Work Text:
The cut was most definitely infected.
Which was the worse news since the Fadlans announced that they would be going out of town for a couple of months – Magnus was still coming to terms with this revelation.
Ok, back to the original point: infected cut. Now, if this was a small wound then it wouldn’t be a massive deal as all it would need is a bit of TCP and a bandage; easy-peasy-lemon-squeezey. But, due to the fact Karma was a pain in ye old butt hole, it was a cut that ran from his wrist up to his elbow. On his right arm, thankfully, and on the side where there were marginally fewer veins and more bone, which was sort of a good thing, right?
I’m sure you’re all wondering how exactly the great Magnus Chase acquired such a wound, after all, he was an expert in being ignored (anyone who went ‘Ahh’ can kindly stuff it, ok?), for real though, he wasn’t sure how it happened. Or, well, how it got so bad. Long story short, he scratched it on a fence whilst running away from some cops - because he was suave as the devil with a tie. It had bled a bit, obviously, but not enough to make him pass out. And now it was red, swollen and covered in puss (ready? Three, two, one: eww!).
“Will you stop poking it?” Dr Blitz snapped, smacking his patient on the arm, like a bloody professional.
“It’s itchy,” Magnus defended, pulling said itchy appendage closer to his chest.
“Unless you want to be down one arm I suggest you sit still, gremlin,” Blitz grabbed his arm gently and drew it closer. Magnus perked up.
“Oh, like the Winter Soldier? His arm’s really cool! Or…” Magnus trailed off. Who else had only one arm? There was definitely someone.
L-U-K-E? Hearth signed, looking immensely proud of himself. Magnus nodded and responded with a quick thanks – which was kind of similar to blowing a kiss.
“Nerds,” Blitz huffed. Yet Magnus spotted a grin under that cool façade, though he was sure Blitz didn’t intend on it. Whatever: he could live in his lonely, non-SIFI world for as long as he wanted.
“Yeah, well, Nerds have sweets named after them so I take that as a win,” Magnus smirked victoriously at Blitz. Until his friend bopped him on the nose and he scowled.
“That is the worst come back I’ve ever heard,” Blitz commented, and was that a frown or a smile? No one would ever know.
Five out of Ten, Hearth gave him. Magnus beamed at him and shuffled closer to his pale, slender-man-ish friend. Blitz gave them both a look, one that no one should ever really be on the wrong side of.
“So, what’s the verdict, doc?” Magnus asked, inclining his head.
“Five out of ten, apparently,”
“I meant the life-threatening arm wound,” Magnus deadpanned. Blitz flushed slightly, which was hard to see in the harsh light of the library doorway – their newest base.
“It’s not terrible,”
Oh, great!
“It’s not good either.”
….Goddamnit.
“So…” Magnus squinted at the bandaged wound – a strong word considering it was wrapped with a piece of t-shirt they found in a donation bin. “It’s a five out of ten, then?”
Told you, Hearth smirked. “Oh, yeah I guess,” Blitz laughed, joining them on the step. Magnus and Hearth were shoulder to shoulder, leaning against the locked door, with Blitz added to the equation it was a bit of a squish, but also really warm.
“What happened?” Blitz asked, eyes dropping. Magnus thought about it carefully, running answers through his head.
“Some police men and their hounds chased me, I cut myself on the fence,” he shrugged nonchalantly “I hadn’t even noticed it until the blood had already stained half of my jacket.” Said jacket was rotting somewhere in the bin, people were staring at him – a thing he couldn’t risk – so he had had to ditch it in the garbage somewhere; a sad loss but better than losing an arm.
“Hounds, damn kid, did you freak out?” It was only recently he had told the two of them about what happened with his….yeah, and already since then, they had been vigilant about his slight phobia of wolves, which did sometimes stretched to dogs but not always.
Like, who the heck could be afraid of a sausage dog or a Chihuahua?
“Uh, kind of? Not as bad as I have done,” they don’t speak of said incident, “but it was still a bit, uh, scary.” he practically mumbled the last part, feeling a bit like a child.
“Happens to the best of us,” Noticing Hearth’s withdrawal from the conversation, Magnus glanced over to the boy situated on his right. Hearth was fast asleep, leaning his head into the crook between the wall and door. As if his body had come to some profound realization, he yawned widely and his limbs began to soften into a gloop.
He vaguely heard Blitz say something but was too far gone to decipher what, instead he let his head slump down onto Blitz’s shoulder and he let the world fade away.
--------
When he awoke (makes him sound like Dracula, doesn’t it?) the only thing he registered was the numbness in his arm. Not pins-and-needles type numbness, more like post-surgery type numbness, and yes: there was a difference.
“Jeez,” he moaned, pulling at the bandage (?) on his arm, preparing for the worst underneath and he found it…
Joking: he found sod all. As in there was nothing there, no wound, no scab not even a scar. For a depressingly long time he sat there blinking at his arm, waiting for reality to wake up, only it never did.
“What the actual fuck!” He shouted, stumbling to his feet, much to the displeasure of his companions.
“Kid, what?” Blitz rumbled, rubbing at his sleep-crusted eyes before giving Magnus an I’d-kill-you-if-it-wasn’t-animal-cruelty look, he was familiar with it, sadly. Instead of trying to compose a coherent response, he shoved the practically glowing skin in his friend’s face and let him figure it out himself.
