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ACUTE RADIATION SICKNESS IS A COLLECTION OF HEALTH EFFECTS THAT ARE CAUSED BY BEING EXPOSED TO HIGH AMOUNTS OF IONIZING RADIATION IN A SHORT PERIOD OF TIME.
When Arthur is lucid again, he finds himself in the mall, twirling his sword deeper into the hole he’s begun to drill into the floor.
The clock on the banged-up PC near to him reads midnight, January 1st, 1999. He can hear the drone whirring in the food court, Amir playing away at his arcade games, Lettie’s rats scuttling around in the hall. Everything is as it should be.
But Arthur’s mind is stuck in the past — the future? — still hung up on the sight of Loren’s blood on the glass, the tang of his blood in his mouth, the lingering weight of their consciousness sidled up next to his own as they walked him out of the reactor. A devotion he doesn’t deserve. A gentleness so sweet it makes him ache.
A set of footsteps come to a stop in front of him. Arthur is torn between wanting to meet their gaze and being wholly unable to.
“Hey,” Loren says, offering him a wan smile.
“Hey, yourself,” he says in reply. Idly, his gaze catches on the shallow curve of their smile, and he thinks again of the reactor, the way they looked at him, spoke to him.
For a moment, they just stand there in silence. His sword twirls against the floor. Their metal claw taps incessantly against their thigh.
“Happy birthday, by the way,” Arthur says, eventually.
Their eyes widen a fraction, and their lips split into a sharp, toothy grin, canines catching on their lower lip. “You remembered?”
He returns their smile, but can’t look them directly in the eye. “Course I did. That’s what friends do, isn’t it?”
“Friends,” they echo, as if gauging how the word feels in their mouth. It leaves a bitter taste in his. “Yeah, I guess it is.”
Arthur swallows down the lump in his throat, and stifles his meager hope with it, colder still than the new year chill.
SYMPTOMS CAN START WITHIN AN HOUR OF EXPOSURE, AND CAN LAST FOR SEVERAL MONTHS.
Winter melts into spring. Lettie scolds Loren for not changing the bandages on their hand — dios mío, you’re just like a child — and the group of them finally manage to sit together for that game of Fables and Frontiers that Amir’s been wanting to play.
Loren comes back to the mall smelling of a dizzying mix of flowers and gunpowder. They set their pistol down on a table and sit next to him, close enough that Arthur can see the moles that dot their face — on their temple, the bridge of their nose, their cupid’s bow.
He rubs a bit of dirt off their cheek with his thumb. An unconscious action, as natural as the spin of his sword against the floor. He tries not to think of the way they lean into his touch, tries not to cup their face just a little longer.
A moment passes, and they pull away. They turn from him, their attention stolen by something else, someone else, somewhere else. Drifter’s gotta drift, as Quincy would say — Arthur knows too well about birds in cages and dogs on leashes, so he starts tallying out all he would give to drift along with them, instead.
“Go on,” he says, a smile lifting up the corner of his lips. “You have that look on your face again. Don’t let me hold you up.”
They glance back at him, hesitant. “...Okay,” they concede. “I won’t be long. Wait for me?”
“Of course,” he replies, as if there was ever any doubt.
Their hand slips out of his — when did they do that? Why didn’t he notice? — and he watches them leave. The sunlight spilling in through the skylight hits them just right, and for a fleeting moment, the air leaves Arthur’s lungs.
THE SPEED OF SYMPTOM ONSET IS RELATED TO RADIATION EXPOSURE, WITH GREATER DOSES RESULTING IN A SHORTER DELAY IN SYMPTOM ONSET.
As the summer sun sets over the horizon, Arthur watches as Loren wipes the blood off his sword before they head back to the mall. He sits beside them, idly tapping his finger against his thigh along to whatever shitty pop song is playing over the park’s techrotted speakers.
They sit in silence, and he just watches the way their hands move back and forth, and back and forth. In another life, this would have been romantic. And if they were anyone else anytime else, maybe they would’ve called each other lovers.
But there’s a part of him that believes he doesn’t want to be anyone else or want anyone else but them. There’s a part of him that really quite likes them here, now, covered in blood and grime on an even bloodier and grimier bench.
Alas.
“All done,” Loren says, placing his sword back in its scabbard and putting it on his lap. They let out a soft breath, their gaze flickering over the rest of the park as the street lamps flicker on. “There’s a place like this in Duviri, you know. I think you’d like it there.”
“Yeah?” he muses. “Maybe you should take me there sometime.”
A laugh, light and short and airy. “...Maybe. If I find a way to take you with me.”
Arthur allows himself to entertain the thought, and his gaze softens as he notices Loren seemingly doing the same, too.
“Let’s take the long way back,” he says.
They blink up at him, watching him stand and adjust the sword strapped to his back. “Okay. What for?”
He swallows down both the lump in his throat and the words he knows he’s going to regret later. “Just to make sure we shake off any patrols tailing us,” he says, a half-truth, and pragmatic enough an excuse that Loren nods in agreement. He’s known them long enough to know they would’ve agreed regardless — that they would put his sword up to their throat themself if he asked them to. Butcher and livestock, executioner and criminal.
It scares him, sometimes. But he offers his hand to help them up and squeezes them tighter when they don’t let go.
IN THE FOLLOWING HOURS OR WEEKS, INITIAL SYMPTOMS MAY SEEM TO IMPROVE —
Loren’s hand sits just inches away from his own on the railing.
They’re busy watching the fireworks, their face lighting up in vibrant blues and reds and yellows. A small smile tugs the corner of their lips upwards as they turn to him and catch him staring.
Arthur returns their smile, his gaze lingering on their eyes, their lips, then drifting downwards — their glove is wet and sticky, and leaves a red stain on the railing where their hand sits.
“...Are you okay?” they ask, their eyebrows furrowing.
“Are you?”
“Of course I am…” they trail off, pulling their hand closer to themself. It leaves red skid marks on the metal that has his stomach churning.
— BEFORE THE DEVELOPMENT OF ADDITIONAL SYMPTOMS —
“Can… I see?” he asks.
They hem and haw. Their eyes flicker around, looking anywhere but him, even as they wordlessly offer their hand to him like a puzzle piece sliding into its place, warm and slick with blood.
“I wish you’d stop doing this,” he mutters.
“Sorry,” they reply.
“I just want to know why you do it,” he continues.
“Sorry…” they reply.
— AFTER WHICH, EITHER DEATH
“That wasn’t an answer,” he says lightly, hoping to coax a laugh out of them. Instead, their face only seems to crumple further. “Hey, you don’t have to—”
“It’s a gift. From you,” they say eventually. They flex their hand, the wound oozing onto his palm. “It helps me remember you. And I like it, so…”
His other hand comes up to cover theirs. “It must be a really shitty gift, then,” he says.
They laugh hollowly. “No, it’s good,” they say. “It makes me think of you.”
“I don’t want you to hurt for me,” he says with a frown.
They smile wanly. “It doesn’t hurt. Really.”
“Even so.” His hand trails upwards to their cheek, tracing the scar cutting across their face with his thumb. He smears their own blood on them, stark red against their pale skin, and they lean into his touch.
Somewhere else, the new year’s countdown starts in earnest. They lean closer to him, their head against his neck, his arm around their waist. He thinks of the reactor. Their consciousness sidled up next to his in his own head — the open secret sits between them, warm and tender and unignorable as an open wound.
This time, he holds them close and doesn’t pull away.
OR RECOVERY FOLLOW.