plenty of humans are monstrous, and plenty of monsters knew how

“If you can…it’s your bed.” Unable to lift her head from his shoulder, she was already being dragged into unconsciousness, reality slipping as she fought to cling to what was real. Anthony was warm, his heart was steady against her palm, but the blood rushing through her body was louder, the fever taking hold of her stronger. Everything she wanted in her life seemed to become unobtainable all at once, her optimism crashing to the ground as Arden’s laugh followed her into sleep. She would lose everything, Arden had made sure of that when he’d hammered her bones into splinters. Not yet, not all at once… Arden’s threats persisted more than any wound, echoing in an endless round.

…just wait, you’ll see…

He could hear her breathing grow softer with every passing moment, Sage passed out against his shoulder, limbs heavy with sleep. Carefully – gently – he lowered her down on the bed, tucking her in and making sure she was comfortable.. or as comfortable as she could be. The scars and bruises––

         the thought of those made him grit his teeth, hard.

But Sage was asleep, finally; not quite restless, not yet, but lost deep in dreams, brow furrowing every once in a while as she fought the fever. He stayed by her side, eyes staring blankly at the wall, at the window, Anthony glancing at her from moment to moment just to.. check, he supposed. There was nothing he could do but make sure she kept breathing, and she did that just fine by herself.

“You better stop, Tony, you’re startin’ to sound like you care.” The tension in her didn’t ease, but the panicked need to run slowly faded as she considered his solution and found her own. “Okay.” She agreed easily enough. He would have to leave the room and when he did, she would take care of the pills before he could stop her. 

A chill ran up her spine as she thought, making the hairs at the nape of her neck stand on end. She wanted little else than to lay back down and sleep for decades, but the pills laying prone in her peripheral were taunting her. She would wait till he left the room and then she would toss them. It was all a sound plan until her world shifted and her body pitched forward, vision swimming with black dots all blurring together. She could hear Arden’s voice probing her for information, taking her apart bit by bit, threatening her with torment after torment. 

But then she felt Anthony catch her and she put all her energy into latching onto him with her unbroken hand. “Don’t go.” Her plan wasn’t going to work, but she didn’t care about the pills she couldn’t see, not with Arden looming in her nightmares, threatening her from every dark space in her mind. She was too frightened for that, too weak and feverish to seek anything but someone who could keep the monsters at bay…at least for a little while. “Please, stay.”

It was like watching a collision in slow motion – that pin-point second where the brakes failed and everything went to hell. One second, she was lucid; the next, Sage was falling forward, her strength failing her. With careful hands, Anthony caught her, shifting forward to let her steady herself against him. He could feel her fingers – the ones on her good hand – clutch at him. Don’t go. Please, stay.

Of all the things that had come as a surprise in the last few seconds..

       that was what caught him off-guard.

It wasn’t surprising that Sage would want someone around. She was stubborn, sure, but she’d been through hell, and he’d woken her from a nightmare that had her screaming in her sleep.

What surprised Anthony was that she had asked him.

“I..” Anthony inhaled, soft and short, feeling–– wary, almost. “Right here?” He could hear the ghostly echo of her words from before ring through his brain like the tolling of a bell.

You better stop, Tony... You’re startin’ to sound like you care.

He had never meant to. Had never planned on it. ‘Starting to sound like it,’ a voice mimicked in the back of his head, one that sounded a lot like himself; cautious and cornered. I’m already there.

Would it be a problem?

“Then we can flush them.” It wasn’t the first time someone had compared her to a mule, but it was one of those rare moments Anthony tried for a joke. In her mind, she smiled, savoring the moment, but pain and exhaustion robbed her of expressing anything more. She was used to ignoring any and all sickness that had tried to claim her through the years, working her way through it, refusing to take any sick days. It had been, for a time, a means of survival, then it turned into habit– a norm since she hated to let anyone else help her and for a long time she had been on her own. She couldn’t remember what being taken care of felt like until the Toy Soldiers, until they had warmed up to her and she had, in turn, started to love them– to trust them bit by bit. “I don’t need them.”

