

Though it seemed like forever to him, it wasn't too long before he reached the clinic, the doctor on duty whipping into action relatively quickly despite undoubtedly being caught off guard. It probably wasn't the sort of case that cropped up on the everyday on the island, but instincts like that probably never really went away. Ordinarily, Asher's head would have been on straight around that much blood, too, but not when it belonged to his sister.

Danica was dismayed to discover Asher wasn't putting her on her feet like she'd demanded. Instead, she lay on her back, disoriented and in pain, and yet the only thing she could think about was how hilariously ironic it would be if Asher killed the man with his own gun. Her laugh was short and low, forced out of its own accord between shaky breaths. As quick as it had come it was gone, leaving behind only an achy chest from the effort. He wouldn't have a clue what was coming him... Danica felt a twinge of delight. "It's my fucking gun now," she insisted tiredly, in between futile attempts to pull away from the doctor, because in her head, it was her she could see lifting, aiming and firing and she had never missed twice.

Coop was still in the dark regarding exactly what the hell had happened, but he'd done his job. It took some doing but she'd been stabilized and patched up to the very best of his abilities with what he had to work with. The pain and eventual scarring aside, she was going to be fine. Whether it was some sort of animal attack or something else, she was just lucky not to have bled out before the pair had made it to the clinic.

"We're good, any more of that and you're the one who's going to need a transfusion." Before Coop could get the stethoscope back around his neck, Asher was already working the tape off of his arm, pulling the needle out for himself soon after.

"Right, no doctoring." He had laid that rule out for Coop earlier, just before sticking that same needle in his arm to begin with.

Once his sleeve was rolled down, Asher's attention was back on the video camera they had come in with, eyes practically glued to the screen. Even when Danica was slipping in and out of consciousness Coop thought he probably had a better chance of catching and keeping her attention than his. "She's stable and her vitals are okay. You can go, get yourself cleaned up if you want to and come back. She'll be fine."

It didn't stop him from trying, though.

Danica's idea of invincibility didn't include trips to the clinic and yet here she was, her second time in the past six months. Her belief in her own immortality might have taken a temporary blow but it would be back to full strength as soon as she was out of there.

Her annoyance at hearing Asher was enough to drag her eyes open. Since he was in her line of vision she fixed them on the doctor for a long, hard moment before looking away. "Why the fuck are you still here?" She'd told him what to do, hadn't she? Was it too much to ask for a brother to murder a guy for his sister? Not in Danica's world.

After an awkward moment of glaring, Asher was on his feet, grabbing his bloodied jacket from the back of the chair. "I'm not," he said quietly, voice sounding distant and detached. He hesitated a moment longer at the door before finally heading out.

Tension, meet knife.

Coop breathed a bit easier once he was gone; it was always easier to work when the family members weren't breathing down his neck. That went double for family members with fangs. "You lost a lot of blood. He sort of had to stick around to donate. Do you remember what happened?"

Danica rolled her eyes when she spotted the cannula in her arm; she'd had more shit stuck into her body in the past year than she'd had in the last five hundred. If the doctor was trying to guilt trip her for not being all flowers and rainbows with her brother just now, then he'd die of old age before he succeeded.

"I'm wounded, not senile," she snapped, struggling to sit up. When she reached to take out the cannula with her other hand, her arm screamed blue murder at her as it moved, a multitude of curses immediately leaving her mouth, at least half of them aimed at him. She let out a growl of frustration, outrage, the end of it turning into her demand. "Get it out."

"Hey, whoa, easy. I'm keeping you on the IV. The transfusion will keep you on this side of the living, sure, but he wasn't exactly an endless supply. It stays." At least he knew the attitude ran in the family.

"Follow this for me," he said, clicking on his penlight and shining it into her eyes, slowly tracking it left and right. "Can you explain to me what happened then? Some sort of animal?"

It fucking doesn't seemed like the best reply and Danica was happy to give it, to shove it down the doctor's throat if necessary, but then there was a bright light in her vision and she could see the backs of her eyeballs and suddenly she was wondering why the fuck people walked towards that when they were dying because it was pretty fucking annoying.

"Yeah, I gave it your address," she bit out, tossing her head from left to right to make his check almost impossible. In the end, she squeezed her eyes shut, wishing she could give the guy a gut punch right about now. "Are you fucking kidding me with this?"

He lowered the light, head dropping along with it for a brief second as he puffed out an exasperated breath. "Look, if there's something out there that could be a threat to the general public, it'd be nice to know about it before we get more cases like yours dropped in our laps."

Granted this was the most exciting case he'd gotten since his arrival, but Fitch would have been a lot more enthusiastic about these sorts of patch-ups if he were in a real hospital environment. He'd been to school nurse offices as a kid that had better inventories.

Offensive light removed, Danica opened her eyes slowly. The tear in her dress made her anger spike again and she moved her better arm across her stomach to cover it up. Even if that had been the only damage she'd ended up with she still would've ordered Asher into the woods to deal with it.

