A/N: Something that I hope Julie will highlight more in Inferno is that the underground is pretty much Wes and Riley's family. So the backlash they would feel Post-Legion wouldn't be pretty. I, being impatient, have decided to write a small, post-battle snippet of Wes and the underground trying to recover from the Night of Fang and Fire
Disclaimer: Talon and the characters ain't mine. I mean, I made a few names up, but it's still not mine. I don't get money for this. Why am I doing this?
It was 1:30 when Wes considered admitting defeat and trying to go to sleep. Not that he would be able to, of course, he was smart enough to know better than that, but just laying down was beginning to sound like a nice idea. Thirty-four minutes since Riley texted him to say that they were five miles from the destination. Thirty-four minutes completely in the dark. Quite literally.
The Rendezvous point was an entire town. Key point being 'was'. Once upon a time, in the 1800s, Wes was sure that it had been a bustling city square, but the wooden buildings had long since broken and the stone had been eroded away. Not stable or small enough to ever serve as a safehouse, but for short term it was good. And it was close to the battle sight.
Wes sighed to himself as he looked over the first aid equipment he had managed to scrounge together. The bloody battle, where seventeen hatchlings, his hatchlings, who he had helped become free, the seventeen that managed to survive Talon and St. George, had run off to help the organization that wanted them extinct. After a year of so much loss if made Wes' inside curl.
Wes checked his watch. Thirty-five minutes since the text. He hoped that he had brought enough equipment. He hoped that the hatchlings would be rational enough to let him work on them. He hoped that they weren't all dead while Wes was waiting on a message that could never come. Those hatchlings may have been everything to Riley, but they were his kids too.
Thirty-six minutes. Wes rubbed at his eyes. After he got word from Riley, he swore he was doing to give that crummy drugstore melatonin a shot. It had been two days since he even tried to lay down, let alone sleep. He wasn't any use half conscious.
Thirty-Seven minutes. He double checked that the syringes were organized, both morphine and ketamine for the worst case scenarios. Hopefully he wouldn't need either. Realistically he definitely would. He had distilled water, but not very much. Scalpel. Needle and thread. No plaster, but he couldn't do much about that.
Thirty-eight. Thirty-nine.
Forty minutes. The night sky was cloudless and the moon was shining bright on the scene, the improvised hospital that he had set up on an abandoned road in the middle of nowhere. It looked like something out of those post-apocalyptic movies he would see on the television. But it was real. That made it even more awful. It was one thing to pull a bullet out of Riley, Riley who had survived much worse and Wes had performed impromptu operations on too many times to count, who Wes knew was strong enough to make it. It was another to wait for seventeen hatchlings to come back, knowing that they would come to him in varying conditions, knowing that some of them could die in front of him because he couldn't work fast enough or well enough because he wasn't a doctor, he wasn't a surgeon, he was one person who felt in over his head. And he was stuck waiting for a call that could never come. Riley could be killed. Everyone could be killed. He could be alone.
Forty-one minutes.
Wes was so wrapped up in his thoughts that he almost didn't notice a dark shape in the sky moving towards him at a desperate pace. As it was, he did. And he wanted to celebrate as dark green dragon touched down from the sky and all but ran to him.
"Wes!" Mason gasped. Wes looked out at the sky and saw a larger swarm in the distance. He breathed a sigh of relief. "Nettle and Hamsah and Sage, we're trying to get them here, but— but— They were hit bad, Hamsah nearly fell out of the sky when Riley told us to fall back and Nettle… I don't know what's wrong with her, but she wasn't looking good, and Sage was being carried before they sent me out ahead. I... There was this huge clone, Riley told us to go back, I don't know if he's okay…"
Wes' blood chilled but he shook it off. It wasn't the time. "Bloody hell… Alright, alright. Are you hurt?" Mason shook his head, but Wes could see a long, shallow cut over his face. That could wait. He pointed over to one of the cement buildings that still stood. "Over there has clothing and a bit of food, but try not to eat everything." Mason nodded and bounded away, squeezing through the door and disappearing out of sight.
Thirty seconds later his hatchlings started dropping from the sky.
Ten hatchlings had survived. Seven hadn't.
Those seven filtered through his mind on a loop, trying to block out everything he still had to do. Jemma, Neo, Savannah, Damian, Marco, Juda, and Remy were dead. He remembered meeting each of them, whether it was years or five months prior. He and Riley promised to protect them, and Wes had been willing to do anything to honor that promise. They were his kids.
And they were dead.
Don't think about that, Wesley. There isn't any time to think about that. Wes reminded himself. He shook his head and made a mental list of everything he had already done and everything he still needed to do. He had already fixed up Nettle, Hamsah, and Sage to the best of his ability, leaving his hands shaking and covered in blood. Nettle and Hamsah would live, but Sage had fallen unconscious and Wes wasn't sure he would wake up. Atlas, the idiot, had collided with a building and sustained a non lethal but still annoying concussion. Jasper was in a slightly worse condition and hadn't reacted much when Wes was checking him out, but he would probably pull through without any consequence. They were in the remains of the ghost town's post office until further notice. Which meant the most pressing injury was Kain.
