Author's Note: Warning: For gross things I guess.
"The wolf was sick, he vowed a monk to be - But when he got well, a wolf once more was he."
― Walter Bower
The ceiling above them rained grit and dust as another reverberation from the battle warring outside boomed through the Keep Depths. Lyndon released a breath, a puff of mist in front of his face, as he loaded another arrow into his crossbow, then loosed it into the throat of a demon trooper.
"Oh, these damned demons would start digging their way in wouldn't they?!" He shouted to the Demon Hunter who was throwing grenade after grenade into a room full of the wretched things.
"Pay attention!" Jack snapped back at him. He had been awfully short tempered (more so than usual at least) since he started drinking those health potions, Lyndon mused. And they made him jumpy as all Hell to boot.
Lyndon sighed. Irritable sod. "Well, I guess I can kill more of them..." He answered with a resigned sigh.
And even still, Jack paused in his merry slaughter to drink another bloody potion, then lobbed the empty vial at a charging demon's head before following it up with a bolt through the brains.
"You know, I don't think you're meant to drink so many of those damned things. It can't be good for you." The scoundrel commented seriously.
"Just worry about yourself like you always do!" The Demon Hunter grit out, sending torrents of arrows screaming down the twisting hallway.
"Well excuse me for trying to help!" Lyndon shouted back angrily.
Make yourself sick then. See if I care you insufferable twat! He thought furiously.
They were trying to stem the flood of demons that were pouring into the depths, but had not yet found where they were coming from. The air was so cold down here that his hands were stiff and slow to work as he needed them to.
Jack didn't seem to be having any trouble at all, and fired non-stop at everything that came at them. There were demon raiders around every corner, down every blasted corridor. Demonic tremors bursting through walls trying to trample them, and groups of skeletons rained from the ceiling. It was utter madness, and again, the thief was finding himself wondering, just what in Akarat's name was he even doing here? This was beyond him.
He didn't belong in such a mad place. Thieves had no part in saving the world.
The best he could manage was covering the Demon Hunter's back as best he could while Eirena and Kormac were catching up with them. Lyndon tried to hang back and keep out of the hunter's warpath in the meantime.
Oh great! Another one of those skeleton bastards was here now and he had some kind of magic to go along with his personal demon raider army! With a grinding rasp, the skeleton raised it's bony hand and yanked the Demon Hunter towards itself with some kind of arcane vortex.
Jack yelped and his feet skidded over the stone floor. He managed to stop himself from being impaled on the monster's spear with a quick tumble out of the way, then a well placed slice from his unsheathed blade neatly removed the pointy end of the vicious looking weapon, and then the undead bastard's arm along with it.
The room was full of demons and Lyndon backed up more and more, trying to pick them off as best as he could. He was so busy watching what the Demon Hunter was doing that he wasn't paying attention to what was behind him. Snarling suddenly loud behind him, and hot, rancid breath on his neck told him that he had made a decidedly stupid mistake.
Something cracked hard against the back of his skull, and he knew no more.
When Lyndon woke, he immediately wished he hadn't.
His head was positively killing him, worse than the splitting headache after a tavern crawl, or even a three day bender. He refused to move his eyelids, his head hurt too much to consider looking at anything. Confused and disoriented, he felt as though he had woken after a long sleep. He suddenly remembered the fight. What had happened? It was quiet now, were they all dead? What had happened to Jack? Was he alright? Lyndon tried to move, he couldn't orient his body's position as to be able to tell if he was horizontal or not. Pain intensified at the attempt, then his guts churned horribly and he groaned.
"Don't move, you've taken quite a blow to the head." Jack's voice, low and soft.
Well. That explained the throbbing pain in his skull and the tempest in his stomach.
"Oh good." He mumbled weakly with as much sarcasm as he could muster. Talking hurt his head. This earned a noise from the hunter which could have been a sigh of relief. He liked to think it was at least, it'd be nice if someone cared whether it not he was alright.
"How do you feel?" Jack asked hesitantly.
"Bad. Hurts." He ground out quickly. Thinking hurt. Talking hurt. Bloody everything hurt, and the sudden nausea was not helping matters in the slightest.
"I know." Jack responded gently.
Then why'd you bloody ask then?
Lyndon chanced cracking open his eyes and his vision swam. Wherever they were was blessedly dim, the only source of light he noticed was a torch burning low on the wall. At least he was now able to get his bearings a little better, he figured out that he was lying down at least, but he felt disconnected, spread out over the floor like a spilled mug of ale instead of contained in a (very attractive) body. Full awareness of himself and his surroundings came in pieces. He was lying on his side and his head was resting on something warm and comfortable. There was steady pressure on the back of his head. It hurt, but he didn't have the will to complain. Something covered him like a blanket. It was warm and he was grateful for it.
