Part 9 – On Villains and Veterinarians

--O--

Squik, squik, squik.

Satoshi frowned at the bloodspot on his hardwood floor as he rubbed at it, the overpowering scent of ammonia filling his nose. Cleaning seemed like a ridiculous way to spend time right now, but there really wasn't much else he could concentrate on, and anything was better than being in the next room. Grabbing the bottle of cleaner next to him, he squatted over the next stain and worked at it. Damn, that angel sure could bleed a lot.

The sun was finally rising outside, invading through the blinds of his dimly-lit sitting room. He stopped scrubbing for a moment, rubbing blue silk hair out of his face with the back of his wrist before checking his watch. 'He's late,' he thought, looking toward the window with a frown.

Abandoning the spot he was working on, Satoshi sank backwards and leaned against the side of his couch. He hung his forearms over his knees and let his head fall back against the armrest, looking at the ceiling of his spacious apartment. He set his gaze and tried not to feel anything, but he didn't want this. Not again. No more angels, no more battles. It had taken him all this time to pull himself psychologically together and regain his sense of purpose and pleasure in life. He wanted to remember that reality, to believe in it. But it meant nothing now. The truth was lying in the next room. It was spattered across his floor and the clothes he'd worn last night. No amount of ammonia would overwhelm it.

At these times, Daisuke always had something banally optimistic to tell him. The logic never convinced him, but there was a certain comfort to the attempt. Three years younger and not yet made cynical by the world, Daisuke was a sort of foundation for Satoshi. He was a reminder that the world could be something more. Satoshi needed that hope. He especially needed it at times like this, when he felt conscious of some immense, unnamed absence in his life. It throbbed to be missing something so badly and not be able to identify it. He knew this wasn't normal. Maybe he'd never be able to think like a normal person. And Daisuke wasn't here to offer advice.

The harsh buzz of the doorbell broke him from his thoughts, and he was a little grateful to have to go get the door. "About time," he slid several bolts and locks out of place before opening the door wide.

"Eh? Satoshi, what's wrong? You look upset?" Risa smiled at him curiously. She was holding a large basket in her hands, the kind that the Hiwatari knew would be full of homemade snacks and cutely decorated onigiri. "I know I stopped by without asking, but some stuff happened last night, and I had to get out of the house," she said, her eyes avoiding his nervously. "Since we didn't celebrate our anniversary yesterday, I thought…"

Satoshi resisted the urge to groan; that would only upset her. He was disappointing her again. "Risa…I know I shouldn't have run out last night, but I really don't think now is a good time," he started to say, trying to block the doorway.

Too slow. "Silly, I promise not to get in the way! Just go on doing whatever you had planned, and I'll crochet and keep you company," Risa said cheerfully, ducking under his arm and twirling into the room. She was taking this too well.

"You don't know how to crochet," Satoshi protested.

Risa just reached into a bag that hung under her arm and pulled out a spiral-bound mini-book. "Riku said I should learn, so I'm going to use this!" she proclaimed stubbornly.

Satoshi cringed at the thought of Risa attempting such a thing from a book. This was someone who couldn't even shred cabbage properly. Well, there was probably no way to get her out now. He just had to keep her out of the bedroom, and things would be fine. "Okay, let's relax then," Satoshi said, managing to grin at his girlfriend. His posture relaxed a little. "You always seem to help me do that." He closed the door and walked to her, giving her a light kiss.

Risa blushed, a huge smile coming to her lips.

"What is it?" Satoshi said.

"You don't usually say things like that. It's nice."

Satoshi flushed, remember his cheesy line about the flowers the night before.

"Not like last night!" Risa seemed to read his expression, waving her hands, "More like your own style, instead of Daisuke's. You should be you more often," she grinned.

Satoshi wanted to reject this theory. Sure, his identity confused him constantly, but when he actually had such things to say, he tried to say them if they were important. He just rarely had them. 'Wait," he thought, 'She's my girlfriend. I ought to want to say them all the time.' Risa was right, after all. "I'll try to say them more," he said, nudging her over toward the couch. They sat down, and Satoshi looked at his watch again. Could it be he had trouble finding the address?

"Are you feeling alright?" he asked Risa, noticing now that they were this close that she had dark crescents under her eyes.

