feverish

Favorite Fandoms + Favorite Characters

- Bungo Stray Dogs (Akutagawa, Higuchi, Atsushi) - Always up to date with the manga, read Stormbringer, Beast (LN + Manga) and Osamu Dazai's Entrance Exam, started Gaiden

- Gachiakuta (Zanka, Enjin, Rudo, Riyo) - Always up to date with the manga

- Hazbin Hotel (Alastor) - Always up to date with the show, seen the pilot

- Demon Slayer (Genya, Kyojuro, Shinobu) - Finished the manga

- Dandadan (Okarun, Momo) - Always up to date with the manga

- Fullmetal Alchemist [Brotherhood or 03] (Edward, Hawkeye) - Completed, have not seen the 2003 movie

- Helluva Boss (Fizzarolli, Blitz)

- Moriarty the Patriot (William, Louis)

I'm not interested in posting about other fandoms but absolutely open to talking about characters from mentioned series that aren't listed here, of course :)

I try to answer my asks in the order I receive them but is I get one about characters I love or something I'm inspired to talk about I'll answer those sooner!

Before you follow:

- I try to tag all of my posts appropriately so people can search my blog, but also so people with muted tags can avoid certain posts. If you would like me to tag something that I'm not tagging, please let me know. If I am tagging something you think shouldn't be tagged (for example, I no longer tag fics with chro_nic pain to avoid flooding the tag on Tumblr with fictional posts, as per a request), please let me know.

- On this note, since it is a sensitive topic, I do post about eating disorders from time to time - never IRL, always as character headcanons, and never in any form of glorification!

- Please be aware that I post emetophilia content on this blog occasionally! It's often not explicit/not sfw (but always tagged when explicit) but if you're severely emetophobic and not interested in working through your phobia (this isn't a dis, I'm emetophobic irl for example lol) this blog probably isn't for you - but thank you for stopping by!!

Content you won't find on my blog / Content I don't want in my ask box

- Anything involving me. Example. Again I'm emetophobic irl and I prefer to consume content like this on my own terms :)

- NSFW. I don't mind NSFW at all but I'm not comfortable with having that content in my ask box!

- On that note, I will not post emetophilia content about characters under 18!

- I'm generally not interested in talking about X Reader/self insert content :) (Sorry!)

- Also generally not super interested in talking about fandom things that aren't sickfic/whump/angst/etc. related on this blog, since that's not what people are here for :)

- I won't post snz kink, weight gain kink, or scat stuff on my blog :) I don't mind seeing most of it, you just won't find it here.

- And these two are a little random but I don't care for hanahaki disease or content with excessive torture at the moment

She was up there when she first noticed Zanka enter the clearing below. She’s seen him there before, but had noticed from the beginning that it must be somewhere he goes to a lot, because the grassy ground is worn down to dirt in the middle, in the shape of a circle, and almost, at certain points, worn further to the exact movements he makes as he practices his form, drills and whatever else is drilled into them by the Academy.

It doesn’t seem like the ideal way to improve a person’s skills. Doing the same thing over, and over, and over. But maybe he has something figured out that she doesn’t. It’s why she’s been studying him.

She makes it down the ground as gracefully as she got up. Even if Zanka was conscious, he likely wouldn’t have heard her descend the tree.

Hyo was focused on Zanka’s movements, and while a little slower than normal, there wasn’t anything out of the normal that would have led her to assume that he would, at any point, suddenly collapse into the dirt the way he did.

She starts to take a few cautious steps over, curiously circling him once to see if there’s anything in particular that would give her a hint as to what happened here. It’s fairly early in the morning. The air is still cool. If those things weren’t true, she would have just assumed that he tired himself out with training during class, but that can’t be the case here, unless he’s been training all night. Not impossible. He seems to work himself incredibly hard.

She kneels down beside him, curiously tilting her head. He’s lying on his side. She touches his shoulder to see if she’ll get any response from him that way, but he doesn’t really budge at all.

Well, he’s definitely breathing, so he’s not dead. That’s good. She didn’t want to leave any proof that she was near him if he was dead, but now she doesn’t have to worry about that.

Hyo places a hand on Zanka’s face and turns it just enough so that she can see his expression, and he looks a lot worse than she realized he did from up high. His skin is warm. A little hot, even, like a fever. The furrowed brow, the bags under his eyes, it's showing lots of things very clearly. He's in pain. He's been struggling for longer than just since the start of the day. He probably hasn't slept.

The only problem is, she has no idea what to do with him now. There isn't anyone around, and she has a feeling their classmates wouldn't take any action if they found him like this. They're all followers. None of them have minds of their own. They don’t have an on-site infirmary or anything of the sort, which she’s always thought was strange, for a place like this.

Should she find out where he lives?

She stands, headed back toward the Academy yard. It’s early, too early for class, but she’s sure she’ll find someone training or hanging out who can tell her some information she needs, and she’s right on the money. There’s three, a male and two female students, talking against the wall of the training yard. They’re really not far from where Zanka is at all.

“Excuse me,” she says, approaching them without waiting.

The student she’s directly facing jumps. She’s not sure why. She’s staring back at her like she’s just seen a Trash Beast. Hyo turns around briefly, making sure there isn’t anything scary behind her.

“Can you tell me where Zanka Nijiku lives?” she asks as she turns her head back. No time to waste, really. She isn’t exactly sure what’s wrong with Zanka, but she knows that he needs to see some sort of doctor, and that he shouldn’t be left in the dirt with a fever of any kind.

Her face pales, as if Hyo has just asked her to help hide a body. She really doesn't understand these people, and she desperately wishes that she could.

“The…Nijiku…house?” she answers timidly. Hyo thought at first that she was confirming, but that seems to be an answer. Strange.

“And where is that?” she asks plainly.

“You don't know…?” the student squeaks back. How is she supposed to know where the Nijiku House is? Obviously, she doesn’t, and that’s why she’s asking.

“Relax, Chiyo. She's not from here, remember?” the male student behind her whispers. It sounds condescending, but Hyo is terrible at gauging emotions.

“Right, um…the Nijiku house is that huge complex in the center of Kamuatari. With the big stone staircase…”

Hyo visualizes what they’re talking about. Right. She can see that place very well from the trees. That makes sense. She's gotten the impression that Zanka Nijiku is important somehow, but the reason, she couldn't quite pin down. He's an heir to this area's ruling family, she's gathered now, based on everything she knows combined with this conversation.

“Thank you,” she says, turning on her heel to walk the other direction. She hears them whisper and chatter behind her, but she doesn’t care to pay attention to anything they might be saying. They only exist as boring background noise, and they have combat skills and personalities to match. None of them are both studying even remotely.

Once she makes it back to the small forested clearing where Zanka is, she tries to decide the best way to carry him. Ideally, on her back would be the easiest, but with him seemingly completely unconscious, she decides to carry him in her arms.

She doesn’t expect him to be so light.

He groans when she lifts him, and she sees his face twist up in discomfort, but his eyes stay screwed shut.

Hyo didn't notice it before, but as she’s inspecting his face for any sign of consciousness with the little noise he made, she notices that the redness on his face seems to have pretty odd placement. It starts in the middle of his face and spreads outward over his cheeks, in the shape of a butterfly. It’s almost raised, too, not looking like the typical redness she’d see from a fever. How strange.

She starts her trek up to what is, apparently, Zanka Nijiku’s house, and she ponders what it is that may have caused him to pass out.

Maybe he’s just overworked himself. It’s the most logical explanation.

The other students seem to think that Zanka is born with this innate ability of perfect combat skills, but strangely enough, he lets them believe it. He never corrects them, even though he’s the only one out of all of the students in their class that she ever sees training outside of their courses. He’s pretty much always here in the mornings, and Hyo has seen here most afternoons, too. If he isn’t here, he’s studying in the library room. She had never considered that he lived anywhere, because he spends almost all of his time at the Academy building.

He doesn’t seem to have any friends, either. No one at the Academy talks to him casually, and she’s never seen him speak with any of them outside of conversations necessary for class or training during class.

Even so, something about that theory doesn’t feel quite right either. His skin felt a little warm when she touched his face earlier, and he even feels warm through his uniform, now that she’s carrying him. She suspected a fever, and this confirms it. She’s noticing he’s taking pretty shallow breaths, which must indicate it’s painful to inhale completely right now. He’s stiff, even though he’s unconscious. It’s like a subconscious effort to protect himself, like he’s in pain.

He must be sick. He shouldn’t train at all if he’s sick. She thought that was common sense.

The stone staircase is certainly long and treacherous, but she considers it good training too, to carry someone all the way up. She manages to do it without breaking much of a sweat either, but she had no doubts about being able to do it in the first place.

The house certainly is something. Really, it’s like nothing else she’s seen before. It’s bigger than the Academy. She would almost call it a castle, even though it looks like none she’s ever seen or heard of. There’s two floors, but the bottom floor itself could probably house ten families, if they really wanted to. She’s not sure what any family would need so much space for. She wishes Zanka wasn’t so difficult to get a conversation out of when he’s awake, otherwise, she’d make a mental note to ask him later.

She starts to try and find a way in. Luckily, there seems to be ways around the back and entryways on the side that won’t make it a difficult task. She’d like to bring him somewhere and remain undetected, entering and exiting. She doesn’t want to be questioned or attract any unnecessary attention. It’s the logical way to go about a situation like this. Even if she’s not able to give them a history on his situation. They’ll be able to figure it out.

As she carefully wanders around the halls of the building, she realizes she’s probably going to have a hard time finding his bedroom. They don’t have bed frames or mattresses in this town, just fold-away futons that only stay out when they’re being slept on, so she decides that whichever room she finds first with enough open space to house a bed, she’ll find a futon to lay him on, and sneak out. She realizes she also probably shouldn’t have her shoes on. They don’t like that here. She keeps forgetting.

Too late now.

Her eyes peer down to his face while she’s carefully wandering around the complex. His eyes are half-lidded now, but he isn’t exactly trying to wake up, and doesn’t seem to notice he’s being carried, either. If nothing else, he just looks horribly exhausted, too out of it to make any movements or wake himself up.

She finds a room, after several minutes of tip-toeing around corners and peeking into entryways. And surprisingly, one with a futon still laid out, and the blanket lazily strewn across.

Interesting. It doesn’t match the look of this place at all. It’s like it doesn’t belong. If this is in fact, his room, he doesn’t strike her at all as this kind of person. If anything, it might be a testament to how he’s feeling.

Or, maybe, something else.

She gently lowers him down to the futon, and she hears a little groan from him again. She really thinks that he might be in pain, but she can’t tell where. The uniforms pretty much cover everything, so even if he was injured, she wouldn’t be able to see it.

These futons aren’t uncomfortable. They’re much better than most everything she grew up with to sleep on, but if Zanka is really in pain, then he should sleep on something more comfortable than this. She hears a little noise from him again as she tests the depth of the futon with her index finger.

“Nn…Hyo…?” Zanka mumbles. He can hardly open his eyes in the first place, and keeping them open seems to be a completely separate issue. It makes no difference to her if she recognizes him or not, so she doesn't answer. She only stares down at him, secretly wondering what on earth is going on with him.

He loses all of the energy he had pretty quickly, and his eyes fall shut, his head rolling to the side with a pained sound.

She stands, carefully not to stir him, but there’s a new problem. Footsteps.

“Where? This way?” The voice asks. Deep. Female. Hyo needs to hide.

She pushes the wood framed paper door on the other side of the entryway out of the way, opposite from where she came, and moves against the wooden wall so that her silhouette can’t be seen from the other side. The footsteps seem to pass the room. Two sets. One returns, though, and Hyo is presuming that she’s been caught - but they must have seen Zanka.

“When did he come home?” The voice says after a pause.

“I didn't see him enter, I'm sorry, ma'am…” A squeaky voice says.

“The instructor didn't tell me he was ill,” the woman huffs in frustration after a few seconds.

“I don’t…know that classes have even started yet, ma’am…?”

“They haven’t. They start at seven,” A different voice. She must have heard the footsteps incorrectly. This one is male. Deep as well.

“So, did he ever leave…?” the squeaky voice says, but it trails off, and there’s a silence once again.

The wooden frame door opens beside her.

This woman is good. Hyo didn’t hear her footsteps after that point at all, and she’s fairly certain that she wasn’t close enough to open it without moving her feet. She’s noticed Zanka has similar skills.

The woman approaches her, calmly, but with a stern rage in her eyes. Hyo isn’t afraid of her. She won’t kill her, they don’t do that here. And if this gets her arrested for some reason, it’ll be an interesting experience, at the very least. And she’ll just escape when she’s bored.

Not much different from what she’s doing here, really.

She’d like to stay a while, though. Zanka is interesting.

“What are you doing on our property?” The woman barks.

This woman. She's seen her before. Never inside of Kamuatari, but the slums, absolutely. Her striking red hair is a difficult thing to forget. She didn’t recognize her resemblance to Zanka before, but she isn’t wearing any makeup right now, and that could absolutely be why. They almost look like they could be twins.

Interesting. She didn’t know Zanka had any siblings.

“I got lost. My apologies,” Hyo says plainly.

“Lost?” she scoffs. She’s not buying it.

Hyo just stares back. Her stern expression doesn’t waver, not even for a second, but Hyo still isn’t afraid of her, and this woman seems to be counting on the fact that she can make it that way.

“You brought him here,” the woman says.

She waits for Hyo to answer, to admit it, but she doesn’t budge.

“You’re in the Academy,” the woman notices, her eyes peering down to her uniform. Hyo wonders if she’s going to threaten to have her removed. They certainly have that authority. It doesn’t matter to her, though, she’ll find work elsewhere.

She’s not sure she’ll find someone as interesting as Zanka.

“Don't tell anyone about his condition. Act as if you never saw him,” she tells her.

Hyo finds that strange. She seems to imply that this has happened before, but Hyo surely can’t pry on this, at least not now, not with this woman. She’d prefer to keep a low profile if she can, and getting involved in this family’s drama, or any drama for that matter, is not something she’s interested in.

She can’t seem to take her mind off of Zanka, though.

…

“Goka, I don’t need you here. Please go prepare for work.”

She hears him hesitate before he agrees to leave, begrudgingly so. Kyouka doesn’t turn to look at him, but she hears his footsteps trail out, following behind the maid that she sent out earlier. She’s busy checking Zanka’s pupils, making sure he doesn’t have a head injury of some kind, because he’s clearly out of it. It must be from a fever, though.

She doesn’t need anyone in the way here.

“What happened?” Kyouka says. She’s stern, but quiet. It’s obvious he isn’t well, and while she would like a full explanation for this, scaring him won’t do him any good, either.

Zanka looks like he's afraid to answer. He’s lying against his futon, still in his uniform. One of the maids had mentioned that he hadn’t folded it back up before he left that morning, which was awfully unusual for him, but Kyouka instructed her to leave it. She’d make sure he knew not to make a mistake like that again, and not to create extra work for their staff.

“Think I didn' get…enough sleep,” he mumbles. He sounds breathless. She listened to him breathe for a few moments to make sure. He’s not in a good condition at all, but she won’t call the doctor this time. She won’t hear his diagnosis again. Her brother is not weak, not frail. He can't just be broken. There’s a way to fix this. There has to be.

She rests a hand against his warm cheek, examining the redness on his face. She's seen this before. It hasn't gone away while he's been in here this morning. That odd shape, spreading over his face, the way it's raised, almost. She had hoped it was from over-exertion, and that it would fade now that he’s lying down, but it doesn’t seem to be the case. His skin is still warm, too. This fever hasn't gone away.

He had a fever last night, too. She saw it when he was there for dinner. She didn’t say anything, and he didn’t say anything to her. She just knew.

A fever the night before, just like last time. She bites her lip.

“You know better than that, Zanka,” Kyouka says, “balance your training and your sleep. This won’t do you any good at all.”

That’s it. That’s why he’s unwell. He needs to be more diligent, that’s all

He nods carefully. It seems he wants to say something, but she won't have any more excuses, and he knows that.

“Sit up,” she tells him.

She watches him nearly whimper at the thought of doing that, but she can't let him fall to a weakness like this. He uses his elbows as leverage, and just as she suspected, there’s pain there, too. His joints. They said that was one of the biggest tells of the diagnosis, but she won't believe it. He’s too young to have issues like that. She knows he trains a lot more than his classmates do, but she never had issues like this, and neither did Goka. He just needs to work harder.

He manages to push himself up so that he’s sitting, but there’s still more than enough proof something is wrong.

Even if this is some kind of illness, some sort of condition, she can’t have that. He has expectations he needs to fulfill. He can rest for now and build up his strength, but needs to train past this. It can’t happen again.

“You need to have some water,” she tells him. That is something he's always been terrible at, keeping himself hydrated, especially when he's been unwell.

Another shaky nod, but no words.

Recently, he's been much more hesitant about communicating with her. She doesn't like it. It makes her nervous that he's distancing himself from his family.

“Let’s remove your uniform, at least.”

…

“This looks like Lupus,” Alice says, her face hanging over his.

Zanka blinks back at her. He’s lying on his back on one of the cots in her clinic, and he’d like to sit up to hear her diagnosis, but he doesn’t have the energy. It hurts too much.

He's been feeling sick for about a week, now. Mind-melting fatigue. He couldn't stay awake for meetings or gather any energy to train, but even if he was awake enough to do that, everything just hurts. He tried to train, but it’s even become a chore to put his uniform on. Then there’s this awful redness on his face that everyone keeps poking fun at him for, wondering how he got sunburnt when that isn’t the case at all. He thinks he has a fever too, which would explain some of these things.

He was doing pretty good at hiding it, at first. He’d go hide and rest in his room and everyone thought he was off at some secret training location, but on their last job, the pain he’s in was obvious to Enjin. When he was struggling to open the car door, that set him off. He caught him with a fever by the end of it.

Enjin tried to make sure he was resting and taking medication the best he could in the days following. His pain seemed to be the most concerning part. He had medications he could try or tricks to help the pain, but Zanka knew none of them would work, because he’s tried everything. He's dealt with this his whole life.

The moment Zanka mentioned his chest pain before he decided he was going to bed, he was being carted off to Alice.

This has happened before. It didn’t used to be as bad, either. When he still lived in Kamuatari, it happened every now and then, but not for several days at a time. He just chalked it up to the air quality for a while, since leaving that place, and assumed that’s why he’d been feeling off, every now and then. Sick, in pain.

Alice has done all sorts of tests on him. Zanka feels awful. He wants more than anything to sleep peacefully, and he doesn’t often choose that over a training session in the middle of the day.

“Lupus?” Zanka repeats. He’s never heard that word before.

“Auto-immune disease! You've had this your whole life, I bet.”

Zanka lowers his gaze. He just shrugs. He has no idea what any of that means, but it sounds like she’s implying that all of this really is connected, like he’d thought. He decides that maybe he’ll nod. He doesn’t know what else he’d do.

His first inclination is to think she must have that wrong. Surely, if he had some sort of condition, the doctors in Kamuatari would have figured that out. Kyouka never let Zanka speak to any of the doctors, tell them directly what he was feeling, what was going on with him. She said all they told her was that he was frail. That he needed to build up his strength.

He starts to feel nauseous, thinking about the possibility that maybe she knew all along. And just wouldn't tell him.

Because that meant something was wrong with him. Something she couldn't train out of him.

“Really?” Enjin says.

Zanka turns his head. Enjin is standing close by, his arms crossed over his chest, evidently worried. Zanka hates that. He feels like he’s wasting his time.

Zanka feels his chest tighten.

Enjin must not believe him. Why would he?

