Work Text:
Spoilers to end of the game, coda following Alistar’s scene
Nikola’s breathing was staccato and hot against Grayson’s neck, his jaw twitching with little restrained grunts. The scientist’s shock-cold fingers gripped his shirt below his coat, twisting in desperation right below his old heart. The ex-knight mused that this was probably physically the closest he’d been to someone in a long, long time, and the last circumstance had certainly been far more romantic. His exhaustion loosened his thoughts and the older man pondered – how long ago had it been? Twenty, no, maybe thirty years?
Then the younger man gasped sharp; Grayson felt bared teeth on his throat, felt Nikola’s silent scream (trying so hard to be brave), and was returned to task, tightening his arms about the quivering body by his side.
“You’re alright, it’s going to be alright,” he murmured, watching Devi as she poured a generous amount of grain alcohol on her fingers, snatched from Whitechapel before they’d fled. Sanitized, she’d begun probing the boy’s wounds with sharp focus. Nikola’s eyes, too much white in them, tracked her movements and he saw the three large gashes in his stomach. Grayson felt the wounded man’s tremors increase ten fold with fear and shifted to bring a hand to his pale face, cupping his palm over Nikola’s vision.
“Just breathe, Nikola, with me – slow and deep, yes, just like that, you’re doing fine-”
“First wound on the chest is just a contusion, bruising, though I’m sure it hurts something awful. Don’t think anything is broken. These, though - nicked open the small intestine a few times, looks like,” Devi discovered, “And the rest bounced across his ribs. I can sew this to stop the bleeding, and then stitch the skin.”
“The bunkers of the shipyard at the mouth of underground tunnels is hardly a place for surgery,” Grayson disapproved lowly, eyeing the filthy floor and grime. He had the blackwater to protect him from sickness – this young man did not.
“We can’t move him very far like this,” she whispered. “For his sake, and for the unwanted attention. I’m sure you’ve heard your… peers on the com channels.” He felt the ugly hot stab of anxiety and sadness bubble up in his chest again. Yes, he had.
The door rattled and was thrown open. Lakshmi, winded, motioned behind her.
“I have bartered, the old shiphand – he has a bed, and this,” she opened her fingers, revealing a small vial.
_______
They wrapped his stomach with Lakshmi’s and Devi’s scarves as best they could, and then Nikola felt himself scooped up like a small boy. The memory of his papi blurred brightly in his mind as he lost track of time. Was this dying? Was this part of the process? His side, it was burning hot – currents of fire thrumming in his very sinew as would a conductor of electricity. No, no there was too much to do – so much yet to do in this life, discoveries and triumphs to be made, promises to be kept – he struggled to sharpen his thoughts and wits, return his mind to awareness.
He was on a bed – a flurry of movement around him. Sir Galahad – no, just Grayson now, he’ll never get the name right, too many years learned to just be unlearned – pulling a floor lamp to the mattress, blinding him. Devi shooing him away -
“No, no please, don’t go, I can’t,” he begged incoherently, struggling to reach out for his friend.
Devi’s eyes shifted from his to the ex-knight and she huffed.
“Sit there, at the head of it, we must have room to work. Take off your boots and coat. Do not touch anything.”
Disrobed, and so quickly, when had it happened?– Grayson stepped back into view, pulling a chair to the mattress.
“My friends, I am s-sorry,” Nikola managed to express, “I should have – listened to Lady Lakshmi-”
“Hush now, child,” her disembodied voice floated behind the light. “Can I give him this yet?”
“Yes,” Devi said.
“Nikola,” Grayson gently turned the young man’s head to it’s side, forcing his gaze away from the needle and vial, “This will help the pain, and then we’re going to fix you right up. You’re going to be just fine. Watch me, my eyes, can you do that?”
“Y-yes,” Nikola breathed, always so pleased to serve this great man, though Galahad kept his hand up anyway, blocking his vision downward. Nikola felt a different quick stab of pain in his arm. Warmth blossomed from it like oil spreading in water and he watched, intrigued as Galahad’s face swarmed his vision, blurry and a myriad of new color – reds and golds, vibrant, almost living. He reached to touch, to learn what this phenomenon was, sample it’s texture -
“Keep his hands down,” Devi whispered from somewhere far away, and Galahad gently captured his wandering limb.
“Galahad,” Nikola said, the name sounding strangely thick from his throat, though he was sure he’d pronounced everything correctly, “Sir Galahad, will you come with us? H-help save – the world?”
Grayson’s gaze flickered from his face to somewhere down the bed, presumably at one of his caretakers. A halo of bronze now encircled the knight’s head, painting him in holy light, like the old Byzantine paintings of old. So badly he wanted to reach out and touch -
“Yes, Nikola.”
