A/N: Inspired by a Tumblr post which suggested a scene where the Khanum - out of a desire to publicly humiliate Erik - ordered him into a cage fight which triggers him and he's helpless to defend himself with the force of his flashbacks. This is the aftermath. Warnings for blood, serious injuries, and reference to violence.
His eyes flicker for the barest moment, but do not open, and you cannot help the disappointment that flares in your heart. You know it is selfish of you to want him to wake, terribly, horribly selfish. If he woke he would not be coherent, would know only the savage pain of his wounds. He would not know you, would look at you through dim eyes that see only another world. Every moment he's conscious is another moment he suffers and it is better for him to sleep, and that is why you keep forcing the medicines between his lips that the physician leaves to ensure sleep. But if he is to die—if he—he can't die without waking! He can't just slip away like that! He can't!
Your heart pounds painfully, lungs aching tight, and you draw a deep breath to try to compose yourself, brush the tears away. You need to remain calm, now. You have to stay calm, for both of your sakes.
It will soon be time to clean his wounds again. The physician has instructed regular cleaning if Erik is to have any chance to survive, checks in as often as he is permitted to for to see for himself, to leave fresh instructions.
He looks down on you, the physician, for staying with Erik, for choosing to tend to his wounds yourself and not leave it in the hands of servants. But he cannot understand, will never understand. You have to be here now. There is nowhere else for you.
(There is no one else left for you.)
Reza's face swims before your eyes, your poor dear boy, and you blink him away, your heart twisting. Erik brought him rest. Erik brought him peace. And you ache to pull your boy close to you, to hold him and hold him forever, but he is so far out of your reach now and nothing will ever fill the hollowness beneath your ribs again.
(Perhaps it would have been kinder to let Erik go, to let him have peace then instead of forcing life to stay in his body and—no. You could not let him die like that. You could never let him die like that.)
A low whimper brings you back, away from Reza's still face and Erik's limp body lying in the dirt to Erik lying here before you, his face hollow and tight. He whimpers again, and gently you take the cloth from his forehead, dip it into the bowl of cold water, wring it out and mop the beads of sweat gently from his face. He gasps, eyes fluttering open just enough for you to see their rims of golden iris before they slip closed again.
(They fluttered like that as you knelt beside him in the dust, his body so broken you hardly dared to touch him for fear of bringing him more pain, chest bleeding from a dozen jagged gashes. You would have gathered him in your arms if you had been able to bring yourself to risk it. And his eyes fluttered, and he gasped something that might have been "Nadir", might have been a plea for mercy, before they rolled closed and he lay still. And for one awful, terrible moment you feared him dead as easy as that, until he drew a halting breath, and coughed out a spray of blood.)
His lung, his liver, his leg. His right arm. His ribs. Even his face, his face that you have barely been able to keep your eyes off, a strange mix of fascination and pity and sympathy writhing in your gut with the aching longing to protect him. He cannot wear his mask now, not with his fever, not with his wounds, and the face that he has hidden so long from you is not so very terrible any more.
Better to see his face, and know that he lives.
You do not know how long you have been sitting here by his side. The turnings of day and night hardly matter when Erik is barely breathing, when his fever is so high that he murmurs brokenly in languages you cannot understand. You catch faint wisps of his own natural, lilting tongue, echoes of Russian, and more besides that you have never heard, likely never will, and surely, surely those are ones that he's learned in his travels across the land.
You wish you could answer him, wish you knew what to say to settle him, but all you can do is murmur to him as softly as if he were Reza, as Reza was as a young boy, and pray that he can understand, or that the tone might be enough to bring him some comfort.
Your vigil is interrupted by Darius' regular visits, bringing broth, and fresh water, and he urges you to get some rest with those worried lines in his face, and promises that he will take care of Erik in your stead but if you leave Erik for a moment he might forget to breathe, he might die and if he dies and you're not here—
A moan slips from your throat and you clamp down on it, ball your left hand into such a tight fist your nails bury themselves in your palm, sharp crescents that almost pierce the skin and it might be easier if they did, if they drew blood. It might be easier to breathe.
(Erik was covered in so much blood when you reached him you couldn't see his wounds, couldn't see where it was all coming from and you can still see his blood on your hands though you've washed them a hundred times, scarlet etched into the cracks of your nails. You cannot see the wounds with the bandages, but the weeping blood has seeped through, stained them faintly pink.)
Erik's fingers twitch on the sheets, pale and delicate and weak and in spite of your better instincts, in spite of your knowing that he does not like to be touched, that he flinches at the merest brush of fingers, and in spite of a hundred protests screaming through your brain, you reach out and take his hand, and squeeze it gently. He whimpers, his head lolling towards you and faintly he breathes, sounding so very young, "Maman."
And it is not your language, but it does not need to be. You think you would know that word in any language, and if it would bring him any peace you would search through a hundred lands to find his mother and bring her to him, to ease his pain. Tears tighten in your throat again and you swallow them down, draw a shuddering breath.
Erik sighs, as if he hears your thoughts, and you squeeze his fingers tighter. His fingers have come through unscathed, and if there is any comfort to be found in this whole mess it is that. He will still be able to play his music if—when he recovers. When. He has to. He survived the poison and you thought no man could survive that, even as he whimpered and moaned and rambled delirious and lapsed into a coma. He survived that and he can survive this, too, if you fight hard enough, if he fights hard enough.
It flashes before you again, the image of him standing trembling in that cage. You never wanted to see him tremble, never thought he could, but he stood there trembling, his face pale with his mask stripped off, and as every blow fell on him he did not try to fight, and through the cheering of the crowd and the soft laughter from the Khanum, you heard his ribs crack as he crumpled to the ground. And he did not try to fight.
(He was gasping for breath by then, barely able to hold himself up.)
Your stomach churned, and your heart ached to turn away, to not watch, to not take part in the spectacle, but someone had to watch who took no joy in it, for Erik's sake, and that someone had to be you. You owed him that much.
(Watching him, afterwards, lying so still, and the physician tending to him only because you pleaded for him to, you felt as if you could kill the Khanum yourself, and it took all you had to stay with Erik and not run off in search of her. It would do Erik no good if you got yourself killed in his name.)
You swallow, and smooth your hand gently through his thin hair. He sighs softly, moans, and there is nothing you can do, nothing you can do except sit there, and wait, and pray.
And it is not enough, but it will have to be. It will have to be.