Ch 43: Searing Reflections
Every inch felt like numb heavy lead weights. The light suddenly appearing was almost blinding and everything was fuzzy and hard to make out. A barely open lid peeking from bandaging revealed the smallest sliver of an amber orb around bloodshot whites, dilated pupil lazily scanning around. No kind of pain medicine ever really makes something stop hurting if you are conscious however. As her mind began to become aware of the dull pressure on her face and the intense throbbing of diluted faint pain, Jin grit her teeth and light tears left the exposed eye.
Dull pressure clasped on her hand, tingling skin trying to come back to its response to touch. Her eye rolled towards it, vision beginning to clear enough to make out enough of her surroundings. Her mom's face was staring back at her, ears folded sadly. Jin left out a frustrated whimper when her limbs felt sluggish and panic was starting to set in.
She had no idea how she got here or what was going on. Past the thumping in her ears she could hear Blake's voice trying to calm her down, her mom's hand gripping her own and another rubbing her shoulder soothingly, "Jin it's ok. You're ok. Try to relax."
There is no greater calming effect than that of a loving mother to her child no matter how old they are when one is stripped down to their instinctual fears. Jin tried to flail at first but Blake's touch and voice calmed the stressed dragon back down, "You're in the hospital wing but I'm here and you are going to be ok. Try not to get too worked up. You need to rest."
Jin took in a deep breath, already feeling tired again from the painkillers in her IV line, the sharp tweak at her face as she did so drew her attention back to the feeling on her face. She could make out Yang's form next to Blake as she took in her surroundings before slowly closing her eye. She tried to remember the moments she was last conscious for, her eye squeezing shut as she struggled to recall the events that led to this.
Blake could feel Jin suddenly grip her hand with a light tremble as Jin whimpered at the memory of black streaking across her face and the aggressive sound Spadix had released towards her. Anything before that she wasn't able to grasp in her mind other than the taste of blood. She could also vaguely recall forcing the doctor to use her blood for Spadix but otherwise the only thing should remember before the trauma to her face was being in her mother's classroom.
"W…wha happened?" she barely managed to croak out, voice hoarse from the air tubing that had been down her throat in surgery and face aching as her mouth moved.
Blake's ears flattened fully. She didn't know how to say it especially since no one really knew what actually went down to allow her to take the burnt of the fact off. She glanced at Yang before staring at Jin's hand held in her own, rubbing her thumb across tan knuckles softly. "What…happened!?" Jin asked a bit more forcefully, throat burning.
Blake sighed, "We don't really know. You and Spadix were the only ones there when it happened. Based on the injuries you two have, we can only assume you two attacked one another during your heat cycles. Considering you were both without any clothing I'm guessing something happened that triggered the other. You… she… Her shoulder is demolished. You bit her to the bones. She's going to have to have a lot of physical therapy to get most of her mobility back. They were able to repair a lot of it. You… she cut through your face… it is pretty severe and… they think you might… well we are still waiting to see what your aura will do for your eye…"
Jin was quiet, eye still scrunched closed, jaw clenched for a moment before going slack due to the way it hurt to move her face like that. She was trying hard to search her memory for what happened but it was useless. The only thing she could figure on her own was that the event that triggered everything was herself biting Spadix. She couldn't remember doing it but it was what made the most sense. As the medicine in her veins started to drag her back into sleep, she swelled with guilt, pulling her hand from Blake and turning her head away a bit, refusing to face her parents any longer.
Yang sighed as Jin passed back out and rubbed her own face, standing up, "I'm going get another coffee. Do you need anything?"
Blake just shook her head and leaned back in the chair, allowing her wife to go get more caffeine.
Yang effectively handed her class over to Weiss for the time being until Jin was cleared to leave. They decided Blake would be staying there with Jin and Yang would go to and from between helping her dad with the kids and coming sit with Blake and Jin.
