Deviation Actions
Literature Text
As the Dionysian lifted off the ground, Leta dug noisily through a drawer for bandages and salve, preparing the infirmary for her needy patient. She wondered if it was even worth the effort. After all, Fiearius never came here when she told him to -- she was always forced to treat his wounds in the bridge, or in the hallway, or wherever she could catch him for a few minutes before he growled that he hated doctors and stalked off.
But then, amazingly, just as she shut the drawer and looked up, he appeared in the doorway. He looked even worse than she remembered: he was decidedly unsteady on his feet, like he could collapse any moment. Blood caked his whitened skin and bits of glass glinted in his hair as he simply gazed at her with distant eyes.
It was hard to look at him. Images of him thrashing in the bar were vivid in her mind. Leta swallowed hard in her throat and nodded toward the exam bench, which he agreeably limped to, lowering himself achingly slowly to the edge. Meanwhile, Leta moved forward and closed the door. Whatever would be said between them … well, they didn’t need an audience.
Then, her eyes downcast, she moved toward him, her patient. She dampened a cloth and began to clean the deep cuts on his arms.
He sat obediently while she worked in silence, gently cleaning his hands, the beds of his nails. He’d never been such a good patient before: for once, he had no protests to give.
The cloth was soon a vivid red. She could think of nothing to say. If she started, she was afraid anger or grief would overwhelm her. The tension between them was palpable; a blind man could have seen it. Several minutes of silence passed until, at last, Fiearius spoke.
“Do you think there were others?” His voice was hoarse. “Besides Alyx. Others on the ship.”
It was the question Leta had not wanted to consider, horrifying and nauseating as it was. Her stomach plummeted sickly. For a moment, her hands froze in place on his wrist.
“I don’t know,” she said quietly, relieved to hear her voice was steady with determination. “But I’ll find out. I’ll speak with the deckhands … and make sure they’re taken care of. That everyone gets the treatment they need.”
“Thanks. I--” He cut himself off with a half-hearted bitter laugh. “You’re right. Maybe I am unapproachable. For this to--to slip past me for...gods know how long...”
Shame radiated from him. His eyes dropped back to the floor. Leta’s throat burned again, her mind on Alyx, the unspeakable trauma she experienced and would have to relive for the rest of her life. And she may not have been the only one …
"He’s gone now," Leta managed at last, her throat tight. "Ludo, he's -- he's gone."
Fiearius nodded his head, but his eyes were still fixed on the floor. “Yeah, he is. Very. Very gone.” A shadow fell over his face and he averted his gaze even further from her. “Sorry you -- you had to see that,” he muttered, his voice growing quiet. “I’m sure it wasn’t pretty...”
Leta raised her eyebrows in disbelief. The scene in the bar was another issue altogether. Seeing Fiearius really lose it …. it was as if he had no control over himself. This time, Leta purposely halted in her work and stared at him.
"What was that, Fiear?" she demanded quietly. “I’ve never seen you like that.”
Fiearius snorted grimly. “I wish I knew.”
"It was like -- some sort of episode,” she muttered. “Do you - go to the edge like that often?”
“Not really. Not recently anyway … “
A tense, stiff silence unfolded. They seemed trapped inside it. Leta assumed the conversation was over, and she picked up another bandage -- but to her surprise, Fiearius kept talking.
“It used to happen more often,” he said abruptly, scratching at his temple and staring wide-eyed at the floor. “More often than I care to admit. Dez used to say it was just in my nature. As if that was comforting. Doctors told me it was some kind of dissociative disorder. Aela--she thought it was an effect of the Flush. And for a long time I agreed with her.”
Leta paused, expecting an explanation. “Flush? What’s Flush?”
Fiearius hesitated, searching for the right words. “They said it was medication. Every 1st division agent in Internal Affairs was on it. It was practically requirement. It was just this tiny insignificant pill you took when things got too much to handle. It--it’s hard to explain what it does fully. But it makes you sharper. Faster. More focused. Wounds aren’t as painful when you’re on it. Danger’s not as scary. Flush makes you believe you’re invincible. Even when you’re two inches from death.”
Surprise ran through her. It wasn’t surprising that Fiearius was drugged out of his mind in his younger years, but she assumed it would have been for recreational purposes. She’d never heard of Flush, but it sounded … horribly effective.