Risa nodded. "I just had some trouble sleeping last night. I'm fine," she smiled. "Actually…it left me with a bit of a headache."

"I'll get you something," Satoshi said, getting up.

"No, it's ok, I know where to find it myself," Risa said, standing up also. She gave him an assuring smile as she made her way toward the bedroom.

"Wait! Really, I'll get it," Satoshi said, rushing after her and coming between Risa and the doorway just as she reached it.

"It's fine, Satoshi," she said, eyeing him strangely as she brushed his arm aside. The Hiwatari stepped sideways so his body blocked against hers. Risa blushed. "Is there something you don't want me to see in the bedroom?" she said very quietly, hurt and fear shining in her eyes.

A double knock came from the front door. Satoshi glanced at the door and back at Risa. Moments passed in silence, and there was another knock.

"Aren't you going to get that?" Risa said, her gaze challenging him to move out of her way.

Satoshi frowned at her, really not sure what to say. He finally backed up, his chest no longer pressed to hers, and moved around her to get the door before the knocker gave up and left. Risa watched him go, then turned tiredly back to the door and let herself into the bedroom.

She froze just inside, the door clicking shut behind her. There was something she didn't want to see, alright. There was a male form lying deathly still in Satoshi's bed, violet hair spilling over the sheets. The angel lay on his chest with one wing folded between his body and the wall and the other fanned limply over the open side of the bed, its long flight feathers curling slightly where they reached the ground.

"Oh God…" she whispered, walking slowly across the room as she vaguely heard the front door opening. She reached the side of the bed and looked down at the angel. Dark's skin was pale and shining with sweat, lips parted slightly against the pillow. No breath disturbed the hair that rested just in front of his face. His eyes were cracked just barely open, neither blinking nor seeing, although his expression glinted pain. Risa felt something bursting up inside of her, and she had to let it out.

Satoshi and the man he was with turned quickly as a horrified shriek sounded from the bedroom. Satoshi sighed and led the way, throwing open the door to find Risa collapsed on her knees next to the bed, her fingers spread over her wide eyes. Satoshi ran to her and knelt, taking her shuddering form into his arms.

"D….D-dark is dead!" she half screamed into his chest. "Why is he here! Why is he…"

"Shh, he's not dead," Satoshi said, stroking her hair back. "This man is here to help him." Risa sniffed and looked carefully around Satoshi's shoulder at the white-coated man behind him. He had dark brown hair that fell in long bangs next to his green eyes and flattened oval glasses. He didn't look more than 25. "Risa, this is Dr. Hattori."

Dr. Hattori missed his introduction, staring in wonder at what was lying in the bed. "You told me it was a special case, but I've never treated anything like this," he said, eyes wide with fascination.

"A…Are you a doctor?" Risa asked.

"I'm a veterinarian," he answered, straight-faced.

Risa seemed to gather a bit of her composure as she turned to Satoshi skeptically. "You called in a VET?"

"He's the only one I know I can trust right now. And who else is going to know what to do with those?" Satoshi defended, pointing at the angel's motionless wings. Hattori was chuckling without much modesty at the girl's reaction to him.

"Aren't you tooyoung to be a doctor?" Risa demanded, not taking kindly to being laughed at.

Hattori shrugged. "Guess they'll give anyone a degree these days," he smirked as he set down his kit and began removing tools and supplies. "Anyway, fill me in," he said to Satoshi as he moved to study Dark, deliberately ignoring Risa.

"When I met him last night he was still standing and talking, but he gave out about halfway to my place and I had to practically carry him," Satoshi said, remembering how hard it was to manage the angel's weight. "He said something about his wings being wrong, but I couldn't get him to talk after that. His temperature felt hot, but he suddenly burned it off near 3 am and wound up like you see him now."

"We doctor types normally call that 'dead'," Hattori said dryly as he checked Dark's pulse. "No human could be alive with this heart rate or temperature, but the pulse certainly is there. Breathing is almost nonexistent. The first thing I'm going to do is get an IV going. Does he have any allergies? Is his diet human?"

Satoshi pursed his lips and thought. He'd never seen Krad or Dark eat anything. He'd never known them free of their wing hosts' bodies. This was entirely new territory. "I really don't know. His existence was half magic in the first place; I never knew they could get sick like this." An odd thought struck him. If Dark was here, was Krad somewhere else? Was he experiencing the same thing as Dark? 'No.' He definitely didn't want to think about Krad.