The kid in question was sitting cross legged on a blanket, his human form looking small and he gripped the oversized jacket around his shoulders. Both eyes were shut tightly, but that didn't stop the damage from being clear. There was blood everywhere, and he could see that there was no saving his left eye. His right looked intact for the most part, but the eyelid was still badly damaged. Wes winced and cleared his throat loudly.
"Kain, it's Wes. I'm going to look at your eyes, okay?" He whispered and set down his first aid kit. Kain looked towards him, biting his lip hard. There wasn't any change in his face when Wes shined the flashlight on the left side of his face. Just like he expected.
You've never operated on an eye before. Wes swallowed thickly. He had done his research on it, sure, Riley said that whenever he fought Gilas they tended to target his eyes, but he had never actually needed to fix up Riley's eyes. Eyelids, sure, but not…
It wasn't the time to think about that. Wes took a breath and gently took Kain's face in his hands. Kain repressed a growl and Wes shined the light in the right side of his face. Kain did react to that, twitching and closing his eye again, and Wes breathed a sigh of relief. Another few tense minutes passed as he tried to figure out the best course of action. His face was mangled, so bad it was hard to look at. Wes knew there was no saving his vision, not completely. But that wasn't something he wanted to admit, let alone have to tell Kaine.
"I— I can't see," Kain whispered. "How bad is it?"
Wes closed his eyes to avoid looking at him. He remembered when he first met Kain three years ago when he was barely sixteen, with bright eyes hopeful for a free future, talking a thousand kilometers and hour about whatever crossed his mind until Wes wanted to slam one of their heads through a wall. He darkened after Isaac died, but even his angry screams that they had promised to protect him would be preferable to the way he sat, hoping for good news that Wes couldn't deliver.
"Kain… there isn't much I can do. Your left eye needs to come out no question, and your right eyelid is a bloody wreck. I'm— I have a heavy enough sedative for you that I can put you under and remove—"
"Remove…" Kain shook his head and covered his face before realizing how bad of an idea that was. "Ow, ow, mother of god… you're going to remove my eye."
"There…" Wes ran a hand through his hair and pulled on it. This was hopeless. It was all hopeless. Bloody bullshit, they had sacrificed their kids as bloody child soldiers marching off to a war that some of them didn't come back from and the ones that did saw their best friends die before having their bloody eyes gouged out. Bull. Shit.
"There isn't enough to salvage, Kain. And if it heals like this it's going to mean a lot of pain in the future," Wes muttered. He was honestly surprised he was holding up so well as it was, even on the number of painkillers he was on.
"Y—You can't— you need to save them. You can't just—" Wes caught the tremor and slight in Kain's voice, which sent a pang through his chest. He hated when he heard anyone sound like that. Scared. Desperate. "You can't say that. You have to fix it."
Wes shook his head and tried to mask any distress that Kain would be able to hear.
"This is the best I can do."
It was true. And as Kain shook, looking for a way to save his vision and realizing that there wasn't one, Wes realized exactly how little his best was.
They were going back to the Order.
That was the call Wes received at dawn from Riley, that Wes needed to send everyone that he could move back to the Chapterhouse, that it would be best to keep everyone together and that they had proper medical equipment. Wes was too tired to argue, and he didn't want the kids to stay in the desert. Real Medical equipment sounded beautiful. In the SUV it would take four trips because not all of the hatchlings could shift back.
"Hell of a night, huh?" Riley whispered over the crackling line. Wes crouched in one of the buildings that still stood and closed his eyes. "I just buried seven kids."
Might be eight or nine by the end of the day. Wes kept that thought to himself, lip trembling at the image of Nettle and Sage, practically dead to the world around them even after Wes saw to them. He had hope for Nettle. When he set her arm she managed to get out of her painkiller and blood loss induced haziness long enough for a few words. But he had seen too many of his kids die over the year to think she was in the clear. And if she wasn't in the clear, Sage was leaning against death's door. Wes couldn't save either of them, when it came down to it. It was up to them.
"They wanted to take a stand, Riley," Wes whispered into the receiver. "We couldn't have stopped them if we tried. No matter how much we wanted to try," Wes felt his eyes itch and swiped at them angrily. It wasn't the time. Maybe when things slowed down a bit, when he could find a few minutes alone. But not while he had ten lives in his hands
"Are you crying?"
"No," Wes sniffed. Riley snorted on the other end.
"Okay, Wes. Try to get everyone over as quickly as possible."
Wes made no move to stand. He was so exhausted, not just because of the effects of sleep deprivation. He never thought he could feel so mentally dead, not even those times when it was Riley who was unconscious next to him.
"Wes?" The receiver crackled and Wes blinked.
"I'm out of my depth, Riley," He whispered. There was a silence on the other end.
"We both are this time," Riley's voice came back and Wes bit his lip. His eyes were burning and he knew that he didn't manage to keep the whimper inside his throat. "Just get here. We can figure this out."
"Alright. See you soon," Wes muttered. The line went dead and he dried his eyes again. It wasn't time, it wasn't the place. When he didn't have ten kids to take care of, when he wasn't the only authority figure in sight, when he wasn't in the desert. But not where he was. Not with so much happening, not while he was alone to deal with the aftermath of a battle.
Wes swallowed thickly and stood, pocketing the phone. Just a few more hours and Riley would be able to help.
Just a few hours was starting to feel longer than he ever thought it could.
A/N: Someday I'll write something happy again. Probably not anytime soon. Reviews are Love!