Sorry this took so long. It was completely out of laziness. Also, someone didn't try to get my ass moving. Thanks...

Want to know what got me up and going? Fucking Windows 10 update 1607, the Anniversary Update. I had to restart my computer because it disconnected me from the internet, and it wanted to install that. So I figured, 'that shouldn't take too long.'
It froze on me, and I had to force shut down my laptop at 9 at night. I started the update at 7 in the morning, to give you some perspective on how long I waited. Nearly gave me heart failure watching it boot up again because I had 5 & 1/2 chapters of this written with no back up planned for when shit went wrong, something I didn't want to tell my mom when she asked what was so important on this thing. So, yeah, even if I manage to catch up to myself, I'm probably updating more frequently for the next couple weeks.

Short 20

"Plaguey-" The Magicist started, but was cut off by an annoyed growl from Mona. With an amused chuckle, she corrected herself. "Plague Knight, would you be so kind as to get me a washcloth and a bowl of water?"

Plague Knight blinked once before nodding and leaving without a word.

"For some reason, I can't help but feel you're going to do something stupid," Mona muttered as she watched the Magicist begin to pick at the blood-soaked bandages wrapped around her shoulder. "Like hurt me."

"I have a method to my madness, you know," the Magicist informed her. "So, no. No matter what your gut tells you, I'm not going to do something stupid. Or hurt you."

"It may be smart in your eyes, but it likely won't be in mine." She flinched when the dried blood attempted to stick to her skin, so the Magicist stopped picking at it. "You're already hurting me."

"But it'll still be smart to me, therefore everything else is insignificant. And pipe down."

"Wow, can you say 'egotistical'?"

"Hmm… Nope!"

The door opened up and Plague Knight walked back in. Wordlessly, he offered the bowl and cloth to the Magicist.

"Wow, why are you so quiet?" Mona questioned as the Magicist began dabbing at the blood to get it to stop sticking.

"Not much to say," Plague Knight responded. Then, he raised a hand and gently rubbed his temple. "And I have slight headache."

"Aww, poor Plaguey. Surely you have something to say to distract me, though. Believe it or not, this is not exactly comfy."

"Uh…" was all that Plague Knight could come up with.

"Geez, a chatterbox when I'm trying to concentrate, but when I want to hear your voice, all you can come up with is 'uh'?" She teased.

"I've said everything I could possibly think of while we were walking back to home. I don't want to feel like I'm repeating myself. What do you want me to say?"

"Hm… How about what you plan to do about those bastards that kidnapped you when you get your hands on them?"

Absentmindedly, Plague Knight's eyes looked up and to the left as he thought. "I don't know," he admitted. "But I'll make damn sure it's painful. And if they survive, then they'll wish they were dead."

Mona briefly smiled at him as he started thinking up the most evil ways to torture a person that was possible. Then the Magicist accidently brushed a particularly sensitive spot, at which point she squeaked.

Yes, squeaked.

Plague Knight's train of thought derailed immediately, managing to find new tracks that led him to think about just how adorable that sounded.

"Watch it," Mona snarled. "What did I tell you, I just knew you were going to hurt me!"

"Fine, you're so smart, you rig up the lights," the Magicist replied, holding out the cloth.

Mona, a thoroughly confused look on her face, asked, "What?"

Rolling her eyes, the Magicist rephrased the sentence. "If you're so good at this, then you can clean it."

Mona snatched the cloth away from the other woman's hand. "I think I will."

The Magicist nodded and fell silent, watching as Mona tended to her wound. That is, until she noticed Plague Knight, who practically had hearts in his eyes, still inwardly melting at Mona's squeak. "Uh, Plague Knight?" She asked, waving her hand in front of the boy's face.

Plague Knight jumped. "W-what? Did I miss something?"

"No, you just looked funny. What were you thinking about?"

"Ah…" Plague Knight glanced away, absentmindedly playing with his fingers.

"We won't judge," Mona promised. "Unless, of course, it's the stupidest thing you've ever said, but something tells me you won't ever be able to beat 'Shnazlehocker'."

