DOOM SAGA I - I'll be home tomorrow

Cold like stone

Argent d'Nur

Io tugged on his shirt and moaned but choked quickly as she felt something come up her throat involuntarily. She swallowed a few times and tried to control her breathing but the sickness wouldn't leave that easily. The Slayer's head turned as he searched for a better place, though it was already quiet here. The streets of the abandoned part of town were scattered with rubble and a thicker layer of snow than on the markets showed that nobody had come by in a while.
Carefully stepping through an alleyway that led through two collapsed houses he found a place for them to settle, and while slowly sitting her on the edge of what once must have been a staircase in a park side he sighed. But he did not say a word, instead, he rested his hand on her back as she spat more mucus and blood annoyed.
The breeze was soft here, though only a few metres before them, the stone slabs washed into dirt and snow, and just a step further, a vertical cliff cut off the ground. A couple of ravens were cawing in the distance where they sat together on a ledge with some dead animal, that must have fallen down to its demise, and along the other mountains, one could look far down a valley that was newly forming on its bottom.
"Why is everybody always crazy about you?", she whispered to herself. He muttered in response.
"Are you are pimp or something?", she asked louder this time and to his surprise, he saw her lips quirk upwards a little. He leaned back as he could relax a little more now, and watched her pick dried blood off her nose and chin.
"Are you alright?", he asked for the first time out loud.
She kept staring at a point in front of them while picking on some more crust and mumbled.
"Mh."
The Slayer looked at her for a moment.
"Io?", he said in a soft voice.
"Are you a pimp, or no?", she asked again.
He sighed frustrated.
"No, I'm not."
"But you know them.", she spoke calmly.
"What...?"
"You know them. She told me. Uta."
For a moment she fidgeted and glanced up at him.
"She said you know her mother well. Like many other women. That's why the young ones are crazy about you, isn't it?"
"I-It's not--"
Baffled the Slayer sought for words, seemingly uncomfortable.
"It's not what? Sex?", she waited for a moment to give him a chance to speak, but he didn't.
"What else could it be that they go hunting for you like that?", she asked sincerely.
"I'm not... They are not just... It was..."
She sighed as he stammered.
"Slayer.", she eased him.
"I don't fucking care."
She briefly stroked his arm and he could see no accusations in her gentle eyes.
"I just wanted to know why they are like this. I don't care what you did back then or what you are doing right now. Just give me a head up if you bring by a date."
A tired smile crept onto her face and with his mouth open, he gaped at her.
"Io... I-I...", he began but froze as he saw more blood running from her nose. He swiftly snatched the bloodied cloth from her hands in her lap and held it to her nose. She squirmed in his sudden grasp but quickly gave up as her head began to spin.
"It's still bleeding, even out here in the cold. We should get you looked at."
"Mhm," she mumbled muffled, "my butt... is... cold.", she slurred.
He nodded and laid his arms around her as she moaned and slacked into his arms.
"Hey... hey...!", he called for her but her eyelids fluttered in fading consciousness.
He pulled her onto his lap and off the frozen ground and bundled her up in his coat as well.
"You'll be fine... you'll be fine... I'll get you home... I promise."

"Just give her two more doses of pain medication before the deep night and one to every meal tomorrow with the others. If it still hurt too much then, she can come to us again and we will take care of her. Otherwise, she should be fine, as long as she doesn't do any exercise or under stressful circumstances."
The man lightly saluted as the door was closed behind him and the Slayer finally relaxed. He sneaked around to her side of the bed and put another blanket over her sleeping form as she groaned and moved.
"Don't go...", she murmured while she was barely able to open her eyes.
"I won't.", he whispered right to her face where he could still smell the metallic scent. Dozed and surely high on her medication she sleepily blinked at him, and he didn't dare to move away from the side of the bed as he smiled.
"I got something for you."
He rummaged his pocket for a second and put something in front of her face next to the pillow. Curious she squinted to understand the irregular shape of a stone.
"Hm...?", she sounded as her pale hand crawled up to it. Her eyebrows raised, as far as they could, and her wet shining eyes glistened happily. 
First, she held it closer and away and into the light before her second hand came to it as well so she could run her finger over every line and corner.
"Woow...", she breathed like she was holding pure gold.
"Do you like it?", he asked and she nodded still occupied like a child with a new toy.
She smiled unknowingly as he watched her observe it for a few minutes, as he wondered.
"Why do you like them so much?"
"Hm, what?", she uttered confused.
"Why do you like stones so much?"
She blinked slowly, as if nobody had ever asked her that, before she smiled even wider.
"How can you not?"
He cocked his head.
"They are beautiful, and there are thousands if not millions of different kinds! There are all the colours you can imagine and some glitter like rainbows, and there are some that are softer than silk on the outside like this one, even though they look rough, but of course, there are also many that are rougher than sandpaper, and still many are made of the same elements just formed in different times or places on earth and in its crust and have you heard of Obsidian, for sure you have, and it really is sharper than most blades and so black that it looks like it was broken from the darkest of nights and then there is Pyrit for example which looks more like gold than pure gold does and it's like fools gold because it is just Iron and sulphur and... and...", she stopped looking at the on in her hand.
"It's just...", her enthusiasm changed into something else as her mouth moved indecisively.
"It is all made without purpose."
His eyebrow narrowed at her words.
"They are nothing but beautiful, yet there are so many, and basically none of them has any purpose for life. They are just... accidents. And if there is any thought behind this, who are we, little humans, to understand?"
He let out a thoughtful rumble as, for the first time in decades, his understanding of everything he thought was normal was broken apart once more. He did not care about what the ones he had fought had done to the existence, yet he couldn't imagine any of them taking part in something so seemingly... insignificant.
"It's just like with humans...", she whispered depressed.
"Only the ones that look pretty and valuable get picked... just because they don't care what they are made of... or can't see... what is inside them...", she murmured and yawned.
"Ouch...!", she hissed before yawning again out of control.
"You should rest. I'll wake you for lunch."
"I love them all...", she mumbled with her eyes already closed.
He pulled the blankets tighter and left the stone tightly in her hand before going back to his research. He had promised her after all, he would bring her home.