"Then we'll experiment," Hattori said lightly, pulling out one of several IV pouches. "If this one flops, he's a goner anyway."

"Aren't veterinarians trained to use special tact in discussing patient prognoses?" demanded Risa, looking a little pale at the vet's phrasing.

"I left my practice to come here at six in the morning, I can be as blunt as I please. Let's take a look at the wings." He reached up and removed a cold, damp towel that had been covering the angel's back and torso. The damage underneath made him click his teeth. "How much blood has he lost?"

"I can't say. He was like that when I found him, and he left a mess the whole way here," Satoshi said. Risa shot a hand to her mouth at the image.

"In birds, any wound on or near the wing is highly susceptible to infection and blood loss. This is no bird, but it's not a human either," Hattori said as he pressed a few key points on Dark's wings. "I see no injury to the wings themselves, but they're not responding at any of the reflexive points. Amazing, the bone seems to join his back here." He pressed along the base of the wing to study the bone structure.

Dark's face abruptly winced to life, pain shooting across his expression as he regained consciousness. The angel tried to see what was going on without using the effort to move. "Gah, don't touch them," he warned so weakly that only Risa, who was sitting closest to his head, could make it out. Dark closed his eyes and made his dry throat swallow. "Stop," he breathed as Hattori's thumbs continued to probe his back.

"You're hurting him," Risa shot at the veterinarian.

"I think I've found it," Hattori said, ignoring her. "The disk here is pinching the nerves for his wings. With a little pressure…" He positioned his thumbs over the location and squeezed them together, wrenching a horrible groan from the angel.

Dark sucked in an unsteady breath, smelling blood and antiseptic. He turned his head enough to stare with bleary vision over his shoulder, trying to understand what was happening or why his wings suddenly felt like they were on fire. Before they had ached, but now they were ablaze, as if something that had been left off was turned on again. He wanted to move, and his body wouldn't listen. He didn't know who was around him or what they wanted. All he could think of at that moment was how this pain was his alone. There was no one to bear it with him. No one to share his soul or his body with. There was so much pain…

Dark grimaced and shoved his face down into the pillow to hide what he was going through. He felt fingers gripping his arm and tugged against them angrily with whatever strength he had. "Cut me a break, damnit," he snarled dizzily to the offending hand.

"Dark, it's an IV. You need it," a female voice broke through to him. The words registered.

Dark surrendered and fell still, accepting the needle. Not much choice in the matter, anyway. 'Daisuke!' he reached out into the empty mental link just once as he ground his teeth into the pillow. Cool liquid dripped like fire into his parched veins as the IV began to work. Dark focused on that sensation in preference to his wings, barely keeping his head straight through it all. He swallowed and calmed down enough to see who was around him. The Hiwatari boy. Harada Risa? And then the one applying an extremely uncomfortable fizzing ointment to his bloodied shoulderblades was new. "What are you, some kind of doctor?" the angel breathed crossly.

"Actually, I'm a vet," Hattori smirked, giving the stinging salve an extra wipe.

"I'm not going to like you," Dark snarled, his look only winning a teasing smile from the veterinarian.

--O--

To be continued soon!

Muahaha! Coming up next, whatever happened to Daisuke? Violence between Dark and his veterinarian, and Krad goes out…shopping? Also, for those of you who might be wondering, "Where is the romance in this story?" it's coming! Please let me know if there's a specific character you want to see more of. The next chapter may be a little long. I'm having so much fun writing this; thank you VERY MUCH for reading it!

Poisoned Black Rose – I'm so glad you're enjoying it! Thank you for your reviews and support!

Bunny Girl – Thank you, I'm flattered! Haha, I'm terrible at updates also (look and you'll see I started this story in 2005 -hides face in shame-) But I'm trying to speed things up now that I have more time available. Thank you for reading!

Stormshadow13: You rock! I promise I'll get back to Jirou next chapter. Thanks as always.

Determindtowin: Aw, I'm happy your friends like it. You're like my agent or something, haha. If you guys want, pm or review me the parts that were confusing so that I can try to improve them.

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See you soon!