“Can't imagine they let this fly in your house, huh?” Enjin says with a sigh.

Zanka's eyes turn up to meet his. There's an unfamiliar look in his eyes. Sympathy or something similar, he isn't quite sure, but he doesn't look angry. Or disappointed. He was expecting some sort of sour look at the very least, but Enjin is treating this like a minor inconvenience.

“Not…really,” Zanka murmurs. He's trying not to think about it too much. His eyes burn, wondering if Kyouka had really kept this from him. He doesn't want to believe that she would do something like that, but he knows that if it served her idealized view of him, that she would.

“Well, we’ll figure something out,” Enjin says. “I'm sure you've got some sort of plan for a treatment, Alice?”

“Antimalarials are a hard find, but the best bet,” she says, shuffling through a book on her over-crowded desk.

It’s so casual. Like it means nothing. He knows that’s not the case. Enjin very much does think it means something, otherwise he wouldn’t have driven him here a mere hour outside of midnight.

But the difference is, he’s not treating this like a problem, or something to hide.

“You got somethin’ to make a fire?” Zanka asks sternly. He takes Rudo out of his thoughts.

Rudo nods fervently. He has a little lighter that he’s sure he can turn into somewhat of a fireplace with 3R. Using his Vital Instrument for non-combat related situations is something he’s been working on with Zanka, actually. He can do something to help.

“‘Kay, that’ll be your job, then,” he says.

Rudo watches Zanka carefully lay Riyo down, like she’s fragile, like she’ll break apart with the slightest misstep. Words he’d never use to describe Riyo, but she’s totally unconscious and bleeding a lot. And Zanka hasn’t been able to get her to wake up.

He isn’t sure how it happened. The three of them were out in a valley in a near-No Man’s Land with Enjin, Gris and other Supporters, and a Trash Storm seemed to start out of nowhere. Rudo had assumed that it was just a run-of-the-mill Sphere dropping their garbage situation, but the near sideways winds made it clear that this dangerous situation was already really bad to begin with. According to Gris over the Choker, before they lost their connection, this wasn’t in the forecast at all, or in the Sphere’s usual trajectory. That sort of thing has been getting more unpredictable lately.

By the time Rudo managed to get to Zanka, Riyo was already in his arms, bleeding from her head, her chest, and Zanka was shouting at him, ushering him inside the cave, his own uniform soaked with her blood.

Rudo takes off his vest, and gestures to it as an offer to lay under her head. Zanka takes it from him and gently lifts Riyo’s head to slide it underneath. He watches Zanka click the Choker on his wrist, and even Riyo’s, and curse under his breath when there's nothing but static.

“Get to it,” Zanka huffs, and Rudo realizes he’s talking to him, “she’s gonna lose body heat fast with all this blood loss.”

“Right - yeah,” Rudo says back, shuffling around in his bag for the lighter he thought about earlier. Sometimes hard to find little things in there with the clunky gloves. He finds it.. He holds onto it for a few seconds, staring, wondering if maybe he can have some sort of input in what it ends up making in a situation like this. Something warm. Something that gives off light. And after a few seconds, the gloves do their thing.

It looks like camping gear, almost like something he’s seen Gris pull out of one of the company vehicles before. It’s about the size of one of his gloves, and it’s already warm as he’s holding it. He places it down on the cave floor, his eyes trailing around over the ceilings now that he can see everything from the warm glow the flame is emitting. The glowing, radioactive stones have changed color to a blue, now that they’ve been exposed to light.

Zanka’s opened his bag and emptied it beside him, facing the fire so that he can see everything. There’s lots of first aid materials. Rudo knows all of them are required to carry that sort of thing, but Zanka seems to have a lot more than the rest of them. He’s not sure if he has an interest in that sort of thing, or it’s just because he’s a very well prepared person. He wanders a little closer, not to get in Zanka’s way, but to see how bad Riyo’s injuries are. She still hasn’t made any movements. Not even a twitch.

“She hit her head really hard,” Zanka murmurs, “and there’s a puncture here…and here.”

Rudo watches Zanka’s hands trace along Riyo’s chest and abdomen, two spots that are completely smothered with her own blood, so much so that he can’t completely pinpoint the exact injury. That at least, hopefully, means they aren’t terribly deep.

“Is she still bleeding?” Rudo asks meekly. His eyes wander over to Riyo’s unconscious face. She’s taking in pained breaths through her mouth, and her skin has paled a lot from how it usually looks.

“Not s’much as before,” Zanka tells him.

Zanka takes off the outer top part of his uniform too, and starts to tear off one of the sleeves. Rudo notices that it’s pretty much soaked with blood, too, probably from carrying Riyo. Zanka presses the torn fabric against the seemingly larger wound on Riyo’s abdomen, and still without any movement from her.

He doesn’t think he’s ever seen Zanka like this. He’s usually really level headed, even in situations where one of them is injured, but he realizes, looking back, that he seems to rely on Riyo’s positive attitude a lot, even if he’s not doing that on purpose. Riyo always seems to be at his side when he’s struggling, physically or mentally, and to have a pillar of support like that lying in front of you, covered in blood -

Rudo takes in a breath, and tries with everything he can to push the image of Regto out of his mind.

“Riyo,” Zanka mumbles, “‘s not funny.”

He knows she isn’t joking. Riyo is genuinely unconscious, but he’s holding onto some impossible hope that she might be messing with them. Rudo is starting to wish the very same.

“Check the entrance,” Zanka tells Rudo without taking his eyes off of her, still holding pressure against her abdominal wound. “N’try your Choker.”

Rudo nods, and stands. There was a lot of rubble piling up at the very front when they first got in here, and he imagines it’s been at least half an hour now. He runs, over back the way that they came, using the radioactive stones to guide the way, leaving the fire with Riyo and Zanka.

Once Rudo gets close enough, he knows that right now, there’s no chance. There’s still garbage and rubble flying in at high speeds at least twenty feet into the entrance of the cave, and he can’t get any closer without risking an injury. He tries his Choker without any success, and inches a little closer to try again, before nearly getting run over by an air conditioner, crashing into the cave wall and causing it to start to cave in on itself.

That’s not good.

He runs back, trying to rationalize their next steps. Waiting isn’t an option.

“We might lose the entrance,” Rudo says, breathing heavy, standing a few feet behind Zanka. Zanka doesn’t turn around. He’s listening closely to Riyo’s breathing.

“I think she punctured a lung,” Zanka mumbles. He doesn’t acknowledge what Rudo has told him at all. “You c’n tell by how she's breathin'.”

Rudo listens carefully, though, and he's hearing exactly what Zanka is talking about. It's a slight wheeze, every time her chest rises to take a breath. Rudo had picked up on it before, but he didn't understand the implications of it until now. Zanka's already situating her oxygen mask back over her face.

“I'll go out. And find someone,” Rudo tells him. Everything he's seeing about Riyo's condition is telling him that they need to get help right away, and with the Chokers completely useless, the only way is to leave. They’re going to lose that entrance sooner or later, and from then, the only options would be to move the rubble or find another way out through the cave system.

Zanka finally turns his head, and stares at him for a few seconds.

“And die?” he snaps.

Rudo shrinks back.

“This ain't a normal storm,” Zanka reminds him sternly, “s'not rain, or ju’s wind, somethin’ you can push through. If you get crushed, you're dead. Somethin’ as little as a shoe can kill ya’ if it's goin’ fast enough. But if you wanna go out and die trying anyway, n'leave her behind, be my guest.”

Zanka’s voice breaks at the very end of it, and Rudo sees his eyes shine with tears for a split second before he turns his head away, and his attention back to Riyo.

Rudo doesn't answer him. He doesn't think he should.

“Sorry. ‘S just…” he mumbles. He’s so quiet all of a sudden.

“I get it,” Rudo answers back quietly. He sits down where he’s standing. “You're right. It's a stupid idea.”

Zanka rubs at his eyes, and he doesn’t say anything else to Rudo.

He must feel responsible. Enjin is their team leader, sure, but Rudo has noticed on several occasions that Zanka seems to feel responsible for the safety and wellbeing of Rudo and Riyo when Enjin isn’t in their immediate vicinity. He doesn’t know if it’s part of an obligation to Enjin as their team leader, if it’s because Zanka is the oldest of the three, Rudo’s teacher, or something else - but it weighs on him, and especially, right now.

But it shouldn’t have to be that way. Zanka is only a year older than Riyo, and only two from Rudo. They can help each other. There has to be something Rudo can do to help.

And this was a complete freak accident. He shouldn’t feel responsible for something that isn’t his fault.

Rudo doesn’t have any way to keep track of time. He doesn’t have any idea how much time passes while they’re inside the cave, waiting out the storm, and there’s no natural light coming in to help him keep track of it, either. He sneaks over to the cave entrance once or twice, and it’s covered with heavy piles of garbage and rubble, impossible to move by himself. Rudo looks around for something that he could use his gloves on to get them out of there - but there’s nothing that can be super useful, and he only has one use left for today. He has to use it wisely.

That, and, the storm hasn’t stopped. Even if he can clear the opening, they’ll be crushed to death outside.

Zanka seems to have been able to stop Riyo’s bleeding for the most part, but she’s still unconscious, breathing and wheezing through the oxygen mask. Zanka sits beside her, on his knees with his hands folded in his lap, watching her the whole time and not really moving or speaking outside of that. He only moves to take Rudo’s offer to drink some water, but only really takes a few sips. He doesn’t let Rudo see his face.

“I can switch with you,” Rudo says quietly, but Zanka doesn’t turn his head, nod, agree - nothing. He just stares forward. He’s concerned about Zanka sitting there like that this whole time, and he’s sure at the bare minimum, three hours have passed since they’ve gotten here.

“Someone needs t’watch the fire,” he mumbles back.

“I can do two things at once, y’know,” Rudo reminds him. He’s not really sure why Zanka’s acting like the fire needs to be watched - it’s not being fueled by wood, it’s gas, lighter fluid, or something else, but he thinks he just isn’t thinking that far ahead. All of his thoughts are on Riyo.

Zanka still doesn’t take Rudo’s offer. He doesn’t move at all.

Maybe he needs to meet him where he’s at, then. Zanka isn’t the type to accept help if he thinks it makes him look weak, if he thinks he’s leaving something unfinished - especially, taking into consideration, Riyo’s condition.

So, Rudo decides to change his approach, and he stands up, walks over so he’s beside Riyo, and sits down across from Zanka.

He doesn’t react to that either. He’s just staring at her face, his eyes heavy with whatever he’s feeling right now. Zanka is someone he looks to for help and advice, even if he’s a dick about it sometimes. Right now, though, Rudo’s painfully reminded that they’re not all that far apart in age, that he has a lot of the same pains and feelings as Rudo does.

Rudo’s eyes trail down from Zanka’s face to Riyo’s, but in the process of that, his eyes catch sight of the blood stain on the hem of Zanka’s pants, and the nearly invisible stains on his black undershirt. Rudo remembers seeing Riyo’s blood there earlier, but he didn’t think there was that much of it.

“‘M scared she's gonna die, Rudo.”

The vulnerability in Zanka’s voice is painful. He doesn’t sound like himself at all. His expression doesn’t change a whole lot once he says that, but his brow furrows a little bit, and his face scrunches up just a little, like he’s trying to hold back tears.

“We're not gonna let that happen,” Rudo tells him, “no way.”

Zanka starts to stand. The first time he’s really moved in hours. Rudo stays sitting, watching him take his staff and use her for leverage to stand up off of the cave floor, and he wonders what he’s going to do.

“‘m gonna go out and look,” Zanka says.

Rudo stares back at him.

“Zanka?” Rudo murmurs, deeply confused. He’s pretty sure he’s been telling Zanka each time that it might not be possible for them to get out safely, and the last time, he told him he’s pretty sure that they’re closed in completely. Was he not listening? “We’re…closed in. Remember?”

“I’ll move th’stuff,” he mumble.

What on earth is he thinking? Sure, Lovely is a crazy versatile weapon and he definitely believes in Zanka’s abilities, but he can’t possibly move all of that stuff, not without collapsing the cave system or hurting himself in the process. It’s not like him at all to be this irrational, especially after he got onto Rudo for the same thinking a few hours ago.

His concern for Zanka’s sudden derailment is heightened by a lot when he notices that Zanka can’t really stand without the help of his staff. His legs are shaking, and his face completely gives away that he’s in some kind of pain, but he doesn’t let any of that stop him, and he turns around.

And then, the stains that he thought were Riyo’s blood follow his footsteps, and drip onto the floor.

“Zanka?” Rudo starts again, standing up to follow him. His chest feels tight again. “are you - is that blood?”

He's been injured this whole time?

“‘S fine.”

It can’t be Riyo’s blood. It’s been hours by now, it would have dried, because he hasn’t been holding her, and her bleeding has stopped. The most concerning part about that is not that Zanka’s injured, but that he’s still bleeding.

“Wait, don’t you think-”

Zanka takes one misstep where he nearly lands on his ankle instead of his heel, and that’s enough to completely throw off his balance, to send him collapsing down to the cave floor with his staff clattering alongside with him. There isn’t any urgency on his part to get up, or even to break his fall before he gets there. Rudo clambers over to his side right away. Maybe he just tripped. He’s okay. He has to be okay.

“Zanka, wait, are…” he starts, shaking his shoulder carefully, but he comes to the horrifying realization that Zanka’s not conscious anymore. He passed out. Rudo doesn’t understand how he kept himself conscious this long if he was bleeding this entire time - while it’s not totally pooling on the ground beside him, it’s definitely already staining it with this blood.

Agonizing seconds pass without any response from Zanka at all. Rudo shakes his shoulder again, this time, without any regard for hurting him further.

“Zanka…” he mumbles.

Rudo’s breaths start with a quicker pace. He’s trying not to breathe so fast, he’s trying really hard to calm himself down, but he can’t do it. Zanka is the person he looked to, to get them out of this situation, and he’s not just passed out, he’s hurt. It’s bad enough that Riyo was badly hurt.

And all he can see is the blood pooling around Regto’s body.

It’s hard to breathe. The air feels thick. Rudo’s eyes dart around and lock onto the tunnel leading to the cave entrance. He has to do something, and he can’t do it here. He has to make sure all of them get out of here alive. He has the ability to make it happen, and he doesn’t care if he gets hurt in the process.

Rudo stumbles to stand back up, and does everything he can to run quickly back to the cave’s entrance.

Rudo’s mind feels totally fuzzy and his eyes can’t catch up with what they’re seeing, his vision spotty and swimming with every movement his eyes make, and as he looks back behind him, seeing the faint glow of the fire illuminating the other end of the tunnel, he realizes very quickly that they’ve made a huge mistake. They’ve been breathing in fumes from the fire this whole time in a closed space, and it only hit Zanka faster because of the blood he’s lost.

That’s why he’s been weird. That’s why he wasn’t making any sense.

He’s sure those radioactive stones have something to do with it too. They’ve changed color to a deep purple, even all the way over here.

He has to do something. That means he has even less time.

He stands at the cave entrance and shouts like a maniac, but every panicked breath he takes in makes it even more obvious what he’s been dealing with this whole time. He grabs his mask, tries to situate it the best he can over his face, but the intermittent beeps tell him there’s not much left in the little tanks they can take with them, and he’s already taken in a lot of those fumes.

What can he do? He digs through the garbage at the entrance, trying to think of anything he could use to move the stuff out of the entrance, and he sees a snow shovel.

Something he hasn’t seen on the Ground yet. He isn’t even completely sure that it snows down here, and if it does, it’s probably poisonous or polluted like everything else, but this is definitely from the Sphere. Rudo’s very familiar with snow. If he can make this into something big enough to push all of this out of the way, he could get them out.

Except, he’s a fifteen year old kid. He doesn’t have the strength to move an air conditioner, let alone all of the rubble and garbage in front of him, especially on the verge of passing out with all of the crap he’s been breathing in this whole time.

And then, just underneath it, he sees something much more useful.

An unopened firework packet.

Essentially, a bomb.

Rudo reaches out for it, his gloves ready to do their thing as soon as he lays his hands on it.

…

“Not so loud. He’s still sleeping.”

Enjin’s voice.

Rudo groans, pulling whatever’s laying on top of himself over his head. It’s too loud. Too bright, he can see it through his eyelids. He wants to go back to sleep.

“Lemme talk to him.”

“What’d I just say? He’s still sleeping,” Enjin whispers back at the other voice in a whisper-shout.

“No he ain’t. I could see his eyes.”

Rudo is hoping that that voice isn’t Zanka like he thinks it is, that he’s not about to get scolded for something he can’t bother to remember right now, but he feels someone lift the sheet away from his face, and he realizes there’s no hiding from whatever this might be. He groans again, his eyes blinking to adjust to the light, peering up at Zanka, who does not look happy at all to see him.

“The hell were you thinking?”

Zanka looks pissed.

Rudo is deeply confused. He tries to sit himself up, rub at his eyes. Zanka’s not wearing his uniform, and Rudo realizes he isn’t either.

“Huh?”

Except, it’s all coming back to him. The look on Zanka’s face has totally brought him back to it.

He used that firework as an explosion to collapse the cave entrance, and somehow, he managed to get lucky enough for there to be an opening, to get out, to get help. He doesn’t remember much after that, but he knows he did that, at the very least.

Something.

“You could’a died! Using a bomb in a cave? You could’ve gotten yourself killed, and Riyo would’ve died too, ya’ brat -”

Rudo’s face scrunches up with anger. He thinks Zanka is totally in the wrong lane here. “You could’ve died! You’re the one that was bleeding the whole time and didn’t tell me!”

Zanka rolls his eyes at him. “Ugh, it wasn’t even that bad!”

Rudo can tell underneath his anger, there’s genuine concern. Rudo very much understands that he could have died, that he could have easily gotten all of them trapped forever, but it was his only option, and a risk he was willing to take if it meant saving someone. If he did nothing, they all would have died. He’s sure of that.

“I shouldn’t’ve used something with an actual flame,” Rudo mumbles, his eyes shifting down to his gloves. He didn’t see anything wrong with it at all, even though, looking back it was a ridiculous idea. He doesn’t understand how he didn't catch it until he was a problem. “Think that was my first mistake.”

“I didn't think about it either. It’s not your fault,” Zanka says with a sigh. He crosses his arms over his chest.

“If you guys are playing the blame game, technically, all of this is my fault as your team leader,” Enjin chimes in. He’s standing at the foot of Rudo’s bed.

Zanka looks like he wants to interject right away, assure that there’s nothing Enjin could have done to get them out of that situation safely, but he seems to know that already.

“Listen. This kind of shit happens, alright? And there’s no point in trying to figure out whose fault it was, ‘cause it’s never that easy,” Enjin says, “I’m just glad you’re all okay.”

“Maybe I should’ve worn a helmet.”

Rudo didn’t realize that Riyo was in the bed next to him. She smiles over in his direction once he turns his head.

Her voice sounds awfully hoarse through her joke, and he realizes that her forehead is bandaged. She’s wearing a hospital gown, unlike the two of them, and there’s a pole holding a fluid bag and a pump next to her bed. He can’t tell if she’s connected to it, but he follows the line down to her arm. He thinks that means Eishia hasn’t been here yet.

“Riyo, y’not supposed to talk,” Zanka says, uncharacteristic concern flooding his voice, as he sits on the edge of the cot in front of her, inspecting her IV port. Rudo noticed a limp from him when he walked over. Riyo waves her free hand at him as a sort of, I’m fine, don’t nag me, but Zanka doesn’t seem to care at all.

