Chapter One
-- spiritually it isn't healthy to kill yourself --
---------------------------------------------------------
Molasses. It was like being covered in a thick layer of molasses.
He wasn't really sure if his eyes would open, but he decided it was worth trying. At first, it even seemed he would be successful-- until actual motion was accomplished. Pain throbbed through his skull, especially sharp behind his eyes. Hmm. Migraine. Not good idea to open eyes.
He settled for listening instead. No sounds of the ocean, but the definite cool of night air. Light breezes stirred the leaves of trees not too far away, and if he wasn't mistaken, the low murmur of two sleepy voices in the background.
Leena...and Glenn. "Do you think he'll be all right?"
Rustling. Sleeping bag? Probably. "I do not know."
Stillness reigned for a peaceful second, and the rustling trees could just as easily have been the only things alive in the entire world. Leena sighed softly. "Sometimes I wonder what the other world must be like." He wanted to tell her that it wasn't all that bad, but he didn't dare try speaking. And it would probably make the headache worse. "I imagine it's all right. I mean, Serge seems nice enough."
Glenn chuckled softly. "When he is not defeating monsters or spending time with other women in our group, you mean?" He would almost have smiled at the sound of Leena smacking the blond knight's shoulder. "He is nice," Glenn agreed quietly, a smile in his voice. "And that is why we are helping him."
More silence. In a way, he assumed he still wasn't all the way conscious; he drifted a bit, swimming in his little prison of fatigued molasses and migraines and wondering why he was so tired. He couldn't remember the last time he'd eaten; since Kid had gotten sick, both he and Glenn had been pushing themselves to the limit trying to discover the undiscoverable cure and save her. It had been true that he didn't know what to do to help, but Korcha's accusations had stuck with him.
So, he realized, I probably haven't been sleeping as much as I think I have. We hadn't set up camp for probably four days before this, and we've been fighting pretty much anything that came our way. That was certainly ample enough explanation for the exhaustion, and probably the headache...
"Glenn?" A muffled noise answered her. "Do you think the other world is a nice place?" Louder, a little annoyed, a second groan answered.
"I thought we had determined that Serge was nice."
Leena should have laughed, but she didn't. There was a quiet sort of worry in her voice that made him listen harder. "Not Serge, the other world...I mean, well...doesn't he always seem kind of..."
"Afraid," Glenn answered meditatively. "Yes, it's a little strange, isn't it?"
"Yes!" It sounded like Leena was biting her lip. His head hurt. "Yes. But why? You'd think he'd tell us if something weird had happened here..."
That shifting again. It sounded too much like crackling leaves to be a sleeping bag. Were they sleeping on bare ground? Glenn's voice had gotten dark, serious. "What you are suggesting...is that something might have happened to him in his home world?" A heavy sigh, laden with a little exhausted confusion. "But what? He is not the type to get into serious trouble on his own, I think." Maybe they had a Cure or some other element that would make his head stop hurting...
Maybe if he tried opening his eyes again.
Swimming up through the molasses. Yes. All he had to do was force his eyes open and then he could tell them that his head felt like it was about to crack open and that something strange really had happened in his home world-- and he really wanted to tell them about it. Success drew closer, near enough to see a sliver of light, and then the pain exploded, fire and thunder in his skull, sending his hands clumsily up to clutch at his head while he curled up into a ball, whimpering.
Glenn and Leena materialized at his side, worried. "Serge? Are you all right?" Sound made it worse; he moaned, digging fingers deep into his hair. They exchanged words that he couldn't understand through the fog of blinding pain, and a wash of something cool and heady suddenly forced it to recede.
A CurePlus. Thank the Dragon Gods.
"Is that better?" Weakly, he nodded, accepting their help and sitting slowly up. The headache was still there, just not as bad. "What's the matter, got a headache?"
"You could say that," he rasped. "How long was I...?"
"A few hours," Glenn replied non-chalantly, as if his friends woke up crying in pain every day. Leena still looked worried, but he knew they wouldn't say anything if he didn't mention it. He toyed with that notion a moment, and decided to smile his gratitude.
They watched him closely as he palmed his eyes, still tired, a little unnerved by the burn of their wary gaze. "I guess we could go to Termina..."
"What!?" He cringed away from the intensity of Leena's glare, torn between laughing and being very, very afraid. "Are you kidding? You're in no shape to go anywhere without getting some damn sleep! And as for Glenn and I, we'd rather have the chance to rest up than spend the night fighting piddling little monsters just so we can do more of the same tomorrow when you change your mind!"
He blinked, still a little too tired to quite figure if she was truly upset or just taking control. Glenn clarified things by making him lie back down and shaking his head, amused. "Try again when you do not look like you have been dragged through nine hells. She might change her mind." A little surprised, but too tired to argue, he acquiesced and tried to sink back into dreamless sleep.
