A/N: Written for Kink Bingo's "Bodily Secretions" square in 2010, which it fits into for certain extremely elastic values of 'secretions'.
Master Apothecary Faranell knew he was dying. Like all Forsaken he had intimate, first-hand knowledge of the process, and he was mildly surprised to find it was much the same the second time around. The pain of the injuries was duller and more distant, and a sort of fatalistic calm had replaced the gut-wrenching panic of his first death, but the core of the sensation — a creeping cold, a blurring of the senses, and the feeling of falling very slowly without actually moving at all — was one and the same. Faranell had always assumed that, if he was going to die again, it would be different somehow. In retrospect this assumption seemed lacking in scientific rigor.
The geist that had ambushed him stood crouched in the snow, head cocked to the side, its single eye bulging. Why it hadn't finished him off, Faranell didn't know — perhaps it was confused to find its claws tearing through dead flesh rather than warm, living meat. Perhaps someone higher up on the hierarchy had taken a personal interest in him and was holding the geist back.
The creature raised its claws, dripping with the viscous alchemical fluid that had long since replaced Faranell's blood. Ah — now came the finishing stroke. He closed his eyes and wondered how long he would stay conscious if the geist caved in what remained of his head, or tore his heart from his chest.
Faranell waited for the final blow to fall, but it never came. Instead, he heard a gurgling scream, a heavy thump of something hitting the ground in front of him, and a few moments of frenzied thrashing, violent enough to throw up a cloud of snow that dusted him lightly with frost. Footsteps approached him — heavy footsteps, accompanied by the creak of leather and bone — and Faranell cautiously opened his eyes. The geist was laying where it had fallen, still twitching through its second death throes. Standing above the creature and casually brushing the brimstone off of his gloves was a man Faranell recognized immediately and had hardly expected to see.
"I must say, Master Faranell," said Grand Apothecary Putress, with a smile just beginning to tug at the corners of his lips, "your field research doesn't seem all that impressive so far." He kneeled down, his boots squelching in the pool of chemicals and melted snow that was swiftly spreading under the gash in Faranell's side. "But of course, I might be missing some subtleties." Faranell struggled to get up, but found that his body was too damaged to respond properly — and, of course, there was the pain, which was becoming sharper by the moment. His head felt thick and heavy, his senses coming apart at the seams.
"Putress," Faranell hissed, in Gutterspeak. The ghast had shattered one of his ribs, and the splinters had torn into his lungs, making the simple act of drawing breath an exercise in frustration. "What the hell are you doing here?"
"Following you, of course," Putress said. He leaned down to inspect Faranell's wound. "I had a premonition. A whisper in the Shadow, you might say."
"Spare me your mystical nonsense," Faranell snapped. "There's a needle and sutures in my pack, and bandages."
Putress clucked his tongue and brushed a lock of Faranell's damp, ragged hair out of his eyes. It was a parody of an affectionate gesture — the sort of empty motion that they had gone through when Putress had been his student, before his meteoric rise through the Royal Apothecary Society's ranks. For Faranell, it was a re-enactment of some half-remembered incident from his life, an old habit he indulged in to break up the monotony of his constant research; he had no idea what Putress got out of the arrangement. It had never, until now, occurred to Faranell to care.
Now, every touch, every courtesy that had once been simply hollow now seemed menacing, as though a threat lay concealed beneath every murmured word and every brush of Putress's gloved hand. Outside of their private laboratory, here in the freezing snow and ankle-deep in gore, the parody had become gruesome.
Putress threaded the needle and began to repair Faranell's wound. He felt no pain — not from the needle, anyway — but he could feel it passing through his flesh and the sutures drawing shredded sinew and muscle together. There was little Putress could do about the worst of the damage — the broken bones would require metal pins, the lung would require a replacement if he planned on doing a great deal of talking in the future — but if he was a competent Apothecary (and Faranell certainly hoped the fellow had learned something from him), Putress would be able to fix his wound well enough that Faranell would at least be able make it back to Venomspite before the last of his animating will slipped away. His life, such as it was, lay entirely in Putress's hands.
Faranell hated having to trust another creature so fully, but he did not have the strength to raise an objection. There was nothing to do but obey Putress's half-mocking words of comfort, whispered into his ear like a lover — lie still, don't move, there there, it'll be all right, I'll fix everything.
Well, he certainly had a convincing way about him. Maybe that's why the Dark Lady's chamberlain was so quick to hand him promotion after promotion, Faranell thought bitterly, closing his eyes.
Eventually, the needle stopped. Faranell opened his eyes again, and Putress was stripping off his gloves. They were wet to the wrists, stained bright green with chemicals and embalming fluid. Grand Apothecary Putress always went about shrouded head-to-toe in leather robes, but beneath that his body was quite intact, though skeletally thin. He had clearly died slow and naturally — of hunger or a wasting disease, perhaps. Faranell had sometimes wondered why Putress hid his features from the living so meticulously when death had made so little mark on him; for a moment he had the odd, irrational urge to reach up with his own decaying hands and claw at Putress's well-preserved face. Faranell tried to move, but only succeeded in twisting his head upright before laying back down in defeat, the last of his breath rattling out of his lungs.
"The wound is patched as well as I can — grafts will have to be made by professionals at Venomspite, of course, but it should hold for now." Putress smoothed Faranell's hair again, and Faranell flinched. "One last thing," he said, with a note of reservation in his voice. He drew out an enormous brass syringe, polished to mirror brightness, its needle as thick as a piece of straw and its graduated glass chamber empty. "You've bled far too much already," Putress said, as though Faranell could not already tell. "I think…" Here he hesitated again, shaking his head.