“I don’t remember anything, but it sounds pretty badass,” Riyo tells him, ignoring the way Zanka grabs her hand as a reminder to not speak. Rudo can’t really piece together why her voice sounds like that, but he realizes his throat sort of burns himself. Was it the fumes, smoke? He imagines for Riyo, maybe a combination of that, and her supposed punctured lung.

“None of that was badass,” Zanka groans, folding his head over the hand of Riyo’s that he’s still holding onto. Riyo pets his hair with the hand that still has the IV port in, not seeming to care much about keeping it too intact, but she’s careful anyway, “you scared the shit out of me. Both of you. Jeez.”

“Welcome to my life, by the way,” Enjin says. “Way more fun when you’re conscious for all of it. Try it next time.”

Zanka’s head shoots back up to stare back at Enjin, looking offended and embarrassed at the same time. Riyo laughs, but as soon as they turn into coughs, Zanka’s attention turns back to her.rubbing her shoulder and making sure she’s okay.

Rudo lays back down on the bed, stares at the ceiling for a few moments. He’s relieved that worked out in his favor. He’s glad everyone’s okay.

Follo had offered to come with Zanka. He wishes he hadn’t rejected the idea, but he insisted that his help would be way more useful making sure civilians were okay than chapparoning Zanka. He really wishes he were here now.

“There you are. You’re hiding?”

A chill runs up his spine, and at the very same moment, his body goes limp, sliding down the stone wall in the alley before he falls sideways, his hands lying over each other, his face in the dirt. He can’t see more than blotches of color, and all he can make out are boots in front of him, and orange and white stripes hanging down behind them. He can’t tell if it’s one or two people, but the pattern is enough to tip him off.

Traffickers.

He has to think fast. He doesn’t know if he’s going to pass out or not, but it feels like he doesn’t have a lot of time. They won’t kill him, not right away, there wouldn’t have been any point in drugging him first and waiting to pounce on him while he was alone if that were the case. They want him for something.

The best course of action is to leave his Lovely Assistaff here, as much as it pains him to leave her in the dirt. It's the best shot he has at someone even finding out he’s missing. There's pros to her just looking like an ordinary stick. Even though they know Zanka is a Giver, they're not inclined to suspect the stick he carries with him is anything more than a stick.

If Gris and Follo wonder what’s taking him so long, they’ll likely take this same route to go to the town center and find her here, but he doesn’t have any idea where they would go from there.

He feels his body shift, and suddenly he’s lying against wood, and his body is covered with a sheet. He can’t even tell if he was lifted up by a person or dragged up here, because he can’t feel anything. He can twitch his fingers, move his hands a little, but he can only tell based on the way the fabric over him moved. He can’t feel it. He can hardly see it, but the more he tries to focus on them and what the extent of his situation is, he notices something.

They don't know about the Chokers. If they did, they would have removed his. It’s still on his wrist.

Riyo is around. She's in the area. She'll find him. She’s the last person he called, and if he manages to click it again, it’ll open the line to her. He won’t be able to speak to her in this state, but she’s smart enough to catch on.

If he keeps the Choker line open, and Riyo hears what's going on, she'll be able to track him down easier. She’ll come after him. He knows she will.

No one looked for him the three days he was in that well, but at the very least, he knows Riyo and Enjin won’t leave him behind.

He hopes.

“You're Nijiku, ain't ya'?”

One of the figures speaks. Zanka realizes from the way he’s being jostled around that they’re in a wheeled wagon, something Traffickers are often known to use.

His head is swimming. He had a feeling this was intentional targeting. They were looking for him specifically, not just any victim - and this is exactly why he should have been more careful to begin with.

“Y’ain't g'na ge’nothin’ f’r me,” Zanka mumbles. He can hardly get the words out. The numb feeling is starting to turn into pain, but he’s starting to wonder if it was pain all along.

“Oh, no. Bargaining chip's all I need ya’ for.”

Zanka recognizes this peron's accent. They’re from Kamuatari. They’re not speaking the language, but it’s obvious enough that they don’t need to..

He can't hold his eyes open anymore. He feels horribly nauseous out of nowhere, and it’s entirely possible there’s saliva dribbling out of his mouth, but he can’t feel it.. Whatever these people used is going to make him lose consciousness very soon. He needs to call Enjin. Riyo. Somebody.

All he manages is to click the choker before he passes out.

…

When his eyes start to open again, he’s on a mattress. He feels that underneath him. He can’t remember exactly what happened at first, but there’s a warm wave of pain that slowly takes over his body, reminding him of his situation.

He can’t move. His body won’t cooperate, but something is keeping him in place, too. He tries to tug his arm away, but he can’t feel enough of any sensation to be able to tell exactly what’s holding him.

“Stop struggling. You already bruised those little wrists of yours.”

A foreboding, feminine voice. He feels like he recognizes this one from when they took him, but he can’t be sure, anymore.

That horrible, nauseous feeling from earlier hits him with full force, and he barely manages to turn his head to choke up bile onto the mattress. It burns so bad. His eyes are burning. They travel up to the Choker around his wrist - all he can make out is that striking red, and all he can do is hope and pray that he managed to click it when he meant to. He can’t now. His arms are tied down.

“You really don’t like my drink…,” she complains. Zanka would do anything to kick this woman in the face, but he can’t tell where she’s coming from. His eyes can sort of make out a figure when he turns his head again. It seems like he’s on a mattress on the floor, and that he’s sitting on a chair, but the single light fixture is illuminating her from behind by chance, and every time Zanka tries to look, his eyes turn from that bright light.

Another person enters the room. Zanka hears the door creak open.

He groans involuntarily, but also to see if he has any ability to speak. There’s no gag in his mouth at least, that would have made it really difficult to vomit, but he thinks whatever they used in that drink has temporarily destroyed his motor functions.

The voices above him chatter for a while, and two others enter the room - two of them have that pattern indicative of Traffickers, including the woman on the chair. She doesn’t move from there until she’s offered a hand, and Zanka is able to piece together that she can’t see very well. He tries to keep that in mind.

“The uniform will sell for something,” a deep male voice says. Zanka feels his body tense up. “He’s worthless otherwise.”

“Worthless?” The woman says.

“He’s a Nijiku,” a male voice says. It’s the same one from earlier, from Kamuatari.

“He’s not with them anymore. He wouldn’t know nothin’, and they wouldn’t do a thing to save his hind, either,” the deeper voice says. Zanka ears start ringing. He hears them mention something about the Cleaners, but everything else just sounds like mumbling in the next room over.

All of a sudden, he sees the woman right in front of his eyes, just inches from his face. He freezes completely, staring back at her, her face the clearest thing he’s been able to make out ever since this happened.

“Don’t fight back,” she says. Her hand moves to unzip his uniform from the top zipper at his neck.

Zanka uses the little energy that he has left to do just that. It sounds like all he’s good for to them is the clothes off his back. They aren’t even made with anything special, and he doubts they would be worth enough to even be worth the trouble of kidnapping him.

Was it really any trouble, though?

Zanka still remembers drinking that water. It was so cold it burned. Sometimes drinking water in the desert feels that way.

The cold wall he fell against. The wooden floor of the wagon.

He didn’t put up a fight, and no one was there to give them a hard time, even remotely.

He somehow manages to get his leg up over his abdomen and kick the woman with near full-force away from him. There wasn’t nearly as much power behind it as there would have been in any other situation, and his aim wasn't great. She just falls against the man standing behind her. They didn’t tie his legs down, but he very quickly realizes that they don’t have to. The man only takes a few steps forward before, with every ounce of power in his body, he slams his boot straight down on Zanka’s chest.

He can’t even tell if he’s screaming, or if it’s completely caught in his throat. He’s broken bones before, but during fights against Trash Beasts, where the adrenaline is working in his favor long enough for Eishia to heal him, or to, at the very least, treat a break for long enough before Eishia can get to him.

This is complete agony. It’s worse than anything he’s felt in a long, long time. He’s certain several pieces of his ribcage have broken off, and it hurts so badly that he can’t tell if it’s his right or left side, or both.

“Your sister took away the only thing that ever mattered to him, y'know,” the woman’s voice tells him, once again so close to his ear that it’s almost as if she’s inside his brain, “least you can do is give me this. Behave.”

He hears her unzip the front of his uniform just before his vision fades out completely, and all he can hear is the casual chatter of the people above him while he’s in a complete state of despair. He tries so hard to focus on his breathing, but all that comes out is wheeze. Wheeze. It burns.

“Do you really think he'll get you anything?” the male’s voice says, stabbing through his subconscious, like it’s telling him this is something he needs to hear.

“I’ll get money out of him either way,” the woman says.

Zanka’s body tenses up.

“Do you know how much money some people would pay to f̸̨͓̗̭̠̫͎̜̤̪̭̞̗̩̹̣̥̜̣͉͔͉͖̻͖̲̃̓̑͐͂̋̈͂̽͗̂̀̇̈́́͌̓͝ͅų̵̨̛̗̞̞̪̯͍͔̟͖̦̣̬̘̜̳̗̦̦͖̳̲̝͎̦̒̀̎̄̓̓͂̈͐̋͌̐̆̐̉̊̄̄͗́̚̚̚͜͝c̵̛͕̼̿̏͐̏͗̓̓̄͛́͒̚͝͝k̶̡̡̛̻̤͇͉͚̠̘͔͔̤͖͚̙̰͖͓̩͔̞̰̣͕̮̱͚͆̏̾͌̄̓̔͂̆̾͐̀̈̈́̍̅͌̎̐̌̊͗̏̆̑͜ͅ a Nijiku?”

…

When his eyes open again, he’s immediately hit with sharp pain. It’s dark. Every vein feels as if lava has been poured into them and has been circulating through his nervous system for hours while he’s been unconscious. He can’t help but cry out in pain, but it just echoes back at him, making his ears ring and making everything worse. He coughs involuntarily, painfully reminded of his shattered ribs. Excruciating. It’s cold, but the pain makes him feel so hot that he doesn’t notice it.

He doesn’t know if it’s the same thing that they drugged him with the first time, just later effects, or if it’s something new entirely. He remembers a tingling before, but now it’s just straight up painful. It burns so badly it brings tears to his eyes, but he doesn’t let them fall. He doesn’t know if they’re still around. There’s a blindfold over his face now, something that wasn’t there before. He wonders why. Is it to hide their identities? He couldn’t really see them in the first place with how fuzzy everything was.

He tries to tug at his restraints, but it’s useless. The pain he’s in is sapping his energy and making it really difficult to make any confident movements. All he can do is confirm he’s still restrained, and when he tries to move his legs, he’s met with the same realization.

“Riyo…” he manages to choke out, begging and pleading to whatever forces are out there, the very few that ever seem to work in his favor, that he clicked that Choker, that she can hear him, but there’s no response. He’s holding onto some hope that maybe she is there, she’s listening, she just knows not to speak because they’ll find out someone is coming to save him.

But he’d do anything to hear her voice. To know someone is coming. Because it's entirely possible that he's been forgotten about.

Again.

His chopped up breathing starts to turn into sobs, and it hurts. It hurts so much.

“No one is coming for you, sweetheart,” the woman’s voice says, honey sweet. “You know how much of a risk you are. It’s safer for them to leave you in the dust.”

Zanka can feel his head spinning.

He doesn’t know how much time passes before he feels almost completely numb again.

What’s going on?

You need to know how to protect yourself.

He doesn’t know why he’s hearing his sister’s voice right now. His memory plays tricks on him sometimes, making him think she’s there when she isn’t. Her voice is so clear that he really believes for a moment that she’s there.

Honestly, he isn’t sure if he would even want her to rescue him.

Would she, even?

She didn’t go looking for him when he was in the well. Three days, no one went looking for him.

Would anyone do that for him now?

In this line of work, it’s your own responsibility to keep yourself safe. We are a unit, but in a landscape as dangerous as this one, it’s every man for himself.

He’s already done a terrible job at that.

If you’re weak, you’ll be left behind.

His face is pressed against the mattress. Someone’s hand is pressing hard against the back of his head, but Zanka doesn’t make any movements to try to understand why, or what’s happening past where he can see.

You can’t listen to crap like that. We don’t do that here.

Enjin’s voice.

Zanka’s eyes flood with tears.

Even if everyone else gave up, I’d still come after you.

Riyo. Riyo would.

…

Zanka feels numb.

He's staring at the ceiling, unable to comprehend anything that's being said around him. His blindfold is gone, but his eyesight is so cloudy that he can’t see anyway. He doesn’t know if it’s tears, because he can’t feel anything on his face. He can only tell that he’s blinking because everything goes dark for a split second.

He's trying to recall the events of the past few hours, but he can't. It's like his mind won't allow for it. Either everything repeats at once, or his focus forcefully shifts to something else.

He thinks his mind is trying to reset multiple times. Every time he manages to close his eyes, his surroundings have changed just enough to make him recognize that he’s not closing his eyes, he’s passing out. He doesn’t know why. Is it the drugs? How long has it been since they took him here?

He groans, but when he does, the echo he hears tells him that there isn’t anyone else inside the room anymore.

Will Riyo hear him if he speaks.

“Riyo…” he murmurs. His eyes close. He doesn’t have any way of knowing how long they close for, if he’s losing consciousness for several minutes, hours, or just blinking.

“Don’t move, okay?”

Riyo’s voice.

Zanka stays where he is. He doesn’t know if it’s real or not. Maybe it’s coming from his choker. Maybe it’s his mind being cruel to him, and feeding him old memories like before. He can hardly handle that. He’d rather smash his head to pieces than be fed false hope by his own brain right now, and he can’t even do that against his godforsaken mattress.

No, wait.

Red. He sees red. Right in front of him, right in front of his eyes.

Green eyes.

The tears that suddenly flood his eyes completely impair his vision.

“Hey, Zan…” she says gently, her expression warm and comforting, making him almost forget about his predicament. He can’t see her as well as he would like to, but her face is the clearest thing he’s seen since this whole thing happened.

He hears the sound of her scissors snip each restraint.

One. Two.

Three, four.

But he can’t trust himself to move, even knowing she’s freed him. There’s a complete disconnect from his mind and his body right now. All he can do his stare forward, lock his eyes onto Riyo, who’s staring down at him patting his hair back out of his face.

 She says something to him, but Zanka doesn’t hear her.

You found me.

You went looking for me.

You think I’m worth looking for.

She holds him really close. Zanka can’t tell if she sat him up, or if he’s still lying down. He flinches at the touch, but he melts into it, because he wants more than anything to be in the company of someone who he knows is safe. Someone who values his life.

He had never been hugged by anyone before joining the Cleaners. At first, he hated it. He didn't like being touched at all. The first few hugs he got made him nauseous, and he didn't have any idea why. Was it a weird sense of obligation to have to return that comfort? Did he just not like being touched? He didn’t know, and still doesn’t know why. Even handshakes were a weird thing to get used to. But the more he felt the care, the genuine warmth from the arms of other people, the more he craved it.

Kyouka would think he's absolutely pathetic.

“I'm sorry it took me so long,” she tells him, one arm around his head, holding him as close to her as she can. He realizes he’s sitting up, because the pain is starting to seep back into his chest. “I'm sorry they hurt you, Zanka.”

He tries to say something back, but all he can do is groan from the pain, a shaky hand hovering over the left side of his body. His ribs. That’s what hurts the most right now.

“Here?” she says, a gentle hand hovering over his own to make sure she understands where his pain is. Really, everything hurts, but this part is the worst. “Your ribs, huh?”

“Riyo,” Zanka murmurs. His brain is all of a sudden pushing images of his staff to the front of his brain. He left her in that alleyway. He’s praying someone found her. He’s praying it was Riyo, that it helped lead her to him. He doesn’t know what he’d do if it was all for nothing. Lovely isn’t useless like he is.

“Don't talk. You should save your energy, ‘kay?” she says, her voice only softening. His ears ring as if Riyo has suddenly blasted an airhorn right next to his ear, rather than speak softly to him.

“Y’found…” he manages between pained breaths. He needs to know.

“We have her, don’t worry,” Riyo assures him. “Gris found her. You left her there on purpose so we would find you, yeah?”

Zanka wants to nod, confirm that her existence is what saved his ass here, but the way the pain has crept up to his neck, his arms, his stomach, makes it awfully difficult.

“Let’s get you out of here, okay?”

He feels her shift to be beside him, take an arm over her shoulders with a hand on his waist to lift him, but it’s the wrong side. The hand pressing against his waist when she tries to lift him is so close to his broken ribs that he Zanka cries out in pain, and gently lowers him back down those few inches.

It's a white hot burst of pain that comes out of nowhere and hits him like a truck. His whole abdomen feels hot, centered right at that spot.

“I'm sorry,” Riyo tells him gently.

He doesn't even know what's causing the pain to be like that, but the more it spreads, the more it starts to center in the lower part of his stomach, he starts to connect the dots. He’s breathing heavy and he feels like he's about to throw up, and he's glad he manages to move out of the way fast enough to choke up whatever is in his stomach.

The memories flood back into his mind, and it’s so intense that he can’t see for a moment. His body forces up more bile and stomach acid, coughing and nearly choking, as if it’s trying to distract him. His eyes are burning hot with unwanted tears. He starts to curl up against her, eventually landing with his head against her thigh, and her hand on his head, patting him. She's talking to him, but he can't make out any words. It's reassuring, though. She's still there. She's really there.

He can't breathe properly, though. He's breathing fast, and he can't figure out how to slow down. It hurts so badly, the pain is bad enough to make him throw up on its own, but all he can do is retch between breaths. Is he hyperventilating? Is this really from his pain? Maybe it's just his anxiety. Nothing happened to him. He's fine. The broken ribs, sure, but he can't accept the rest of it.

They didn’t…r̴̡̨̛͖͈͚̪͉̳͇̻͙̤̙̜̙̥͔̥̝̄̈́́̿͑̈́́̽͂̾̀̀͊̀̈̈͒̄̒͗͛̊́͂́̈̌̆̀̌̍̽̿̋̓͒̊̈́̈͠͝ą̶̧̧̜̜̹̹͙͙̤̬̠͍͕͙͚̭̺͚͙̻͍̖̀̑͐̉̒̓̓̄͂͂̿̚p̸̢̨̨͉̰̬͇̥̼̱̩̫̯̗̯͙͖͕̺͍͓͈͎̻̠͉̙̦̹͖̺̹͕͍̩͚̅̎̅̈́̄̔̏̉̋̍́́̋͂̈́̑̎̃̾̏͆͌̔̇̐͌̏̓̐̇͆͒̇̈́́́́̎̍̈̚͘͘͜͝͝͝ͅé̶̢̨̢̞͓̤̥̻͓̲̹̣͈̤̟̳̺̬̼̫̘͖̙̼̺͈͉͇̠̖̩̦̳̼̲̰̹̥͉̟̮̙͕͖̲̞̓̉͑͂͊̀̀̒̄̽̑̌̓̕͜͜͜ͅ him.

That can't be what happened.

…

Riyo is sitting in the hallway, examining the split ends on the end of her braid. It's time for a trim, but she's spent the last few hours pulling apart the split ends instead. One strand at a time. Something to do. Something else to think about.

She should have killed those people when she had the chance.

“You're still out here?”

Enjin always seems to appear when she's having thoughts like that. Like he knows.

Surely he would've made an exception though. If he knew what they did to Zanka.

Right?

If she had only gotten there sooner. Then…

“Riyo,” he says, and she realizes she's spacing out, she's gone on too long without giving him a verbal response. She let it slip.

“Nothing better to do,” she insists casually, focusing on the split ends of her hair. Her eyes trail down to the short, stranded pieces on the floor.