“Ifyou stayhere,” he tried, the words getting stuck in the warm murkiness he was slowly sinking in, “They will kill – you, they don’t under-”
“Shhhh, hush, it’s alright,” Grayson told him, eyes on whatever was happening down the bed, “I’m safe, I’m right here. You made sure to that.”
“Yes, yes wedid,” Nikola slurred. “Sebastian – made me promise – keep you safe.” And then he drifted into warm waters, lapping at his feet, an ocean of colors. Then, darkness.
_______
“We go,” Devi told him as she cleaned up the last of the bloody rags, “Tomorrow morning, our ship comes for us. You would do best to follow with him when he is able,” she motioned at the sleeping scientist. “You know martial law is coming.”
“…yes,” Grayson agreed from Nikola’s bedside, though his voice was distracted, far away. Devi frowned and opened her mouth to speak again, but Rani placed a hand on her shoulder and shook her head. Devi nodded, cast one last glance at Nikola, and then left the small room. Rain pattered hard on the tin roof, it’s cadence deafening. The rickety wooden walls did little to soak the sound.
“Knight,” Rani said, kneeling before him. She could see the clouds in his eyes, dark and storming, both tense with anger and grief, and sodden with exhaustion.
“I told you, a knight no longer,” he muttered, scrubbing his face and bleary eyes with a hand.
“Always, a knight, I think,” she told him, placing her palm on his knee. “Those you served no longer understand the meaning of the word, clearly.”
He snorted and leaned back in the chair with a creak.
“What do you know of it? Or did Sir Boris tell you all of our secrets?” He paused, light leaving his eyes. “Their secrets.”
“Come,” she beckoned him. The small shack was owned by the father of a rebel named Analise, who had fled England. His fishing company remained, and she trusted the man to offer sanctum for a least a few days. For what she paid she’d hoped for more than two rickety cots and soggy floors, but safety was safety. English – mostly godless, and always money loving.
But perhaps not this man. She stood and took his hands. He allowed himself to be pulled to his feet, a weary sigh escaping his nose at the trouble of standing. His eyes opened when she didn’t pull away and he met her gaze.
She swallowed, the moment suddenly heavy. Her thumbs braced his knuckles, ungloved and battle worn. Grayson looked down at them, eyelashes blinking slowly, then back to her face. After a beat, he squeezed her hands.
“I am – glad you are not dead,” she admitted, hard to hear in the rainfall. “This world needs you, still.”
He cocked his head. He said nothing, but held her hands more firmly. She felt her heart beat a fraction faster.
“Alright,” she whispered. “We make a good team. It would be such a shame to lose the start of a beautiful friendship.” His mustache raised just so slightly – a smirk.
A loud crack of thunder shook the roof and fillings, startling them both out of the moment. Nikola moaned a little, turning his head away from them with a furrowed brow.
“I will stay with him,” he told her, “Until he is well enough to travel.”
“And then?” She asked, moving from him to the second cot, pulling a thick woolen blanket from it and placed it over the young man. He stilled.
“And then,” Grayson sighed, allowing her to escort him to the empty mattress, “I don’t know.” He sat heavily, ancient springs squawking in protest. “I want – I want to explain, I need to tell her - ”
“If you go back there, you will not make it out again,” Rani whispered fiercely, jabbing a finger into his chest. “You tempt fate too much! There will be a time – where perceived wrongs can be righted. But now is not that time, knight. And you know it.” She felt her irritation at his stubbornness soften when the look of sheer loss flashed across the man’s face before he turned away. He was hurting inside, deep where the blackwater could not help him. She sighed and pulled the sheets back, then pressured his shoulder until he tilted, sinking down.
“He said, he said he promised Sebastian my safety,” Grayson said, his voice low. “How much did they know of all this? And how did Nikola-”
“He will explain,” she soothed him, pulling the chair from Nikola’s bedside to his. “There is time. And then, and only then, will know you what we have to do.”
He inhaled, prepared to argue as she suspected he always did and always would do. She stopped him with her fingers, two of them on his lips. They were warm. His eyes opened wider and he swallowed, breath hot from his nose to her fingers.
“Please rest deeply while you can, safely. I will watch over you both until tomorrow – then, you must endure until you decide what to do.” She removed her hand and removed her blade, settling it in her arms with her pistol and leaning back, facing the door.
“Guardian,” he whispered, eyes already slow to open and close on her, “A fierce one at that. I’m a lucky man.”
She thought of him lying prone for days on end, suffering and pain etched in his body, the endless battle to drip water into his mouth, wipe the sweat from his brow. He had no idea how close to death he’d walked.
“Yes, you are.”
Rani waited until his breathing slowed, the rainsound lulling him quickly. She hesitated, then rested her hand atop his.
He snared her thumb with his, locking it in place.