“But you’re not on Flush anymore,” Leta prompted, a hint of questioning in her voice.
“No, I’m not,” he replied simply. “I thought the...episodes...would stop after it was out of my system. And they did. For a long time. The theory seemed to hold true.”
Leta waited, looking over his face. She had the sense Fiearius wanted to say more, until finally --
“But then it happened again,” he confessed quietly. “First month on the ship. Something went wrong. I don't even remember what. But there was another -- like you said, episode. All I remember is coming out the other side, looking a lot like I do right now." He raised his hands and looked down at himself, disgusted. "And Cyrus. Looking a lot like you did." He looked up at her, his eyes slightly narrowed. "And that wasn’t the only time, clearly.”
Leta searched over his face, the cuts and bruises marring his skin, and she breathed suddenly, "Well you almost got yourself killed this time.” She looked down, tugging a bandage tight across his wrist. "We can't let this happen again."
Fiearius grunted a sad, one-note laugh. “Wasn’t intentional.”
"I'm not blaming you.” She flicked her eyes up to his in earnest. He didn't meet her gaze. "I'm saying, we won't let this happen again. I won't let it. Because I need you, Fiear, I really do. Alright?”
The words tumbled forth before she could stop them. It was a heavier confession than she intended, and she had no idea where it had come from. It stunned her, and clearly, it stunned Fiearius. For the first time, Fiearius lifted his gaze and stared at her, his eyes softening curiously as he glanced over her face.
Her hand momentarily closed around his wrist, hardly noticing how stained her fingertips became with fresh crimson from his skin. Suddenly, she felt exposed, vulnerable, and she hurried to remedy it.
"And that's the only time you'll ever hear me say that," she continued, more lightly, hoping very much that was true, "so -- enjoy it."
After a pause, he seemed to recover from his surprise, and offered a small laugh. “Well ain’t you sweet. Tell ya what I’d really enjoy though?” He glanced over at her tiredly. “A nice strong drink. Maybe if I down it quickly enough I’ll forget this day ever happened.”
If Fiearius was offering them a way out of the awkwardness, she had to feel grateful for that. Looking up, she heaved a sigh. “You really shouldn’t drink in your condition, you know,” she told him, but nonetheless she turned around, opened a medicine cabinet and withdrew a full bottle of aged whiskey, the one she always kept stashed nearby for -- well, for exactly this, really.
Fiearius raised his brows in surprise. “Okay, for one, I was mostly kidding and two, what the hell you doing storing that in here?”
“It’s for emergencies,” said Leta, as if she’d never been asked something so odd in her life. “But … if you’re not interested … “
“Oh no, no,” he amended quickly, reaching out his hand and pulling it from her hand. “Didn’t say I didn’t want it.”
“No, I’m not telling you that.”
“Why?”
“Because you don’t need to know.”
“Sure I do. For medical reasons.”
“Medical reasons? Medical reasons?”
“Just tell me.”
“Fine.” Fiearius groaned, relenting at last. “It’s Exzalion.”
Predictably, Leta let out a ringing laugh that filled the infirmary. “Fiearius Exzalion Soliveré?” she repeated, stating each word meaningfully and raising her eyebrows in amazement. “That’s a hell of a middle name. What’s it mean?”
“I don’t know,” Fiearius grumbled good-naturedly, wondering how they had even gotten onto this topic. “It’s some word in old Ridellian. I barely know modern Ridellian, let alone all that crap.”
Fiearius leaned over and plucked the whiskey bottle from her hands to take a long swig that burned down his throat. The bottle was nearly empty now, and he was feeling warm and woozy … when had this happened?
Sometime in the past hour, the tone of the room had lightened. Darkness and guilt and shame were still hanging uncomfortably over his shoulder, lingering just out of sight, ready to pull him in, but a distraction had arrived in the form of conversation, laughter and the woman seated next to him.
Frankly, he was surprised Leta was still down here at all. She’d looked ready to bolt after treating his wounds and he couldn’t blame her. But perhaps he wasn’t the only one hiding from something: to his surprise, she too had taken a long swig from the whiskey bottle and sidled up on the bench beside him, swinging her legs to the floor and making herself comfortable, like they were out at a bar and it was the most natural act in the world.
