A tag to Split Personality
by: Laura Boeff
He could do this. He could do this. Walking, palms flat
against the wall, Cosmo carefully eased out of his room, steps small and
unsteady. Okay. Doing good so far. He could do this. From down the hall
he heard the distant whir of the vacuum. Ace was cleaning- again. Damn,
if he didn't ease up, the man was going to scrub the paint right off the
walls. Cosmo sighed. He knew why Ace was being so.... spastic. He was trying
to distract himself, trying to find something, anything to take his mind
off what had happened.
Cosmo just wished he could help. Man, he really did,
but... Every time Ace looked at him, looked at the wound, which he was
suppose to keep cover but didn't -the bandage itched- it sent the older
man's emotions on a rampage and guilt washed through them both. Cosmo sighed.
Okay. He could do this. Just sneak to the kitchen, get
a little bite to eat. Cosmo forgot about Ace to concentrate on his endeavor.
Whoever thought walking would be so hard? A gentle ripple of vertigo touched
upon his senses and Cosmo froze, leaning against the wall, letting his
eyes drop shut. He could do this. He needed to do this, damn it! He was
tired of being weak and dependent. He was a grown man, he didn't need to
be treated like a baby.
Cosmo took several deep breaths, knowing he was being
petty. But damn it. He still hated being weak. He'd pushed his limits before
when using his magic. Even surpassed them on occasion, but never like this.
Oh lord.. never like this. Slowly his magic was coming back. Weak fingers
of connection with the power inside him, but still not enough to even generate
the most basic of shields. He had tried. Once. Bad idea. The power had
come, just for the briefest of moments, before slipping away again, leaving
nothing but its echoing feel and a headache.
Patience. Ace kept consoling patience, promising he would
recover his strength and his magic, but man.. not fast enough! Especially
the strength part. The magic... well.. he'd never wanted the stuff in the
first place, but he was getting pretty use to it now, so it wasn't that
bad. And it would be nice to shield, just a little, against Ace. Ace was
taking this one hard. The magician's emotional state hadn't improved one
iota since they'd come home. It had been days now since they both had left
the hospital. Maybe three days, Cosmo thought. He wasn't honestly sure,
not really being awake until today. Today he actually felt somewhat with
it. To the point he decided to strike out on his own.
Cosmo chuckled. Slowly, very slowly, strike out on his
own.
Okay, he could do this. Shuffle stepping down the hall,
hands still on the wall, Cosmo concentrated on not falling on his face.
Ace shut down the vacuum and glared about the room. Not
that it had needed cleaning in the first place, there just wasn't anything
else to do. He had tried to work on Angel, spend a little time going over
his financial affairs, but the tasks weren't enough to curb his roving
thoughts. The memories, the emotions that came back and sent their dark,
grasping fingers into his brain.
With a groan and shudder Ace shoved back the encroaching
thoughts. He didn't want to think about it. He wasn't going to think about
it! He didn't dare. Not if he wanted to keep his sanity. What he needed
was to be somewhere: alone. To think, to sort it out. If ever he could.
Ace put the vacuum away in the closet and scrubbed a
hand through his hair, mussing it up and not really caring. Damn it! Just...
Damn it!
Ace forced himself to take a deep breath and he looked
about the room. There had to be something he could do. He thought briefly
of going outside. Leaving the Express, just for a while. But he banished
the idea as quickly as it came. Not only did Ace not want to be seen in
public. Not in the least, he didn't want to leave Cosmo alone as well.
Not now, with the teen just recovering from his ordeal. His ordeal at Ace's
hands. That brought another groan to the older man as he paced about the
room, forcing his thoughts elsewhere. He had to find something to do.
Zina watched him pass, turn, then pass again, from her
spot on the couch. She'd taken to the high roost when he had started cleaning,
watching him with a flick of her tail. She let out murph and lazily reached
out and caught his leg, easily stopping Ace's mad pacing.
Ace looked down into the warm, golden eyes and sighed,
hand going to the black muzzle.
"Sorry, girl, didn't mean to ignore you," Ace apologized
sadly, taking some small pleasure in Zina's happy purr at his attention.
He had tried to play with her, care for her and work with her, but his
heart wasn't in it. Just the thought of anything related to his magic..
Ace shivered. His magic...
