A walk in the woods Chapter 4
Disclaimer: No ownage here
A/N Thank you all reviews! You have no idea how happy things like that make me. Green Gallent, I'll send you a few Xy stories I've liked, first one that comes to mind is sort of old and completed called Too Much Red, another is being written now by AegisX called Dual Xs, its a bit different than the standard Red/Rea, but its fun. At some chapter in the future when I have time I'll respond to everyone, I promise.
And just a warning, I had a lot of trouble starting this chapter, the end of the last chapter was where I ended it originally as a one shot, so when I saw a hat that reminded me of the homeless guy I used to talk to outside my mom's work, I just kind of went with it for lack of any other starting point. Just sort of felt the need to explain that. Hope this isn't too weird for everyone, as the new plot gets going I'll get better. His name was Leonard, he used to tell me jokes until my mom scolded for talking to strangers, and he was really nothing like the bum described below. I wonder whatever happened to him…
Story time!
A Walk in the Woods 4
After about 15 minutes of holding the bottle upended over his drooping mouth, the old man huddled under the pier sighed. He tossed the empty bottle with its paper bag wrapping away, aiming lazily at a gull. The grizzled bum began to rummage around in his heap of rags and carefully selected rubbish. It was late, early even, but then, the man hadn't really slept in years, let alone through the night. He just swam contentedly through the haze that was his consciousness, surfacing unpleasantly sometimes when the lapse between bottles was too long. He was starting to float back towards the real world now, so he pulled out his coffee can; it was time to start begging again, before all of the fairies left. They appeared and disappeared as they pleased, keeping him company sometimes, being cruel at others, or ignoring him completely as often as not. His thin lips pealed back in a grin and a hoarse guttural sound that may have once been construed as a bark of joyous laughter issued from his throat. The fairy King was suddenly there, twenty or so yards away. The King was about six feet tall, and dressed all in black with a regal cape. He ghosted around silently, never staying long and never bothering with the bum. He conversed on with his subjects, and sometimes with the men that worked out of the boat shed nearby. The old man loved it when the King came around; it always meant such lovely, and entertaining dreams.
Red X landed finally at the dock where he'd planned to rendezvous with Willy four and a half hours earlier. He ignored the gleeful gurgling he heard from behind him, as always. No matter where or when he teleported around there that god forsaken cur always announced his arrival. One of these days not killing him was going to get him killed. X started to take a look around, keeping to the shrinking shadows. The sun was rising, 'Willy's gonna be mad at me' he sing-songed under his breath. After a hasty survey of the area, he turned with a hand on his belt "Oh well, guess he already left, lucky me". The thief was about to bounce on back to his apartment and finally end this day that felt weeks long, then sighed.
"Oh I think not my friend, lucky me." The deep voice was mocking, with a hint of Irish heritage all but lost to Americanization. Red X turned and gave his employer a rakish salute, no rest for the wicked it seemed.
"Willy! Fancy meeting you here, you like to watch the sun rise too? I never would of thought." He drawled.
Willy was tall, bearded and broad. Perhaps in his mid-forties he had the look of a retire Navy man, complete with rugged black pea coat and knit skullcap, and of course hardened muscular arms and shoulders. For all X knew he could have been in the Navy, not that he really cared all that much.
"Always the clever one." Willy clapped him on the shoulder like a comrade; anyone else would have winced at the blow. "Lets step into my office, shall we? I believe we've some ah, business to discuss…now."
The tired thief didn't miss the half dozen or so burley looking shadows strategically placed about, and decided to comply with the insistent fist pulling his arm towards the run down boat shed. Nor did he miss the worn brass knuckles Willy quietly slipped onto his free hand. 'This has been such a long day.'
The waiting room at the ER was absolutely packed, as was to be expected. The cramped quarters felt even smaller due to the very large, very agitated bionic man pacing up and down the aisles. Starfire and Beast Boy sat together on an orange plastic kiddie bench wedged in a corner, trying to edge away from the freely bleeding construction worker next to them.
"Aw man! I can't take this waiting; I mean we never get hurt like this! Not for real, never anything that could…" Cyborg was beside himself, obviously flashing back to past times in this same room waiting to hear about other loved ones, and being rushed through himself. The others were not much calmer, pale faced and quiet (a real indication of a serious situation in BB's case). By definition they were all not happy campers. A door swished open and their fearless leader walked in, looking grim. Instantly, the three rushed over, nearly toppling coughing elderly woman and her husband in the process.
"I explained everything to the doctor about what happened and her, medical peculiarities." He began.
" So what'd he say? Rea's gonna be all right, right?" Beast Boy's face was pleading.
"Yes, when will friend Raven be well again?"
Robin looked down at his hands, unable to meet Starfire's eyes. "He said there wasn't much they could do, her immune system is too foreign. They don't want to risk too much because she's so weak. If she were anyone else, they said they'd be giving her a transfusion immediately because she's lost so much blood. The doctor's will do what they can, but we've just got to wait, see if Raven can save herself."
The group staked out a corner as theirs and just sat, sick with worry for their friend. After a moment, Cyborg's fist slammed into the wall "Damn that Red X! I'll tear him apart if she's not okay."
"Cyborg" Starfire placed a soothing hand on his arm, "The Red X deserves our gratitude. He is the one who rescued our friend."
"Raven was chasing him out in that storm, when it happened, it's his fault." The big man's voice trembled.
"But-" Robin silenced her with a touch of her shoulder. "He needs someone to hate right now, to blame and take his frustration out on. By all rights it should be me, it was my fault. I-"
"Dude, not everything's about you. Don't get all guilt trippy and beg for pity and attention. Just stop it."