Still, she was reluctant to be taken care of, it felt wrong, the tables turned in a way where she was no longer in control, made worse by the fact that now, she couldn’t take care of herself even if she wanted to. She was no longer a useful asset, but a burden. “I’ll get better.” Fever clouded brown eyes met blue. “It won’t take long. I promise.” She wasn’t quite sure who she was trying to reassure more.

“.. Take as long as you need,” Anthony said, taking in the haze of her eyes, the way he could so clearly see that she needed rest. Sage was stubborn, but there were some things you couldn’t just power through – and what had been done to her was one of them. “Don’t push yourself.” He could imagine it with ease; Sage tearing her wounds open while scaling a wall, never quite ridding herself of the fever thanks to overexertion. The thought of it made something snare together inside him like a noose, pricking at his insides.

After what she’d told him.. he could understand why she’d want to flush them, but she was sick – and what if she got worse? 

The noose inside his rib cage tightened.

“…” He was right about the fever, it was like she was seeing everything through a haze, body sluggish and cold. “M’not a dog.” She said, but the words held no bite. Slowly her gaze went from him to the bag of pills, her thoughts easily read across her face. She was going to throw them out, still fearful that he might try to take them.

“No,” Anthony responded, something like a smile crossing his face. “If anything, you’d probably be a mule.” It was a stupid joke, one said in a quiet tone, but a joke nonetheless. He could see clearly where her mind was at: the pills, brown eyes staring at them, clear as day.

She’d said too much.

The panic that fought to control her did nothing to upset the sudden numbness she felt spreading through her. She stared through him, through his words, all the memories she’d tried to suppress of what her family had been before the disease struck filtered through her mind like shooting stars, one moment there and then blinking out of existence.

I’m sorry.

“Me too.” She focused on him, finally. “I should go.” She’d dump the pills on the way back to the Lab and no one would bother her about it. The aches and pains she felt would fade on their own, her body would heal, but what she’d just told Anthony– how much she’d revealed about herself– that was permanent. She couldn’t take that back. Fever addled brain not helping the circumstances, Sage held onto the belief that it was only a matter of time before others found out. She needed to leave.

“You’ve got a fever, and you can barely walk on your own.” His brows furrowed as he looked at her, wisps of brown hair sticking to her forehead, her skin red like it had been rubbed raw; fever eating away at her. “Stay.” Something was missing.

“Everyone is going to hate me.”

She felt like a child for saying it, but the fear of losing another family, while deserved, would be more than she could possibly take in her given situation. The disappointment she could imagine on the faces of those closest to her had her blood run cold– or was that the fever?

If what she’d done was revealed, she couldn’t see how any one could forgive her. She couldn’t even forgive herself. She was at the edge of the bed, but it might as well have been a cliff. The bag of pills were out of reach, a mountain between her and it, and there were choices that she had to make. Ghosts were screaming at her, telling her to fight, to fight and lose, to feel the vast chasm in her chest as it expanded and swallowed her up. 

You deserve this.

Her shoulders slumped, defeat collapsing her body one line at a time. Her head bowed, eyes closed, the memories barging through her mind and her resolve became dust as the truth about everything tumbled out. 

“It was called Project Carthage, but I didn’t know that until way later…” Sage kept her eyes closed, but tears still escaped, her voice wobbly at best.

Project Carthage was developed by the Government to control the population in the poorer districts. They didn’t want to extend the resources that would be needed to develop the areas and they theorized that there was a link between that and the increase in violence, so they devised a plan to undermine any possible movements against them. The Northern Slums turned into a controlled experiment, when the Government released a carefully manufactured disease into the water system. 

“People started getting sick and I…I wanted to help so when the Government set up relief centers, I volunteered.” Sage remembered the relief she felt when the Government extended the support, finally showing that they cared about all their civilians, but she had been wrong. She’d handed out the medicine, going door to door, convincing people that it would help, convincing her family that if they took it, everything would get better. There was no other option, no other cure. 

