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The thing about being a Librarian who interacted with magic every day, who saved the world every week (and twice before Friday), and who faced down souped-up supervillains on a regular basis, was that sometimes Ezekiel forgot how dangerous regular humans could be.
It was a stupid thing to forget. Ezekiel had grown up on the streets, no magic involved, and saw first hand how violent and dangerous humans were. Yet amidst the world saving, and supervillains, and magical artifacts, Ezekiel had somehow forgotten that he was still human, and could be hurt by things other than minotaurs, or magic spells, or giants, or trolls (or giant trolls).
It was not something Ezekiel would forget again.
Ezekiel barely danced out of the way of the next punch, aware that with every step he backed himself further into an alley as he evaded but unable to do anything else. Ezekiel was not a fighter, he didn’t do punchy. The best he could hope for was to wait it out and take a chance to escape when presented with one.
The fight was him versus three men—three regular, normal, un-magical men, the others would never let him live this down—on a random side street in a random city. He didn’t even know what country he was in, as they’d been chasing down an artifact that could teleport, which necessitated going through a lot of Doors.
He didn’t know where he was, didn’t know how to get help, didn’t know where he could run to if he got away, didn’t know if the rest of the team even noticed his absence or thought he was just messing around again. He didn’t know what he’d done to piss these people off, either, but they seemed very determined to make him pay for it.
Ezekiel stepped back again, dodging a blow, when he hit a wall and he realized there was nowhere left for him to go. The three men exchanged satisfied grins as they cut off his escape route, and Ezekiel swallowed hard, eyes darting between them. The leader looked somewhat familiar—tall, white, balding—though Ezekiel couldn’t place him.
“Ezekiel Jones,” the man in the middle drawled in an Australian accent. Okay, that narrowed the options some, but Ezekiel still didn’t know him.
“Look, I’m flattered you want my autograph this bad, but why don’t we-”
Ezekiel saw the punch coming, but with his back to a wall he couldn’t move out of the way. It caught him across the jaw and snapped his head to the side, causing him to stumble as the world spun around him. The goon to his left caught his arm before he could fall over, holding tight enough to bruise as he kept Ezekiel upright.
“You ruined my life, you little shit,” the leader snarled. Oh, Ezekiel did know him—they’d worked together on a heist back when Ezekiel was still a teenager. The cops caught onto them and Ezekiel managed to get away, but the others didn’t.
What was his name again? Barry? Harry? Terry?
“It wasn’t my fault, mate,” Ezekiel said casually, as if being surrounded by three people much bigger and stronger than him didn’t worry him at all.
“Not your fault? You ran at the first sign of trouble and didn’t even think about the rest of us,” he snarled—Perry? Larry? Jerry?
“You should’ve been faster.” Ezekiel regretted the words as soon as they left his mouth, but it was too late to do anything about it now.
The leader’s face—Cary? Gary?—twisted with rage. Ezekiel tried to block the blow, but now both goons had grabbed his arms and held him in place, leaving him exposed to the leader’s punch. It landed square in the center of his chest, knocking him back into the wall as all the air left his lungs in a rush.
“I spent five years in a jail cell because of you,” the leader growled—Gary sounded right. Probably. It was a little hard to think at that moment.
The next blow caught him across the cheek, a dull thud that barely registered as Ezekiel still hadn’t caught his breath.
“And I’m gonna make you pay for every day.”
The next blow hit him square in the center of his face, a blinding pain shooting up his nose and whiting out his vision for a moment.
The pain jolted something in his mind, a forgotten—repressed—memory that suddenly came into sharp clarity.
A baseball bat is a lousy weapon, all the force is in the top eight inches. But if you know that, you can do some damage with it.
Ezekiel was not a fighter. But he knew how to fight.
In two quick moves he twisted his arms out of the goons grip, then ducked low, allowing Gary’s next strike to hit the wall behind him. Ezekiel punched Gary in the gut, forcing him back a step, then rammed his elbow into the goon on the left while at the same time kicking out at the goon on the right. He had more experience fighting with weapons, but Baird taught him enough to be dangerous on his own.
All three men stumbled back, giving Ezekiel an opening. He darted forward, no thought in his head aside from a need to get away, but Gary recovered faster than Ezekiel anticipated.
Gary’s arm slammed across Ezekiel’s chest, the force of the collision nearly flipping him over in the air, and he hit the ground hard enough for stars to fill his vision. Right, he wasn’t fighting rage-people, he was fighting normal humans—and normal humans took more than one hit to stay down.
