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The dart Flynn took to the neck feels like a distant memory by the time they get back to the annex, exhausted but euphoric with victory. Heracles’ club is secured, snatched from the hands of some unsavoury collectors. Librarians and guardian alike are in one piece. There's wine to be had in celebration, and it's a fitting Greek vintage.
What is the tiniest puncture mark when all this is considered? How can it matter at all when Flynn suffers no immediate faint, experiencing nothing more than a vague tendency towards sleep that sends him up to bed far earlier than usual?
Eve finds out in the middle of the night.
She wakes from an uneasy rest for no discernible reason (at first, anyway), rolling over and stretching out only to find that her partner is mysteriously absent. His sheets are cold- he's been gone a while. When she blinks through the grit of sleep and rubs her eyes, she catches a sliver of light seeping through the gap under the bathroom door. Her ears discern the faint sound of… retching?
Her stomach lurches, and so does she, sitting up and tossing aside the covers as she hurries to get out of bed. The floor is so cold beneath her feet she hisses, padding quickly towards the door. It's politeness alone that stops her right outside it.
“Flynn?” She calls gently, rapping on the panelling with a single knuckle. “Everything okay?”
She expects the door to swing open at once, and a dishevelled-looking Flynn to apologise for waking her (he can't conceive of a world where this isn't a nuisance to her), explaining that a creak in the pipes was disturbing him so much that he had to dismantle the whole system this very second. Instead, nothing. She knocks again, and partway through there's another weak retch that she no longer has the strength to ignore.
“I’m coming in.” She calls.
When she enters, he's kneeling in front of the toilet, head bowed, arms bracing himself. He's shaking all over. His sleepwear, a rumpled white dress shirt and boxers, appears soaked with sweat, plastered to his skin.
And he's vomiting.
Eve’s brow knits in concern, heart breaking at the sight of him so small and so evidently sick. He must have picked up a bug during the last mission. Or maybe the meal he had in Kefalonia was bad?
Either way, she crosses over to his side and drops down in a crouch, hand coming up to rub his back.
“Oh, Flynn. You should've woken me, sweetheart.”
He shakes his head weakly, and as he turns slightly to face her, she sees not the usual pallor of nausea on his cheeks but the blazing flush of a fever. His hair is plastered to his forehead. His eyes are glassy.
“Y’looked peaceful.” He half-whispers.
Eve tucks a damp curl behind his ear and cups his cheek in her palm, watching the way he leans into her touch, eyes fluttering closed.
“You’re sick, huh?”
His eyes slide open. “N-not in the way you… th-think.”
This answer catches her off guard, as many of Flynn's do. She frowns.
“What do you mean?”
The sigh that escapes his lips is weary in a way only Librarians can be, and it terrifies her. Nothing good ever comes from a sigh like that.
Flynn gives her a weak smile.
“Hy- hydra venom.” He rasps. “Must’ve got me with the dart when we- when we were out.”
Eve's heart drops to her feet. “Shit… what now?”
His eyes glitter with a peculiar melancholy.
“Me?” He huffs out a small laugh. “D-die, I s’pose.”
They get him set up on a cot in the main room of the annex- Eve’s idea, of course, because she can't fathom the idea of him spending a single minute alone when he's feeling so ill. Jenkins assists, being the first one she woke, but soon the other librarians are emerging bleary-eyed from various nooks and crannies too. Evidently, they all chose to stay in the library tonight. Eve can't decide whether that's a good thing or a bad thing.
On the one hand, their knowledge could prove useful, but on the other? Their concern for Flynn is only increasing her anxiety.
“Oh my God.” Cassandra breathes the moment she sees him curled up on the cot, shining with sweat. “Flynn?”
He cracks open an eye and attempts to crack a smile too. It comes out as more of a grimace.
“M’okay, Cassandra.”
And there’s another thing- his habit of minimising his own suffering is bad enough when it's just Eve he's performing for, let alone three other worried young librarians too.
“What happened? Why's he sick?” Ezekiel asks, voicing his question to nobody in particular.