Not long after Yang left for the night, Scarlet slipped in while Blake was out the room talking to Weiss. Jin was groggy but partially awake, the tired eye rolling over to look at Scarlet. The fox faunus was standing at the door at first before finally moving in closer. She stood by Jin's bed for a while before speaking, "I heard you were bad off and wanted to come see about you."
A light scoff left Jin with a wince, "that's out of character for you."
Scarlet just gave a wicked grin and laughed softly, "Or maybe you matter more to me than you think, friend."
Jin weakly shrugged and made a hand motion for Scarlet to take a seat, "Mom will be gone for a while, feel free to sit for a while then."
The fox nodded and got comfortable, staring at the TV display in the room that was on some sort of show. She didn't look back at Jin but her voice was level and even, "I heard your girlfriend still hasn't woken up after her surgery."
Jin frowned and glared at Scarlet but said nothing. As Scarlet turned to look at Jin right as Jin mustered up enough strength to throw the remote at the floor beyond her bed. Scarlet just watched Jin as the dragon rose her hand to her face, shoulders starting to shake as she cried. Scarlet reached over and placed her hand on Jin's arm but said nothing. They sat there in silence for a while with only the sound of Jin's sobbing and the low TV noises in the room.
Scarlet didn't need to ask because she knew why Jin was crying and she was very aware there wasn't much anyone could say right at this moment to ease the emotional suffering, regardless of how true the comfort might be. Knowing this, she didn't bother to try. Scarlet wasn't much for wasted efforts like these. She knew people needed to feel the dark corners of their mind before reason could be applied.
Jin's words whispered past her hand, "I fucked up her entire life… almost killed her… and I can't even remember fucking how…"
Scarlet moved and sat next to Jin on the bed after removing her hand and shrugged, "You should already know how by now. You're smarter than that. You don't have to have the memory to know what happened. You tried to claim her when you had only feral mind to run on and when you bit down way too hard she protected herself with her own feral instinct. We both know that's what happened, it's obvious. Now you just have to figure out how to get over it."
Jin shoved Scarlet with a weak growl out of her bed, "Fuck off Scarlet."
The fox chuckled but her eyes were anything but kind, "I'll go but seriously, learn to cope with it. You can't change what already happened and it's not like you did it on purpose to the person you love. Have your tears over it and then let it go."
Jin could only frown and Scarlet left without another word.
—-
For the next few days, Scarlet came by to visit once or twice a day. Jin stayed fairly moody but the topic didn't come back up. She often only came by when Blake and Yang were not there, knowing Yang wasn't her biggest fan.
Spadix was finally coherent enough on the third day to be able to talk to Weiss and Indi who came to visit constantly around classes. At this moment, Weiss was sitting with paperwork as Spadix used her working arm to eat her meal. As a Nurse came in after to collect everything, Spadix watched Weiss as she angrily flipped through papers and files, "Y…you don't have to sit with me if you need to work…"
Without looking up, Weiss shut down that train of thought, "Nonsense. I can do this and sit with you. There's no reason to worry about that."
Spadix gave a light nod and turned her attention to the window in the room, staring out with a worried expression on her face. As if Weiss could sense it, the woman looked up, setting her papers down on the small table next to her chair, "You're thinking about Jin aren't you?"
Swirled orbs glanced over to Weiss then back out the window as she sighed. Weiss placed her own hands folded into her lap, "Do you want to talk about it?"
It was a while before Spadix showed any sign of response. She fidgeted with her blanket and stared down at it. Like Jin, she had no conscious memory of anything between starting to spar with Jin in Yang's classroom and the insane pain in her shoulder and reflex to defend herself. Her timid voice made Weiss ache, "I-I really hurt her didn't I? She bit me but… I really damaged her too, right?"
Weiss nodded, seeing no reason to lie, "You… sliced up her face pretty badly, yes. But she nearly killed you so it makes sense that you reacted like you did."
Spadix shook her head, frowning, "She…didn't do it on purpose…I'm sure of it…"
"No one is saying she did. No one thinks you did either. But that's what happened. there's no sense lying about it," Weiss said calmly.
