Author's note: I like this chapter considerably better. Maybe because I'm back to writing Ward and Fitz. Or maybe being back and work for the first time in like two weeks makes me want to hurt people. Either or.
As always, you guys are the best when it comes to reviews! And ESPECIALLY the ones who take the time to point out what they did and did not like in the chapter. It helps more than you know (you guys are responsible for a lot of the twists in the storyline).
Lights flickered. The ground shook. People without faces dressed as soldiers ran past them, shouting something in a language he didn't understand. He needed to escape. He needed to get out. They were going to die if he couldn't find an exit.
Every time he tried to read the signs, the letters were jumbled and made no sense, and the longer he looked, the harder it was to read. Even the pictograms of stairs would start to undulate like he was looking at waves out on the ocean. Every step seemed to get harder and harder until it felt like he was trying to wade through cement. Every door he opened lead to a brick wall.
He was bleeding. And then he wasn't. There was blood on his hands, but it wasn't his own.
He carried someone with him. Well, dragged. They were making it impossible to escape, but he couldn't put them down. He couldn't even bring himself to try.
Someone was chasing them. Some thing was catching up. It wanted him. It wanted them both. It wanted them alive.
He would rather be dead.
He had a gun.
He could end it. They could win. They couldn't be a prize if they were dead.
He tried to apologize. He didn't want this to be their exit but it was their only choice. The ground was fracturing underneath them and the heat was rising. The lights flashed like strobe lights, and everything moved in jerky stop-motion movements.
Except for the monster chasing them.
He could hear his heart beating wildly against his ribs and his side was bleeding and his hands were covered in blood and there was no one to save them and they were going to die alone in the dark with monsters and the Earth opening up to swallow them whole and –
Something latched around his ankle, yanking him off his feet. He slammed face first into the ground, his brother falling beside him.
It was his blood he had on his hands and it was never coming off.
Zola yanked on his foot, dragging him into the cracks in the Earth. His googles were broken, fractured glass in his eyes as rivulets of blood poured from the ugly wounds even as he smiled. His teeth were saw-toothed and jagged, shark's teeth in a human mouth.
"You're a monster too, Leo. You belong with the rest of us!" Zola snarled, more blood dripping from his mouth.
He tried to kick out with his other foot but it was caught on something.
Zola wrenched him back again, and this time he slid halfway into the chasm with the crazed scientist. "Into Hell with the rest of us monster makers!"
One of his feet came free and he kicked out against the doctor, aiming for his face. Instead of hitting him in the temple like he meant to, it passed right through Zola's face as if he were a ghost and slammed into something solid and unforgiving with a metallic clang.
"OW!" Fitz yelped, and reached for his foot which now hurt like hell. He blinked his eyes open, fully expecting to see his nightmare come to life, but found himself staring up at the ceiling of his room at headquarters.
He was on the floor, his feet tangled in his sheets. Sweat made his clothes stick to his skin and stung his eyes and he could feel his heart starting to come down from its marathon tempo. Pain radiated up his leg from his foot where he kicked the side the metal frame on the bed.
This was getting old.
He hadn't managed to sleep more than a few hours at a time since they returned. He was exhausted, but every time he fell asleep, nightmares plagued him and he almost always woke up falling out of bed or hitting something in his sleep. Nobody came to wake him up anymore, despite his numerous apologies for punching Mack in the face and almost taking out Hunter's knee.
Jemma hadn't been alone with him since the incident in the medical ward on the Bus. He wasn't all that surprised, and that's what probably hurt the most. After she'd abandoned him under the pretense of helping him after his TBI, she hadn't been the same person. She didn't handle different well, and he was different enough for her when he couldn't put words together properly. Now that he was having trouble telling reality from dreams, waking from sleeping and couldn't seem to figure out how to process any of what happened to him, he was in a whole different category for 'different'.
He couldn't keep his temper. Everything made him angry. Not being able to sleep. Not being able to work on machines. Not having the right cereal in the kitchen. People not walking fast enough or walking too close to him. He was jittery and anxious and that just made him angrier. He blew up at Skye when she asked him what he wanted for lunch, and then he was angry for being angry at her over nothing. His hands shook badly enough that he couldn't work in the lab, which was probably for the best. He kept having flashbacks to the lab with Magnus, and sometimes he caught himself flinching away from Mack because when he caught the mechanic out of the corner of his eye, he swore he saw Magnus.