Before Eve can get a word in edgewise-
“Somebody mentioned hydra venom. It's not hydra venom, right?” This from Jacob. The desperation in his tone only reinforces the fatalism Flynn alluded to earlier. Jenkins must sense Eve’s growing (but still mostly concealed) panic, because he takes over, speaking as he wipes a thermometer clean on his jacket and offers it to Flynn.
“There's no way of knowing that so soon.” He says with a hint of chastisement. “We can't jump to worst case scenarios when there are still so many possibilities.”
Flynn, usually so vocal about everything, remains eerily silent, his eyes so glazed over with fever that it's clear before the temperature has even been read that it isn't going to be good. Jenkins takes the thermometer back anyway, though. He sighs.
“Okay. Mr Carsen has a fever. But before we can know anything with certainty, we must-”
Flynn’s already baring his arm, rolling a sleeve with trembling fingers. His gaze flits between them all. Another wavering smile appears on his face.
“B-blood test.”
Eve sees the squiggly clusters floating around through the lens of the microscope, and withdraws to find Jenkins’ expression direr than ever.
“We need to talk to the other librarians. Immediately.”
Academics are not, widely speaking, in a guardian’s area of expertise, but Eve can't help turning over the information in her mind as she sits in a now-silent annex.
Fact number one- there is hydra venom in Flynn's bloodstream. She's seen it with her own eyes, and with every moment that passes she sees it more in his steady decline.
Fact number two- there is, in fact, an antidote to hydra venom. The problem is that it exists only in the possession of the centaurs atop Mount Pelion, and, as Eve has also learned, they're not the most agreeable creatures on earth. Far from it.
Fact number three- If they don't get this antidote to Flynn in the next thirty or so hours, he will die. This is the futile outlook her partner has been adopting since the beginning, and, as always with Flynn, it isn't a foolish one. She wishes he weren't so clever on this occasion.
Fact number four- even supposing the antidote is secured, Flynn is not free of danger, because the pain of the venom is so unbelievably potent that it has driven even the strongest of men to suicide. As Jacob had explained, voice low, words tentative, Heracles himself was overpowered by it.
He died not in battle, but by throwing himself onto his own funeral pyre to escape the pain. And, therefore…
Fact number five- Eve is sitting at Flynn's side, his hand in hers, to keep him safe in any way she can. She can't lose him. She won't lose him. So she will remain here in the heavy silence of a nearly Librarian-less annex until Cassandra, Jacob, and Ezekiel return from Mount Pelion.
“Any change?” Jenkins asks, emerging from one of the back rooms with a few bottles and instruments on a tray.
Eve glances back at Flynn. He has his eyes closed, but he isn't sleeping- his brow is tightly furrowed, and it seems he must direct every ounce of his energy into fighting through the pain. And while the hand that Eve is holding remains tense, it lacks the iron grip of the other, white-knuckled as it clenches the thin mattress of the cot. He simply doesn't want to hurt her. Even in agony, he places her comfort over his own.
“Mostly the same.” Eve murmurs, lifting her unoccupied hand to stroke his damp hair. “I think the pain’s getting worse, though.”
Jenkins nods gravely. “That doesn't surprise me.” He sets the tray down on the nearby table and approaches the cot. “Mr Carsen?”
With great effort, Flynn opens his eyes. He doesn't look fully… there… anymore.
“Would you like something more for the pain, Sir?”
Flynn shakes his head. Opens chapped lips and replies,
“I’ll n-need it… more la-later… should- should s-save it.”
His words chill Eve to the bone.
The silence creeps in like a fog, so alien in Flynn's presence that Eve occasionally squeezes his hand just to feel him squeeze back, just to know that he's still alive. Teeth chattering, skin prickling with sweat, but still aware enough to acknowledge her.
His fever rises steadily. First 102, then 103, then 104. After a couple of hours, it sits at a blistering 105, and with it comes the delirium. His lips start to move soundlessly, his eyes start to flicker and roll. When she presses the cool cloth to his forehead, he flinches away like he doesn't know who she is, and it takes several moments of soothing for him to settle down.
And it's cruel in that way, this fever- it strips him of his logic, his reason. The brilliant mind that makes him ‘Flynn’ melts beneath the heat until he's left confused and terrified.