Spadix bit her lip anxiously, eyes watering. Her fingers twitched just a bit on her useless hand when she made an attempt to get the arm to move but no other indication came that she could move it. Her good hand reached to grip at the wound as she felt the spike of pain in places. She rubbed at it gently but suddenly she could feel the tears on her face, "W…What's going to happen now?"
Her voice was so quiet that Weiss almost didn't catch it. The older woman didn't know how to respond at first. The situation was delicate and she wasn't really sure herself how this would unfold after or how much trauma may have carried over with what the two could remember. She knew she needed to say something though to ease the owl, "I think right now you should focus on recovery. I know that you have probably realized it already but you'll have to be a probationary student until you recover completely. You'll be allowed to go to classes but you'll be prohibited from missions and participating in combat courses. I know it might feel like a punishment but I assure you it's just for your safety and.."
Spadix could tell Weiss was slipping into that administrative way of explaining things and cut her off, "And if I don't recover?"
She grit her teeth and closed her eyes, scared of what Weiss might tell her. The woman however responded calmly, "We refuse to think like that here. I encourage you to push that thought from your mind."
Spadix couldn't stop the helpless laugh that left her briefly. Before Weiss could say anymore however, Indi entered. The older woman gathered her things so Indi could take over. She wished them a good night and left. Indi walked over and sat cross legged on the end of Spadix's bed, "Hey, how you feeling today?"
Spadix shrugged though only one shoulder moved, "Since my aura is helping the wound close up pretty quickly I should be starting physical therapy by the weekend they suspect."
Indi smiled at her, pulling a book from her bag and handing it over, "that's great right?"
Spadix gave a weak nod and ran her hand over the book cover. Her friend's usually cheery face fell further at the owl's expression of loss on her face, "Hey Spadix… it's going to be ok yea? You're alive and you can recover, they are sure of it. This will all be a bad dream in no time."
Spadix reached up, rubbing off her wet cheeks, "When I think of Jin… I'm filled with fear I can't shake…"
She hugged the book close to her chest, curling into herself as she finally spoke the words she had been too afraid to admit. Indi felt so useless. She knew she couldn't do much to help with this and it was tearing her up inside to have to watch Spadix like this. Quietly, she slid over to Spadix's uninjured side and held the owl close as Spadix turned her face into Indi and finally let herself break down.
Indi rubbed her hair and held her tightly as she cried. She didn't bother with trying to say anything to soothe Spadix. Spadix clearly needed to finally cry about it and really what could Indi possibly say that would make this better anyway? Her friend was coming to terms with the fact she was scared of the person she loved with her whole heart. How could Indi possibly make that better?
Eventually, whether due to the medicines being put through her system or exhaustion from her body working overtime or both, Spadix cried herself to sleep. Indi gently tucked her back into her bed and took a seat in the chair in the room to work on her coursework.
As the raven haired girl stepped out of the room for a quick study break she ran into Blake coming back from getting food. Blake could see Indi's words in the girl's eyes before she uttered them, "She's… recovering… She's being released tomorrow but… she wants to go straight home. Yang is currently packing some things for her. She's going to spend the rest of this week and the break next week with us."
Indi just nodded, "How's she handling… you know the reality of it all?"
Blake sighed, "She won't say but I imagine not well. Spadix?"
It was Indi's turn to feel that dredge of saying the answer now, staring at her feet, "She's… scared."
She couldn't bring herself to specify but Blake didn't need her to, understanding completely by reading Indi's body language. The cat faunus gently placed a hand on Indi's shoulder, the raven haired girl looking up into Blake's apologetic face before Blake removed her hand and walked off back to Jin's room.
—-
The ride home was frustrating for Jin. She had stopped by her dorm before they left to make sure there wasn't anything else she wanted but the moment she got near her bed panic had set into herself and she got instant flashes of the incident, her ears filled with the dulled recollection of her own screaming, nose filled with the memory of blood. Luckily Yang was there waiting for her outside the door and noticed, getting Jin out of there.