"I know you know how to do a transfusion, Putress," Faranell managed. "Do it."
"I haven't exactly got a spare alchemy lab on my back. I'd have to use my own, and I'm sure you understand that I would be putting myself at risk with such an action."
"Technically I outrank you, Grand Apothecary."
"Yes. Technically." He said nothing further, but Faranell could hear the unspoken follow-up. Surely Putress didn't intend to go to all the trouble of dressing his wound simply to watch him die out here, more slowly than before.
Putress tested the needle tip with his thumb, still seeming disinclined to draw his own blood. "I could simply carry you back to Venomspite for proper treatment, of course." Faranell blinked for the first time in minutes, and it failed to clear his vision. His limbs felt heavy as lead, and with how foolishly far they had both strayed from the Apothecary camp, Faranell knew he would be little more than a corpse again by the time they both reached the outer fence. Putress knew it too — his face was a mask of professional concern, but his eyes were sly and cruel.
Faranell pulled in another difficult gasp of air. "Putress," he pleaded. "Please…" The Grand Apothecary chuckled darkly at this and, as though he had been waiting for a signal, put the thick needle to his wrist, sliding it heedlessly into the vein. Gradually, with a hiss of discomfort that Faranell found immensely satisfying, Putress drew an entire cylinder's worth of his own false blood. The Grand Apothecary paused for a moment to will his hands to stop shaking, then turned the needle and plunged it into Faranell's flesh just above the newly bandaged wound.
The fluid from Putress's veins was warmer than Faranell's own body. Bit by bit the glass cylinder emptied, blurring the dull ache of his crushed ribs and tattered flesh with soothing warmth — and then, without warning, the warmth ignited into a searing fire. Faranell had always been a scientist first and foremost, preferring not to rely on any force he could not be absolutely certain of controlling, but Putress had no such qualms. He was a warlock, unabashedly so, and not even one of the Forsaken could channel that power without also bearing its taint. Putress's fel-touched blood hit Faranell like a physical blow and he fancied he could feel it coursing through his veins like hot magma, even though it had been years since his heart had beat its last. He arched his back and gasped despite the pain in his lungs, his hands seizing at the snow.
He didn't know how long he lay like that, feeling the attenuated spark of Putress's dark arts playing across his nerves. It was a maddening feeling, a whisper in the back of his mind that spoke of a power just out of his reach. It was, he realized with horror, desire — fierce and gnawing as he could ever remember feeling. Eventually — too soon, Faranell found himself thinking, and cursed himself for it — Putress pulled the needle away and Faranell groaned, in spite of himself.
"How do you feel?" Putress said, after a while.
"…Alive," Faranell answered. It was, perhaps, the wrong word to use, but it was the closest he could come to the truth. Faranell fancied he could still feel where Putress's blood flowed in him, fiery and alien beneath his skin.
"Try standing up."
Faranell pushed himself upright, slowly and unsteadily. He was dimly aware that his body was not yet responding fully, but the euphoria of Putress's transfusion was slow to fade. He swore he could feel himself trembling, as ridiculous as that was, when Putress put out his hand to help Faranell to his feet. He'd put his gloves back on, for some unfathomable reason, and Faranell could feel the wetness of his own internal alchemy smeared across his palm as he seized Putress's hand. Faranell's legs buckled under him almost immediately, but Putress wrapped his arm firmly around Faranell's waist and steadied him. Faranell fought to put one foot in front of the other, but if he leaned on Putress and concentrated, he found he could manage, slowly and surely, to walk.
"We should be back at Venomspite before the sun goes down," Putress said. "Before the gargoyles come out in full force." Putress's voice sounded muted through the buzzing inside of Faranell's skull.
"You know…" Faranell began, "you never told me precisely what business brought you out here."
"I was looking for you, Master." The old honorific sounded odd on Putress's lips, half-genuine and half-mocking. "I had a premonition you might require my assistance."
"I'll commend you to the Banshee Queen for your loyalty, Grand Apothecary."
"That won't be necessary. I'm only too happy to help the man who taught me everything I know. Well, almost everything. I don't think you ever really approved of my interest arcane arts." Faranell's foot slipped on a patch of frozen ground, and Putress tightened his hold on Faranell's waist, digging into the stitched-up wound. Faranell choked at the sudden shock of pain, reeled, and found himself leaning into Putress's arms. This, too, he remembered from his life — listening to the rise and fall of another's breath, feeling the strength of their embrace. At the moment, Faranell couldn't recall what he had found so compelling about the experience.
"Don't worry, Faranell," Putress muttered. "I know what you're thinking, but I wouldn't dream of holding you to your debt. I would never be so cruel to one of our own."
The dizzying thrill of Putress's transfusion was beginning to fade. Pain was starting to creep back up Faranell's side, and worse, an aching sense of longing — gnawing and physical, like hunger or thirst — was beginning to coil in his breast. Faranell knew that feeling, by reputation if not by experience. He'd seen men sell their souls to fill that void, and now, to his horror, he was starting to understand why. He wondered how, in the scant months since they had been called to Northrend to visit their vengeance upon the Lich King, Faranell had felt his control of his Royal Apothecary Society slipping through his fingers, into the waiting grip of his charismatic and dangerous student. Now, even his own damned body wasn't free from the man's influence. He wondered if he was going to have to kill Putress eventually, and for the first time he had his doubts that he would even be able to.
"You're a liar, Putress," Faranell murmured. "A damned liar, and you always were." Putress didn't hear him, or didn't bother answering. Faranell looked up at the lights of Venomspite, peering over the horizon like watchful eyes, and staggered on.