Occasionally, he drifts into a restless sleep, then wakes up in a panic, limbs flailing, chest rising and falling rapidly. He sends questions to every corner of the room, even those that are empty, asking what these phantoms did to him, what they want from him, where he is. Tears gather in his bloodshot eyes.
“It’s alright, Flynn.” She tells him, one hand on his shoulder, the other on his cheek. “Hey, you're okay. Lay down, sweetheart. Let us look after you.”
Her voice, it seems, is the only instrument capable of bringing him down from this precipice. Each time, he flops back down, shuddering, and those soundless tears are the only measure of his terror.
Eve wishes he weren't so silent.
A few hours later, her request is granted- breaths become rasps become grunts become groans become cries. The pain spreads, and he writhes on the cot for some position that gives him relief, only to apparently discover that none such position exists anymore. So he cries. He shouts. He sobs.
He begs.
Eve had known deep down that this might happen- Jacob’s warning about Heracles’ fate has been ringing in her ears since he spoke it- but feeling Flynn's weak grip on her arm, watching his bloodless lips move, his eyes wide, is another thing entirely.
“P-Please.” He rasps. His voice cracks with the last dregs of his resolve. “Please, Eve, I want- l-let me die. You have to- Eve, I need you to-”
She squeezes his hand tightly in hers and feels more helpless than ever. Her job is to protect him, to keep him safe, yet now that he needs her most she's failing him. She can't give him what he wants, but neither can she give him what he needs. That job falls upon the other librarians, wherever they are.
Jenkins steps in before she can say anything.
“It's alright, Mr Carsen- Colonel Baird, would you mind holding his arm for a moment?... Just there, thank you.”
Eve blinks through a haze of tears and follows his instructions as best she can. Within moments, Jenkins is slipping a needle into the burning skin of Flynn’s forearm, injecting its contents, then withdrawing it again.
The rapid breathing and shaking begins to subside, and the pleas grow slurred. Flynn's gaze loses its coherence. He calls her name weakly. She wipes away another tear and tells him that she's with him, that she isn't going anywhere.
When he at last closes his eyes and falls into total silence, Eve turns to Jenkins, who responds to her unasked question with a solemn expression.
“Sedatives. For now, they're the only respite we can offer him.”
He takes a step away from the cot, and gestures for her to follow him. She hesitates. Glances back at Flynn, finally still, finally looking halfway peaceful, and leaves him with a gentle kiss on the forehead.
“It… it is hard. To see anybody like that. Let alone somebody you care so deeply about.”
Eve nods, but says nothing more. How can she possibly express what she's feeling? How difficult it really is?
“You are doing well, Colonel Baird.”
She suppresses a laugh soaked in tears. “Well? He's dying, how could I possibly-”
Her words are washed away beneath another cresting wave of emotion, of premature grief and self-loathing and terror. Jenkins places a hand on the small of her back as they walk.
“It's not in your power to save him, Guardian, but you are there with him. And that is enough for now.”
Flynn remains unconscious for a few quiet hours, and Eve spends the whole time right at his side. She picks up his hand in hers and pulls it to her lips, kissing each scalding knuckle, watching the quick but regular thumping of his pulse in his throat. She drags cool cloths over his face, neck, arms, and chest, and she tells him everything that she's doing even when she knows he can't possibly hear her. She stays there with him, because if Jenkins is right (and he usually is), that's all she can do.
When he does wake, he's different to how he was going under. Initially, Eve thinks it's just the medication wearing off, but then everything lingers far too long, and his eyes retain their glassiness as the minutes unfold.
“Hey.” She greets. His gaze slides across to look at her, but there's no glimmer of recognition within it. “Hey, Flynn. It's alright. You're okay.”
Still he says nothing. Does nothing. It's only when Jenkins takes his temperature again that the reason becomes evident.
“His fever is… it's too high. His body is starting to shut down.”
Flynn closes his eyes again, and Eve hates the fact that she's glad of it. Because at least this way she doesn't have to stare into hollow brown eyes any longer, and she can pretend for a moment that he's simply asleep.
The first seizure catches her off guard at hour 25. One moment, he's laying in total stillness, and the next it looks like he's thrashing about in the distress of another night terror (those have been frequent too). When she leaps up to soothe him, though, she finds his eyes rolled all the way back, only the whites visible, and she notes that the movements are too regular to be voluntary.