“Someone taught the punk how to fight,” Gary snarled. A hand grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and hauled him to his feet. One of the goons yanked his arms behind his back and pinned them in place, holding him upright as Gary circled him. Ezekiel tried to throw off the guy behind him, but his fighting skills only went so far.
“Time to teach a lesson of my own,” Gary said, cracking his knuckles dramatically. Ezekiel would’ve had something to say about the theatrics, but Gary’s first punch drove all of the air out of his lungs—and all of the thoughts out of his head.
Ezekiel wheezed and tilted forward, trying to curl up and protect himself as his legs weakened, but the person behind him yanked him back to standing. Gary punched him again, and again, and again. In the ribs, face, chest, anywhere he could land a hit.
A tight, panicky feeling filled Ezekiel as he struggled, trying to pull away but unable to move. He was held in place, trapped, as the blows rained down on him. He could scarcely breathe through the punches, which didn’t help the tightness in his chest. No matter how much he fought back, he couldn’t get away, and he couldn’t think past the growing pain.
Ezekiel didn’t notice that the blows had stopped until the guy behind him let go and he collapsed to the ground in a heap. He sucked in a few gasping breaths as he tried to get up to his hands and knees, but his body wouldn’t respond properly. The exit to the alley was only fifteen feet away, but it might as well have been miles with how impossible it was to move. He tried to push himself to his feet but his legs wouldn’t hold him, and he barely stumbled two steps forward before ending up back on the ground.
“I’m not done with you,” Gary growled. He grabbed Ezekiel’s ankle and yanked him back, erasing what little progress Ezekiel had made.
Ezekiel yelped, scrabbling at the pavement, but he had nothing to grab onto. His cheek scraped across the ground as he was dragged and he aimed a desperate kick behind him, feeling it connect with something solid. The hand on his ankle let go as Gary cursed, but Ezekiel didn’t have time to move as one of the others landed a kick into his side.
Ezekiel shouted in pain and rolled over, attempting to get away, but there was nowhere else for him to go. A boot grazed his head, and Ezekiel gave up trying to escape. He curled up into a ball with his arms wrapped around his head to present a smaller target.
All three of them started kicking him, hitting his back, his legs, his arms. Ezekiel could do nothing but curl up tighter and tighter and hope this would be over soon.
“Hey!” Ezekiel had never been so glad to hear Jake’s voice. He hoped Jake wasn’t alone—the cowboy was a good fighter, but not good enough to get out of a three on one fight without also being hurt. Ezekiel heard the sound of a body crashing into someone, and the kicks abruptly stopped.
“You’d better back off.” Oh good, Baird was there too, using that growly voice that meant someone would leave with a broken bone.
Ezekiel heard the tell-tale sound of fists meeting flesh, and then several high pitched yelps of pain. He didn’t dare uncurl from his position on the ground, not wanting to give Gary or the others a chance to hit him one last time on the way out.
It didn’t take long for Ezekiel to hear three sets of uneven footsteps running away.
“Jones? You alright?” Came Baird’s voice from above him.
“Ezekiel?” Jake sounded much more concerned, and Ezekiel parted his arms enough to peek out at the two of them. The alley was otherwise empty, and after waiting a few seconds to make sure it would stay that way, Ezekiel uncurled from the fetal position. Jake had dropped to his knees next to Ezekiel while Baird stood guard over them both.
“You okay?” Jake looked at him with open worry, which would’ve been touching if Ezekiel didn’t feel like crap and if Baird wasn’t still hovering nearby. He, Jake, and Cassandra had started dating recently, but they hadn’t told the others yet. If Jake kept up with this level of worry, they wouldn’t have to say anything for the others to know.
“Took you long enough,” Ezekiel said, though his voice came out too shaky for the joke to land. He tried to push himself upright but his ribs protested the movement and he couldn’t help but hiss in pain. Jake reached forward to help him, but as soon as Ezekiel saw movement approaching him, he flinched.
Jake froze, a look of abject horror on his face while Baird’s expression turned downright murderous.
“Sorry,” Ezekiel mumbled, and pushed himself the rest of the way to sitting without help.
“Don’t- it’s not-” Jake stammered, but for a man who could speak sixty three dialects he seemed to be at a loss for words.
“Let’s get you back to the Library,” Baird said.
Jake reached out a hand slowly, his palm up, and Ezekiel took the help to get back on his feet. He swayed a bit once he was upright, and both Jake and Baird stepped closer to support him—it was all Ezekiel could do not to flinch again, and he waved them off.
“I’m fine. Let’s go,” he said. Baird raised an eyebrow at his statement but led the way out of the alley.
Ezekiel stumbled as they stepped onto the street, and Jake swooped in. He put Ezekiel’s arm around his shoulder while tucking his arm around Ezekiel’s waist.