Fiearius was just tiredly admiring a particularly dark stain of crimson streaked across her blouse -- was that his blood, or hers? -- when she started chanting his name curiously, as if trying the word on for size and deciding she rather liked it. "Exzalion. Exzalion. Exzalion. Interesting. So did you get teased for that in school?"
“Teased?” he repeated incredulously, pulling his eyes away and smirking lopsidedly at her. “Please, I grew up on Satieri. Nearly everyone had crazy old Ridellian names. Hell, my parents actually did me a favor with Exzalion, I knew a guy whose first name was Sna’il. Didn’t help that he was the slowest runner in the whole class.”
Leta snorted, then leaned forward to reclaim the whiskey bottle from his hands. “Well he should’ve done what I always did in school, and skipped gym and recess.”
“Ironic,” he remarked thoughtfully. “Since now you’re, you know, a doctor, specialist in health and all that...”
Leta took a tiny sip of the whiskey, then smirked wryly around the rim of the bottle. "Oh you'd be surprised. Health care professionals can be very self-destructive."
“Yeah I can see that,” he muttered, eyeing her thoughtfully through the slight alcohol-induced fuzz in his vision. He lost track of the conversation for a moment, until he said, “Suppose being from that planet of yours doesn’t help much, huh?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You know, with how cold and dreary and,” he grimaced in disgust, “wet that place is. No wonder you can handle your liquor so well, growing up in a depressing place like that.”
"Depressing? Vescent is one of the most beautiful places in the span!" she yelped, throwing out her hands. Pink flushed her cheeks brightly as she went on, clearly impassioned, "You can't even imagine what the Inner Harbor looks like at night. Or what the gardens look like in autumn. The city is all white stone architecture ... and on the shore, all these quaint beach towns ... not to mention, we have the best food," she informed him with satisfaction. "It's peaceful, it's not depressing."
She scowled at him, a storm cloud in her face. But a moment later, the storm dissolved and she admitted carefully, "Although it is -- it is changing. The main city is changing. Since the Society started growing there … “
Fiearius figured as much. He had become well aware over the years of the Society’s effects on a place. “Yeah I can certainly understand that. Though I guess I haven’t really seen the change personally,” he admitted after a pause. “Satieri was infested with the Society long before I was born.”
"And that was a really really long time ago," she pointed out, arching her eyebrows significantly as she barely held in a snort.
“It wasn’t that long ago,” he scoffed. “I’m only 27.”
"You're almost 30, your birthday’s in July, I looked you up," she said without missing a beat.
Fiearius blinked. Looked him up? “Wait, wha--” he began, but before he could ask, she cut him off.
"So did you like growing up on Satieri?"
Fiearius regarded her suspiciously for a moment, feeling particularly confused about what had just happened. His head was just a little too sluggish to figure it out though so he relented and replied, “Oh yeah. I loved it. Have you been? She’s gorgeous.” He spread his hand out in front of him and narrowed his eyes into the distance. “Just miles and miles of desert and then these huge shining metropolises, it’s incredible. Nice warm sunshine-y days, crisp cold nights. And Paradiex itself is the best damn city in the span. Can’t ever run out of things to do. Every day’s a new experience.”
A happy lilt caught in his voice -- he couldn't help it when he talked about home. But when he looked to the side again, he found Leta tilting her head at him curiously, much too curiously, and he knew at once he was about to be asked one of the dreaded questions.
"So why'd you leave then?" she wondered.
A heavy sigh released from his chest. “I didn’t have a choice.”
She continued to stare at him unabashedly, unapologetically eager, and Fiearius had to grumble, “Is there any chance I’m getting out of answering this?”
She blinked her wide green eyes and said, "No.”
He groaned and ran his fingers over his forehead. “Fine. But you can’t ever repeat this, okay? I’m serious. Not to anyone. There’re only like three people in the span who know and if anyone else finds out--well, we’ll all be fucked, okay? So not a word. Not even to Corra. Promise?”
“I … okay,” she agreed slowly, looking startled.
He kept her stare a moment longer before he exhaled sharply and leaned back on his palms. “They gave me a promotion,” he replied simply and for a long moment, left it at that. There were only so many words, after all, and this was not an easy thing to explain. Tentatively, he glanced at her. “Your planet’s got a Society following now. You know who the Verdant is?”