“Well…sleep, is something better to do,” he says.

Of course, he's no better than she is. He leans against the wall and slides down to sit beside her. It's four in the morning, and he's been hanging around the infirmary ward the whole time, same as her. The smell of cigarettes clings to his clothes. He's gone in and out to visit Zanka, but he tries not to crowd him. It's a hard line to walk.

Riyo has stayed outside. She'd rather not walk the line at all, right now. She thinks that seeing her will just act as a reminder for him, and she won't go in unless he asks to see her.

“Did you talk to Gris?” Riyo asks him.

“Yeah. Wish I didn't,” Enjin murmurs. She can imagine why. He already felt responsible for Zanka going missing, because he hadn't sent anyone with him. That was before they knew he was kidnapped. Injured.

Worse.

“Think I've gotta take him to Alice. Eishia can't get him to talk,” Enjin says with a small, defeated sigh. He smells like fresh cigarette smoke. “She's got his ribs in order, though.”

“Words aren't her strong suit,” Riyo says.

“Yeah,” he says.

Zanka's definitely not well, right now. He's always had problems with anxiety, ever since she first met him. It was way worse back then, but sometimes he slips back into it. And now would certainly be one of those times. He can't breathe right, can't keep down anything, not even medicine.

“Riyo,” Enjin starts.

Riyo lowers her braid. She knows what he wants to ask her. What his original intention was.

“It’s not my place to say, okay?” she tells him. She can't even be stern with him. She understands why he wants to know, why it's important, but she can't betray Zanka's trust. She can't share that information without him knowing.

“I know,” Enjin breathes out. “Could you, just…at least, tell me, if -”

“Enjin,” she says, interrupting his question, because he knows exactly.

Enjin leans his head against the wall. He can't get through her defense.

She thinks that even though she's refused to tell him, that he's understood exactly what she heard, because of her refusal to tell him.

“Dammit,” Enjin breathes. “Fuck.”

…

Zanka has to ignore the way his shoulders flinch when Eishia opens the door. He has to stop being so damn jittery. It's not going to make this any easier.

She's carrying something - a tray with dinner, probably. He really wishes she hadn’t. He can’t eat anything right now and she knows that, but he understands why she wants to have it available for him. She leaves it on the side table as she walks in, but Zanka doesn’t pay attention to anything that’s on it. He’s not going to eat it anyway.

His eyes follow her instead.

“Has the medicine helped your headache…?” she asks meekly, standing beside the bed, her hands crossed in front of her. Zanka can’t bear to keep the eye contact with her, so he stares down at the sheets on his bed.

No. It hasn’t gone away since Riyo saved him. He doesn’t think it’s ever going to. He nods, though.

“Are you…sure…?” she asks, obviously not convinced. She had turned the lights off for him earlier to try and help, but the curtains still bring in a decent amount of light, even when closed.

For the third time today, he feels his eyes start burning, and tears that he couldn’t have possibly prepared for slip from his eyes and start to dot the sheets in front of him. It doesn’t make any sense. He isn’t thinking about it. He’s not remembering anything or wondering about it. This just happens out of nowhere, like his body is completely disconnected from his brain. It’s the first time it’s happened in front of Eishia, and as much as he wants to rub his eyes and pretend nothing happened, she definitely saw it. And he knows he won’t be able to make it go away.

“Sorry. It’s…I’m fine,” he mumbles, rubbing at his eyes, but the tears don’t stop. He tries to take in a few breaths to regulate this anxiety a little bit, because that must be what it is, but it never works when he wants it to. His chest hurts so much. He hates crying. He hates it more than anything. “This keeps happening ‘n I don’ know why. ‘M not even thinkin’ about anything…”

His breath hitches.

It’s embarrassing, at best, but at worst, he feels his sister’s glare against his neck. His face feels hot.

“It’s okay,” Eishia tells him gently, moving a little closer and sitting on the edge of the bed, something she very rarely does. Her eyes are focused on him, her gloved hand landing in front of is, as a show of comfort but not close enough to cross a boundary. “It’s something that can happen, after…traumatic…experiences.”

He wishes she wouldn’t say that. He feels sick.

He’s fine. Breaking his ribs is not a traumatic experience.

Idiot.

All of the feelings swirling around in his head right now makes him think the only thing that will relieve the pressure is cracking his head open.

“I know you’re used to meditating, and, that can be useful, for things like this, but…it’s hard to clear your mind from things like this so quickly,” Eishia says. She’s right, honestly. He’s tried it several times, any time he’s been alone in the infirmary. He is usually really good at it. He prides himself in it. But there’s so much right now that he can’t get himself to do it. His focus always breaks. “I have something else, though…?”

Zanka tries to take a solid breath and lift his head to see if he can get the tears to stop with determination, but it doesn’t work. They just fall right back. He’ll probably have to take Eishia’s advice.

“Can you name…five things you can see?” Eishia tells him.

Initially, he’s insulted more than anything. He doesn’t think Eishia would ever try to do that on purpose, but he’s not a little kid, and she doesn’t need to play a game with him to get him to stop crying, but he starts thinking about her question in earnest, even so.

Five things he can see. Well, Eishia, obviously. The infirmary beds.

Lovely Assistaff, of course. She’s leaned against the foot of the bed. Zanka had asked Eishia if she’s put her there earlier, when he was half asleep. He just wanted to make sure that he could see her when he woke up, and not have to wonder where she is. Like before.

No, no. That has to be defeating the purpose of what Eishia is trying to help him do. His eyes dart up to the wall.

There’s canvases on the wall in between each set of beds. Zanka thinks Gob painted them, but he’s not really sure. He doesn’t know that the guy has ever used a proper canvas. He’s wondered if he’s the one who did Enjin’s tattoos, but he’s never thought to ask.

The floor. Does that count?

“You’re supposed to say them outloud, but - ”

Zanka feels his ears get hot. “Oh, sorry, I-”

“No, it’s - it’s okay! I wanted to say, um…if it works better for you to just say it in your head, that’s okay too,” she says with a little smile. She seems to be glad that she got him to do it at all. “There’s more steps, though, is…that okay?”

It must be a counting down thing, with other senses. He feels like he’s heard of this before. He nods.

It’s not the worst thing ever.

“Four things you can touch…?”

…

Zanka can smell the cigarette smoke before he sees Enjin. He feels like he’s been smoking a lot more the past few days.

“Ready?” Enjin asks him. He’s standing outside his room as Zanka opens his dorm room door. He doesn’t close it behind him yet. Maybe it’s good to have a foot in the door, literally, in case he wants to give up.

Zanka doesn’t want to go. He likes working. He really does. And he has nothing against working the week after his…ordeal, but he doesn’t want to work with Enjin.

Zanka nods. He’s making sure his uniform is straightened out in the mirror. He doesn’t usually care about that, but he’s trying really hard to avoid eye contact with Enjin.

“Is it…okay if I talk to you about something?” Enjin asks him.

Zanka hates that question more than anything. His stomach hurts. He feels like he’s going to throw up. He probably would have if he had eaten breakfast like he was supposed to. Zanka wishes more than anything that they would just let it go. Pretend it was nothing. He's fine with that.

“We can report this to the Hell Guard,” Enjin says. His voice is gentle, and he’s sure Enjin has good intentions, but he’s not even remotely ready for a conversation like this. Especially because he’s fairly certain that Enjin doesn’t know.

Unless Riyo told him.

Zanka’s stomach twists.

He shakes his head.

“Zanka,” Enjin starts. There’s pain in his voice. If Zanka knew it would get him to leave, he would close the door in his face. He can’t do this right now.

“Did Riyo tell you?” he asks, his voice shaking. It’s the only time he looks Enjin right in the eyes. Probably the only time he has all week. He can’t have Enjin know. Enjin’s the first adult who’s ever respected him, taken him as he is. If he knew he’d been -

Enjin’s brow furrows. “No. No, she didn’t tell me anything.”

“Nothing?” Zanka almost snaps back. He doesn’t believe it.

“Nothing,” Enjin promises.

There’s a pause between them that feels like it lasts forever. Zanka has to gather his thoughts.

“It’s my choice,” Zanka mumbles quietly, tucking his hands in his sleeves and pulling at the skin around his nails out of sight. It’s gotten so bad that his nail beds are bleeding. He’s tried to keep them covered with bandaids. “Right?”

Enjin bites his lip. “Right, but-”

“Then I don’t want to,” Zanka says sternly.

Enjin’s shoulders seem to deflate.

“Zanka, I get where you’re coming from, but this isn’t-”

“Nothin’ happened to me,” Zanka mumbles, “broke my ribs. Ain't even worth reporting.”

He's firm on that, even though his voice breaks at the end of it like his own body is betraying him, even though he knows that Enjin can tell he isn't telling the whole story, but he has to stand his ground. He can't let the Hell Guard, and by inevitable extension, his family find out about this. They may not even believe him, and that would be worse than them just knowing the truth.

Zanka doesn’t even really remember what happened. And he doesn’t want to. Reporting this means he has to face it.

The look on Enjin's face isn't one he recognizes, and he doesn't know why. It's not quite pity, but something else.

He just needs some rest, and he'll be fine in the morning. Maybe he'll see if he has any tea leaves left. That would probably help him feel better.

The lights to the laundry room are on. Not totally uncommon, but not typical, either. Zanka likes using this laundry room because most prefer the convenience of the ones on the dorm floors. There's less wait in the basement floor, even though it's a little creepy down there.

Zanka knocks on the open door as he walks in, to make sure he doesn't scare anyone. No one reacts. No one is standing inside, even in the smaller folding room towards the back. The tiny flickering light from the bulb illuminating the room hurts his eyes, and he decides he need to wrap it up in here before it gives him a headache.

The sink is full of soap and water, though, a sign someone has been here recently. Someone's probably soaking something.

Zanka walks toward the folding room, where he left his clean clothes. He usually leaves his boots and outerwear here so that he doesn't have to take dirty clothes and shoes to his room, but as he's walking, he notices someone's left a pile of clothes on the floor by the wall. Irritating. Why would -

Wait.

“...Rudo?”

It is Rudo, for sure. He's curled up against the wall, oversized t-shirt and baggy sweatpants that really made it look like there wasn't a person inside them, for a second. His face is pressed against the tile floor. He's breathing. Alive. Is he sleeping?

“Hey, what're you…”

Zanka isn't really sure what to do here.

Rudo doesn't react to Zanka's presence at all. His arms are tucked into his chest. He doesn't seem to be asleep, though. It might be that he's injured, but Zanka's pretty sure he had the day off today.

“Hey,” Zanka says, kneeling down in front of Rudo's curled up form. It hurts, puts a little too much strain on his leg, but he tries to ignore it. Rudo still doesn't give him any sign that he's totally there, so Zanka gently lands a hand on his shoulder. He often forgets how small he is. “you hearin’ me?”

Rudo's eyes peer up once he feels Zanka's contact. A tiny, pained whimper. He looks like a wet kitten left out in the rain.

“You hurt or somethin’?” Zanka asks him. He tries to keep his voice low. Rudo just barely shakes his head.

Zanka figures out pretty quickly why he's so meek right now. The pieces are all there. He's not wearing his gloves. He's washing them, that's what was soaking in the sink. He's seen him wash them there before, but he doesn't typically leave them to soak. Something else must be going on.

Rudo hasn't been super up front about it, but Zanka has been able to figure out that taking off those gloves causes him pain. He doesn't know why. He's seen the bandages. He's figured that it was some sort of injury when he first fell from the Sphere - Enjin did say Alice took a look at him before Zanka even met him, but the more he's able to figure out, the more he wonders what on earth his hands are so wrapped up for, why he wears those gloves in the first place.

“What're you doin’ in here?” Zanka asks.

“Floor's cold,” he says bluntly, his voice quiet and pained. Zanka can hardly hear him.

The floor is cold? What does that have to do with his hands?

Zanka changes positions so that he's on his knees instead of in a squat, which doesn’t hurt quite as much, and he reaches forward and lays a hand flush against his forehead for a few seconds. Rudo flinches at the sudden touch, his eyes screwing shut, but he relaxes at the feeling.

Oh, he has a fever. Of course. Now everything really makes sense. He was soaking his gloves to clean them, but Zanka isn't really sure where the fever started playing a role - maybe he already had one, and it made his pain worse, or if his pain got so bad that it caused a fever. He hopes he isn't sick.

“How long've ya’ been out here, Rudo?” Zanka asks, slowly pulling his hand away but Rudo tilts toward him to follow the cool touch, and groans when it's gone. Rudo doesn't answer the question. Zanka can't tell if he's just confused or half asleep. He places a hand underneath the shoulder that’s on the floor to try and urge Rudo into sitting up, and he does so, very reluctantly.

Zanka's chest feels tight. He hates that he was by himself all this time. He doubts anyone happened to come by in the time he was down here, otherwise, they would have at least taken him back to his room.

Well, you're here now, so do something.

“Stay here, yeah? Let me get these dryin’ so you can wear ‘em sooner…” Zanka says, planning on standing and turning toward the sink.

Rudo's hand reaches out, though, and completely stops Zanka in his tracks.

Rudo's eyes well up with tears. Zanka can't tell why, at least not right away. He flinches back, wondering if he's done something wrong, something to scare him, but the look in his eyes says something completely different.

“Hey…hold on, don't…”

He's not good at this. He's never had to take care of someone younger than him. He didn’t have very good role models for it, either.

That doesn't mean he shouldn't try, though.

Zanka reaches forward to hold him.

Rudo cries for a long time. Zanka has a feeling it's not just his hands, but he's sure that fever is playing a hand in heightening his emotions. Zanka's been through similar feelings, only with him, it's a usually a through-the-roof anxiety if his fevers get high enough. He understands, so he doesn’t have any room to judge at all. He just wishes he knew why, or at least knew what to say.

He doesn't let go, as long as Rudo cries. He holds his head underneath his chin, arms secure around him, but not tight enough to hurt him. It doesn’t seem to get worse at any point, but after a few minutes, Zanka wonders if he should start being concerned.

Eventually, though, he doesn’t hear anything anymore.

Zanka loosens his hold on him, and gently leans him against the wall. His eyes are red from crying, but Zanka can’t tell if the blotchy pink is from that or the fever. He still sniffles, his eyes not moving from the floor, not looking anywhere near Zanka. His eyes trail down to his hands, loosely lying in his lap like he’s afraid to move them. The bandages look like they need to be replaced - they’re dirty, and it doesn’t seem like Rudo is in any condition to change them himself.

“Just one second,” Zanka tells him, swiftly standing so that he can make sure to get Rudo’s gloves drying. He rinses the soapy water off of them as the rest drains from the sink, and he’s extremely careful as he wrings the water out of them. It’s not easy, it’s a thick, leather-like material and the metal bits make it difficult to wring them out properly, but he does the best he can. He hopes Rudo is okay with him handling his Vital Instrument like this, but he doesn’t give any objections. If he can really comprehend it, anyway.

There’s bandage materials on a lower shelf, off in the corner hiding beside some detergent. It appeared shortly after Rudo arrived with them, and it makes perfect sense that it’s his, now that he’s stopped to think about it. He takes the bandage roll before he turns back to Rudo.

“Let me change these for you,” Zanka says, kneeling in front of him. He's not sure how Rudo usually likes these covered up, but he figures if he does it wrong, he can just fix it in the morning.

Rudo looks hesitant when Zanka reaches a hand out to take his.

“Tell me if it hurts and I’ll stop,” Zanka says, “‘kay?”

“M’kay,” Rudo mumbles.

He’s careful, as gently as possible as he lifts Rudo’s arm by his elbow. Rudo is very clearly in pain, Zanka’s paying close attention to how he’s holding his breath, but it goes away after a few seconds. It was probably that initial movement that hurt. Zanka’s free hand finds the end of the wrap, and starts to peel it back, slowly.

Zanka's stomach turns when he sees what's underneath these bandages.

He can't even really describe what he's looking at. They're unhealing wounds. He feels like he's looking at a decaying corpse, except Rudo's musculature is all intact, like a live human. Zanka’s never seen anything like it. He tries to keep up with his first aid skills the best he can, and he’s seen burns, chemical injuries, the works - this is totally new to him.

Were his hands always like this?

What on earth happened to him up there?

“Zanka?”

“Yeah?” Zanka replies, his eyes not moving from the wrappings. He’s removed the bandage on this arm completely now, and he starts the new roll at his fingers, careful as he unrolls the bandage.

“How d'you sit like that?” Rudo murmurs.

“Like what?” Zanka looks down. He's sitting how he always does on the floor, on his knees with his shins tucked neatly underneath.

“Hurts when I do it,” Rudo says.

Zanka tries to resist a smile. It’s a little funny to imagine Rudo unsuccessfully copying him. “Y'tried to, huh?”

“Mhm,” Rudo answers.

Zanka had never considered that it might be difficult for other people to do. He’s seen Riyo and Enjin do it before, but Enjin acts like his knees are going to pop out every time he stands from that position. Honestly, it’s not awfully comfortable right now because of that leg injury, but he doesn’t think sitting any other way would be better.

“I was, kinda…trained to sit like this,” Zanka explains as the wrap travels up to Rudo’s wrist, “got used to it. Jus’ feels the most natural.”

“Trained? Why?”

Rudo always has questions that Zanka isn't prepared to answer.

“I dunno, exactly. It's…polite, I guess,” Zanka explains, but he doesn’t know the reason himself. If it was culture, if it was professionalism - another piece of his upbringing that’s so deeply ingrained in him that he can’t separate from his daily life at all, even completely unbeknownst to him.

Zanka manages to get Rudo's hands bandaged. Rudo’s quiet for the rest of it - just chatty for that one moment, but his eyes never really shut like he’s trying to sleep.

Once he finishes, though, and his eyes move up to Rudo’s face because a sniffle caught his attention, and there’s tears in his eyes again. He seems to be trying really hard not to let them fall, even tilting his head back a little but, but he loses that battle pretty quick. Zanka’s shoulders sink.

“Hey…why're you cryin’?” Zanka asks him, although he thinks that even if Rudo were lucid, he wouldn't be able to answer that well. “‘m I hurting you?”

Rudo shakes his head, looking like he thought about bringing up his hands to his eyes to rub away tears, but he decides against it. He’s not quite at that point yet, it seems like.

“We should get you to bed,” Zanka tells him. If he’s liking that cold feeling, maybe he can get some cold wash cloths, or even icepacks for his hands. He wonders if he’s tried that before. “Can ya’ walk?”

He doesn't think he's in a good enough physical condition himself to carry Rudo, but he'll try if he needs to. Rudo looks like he weighs next to nothing, anyway.

Rudo nods, though, getting to his feet way faster than he should have, and nearly toppling over as a result. Zanka manages to catch him just in time, taking his arm by his elbow just above where the bandages stop to steady him. He sees his expression tense up at the touch. He’s noticed that Rudo never seems to be able to stand up quickly without getting a little dizzy, but of course, it’s especially bad right now.

“Easy,” Zanka warns him, keeping him steady. “Let’s walk together.”

It’s not difficult. Rudo actually does fairly well. Zanka wonders if he didn’t have the courage to put pressure on his wounded hands by himself to sit back up and stand, but now with a second person, there’s an adrenaline rush to prove he can do it.

Zanka walks Rudo to his room, just a few doors down from his own. He’s heard that Rudo doesn’t keep his door locked, for some reason, so all he has to do is turn the handle. He walks him over to the bed, where he sits down, and breathes a little heavier than Zanka thinks he should for a few minutes. That doesn’t sound good. He very cautiously lays a hand down against the edge of the bed to keep himself steady, because evidently, he’s still dizzy - but he flinches as soon as his hand touches the bed.