"I thought I asked you to drop that," Plague Knight groaned.

"You did. It was a request, not an order, though. I have no incentive to keep quiet about it."

"'Shnazlehocker'?" The Magicist asked.

Mona laughed and opened her mouth, but was cut off before she could say a word by Plague Knight. "Don't you dare tell that story! What do I have to do to keep you quiet?"

"Find something even stupider to say."

"Hell no, you just said that Shnazlehocker can't be beat."

"Then I'll tell the Magicist."

"Oh, shit! No, fuck, um…!"

The Magicist leaned over to Mona and whispered, "What are you hoping to accomplish with this?"

Mona shrugged. "Nothing in particular. It's just fun to see him flustered like this. Have you ever tried to rile him up? It's strangely difficult."

"You aren't actually going to tell me that story, are you?"

"No, that'd just make me feel bad."

Meanwhile, Plague Knight started to blurt out random facts, hoping she would eventually accept one of them as the stupidest, even though they weren't even listening. "My secret nickname for Xenon is Fluffykins! I don't even know why; her fur is too short for her to be considered fluffy enough to warrant such a nickname!"

"Are you listening to him at all?" The Magicist asked.

"Truthfully? Not really," Mona replied with a sheepish grin on her face.

"Might want to think about it; he's yelling some really weird shit that you could use as more blackmail material if you ever need it."

"Maybe you outta shut up then."

By this point, Plague Knight was merely spouting out gibberish. "Uh… Rainy death… Pralaya, Tentarafoo! Megidolaon!"

Mona snorted and started laughing hysterically upon hearing this, falling back on her bed and laughing until she had tears in her eyes and could no longer breathe.

Plague Knight stopped his inane rambling to look at her in concern. "Mona?" He questioned. He was unsure of whether or not he felt he should be offended by this.

The Magicist looked to Plague Knight and shook her head in a clearly amused manner. "She's probably fine."

"Are you sure? It wasn't that funny."

"To her, it was."

Plague Knight raised an eyebrow and listened to Mona, who had started to cough. "She sounds like she's about to hack up a lung."

"That's normal."

"It is?"

"…When was the last time you laughed harder than a mild chuckle?"

"…Never?"

The Magicist found this fact to be somewhat disturbing, and immediately began to plan on how to get him to laugh. It was blatantly obvious on her face, too, as Plague Knight then asked with narrowed eyes, "What are you planning?"

"Nothing," she replied immediately with an innocent tone of voice.

"Right, sure. I totally believe that," Plague Knight replied sarcastically.

Mona, finally over her laughing fit, sat up and asked, "What's she doing?"

Plague Knight stared at the Magicist as she planned. "Planning something… but I don't know what."

Mona tapped the Magicist on the shoulder, successfully gaining her attention. "What're you doing?"

The Magicist leaned closer to the younger female and whispered, "Trying to figure out how to get Plague Knight to laugh as hard as you just did. Apparently he's never done that…"

Mona had a thoughtful look on her face as she replied. "That's… not true. At all. He fell over just a couple hours ago because he was just that amused by the fact that you were almost swallowed by the crowd."

"Uh, guys? Hello?" Plague Knight asked.

The Magicist looked back to Plague Knight, and remembered what they had been doing before. Silently mouthing 'Whoops,' she picked up the forgotten cloth and proceeded to try to clean Mona's wound again. This only earned her a light slap, accompanied by a small yelp and a "That's cold!"

"Maybe you shouldn't get distracted, then," the Magicist advised as Mona, who was now grumbling to herself, snatched the cloth back.

The room fell quite for several moments, and Plague Knight, in an attempt to give himself something to do, started snooping about the room, finding absolutely nothing of interest in the process, until he heard "Done."

The Magicist inspected the cleaned wound and nodded. "Apparently you are smart enough to rig up the lights. Good for you."

"I'm surprised you aren't insulted by that," Mona said.

The Magicist shrugged. "I'm not a healer, and I admit it. Now turn around, I need to do the back."