Leta's eyes were wide and shining with curiosity, reflecting the lights overhead. "No?” she guessed, sounding uncertain.
“What, seriously? Gods, don’t you pay attention to anything?” he groaned, rolling his eyes and ignoring the fact that anyone not within the system likely wouldn’t have a clue. “The Verdant is the Society council’s contact. They’re sort of this faceless voiceless entity that no one has access to for security reasons. No one except the Verdant, that is. Its the Verdant’s job to be the interface between them and the department heads. The Verdant knows everything that’s going on in all branches of the Society at all times. It’s a--well it’s a pretty big responsibility. And more than a bit dangerous. So guess who they tried to give the job to.”
“You?”
“Of course. At that point, I was the prime agent of Internal Affairs, along with Dez. Which meant we were used to the most dangerous jobs and the most responsibility. Natural way of things, then, to offer me the Verdant gig.” He took a deep breath here and looked down. “Unfortunately, job offers from the Society aren’t made of paperwork and signatures. And the poor bastard who already had the position? He hadn’t left yet...”
“Did you -- you killed him?”
“I didn’t want to,” he defended instantly. “I--they wanted me to. The council wanted me to. Which was very reassuring, considering doing so would cause me to take his place and probably end up in the exact same boat sooner or later.” He rolled his eyes. “I didn’t want it. At that point, I just--I wanted to leave. Get away from all their fucking games and bullshit and--I was tired of so much fucking death. But--” His words caught in his throat as the memory of that very fateful afternoon, something he often tried to forget, came flooding back to him.
Finally, he swallowed the lump in his throat and finished, “But they made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. So I did it. But I...I couldn’t stay. I couldn’t be--I ran...” He looked down at his hands, fidgeting nervously in his lap and frowned. “I just...ran.” He sighed heavily and looked up at the ceiling. “Which wasn’t easy, mind you. Any legitimate ship would have all eyes on it looking out for me and they’d cut me off from all my accounts so buying myself passage on an illegitimate ship wasn’t even an option regardless.”
“Fortunately, there was still one person out there not buried in the organization and with enough spare cash to help me out,” he explained. “And you know what they say about the thickness of blood. Even after ten years of separation, all it took was twenty minutes of shouting for Cyrus to agree to lend me a hand. And a few hundred thousand credits to buy this beauty.” He gestured up at the ship around them.
“I always wondered how you got this ship,” said Leta thoughtfully, glancing up at the ceiling with unexpected fondness.
“Not that it did me any good at first,” Fiearius went on. “At the time I didn’t know what I had run off with.” He turned his wrist over to examine it. “When you join the Society, they implant a unique CID right here.” He tapped the base of his hand where the identifying microchip had been injected oh so many years ago. “That way you’ll always have access to your information and it’s impossible for it to be stolen or lost or...anything. It’s just there. Always.”
He took a deep breath and leaned forward again. “It’s sort of an archaic system at this point, but the Verdant’s CID is...special. Not only does it have full access to all of the Society databases across the whole span in every department. More than that. It’s...uniquely transferrable.” He grimaced as he explained, “Society weaponry carries data signatures specific to its user. When I shot the Verdant? His CID wiped clean. And mine...got a lot more expansive.”
He’d captured Leta’s attention now. Her mouth was hanging open. “You have access to the Society’s complete database?”
“How do you think I was able to find the Baltimore so easily?” he asked with a shrug. “I have everything. Everything they don’t want me to have. And until someone else comes along and ‘transfers’ it away? They can’t have it back.” He smirked tiredly. “They built the Verdant system to be unreasonably secure. Unfortunately for them....they picked the wrong Verdant and now they’re stuck. Can’t choose a new one ‘til I’m dead. Can’t kill me ‘til they catch me. And haven’t had much luck with that so far.”
He smiled at her simply for a moment until he frowned suddenly and added, “That, by the way, is the part you can’t tell anyone about. D’ya know how many aspiring little Society bastards are gonna come after me if they knew a tagged bullet to the head would give them the highest title in the whole organization?” He grimaced in disgust. “It’s bad enough with just Dez. Not a word.”
