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Post by skyeknight on Jul 17, 2017 18:49:14 GMT
"Don't I get a say in this?" he asked softly.
She might not want to hear it and he could hold off on that, but he didn't exactly choose to fall for her. It just happened. They could be good for each other. He could help her see the not-so-silver lining of her projects. She made him less of a hot head, well, unless it regarded her personal safety. Because then he literally leapt into action. Her personal safety was the one thing that got him off his lazy ass and out of his bar. Because otherwise, he hadn't really socialized much with the people in the city. It was wake up, go through the day, work at the bar and go home. Wash. Rinse. Repeat. Anna broke that cycle with just a bat of her eyes.
"Now's not the time," he agreed.
It would have crushed him if she hadn't felt the same. Feelings were... difficult for him, but not impossible. Some demons didn't know anything but anger and hatred. Axel tried to be better than that, first through mimicry and then through actually feeling it for himself. Anna made all of that immensely easier. She made it almost natural for him to feel well anything, joy, laughter, happiness, good emotions.
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Post by neverlandlostgirl on Jul 17, 2017 23:22:53 GMT
It was hard to tell what Anna might have said in response to Axel's words when the door to her room suddenly opened and a nurse stepped inside. She was dressed in a medically white uniform with dark brown eyes and hair, a small tray held in her hands. She paused on the threshold upon seeing that Anna was awake and that Axel was sitting with her, but in the next moment she had moved forward so that she stood next to the opposite beside.
"Hello, Miss Castille. I'm glad to see you're awake. My name is Nurse Romero and I'm here to check up on you."
The nurse tried for a somewhat tired smile but Anna couldn't find it in her to even return the grin. She merely kept her gaze downward as the nurse spoke softly, explaining what she was doing while carrying it out.
"Given the.... condition you arrived at the hospital in, we have to keep the restraints on until tomorrow. After that, however, we'll be able to remove them. There are also some people who have been waiting to talk with you but not until your health as recovered sufficiently."
Those words sent another spike of guilt and anxiety through Anna. Of course people wanted to talk with her. Given what had happened, there must have been an investigation of somekind.... and that begged the question of what kind of trouble Anna was in.
"I'm just going to give you a quick shot to help keep you calm tonight, ok? Your body is still very weak and can't take much stress right now."
And with a skill that bespoke of years of practice, Nurse Romero presented a syringe and prepped it. The sight of the needle immediately caused Anna to panic, reminding her of another shot she had administered to herself with dire consequences. Her heart monitor began to speed up and she lost her grip on the cup in her hands, causing it to fall to the floor.
However, by that point the nurse had already attached the needle to one of the tubes going to her arm and depressed it. She watched Anna's face with concerned brown eyes as she pulled at the restraints, but soon enough the young woman could feel herself growing dazed and foggy. However, the injection caused only sedation instead of sleep and Anna's eyes remained open, her mind awake.
Once Anna's muscles had relaxed and her heart monitor had slowed down, the nurse spoke a quick word to Axel.
"I am sorry sir, but if she gets too anxious you will have to leave. It's the only way we can make sure she's safe. Be that as it may.... you must care a great deal for her to stay by her side like this..."
Romero glanced at Anna with a sympathetic look in her brown eyes before checking her vitals once and then leaving the room.
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Post by skyeknight on Jul 18, 2017 1:52:00 GMT
Axel had to fight the urge to cover Anna's eyes when the nurse pulled out the needle. Maybe if she didn't see the needle, it wouldn't be so bad for her. But the nurse did her job quickly. Would have been painless if not for Anna's heart rate skittering out of control. And they were having a moment. The nurse ruined the moment. He might have been angry, but he had an armful of Anna to be more concerned about. Instead, he offered the nurse his best smile, aiming for charming, or at least innocent.
"Hey, nurse, it's good we'll keep things chill." he assured her.
He supposed their 'feelings' talk could wait until she recovered too. Instead, he would just be there for Anna the best he could. She obviously had a lot on her chest after what happened. Things hadn't exactly been... good when her serum took effect. But at least no one died, there were no fires and everyone was more or less on the road to recovery.
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Post by neverlandlostgirl on Jul 19, 2017 4:32:55 GMT
By the time the nurse had left, the sedative had worked its way through Anna's body and she no longer struggled against her restraints. Her heart beat had also slowed to a steadier rate and she had stopped crying by that point.
However, laying back in the bed she still felt the weight of her guilt on her chest and the depression that was beginning to settle over her. She knew Axel was doing his best to try and cheer her up, to show her that people still cared about her and that everything would turn out ok given time. She knew there was a great deal he want to tell her in that moment.....
"Don't leave me..... please."
Her words were spoken meekly, like a young child that has just woken from a nightmare and desperately needs the comfort of a loved one. She reached out with one hand and clutched at the Fire Demon's arm as she continued to look up into his face.
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Post by skyeknight on Jul 19, 2017 14:05:05 GMT
"Not going anywhere," he reassured her.
He let her settle down, back into bed as she should. He readjusted the blankets, wishing they were better than the stupid linens that the hospital provided. Something warmer. He wasn't helping with her whole 'needing rest' thing especially not when he was handing off coffee all willy-nilly and well bringing up emotional things that she wasn't ready to deal with yet. He reached over and picked up the pastry. A plain little croissant. Nothing that would be too heavy on her. Just like eating bread. She might not want to eat, but she needed to, just like she needed to drink something. She had to regain her strength.