“I can walk,” Ezekiel complained, though his words were getting harder to understand as his lip swelled up.
“Sure you can,” Jake agreed, but didn’t let go.
It got harder to stay on his feet as the adrenaline left him, leaving him wrung out and exhausted. His injuries all started clamoring for attention, from his bruised ribs and weak knees to his split lip and bloody nose to the road rash on his palm and face. Baird kept glancing back at the two of them, and Ezekiel couldn’t tell if her frown was about his injuries or the way Jake stayed glued to Ezekiel’s side.
Ezekiel barely paid attention as Baird directed them through the correct Door. He stumbled upon arriving and would’ve fallen had Jake not been there to steady him.
“Oh my.”
“What happened to you?”
Ezekiel looked up to see both Jenkins and Flynn looking at him in concern. He tried to smile, but that only pulled at his split lip and caused more blood to well up; Jenkins frowned at him while Flynn’s mouth fell open.
“Do I really look that bad?” Ezekiel rasped, hating the way everyone kept watching him. No one answered as Jake led Ezekiel over to a chair at the main table and gently set him down on it.
There was a gasp and a thunk as something heavy hit the ground, and then Cassandra stood in front of him as well.
“Oh, Ezekiel,” she whispered, her eyes wide and close to tears.
“I’m alright,” he said, even as every breath felt bruised.
“So, what happened?” Flynn asked, standing on his tip toes to get a look past Jake and Cassandra—neither of whom seemed to want to give Ezekiel any kind of personal space. Jenkins disappeared somewhere, but Baird still hovered nearby as well. Both Jake and Cassandra were being very obvious about their concern, and Ezekiel would’ve told them to back off if he thought they would listen—he was fine, he didn’t need them hovering.
“Ran into some blokes I used to work with,” Ezekiel said, hating how weak his voice came out; he looked anywhere but at Jake and Cassandra as he spoke. “Really, I’ll be fine,” he repeated, shifting his weight in the chair.
“I guess there’s no honor among thieves?” Flynn said, raising an eyebrow. Ezekiel bristled at his tone of voice.
“Look mate, it’s not my fault I have history with people. At least I had a life before the Library,” Ezekiel snapped. Baird whacked Flynn’s shoulder, and he looked appropriately chastened.
Jenkins chose that moment to reappear, a folded off-white blanket in hand. “The Shroud of Lazarus,” he said, holding out the blanket to Cassandra. “Can heal any normal wound, though I would recommend you clean up the-” Jenkins gestured to the side of Ezekiel’s face, which had been scratched up by the pavement, “before using it, otherwise your skin will heal over the dirt, and that is not a pretty sight.”
“Here.” Baird produced a giant first aid kit from underneath her desk.
“Why do you have a first aid kit when we can heal with magic?” Flynn asked.
“It’s good to be prepared,” Baird responded. Cassandra dove into the kit and started pulling out supplies while everyone else kept looking at Ezekiel, and he fidgeted in his seat, unable to find a comfortable position.
“I can do this myself,” he tried, all too aware of how many sets of eyes were on him. Cassandra acted like she didn’t hear him, and Ezekiel shifted again, feeling his face flush.
Jake still stood—hovered—next to him, a hand on Ezekiel’s shoulder like he thought Ezekiel might try to run; Ezekiel couldn’t decide if the hand was comforting, or confining. Baird had on her “I’m worried and I’m going to make it everyone else’s problem” face, and even Jenkins watched him with a frown. Ezekiel suddenly felt like a bug pinned under a microscope, with everyone just staring at him.
“Here we go!” Cassandra said, having organized the supplies to her liking and snapping on a pair of gloves. She tore open a package of something and reached towards Ezekiel.
Between one blink and the next Ezekiel was on his feet. He’d moved so his back was against a wall, the staircase to his right offering an easy escape route. The chair he’d been in was now tipped over on the ground, and everyone was still staring at him, but with even more concern and worry than before.
“I can take care of myself,” Ezekiel repeated, one arm wrapped around his ribs because bloody hell moving that fast hurt.
“What?” Cassandra frowned at him, still wearing those ridiculous gloves and brandishing some sort of gauze or wipe or something. “No, don’t be silly. We’ll help you.” She took a step forward and Ezekiel skittered a few steps up the staircase. Cassandra froze, staring up at him in confusion. “Ezekiel…” she sounded genuinely hurt, but Ezekiel couldn’t figure out why.