"Where... are the monsters?" He asked sluggishly. Struggling to string words together and formulate thoughts. This must be what Kormac felt like everyday. The urge to laugh made his stomach churn.
"Dead. In the other room." Jack explained carefully, speaking slowly and clearly. Gods, there had been so many... And in such a narrow space, had Jack really done that without his help? He wished he could have seen that.
"You're... not hurt?" It was hard to believe he had emerged from that without a single injury to how for it. It was only Lyndon who had botched things up. Typical.
"No... No I'm alright." Jack seemed confused by the question, but Lyndon had not the brain power to think too deeply about it.
There was a shiny trail of fresh blood on the floor, leading in from the closed door, it pooled heavy in places. Had he been carried in here? How far had they gone?
Was... was that his blood?
The scoundrel became aware that his head and hair was sticky with it, he could smell the copper odor. There was only a moment when he briefly lamented how dirty his hair was now before he felt panicked by the sheer volume of blood on the floor, then too sick to care about any of it.
He must have said something or made a noise, because the Demon Hunter was speaking again. "I don't think it's as bad as it looks, head injuries tend to bleed a lot." Jack said in an attempt to reassure him, but he sounded a little unsure.
"Uh huh." Lyndon muttered, not really listening, squeezing his eyes shut against the rolling of his gut, he started to breathe through his mouth. He desperately tried not to think about the blood sticking his hair together, coagulating on his skin, or the demon-fly maggot picked corpses of poor soldiers rotting in almost every room in the depths of the keep. Or the ribcage of a demonic tremor practically bursting from it's chest cavity from Jack's explosive killing blow, hemorrhaging a foul, sickly green ichor.
He even tried not to think about the water-bloated corpses drifting gently in the current of Caldeum's filthy sewers, bursting open at a touch, housing flies or worse.
Gods, even Leoric's Halls of Agony. The sharp tang of old blood and death poisoning the air like a thick smoke in his memory. Shambling undead, clumsy with their hanging flesh, then run through a human meat grinder, old, fermented, black blood spraying.
Akarat's mercy. He thought he'd finally managed to forget about that one.
He swallowed and marveled at the conundrum that when one was trying desperately to not be sick, all one could think about were the must disgusting, vile, appetite ruining things they'd ever seen.
"Do you feel sick?" Jack asked him hesitantly.
" Yes ." He practically whimpered, you're damned right he felt sick.
Jack helped him sit up carefully and he sat very still for a moment, head pounding, unbelievably dizzy. He broke out in a cold, clammy sweat, swallowing air. A familiar black cloak fell from his shoulders, he fervently hoped he wouldn't be sick on it. The Demon Hunter still held something to his head, some fabric of some kind, still soaking up all that blood . He swallowed and closed his eyes and flashed back to Kingsport slums.
Something he had seen. Children starving, near dead in a dark, gods-forsaken den. Too weak to slap away the flies that laid eggs on their skin in preparation for the feast of dead flesh that would undoubtedly be soon.
For a split second he felt decidedly better, and wondered if he was alright after all, but then that pleasant thought was neatly removed from his head when he heaved his guts up all over the floor.
Lyndon had the presence of mind to wish that his head had been smashed off and crushed like an overripe tomato, and that he had just gone and died instead. It would have been preferable to this. He felt like he was ridding himself of everything he had ever eaten in his entire wretched life. Careful, ungloved fingers held blood slicked hair out of his face, and another hand rested on the back of his neck, holding gently. He tried to focus on that instead of acid burning his throat and his stomach threatening dry heaves.
Could anything be worse? He'd much prefer being face down in the gutter outside the grimiest Kingsport beer shack. He had the experience to back it up.
When he was done, panting, shivering, and trying to decided if he felt worse than before, Jack pulled him back away from the mess and relaxed against a different wall in Lyndon's four cornered Hell. He was lying down again, head on the hunter's leg, the cloak, thankfully vomit free, back over him. The nausea was still there, but it was less urgent than before.
"How long?" Lyndon asked once he stopped shaking, voice raw.
"How long have we been here or how long will we be here?" Jack asked gently, applying fabric and more painful pressure to the back of his head again.
Lyndon waited for the information to process, not feeling much like his usual quick witted self. "Both." He said eventually.