"Are you hungry?" he asked.
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Post by neverlandlostgirl on Jul 21, 2017 6:07:54 GMT
Anna shook her head at Axel's offer as she continued to lay in the bed, feeling lost and empty. She knew she should be ravenous after not eating anything for who knew how long, but the hollow feeling inside of her had nothing to do with hunger. She still felt like she didn't deserve Axel's kindness in that moment, but she was simply too tired to even argue why he shouldn't care about her.
"Axel... how can you forgive me? After what I did?"
She found herself unable to look him in the eyes as she spoke, instead turning her gaze to the blank white ceiling above her. It was easier that way, to not see the sympathy reflected in his green eyes. However, she couldn't bring herself to pull her hand away from his own warm hold. She was still too selfish to push him away completely.
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Post by skyeknight on Jul 21, 2017 14:53:01 GMT
Axel set the croissant aside. Maybe she would eat it later. She did still have the coffee after all. Despite it being hospital coffee, it wasn't particularly bad, it wasn't great either. He would likely stop in at Nevermore once Anna was resting again, or asleep. Likely the latter. He didn't want to leave her alone to have a panic attack. He had taken precautions to make sure the bar was looked after while he took time off to make sure Anna was okay.
"Because I've been where you are. I've done bad things, all in the sake of survival, things I regret." he said. "And I wish someone would have been there for me."
He hadn't been like her in the aspect that his 'terrible things' had been for a greater cause. They were selfish and he had hurt a lot of people. Granted, they had been trying to hurt him during the War too. Just a little bratty demon who had come into his fire powers. Axel thought he was protecting his neighborhood when he fought off the people trying to harm them, and he had, but at the cost that everyone was afraid of him. He had a short temper and would literally start a fire in the blink of an eye. No one wanted to get on his bad side, but that didn't make it easy to get to now people or make friends.
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Post by neverlandlostgirl on Jul 24, 2017 1:48:02 GMT
Now Anna couldn't help but look at Axel's face. The blue stared into the green as she realized what he was saying was true and not just some white lie to try and make her feel better. She hadn't really stopped to give much thought to Axel's past until now.
During all the time they had spent together, he had always been rather defensive about his life before she had met him. And when he did speak about it, it was only to say that it had been hard and he had done things he wasn't proud of, that he regretted now. And she, the perpetual optimist, had merely assumed he was being too hard on himself. Now, however....
"You never told me about your past...."
Her words were soft and tired, betraying the fact that she was running out of energy and would soon fall back asleep. Yet in that moment, her gaze never left the Fire Demon's face and for just a moment the hold she had on his hand grew stronger.
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Post by skyeknight on Jul 24, 2017 18:07:18 GMT
"Yeah, well, I don't like talking about it." he admitted. "I was a stupid little punk that thought he could solve everything with fire."
She looked like she was going to fall asleep at any moment, half lidded eyes, sluggish words, soft demeanor. The medicine was kicking in. That couldn't be a bad thing considering the trauma her body had undergone with the serum. She needed as much rest as she could get. He would stick around for as long as she needed him. He had all but become a fixture in her room, at first he scared the hell out of the nurses, but they learned to roll with it and some of them were nice enough. One of them even gave him a blanket after he fell asleep in the hospital room. They had long since learned he was not leaving until Anna was dismissed.
Let them talk about why he was there. He knew why. Anna knew, but didn't want to discuss it right now. Probably for the best, she still looked absolutely exhausted. He wished he would have kept a blanket they had lent him from the night before. She looked like she could use something warmer. He smiled at her when she squeezed his hand.
"You get better and I'll tell you anything you want."
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Post by neverlandlostgirl on Jul 26, 2017 7:36:25 GMT
"You promise?"
Anna was finding it harder and harder to keep her eyes open. Her life might have not been in danger anymore but that didn't mean her body was healed from the ordeal it had suffered while the serum was in her veins. She still had a long way to go before she was completely recovered and that was only speaking in physical terms. There was no way to tell how long it would take her spirit to heal.
As she continued to look up at Axel, she knew she couldn't fight off the waves of sleep that she was sinking into. Each blink of her eyes was slower then the last, each time it was harder for her to open them once more. Finally, her exhaustion won out and she relaxed into the hospital bed, the tension and guilt slowly ebbing away from her face until it was peaceful once more.
However, even as she fell asleep her hold on Axel's hand didn't release. They might not have discussed it in any depth, but it was already clear that they didn't need to. Not right then.
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Post by skyeknight on Jul 27, 2017 2:43:47 GMT
"Absolutely. Now get some rest."
She would be doing a lot of that in the days to come, at least until her body had recovered from what the serum had done. Even longer until the doctors would release her. What was that saying about doctors being the worst patients? He grinned. He could imagine the trouble Anna could get into from a hospital bed, telling the other doctors the best way to speed up her healing process so she could go back to playing in her lab.
If she still had a lab to go to.
This could very well cost her the job she loved so much. She broke so many rules. She used her department equipment for a personal project. She tested said personal project on herself. She then attacked two of her coworkers, harming them both severely. Either way, it was't good. He wasn't sure how much arguing on her behalf could help her save her job. He sighed after she was asleep. What a mess this was...
(End)
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