They wanted him to see a therapist, but he couldn't talk to anyone. They didn't understand, and they couldn't understand. He tried to explain the lab, and the room made of lights but every time he tried, his mouth would go dry, his tongue went numb and the aphasia came back with a vengeance. Which, of course, made everything worse. It was a downward spiral that he could see plain as day but found it impossible to stop or even slow his descent. He no longer liked being up during the day because there were too many people. He always felt like he was being watched, and knowing SHIELD, he wasn't wrong.
Mack and Hunter were so far the only ones who were moderately understanding. Mack didn't care that he couldn't speak, or would suddenly hyperventilate when attempting to work on something because of the flashbacks. Hunter understood when he lost his temper over nothing and refused to accept his apologies.
The former mercenary was actually the most understanding out of all of them, and it was a relief when it was his turn for guard duty. He seemed to know what would set Fitz off and how to counter it, knew what people to avoid when trailing after him on his nightly walkabouts through the building. Strangely enough, the most comforting thing the other man did was make tea. Strong Scottish black tea, which he was eternally grateful for because no one in America understood the beauty of tea. Fitz always wanted to ask why it was that Hunter understood when no one else did, but he couldn't bring himself to ask. He figured he owed the man the same decency he'd showed him and didn't pry.
He didn't like the way that Gonzalez and Agent Weaver looked at him. Like he was an unpredictable loose cannon, just waiting to go off. He sometimes caught Skye looking at him the same way, and that probably hurt more than Jemma's betrayal, because he at least expected Jemma to react poorly. But Skye should know what it's like to come back different and have everyone think you're dangerous when you're not. He wondered if it would be any different if he didn't actively defend Ward. He would rather be thought of as the enemy sleeper agent then turn on Ward now.
Fitz scrubbed a hand over his face, rubbing the last vestiges of sleep away. He wasn't about to try to sleep again. Not after that nightmare. It was quiet out anyway, which meant it was probably the dead of night and no one else would be up.
He found different clothes, stripping out of his soaked pajamas and carefully avoiding pulling on the still healing wound in his side. The stitches were due out sometime next week and were starting to itch obnoxiously.
He poked his head out of his room, scanning one direction then the next, straining to hear anything.
The building was quiet. The only ones up at this hour were possibly Mack and Hunter, and even less likely, May or Bobbie. The two specialists were less intrusive than the others, but Fitz found himself irrationally angry at the two of them more often than not and he wasn't entirely positive why. May could say something as simple as he should get some rest and Fitz had to fight the impulse to hurl the nearest object at her.
His anger was beginning to scare him. He didn't even know what set it off anymore because it seemed like everything would.
He slunk out of his room and towards the medical wing.
He slid quietly into his normal chair at Ward's bedside, idly picking at the strings on his sweater. He needed something to occupy his hands, or he was going to start fiddling with something else, and he doubted Ward would appreciate it.
Ward was asleep, which he was most of the time nowadays, and he didn't look much better under the supposed care of SHIELD than he did under HYDRA. He'd always been the picture of health as an agent, either for SHIELD, HYRDRA or freelance, and the long weeks of inactivity wore heavily on him.
While he'd always been fair skinned, he now looked translucent. His black hair and dark features made it worse, and what had become a lingering illness kept him from gaining any weight. There was talk of a nasogastric tube in the future if he didn't start eating. The damage he'd helped Zola and Magnus inflict was still there – Ward's ability to block out or override emotions was still haywire, which meant every reaction was everything all at once. Instead of nervous, he was panicked. Instead of scared, he was terrified. It also meant that that kind of emotional response every time was physically exhausting and wearing down on him just as surely as Fitz's inability to sleep.
Whereas Fitz had turned into a walking neurotic disorder of constant energy and motion, Ward was exhausted by the simplest things, and what was worse, the medical treatments that were supposed to help him get better were a never ending source of panic inducing anxiety: doctors in lab coats, blood cultures and samples, IV's of medicine and worst of all, the constant adjustments to the fixator.
They'd initially tried to keep them apart. Something about codependency and whether or not Ward could be trusted around Fitz or vice versa.
That only lasted until the first time they tried to adjust the fixator. They couldn't keep him constantly sedated without depressing his immune system and building up a tolerance, both of which were dangerous options at this point. The pins needed to be adjusted frequently to promote new bone growth, and when they tried it the first time, Ward almost broke his newly restrained arm trying to get away from them, doing much more harm than good as they fought to hold him still while someone else turned and adjusted the pins.
