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Ari had successfully convinced Gwen to hold off on calling the police, at least for now. Silas was in no state to give any kind of statement, nevermind the strain an arrest would put on his already dire wounds, so a police interrogation would do little more than render him unconscious. In the meantime, they’d stitched up the lacerations on his torso and did the best they could piecing their skin back to their face. Ari didn’t know what kind of fight Silas came out of, but the damage was nothing like what they’d been trained for; some kind of special ability, if they had to guess. If Gwen would let them, they’d take him to the nearest hospital, but it was already a struggle stopping her from leaving him to die.
They felt a little bad about giving Gwen the cold shoulder, but villain or not, they weren’t about to let someone die on their watch. Gwen had spent the last fifteen minutes bitching about keeping Silas in their guest room, and if glaring daggers was the only way to get her to shut up, then so be it.
It’s no hospital setup— hell, it’s barely a setup at all— but it’s better than nothing. Gwen sat at the foot of the bed, watching Silas carefully while Ari worked (pointedly never looking at his face), and after a few miserable, uneventful hours, he was looking a little better. The second that Ari had declared him stable, Gwen stepped back.
“I’m going to go… use the bathroom,” she said with a highly suspicious pause, before swiftly leaving the room. Ari knew she was probably standing on the other side of the door, waiting for Silas to put his guard down and make a move. Like he would be moving anywhere in the next several hours.
“I’m sorry about her,” Ari says, though they don’t really have the mind to put too much feeling behind the words. They’re too busy sorting the evening into neat little boxes, tucked away in the recesses of their brain, to be unpacked in the dark of night. They sit quietly, watching the stuttering rise and fall of Silas’ chest.
It’s only like that because of anxiety, Ari knows. They checked multiple times. But still, each uneven breath draws at the well of information in their mind, and their hands itch to check again for a punctured lung, or a broken rib, or heart failure. At least then they would be doing something.
Silas doesn’t respond, but his eyes are open, staring sightlessly at the ceiling. Ari takes that as a cue to keep talking.
“It’s all she knows, y’know? I’ve tried to talk to her about it, but every time I broach the subject, she just… it’s like talking to a wall.” They lean back in their chair, dragging a hand over their face. It leaves a damp residue behind. “I mean, I bet I’m making so many assumptions about you right now. Maybe she’s right, and you are some cold-blooded serial killer. But you’re also apparently Silas, the cute guy from the cafe she never shuts up about, even if she tries to pretend she totally doesn’t care.”
He perks up a little bit at that, dragging his gaze across Ari’s face before he settles back against the pillows.
Thumbing over the chain around their neck, Ari looks at Silas. Really looks at him. Beneath the bandages is someone their age, maybe a bit older, who already looks like he’s ready to give up. But his eyes are sharp. If he is Golddigger, he must be fighting for a reason. Resigned to his fate, but clinging to life nonetheless.
It reminds them a little too much of their younger self.
They huff out something between a laugh and a scoff. “I don’t think you’re evil. You seem too sad to be evil.”
Silas’ face does… something, and it’s clearly not comfortable, since he drops into a grimace immediately afterwards.
- - -
Gwen is in the hallway, rummaging through drawers for their supplies. The damn meta cuffs have got to be here somewhere, she knows the program gave her a pair, but they weren’t in her closet or her bag and every moment she spends away from that room is a moment Ari could be in trouble—
Speak of the devil. The guest room door swings open and Ari trudges out, closing the door and leaning against it with a sigh. The ponytail isn’t doing much to keep their hair out of their face, and the skin beneath their eyes is bruised purple, but Gwen is drawn to the streak of red across the side of Ari’s nose. She tenses up.
“Are you bleeding? Did he try anything?”
“What? No,” Ari frowns, scrubbing at their face. It just smears the blood around. “It’s not mine, dumbass. I’m going to wash up.”
She follows them into the bathroom, which is a bit of a disaster. The bathtub won’t be too hard to clean, but the towels and bath mats are going to give them hell if they don’t start while it’s fresh. Ari turns on the faucet, watching the water run pink as they rinse the blood off their palms and face. Gwen picks up the mats and scrubs soap into the stains. It’s quiet for a long moment.
“We need to turn him in to the police—”
“Don’t start,” they snap, but the dam has been opened.
“We never should have let him in, Ari! We could at least follow proper protocol for this.” With renewed vigor, she starts going through the bathroom drawers. Where the hell are the meta cuffs?
“And, what, leave him to bleed out in a jail cell?”
“He’s a villain!”
“Would you rather they have executed me at fourteen? I was a villain, after all,” Ari grits out. Gwen chokes on her words.
“That’s not— you know it's not the same. You were just a kid, and he’s a grown ass adult. He knows exactly what decisions he’s making.”
“Yeah, a grown ass adult that went to the regular at the coffee shop for help. Why the hell would he come here, if he had anywhere else to go?” Ari turns to glare at her with a scowl. “You don’t get it, Gwen. You've spent your whole life sheltered and cared for and comfortable, spoon-fed everything you needed. Have you ever considered that some people just don’t have any other options?”
“Well, I’m sorry if I can’t fathom the idea of someone’s only option being KILLING PEOPLE?” She’s shouting at this point, but can’t bring herself to care. Her hands finally close around the cuffs, which were tucked away in the back of a cabinet. They hum with energy swallowed from her burning palms. “I think you don’t get it. These are people’s lives we’re talking about, and he’s just throwing them away like they don’t matter—”
“The same way you think his life doesn’t matter?”
Gwen’s thoughts come to a screeching halt. His life doesn’t matter, does it? He’s a thief, a fraud, a murderer. Golddigger is notorious for using his mind control powers to manipulate and exploit people, leaving them in a vulnerable state where they can’t fight back. He’s evil, plain and simple.