Neither Jenkins nor the Library itself can produce anything to stop it, so Eve must sit with Flynn, speaking uselessly, until at long last his twitching muscles shudder into motionlessness again. He doesn't regain any level of consciousness. Jenkins tells her that's to be expected, and he says this with a gravity in his voice that makes her sick.
“What next?” She half-whispers, not daring to speak too loudly lest she sob or somehow materialise a new symptom for him.
Now it's Jenkins’ turn to fall silent.
She knows exactly what that means.
Over the course of three or four hours, Flynn’s breathing gradually deteriorates. It slows, first minutely, then to the point that she can count his respirations over sixty seconds on one hand. Occasionally, a quick rub to his chest seems to stimulate things again, and she is able to breathe easy for a short while.
Eventually…
“Flynn? Come on, baby. Take a breath. Breathe for me.”
…everything just…
“Flynn? Breathe- you have to, oh- oh God, Flynn, you need to-”
… stops.
“Breathe!”
In a moment of desperation, she seals her lips over his and blows, exhaling all the air from her own lungs into his. His skin is colder than she expects it to be, and that terrifies her more than the boiling heat.
But his chest rises with this gesture, so she continues. Inhale. Exhale into his mouth. Inhale again.
Repeat the process over and over and over for as long as is necessary. She will keep him alive. It doesn't matter what Jenkins says- that's her job.
Or, if it isn't her job as his guardian, it's her job as everything else that they are to each other.
The doors swing open after thirty two hours, and three librarians are scattered inside through them, panting and dishevelled- but in Jacob's hand, held aloft, trembling?
A vial.
“It took us so long to reach the top, we thought there was no way we were going to make it in time.” Cassandra explains, holding one of Flynn's hands in hers, tracing patterns on the back of it. Eve holds the other and rests her unoccupied hand on his forehead. “Especially because we hadn't even started to negotiate with the centaurs. You were right, Jenkins, they didn't seem friendly at all.”
The caretaker of the annex shakes his head and huffs a vague noise of disgruntlement. “Grudge-holding creatures, centaurs.”
“Yes, but it also means they're fiercely loyal.”
Eve sits up slightly. “What are you saying?”
Cassandra smiles fondly, eyes drifting to the as-yet-unconscious Flynn. “It turns out Flynn did them a favour ten years ago, during one of his first expeditions as a librarian. He encountered a group of them who'd just been ambushed by a magic-hunting group, and he helped them with their wounded; offered them the use of a few artifacts he had on him- things to help with healing.”
“Of course he did.” Jenkins grumbles, though with a distinct air of affection. Flynn's always been good at bending the rules to help others.
“Anyway, when they learned that it was him we were looking to cure, they gave us the antidote immediately, no negotiation required. They even showed us a quicker way of getting back here.”
Jacob chuckles. “It was insane. I mean, I haven't met centaurs before, but from all that I'd heard about them, I thought for sure we were going to have a tough time.”
Jenkins arches his brows. “As did I. But I suppose I forgot about Mr Carsen’s penchant for good deeds.”
Eve studies her partner’s features, the colour slowly starting to creep back into his features, and squeezes his hand.
“Thank you for being you.” She murmurs.
She wakes like she does most mornings, with Flynn's breaths chuffing against her neck and his arms draped over her. This morning, though, the familiarity of the sensation is enough to bring her to tears. She tightens her embrace and feels him reciprocate, stretching his limbs before settling back in again, nose nuzzling against her skin. He sleeps as though she wasn't keeping him alive through sheer will only a matter of hours ago.
“Flynn?” She murmurs, fingers scratching against the wispy hair at the nape of his neck.
He hums. It reverberates through her like a cat’s contented purr.
“G’morning.”
And as she pulls back to look at him, his gaze is bleary but coherent. A smile tugs at his lips. His hair is mussed in that adorable way it always is when he's just woken up.
“What’d I miss?”
The end of my world, she thinks.
“Not much,” she says instead, teasing.
The cot is uncomfortable, and creaks beneath their collective weight- but as he drifts off to sleep again, she knows she’d happily lay right by his side if it meant they would never be parted.