Confusion morphed into wonder and then absolute panic, Magnus watched him until he tried to reach the limb, at which point Hearth was staring too, and he pulled the arm to his chest and grabbed his backpack; a move they all knew was preparation for flight.
“Don’t panic,” Blitz commanded. Too bloody late, Magnus thought before he was gone, faster than he’d ever moved in his whole life.
“Wait!” Blitz shouted after him, again with the whole ‘too late’ thing. Magnus weaved through crowds of tourists staring at the random attractions of Boston, and a group of teenagers who swore colorfully at him It must’ve only been about six in the morning because people were still commuting to work and the sun was only caressing the sky, for some reason that made him run faster.
Like an angsty troll, he threw himself under a bridge and huddled in the shadows, vanishing almost instantly. No one came after him – which didn’t hurt at all – and so he could examine his arm with more vigor than before.
Nothing mauled the skin in the slightest, it was by far the least scarred part of his body; a thing it most definitely wasn’t the night before.
That wasn’t the only thing: he just felt better in general, like he’d just slept for twelve hours and had a cooked breakfast to start the day. Completely incorrect as he had only gotten about six hours of sleep at most, and he hadn’t eaten cooked anything in a really long time.
Duh: homeless.
His thoughts rose around him like some undead army (cheery thought) and try as he might, he couldn’t free himself from them. They nagged at him, poking and prodding where they weren’t permitted and he began to hyperventilate slightly.
He hadn’t had an asthma attack in a very long time, and he prayed to every being he knew that this wasn’t going to be one of those, because he was in some deep sugar if it was. If he wasn’t already gloriously screwed, that was. He remembered that his mom used to tell him stories whilst he heaved, random things that popped up in her head, never once did they fail to make him smile.
He tried it himself, batting away the incessant moaning of his thoughts in order to orchestrate something believable, or at least something that didn’t sound like it was written by a two-year-old (no offence to two-year-olds, you’re great).
“Um, once there was a guy named, uh, Adidas and he freaked out under a bridge because he could do things that made no sense,” Ok, maybe not award worthy (especially when his protagonist was named after a crappy trainer next to him) but it was a start.
“He, uh, had two friends called Brian and…. Harry, not to be confused with Harry Potter, who was some magic kid from across the ocean, from a rather small island called England,” his breath caught in his throat and he choked slightly.
Absentmindedly he noticed that the sun was slowly tip-toeing towards him, like a child reaching a tentative hand towards an injured animal.
The story was a bust; he didn’t have the brain to come up with anything as cool as him mom used to be able to.
“There was once an evil troll under a bridge,” a voice teased, Magnus panted out a slight laugh, burying his hands in his mucky hair. Almost immediately, a warm hand reached out and pulled them free.
Blitz cupped Magnus’ hands between his own whilst Hearth brushed the abused locks from his forehead with a tenderness that caused Magnus’ throat to close up further.
“Sorry,” Magnus huffed; Hearth pinched the back of his neck in response. His energy was depleting rapidly, much to his confusion.
“What’s happening to me?” Magnus whispered, looking between Blitz and Hearth. Neither of them deemed him with a response even as he breathing got a tad less like a drowning walrus (can they breathe under water? If so then one being smothered with a pillow) and began sounding like a human’s again.
Magnus tugged his hands out of Blitz’s and folded them over his chest. Hurt flickered in Blitz’s eyes, making him regret the action, but a moment later it was gone leaving Magnus to wonder if it had ever truly been there.
“You’re too young,” was the answer he got, and not the one he asked for.
“To drink alcohol, sure, to know what the heck is wrong with me, eh, it’s debatable,” he snarled, detaching himself slightly from the goings on around him. He knew that his eyes became the blandness that had helped him a lot in the past, and he also knew that Hearth and Blitz could see that. And they didn’t like it all that much, or at all.
We can’t tell you, slightly better than being ‘too young’ but still irritatingly vague. Magnus sighed, and stood up, or tried to - Hearth grabbed his arm and shook his head at Magnus looking more afraid than he’d ever seen him.
“I don’t like liars,” Magnus scowled, or tried to: it came out pitifully small, hurt even.
“We don’t like lying, but we don’t get a choice in the matter, sad as it may be.” That was mildly better, now he could see substantial pain and regret on their faces he could tell that there was something big at work here, something that he really didn’t want to be part of, ever (which doesn’t work out so well in the future).
“What-” his voice got cut off by him passing out. No joke, one moment he was standing and then he was collapsing into his friends as if someone had flicked a light switch in his head.
Poof and all was gone.
--------
In the morning he was confused as a new born. He had no memory of that morning and no memory of whatever arm wound Blitz kept bringing up.
“For the last time, I don’t know what cut you’re talking about, are you sure you’re feeling ok?”
Blitz didn’t like it one bit and kept scowling at the ground when he thought Magnus couldn’t see, but he saw, and it freaked him out slightly.
“What are you so mad about?”
“Nothing you remember, kiddo.”
As for Hearth, he seemed both awed and disgusted by something, Magnus asked but his friend never answered, only stared into his eyes as if he was looking for something.
“Hey, guys?”
“Yes, kid?”
“Where’s my jacket gone? I could have sworn I had it yesterday.”
“I’ll tell you when you’re sixteen.”