(She thinks of Silas, who was charmingly awkward, tripping over himself to apologize when Gwen was the one who bumped into him. She thinks of how he memorized her coffee order after just two meetings, and had it ready and waiting the next time she came in after a run.
When she questioned him, he just gave a sheepish smile. The blush that darkened his face made her heart ache.)
“It’s… he’s a villain,” she repeats uselessly.
“But he’s still a person.” Ari’s words are cold and matter-of-fact, the same way they diagnose injuries out on the field. Gwen opens her mouth to retort, but what can she say to that?
Both of them snap to attention as the silence is broken by a dull crash from the other room.
“Shit,” Ari says. Gwen races out of the bathroom, meta cuffs in hand.
- - -
Silas doesn’t think he’s ever been this tired.
The door shuts with a soft click as Ari leaves the room, promising to be back soon with a glass of water or something. He hasn’t spoken a word since he arrived, since moving his mouth tugs painfully at the wounds on his face, but he gives them a small head tilt in acknowledgement (or at least, he hopes they read it that way).
Exhaling heavily through his nose, he settles himself back against the cushions. This is definitely going up there on the list of Top 10 Weirdest Things to Happen to Him: staying in his crush’s house while her girlfriend gives him medical care (and also his crush looks like she’s about to burst into flames at any moment). He didn’t want to come here, but he didn’t really have any other choice. He was going to die.
God, he didn’t want to die.
It’s a miracle, or maybe a shame, that he remembered Gwen’s address from the one time he dropped her off from the cafe. Ideally, she never would have figured out the more unsavory parts of his life, but… What’s done is done. At least Ari seems to be keeping her from tearing him a new one.
He isn’t really surprised. It was doomed to fall apart anyway; Silas just wishes he had a little more time to play pretend before it did.
What he is surprised about, though, is how kindly Ari has been treating him. Considering how much Gwen preaches against villains, he’d kind of thought that Ari would be the same. But the way they defended him, treated him with such kindness…
This is getting kind of pathetic. He shuffles over in the bed, shaking his head to chase away the thoughts, but it only succeeds in sending a fresh new wave of pain through his body. There’s a bottle of ibuprofen on the bedside table, but he hasn’t taken any yet. Ari said something about getting some food and water in him first. He can cope with dry swallowing them though, so he reaches over to grab them—
He stills. There’s shouting from the other room.
“Well, I’m sorry if I can’t fathom the idea of someone’s only option being KILLING PEOPLE?”
It’s Gwen.
“I think you don’t get it. These are people’s lives we’re talking about, and he’s just throwing them away like they don’t matter—”
Silas inhales sharply through his teeth, squeezing his eyes closed. He pushes through the pain and grabs the bottle, tipping too many pills into shaking hands and choking them down past the nausea. His mouth tastes like blood.
They're still shouting in the other room, but Silas has stopped listening. He can’t stay here much longer. He’s just a magnet for suffering, for both himself and others, and Gwen is right to turn him in to the police. God knows he’s caused more than enough harm for a lifetime, and it’s their right to put him down like the dog he’s become.
But he wants to stay alive a little longer.
His heart is racing as his eyes dart around the room in search of an exit, a single-minded quest for survival. There’s a window across the room. Chest tight with anxiety, Silas throws himself over the edge of the bed and towards the far wall. He lands hard, and has to bite his tongue to keep himself from screaming as pain lances through his body. Something clatters loudly beside him; it’s a first-aid kit. Ari must have left it on the bed.
So much for stealth.
(Val’s voice hisses in his ear. And you call yourself a thief?)
Fingers fumbling for the latch, he’s barely managed to drag one leg over the windowsill when the door bursts open and Gwen storms in, heat rolling off her in waves. She locks eyes with him and surges forward, grabbing him roughly by the arm and pulling him upright. Her grip feels like it’s going to snap his bones. Everything in his body aches.
“Where the hell do you think you’re going?” She snaps, jostling him roughly. Gwen towers over him, and he averts his gaze, lowering it instead to her fiery-red hair.
“Gwen, stop it!” Ari stumbles through the doorway. “We just got him stable, it’ll be dangerous for him if you two start getting violent—”
Gwen scoffs, and Silas finally sees what she’s been holding this whole time. She lifts her other hand and the meta cuffs clink quietly against each other.
(He’s being carted away to juvie. The cuffs on his wrists are heavy and cold, crackling with some kind of metallic energy. There’s a hollow feeling in his head; it feels like someone has cut out a piece of his brain. The officer is saying something, but everything is fuzzy. It’s like something fundamental to his being has been smothered out.)
He can’t go back.
Before she can get the cuffs on him, he wrenches his arm back. The exhaustion and blood loss has him dizzy, so it isn’t enough to break her grip, but it is enough to startle her.
“Let. Go.” Silas can feel the wounds on his face soaking through the bandages, and his skin feels like it’s on fire, but he enunciates the words perfectly. Gwen drops both his arm and the cuffs.
Ari is stepping forward, hands held up placatingly. “Hang on, Silas, we can talk about this. Your injuries—”
“Stay there,” he says, and they freeze in their tracks. He looks between them and feels sick to his stomach.
There’s a burning sensation in his eyes, but he brushes it off. Must be the night air coming in. He moves back towards the window, pulling his other leg up over the edge, dangling out over the street. It’s not a far drop, but he’s not sure how his injuries would fare. Not that there’s much of a choice.
He turns back to the people he wished he could call friends. Ari’s face is stuck somewhere between anguish and confusion, and Gwen just looks angry.“Don’t follow me.”
And with that, he slips off into the night.