Leta was simply gaping at him. Any second now, he figured, she’d have a whole slew of questions for him -- particularly about her fiance. It always went back to that with her, didn’t it? She’d demand more about how to use this to get to him. She’d want to know more about where he was, see the plans for the prison ships, get any and all information possible until she could order Fiearius to sail out there right now and rescue him.
But to his surprise, what she said was, “Why’re you telling me this?”
Fiearius blinked at her slowly, finding himself shocked and, undoubtedly, confused. “I don’t know,” he admitted after a moment. It was perhaps the most sensitive information he’d been keeping and he’d just spilled the whole lot of it to Leta without even second-guessing himself. Why had he told her this?
Accusingly, he held up the whiskey bottle, nearly emptied now, and glared at it. “I must be drunk,” he concluded at last. “Or just stupid.” He eyed Leta carefully in his peripheral. Somehow, as stupid as it was, he wasn’t struck by any particular feeling that he’d done the wrong thing. His gut genuinely didn’t seem to believe that Leta knowing his most well-protected secret would change anything. She wouldn’t do anything with it. She wouldn’t breathe a word of it. It was safe with her, he somehow knew. After today, after...well, everything, he could trust her with at least that.
“Well regardless,” he said suddenly, “you know now.” He looked down at his hands and then laughed, “Figures a doctor would get it all out, huh? Why I’m here and,” he laughed again, bitterly, “why I’m crazy. Don’t even think about making a study out of this, by the way or perhaps I’ll go nuts on you too.”
Leta frowned, surveying him closely. “Do you want my professional opinion?”
“Not really,” he admitted.
“You’re not nuts,” she said, plowing forward as usual. “You just have triggers. And Ludo found one of them."
Fiearius sighed heavily. “Yeah, I suppose he did.” He glanced over at her and his face softened. “Well, thanks for getting me outta there. And patching up my messes.” He lifted his bandaged arm to look it over. “Literal and figurative...” he muttered. “How many times have you saved my sorry ass now?” He chuckled grimly, but met her eyes with a serious stare as he finally confessed, “Pretty sure I’d be dead by now if you hadn’t shown up. So -- thanks.”
Leta’s lips twitched toward a smile as she muttered, “Anytime.” For someone who always demanded his recognition and gratitude, this time, she simply shrugged one shoulder.
It was then he noticed the thin cut in Leta’s cheekbone. A fresh line of blood ran through it, catching his eye at once. “Ah shit, kiddo,” he muttered, reaching out to wipe the drop away with his thumb. “You okay?”
He realized a second too late that he'd startled her: her shoulders went tense and rigid. But she did not, as he would have expected next, pull away.
"Wh -- no, I'm fine," she dismissed, her voice quieting. He knew he was supposed to, but he didn't withdraw his hand from gently holding the smooth angle of her face. To his amazement, she only continued to gaze at him in a muted kind of alarm, but he swore he felt her soften against his hand.
It was a precarious moment, as if time had halted. Fiearius was certain there was no right move here, but he couldn't help it -- he met her eyes, and then his gaze lowered. He could have counted every freckle on her face. It was then a voice broke over the room.
“Hey, everything al --”
It was Cyrus. He stopped short in the doorway, looking startled. Fiearius felt Leta slide away discreetly and his hand dropped.
“Are you okay?” asked Cyrus, clearly noticing the layer of bruises on his face. But then his eyes darted toward Leta with a hint of suspicion, and he ventured, “Is everything -- alright?”
“Everything’s fine,” said Leta hastily before he could answer. She pushed herself down from the bench and was not, he noticed, meeting anyone’s eye as she started to put medical supplies back on the counter. “Everything’s fine -- “
Fiearius had never seen Leta look so flustered before. It was an odd sight: she kept her back turned to them and closed all the cabinets in quick succession. Tearing his eyes away, he forced a grin at his brother. “C’mon, Cy. I’ve been more beat up than this before.”
"He just needs rest," Leta assured him, pulling her bag off the counter and turning toward the door. She passed Cyrus a watered-down smile, bid him goodnight, and slipped past him toward the hallway, a definite note of urgency in her step.
"Er -- goodnight,” said Cyrus blankly, although she'd already disappeared. Silence blanketed the infirmary for a moment until Cyrus turned back toward Fiearius and arched an eyebrow in suspicion. "What the hell was that about?"