“Lay down,” Zanka says, pressing a hand against his shoulder and another behind his back, to guide him down to the bed without pushing him. Rudo groans, but he obliges, at least, letting out a deep sigh once he’s laid back against his pillow. “I’m gonna get some things for you. Be right back.” 

Zanka wanders back into his room. He still has a few pills left from what Eishia got for him. He shakes it, holds it up to the light to double check. Two. It's general, high-strength pain medication and a fever reducer. Zanka isn't allowed to keep medication in his room, but she told him to keep this one aside in case the abdominal pain from his injury and the poison came back - since it usually gets worse at night. Clearly, Rudo needs it more than he does. Besides, he's felt fine the last couple of days. It's just bad today because of the job.

He takes that pill bottle, and then heads down to the common area to grab a water bottle, two ice packs and some wash cloths. That should work for now.

Zanka sits on the floor beside Rudo’s bed, pouring small amounts of water over the washcloths until they’re damp enough to lay over Rudo’s forehead, and then he sets them over on the night stand. There’s still enough water in the bottle for him to take one of the pills with.

He stands, and sort of urges Rudo to sit up. He’s half asleep, at this point. Zanka helps give him some leverage with a hand on his back so that he doesn’t have to use his arms to prop himself up.

“Take this, ‘kay?” Zanka tells him. He hands him one of the pills and the water bottle. “With the water.”

“Wh'is it?” Rudo murmurs, his tired eyes observing the little pill. Zanka thinks he probably would've fallen asleep if he hadn't interrupted his peace.

“Pain medicine,” Zanka says. “Should help.”

“Isn’ this…hard t'get?” Rudo asks.

“Take the damn medicine,” Zanka tells him. It is hard to get, generally. It’s expensive, Zanka had to pay for these. He doesn't need him worrying about any of that. He doesn’t want him to completely suffer while they’re waiting on those gloves to dry.

Rudo whines in response, but extends a shaky hand to take the pill. Zanka realizes that this needs both of his hands, but he thinks it might be a little dehumanizing for him to be fed a pill and water by another person, so he’ll avoid it unless it seems Rudo is really struggling.

He takes the pill into his mouth, and with a shaky hand, takes the water bottle too. He has a harder time holding onto that, and he manages to spill a good pit past his lips when he tries to take a sip too, but he gets enough to swallow the pill. He looks a little distraught for a few seconds that he’s wasted water, but Zanka takes the bottle and assures him it’s fine. It’s just a little bit.

Once he gets Rudo to lie back down, he takes one of the washcloths from the bedside table. He doesn't think Rudo is actually sick, he thinks all of that was coming from that intense pain, but he needs to get his temperature down regardless. It'd probably keep him feel a lot better to have something cool on his skin anyway.

He lays it over his forehead. Rudo makes a noise of discomfort. It’s probably a weird feeling, but he gets used to it quickly enough that his eyes relax again.

He wonders for a while what he should do. He thinks he might just sit with Rudo for a while longer, wait for his gloves to dry, but he realizes that might take ages. Rudo doesn’t seem to be doing too well, either. He’s trying to rest, but the pain in his hands is making it really difficult. He can’t lie still at all. He makes little noises every now and then, almost like an injured puppy.

Zanka’s had to deal with painful recoveries before, but never anything like this. He wonders if this is something Rudo has had for a really long time.

“You feel really hot, huh?” Zanka asks, pushing his bangs out of his face and seeing how much sweat has already collected in his hairline. He doesn't seem to be tolerating it well at all. It’s not really a good temperature in here. Zanka was considering for a while taking his uniform top because he’s sort of hot himself, and he ends up doing that anyway, now just in his undershirt. “I’m gonna go find a hair dryer or somethin’ to get your gloves dry enough to wear. That cool?”

Rudo gives him a tiny nod. Zanka makes sure he’s at least partially covered with his blanket for comfort purposes before he leaves Rudo’s bedroom.

He knows there’s a hair dryer in that laundry room somewhere, he’s used it before, when there aren’t any available in the shower rooms, but of course, it takes him forever to find. Rummaging through drawers, checking shelves, only for it to be in plain sight right over the laundry machines. He realizes he’s sweating after looking for it.

“Come on,” he grumbles. He doesn’t break a sweat after most of his jobs, but it happens after looking for a damn hair dryer. He shouldn’t have taken so much time off recovering. It’s really negatively affected him.

He clips the gloves on a laundry line and puts the dryer on its highest and hottest setting to speed up the process, but making sure it’s not too close. He doesn’t want to damage the material. Zanka is well aware he’s a slightly impatient person and this probably isn’t the job for someone like him, but he wants to make sure Rudo can get these back as soon as possible.

His arms get sore after a while for some reason. He tries to push through it, but he gives up, sitting down on the floor and taking the gloves down to try them there instead.

Damn, he’s exhausted. He feels his vision rock back and forth after he sits down, like his brain was hoping for him to lie down instead.

After what feels like an eternity, he has them dry enough, he thinks. The kind of dry that could probably use ten more minutes in a dryer, but would take forty five with a hair dryer. He’s sure Rudo won’t quite mind that.

He stands up way too fast, and nearly knocks over a shelf when he uses it to catch himself.

He stares at the floor for a few seconds, breathing heavy because that came so out of nowhere that he honestly frightened himself. His eyes are doing the same thing like before, swinging back and forth, colors blurring together. What on earth was that? He’s been beyond tired before, but not to this point. It feels like he almost passed out.

“Everythin’ good in here?”

Semiu comes in with a laundry basket, a brow raised at Zanka, her glasses on top of her head to make room for an under-eye mask she has on.

“Yeah, jus’...dropped this,” Zanka says, conveniently having left the hair dryer on the floor. Semiu doesn’t seem entirely suspicious, and wanders over to the washer to start throwing her clothes inside. Zanka carefully wraps the cord around the hair dryer, and places it back on top of the shelf, this time, moving much slower.

“What are you doing up so late?” Semiu asks him.

“Helpin’ Rudo out. He was washin’ his gloves and I dried ‘em,” Zanka says, carefully taking them. He could ask her the same, but he knows she has to do all sorts of things at crazy hours as the headquarters receptionist, and it seems like now is her time to do some things for herself.

“Make sure you get some sleep. You and Enjin have an eight AM tomorrow,” Semiu reminds him.

Dammit. He does. He knew that, but it slipped his mind in all of the commotion with Rudo. It’s a job with Enjin too. He needs to be in the best shape possible. He’ll bring the gloves back to Rudo, make sure he’s okay for the night, and try his best to get some sleep before he has to head out for the job in the morning. Seems like a good plan.

“Night, Semiu,” Zanka tells her as he walks out of the room.

“How do you say it again?” she asks.

Zanka groans.

“You tell Enjin all the time. I don’t get to know?”

“Oyasumi,” he tells her with a sigh. Her and Enjin always ask him how to say certain words in the Kamuatari language, and recently, Riyo has started joining in too. Semiu, at least, has the best pronunciation.

“Oyasumi,” she says back.

Zanka hears coughing coming from outside of Rudo’s door when he approaches the outside. He wasn’t doing that before, but he realizes a little too late what’s actually happening once he opens the door again.

Zanka curses to himself and rushes over to his side, setting the gloves on the bed and snatching the trash bin on the floor up to underneath Rudo’s chin. He’s already thrown up some on the bed, but it seems like mostly on the blanket, and it shouldn’t be an issue to clean.

Rudo coughs and hacks painfully over the bin, not getting much up aside from spit and bits of stomach acid. Zanka tries not to pay too much attention to it, because he’s sort of nauseous himself for some reason, but he’s honestly more focused on how hard Rudo is breathing. He’s shaking a whole lot, wheezing and near hyperventilating.

Riyo does this when she’s sick. He doesn’t know why or where it comes from, he’s just come to understand that the act of throwing up seems to really freak her out, but she’s not really reactive to seeing another person vomit. This seems a little different, though.

Zanka rubs his back, carefully, but it doesn’t seem to improve. His eyes are totally unfocused. It's really difficult to see him like that. Zanka can’t think of anything to do that he knows will help. He knows most of what Rudo puts up for other people is an act, and he can't really fault him for it. He feels the same way, a lot of the time.

“It's okay,” Zanka tells him quietly, “‘ve got you, yeah?”

Hearing Zanka’s voice seems to pull him out of it some, and Zanka wonders if maybe he had a bad dream. He keeps talking to him for a few minutes, telling him it’s okay, breathe, relax, and eventually his breathing starts to steady a little bit. Zanka realizes that pill is probably long gone by now, and he’s not sure if Rudo could handle taking the other one he has left.

He’s relaxed enough that Zanka decides to put the bin back down on the floor and take the blanket off of the bed, in the corner for now. Rudo is still catching his breath, staring down at the bed, and Zanka realizes he’s using one hand to hold himself, and it’s probably the reason his whole body is shaking.

“Lay back down. I'll keep this here,” Zanka assures him, referring to the bin. He takes the gloves and hands them to Rudo, initially intending to help him put them on, but Rudo's eyes light up at the sight of them, and he's able to put them back on himself without too much of a struggle.

Once Rudo lies back down, he seems like he’s relaxed some now that he has his gloves back, but he’s shaking like he’s cold, despite how much he’s sweating. He’s thrown up, and as much as Zanka wants to believe it was from a nightmare, even if it was, he thinks his initial theory was wrong.

“Think you really are sick,” Zanka says, his hand flush against his forehead. His skin is really hot, now. Everything's pointing toward illness, at this point. The throwing up was just the nail in the coffin.

He takes the second washcloth from the bedside table to wet with the rest of the water bottle and lay over Rudo’s hot forehead, but he feels like the temperature adjusts pretty quickly. He should definitely go find Eishia once it’s an appropriate time to wake somebody up, but hopefully getting some good rest will help Rudo a little now that he’s got his gloves back on.

“Wake me up if y’feel sick again,” Zanka tells him, sitting down on the floor and crossing his arms over the edge of his mattress. Rudo doesn’t give any sign that he’s heard tim.

Finally, his eyes have closed, and his face has relaxed some.

“Rudo?”

Zanka starts, but there's no reply.

“Night, Rudo.”

Fuck. He has to get up in an hour.

…

“Zanka,” Enjin whispers carefully.

Zanka nearly jumps out of his skin at the sudden voice behind him, and it’s extra-scary realizing that it’s Enjin, of all people. He doesn’t feel like he fell asleep at all, more like he just closed his eyes for a few seconds. He pulls his arms off of the bed and nearly whimpers from how sore his body feels. Awful position to fall asleep in. What was he thinking?

Fuck, honestly, he feels like shit all around. His head is pounding.

“Wh'time'sit?” he manages, his eyes darting around the room. Enjin’s in full uniform, his hand on Umbreaker’s handle, staring down at Zanka.

“Eight,” Enjin tells him, and Zanka’s whole body tenses up painfully as soon as he realizes he’s completely late. He scrambles to stand up, using Rudo’s bed as leverage, but Enjin places a hand on his shoulder, “job's canceled today. Just came to tell you, but I couldn't find you.”

Zanka is honestly completely relieved to hear that, but his head is swimming so bad that he has to sit down on Rudo’s bed, or else he thinks he might pass out. Definitely not good. It feels sort of like the first few days that he was recovering from Jabber’s poison, and he’s worried about why that feeling would be coming back. He feels nauseous thinking about it.

His eyes drift over to Rudo, who looks peacefully asleep, for the most part - but still awfully sick. His skin’s nearly as pale as his hair.

“Y'think Eishia's awake?” Zanka asks. Rudo definitely needs to get looked at.

“I'm sure. I'll go get her,” Enjin says, “go get some sleep. I know you guys got back late yesterday. I'll look after Rudo.”

Zanka’s almost inclined to take the offer right away and hightail it, but something stops him. He doesn't like leaving anything unfinished, even something like this, in these circumstances.

“You okay?” Enjin asks. Zanka isn’t sure why.

“Sore,” Zanka says. He decides he doesn’t want to go into specifics about his theories because it’s already causing all sorts of anxiety. He tries stretching his arms out behind his head, and he’s realizing his neck hurts, too. He’s sore all over. He really overdid it yesterday, and he doesn’t feel like he did at all.

Enjin doesn't look convinced. He slides his hand underneath Zanka’s bangs and lays it against his forehead for a few seconds. Zanka stares blankly back at him.

“Mhm,” Enjin says with a click of his tongue as he takes his hand back.

Zanka’s brow furrows. “What?”

“Fever,” Enjin says.

Zanka groans. That can’t be right. “‘S probably ‘cause I didn't sleep.”

“Or, you're both sick,” Enjin tells him. “Go rest, I've got it.”

Oh.

That makes sense.

And he knows he can’t argue with Enjin.

…

“You look tired,” Riyo says.

Zanka’s mixing an immune support packet into his water bottle in the common area. Riyo’s not in uniform. She’s waiting on water to heat up so she can use it for coffee, he imagines. He stares down at the orange powder mixing in with his drink. He doesn’t want to believe he’s sick. He can’t decide if that’s better or worse than still recovering from the poison. If he really is sick, it means that stuff totally tanked his immune system.

He’s sure he’s just not feeling his best because of everything that’s been going on, and maybe the immune support will help stave anything off.

“You always say that,” Zanka huffs.

“Well, a little more than usual, then,” she insists. “Get back late?”

“Yeah. After midnight,” Zanka murmurs, staring down at the drink, not sure if he should give any more details. He feels like Riyo will already know everything, anyway.

“Right. And how's Rudo?”

Zanka turns his head and blinks at her. He didn’t think she’d actually know that. “What?”

“Weren't you taking care of him?” Riyo asks, like it’s obvious.

“How do you know that?” Zanka asks.

“My room's right over this. I could hear ya.”

“So you didn't sleep either, then,” Zanka says.

“At least I'm a morning person, so I hide it better,” she teases.

“Could’a used your help,” Zanka grumbles, taking several sips of the drink he’s mixed. The artificial citrus sort of burns, and after a few seconds, he realizes it’s making his stomach hurt. Maybe he should have had tea first. Or actual food. This probably isn’t good first thing in the morning.

“Oh, yeah, my friend Zanka, who always accepts when I offer him help,” Riyo says as sarcastically as humanly possible, and Zanka rolls his eyes. He's not that bad, but maybe she's a little bit right. Just for this situation specifically.

“Zanka.”

Enjin’s voice again. They both turn and see Enjin standing behind them, and he taps the end of Umbreaker against the floor twice.

Zanka blinks in Enjin's direction, but he’s frozen in place otherwise.

“Go to bed.”

“Did someone tell him it's nine in the morning?” Riyo whispers in Zanka’s direction, teasing.

“Feel his forehead,” Enjin says.

“Ohh. You're in trouble,” Riyo says, reaching forward to press her hand up to Zanka's forehead, and succeeding despite Zanka's attempts to lean away from her. She clicks her tongue and ge groans. “So, Rudo got you sick that fast?”

“My guess is he was sore all day yesterday and didn't realize it was a fever,” Enjin says. Zanka huffs. He sees right through him every time. “Go to bed. I’ll send Eishia your way later.”

“Fine,” Zanka mumbles. He really hates being forced to rest when he doesn’t think he’s particularly ill, but the nauseous feeling in the back of his throat is probably a warning that he should listen.

“Thanks for takin’ care of him, Zanka,” Enjin says as Zanka starts to turn away with his water bottle, “y’did a good job.”

He’s glad Enjin thinks so.

…

That evening, Zanka decides to skip dinner with the crew. He'd been resting most of the day like he was ordered to, and he honestly does feel better. He managed to sleep through that awful nauseous feeling and avoid throwing up, but he’s still a little too nervous about it to eat. The fever is definitely there. The headache is mild, and isn’t turning into a migraine as far as he can tell. He's still crazy tired, but he usually is.

Riyo talked to him through the door for a while, too. She says Enjin is trying to avoid this spreading through the whole building, but Zanka’s already passed it to Semiu and Enjin, probably, and he saw Riyo this morning, too. At least it seems like a quick twenty-four hour thing.

Zanka wanders out of his room to refill his water bottle, and he finds Rudo in the common area, doing the same thing.

He looks a lot better, for sure. The color’s back in his face, but he’s still dead tired too, apparently. Someone’s stuck a cooling patch on his forehead.

“You good?” Zanka asks him.

Rudo looks at him, and then averts his gaze. “Yeah.”

“Okay, good.”

“I'm…sorry,” he murmurs. Zanka hopes that Enjin didn't tell him that they probably have the same thing. He fixes his hair in case he looks disheveled from practically sleeping all day.

“Nothin’ to be sorry for,” Zanka insists, as casually as he can, just in case Rudo would prefer they drop this.

“No, but…I…” Rudo murmurs, clearly wanting to have a conversation about it. Zanka decides he should listen and not shut him down if it means something to him, even if Zanka didn't mind at all.

Zanka sits down on a chair across from the couch, making sure Rudo understands that he's here to listen to him, that he doesn't need to rush to put his jumbled thoughts in order.

It's something he's seen Enjin do, especially when Zanka first joined the Cleaners. His anxiety was completely uncontrolled back then, and he felt as if he had to overcompensate and impress and explain himself for every little thing constantly - and even though he's sure it was beyond annoying, Enjin took the time to sit down and listen to him and let him get his brain straight on.

Sure, he didn’t have any younger siblings, no practice taking care of people younger than him, but Rudo deserves to have someone looking after him. He deserves to have people who will listen to him.

Zanka never really had that.

“My…um, Regto. The guy who -”

“I remember,” Zanka reminds him.

Rudo sits down on the couch across from him, his eyes at the floor, twisting and untwisting the cap of his water bottle while he talks.

“He was the only person who ever took care of me,” Rudo murmurs quietly, and it takes him several seconds to get that sentence out. Zanka can see that he's trying very hard to keep himself together. “So, I…I just kept seeing him, and…”

Zanka sees that he has really good memories attached to this man. He feels guilty. He knows what it’s like to have your surroundings changed suddenly and only be around strangers for a while, but Zanka didn’t have anyone who genuinely took care of him at home. Rudo has people he misses. People he can’t ever get back, even if he got back to the Sphere.

“That's why you were cryin’?” Zanka asks.

Rudo nods.

“Sorry, it’s…embarassing, kinda…”

“Don’t worry about any of that,” Zanka tells him. “Can’t imagine how hard all this is for you.”

Rudo’s eyes shift up to Zanka’s for a few seconds, and he realizes he’s holding back tears before he looks back down. Dammit, maybe he shouldn’t have said that. He’s terrible at this.

Zanka stands up to sit next to him.

The tears fall from his eyes, and Rudo tries to dry them with his gloves. Zanka rubs his shoulder, because even if Rudo still seems to have a mild fever making all of this a little worse, these are his real feelings.

“Thanks, Zanka,” he murmurs after a while. Zanka isn’t sure if it’s just a thanks of that moment, or everything from the previous night.

He’s not sure he deserves the thanks, but he’s glad it meant something to Rudo.

It’s a job that needs someone who speaks the language from Kamuatari. Zanka is, apparently, the only one at headquarters who can - Enjin seems to understand a decent amount, but he can't hold a conversation. Tomme was selected to go along, since, according to Semiu, she’s their best Scribe. They’re receiving information about a Trash Beast in the North Ward from a Kamuatari native, who claims to have seen one in an abandoned factory.