"Is the doctor afraid of the bogeyman?" she drawled, shifting her legs over the side of the bed, right where Fitch was standing. Blinking away the threat of dizziness, she gave him a look like he was in her way. Which he was. "Don't worry yourself. The biggest threat out there right now is my brother and he has no interest whatsoever in the general public. Move."

"I'm not worried, I'm doing my job." Or he would be if she'd let him. "You're not leaving. How far do you think you'd actually get in your condition? The quicker you recover, the quicker you're out of here, but pushing yourself right now isn't going to help. So just take it easy."

At least until his shift was over, then she could easily palm her off to the doctor who came in next to relieve him if he wanted to.

The only thing Danica hated more than being wrong was other people being right. She pressed a hand to her light head, willed it to get a grip, and while under the guise of 'taking it easy', she still managed to swing back her foot and kick Dudley Do-Right hard in the shin. The heel of her shoe dug in; her leg reflexes proved just fine.

"How long do you expect me to stay here?" Logic finally told her it was probably a good thing she was stuck in here with a witness because at east when the motherfucker turned up dead out there she'd have an alibi.

"Fuck!" Was this woman serious?! Here he was, trying to help her and she had the stones to treat him like he was the reason she was there in the first place. "Don't make me request an IPD member come and stand guard, Danica." Those guys had cuffs, right...? If not, he could always just drug her.

"I'm keeping you here for observation over night. I'll make a judgment call tomorrow as to whether or not a long stay is needed. If it is then we'll get you moved to the compound."

Danica always felt a little better after inflicting physical abuse; sometimes verbal just didn't cut it.

"Ooh, I'm shaking." In point of fact she was, at least her hand was when she removed it from her temple. She pressed it to the edge of the bed. "So what the fuck did you do to my arms?" Since she refused to lie down like an invalid, Fitch would just have to be happy with her half on and half off. "I don't have anything that goes with bandage dressing so you can understand my concern."

Fitch could safely say that no, he really didn't understand. Or he could think it, at least, because he wasn't actually sure how safe it was to say it out loud. "I don't think anyone will crucify you for the fashion faux pas. It was bandages or open gashes completely exposed. I made a judgment call."

"Your call blows." It was safe to say Danica would be taking them off herself as soon as she was out of his custody and she didn't hide the fact. She wasn't exactly sure about the nature of the damage, aside from the fact that it fucking hurt, so as long as he hadn't had to sew anything up she was fine with ignoring the specifics. Potential scarring never even crossed her mind.

"This where you do post mortems too?" If anybody was going to get suspicious after Asher offed the bastard in the woods, it was the doctor. If it got tricky, maybe she'd get her brother to deal with him too, just to be certain there were no complications.

"You're alive. My calls can't be all that bad." Not this time anyway. He wasn't always a complete fuck up when it came to treating patients.

"Uh, I think those are done over in the compound clinic. I haven't have anyone die on my just yet so I could be wrong."

"Poor you." Danica folded her hands tentatively in her lap, trying to cover up the wince. "You never know, tonight might be your lucky night." Because all doctors secretly want their patients to die and take their nuisance with them, Danica was sure. Of course, she wasn't talking about herself but only she really knew that. "I want something more for-" the pain?, "-my arms," she finished stubbornly, refusing to admit to any further discomfort.

"Nah, I think we've got you a good block or two away from Death's Doorstep now. The only thing that could go wrong is your brother's blood not being a match, and he assured me it was." And with teeth like that, Fitch wasn't about to quiz the guy on what he did and didn't know about blood types. "How about a compromise? You lay back down and I'll consider upping the morphine." He wasn't sure if she'd go for it, but it was at least worth a shot.

"How about a different compromise?" Danica offered, tilting her head to the side and looking up at the doctor. "You up the morphine and I won't rip out your throat when I get out of here. And we can live another day not knowing if you're a blood match too."

Fitch frowned, not quite a pout, but it was dangerously close to being one. "Have you ever been told that you have a very strange way of showing gratitude?"

Danica mocked his expression through imitation before her features slid back into impassivity. "Have you ever been told that you're a moron?" One that wasn't bad to look at though, so it wasn't all negative. "Because I think you might just be." It was a hunch and Danica's were nearly, almost, sometimes never wrong.

Now he was pouting. Maybe she just verbally abused a bear and what he was looking at was the aftermath of that. If that's how things went down then Fitch definitely couldn't blame the bear... He also wasn't going to answer her question.

Instead, he gave in, adjusting her morphine dosage just slightly and scribbling the changes down on her chart. "Satisfied?"

Danica laid back down of her own accord, not to satisfy him but herself. She closed her eyes so she wouldn't have to see any hint of a smug expression on his face.

"Not remotely." But it would do for now, at least until Asher returned with the good news.

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[For Danica]

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