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“The air tastes like ozone and old salt,” Virgil remarks, though his eyes aren't on the sky.
The ambulance pulls away from the curb of Dakota Plaza, its sirens a fading wail that vibrates in the chest. Inside, Aqua Maria is no longer a creature of the tide; she is human, fragile, and finally heading home to a sister who has spent years mourning a ghost. Virgil and Richie stand shoulder-to-shoulder, the adrenaline of the day beginning to cool into a heavy, humming lethargy. Richie is leaning into Virgil, his shoulder a warm pressure point.
"Keep her solid permanently," Richie mutters, his voice thick with a relief he isn't quite naming.
Virgil feels a surge of playful energy, a sudden spark jumping beneath his skin. He glances at Richie—the way his glasses are slipping down his nose, the slight tremor in his hands—and feels a fierce, grounding affection.
"Hey Gear, know what I want for my birthday?"
Richie blinks, adjusting his frames. "No, what?"
"A wetsuit."
Before Richie can ask why on earth he’d want a suit designed for saltwater, Virgil lets a sharp, controlled snap of electricity jump from his fingertips. He doesn't aim for the shoulder; he aims low. The zap hits Richie square on the cheek of his backside with a loud crack. Richie jumps a foot in the air, a startled yelp escaping him.
Virgil grins, a slow, flirtatious curve of the lips, his eyes dancing with mischief. "Ahh, that's better."
Richie’s face flushes a deep, vivid red. He lets out a huff of indignation and instinctively flips Virgil off, but the gesture is cut short. His arm freezes halfway up. A sharp, jagged hiss of pain escapes his teeth, and his middle finger curls inward as a wince twists his features. The playfulness vanishes instantly. Virgil is moving before Richie can even explain the pain, his hands gripping Richie’s forearm. He pulls the sleeve of the jacket back, and the sight makes Virgil’s stomach do a slow, nauseating roll.
Just below the wrist, a jagged laceration from their skirmish earlier is weeping. The edges of the wound are no longer clean; they are a bruised, angry violet, swollen and radiating a heat that Virgil can feel even without touching it. A thin, yellowish discharge clings to the skin, smelling faintly of stagnant water and decay.
"Richie, oh god, when did this happen?" Virgil’s voice is frantic. He’s scrambling, his mind racing through the hazy corridors of a tenth-grade health class, trying to find a term, a treatment, anything.
"It... it started stinging an hour ago," Richie rasps, his skin suddenly clammy.
"Um... we check your... antidiuretic hormone!" Virgil blurs out, his panic manifesting as a desperate search for medical jargon. "No, wait. We can't check hormones."
Richie lets out a weak, wet laugh that turns into a cough. "Plus, I'm pretty sure that's the thing that connects my kidney to my ass."
"Shut up," Virgil snaps, though his eyes are wide with worry. He’s staring at the infection, imagining the bacteria blooming in Richie's bloodstream. "Well, it's anti-something. Antigens?"
"Antigens are a medicine, Virg. Or part of the immune response," Richie breathes, his voice dropping an octave, sounding exhausted. He leans his weight into Virgil, his body starting to shiver. "Just... take me to a clinic. They'll give me antibiotics. Just get me out of the sun."
Virgil nods and hooks a heavy arm around Richie’s waist, hauling him close, feeling the unnatural heat radiating from the wound and the sudden, trembling fragility of the boy beside him.