Zanka is someone they'll frequently send out on his own with just a handful of Supporters - or even just one, like in this case. His superiors have a lot of trust in him. He's a very skilled fighter. Tomme is looking forward to working with him, and learning from him.

“Zanka Nijiku,” he introduces, once Semiu has finished debriefing him. They've met before in passing, but this is their first time on a job together.

He reaches out his hand, and Tomme shakes it.

“Tomme Mima. I'm looking forward to being your Supporter.”

…

She didn’t think that things would go downhill so quickly.

“Zanka,” Tomme stammers nervously. She doesn’t know how long it’s been since she managed to rescue him, but it’s been long enough with no sign of life that Tomme is seriously considering doing chest compressions. His skin is white, his lips are nearly blue. Tomme is almost holding her breath, listening for any sign that he might be breathing, that he might be alive.

Finally, though, he gives her a sign that he can hear her. He takes a breath. Shallow, at first, and then very suddenly, he's starting to cough. It's just once or twice, at first, but soon enough, the water that must have filled his lungs while he was underneath the ice starts to fill his mouth with each cough, trailing down the sides of his fade past his lips.

Tomme has to turn him on his side. At this point, there’s no way he hasn't already aspirated, but she needs to make sure it doesn't get worse than it already has. He keeps coughing, choking up water, his eyes screwed shut.

He's honestly lucky he didn't die from the shock, but then again, this is Zanka. Everything Tomme has learned about Zanka is just continued proof that he's a machine of a fighter in every way.

A frozen over pit of water in the middle of an abandoned factory, and a crack that dropped Zanka right in the middle. They were asked to investigate Trash Beasts in the area, and the possibility of them living inside the factory, but this was a nightmare situation that neither of them were prepared for.

It's a miracle that she was able to get him out without falling in herself. The ice was already awfully unstable where Zanka fell, because of a leak in the piping above them never allowing the ice in that section to completely freeze. Tomme didn't even realize they were standing on a frozen water corridor until it was too late.

The water is very likely polluted, but Tomme has to address that later. The current problem is that Zanka could freeze to death.

He collapsed completely as soon as Tomme was able to drag him far enough so he wasn't in danger of falling in again, but even now that he's conscious, they're in trouble.

This is really, really bad. Life threatening.

“‘M fine,” Zanka mumbles, even as his body goes limp, unable to hold himself up at all after that coughing fit, but all Tomme sees is more danger signs. The color is back in his lips, but he’s horribly pale. His wet hair sticks and almost looks like it’s starting to freeze against his forehead, and his uniform is completely and utterly soaked through. Zanka’s already practically freezing, but now she’s certain he has water in his lungs because of how much he coughed out. He’s in serious danger of hypothermia and pneumonia in a state like this.

“Take this off,” Tomme says, “I'll give you my jacket.”

Zanka’s eyes give her a look like he wants to refuse. It's obvious why. Tomme has a long sleeved undershirt underneath her winter uniform jacket, but it's nothing near enough to protect her from the cold. He must understand that he'll be much worse off, completely soaked like this, in this weather. He tries to lift himself off of the ground, but he can’t do it without her help - his arms are shaking too much to be reliable.

She’s able to help him sit up, but once his eyes start to drift, they widen further than Tomme has ever seen them, staring off into the innards of the factory.

“There - there’s - one here,” Zanka breathes out, his hand weakly reaching behind him to grasp his staff, secured against his back.

Tomme’s attention turns to where Zanka’s eyes are fixed.

It’s massive. It takes up the entire inside of the back corner of the factory - a mammoth shaped beast with tusks jutting out in their direction, covered in ice as if it’s been frozen there for centuries. Tomme doesn’t understand how something this massive could traverse the inside of this factory without leaving a mark obvious enough for them to notice. Was it so still before that they didn’t even register its presence?

How did it get inside?

Tomme hopes with everything in her power that it’s not real, this isn’t an actual Trash Beast, but the fogged breath from its nostrils and the roar that follows is proof enough.

It charges at them, and Zanka shoves Tomme out of the way, his staff transforming in a matter of seconds. It’s as if his condition doesn’t faze him at all. Tomme sees his hands shake, he sees he’s unsure in his stance, but he doesn’t let any of it stop him, not even for a second. It’s as if none of this ever happened to begin with. A second wind unlike anything she’s ever seen.

Tomme’s in a far corner behind a wall, scribbling down everything she can in her notebook. The sequence of events is very strange and confusing, and she needs to make sure she gets this information down before it leaves her, while Zanka is able to take care of the threat.

It’s incredible, how quickly he’s able to vanquish it. How quickly silence fills the factory.

She turns the corner to inspect what’s happened. Zanka’s staff is lodged in the Trash Beast’s neck, massive spikes impaled through its next, and it’s already starting to fall to pieces. It’s likely it was too slow to get the jump on Zanka, and it didn’t make any sort of move to fight them - Zanka noticed it first, but still, its sheer size would be difficult for just anyone to take down with a single swing. Zanka is somehow able to keep himself standing, hold himself together long enough for the Trash Beast to fall apart completely.

Zanka is still, but once his staff isn’t lodged in the Beast, once it has nothing to hold onto, his body collapses back onto the ground, his staff clattering on the ground beside him.

Tomme runs over, her eyes scanning the premises for any other threats before she’s standing over his shaking, shivering form.

“Can you stand?” Tomme asks him quietly. Zanka vanquished that Beast in under a minute, and despite the fact that this encounter only left more questions than answers for their clients, Zanka’s condition is at the very forefront of her mind. This is bad.

She's cycling through their options in her head. They definitely can't head back to headquarters, it's a twelve hour drive back from here and their vehicle doesn't produce heat very well when it's this cold. It's okay as a temporary solution, but she needs a different goal.

The next town is an hour away, based on what she could tell from the map she studied before they left. Taking him there to warm up is probably a good idea, until she knows he's safe and she can take him back home. She can find an infirmary, a hotel, somewhere for him to warm up and recover before they head back to headquarters.

But it won't be that simple. Zanka coughed up water. That means it's in his lungs, and that's a completely different problem. And hypothermia is a huge threat. He could get really, really sick.

He's shivering violently. Tomme is trying to think of ways to warm him up, but right now, their only real option is to get him back to the car. She unzips his uniform top. It’s heavy, holding onto that awfully cold water and creating a burning sensation in her hands from how cold it is as she tries to peel it off of him, pulling it off of Zanka’s arms.

He's breathing hard, completely without the energy to lift himself up. Maybe he could have before the Trash Beast appeared, but he used all of his available energy to finish the job.

She still can’t believe he managed that in a condition like this.

“Zanka, can you hear me?” she asks him, and he gives her a shaky nod.

Once she's able to get him upright, at least on his knees, she finally removes her coat, and wraps it around Zanka's shoulders. The rush of cold air against her skin, even through the thermal undershirt she had on, is enough to almost bring her to her knees.

“Let's get out of here. Can you walk?” she asks, taking his shaking hands to help him stand. He can hardly manage it. It seems like his legs don't want to cooperate, that they're more focused on shivering to generate body heat for him, but he pushes through it, leaning against Tomme for support. She takes his staff in her hand so that he doesn't have to worry about that.

They parked the car outside of the building, but she doesn't want Zanka outside while she gets it situated, while she waits for it to warm up. He's better off with her coat, but his undershirt, his pants, his hair - everything is still soaked with frozen water, and she can see with her own eyes how strands of his hair start to freeze. His eyelashes.

He's overtaken by a violent, painful fit of coughing that brings him back down to his knees and ends in him choking up more water onto the floor. Tomme kneels down beside him, now terribly concerned with the tinges of blood she sees in what he coughs up.

“I’ll go turn the car on and blast the heat. Stay here,” Tomme says, “we can stop somewhere to get you dry clothes.”

He doesn't acknowledge that he's heard her. He's staring down at his shaking hands with wide eyes. Tomme wishes she knew what he was thinking, but now isn't the time to interrogate him.

The reality of the situation they're in doesn't hit her until she's outside in the snow storm.

People freeze to death. That's a real thing that happens.

Zanka was recovering from a cold this week. It had turned into just a cough. She didn't know about it until their drive out here, where he ended up apologizing and assuring her that he was cleared now, and wasn't contagious. It's no doubt aggravating the current situation, and definitely going to make him feel worse.

She's too caught up in her own thoughts to realize right away that as she turns the key, the engine just sputters instead of starting.

“Come on, you piece of junk…” she mutters, hitting her elbow against the steering wheel, hoping that will give it the kick it needs. This one's an older model. They needed it to drive out in the snow this far into the North Ward. But it should still start. It has to.

She tries again. It sputters, and almost starts, but there’s nothing promising after that. Just silence, snow falling against the windshield.

One more time. She bites her lip so hard it almost bleeds.

This time, it doesn't even make a sound.

“It's stalled,” she huffs under her breath. “Dammit…dammit!”

Her hands shiver as she pulls the key out. The metal of the key is so cold to the touch that it hurts, and she stuffs it in her pocket right away, trying to warm her hands along with it.

This isn't good. She's very experienced with cars and has gotten her teammates out of hairy situations thanks to her knowledge, but she can't work on it in these conditions. Even pulling it into the factory somehow, out of the storm, would be too risky. It’s still cold to the bone inside of there.

And Zanka needs to get somewhere warm as soon as possible.

She clicks her Choker. She needs help.

“Semiu? We have a situation. Can you get anyone up here with a car?” she asks, realizing that her voice is starting to shake because her teeth are chattering. She can’t stay in the car for long, she needs to go back inside soon and make sure Zanka’s okay. Her hand nearly won’t cooperate as she places it on the door handle.

“Name?” Semiu asks.

“Tomme Mima. I’m with Zanka Nijiku,” she answers. She almost never answers without introducing herself first. Her stress is getting the best of her.

“Aren't you in the North Ward with Vehicle twenty-seven?” Semiu asks. She hears her shuffling around with papers. The connection is shoddy at best, but she can understand her well enough. “What happened to your jeep?”

“Stalled. The weather's too cold, and nothing around for me to jump it,” Tomme says as she opens the car door to head back inside. “And…Zanka's injured.”

“I can get someone from the North Branch to meet you at your location with a car and take you back there. Is Zanka injured badly?” she asks, her voice a little more stern.

Tomme doesn't know if she should detail his situation. “Borderline hypothermic.”

Borderline is probably not true anymore. She thinks she’s either trying to make herself feel better or make sure Semiu doesn’t think she’s a waste of a Supporter. There’s a pause.

“That cold up there? Are you okay?”

“I'm fine - he - well,” Tomme can feel her head spinning. Her eyes trail up to the sky, and she realizes it’s snowing harder than it was before. She mutters to herself. She can’t be standing out here, this stuff is toxic. “He fell into freezing water.”

“Okay, so you need emergency help,” Semiu says.

Tomme feels her stomach drop.

“Yes.”

This is definitely an emergency.

“Emergency transport to my current location is usually the fastest way to say that,” Semiu reminds her. Tomme bites her lip. “I'll let the North branch know. They have a good medical team and can keep him stable. I'll send someone from HQ right away to come get you two. Does he need immediate treatment?”

“I think…I think so,” she murmurs. She’s trying really hard to stay professional, stay positive, but the situation is looking more dire now that the weather is changing. She stands underneath the awning, watching the snow fall. “Thank you so much, Semiu,”

“Keep in touch. And you'd better tell Enjin before I do.”

Tomme would rather die, honestly.

Enjin's a nice guy. A massively respectable Giver. One of the best that she’s ever heard stories of, not someone she’s had a personal conversation with or even seen in action. He's a great leader for the kids on his team, from what she’s seen. He seems to know and understand them all really well, and the times he's been stern with them have all had an undertone of care and concern. She doesn't want to know what he would say if he found out she let this happen.

Now's not the time to worry, though. This is her job. She needs to focus. She's Support, and that's what she needs to do.

When she's back inside, Zanka's where she left him, but he's on his side, against the freezing floor. He’s too still.

“Zanka,” Tomme says sternly with a gasp of breath, dropping to her knees and making sure the coat is covering him as much as it can. Part of his arm was against the metal factory floor. He's so cold. He's so cold that her hands feel numb as she's touching his skin to pull his arms through the sleeves of his coat. “Keep your eyes open. They'll be here to get us soon.”

He's not shivering anymore, and Tomme is horrified with this information. She knows enough about hypothermia to know that this is a very bad sign that things are going in the wrong direction. He’s trying to listen to her, but his eyes are fighting back to close. He looks worse than she’s ever seen him.

“Zanka, you have to keep your eyes open,” she tells him again, cupping his cheek and squeezing his hand with her free hand, as cold as it is. He's trying so hard. He's fighting it, she sees it, but his body is betraying him nonetheless. He doesn’t seem to have the strength left in his hand to squeeze back. “Stay with me, okay?”

Her choker rings. She answers after a few seconds, after lifting Zanka's upper body off of the freezing cold floor. She knows that won't do him any good. She keeps him leaned into her, against her chest, trying to share the limited body heat she has while also making sure she's not freezing either. She needs to stay in good shape for him too. She wraps her arms around him and tries to whisper encouragement under her breath, but she doesn’t think he can hear her at all. Zanka’s head is leaned against her shoulder.

“Tomme Mima? It's Enjin,” the voice says. “You have Zanka with you?”

She feels Zanka's body stiffen slightly at the sound of Enjin’s voice.

Tomme is terrified to be hearing from him already. “Yes, I-”

“Semiu gave me a quick run-down. I'm headed to the Garage. What's going on?” he asks, sounding like he’s walking down stairs. It sounds like Semiu ended up telling him anyway.

Tomme's chest feels right.

“Zanka's in bad shape,” she murmurs. There's tears in her eyes, but she tries really hard to not let it be heard. Maintain professionalism. What will he think if he can tell that she’s in tears? “He fell into freezing water, and it's below zero up here. The jeep is stalled, and -”

“Semiu sending someone out, though?” Enjin asks urgently.

“Yes, Semiu's contacting the North Branch,” Tomme says, trying very hard to keep her composure through the conversation. She’s so deeply concerned with the fact that Zanka isn’t shivering anymore that she could burst into tears, and she’s not like that at all.

“And you're okay?” he asks.

No. She’s terrified.

“Yes.”

She's better off than Zanka.

“I’m leaving as soon as I get down,” he says. “I’ll come get both of you.”

“Wait, Enjin, Semiu said she'll send -”

“I'll be there in twelve hours.”

Tomme's eyes are suddenly flooded with tears, and they burn, freezing against her eyelashes before they can get to her cheeks.

What if no one comes for him?

What if he dies?

She takes in a breath.

What on earth is wrong with her? Is it the cold making her like this? She’s not usually like this at all. They hired her because she’s level headed, and Tomme takes great pride in that, too.

“Enjin,” she manages through tears, “he's not shivering anymore, and I'm-”

“The North Branch will be there. He'll be okay. Don't lose hope,” Enjin says, “I know you'll make sure he'll be okay, Tomme Mima.”

He’s right. That’s the only option.

…

The two North Branch Cleaners don't waste any time. There's a silent acknowledgement between the three of them that they'll talk once they're back inside the vehicle and Zanka is safe.

The vehicle they have with them seems like it's part armored car, part ambulance. The vehicles they have at headquarters have the potential to become makeshift ambulances, at least in terms of creating a cot-like structure on the side with seating beside it, but nothing like this.

Tomme rushes back into the factory for a brief moment to collect a sample from the water Zanka fell into, dipping her water bottle into the weak spot where the cracks were almost frozen over again before screwing the lid shut tight. She knows that water will had the potential to become a problem. They don’t have any idea how long it’s been there. She’s had to do this before, and it’s proven useful, so she figures it’s not a bad idea. She runs back to the car.

The North Branch sent two women, one tall and one shorter than Tomme. There’s a driver in the front that doesn’t leave the car. The women work together well in terms of efficiency, getting Zanka inside the vehicle with a stretcher, and ushering Tomme inside before they close the doors. One of them mutters something about the car likely being a lost cause, and Tomme has to agree.

The taller woman sits beside Tomme on the left side of the car, taking a thick quilted blanket from the side storage to drape over her shoulders as the vehicle starts to drive off. A new person comes in from the passenger seat to assist the younger woman with first aid on Zanka - removing his wet clothing completely and replacing it with dry back-ups, covering him well with quilted blankets. They both move with purpose and practice, and it tells Tomme that this is likely an every-day situation for them, and something that scares the shit out of her.

She stays quiet, and watches carefully the whole time, her teeth no longer chattering but grit together from the stress before she realizes. She tries to relax her jaw. She’s going to give herself a headache at this rate.

“ETA?” The shorter woman asks, attaching Zanka to monitoring equipment and analyzing it carefully, making sure that what she’s seeing matches with pulses she can feel, and the shallow, painfully slow breaths that Zanka is taking. Tomme doesn’t know much about what the numbers mean, and she wishes he did. She has a lot to learn.m

“Forty-three,” the driver tells her as the man from the passenger seat climbs back up front.

Does that mean he’s okay, for now?

“Are you warm? You didn’t fall?” The taller woman, sitting beside her asks.

“I’m okay,” Tomme insists. She’s not sure how long they’ve been inside now, but she feels enough of a difference now that she’s here. Her eyes are still fixed on Zanka, whose eyes are shut, but his expression seems relaxed.

The shorter woman sitting across from her stretches out her hand over Zanka, in Tomme’s direction. Tomme’s eyes follow her hand up to her face. Her expression is stern.

“Aurelije. Good to meet you,” she says.

“Atius,” the taller woman introduces.

Aurelije and Atius. Both Givers, based on their uniforms. Tomme is guessing Aurelije's Vital Instrument is the pronged choker around her neck. Atius doesn't have a visible one. Tomme is curious why they sent two Givers and not Supporters, but it could be a precaution. Or maybe they were out on a job - they did arrive pretty quickly, considering they’re still about under an hour away.

“Tomme Mima,” Tomme says, briefly removing her arm from the warmth to shake Aurelije’s hand before tucking it back into herself, keeping the quilt tight around her.

“And what were you doing out here on a job that's in our jurisdiction?” Aurelije asks. She comes on a little strong, but she’s always known Givers to be defensive people. It’s not a bad trait to have, necessarily.

“It needed someone who spoke the language of Kamuatari. Our receptionist told me there's no one at the North Ward who speaks it fluently,” Tomme answers. Of course, it’s not ideal for them to drive this far for a job close to the North Ward for no reason.

“So that's…” Aurelije starts, her eyes trailing down to Zanka’s form.

Atius hums. “Nijiku.”

“He's younger than I thought,” Aurelije says. “And on Enjin’s team, isn’t he? What’s he doing out here by himself?”

The air is suddenly very tense.

Tomme has to admit it stings, being treated like baggage rather than another person, but it’s a fair question. Zanka is very young to be doing jobs as the only Giver, but he has the strength and knowledge to back it up. He’s incredibly impressive.

Her question dies in the air of the vehicle as soon as Zanka suddenly starts coughing, turning his head to the side in Tomme’s direction. She leans forward and abandons her own attempt at warmth completely, the blanket falling off her shoulders as she rushes to comfort Zanka, and make sure he doesn’t choke - because sure enough, he’s still managing to spit up water.

“It’s okay,” Tomme tells him gently as he gasps for air. He coughs several more times, a sound that gets harsh and more painful to listen to each time. He’s taking in breaths, but it sounds like none of them can get deep enough, and it’s causing him to panic. “It's good to cough right now, it's okay.”