"We have been in this room for over an hour at least, I am not precisely sure as to the exact passage of time because I cannot see the stars or the moon." Jack explained thoughtfully.
"You took a long time to wake. For a while, I feared the worst." Jack added. His tone sounded conversational, but the words made Lyndon feel almost guilty for having been hurt.
"Well I'm back. You can dry your tears." Lyndon replied with a weak smile. Jack laughed, rough, dark and smokey. Lyndon grinned a little, feeling better.
"Anyway, as to how long we'll be here, we must wait for Kormac and Eirena to catch up with us. I sent them a distress call through the amulet. They have the device that opens the town portal... and you could benefit from Kormac's assistance."
"I can't wait." Lyndon replied, dreading Kormac's loud voice and frustrating lecturing.
"You couldn't have at least found a room with a bed?" He whined.
"You can't always get what you want." Jack answered calmly. His mood seemed to have calmed somewhat during Lyndon's head injury induced nap.
"It could be another hour or longer yet, you should try to rest." Jack suggested.
"You just want me to shut up." Lyndon answered petulantly.
"I do miss the quiet." The hunter said with a hint of wistfulness, but he was only teasing.
Desperately wanting to escape the pounding in his head, Lyndon closed his eyes again and allowed himself to doze. The warmth of the leg under his head and neck felt good, the cloak heavy, and warm despite the cold floor. Gods, he was so tired of being cold all the time.
Maybe he could dream of a white sanded beach and the calm, undulating ocean on a summer's day instead of this frozen Hell hole. Sea birds diving into the crystalline blue surface and emerging again with their beaks full of wriggling shiners, scales shining in the sun like polished silver.
He slept for a time, and woke more than once to the exact same scene: the fire burning in the torch casting heavy relief shadows on the wall, Jack's eyes closed as he sat very still. He looked tired, but Lyndon could not tell if he were truly sleeping or merely resting his eyes. The sick feeling had faded, but pain in his head still made it difficult to think.
Time passed this way, it could have been one hour or a thousand hours before he finally heard familiar voices and jumped when the storeroom door opened.
A feminine gasp. Eirena's voice.
"Gods alive." Kormac stated. "Is he... dead?" he directed at the Demon Hunter, voice weak.
"You. Wish." Lyndon grit out.
There were twin exhales of breath from the enchantress and Kormac, if Lyndon didn't know better, he would think they actually cared about him.
"What did you do this time heretic?" Kormac asked, kneeling next to him and already frustrated.
"Ah, your pet names have been getting much more affectionate as of late. Bit of a tap on the ol' noggin." Lyndon answered with a slight smile. The scoundrel made no move to sit up, he didn't want a repeat of earlier.
"More than a tap I'd say, you're lucky to be alive." The Templar said gruffly, examining him with large, clumsy hands that pressed a little too hard and moved a little too fast. Or maybe it was just Kormac's general dislike of him that made him less careful.
"I was born lucky I suppose." Lyndon said, feeling slightly better. It was easy to fall into the familiar back and forth with Kormac.
"No, you just have powerful friends." The Templar lectured with a frustrated huff.
"Don't all lucky people?" The thief asked, wincing under Kormac's none-too-gentle touch.
"None so powerful as Jack." The larger man answered proudly.
"We followed a trail of demon corpses to find you, are you hurt Jack?" Eirena inquired gently. "Some bruises, but nothing serious." The Demon Hunter answered, rolling his shoulders against the wall a bit to stretch them. "My leg is asleep." Jack added. Had they really sat here for so long?
Kormac was healing him now, there was heat and light, and Gods, it bloody hurt, but it was also immensely relieving. Eventually, the pain ebbed, then stopped and he was left with a tender spot on his skull, a minor headache and blood in his hair.
Much better, all things considered.
"Thank you." Lyndon said sitting up gingerly, allowing Jack to get to his feet and stretch his long legs.
"Reward me by being more careful next time so I won't waste precious energy on you." Kormac lectured, wiping a line a sweat from his brow.
"Your words wound me." Lyndon said with fake hurt.
The Templar snorted. "Really, I'd have preferred your death. I'm very tired now." Kormac muttered irritably.
"And I'd prefer it if it was your thick head that was smashed in rather than mine, though I bet it would take one Hell of a blow to put a dent in that fat thing, clearly-"
Jack sighed softly as he watched yet another argument unfold. He was glad that Lyndon had not died but...
"I miss the quiet." He said regretfully.
"As do I." Eirena agreed tersely.