sunnydalealum | (no subject)

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(no subject)

Columbia University
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
4:02am

It's about four in the morning, that dead time even in college dorms, when the door to Mark's room softly creaks open.

Leland's moving carefully in the near-darkness, stepping lightly across the somewhat cluttered floor; it's almost soundless when he pulls the chair away from the computer desk, settles slowly into it. His hand is steady as he reaches to turn off the speakers before waking up the computer.

The screen, once it powers up, is the strongest light source in the room.

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Jonathan barely notices. He's too busy trying to stop the bleeding and simultaneously remember how his favourite healing spell goes.

Andrew blinks up at him, trying to focus.

Hey, he tries to say. It's okay. It's not that bad, it just hurts.

Gray fog drifts in slowly from the edges of his vision.

Jonathan examines what he can see of the wound, hastily, and meanwhile projects heal! through his selyn field, so at least the bleeding will slow.

"He didn't --"

There's a nasty bubbling sound to Andrew's gasp of breath.

"You," he tries again. "Not you."

"Stop talking", Jonathan says automatically, then relents. "No, he didn't get me."

His mouth is twisted in a grimace of pain, but one corner of it tugs upward in a sincere attempt at a smile.

"Good."

"Sssh", Jonathan says more firmly. "You're gonna be okay but you have to stop talking."

"'Kay."

The bleeding's already slowing, and the grayness at the edges of his vision stops encroaching but doesn't recede yet.

"'s this mean y' don't hate me 'nymore?"

Jonathan flinches visibly, if Andrew could see.

"I guess it does."

And, finally, he remembers the spell.

A small sigh, still with that thick liquid sound to it.

Andrew's eyes drift closed.

Jonathan checks his pulse, hurriedly, and then starts to almost gabble the words.

Andrew's body jerks as though with electric shock as the spell starts to take effect, his back arching, his lips pulling back from clenched teeth.

The wound begins to glow.

Jonathan takes heart from that, and keeps going.

When he's done, the bullet hole's closed enough to stop bleeding entirely; it's little more than magical first aid, and the wound isn't wholly healed by a long way, but Andrew's not going to bleed to death.

For a moment he just lies there, eyes still closed, gasping in breath as though he's just run up four flights of stairs.

Then, very slowly, he opens his eyes and looks up.

"Welcome back", Jonathan says with a faint smile. "Now we need to go to Milliways."

A slight frown. "How come?"

"So someone can finish fixing you."

Before he can think too hard about that, Jonathan has an arm under his shoulders, helping him sit up.

"But I thought you just ow frell."

Andrew moves a bit more carefully after that.

"...where'd Leland go?"

"Yeah, he, uh..." Jonathan looks away. "Ran."

That gets a closer look; not so much the information as the tone and evasive glance.

"I was busy", Jonathan says defensively. "Can we go now?"

Busy. With making sure I didn't die.

Andrew bites his lips to keep the swell of emotion down, and looks away -- and his eye falls on the computer screen.

"One thing," he says softly. "One thing first."

Jonathan follows his eyes, then nods.

"You want to see what he was looking at?"

They never did, after all.

"Yeah," he says, pulling himself to his feet with a wince. "Though I've got a guess."

He bends over the desk and reaches for the mouse with his good hand, bringing up the last document viewed on the computer.

It's a spreadsheet, with a list of names and columns of data points: number of courses taken this semester and last semester, grades, signs of financial trouble. The last two columns are dates, and highlighted: LAST KNOWN CONTACT WITH RL and DECEASED.

"...he really did figure it all out", Jonathan says, peering over his shoulder.