Fitz had come running but the staff stopped him at the door, physically restraining him while he watched Ward scream in pain as he flashed back to Zola's torture room, begging for them to stop because he promised not to fight and he promised he wouldn't resist.
Fitz bit the guard holding him back. Hard enough he drew blood, but he was fairly positive it was surprise that made him release his grip. He used strength he didn't even know he had to pull the doctors away from Ward, despite their protesting.
He didn't care that Coulson and Mack saw him as he started up his normal litany of nothings that soothed away the nightmares in the recovery room. He tried not to focus on the bruising grip Ward kept on arm as he fought his way back to reality. He kept his hands away from his face and returned the vice like grip because he refused to remind Ward of Zola. Kindness was still the enemy. It might always be the enemy. Fitz knew he wasn't going to forget any time soon, and he doubted Ward would brush it off any faster.
From then on, Fitz was in the room as they adjusted the fixator. Nobody argued.
Ward hadn't forgotten Fitz again. He wasn't entirely sure he was relieved at first – he was starting to rely on the idea that Ward considered him his wayward younger brother as the only anchor to another person he had. He'd worried that if Ward no longer thought of him as Thomas, then they would be back to being enemies.
Instead, it was more of a role reversal. Ward didn't have the residual instinct to protect his younger brother, and instead started leaning on Fitz's presence like it was a security blanket. Bits and pieces of memory were starting to filter in, but details remained fuzzy.
Fitz selfishly hoped he never regained all of them.
"You're hovering again," Ward muttered, not bothering to open his eyes.
It was rather unnerving how Ward could tell who was in the room without opening his eyes, but it also meant Fitz never had to announce his presence.
"Can't sleep again?" Ward asked.
Fitz could hear the bone deep exhaustion in every word, knew the older man was barely awake and unlikely to remain that way for long. He shrugged and knew Ward could tell.
"Wish I had that problem," he grumbled, and shifted over. His bed at headquarters was larger than the one on the Bus, mostly because Ward was having the same problems of rolling off of it when caught in a nightmare.
Fitz snorted.
"Greener grass. Fences. All that bullshit," Ward said, just a hint of a smile on his drawn features. "If you misbehave enough, they'll just keep you on a cocktail of horse tranquilizers." He waved disjointedly at the IV above his head.
Fitz huffed, rolling his eyes and shaking his head.
"Mmm, starting to get waking hallucinations? Those are fun. They'll go away. You just need to realize you're safe, and the nightmare part is over. It's your mind trying to protect itself by not letting itself be fooled into false hope."
This was why he liked talking to Ward. The former agent always seemed to know what Fitz was going through with minimal conversation.
Ward shuddered, going to rub his still bandaged arm. "The problem with IV's is that they're always cold. I feel like I'm freezing from the inside out."
Fitz grabbed the folded blanket from the edge of the bed and draped it over him, keeping it off the fixator. It wasn't supposed to make a difference if there was a weight as minimal as a sheet or blanket, but Fitz knew it was just enough that Ward could register the movement of the pins. He accidentally brushed Ward's hand and before he could pull it back Ward snatched his wrist.
"Holy crap, you're warm. C'mere."
Fitz allowed himself to be pulled onto the bed, carefully avoiding the fifty million wires and tubes and broken bones. Ward's arm wrapped around his shoulders, pulling him closer when Fitz didn't do it on his own.
"Don't worry. What happens in medbay stays in medbay," Ward said, yawning.
"You're such a dick," Fitz said, half-heartedly.
"Don't even pretend like you're surprised. Go to sleep, monkey," Ward said. "Just don't kick me while you're dreaming."
Fitz knew they looked ridiculous. Two grown men sharing a hospital bed because one of them couldn't sleep and the other one couldn't wake up.
It was also the first time he didn't have nightmares.
Haters gonna hate.
Author's Note: LOOK! A SEMI HAPPY CHAPTER! Aren't you proud of me?
Also - I don't know that these two would be different then a lot of the military people I work with who have PTSD. I know from experience that going through something damaging with someone else tends to make you clingier, whether you're male or female. So, hopefully they don't come off as being completely out of character with that last scene.
Aaaaaaand just in case you thought I was done whumping these two? Naaaaaaaaaah. Sorry (not sorry). Read and review and let me know if I handled "fluff" well! It's something I'm quite awful at in real life, so I don't know if that translated on paper...