Subject to Study (Naga!Brothers x Reader)

Chapter 34

I opened my eyes slowly to see an army tan paint color covering the ceiling and support structure of the room I was in. There was a low humming noise reverberating all around, causing a small headache to form as I sat up from the bed I was laying on.

"...not yet..." A voice whined out sleepily behind me as I was pulled back down into a lying position, a tightness wrapping around my waist while someone cradled around my body. I glanced down tiredly at the arms keeping me on the bed, seeing pale skin with splotches of white and yellow dotted throughout the length of the limb.

Yellow...? I yawned before my mind snapped awake, Jyushi!

I twisted around to see Jyushi laying on top of Kara, his lower half twisted in all kinds of directions within the naga ball. They were all sleeping peacefully, with Jyushi's tail holding Kara, Choro, and Ichi together while Oso and Todo remained separate but still safely within the pile. I lay my hands over Jyushi's arms, cautiously pulling them away from me and pushing myself off of the pile.

"You didn't get much sleep," I heard a female voice call out, "We're only two hours into the flight."

"Two...? It feels like I slept for much longer than that..." I rubbed my tired eyes with the heels of my hands, stifling a yawn as much as I could before my mouth opened wider, "Did any of the others ask for the tranquilizer?"

"Not at all. They just curled around you after you passed out and fell asleep on their own," I recognized the voice belonging to the vet, opening my eyes to see her hold a cup up to her lips as she watched me, "I've got some coffee in a thermos if you need some. I can't guarantee that it'll taste the same at this altitude, though."

"No, I'll be okay," I glanced back at the tangled ball of nagas, "It's been a harrowing few months...so if I fall asleep, I'd like to have it without interruption."

"Understandable," Stacy gave a nod, lowering the cup of coffee from her lips and holding it on top of her knee, "You know, when Jeff had asked me to come on this flight, I almost took it as a joke."

"I can understand why," I moved away from the sleeping nagas to take a seat near her, pulling down the seat of the welded bulkhead chair and getting as comfortable as I could.

"The one that is the most injured...Oso, was that his name?" She looked at me as I gave an affirmative nod, "I had tried to assess his injuries after you went to sleep, but he refused to let me touch him. The lavender corn...Ichi, I think...would I be able to look at the wound on his waist when he wakes up?"

"That depends on what they're comfortable with," I rested my chin on my palm, leaning forward until the elbow connected to my raised knee, "Oso's had those wounds the entire time we were there, but they've been healing slowly with time. He's already shed out once and that took care of the more damaged scales. Ichi...I'm not medically trained, but it didn't seem like the wound was getting worse when I was allowed to see it more closely. I can ask him to let you take a look, but I can't guarantee he'll agree."

"That's all right. I'm not gonna force it to happen," She laughed a little, taking another sip of coffee before bringing a finger up and rubbing the rim of the cup, "I feel like I have to congratulate you for hanging in there. We weren't told much other than where to go, who we were picking up, and what our destination was, but when we found out that we were being hired to rescue people from a bad situation, we started to do research to figure out what was going on."

I stiffened as she spoke, partially wondering if she wasn't someone Calmine had hired to tail us.

"Rebecca was the first to find out about you and the nagas, and found out that several forums had been talking about you guys. One caught her attention and she couldn't do anything other than watch as a small group planned to free the nagas," Stacy sighed as her finger danced along the edge of the cup, "Another forum board had people posting pictures of what the nagas were doing each day, and when the caretaker had suddenly changed from you to someone else, we feared the worst. Jeff got your e-mail a few days later and scrambled the flight."