The dark spiral down into his own fears was halted as
Zina rumbled, head pulling away from his hands as she looked toward the
door. With a decidedly annoyed flick of her tail, she rose, and silently
padded across the room. As the door automatically slid open, Zina peeked
out into the hall and let out another low rumble.
Curious, Ace followed. Something had Zina upset. As he
looked outside, he saw what.
"Cosmo!"
Sure enough, the teen was clinging to the wall, taking
small steps down the hall. He glanced up at Ace's cry, wasted looking and
frail. His blue sleeping boxers and t-shirt doing nothing to hide the trembling
muscles of his body. A small smile came to Cosmo's face at the shocked
continence of his older partner.
"Hey," he called softly, returning to his shuffling.
"What are you doing out of bed?!" Ace demanded in a near
panic, hurrying to Cosmo's side, attempting to get an arm around the young
man. Cosmo batted it away weakly with a slight glower.
"I'm okay, Ace," he muttered, still using the wall for
balance.
Okay? Hardly! Both of them had been released from the
hospital days before. Ace had been fairly back to normal, Cosmo a far cry.
Whereas Ace had to survive nothing more than his brain chemistry shifting
back to normal, and the medication that it required, Cosmo had to suffer
more, far more. Hell, on the first day home the only reason the teen had
woken at all was because Ace had roused him long enough to take his antibiotics.
Cosmo had grumbled, but relented, much to Ace's relief, the magician almost
frantic about guarding Cosmo's frail health. A few days might have passed
since then, but Cosmo still was nowhere near normal again.
"It's okay, Ace. I'm just a little hungry," Cosmo sighed.
Drat! So much for going unnoticed. Not that he was mad. Not really, but
he just wanted to do something for himself for a change. Ace meant well,
needed to be needed right now, but Cosmo needed to feel more in control
and less like a cripple. Even if he was only a temporary one.
"I'm okay, don't worry," he went on, breathing softly,
carefully. His side was starting to sting around the bruised lung. His
exertions, however minor seeming, aggravating the damaged muscles. A walk
down the hall. When the heck had a walk down the hall become such a task?
"You should have called me, Cosmo. I would have brought
you something," Ace declared unhappily. "You need to rest. You shouldn't
be up."
"I said, I'm okay, Ace!" Cosmo snapped, regretting the
harsh words immediately. Not only did the increased volume further aggravate
his side, they were like a whip lash across the magician's heart. Cosmo
paused, leaning against the wall and looked at his friend.
"Ace, I just needed to get up. Try and do something for
myself," he explained gently. "Didn't mean to snap, dude. I'm just going
a bit stir crazy."
Ace took a deep breath and shook his head.
"Cosmo, you do need to rest. There's nothing wrong with
needing a little help. I want to help. You'll get your strength back,"
Ace argued, but not with his old passion. Not with the calm, solid words
of wisdom and understanding that Cosmo was used to. Ace's tone carried
desperation, pain. Not so much that Cosmo was injured, but that he had
been the one to bring on those injuries.
Cosmo tried to smile, ignoring the stings of discomfort
this caused in the facial wound.
"You worry too much, Ace," he declared, then started
back to his shuffling.
"You should be in bed, Cosmo," Ace reiterated unhappily,
following him step for step down the hall.
Cosmo shrugged. "I just felt like... like.." Whatever
he had been feeling earlier, it sure wasn't this. A strange, floating sensation
rippled through Cosmo. He suddenly seemed disconnected from his body. Brain
no longer in control. Whoa.. weird. Everything just seemed to.. float.
He seemed to float, vaguely aware that he was drifting to the floor.
"Cosmo!" Ace gasped, leaping forward as his young friend's
gaze took on a strange, glazed quality. He just got his arm under the young
man shoulders as Cosmo's body went limp, becoming a dead weight in his
arms.
"Cosmo," he cried again, trying to be mindful of the
bruised side. Enough was enough, Ace decided and scooped the smaller man
up into his arms. Cosmo's head rolled against his chest and he muttered
thickly.
"s'kay, Ace... s'kay."
Yea. Right. Ace carefully carried his precious cargo
back to Cosmo's bedroom where he delivered his assistant back to his bed.
As Ace arranged Cosmo, he caught sigh of the tell tale spotting of blood
on the pillow cover. Small droplets from the healing cut on his face. Emotional
agony tried to claw it's way out, but he smacked it back down. Not now!