“I thought I was helping them and they got better for a time.” She opened her eyes, pain reflected as she stared through him, seeing every face she’d condemned, remembering the hope that was brought about the few days after the medicine was released into the area– the collective sigh of relief at the darkness being behind them. “Then they started dying. N-not right away but over the course of a few days…fever, vomiting, bleeding from…from everywhere. Horrible, tortured deaths.” Her voice kept cracking, but she carried on, forcing herself through each detail. “My father died first, I watched him and he l-looked at me and I knew he wanted me to save him and I couldn’t. I couldn’t save him. I couldn’t even give him a peaceful death, it took hours…and I left them.” She had gone to see if she could get more medicine, to see if she could find anything that would ease them, but it was useless. She was useless.

“My…” she was getting dizzy again, face flush, eyes glazed, and her words were stones in her throat, choking her, “I found my mother when I got back, she died the quickest, but I wasn’t there. They both died alone. Without me. I don’t know where my brother was or where he went. I don’t know if he’s okay, if he is still alive or if he blames me. If he hates me or if he’s happy….he could have come back, but I ran away. I never went back.” Sage never asked him about what he wanted for the future, what he wanted to do with himself when he grew up. She couldn’t remember the last time she told him she loved him. “I had hundreds of people on my list, I handed out the drugs myself, told people they could take them and it would make them better. They’re all dead.”

“I killed them. They trusted me and I betrayed them. I know what they released in the water, it would have cleared up on its own, but the pills–” she finally focused on Anthony as if remembering he was there, anguish clouding her mind. “I won’t take them. You’re not taking them.”

Every word chipped away at the apathy he shrouded himself in to keep himself from going over the edge. They’d taken her family from her. Had made her accomplice to it, had taken her good faith and torn it to shreds. His fingers clenched into a fist at the thought of it, Sage’s voice breaking every once in a while as she spoke, the tears in her eyes doing nothing to quell the anger rising inside him like bile.

His mouth was a grim line by the end of it, knuckles white.

No wonder she doesn’t want to take them.

She’d had years to go over every hellsent detail, to pick apart what had happened, to find every what-if and to condemn herself for it. Nothing he said would fix what had happened, or make her feel better about it. He knew that. She knew that. 

His own past had left him bitter. Sage had remained kind. 

Of all the people in the world it could have happened to…

                   She deserved it the least.

For a good while, he stayed silent, mind still processing what she’d told him. She’d had no way of knowing – hadn’t even had cause to think it would go wrong – and still she blamed herself for it; had carried the burden on her own two shoulders for fuck knew how long.

“You didn’t know.” He felt like he was coming up short – knew he was coming up short – but it was all he could think of, an uncomfortable reminder of how little he knew about being genuine around her. All he had was the tired script he'd picked up from observing others, but for once, the words meant something, even if they felt useless.

“They’ll just make me sicker.” The threads holding her together, the secrets that she had held so close to heart for years, started to unravel. “I’ll be–” the words died and the blood drained from her face at the thought of Anthony taking the pills. 

“No. No, no, please, you can’t take them!” She shook his hand off, struggling to breathe as everything closed in around her, it felt as if her lungs were collapsing, her vision narrowing. She wouldn’t be able to keep him from taking them, but if she got rid of them, if she flushed them down, then it would be too late. She wouldn’t have anything to take and no one could force her. Sage forced herself to swallow down the bile rising in her throat, she shifted to get off the bed, reaching for the pills. 

“It’s all because of me. They all died because of me. You don’t get it.” She murmured the words softly, a semblance of an explanation to her own ears.

“Hey– hey, hey, hey.” He was lucky her movements were slow. Before she could get anywhere, Anthony blocked her, going from the edge of the bed to sitting in front of it, one knee resting against the floor as he looked up at her. They all died because of me. There were pieces to the puzzle he didn’t have yet, but so far, there were two that stood out – the deaths of many, from the sound of it.. and Sage’s fear and paranoia where medicine was concerned.

It felt like the answer was right there, staring him down, hiding on the tip of his tongue.. but no matter how many circles he took in the privacy of his mind, it kept escaping him, remaining a mystery. There were so many things he didn’t understand, not yet at least, and he would get nowhere if he treated her like he’d been trained to. It required a gentler touch–– something more like Sage herself, and what he’d learned just by being near her.