Deathbeds[✓]

5;

Anais woke up with a tightness in her chest. She bolted upright, coughing and sputtering against the acrid taste in her mouth and the fire that ripped down her throat. Hands gently pushed her back down, whispering words she couldn't quite decipher yet sounded oddly familiar. Her stomach was a raging inferno, roiling and swelling, making her want to expel it. She began to thrash against the person forcing her to endure this fiery agony.

"Easy there, princess. Just let the potion work itself through a while longer," she heard the deep timbre of Bishop's voice. He stroked her hair until the pain suddenly dimmed and warmed her from the inside out. She felt like she was too big for her skin, a certain tightness all over and her eyes regained some focus on her surroundings.

It was dark now save for the glow of the fire beside her. Bishop was looking down at her. He had removed his leather jerkin and sat with her head on his lap, giving Anais an unobstructed view of the taut muscles of his arms and chest. A thick poultice was applied on his shoulder and secured with a single wrap of linen.

Tentatively she prodded the bandage with her finger, frowning, "you're hurt."

Bishop winced and scowled, "I'm fine!"

"Are you sure? Maybe I could-"

"I'm fine! Stop nagging," he captured her wrist and held it firmly in his grasp to keep her from poking the wound any further.

Realistically, Bishop was anything but fine. His thoughts replayed the moment he brought Anais here, bleeding out and unconscious. An icy chill ran up him as fear gripped his heart. He didn't want to think about how useless he felt then. He was used to killing people, not trying to revive them. All he could do was wait vigilantly by her side, tending to both their wounds his spare potions couldn't heal properly until she woke. Being faced with her mortality violently shook something inside him; it was like losing Julian all over again. He would be damned if Anais died on his watch. He would never forgive himself for betraying her like that. Even Karnwyr was avoiding the ranger's paradigm shift and opted to keep watch on the rock overhang above Bishop and Anais.

He debated briefly whether or not to tell Anais about the note he found on one of the mercenaries but decided against it. He had a few connections in Solitude; he'd track down the son of a bitch behind this. She already had so much to worry about.

Anais rolled her bottom lip in her mouth. Bishop's narrowed eyes focused there while the hand on her head moved from her hair to her cheek, his calloused thumb smoothing over the soft flesh.

He could hardly be angry at her that she was alive- but dammit she was reckless! Bishop didn't know anything about shouting, or her Dragonborn-ness, or magick and here she was, exerting her body's limits. Bishop could have gutted every one of the bastards, making them beg for his mercy. Then he'd find the bastard Yngvarr that hired them.

Bishop was angry, furious even, but he wasn't angry at Anais. He was angry for her. Angry at the fact that she was everyone's puppet, angry at anyone that even looked at her in a way that displeased him, angry that the only other person he cared about on Nirn was the Dragonborn. Bishop didn't know what he did to be blessed with this curse.

Bishop tugged on the end of one of her curls. She was looking at him with those damned doe eyes and if he didn't get her head off of his lap, she'd find out just how exactly that made him feel.

"Bishop?"

Too late.

He smoothed his hand down her cheek, grazing over her neck. He felt her skin heat up, a red crawl rising up the column of her throat and settling in her cheeks. "Yes, ladyship?"

"Is that your dagger in your pants, or are you just really happy that I'm alive?" She raised a brow at him, a playful light in her eyes.

A chuckle escaped him despite his efforts to remain blase. "I don't think you want to know the answer to that, princess." His hands retracted from her to give her the opportunity to move away, but she remained still on his lap and rolled her eyes instead. "How are you feeling, anyway?"