Covens and Proxies

11

You're sitting in you room, writing and sketching aimlessly when a knock comes from you window. Your heart skips a beat as you open it, helping Toby inside. It's been almost two weeks since his last visit, and at the moment he doesn't look very good.

He stumbles into your bed, falling onto the mattress with a relieved sigh. Or a groan. You mumble curses as you kneel next to him, hands flitting over his stomach, chest and shoulders as you try to find his wounds. Three bullets are lodged in his stomach, a stab wound in his left chest. And a fractured elbow.

"Toby? Can you stand?" You ask tentatively. You need to get him into the kitchen.

He grunts, pushing himself up. "Wi-with help." He manages.

You slip his arm over your shoulders, supporting most of his weight as you help him to the kitchen. It takes several long minutes of shaky legs and leaning on walls, but you finally manage to set him up on the counter.

He rests his head against the cupboards, his skin pale in the unforgiving light of the florescent bulb. You grab a wash cloth out from under the sink and dampen it with warm water, while telling him to take off his shirt and jacket. He drops both on the floor, his shirt practically drenched in blood. You wrinkle your nose at it before handing him the cloth.

"Use this on your forehead. It's relaxing." He gives a dreary smirk before slapping the rag onto his forehead.

You put the few plates and bowls left in the sink from that nights dinner on the counter. Pulling a large mixing bowl from another cupboard, you fill it with steaming water and put the blood-soaked clothes in.

"Didn't kn-know you knew this much. Thought I'd ha-have to tell you what to do." His words slur from exhaustion and deleriam.

You come to stand in front of him, smiling as you dab up the blood coating his stomach; admiring in the back of your mind how toned his body is, though skinny. "I've done a lot of research recently. It seemed only fitting." You tell him softly, snapping your fingers while you rinse out the rag.

Your book comes flapping into the kitchen, quite literally, which makes Toby jump, pressing into the cabinets behind him. "Shit, I fo-forgot my meds!" He whimpers, shrinking away from the flying volume of pages.

It takes you a moment to realize what's going on. Toby hallucinates. He's schizophrenic. In an instant, your standing in front of him with your fingers pressed to his temples. You dig and dig, trying to find the source of his issue. You latch onto the darkest memories you sense, making both of your bodies go rigid as the past replays.

Your ears are ringing, everything is blurry and spinning but one. The lifeless body of a young woman in the dirver's seat. The car is upside down, the front window is bashed in. Your hands are lodged into the dashboard.

Your snapped from the memory as Toby roars, launching you both forward and slamming you into the opposite counter. Your back smacks into the corner, throbbing roughly. For a moment, everything is still out of focus and spinning as your ears ring. His hands are clamped tightly around your wrists, cutting off circulation and pinning you to the counter as his body presses down. You manage to find Toby's dark eyes, which are filled with rage and pain so strong, you can feel his body trembling with it. He ticks and twitches at every joint as he bares down on you, breathing heavily. You fear he might actually kill you as you watch him.

It feels like eternity before his breath finally slows and his ticks become more infrequent so that he can talk. "Do not. EVER. Try. To get. Inside. My. Head." He punctuates each word with a tick. His grip on your wrists tightens, making it painful. You resist the urge to writhe or try to pull away, simply staring calmly into his drowning eyes for several moments. Finally, he sighs, closing his eyes, and pulls away. "It's too da-dark for you." He mutters, almost to himself, before pulling up onto the counter again and resting back.

Gingerly, you come back to standing in front of him. You summon your book, watching for him to freak out again. He lays perfectly still, his eyes closed with his head leaning back.

You first work on his bullet wounds, mostly worried about drawing out the bullets. Warmth fills your arms as you focus on the wound, willing it to close and the piece of metal to come out. They fall to the ground, klinking as they hit the linoleum. You watch him begin to relax at you magic, which makes you smile. When the knife wound is closed, you don't move. Your heart hammers as you reach your hands up again. He opens an eye, giving a warning glare. You hesitate before resting your hands on the sides of his face, finger tips only brushing his temples.

"What do yo-you think you're doing?" He demands, his voice low, rumbling with a growl.

"Trust me?" You ask hopefully. You don't want to hurt him, but you think you can help him.

He looks at you for a long minute, the seconds seeming to tick by with infinite pauses between before he closes his eye again. You smile, glad that he's trusting you with something as vulnerable as his brain. Especially after knowing what you can do when you want to.

You focus your energy on his thoughts, his pain, his struggle to fight his hallucinations. You wrap him in the warmth, pushing out into the room, creating a bubble of perfect health for the two of you. You peak open an eye to see his eyes open, staring at you in shock. Something else is flashing in his eyes, though you can't place it. Reverence? Respect? Surprise? Is he impressed? No. Not quite. And you don't want to dig into his mind.

You manage a smile before shutting your eyes and pushing. The sphere widens, encompassing the entire kitchen for a moment, before crashing down to envelope only him.

You retract your hands, stepping away. He still watches you, sliding off of the counter. You're not sure what he's thinking, though you doubt it's very positive.

"It should help until you can take your pills." You murmur.

"Thank you," Is all he says.

You walk him to the front door. He pauses a moment, hand on the door knob. Finally, he looks back. "I wanted to ki-kill you," he says, "When you brought up that me-mory."

You don't move, only look at the ground. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to do that... I just wanted to help with the hallucinations." Your voice comes out small, barely a whisper.

"I know." His hand slips from the door knob as he turns back to you, standing in front of you. He hooks a finger under your chin, tilting your head up to look at him. "But you could ha-have died because of it. That kindness y-you have... You need to control it. Or it'll get-get you killed." His thumb brushes over your cheek, rough but comforting.

Your eyes sting with hot tears, your heart pounding in your chest as though it wants to break your ribs. Without a clear thought process, you hug him and bury your face in his chest. Hesitantly, he lets his arms rest around your shoulders. Your breath hitches, making him squeeze a little tighter.

"You're a go-od person with a dangerous power. People w-will exploit that for their own self-ish gain." He murmurs softly, stroking your back with shacking hands.

You fight the tears, trying to calm your breath. You're crying into the chest of a man who just admitted he nearly killed you. Twice. You should be terrified of him, yet you aren't. You're tired and afraid, yes, but not of him. You're afraid of what he's telling you. You're afraid he's right.