“Ezekiel,” Jake said. He had his hands out, palms up, like he was approaching a wounded animal. Ezekiel didn’t like that comparison, and he narrowed his eyes, glancing up at where Baird, Flynn, and Jenkins all stood, watching them. “You got hurt, we’re just trying to help,” Jake said, taking a slow step forward. Ezekiel placed one foot up another stair but didn’t move yet, instead leaning away from the crowd.
“I don’t need help,” Ezekiel said.
“Sure,” Jake agreed, “but we want to help anyway.” Ezekiel opened his mouth to respond, but hesitated, all too aware of the other people in the room. He looked up at Baird again, and swore he saw a smile pass across her face.
“You know, I just remembered that we have somewhere else to be,” Baird said loudly; she clapped a hand on both Jenkins and Flynn’s shoulders and forcibly steered them out of the room.
Ezekiel waited until the door was shut and their footsteps had faded before he looked back at Cassandra and Jake. “I can take care of myself,” he repeated, as if they hadn’t heard him the first two times.
“You don’t have to,” Cassandra said, her voice soft and quiet. Both her and Jake were still staring at Ezekiel, but their gaze didn’t feel as heavy as before. Ezekiel shifted his weight, once again hit by a wave of exhaustion.
“Look,” Jake said, taking a slow step forward. Ezekiel didn’t move away. “We care about you, and we want to take care of you. Can you let us do that?” Jake took another step so he stood at the bottom of the staircase, looking up at Ezekiel.
Ezekiel looked between the two of them, some part of him still wanting to run. He was hurt, and all of his life experience told him to take care of his injuries alone, out of sight and out of the way.
But… the people who attacked him had been from his life before the Library, when he was just a lone thief doing his best, forced to watch his own back because he couldn’t trust anyone else. That wasn’t true anymore—that wasn’t him anymore. Hell, Jake and Baird had already saved him. Something as small as patching up his injuries was nothing in comparison to how they’d come to his rescue.
Ezekiel nodded, feeling the last of the fight drain out of him. He took one step down, then felt a familiar buzzing in his head. “Uh, I think I’m gonna…” Ezekiel didn’t manage to finish the sentence as his legs gave out from under and he fell.
He opened his eyes a few seconds later to find Jake gently depositing him back in the chair.
“Thanks, cowboy,” Ezekiel croaked.
“Next time don’t run when we’re trying to help,” Jake grumbled, and this time when he left a hand on Ezekiel’s shoulder it didn’t feel like someone pinning him in place.
Cassandra carefully wiped the dirt off of his face and cleaned off the grit in his palm. Ezekiel tried not to wince when the cleaning wipe stung, but he couldn’t help himself. He was tired and in pain and he knew he could trust these people. Every time Ezekiel tensed, Cassandra paused what she was doing, looking up at him and waiting for him to nod before she continued.
“Okay, all done,” Cassandra said, and tossed all the used items into the trash. Jake shook out the blanket—Ezekiel had already forgotten the name of it—and draped it around Ezekiel’s shoulders. As soon as it was on, Ezekiel slumped back in his seat, his body filled with a pleasant, warm hum.
“Are you okay?” Ezekiel blearily blinked his eyes open to see both Cassandra and Jake staring at him in concern.
“M’yeah,” he mumbled. “Feels nice.” He sighed and closed his eyes again, content to fall asleep there and then.
“How about we get you somewhere comfortable?” Jake suggested.
“Don’t wanna move,” Ezekiel said—or, tried to say, but it came out as a muttered jumble of sounds. “Comfy,” he said, and that at least did come out right. God, he was tired. He just wanted to sleep for a day. Or a week. Or a month.
Ezekiel heard Jake sigh, and then felt an arm wrap around his back and under his legs, and then he was being carried. Ezekiel didn’t pay attention to whatever words were being said as they walked, content to doze.
He was eventually put down, and opened his eyes enough to see that they were now in the theater room. Jake sat down to Ezekiel’s right while Cassandra worked on setting up a movie.
“Wha’r’we watchin’?” Ezekiel mumbled.
“It’s my turn for movie night,” Cassandra said excitedly. Normally Ezekiel would protest, since Cassandra’s picks for movies tended to be either cheesy rom-coms or horrifying slashers—and given the vibe, Ezekiel would bet this would be the former—but he was too tired to come up with a solid argument.
Jake put his arm around Ezekiel’s shoulders and he leaned sideways, because Jake really did make for a great pillow. Ezekiel felt a brief kiss pressed to his temple, and then Cassandra took a seat on his other side, popcorn bowl in hand.
The title screen for a silly rom-com flashed up on the screen and Ezekiel relaxed back into the couch. He had a team now, people who would watch his back and take care of him when injured. It was more than he’d ever expected when Flynn first appeared in the middle of his heist, but he wouldn’t trade it for the world.