Black Magic

Look What You've Started

Chapter 13: Look What You've Started

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Minseok was lying face-down on the stiff infirmary sheets trying very, very hard not to move a muscle.

He felt fine so long as he held perfectly still.

Breathing kind of hurt.

Every inhalation caused his blood-soaked shirt to cling wetly and pull at the edges of his wound.

Where the hell was the Master Healer?

He groaned into the pillow.

Even though he knew Kai was coming straight back from wherever he'd gone in search of help, Minseok still flinched violently when the boy suddenly appeared in the room.

"Fuck," Minseok swore, clenching his teeth against the pain. "Every time."

Kai didn't bother with an apology, just pushed forward the person he'd brought along with him.

It wasn't the Master Healer.

From the corner of his eye, Minseok could see Yixing step close, hands already raised in preparation to draw water from the air. Minseok felt his whole body relax as glowing liquid began to coalesce around the Healer's hands.

"What happened?" Yixing murmured, voice calm, clinical.

Minseok closed his eyes and turned his head away before replying. "Got ambushed."

He knew Yixing was asking for more, but that was all Minseok was willing to say at the moment. He honestly just wanted to be able to inhale without wincing.

"Kai get his cloak and shirt off. I need to be able to see the wound."

Kai silently did as told, crossing to the other side of the cot and ripping the already torn fabric even more. The Water Dragon bit his lip in effort not to hiss as the sodden material was peeled from his skin.

The cool, wet touch of Yixing's hands flitted along his ribcage, up to his shoulder blades, and the pain immediately eased.

"Go back to the others, Kai," the Healer ordered, attention never leaving his patient. "They may still need you."

Minseok opened his eyes just in time to see Kai's body vanish, and suddenly he was alone with Yixing. Minseok remained quiet, his eyelids growing heavy as he fell into a lethargic daze.

Healer Magic tended to do that.

He was about to drift off, content to fall into that heavy daze, but he had one thing he really needed to know.

"Am I?" he questioned groggily.

Yixing's fingers paused for a fraction of a second, and Minseok feared the worse, but then the nimble fingers began to move again and the Healer answered in a voice that was smooth and steady.

"No. You're not."

Yixing had always been able to do that, Minseok reflected...Always somehow knew exactly what Minseok was trying to say...He could probably finish Minseok's sentences if he wanted.

The injured Water Dragon relaxed, sleep playing at the edges of his mind. He was almost gone, so close to giving into the darkness, that he wasn't sure whether he was thinking the words or actually hearing them...

"Thank God..."

Minseok swallowed one last time, and then passed out.

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