Now as she stared at passing trees and fields of green she could only stare, body feeling the heavy, numb feeling after PTSD wears off and disassociation starts to set in. The occasional bit of reflection of her face on the window was what pulled her back to her senses. Until this point, she had avoided looking at it. Since it was the transparent image on the window, she didn't get much of a look now either except that the white of the bandaging showed heavily.
When they pulled up to their home, Jin climbed out of the back seat with a heavy sigh and took her duffle from the trunk. Her siblings were all with her grandfather, she assumed to make this adjustment easier on herself. Regardless, she didn't acknowledge her parents and went straight to her room. The duffle was discarded on the bed and she sat on the other side of it between the bed and the wall.
Her knees were pulled up some with her arms resting on them as she closed her eye and just tried to breathe calmly. The faint amounts of what she did see in the car window of her face made her painfully aware she needed to finally look at it even if she wasn't ready to. When she finally got her heart to calm and her hands to stop trembling, she stood up and made her way out the room and to the bathroom.
She flipped the switch on, eye closing as she entered and felt her way over the sink, leaning onto it. With a deep breath, she slowly opened her only exposed eye and stared deeply into the view staring back at her in the mirror. Bandaging had been reduced to covering along the tracks of the cuts, displaying 4 full lengths from the left side of her hairline towards the right side of her cheek with a small gash healed over already as a fifth line, possibly from the thumb talon that had little purchase to the skin.
One went from just above the temple to right before her mouth, the next two, the worst two, creased down from the corner of her hairline over her left eye and bridge of her nose and stopping short of her mouth, the final covered cut across the forehead and stopped through the right brow, having sliced clear through the meaty brow line before stopping just before the eye.
Her teeth clenched at the sight, frustrated tears welling up in her visible eye as her grip on the sink tightened into a white knuckled grip. All at once, the realization of her ruined face coupled with the awareness that she would never be able to look past what she had done flooded her mind and it was unbearable. She couldn't take how strong the feelings were in her mind and let out an aggravated shout as she slammed everything off the bathroom counter in front of her with her arms before punching the mirror into shattered pieces all over the small room.
Yang had rushed in soon to the sight of her daughter's heavy breathing and angry tears, fist bleeding from surface cuts from the glass still resting into the molding of the now destroyed mirror, the other hand over her face. All her mother could do was reach out and force Jin into an embrace. At first, Jin squirmed and shouted, feeling undeserving of any sort of affections but the longer her mother refused to let go, the weaker she got to her own emotional pain and eventually submitted, crumpling into Yang's strong hold.
A warm hand stroked the dragon's hair and back as the other held her up in her mother's arms. Jin grabbed hold of Yang and let herself cry, her shaking voice barely making it past her lips, "How am I ever going to forgive myself if everytime I see my face I am reminded of what I did?"
Yang just kissed her daughter's head before resting her own head on top of it, "Let's just focus on getting you healed up right now ok? One step at a time little dragon."
When she made it back into her room she tried to focus on unpacking her duffle but gold paint stared up at her shimmering in the light as she unzipped the bag. There, resting on her clothing was the mask Spadix had given her. She traced her fingers along the shape before pulling it out into her hands, staring down at it with the red eye lenses staring back at her. Delicately, she set it down to the side and placed it back into the duffle after she finished unpacking.
By the middle of the week, Scarlet had made an appearance at the Xiao Long home with a packed bag after receiving a request from Jin to come out. Yang was annoyed when she let the fox inside but if Jin wanted her here she was willing to allow it for now, anything to help Jin get better. As the week progressed, Jin depended more and more on Scarlet's company and attitude towards things but it seemed to be helping her.
