The Bard and the Killer

Chapter 12: Recovery

   An: Sorry this took so long. I am depressed after all. This chapter contains a lemony lime and is the last one in The Bard and The Killer. 

     Karkat Vantas stood next to his ex-morail, before a glass window. On the other side, doctors were rushing feverishly around a winged form in the bed. He had found Gamzee stumbling from the woods back to the hive he shared with the strange human he loved and realized in an instant that he was sober. Having called Gamzee back from a rampage before, he took it upon himself to offer the highblood a ride to the hospital, after he spent nearly fifty minutes convincing him to take more sopor from the house rather than club him to death and take his human car anyway. He could feel the eyes of his brother on him from the front desk. Kankri was just naturally cautious, and this whole situation rubbed him the wrong way. Karkat had fended off his lecture for the past two days he had been monitoring Gamzee at the hospital, but it was only a matter of time before the picky troll found something else wrong with it.

     Gamzee never took his half lidded eyes off the scene on the other side of the glass and in fact, one of the more sympathetic nurses had brought him a chair so he could stay right there in front of the surgery window. Each time they had prepared to bring her back out, they found something else broken down inside of her. It seemed she had taken a lot of abuse, torture really, and the first day they had been there, the hospital had called the cops on Gamzee. It was always the boyfriend they suspected first. Unexpectedly, Karkat found a lie springing to his lips. Gamzee had been with him, he told them.

     Sollux ended the phone call he had been making at the end of the hall and approached them, his bi-colored sunglasses glinting red and blue in the sickly hospital light. "That wath Tav. Heth on his way to vithit, but it will take him a while on his new legth." Gamzee made a quiet noise of acknowledgement.

      "You can both go now. I'm not sober anymore, so I'm not likely to motherfuckin' kill everyone." His voice was  glum, as un-Gamzee as it could be without him being sober. 

     "Not likely." Sollux lisped. "We're here for her. A lot of uth acthually liked her." One of the doctors came out. Karkat noted how it was rather uncharacteristically friendly, not cold like Sollux usually was toward Gamzee.

     One of the surgeons moved over to the door, took off their gloves and sanitized their hands before stepping out. "She'll wake up in about an hour. We're moving her to own her room because she's finally stable. You can all go there and wait." He gave Karkat a room number because Gamzee was  a little too unresponsive to make himself take the pager being held out to him. Karkat and Sollux fell silently into flank on either side of the despondent highblood and began to escort him down the hall to the indicated room. It was cold and sterile. This seemed to make Gamzee restless and uncomfortable.

     "How can they expect my lil mama to get any better in such a motherfuckin' colorless place? It's like death in here..." Gamzee's half-lidded eyes filled again with the agony of the unthinkable.

     "Oh cheer the fuck up." Karkat snapped, not meaning to  be harsh. If Gamzee was so down, (your name) would see this, and it would certainly impede her own recovery, worrying about her matesprit. "(Your name) will be fucking fine."

     Sollux snorted and pulled out his laptop, likely to continue coding. Karkat mentally face palmed. They needed to be keeping all of their attention on the clown. When they finally wheeled the gurney in about twenty-five minutes later, (your name) was laying on her side, wings out behind her. she was held in this position by a brace. It was the only way she wouldn't cause herself pain just by waking up. Karkat took the time while they were waiting for (your name) to wake up by carefully watching Gamzee. Every now and then, Kankri would loudly knock three times, announce he was coming in, and list the triggers of his next actions to Gamzee. "Trigger warnings include physical contact." He would then touch (your name), check her stitches and other wounds and leave.