He couldn't let himself feel the emotions right now. If ever.
By the time he was pulling the blankets back up, Cosmo
seemed a touch more coherent, taking in the sudden shift in his surroundings.
Blinking fuzzily.
"Damn it," he growled, fingers tightening into a frustrated
fist. "Damn it! I'm tired of being weak. Useless!" Cosmo went on in angry
frustration.
"You have never been, nor are you now, useless, Cosmo,"
Ace stated softly, snugging the blankets around him. "You are weak and
injured, Cosmo. You'll get better and you're strength will come back, but
you must rest." The strength would come back. Ace was well aware of what
magic shock would do to the body, but as to the other injuries..... They
would heal, but their mark would always remain. Especially across Cosmo's
face. Ace, winced. Especially there.
Cosmo sighed and the fist relaxed, clenched slightly,
then went limp against the coverlet.
"Still tired of being weak," he muttered darkly. Then
tried to smile. "Thanks for helping me, bro. Didn't mean to pull a header
on ya."
Ace nodded. "No problem, Cosmo. You should have called
me."
Cosmo shrugged one shoulder. "Had to try."
An attempt that had failed. Ace was only glad he had
been there to help. He patted a convenient arm reassuringly.
"You'll be up and about in no time. You still hungry?"
"Yea, I am," Cosmo admitted. "Would you mind?"
"Of course not, Cosmo," Ace declared, perhaps a touch
too hastily. Cosmo gave him oneon of those looks when he did that. Ace
knew Cosmo expected no payment from him. No retribution, but he felt he
had to do something... anything.
"How about some soup? We still have some of the lentil
Ms. LaSage sent over."
Cosmo smiled. "Cool. Yea, that'd be fine. She's nice.
Vega should ask her out more."
"Oh, advice for the love-lorn?" Ace chuckled. Cosmo grinned.
"Hey, at least I've got a love life, unlike a certain
detective," he retorted.
Ace pushed himself up and smiled. "I'll make sure to
not mention that to Vega."
Cosmo laughed. "Yea, he'd kill me for a comment like
that."
Ace felt his heart constrict at the joke. Kill him. Kill
Cosmo. The darkness in him pushed upward. It was what he had tried to do.
Wanted to do...
"Ace...?"
Ace blinked, startled and stared down into Cosmo's worry
stare.
"Ace, you can't keep going on like this," Cosmo sighed
in exasperation.
"I'll get you some lunch," Ace said hastily, heading
for the door.
"Ace.."
"I'm okay, Cosmo."
"Like hell!"
Their eyes meet in a match of wills. Gray on gray. One
set worried and concerned the other pain-filled and desperate. Ace patted
Cosmo's arm again, looking away.
"I'll be back," he mumbled, hearing Cosmo exhale softly
and suddenly found his arm caught, slender fingers wrapping around his
wrist. Ace had no choice but to look back at his younger partner.
"It'll be okay, Ace," Cosmo sighed, somewhat despairingly.
Ace nodded and smiled, but inside he felt like curling up and dying. Okay?
How could anything be okay again? He cut off the rising hopelessness before
it swamped over him. He couldn't let it touch him. If he did.... He would
lose all control.
"I'll be right back," he said and for a moment longer
Cosmo held him, then nodded and released him.
"Thanks, Ace, for everything." He offered a smile with
the acknowledgment.
Ace smiled back, tried to at least.
"It's no problem. You don't have to thank me, Cosmo."
Cosmo shrugged. "I want to."
For a moment Ace froze uncertainly. The fear and hurt
and darkness in him threatening again. Cosmo was thanking him for helping
with injuries he had gifted him with. It was such a twisted reality that
he nearly became ill at the concept. Mind shuddering. In the end, he managed
to summon up a smile and nodded. Cosmo didn't hate him. Swore he had forgiven
him. But....
"Be right back." He retreated before he lost it. Lost
it all.
Cosmo sighed and relaxed back into the bed, putting his
hands behind his head. Damn...
Next time he got the bright idea to get out of bed he
was going to slap himself. Not only had he not succeeded, he'd gotten Ace
all worked up again. Well... more so than he had been. Not that the magician
had really been any better before.
Cosmo sighed again and stared at the ceiling. And did
the only thing he could think of.
'Let things get better,' he prayed to whoever might be
listening up there.
'Please, let Ace get better.'