The final day before they would be returning to Beacon, Jin laid in bed staring at her ceiling, Scarlet on a futon on the floor. When she had packed to return, she had set the mask on top of the bag. Her bandages were down to just gauze covering still-closing flesh on the surface that was raw and irritated, the depths of the cuts healed but still enough left to need the stitching for a few more days. Her whisper filled the darkness, "I don't want to go back to a dorm with my team… but I don't know how to go back without doing that… I can't do it…"
Scarlet rolled to her side and propped up her head, her fingers rubbing through her red curls, "Well, you could stay with me and my team for now, as long as you need. My bed can definitely accommodate an extra person for now so that you don't inconvenience anyone."
Jin scoffed, "Won't Lyra be mad?"
She received a wicked chuckle in response, "She'll get over it. Besides, we are just friends and she's not my girlfriend. She will accept it or she can find another fuck buddy. I couldn't care less if I'm honest."
"Thanks Scarlet, that means a lot," Jin said as she closed her eyes, the worry lifted.
"Your welcome now get some sleep you loser we have a early day tomorrow," Scarlet replied, curling into her blankets.
—-
As the break started, Spadix's aura and the treatments received had healed up the damage to the point she was cleared from the hospital and allowed to start physical therapy. She was moved to a temporary room for now on Yang's suggestion to Weiss after seeing how Jin had reacted to their dorm. On her own she was starting to gain feeling in her limb in places.
By the middle of the week she was finally able to give her fingers small wiggles of motion. The therapist said it was a really good sign she would get all her movement back in time. In order to work with the pace her aura was setting, she would go to sessions three times a day for anywhere from an hour to two depending on what her body would allow. On top of that she was receiving massage and deep tissue treatments to help the nerves and tissues in their healing process.
In the meantime, Weiss got Sterling and Indi's help getting a new dorm selected and set up for the team. In the room the layout was also tweaked a bit so that the dorm would not look or feel like the other, the bunk beds set against the back wall frame end to frame end along the same wall and the dresser was instead against the left wall with the book shelving against the right. Weiss even had the sheets swapped for a different color, the room looking different enough now that there was no way to mistake it for the other.
By the end of the break, Spadix had made only marginal improvements but she could actually close and open some of her fingers now which meant she could finally fully manage bathroom requirements 100 percent alone. She was moved to the new dorm as well. Like a charm, the changed environment was enough to not be triggering.
Sleep was still rough. Spadix had been having nightmares, her mind trying desperately to fill in the voids in her memory only making it worse for herself. When she would wake up screaming, Indi would come down and spend the rest of the night holding the shaking owl until she fell asleep again. The night before going back to classes seemed to be the worst, Spadix shaking and sweating in Indi's arms until she finally fell back asleep, whimpering about the dragon.
—-
When the dragon entered their classes, the golden mask was on her face, perfectly covering the wounds. Both faunus flinched when Jin took her seat next to Spadix. They both couldn't help but slide await from each other, unable to find any comfort from their tense forms until significant space was put between them. Spadix glanced up at Jin, feeling a conflicting mix of emotions and she hated it. Fear and anxiety and sadness and heartache and longing all swirled within herself fighting for control.
Jin wasn't much better. The initial feeling of high alert and fear she felt when she originally sat down struck pain and worry into her heart and she couldn't turn her eyes to the owl. Even if they didn't fully remember the incident their bodies clearly did and refused to be close to the other, unable to drop defenses if they got too close.
Spadix wanted to say something, anything, but her voice wouldn't come. 'Tell her something dammit! Let her know it's not her fault. You don't blame her! Tell her you're ok!'
These thoughts echoed in her mind all day long but any attempt she made was stunted by fear. Jin wouldn't eat with the team but instead sat with Scarlet and her team. The pang of heartbreak that filled Spadix seeing Jin avoid her was unbearable but she couldn't approach, couldn't protest, nothing she wanted to do happened, 'coward… tell her you're ok…she needs to know you're ok…that you both will be ok and get through this somehow… tell her you're ok…'
As they retired for the night and Jin never came to the room, Spadix sat up in bed staring at the empty bunk, tears in her eyes as she hugged herself with one arm, fingers rubbing the pendant around her neck, 'but… we're not ok are we? I'm not ok at all…'