His eyes are wild, and she doesn’t blame him for a second. He’s in a completely different place, surrounded by strangers, including Tomme. She hates that she can’t be more comforting to him, but she tries. It’s all she can do. She repeats it a few times. It’s okay. You’re doing great. And it’s not long before his body starts to relax. The two Givers with them seem to be discussing things related to Zanka’s condition. Atius drapes the blanket over Tomme’s shoulders once again.

“Stay strong, okay?” Tomme says gently, brushing his damp hair out of his face.

…

Tomme is standing in the doorway at the North Branch infirmary, as close as they’ll let her.

They’ve already done chest radiographs. She’s heard them discussing the possibility of pneumonia, but that the timing didn’t seem to match. That Zanka’s core temperature is much colder than it should be for someone who was supposedly only underwater for a few minutes. Secondary drowning seemed a more likely cause for the condition of his lungs, but Tomme doesn’t hear more details. It’s obvious enough, whatever the cause, that his lungs don’t seem to be looking good on the films.

Zanka’s cough doesn’t improve at all. He seems to be coughing any time he’s conscious, something he’s been coming in and out of over the last hour. The coughs turn into gags and retches when he doesn’t get any breaks to breathe. He’s thrown up twice since arriving back, and not just water, this time. She hears that his temperature was nearly eighty seven at its lowest, but that he’s come up to ninety two since arriving at the North Branch.

She wants to be with him. She doesn’t want him to be surrounded by complete strangers. She waits there the whole time, even after she’s been offered a bed in the neighboring room.

Honestly, the adrenaline from the whole experience is completely gone, and she’s exhausted. She’s leaning heavy against the doorway, but she stays there anyway.

Finally, they let it happen. She’s able to sit beside him.

He looks like he’s been through hell. Pale skin, sunken eyes, and dull. He’s not totally there yet. Tomme’s aware that they gave him some medication through his IV, but this is unusual regardless. He has warmed fluids coming through his IV, but she still sees shivers from him, here and there. The room is probably warmed to eighty, but Tomme hasn’t quite become bothered by it yet. She realizes she was awfully cold too. She hasn’t taken off the quilted blanket.

“Didn't know you guys had hell guard blood at HQ,” Aurelije says. “Thought he was at the East Branch or something.”

Tomme didn’t realize she was still there behind her.

“Well, he was - never a hell guard,” Tomme says quietly. She’s trying to brush through his disheveled hair with her fingers. They dried his hair.

She doesn’t know much about his history, but she’s noticed that this seems to be something that strangers focus on when they’re talking about him. Zanka always goes quiet in those instances.

“Close enough, if you ask me,” she retorts. “His family is pretty much in charge of everything that goes on there. You know that, don't you?”

Tomme has to hold her tongue. No, she hasn’t done much digging into his family. She doesn’t know much about Kamuatari or the Hell Guard at all, because she’s not a detective. Her job is to report on Trash Beasts. Her knowledge on his work with the Cleaners is far more important than what she knows about his childhood.

“Some Scribe you are,” Aurelije scoffs. There’s footsteps behind the two of them.

Tomme understands that not everyone sees their use, but she doesn't think Zanka deserves this. He has nothing to do with this.

“Zanka has earned his place there,” Tomme says. She's pretty good at keeping her composure, usually, but she feels her eye twitch. She keeps her focus on Zanka’s shivering frame, tucking his hair behind his ear. He seems to lean into her touch. She wonders if her hands feel warm to him. “He’s been with the Cleaners for longer than I have.”

She almost laughs. “No offense, Mima, but that doesn’t mean anything if you’re a Supporter.”

Tomme bites her lip.

Atius chimes in. “Miss Aurelije, that really isn’t…”

“What? It’s just a fact. You’re barely twenty one, right?” Aurelije says. “You guys can’t even join until you’re eighteen. Three years might be impressive for a Supporter, sure, but any Giver on the Ground has been with the Cleaners for longer than you have.”

Tomme's eyes trail down to the ground. She won’t take this.

“You can insult me all you want. It doesn't change the truth,” Tomme says sternly as she turns back to look at her. “You don't know him. And you don't know me either.”

“Aurelije, there’s no need to antagonize our guests. Especially when they come directly from headquarters,” another voice snaps. Tomme doesn’t turn around. They seem to start to whisk out of the infirmary, all three of them, but the quiet chattering doesn’t stop. Tomme decides it isn’t worth her energy to try and listen, even if she’s curious, but some things still slip out, louder than the rest.

“HQ is sending children out by themselves with a single piece of glorified dead weight. Can you believe that?” she hears someone sneer.

To simply refer to Zanka as a child and nothing more says everything Tomme needs to know about this person.

“That woman is lucky Nijiku survived.”

That stings much more, though.

…

No one but the medical staff comes in for a while after that. Tomme had brief exchanges with the nurse, who comes in to check Zanka’s vitals every half hour or so, and an extra time in between to administer more medication after Tomme had reported that Zanka had thrown up again, even while hardly conscious.

She hasn’t heard from Enjin. She’s wondering if she should call back.

She’s really starting to worry, because while she completely understands that recovery from hypothermia is supposed to be gradual, Zanka seems seriously unwell. He’s not been conscious, really at all. His breathing is still really strained, and it doesn’t improve. The cough isn’t nearly as bad, but it’s still present, and still gets bad enough to cause retching. She expresses her concerns to the nurse, and she hands him the water bottle that she collected the sample in. He’s surprised to see that she’s collected something like that but he quickly disappears, telling her he’ll take a look.

Atius returns. Tomme has started to recognize her footsteps.

“How is Nijiku doing?” she says from behind Tomme. She doesn’t approach much closer, but she hadn’t earlier, either.

“He’s…I’m not sure,” Tomme murmurs, “he doesn’t seem much better.”

“Hypothermia is vicious,” Atius tells her, “the polluted snow, the water…it makes everything much worse than it would be if it were just from the cold.”

Tomme hadn’t thought much about that since the initial incident. She was fairly familiar with hypothermia, but Atius makes a good point - part of this, or even a lot of it, could be due to pollution related illness.

“I'd like to apologize on Miss Aurelije's behalf,” Atius says suddenly. Tomme stiffens a little bit. She doesn’t want to get involved in any confrontation. “It's not appropriate behavior at all. It's no excuse, but maybe knowing she's sixteen will explain her behavior…”

Sixteen? Aurelije is sixteen?

Tomme knows children never join the Cleaners under happy circumstances. She can’t think of any Giver under eighteen she knows of that has, and while she doesn’t know the details of Zanka’s situation, she can’t imagine he’s much different. Even the Givers that she knows are her age have been with the Cleaners for a very long time, long before they were eighteen.

It explains everything, actually.

“I wasn't aware Zanka Nijiku was seventeen until today,” Atius says. “We’ve heard of him, but I assumed he was my age. It means he joined very young as well, yes?”

“From what I know,” Tomme nods. She wants to know more. But digging into the pasts of her colleagues isn’t her job. She’ll only accept that information if it’s given to her. She would never pry.

She sighs.

“Can I ask you something?” Tomme asks, turning her head to face Atius. Atius walks a bit closer so that Tomme doesn’t have to strain her neck. “Have you seen people die from this before?”

Atius shakes her head.

“Never, not when Supporters are involved,” she says, “of course, we have different protocols up here. It’s our daily life. Our Supporters are well trained on how to react in these situations…so honestly, I’m very impressed you handled it so well. Assuming you haven’t worked up here before.”

Tomme doesn’t feel that way at all, as her eyes drift back to Zanka. To her, handling it better means she should have avoided Zanka walking on that ice at all. She’s a Scribe, so it’s her job to write everything down, take notes and write up reports, but she’s a Supporter too.

She should have made sure this never happened to Zanka to begin with.

…

The nurse returns with more medications in vials. After checking Zanka’s vitals he draws a few up in syringes - two or three, most that Tomme doesn’t recognize the names of. She doesn’t have a lot of knowledge on medicine, but it’s something she’d like to learn more about from Eishia and Alice Stilza.

Zanka still isn’t very conscious, and he looks like he’s in worse shape than before. The sweat has wet his hairline quite a bit. Tomme’s making sure to keep his hair brushes back and out of his face. His breathing sounds a lot worse, too, a wheeze. The nurse apologizes a few times as he places the thermometer in his mouth because it makes him gag, but he’s able to get a reading after a few seconds. Zanka whimpers, sounding terribly frustrated with his situation despite how out of it he is.

The nurse places the thermometer on the nightstand, and draws up another medication from a vial to add to his IV line.

“His temperature is rising too quickly,” the nurse says as he injects the medication into the port. “I've given him anti-emetics and fever reducers.”

“A fever?” Tomme asks. That can’t be good, to go from such a low temperature to a high one, instead of stopping in the middle. It explains the sweat, though. The nurse shows Tomme the thermometer, and it’s reading ninety five. That’s not what she was expecting to see.

“Not quite. He’s still technically hypothermic, but it shouldn’t be rising this quickly, so I’m concerned he will develop a fever. The fever reducers should make sure it doesn’t climb faster than it should.”

Tomme blinks back at him. She’s never heard of this before.

“The water sample you gave me has a fast-acting bacteria from polluted still-water that thrives in the lungs. It causes symptoms similar to pneumonia, just with a much faster onset. It can be pretty dangerous to a hypothermic person, and it looks like his respiratory system was already weakened based on what I can tell. He had a cold?”

Tomme bites her lip. Atius had brought up scenarios of polluted water, and it makes perfect sense, especially because Zanka ingested quite a lot of it. She nods. “He seemed well, for the most part…just a cough.”

“Do you know if he was taking any medication?” the nurse asks.

“I…I don’t. I’m sorry,” Tomme says quietly. “I didn’t see him take anything on our way up here, but…that doesn’t mean he didn’t.”

“That’s okay. I’m waiting on an antibiotic to come in from a neighboring hospital. Just wanted to make sure he wasn’t already taking one, but it seems unlikely, if it was just a cough,” the nurse tells her. “He hasn’t been very verbal, I assume.”

Tomme shakes her head. She’s tried talking to him, but he doesn’t seem to be comprehending anything she’s saying. He’ll nod and shake his head to simple questions when he’s awake, but it’s difficult for Tomme to keep his attention with how exhausted he is.

“Really good call on getting a water sample,” he tells her. “Think we would've had a way harder time figuring out these symptoms if you didn't have that, and I’m concerned he would be in much worse shape…what made you think to do it?”

“Oh, it’s…” Tomme lowers her head. She’s done it before, is all. She’s interested in the various types of illness pollution can cause, and the way it affects recovery time for injuries, especially when Trash Beasts are involved. “Just something I’ve gotten used to doing.”

“Well, it’s a great idea,” he says, “most of us would have just assumed these symptoms were dry drowning or the late state hypothermia, but because of the sample, we can treat this much more effectively.”

Tomme straightens her shoulders a little. It’s not as good as avoiding all of it in the first place, but she’s really glad to know that something she did directly ended up helping him.

“You Supporters are super resourceful.”

Then, she finally smiles a little.

…

It’s completely dark out, now. Tomme doesn’t see any daylight from the window. She hasn’t been keeping track of time at all. The clock on the wall tells her it’s two in the morning, which means it’s been dark for way longer than she realized, she just hasn’t paid attention to it.

“You’re still shaking so much,” Tomme murmurs quietly, laying her hand against Zanka’s arm. The nurse was able to slow down his temperature climb, and they changed the temperature in the room, but he’s been shivering nearly the whole time. Tomme wants to check his temperature, but she’s been avoiding using the thermometer because of how nauseous he’s been. “Are you cold, still?”

Zanka manages a nod. That’s the first time in a while he’s responded to anything she’s said.

She peers around the room. He has two thick comforters over him, but the nurse had to take away any artificial heating because of his rising temperature. The nurse isn’t around right now for her to ask if it’s okay to add something back for him now, but she does remember that he specifically said artificial heating.

So, she supposes that doesn’t count human warmth.

She lays down on the cot beside him.

She thinks he'd probably hate this if he were conscious enough to comprehend it, but he needs the warmth of another human being. It's still a little warm in here, but warm air isn't enough.

He's really cautious, even while exhausted and half-conscious. He’s stiff, but after several minutes, he curls into her side, trying to be as close to her as possible. She’ll do whatever she can for him if this helps. He coughs a few times, but it doesn’t sound so painful like it was before. Tomme gently rubs his shoulder.

Her choker rings. Tomme didn’t realize she was falling asleep until it pulls her right out of it.

“Tomme,” Enjin’s voice speaks, “how’s Zanka?”

“He’s okay,” Tomme says quietly, trying to make sure she doesn’t stir Zanka, “doing what we can.”

She doesn't want to stress him with the details of what's going on. A twelve hour drive completely alone is stressful enough, especially through the night. Zanka’s showing signs of improvement. That’s what matters the most. And hopefully, by the time Enjin arrives, Zanka will have improved enough to be taken home right away.

“I have three…two hours left,” he says, “I’ll be there soon.”

…

Tomme is asleep when Enjin arrives.

He doesn’t blame her at all. It’s four in the morning last he checked, and he only managed the drive up here with his radio volume turned up to a hundred and back-to-back energy drinks, and he wasn’t stuck out in the cold.

Tomme is laying with Zanka in the same cot, still in her uniform, minus the covercoat, and Zanka is curled up beside her. Honestly, he’s just really impressed that Zanka is still asleep with someone next to him. Zanka won’t even fall asleep in the car after missions, regardless of how exhausting the mission was, how long the ride back to headquarters is. He’s sure it has something to do with Zanka’s fairly concerning condition right now, but he wonders what qualities Tomme has to make her so trusting to Zanka, despite not knowing her well.

“Tomme,” Enjin whispers, bending down and tapping her shoulders. He feels bad waking her, but he’s sure she’d like to know that he’s finally made it.

She almost jerks out of her sleep, eyes wide for a few seconds, staring back at Enjin. He sits down on the cot next to theirs, laying his umbrella beside him.

Tomme slowly sits up, staring back at Enjin for a few seconds before her eyes turn to Zanka. Zanka doesn’t seem to move at all, even when she moves. Tomme makes sure that the blankets are covering his shoulders, and she brushes his hair from his face. He thinks he should get Riyo to trim his bangs.

“They said he had signs of early pneumonia when I called them a few hours ago,” Enjin says quietly, “I shouldn't have sent him out here without his cold completely gone.”

“You couldn't have known this would happen,” Tomme says, turning her head back toward Enjin.

“We should always assume the worst,” Enjin tells her. As painful as it is for her to hear that, it's true. It’s a lesson Enjin has had to learn the hard way before. Even so, everything he’s heard from the North Branch about what Tomme did is pretty incredible. He would’ve never thought to collect a water sample the way she did. “Still, though…despite all that, you got him here safe. And he’s alive.”

Tomme’s eyes light up a little. “Yeah…”

“Pretty badass if you ask me,” Enjin says with a smile, “no one can beat Gris in my book, but it’s good to know we have another badass Supporter I can count on to help my team.”

Tomme nearly laughs, rubbing at her eyes. “I’ll take any comparison to Gris.”

…

Enjin takes a quick, well-deserved thirty minute nap that turns into two hours right beside them, and once he’s awake and he gets a debriefing from the nurse, they decide that Zanka is stable enough to go home, as long as they can keep the car at a certain temperature and, of course, avoid any stalls. It’s a twelve hour drive back, so they should make it home before ten in the evening, leaving at eight, accounting for any stops.

Zanka’s temperature is finally above what’s considered hypothermic. The nurse stresses that regular temperature checks are important, especially to ensure that he doesn’t develop a fever from the bacteria. There’s some details in there about a short course of IV antibiotics he received and some oral ones they’re sending him home with, but most of it goes over his head. Luckily, Tomme’s really good at paying attention.

Zanka seems okay. He’s avoiding eye contact with both of them. He’s sure this hurt his pride a little bit, but he hopes later that he can get him to understand that this could have happened to anyone.

Tomme and Enjin wait for him in the hallway. The staff at the North Branch had washed and dried his uniform for him, and they’re waiting for him to finish changing.

“I can switch with you however often you want,” Tomme insists, referring to their drive back.

“Nah, I like driving. No problem,” Enjin says. That really is the case, but he’d prefer that Tomme rest if she can. The dark circles under her eyes are proof enough that she probably slept next to not at all during this whole ordeal, and while she hadn’t fallen in the water, she was out in the cold too. That takes a huge toll on anyone’s body.

Zanka opens the door, back in his uniform, leaning pretty heavy on his staff for support. Enjin almost walks to take his arm and help him walk, but he knows he’d take offense to that on behalf of his staff.. He looks worse for wear for sure, and seeing him next to Tomme makes him wonder for a moment if maybe they should take the day here, but he’s sure that they would both prefer to rest properly back at headquarters.

“Sorry t'put you in this situation,” Zanka murmurs as he turns to Tomme. He hadn’t really had a chance to say anything to her. Once he was up and okay enough to talk, the nurse had most of his attention.

“I'm so glad you’re okay,” she says with a relieved sigh, “you really scared me.”

Zanka opens his mouth to say something back, but one of the North Branch’s Givers has appeared in front of them.

“I’ll lead you back to the garage,” she says. A shorter girl. Enjin thinks for a moment that she’s Tomme’s age, but after staring for a few seconds, he realizes she might be younger than Zanka.

Tomme, for some reason, stares back at her with wide, nervous eyes.

“Tomme Mima,” she starts. “You’re a good Supporter.”

“Please, let us bring you something to drink,” the woman’s partner offers. Her bright, warm smile is a little unsettling, but Rudo very much realizes that he doesn’t have any room to talk. He hopes Zanka declines, because he’s pretty sure they have to head back to meet Enjin and Riyo, and this woman is giving him the creeps.

“I appreciate it, but we need to head out,” Zanka says. “We have somewhere to be.”

Even though it’s the answer Rudo was hoping for, and the answer he expected from Zanka, Rudo is suspicious.

Zanka’s being weird, the more he stares at him, the more he thinks about it. His posture is all rigid, and he’s not usually like that, and it’s slightly different from the good posture he usually observes from him. He kind of acts like there’s a stick up his ass most of the time, but he’s casual and nonchalant enough that it’s not out of a place of being snotty, Rudo thinks. Is he nervous? Uncomfortable? Rudo thinks for a second that maybe he was injured on the job, but he doesn’t think those Beasts even got near Zanka. He pretty much had all four of them pulverized before they were in his Instrument's radius of him.

“Not even a quick drink?” The first woman says.

“Next time,” Zanka insists. A little too quickly.

And now that he recalls the conversation as a whole, it sounds like Zanka has dropped his accent almost entirely. Rudo has noticed he’ll do that when he’s trying to sound more professional, but he doesn’t ever do that when talking to clients. It’s more with Corvus, or if he’s trying to make himself look cool to Enjin. Super weird. Doesn’t make any sense for him to do it now.

He makes sure to end it after that, politely taking their leave.

Rudo silently follows him away from the pair, away from the cafe they were loitering outside of. Their establishment, apparently. Now that Rudo thinks about it, Zanka was even acting strange when they first met these women before the job, but Rudo was too focused on the actually killing Trash Beasts of it all to notice that. Maybe they were giving off bad vibes that he couldn’t pick up on for some reason.

“Where do we have to be?” Rudo asks once they’re far enough that the clients can’t hear them anymore. Sure, they do have to meet with Enjin and Riyo, but they haven’t heard back from them yet, which means they’re still working. He has a feeling that Zanka made that up, but he doesn’t know why, exactly. They’ve taken gifts from strangers before. Maybe a drink is too risky.

“Nowhere. I'm just not in the business of takin’ things from strangers,” Zanka says. He doesn’t turn to look at Rudo. “‘specially creeps like them.”