"I don't think I trust you…"

The Magicist whistled to Plague Knight, who wandered his way back to the bed. "Do you need me?" He questioned.

"Not particularly, but you wanted to see it, right?" Plague Knight nodded slowly. "Alright, I'm warning you now, it's pretty nasty."

The Magicist lifted Mona's shirt enough to reveal the bandages covering the carving, which were then removed.

Plague Knight flinched. "Yeah, you weren't kidding," he muttered, wanting to look away, but finding that simple task difficult.

The injuries were hardly as bad as he seemed to be making them out to be, really. It wasn't like they had infected for several days now. However, he cared about Mona, and it hurt to look at what had happened to her. That, and it kind of grossed him out.

"Is it really that bad?" Mona asked as she cringed when the Magicist placed the cloth on tender skin.

"Not exactly," the Magicist replied. "He's overreacting."

"Hey, let me overreact for once! Do you realize how saddening it is to see this?"

"You overreact to a lot of stuff, though," Mona pointed out.

"I do?"

"Yes. I still remember once you came running up to me like the world was ending, screeching, 'We're out of salt!'"

"Hey, I needed that for an important experiment!" Plague Knight countered while turning around to keep the girls from seeing his face turn red out of embarrassment.

"Okay, I suppose that could be a fair argument, despite the fact that it's not like it was going grow legs and walk off if you didn't complete it within a couple minutes. Normally, I wouldn't even be calling it overdramatic. However, you made me go on a special trip to get you salt on shopping day, a mere hour before I planned to go."

"S-shut up."

Whispering, the Magicist questioned, "Didn't you say he was difficult to fluster?"

"I may have been wrong," Mona responded, her voice also a low whisper. Raising her voice to address Plague Knight, who looked like he wanted to curl up in a corner and die, she said, "Plaguey, lighten up, will ya?"

"And how do you suggest I do that?! You keep bringing up all the times I've fucked up."

"I'm not going to bring up all the times you've screwed up; just the ones that we can laugh at."

Seeing her partner sulk didn't sit well with Mona, so she climbed off the bed and grabbed him from behind. Plague Knight yelped and briefly struggled against her grip, but gave up within seconds when it became apparent that he was not strong enough to do so, even when she was significantly weaker than usual.

"Why?" He asked.

"Because you look like you need a hug," Mona answered as she sat back down on the bed, lightly squeezing him like one would a stuffed animal. The Magicist acted like there was nothing going on in the background and just continued to clean the injury in front of her.

"Are you sure you aren't the one who needs a hug?" Plague Knight questioned.

"Uh… no?"

Plague Knight merely laughed in response to this and made himself comfortable in her arms. He managed to make himself so comfy, in fact, that he fell asleep.

"I don't want to move him," Mona said when the Magicist was finally done.

"Then don't."

Yawning, Mona muttered, "But I'm tired, and I'm not about to sleep sitting up."

"Then you're going to have to move him."

"But I don't want to. He looks so innocent. Plus, I'm pretty sure I'll wake him if I try."

"What makes you say that?"

"He's a very light sleeper."

"Then shouldn't he have woken by now?"

"We've been talking this whole time. I guess he's just used to it."

Seemingly unconcerned with Mona's situation, the Magicist stood, and said, "Well, good luck with your little dilemma. I'm tired."

"Wha- Magicist! Don't leave me!"

"Why? It's the middle of the night and I'm tired." Without another word, the Magicist turned on her heel and left.

Mona looked down to the child in her arms. He looked so perfect. She decided that she couldn't move him far without risk.

Letting out a small sigh, she carefully leaned back until she was lying down, ignoring the pain until she managed to roll onto her side and let him go. Plague Knight grumbled somewhat and shifted about until he was content again.

Smiling, Mona allowed herself to fall asleep.

I figured it was worth it to give them a moment of peace after all the shit I've put them through.

Anyway, I have a decent idea for where I'm going with this now, and by the end of that arc, I'll probably have this wrapped up, no matter how crappily the ending (of which I can never write to save my life). So... yeah. There're still a couple chapters before that point hits, though.