Robin didn't respond, just looked hard at his little green team mate for a moment and took back his seat with his knees drawn up to his chest on a plastic end table wedged against the wall.
A long succession of invalids filtered in and out as the hours crawled by. A nurse stopped by several times to let them know that there was no point in staying, the hospital would call if anything changed, but they refused to budge. Finally she just let them know that the cafeteria was open down the hall and left to see to her other duties. At about lunchtime, Beast Boy and Starfire had been asleep for an hour, and even Robin had started to dose off. Cyborg woke them all gently.
"Come on, we've been up since seven yesterday. We'll come back after a catnap. They'll call if anything happens."
On the way home then trudged into their usual Dunkin Donuts out of sheer habit. No one wanted to be there, and it showed, but the familiarity was a comfort. The sound of glass shattering and a security alarm reached them as they picked at pastries. There was a jeweler's shop across the street.
"I am so not in the mood for this." Beast Boy voiced what they were all thinking. The dispirited group hastened away to reprehend the masked criminals.
The Titans crashed at the big T for a couple of hours. No one had bothered going upstairs to their individual bedrooms, but just flopped together on the big couch with some mindless TV on in the background. Robin came back to life around six in the evening. He heaved himself up, shoving aside Beast Boy who'd somehow managed to sprawled across Robin's lap, and pulled out a few containers of old Chinese food to heat up before they headed back to the hospital. What Beast Boy said earlier about him guilt tripping to get attention was still troubling him. He didn't really do that did he? He felt guilty for things that he saw as his fault, and he told people to be responsible and take the blame he deserved. Was that begging for attention? Raven was hurt because of him, he pressured everyone to catch Red X or die trying, it was the number one priority. Robin was the one who created X in the first place, the guy had helped them out once, but he'd also gotten away from the Titans more than any other criminal. He continued mulling things over while he scraped the top fuzzy layer off some lo mien, well, he thought it might have been lo mien. The phone rang, waking the others. They all lunged. Robin got to it first.
"Hello? Is she okay?" The woman on the other end of the line wasn't one of the doctor's Robin had spoken to earlier, and she sounded somewhat shaken. "Everything is still unchanged as far as we can tell, she's no worse. I have some questions about the patient's medical history though."
"As far as I know Raven's never been hospitalized before. She was pretty badly hurt a year or so ago, but then she healed herself. I told the other doctor about her abilities."
"Yes, well, we gave her a mild stimulant to try stabilize her pulse and she's exhibiting some odd reactions."
"What happened?" Robin's voice went up a decibel. "I thought you just said she was no worse?"
"Raven started to um, float ten minutes after we administer the stimulant. Has she-"
Robin stopped listening. Yes! She's strong enough to start self-healing! "Thanks, we'll be right over." He hung up the phone. "Guys, lets go, Ravens floating!" The four teens dashed to the T-car and were speeding down the road in milliseconds. A slug of blue furry noodles started to crawl across the counter.
Under the pier, the resident hobo was deep in thought as he be baited his primitive seagull traps with a few bits of only slightly rotten fish head he found. He preferred to get his nutrition in liquid form, but every once in a while some poultry was a nice change, plus he liked the buzz he got from poaching. He was pondering a mystery that had been eluding him for some time: what was his name? The old man couldn't seem to remember even now between bottles, when he usually did his best thinking, when shiny objects didn't distract him. It was on the tip of his tongue, started with an L…what was that? There it was again, a pitiful rumbly sort of sound coming from nearby. Intrigued, the man ambled in the sound's general direction to investigate. Now what was he pondering again? Thoughts occupied anew, he tripped over a large black lump half buried in the sand at the base of a bulkhead. It moaned louder this time. Hah! That was it! I was looking for what made the noise! No, what was I thinking about before I heard the sound? The lump stirred and put a hand to its apparent head. It started to sit up, but cried out and clutched its side falling back down. L watched in sympathy, this was pain, pain he recognized. He shuffled over to his pile of possessions and returned with a parcel, his most recent acquisition. The lump, now apparently a man dressed in black was more carefully sitting up now, propping himself against the bulkhead.
L uncapped the new bottle and couldn't resist taking the first swig himself, smiling as the liquid gold feeling washed over him already. He crouched down and held out his prize "Here you go lad, some shine is what you need, this'll put you to rights again."
Red X had been concentrating on making his vision stop swimming, and how he was going to exact revenge on his attackers. He was good, but there were seven of them, one of him and he was not in prime fighting condition to begin with. Not many are that good. Damn, it looked like he had a few broken ribs; X mumbled something about keelhauling and immigrants who think they're better than they ought. Suddenly, the thief realized he wasn't alone. It was that bum, he was crouching next to him offering a bottle of something that by the smell was at least five proof. "Why the hell not" X took the bottle and started coughing after just a sip, by god what was this stuff? "Thanks."
The bum laughed his hoarse, ill sounding laugh "Looks like you've had a rough day. My name's Leonard" He extended his hand to shake, but then clapped it over his mouth. That was it! "Leonard! My name's Leonard, that's it!" He stood up and danced a little shuffling jig of joy, giggling.
X's mouth sort of hung open as he watched the display, the words just wouldn't come. He took a bigger gulp of what was probably whiskey and shakily stood and discovered a long shallow gash on his thigh. S&t, that's going to need stitches. "Well, um, Leonard, thanks for the pick me up and for waking me. I'm gonna go now, you just, just take it easy. See you later." He put the bottle down on the sand and pressed his belt.
Leonard grinned even wider. He'd just befriended the King! Oh, this was a good day.
A/N See? Told you it was weird...