At least he’s talking like normal again. That was super weird.

“Fair enough, I guess,” Rudo says.

It’s bright as hell out. And hot.

Rudo’s always been a little sensitive to light. Regto has always said it’s because of his light eyelashes. Most of the time, everything on the Ground is hazy enough that nothing completely shines through, but it’s less cloudy than normal today. Rudo’s found himself squinting a few times, and Zanka too, who has now led the two of them under an awning as he takes out his water bottle to take a few sips. Rudo does the same.

He opens a bottle of something from his bag, takes out two pills, and swallows them with the water he has in his hand. It was really quick, and if Rudo wasn't looking at him, he probably would've missed it.

That was weird.

He really wants to ask what that was, but he has a strong feeling Zanka will shut him down. He's been more short and snippy than usual today, and Rudo doesn't feel like arguing for no reason. So he decides to drop it. The bottle Zanka took out of his bag disappears as soon as it was taken out.

At least it was a quick job.

They’re headed back, on foot, to the vehicle. Riyo and Enjin ended up splitting off from them to take care of a larger, single Beast on the other side of town that a different client called in. Two birds, one stone, Enjin said, even though it was technically five birds, four stones. He doesn’t think Enjin’s using that phrase correctly.

He notices Zanka purposefully hanging around the shadowy parts of the street on their way back, but at some point, they run out of luck. It’s too bright for Zanka to walk without keeping a hand over his eyes, and even though it’s not quite that bad for Rudo, he still feels bad for him. Sure, he hasn’t lived a day on the Ground that has been as bright as days on the Sphere with actual sunlight, but people from the Ground probably just aren’t used to days that are a little brighter.

He imagines Zanka and the others would probably need sunglasses if Rudo ever managed to get them up there. It’s a silly thought, but it gives him an idea.

He turns his satchel to his front as they walk, digging around for something to use. He doesn’t have any sunglasses, but he dig for the compact umbrella that he picked up a few days ago. The handle is broken, making it a little impractical to use, but it’s still useful. Rudo can make it useful.

Maybe he can use his ability on it. He’s only used 3R once today, and they don’t anticipate any jobs after this one, even though it’s super early in the day. So he can try to make this useful enough for Zanka to hold.

He tries. He holds it out while they’re walking, and it transforms into something much edgier looking, with a handle exactly like Rudo had pictured. Maybe a little too practical. It’s ergonomic and everything, and he realizes the thought he put into it materialized pretty perfectly.

Zanka stops and stares at him in confusion, his eyes wandering around like he’s wondering if he missed something. Rudo stretches out his arm and hands it to him as they stop walking.

Zanka blinks, his eyes now scanning the clouds around them, as if maybe Rudo knows something about the weather that he doesn't. He doesn’t take it.

“No. For you.”

Zanka still doesn’t seem to understand.

“Since it's so bright,” Rudo says, vaguely gesturing to the sky.

“Oh,” Zanka says, his shoulders deflating a little. “Y’sure? I don't wanna take your stuff.”

“If it's useful to someone else, it's fine.”

Rudo sounds a little more sentimental than he means to, but it is genuine. If it's useful to Zanka, then it's okay.

Surprisingly, Zanka doesn’t manage to turn that into an insult. He takes it, gingerly, and they continue their walk back to where the vehicle is parked.

At some point, Enjin phones in on Zanka’s choker, letting him know that he and Riyo are finished and on their way back after a brief summary on how it went. He reminds Zanka to write down a quick report, since they don’t have any Supporters with them today.

The feedback and metallic ringing from the choker seems to bother Zanka, too, but the conversation is short enough. Rudo wonders if maybe he didn’t get enough sleep the night before, but he certainly won’t ask him.

They arrive back to the covered garage, and as Zanka moves to hand the umbrella back to Rudo, it disintegrates in his hand. They both stare at his hand, before staring back at each other.

“Interestin’,” Zanka murmurs. “Works the same way for every day stuff, too.”

That’s good to know. It’s not just useful for fighting, then.

Zanka sits against the tire of the vehicle, using his as a surface for his notebook, scribbling things down about the job like Enjin asked him to. Usually, he’ll make Rudo do it, or at least tell Rudo what’s important for them to write in, but apparently he just wants to get it over with. He doesn’t say a word to Rudo the whole time, so Rudo just ends up standing around and observing their surroundings.

Is now a bad time to ask? Hey, what were those pills?

Are you okay?

He can’t just ask him that straight up. Zanka would totally hit him upside the head with Lovely.

Maybe it’s an old injury. They looked like pain medication, but not the kind Rudo has gotten used to seeing. Or maybe it has something to do with him apparently being a little sensitive to light and sound right now.

Enjin and Riyo reappear soon enough, and Zanka stands once they come back, handing Enjin his notebook once he asks to see it. He seems a little reluctant to hand it over.

Enjin skims over Zanka’s report. He squints as he reads it. Rudo does know that Zanka’s handwriting is terrible.

“What's this about traffickers?” Enjin says.

Rudo blinks. He looks to Zanka. There’s a weird silence.

“The clients?” Rudo asks. He can’t think of any other humans they ran into.

“Yeah,” Zanka says.

“Wh…huh?” Rudo says back, trying to think of anything that could have tipped him off to that. Zanka has told him what those guys usually wear, the caravans they travel with, the sort of things they’ll say and do. He didn’t pick up on anything like that, even in hindsight.

“I've met ‘em before,” Zanka mumbles. “One of ‘em.”

Enjin narrows his eyes. “They didn't recognize you?”

“Nah. The woman's basically blind now. Her partner was new,” Zanka answers.

“And…when’d y’meet these people?” Enjin asks him, lowering his voice a little, like he’s nervous to ask.

“It’s…” Zanka starts, his eyes shifting over to Rudo, like he’d rather not recall a story that other people don’t know about. Rudo wouldn’t blame him at all. He doesn’t like thinking about his brief encounter with Traffickers either, when he first got to the Ground.

Riyo speaks up. “Those are the people that drugged you, right? And…”

There’s a brief silence.

Zanka huffs. “Yeah.”

Enjin’s face twists up in confusion. “Zanka, y-”

“Listen, there’s no point in reportin’ these people,” Zanka bites back, with a lot more venom than he’s ever heard him use against Enjin. “The Hell Guard’ll get ‘em out. They use ‘em for intel all the time.”

Rudo’s vaguely heard about this story, but only in the form of a warning, with the added context that it had something to do with Zanka. Enjin has explicitly told them in the past not to take drinks from people. It didn’t matter how hot it was, or how thirsty they were. He said he’d rather have them treated for a heat stroke than have them kidnapped.

That explains why Zanka’s been acting so weird.

“Seems pretty backwards for those guys to use criminals for intel,” Enjin grumbles, handing Zanka the notebook back. He doesn’t seem upset with Zanka, but he’s definitely pissed about the situation. “Are they still out there?”

“They're gonna do whatever serves ‘em. Intel’s more important,” Zanka answers, avoiding eye contact completely.

“They still out there, Zanka?” Enjin repeats, tilting his head. His voice is stern.

Zanka doesn’t say anything. Rudo feels like he should answer, but he doesn’t. He pays close attention to Zanka’s defensive posture.

“Why aren’t you answering?” Enjin asks.

“Can we just go?” Zanka says quietly. “‘S not our job to deal with those people.”

“Zanka’s right,” Riyo interjects, taking a step toward Enjin. “Our job is to kill Trash Beasts. The point of the reports is to give that information to the Hell Guard, and we’ll do that. If they do something, they do something.”

The silence in the air is almost poisonous. Rudo doesn’t think he’s ever witnessed an argument between Enjin and Zanka before, although he doesn’t know if this even counts as one. Enjin’s eyes go from Riyo’s, to Zanka’s, to Rudo’s, before he takes a breath, and apparently gives up.

“Guess you’re right,” he says. “This conversation isn’t over, though.”

Rudo wishes he had more context, but maybe he doesn’t want to know.

They start the brief checklist of preparing the car for a three hour trip back to headquarters. Making sure it’s running properly, it’s got enough fuel, and that it hasn’t been rigged while it’s been unattended - apparently a common issue. Rudo sees Enjin apologize to Zanka, but Zanka doesn’t give him much of a reaction.

Eventually, they all climb into the car, and Enjin starts the car without issue, and pulls out of the parking garage. Riyo has taken the front seat, and Rudo is in the back with Zanka, with Zanka behind Enjin. He doesn’t usually sit there, and Rudo has to wonder if he’s trying to avoid any more confrontation with Enjin.

“It's too early for dinner, but I guess we can get lunch,” Enjin says as they get on the road. “Probably something in town, since it’s…still nine in the morning.”

“I'm gonna skip,” Zanka says, “if that's cool.”

“Takeout?” Enjin offers a compromise.

Zanka pauses, then shrugs. “Sure.”

The car ride is fairly quiet, aside from Enjin’s usual radio blasting. There’s brief conversation about a missing Too Lily CD in the front half of the car, but Zanka never joins in or reacts to anything they say. His eyes are fixed out of the window most of the time, but that’s not really out of the ordinary for him. Rudo tries not to spend too much time staring at him, because he knows it’ll piss him off pretty quick if he notices, but he was so weirdly docile in that tense conversation with Enjin that he’s not totally sure.

About an hour in, Enjin and Riyo decide on a restaurant for take-out that they like. Food from the place Zanka is from, apparently. They’re still a little under two hours away from headquarters, but this is a place that’s apparently super good, so they decide they’ll order and heat it up again when they get back. Enjin disappears inside for a while to order, leaving the three of them in the car outside.

Riyo turns around in her seat, staring at Zanka for a few seconds to try and get his attention. Eventually, he notices he’s being stared at, and turns to look at her.

“You okay?” Riyo asks him quietly.

“‘M fine,” Zanka mumbles, “didn’t need to make a big deal about it.”

“You know he’s just worried.”

“Yeah. I know,” Zanka huffs. “It was like, a year ago, ‘n I’m fine.”

“Okay, okay,” Riyo says, apparently now deciding to give up. Zanka’s made it very clear that he doesn’t want this situation to continue.

After about five minutes of awkward silence, Zanka speaks.

“Riyo,” he says, “y'got any water left?”

“Some,” she replies, reaching back from the front seat to hand it to him.

Rudo watches him do it again right after Riyo turns around. The same thing as earlier today. He slyly takes two pills without Riyo noticing. This time, he definitely wants to say something, but is it right to? He’s obviously trying on purpose to not get anyone’s attention, and as much as Rudo doesn't care about pissing him off, this isn't territory he's familiar with. Especially with this already weird existing tension.

He decides to keep his mouth shut.

Enjin returns, putting the bags of food into the back of the car before getting back into the driver’s seat, cranking up the music and driving off.

Rudo continues secretly eyeing Zanka for most of the drive.

Zanka’s still being weird. He hasn’t said a word since he borrowed Riyo’s water. He was pretty normal this morning, maybe with a little less bite than usual, but normal nonetheless. He was sort of squinting before, but now his eyes are totally screwed shut. He looks like his head his bothering him. Rudo wonders if that’s what the pills were for, but if it is, they clearly aren’t working. He’s sweating, too, Rudo can see it dampening his hairline. It is kind of hot out, sure, but the car is pretty well air conditioned.

Enjin reaches over to the radio to turn the nob, and quiet down the music.

“Did we report it to the Hell Guard the first time? When those people drugged you?” Enjin asks, his eyes shifting to look at Zanka through the rear view mirror, but Zanka doesn't reply.

Should they be talking about this right now? He thought Zanka made it pretty clear that at the very least, now was not the time, but he doesn’t even turn his head to look over at Enjin. He’s gripping Lovely pretty tight.

“No, he told us not to,” Riyo reminds him.

“Why're you so sure they wouldn't do anything about it?” Enjin asks. “Even if they don’t give a shit what happens to us, if they’re targeting us, it probably means they’re targeting civilians, too.”

Rudo turns his head to Zanka, because he’d honestly like to know the answer too, especially if it’s something Enjin’s concerned about. He doesn’t say anything, but it sounds like he’s breathing deeper.

“Right, Zanka?” Enjin says.

Zanka still doesn’t say anything. That’s super unlike him. He would have certainly said something by now.

“Everything okay over there?” Enjin asks, and Riyo turns out of her seat to look at Zanka.

“Zan, you look super nauseous,” Riyo says, sounding surprised to be making that observation.

“Shut up,” he mumbles.

“Do I need to pull over?” Enjin asks.

“I'm gonna say yes,” Riyo decides.

Pulling over is pretty easy on these long stretches of what can hardly be considered a road between the populated areas, so all Enjin has to do is slow down and stop the car, which he somehow manages to do without jostling everyone around. Rudo didn’t think that was possible. Zanka covers his face and groans, apparently hating everything about the situation, and apologizes.

Zanka doesn’t waste any time getting out of the car once it’s stopped, swinging the door open and turning the corner of the car with a hand braced against it, before he gags and throws up into the dirt. He coughs and sputters, and Riyo stands next to him, a hand on his back. It’s probably everything they had for breakfast. The arm that isn’t braced against the car is wrapped tight around his middle.

Rudo tries to put the pieces together. It almost seems like, on the surface, that this is somehow related to what they were talking about in the car and before they left, but it doesn't add up. It doesn't explain how much he's been squinting, and the pills he keeps taking, right? He gets out of the car at the same time as Enjin, just a few seconds after.

Zanka’s legs are shaking enough for Riyo to try and convince him to sit down, and she manages to do that without any pushback.

“‘M sorry,” Zanka mumbles, spitting into the puddle of vomit in front of him, his eyes screwed shut and very obviously in pain. Rudo wonders if this constitutes him needing to go to a doctor, but he supposes Enjin will make that decision.

“I'm gonna run you over if you keep apologizing,” Enjin teases, but there’s a pretty clear undertone of concern. “How long were you feeling sick for, Zanka?”

“Not long,” he mumbles, but Rudo isn’t sure he completely believes him. His face is really pale, and Rudo thinks he’s been looking like that for a while. His face suddenly pales again, and a gag against his will forces up more vomit into the puddle. His whole body shudders afterward.

Riyo manages to guide him over to the back of the Jeep, where they’re in the shade, and Zanka sits against it. He’s sitting completely still, his hands covering his face, taking slow, intentional breaths. Riyo still sits beside him, rubbing his back. Zanka definitely doesn’t look like he feels any better.

“Lemme see,” Enjin says, crouching down in front of him and laying the back of his hand against his forehead once Zanka moves his hands out of his face. He frowns. “A little warm. You’re sweating, too.”

“‘S hot out,” Zanka mumbles defensively.

“Yeah, kinda…” Enjin says, but apparently not entirely satisfied with Zanka’s excuse.

Zanka sits against the Jeep, taking small sips of water from Riyo's bottle, but after a while, he crosses his arms over his knees to hide his face.

“Okay, two options. Either we take you straight back, if you think you can handle the drive, or we stop in the next town,” Enjin says.

“‘M fine. We can drive straight back,” Zanka mumbles after lifting his head.

“You do not look fine, Zan,” Enjin tells him sternly.

Zanka deflates, hearing that. Rudo definitely agrees, though, and Riyo’s expression tells him she thinks the exact same thing. He’s still super pale, and he can’t seem to keep his eyes open, even while they’re sitting in the shade.

“Stop…stop treatin’ me like ‘m fragile,” Zanka mumbles back at him.

“I’m not doing that, Zanka,” Enjin says with a sigh, “I’m…listen, I’m just trying to make sure you’re using your head and not making decisions based on…trying to hide that you’re sick.”

“‘M not sick,” Zanka growls back at him.

Apparently, that’s enough for Enjin to give up. He sighs. “Okay. Fine.”

There’s that weird tension again.

After a few minutes, Zanka reiterates that he’s feeling fine now, even though nobody believes him. He doesn’t take anyone’s help to stand up, and seems to get back in the car without a problem. Riyo gestures to Rudo that she’s going to switch seats with him, clearly, because she doesn’t trust Zanka.

Rudo gets in the front seat next to Enjin.

“How long's the drive?” Zanka asks from the back.

“It's two hours back,” Enjin reminds him as he restarts the car. It’s already gotten super hot inside from just the few minutes they were stopped for.

Zanka groans, leaning his head against the seat.

“We can stop somewhere if y’want. Like I said. Get you some medicine,” Enjin says, his eyes peering back through the rear view again.

“Don't need any,” Zanka murmurs, leaning his head against the window.

Enjin pauses for a second. “You sure?”

“Mhm,” Zanka mumbles.

“‘Kay, fine…”

Zanka really only looks worse the further they get into the drive. It’s weird, because he’s technically seen him in worse shape, but he just looks really bad right now. He just really looks like he doesn’t feel well, and Rudo assumes that’s the look that tipped off Riyo into thinking he was nauseous earlier.

Enjin talks about the possibility of food poisoning. Most of them had the same thing from the cafeteria last night, and Zanka was the only one feeling sick. He said bad batches were always possible, food poisoning is a serious killer on the ground, but it doesn’t really line up enough with what’s going on with Zanka for him to land on that with certainty. Zanka doesn’t argue back, but Rudo doesn’t think he’s even paying attention.

Eventually, Zanka very meekly asks everyone to stop talking, and they oblige. Enjin even turns his music completely off, which Rudo didn’t even know was an option.

At some point, Rudo hears a bag rustling, and before he can turn around, he realizes Zanka is hunched over and throwing up into a plastic bag that he’s holding open. Riyo has scooted closer to him, ignoring her seatbelt, a hand on his back. He sounds totally miserable, between the gagging and just the way that he’s breathing. It lasts for several minutes, and happens again about half an hour after that. The second time, Zanka really seems like he’s in pain, curling in on himself, Riyo holding the bag open for him. It lasts longer than the first time, too. He’s apologizing profusely, but Riyo just shushes him.

It’s confirmation enough that what happened back there wasn’t just a one-time thing, that Zanka is probably sick like Enjin was suggesting. Rudo has noticed the crease in his brow deepen.

They manage to make it back without it happening again, parking in the headquarter’s garage. Enjin asks for Rudo’s help to get the food out of the back of the car, and Zanka’s the last one to step out. Zanka’s not really steady on his feet at all as he steps out of the vehicle, his foot nearly slipping on the edge.

Enjin opens his mouth to say something to him as he shuts the trunk door, but his sentence dies completely when Zanka halfway bends over with an arm wrapped around his middle, choking up bits of whatever is left in his stomach onto the garage floor.

Four times now. There’s no way he’s not sick.

Riyo’s standing next to him, rubbing his shoulder again. It’s a lot less productive this time, mostly retching that doesn’t bring anything up, but it sounds painful and miserable all the same. Rudo notices his legs shaking again, but his arms and his hands, too. He can’t tell if it’s pain or something else. He’s seen his hands shake when he’s anxious before.

“Just gi'mme a minute,” he mumbles in between pained breaths. “Sorry…”

“I'll make sure the infirmary’s r-”

“No infirmary,” Zanka murmurs, cutting off Enjin’s idea. “Don’ need'a bother Eishia with this.”

Rudo can see Enin biting the inside of his lip. Riyo gestures something to Enjin that Rudo doesn’t quite catch, and Enjin looks at Rudo, and tilts his head in the direction of the door.

“C'mon Rudo, let's get this heated up,” Enjin says, lifting up the bag of food he’s holding.

A very clear let's leave them alone, but Rudo agrees. He imagines Zanka probably won’t join them for this, then. He follows Enjin out of the garage, peering back at Zanka for just a second before the door closes behind him.