( This is my entry for the @brothersapart 2016 Contest:http://brothersapart.tumblr.com/post/136391836334/brothers-apart-contest-2016 . Enjoy! )
Ziana slept for a total of five minutes while sitting by Shay’s bed. Spending the majority of the day and evening scoping out rooms for food and non-existent medication took more out of her than she cared to admit, but she didn’t dare go to bed after her encounter with the man claiming to be brothers with a friendly human.
A stressful day overall.
She blinked hard and shook her head as she came out of her brief nap. Standing up, she stretched her sore arms over her head; that was what she got for sitting with her arms crossed so tightly for hours. Shay was curled up with her back to Ziana, the blanket pulled up to her chin.
Dim light filtered from one wall. The lamps were on in the motel room on the other side. It had to be morning at least, judging by the rumble of footsteps coming from the room. Ziana could only hope that meant the “brothers” were preparing to leave that morning. After all, Sam claimed they would only stay for one more night.
“Good morning,” Ziana said in a singsong voice, moving over to the table to scrape up some breakfast. Not for her; she could do without, but Shay needed to eat and keep her strength up if they wanted any hope of breaking that fever. “Looks like Sam decided not to have his human come rain hell on us.”
When she received no answer, she looked over her shoulder from the crinkly wrapper.
“Shay?” she called, a little louder.
A barely audible moan came in reply.
Dropping the crumbs on the table, Ziana rushed back to the bed and leaned over Shay to turn her over. Skin hotter than ever, Shay fluttered her eyelids a few times but couldn’t keep them open more than halfway before they drooped back shut.
“Shay? Say something, come on!” Ziana sat on the edge of the bed and pulled the other girl’s upper body into her arms, giving her a rough shake. “Come on!”
“M’sleepy,” Shay murmured, peering at Ziana from under her eyelashes. “Just… a little more sleep. I’ll be fine.”
“Don’t give me that! You know this isn’t okay!”
Ziana bit her lip and shifted Shay’s weight to one side so she could peek under the bandage on Shay’s upper right arm. Bracing herself, she lifted the edge of the wrapped cloth and almost gagged; the skin around the gash was angry red and swollen. She didn’t look at it long enough to be sure, but some nasty stuff seemed to have built up on and around it.
“Gross,” Ziana hissed, cradling Shay back into both arms. “I’ll look again today for some medicine. Hell, even an actual bandage. I swear, I won’t come back until I–Shay?”
The other girl’s eyes were no longer even at half-mast. Her eyelids didn’t so much as twitch in response to Ziana’s voice. The only signal that assured Shay was alive was the weak tickle of breath on Ziana’s neck. But who knew for how much longer that would last if they carried on like this, with no proper medication for the festering wound.
Maybe we can help, she remembered the man from the motel room saying.
“Shut up, Sam,” Ziana muttered, clutching Shay more protectively at the mere thought of the massive human stomping through the room just beyond the wall. Dean, Sam had called him.
Shay let out a soft, shuddering sigh like a whimper, her head falling limply against Ziana’s shoulder. Her breaths came slower, and she began to shake. For a few agonizing moments, Ziana sat there on the edge of the bed, aware that Shay’s skin could go from burning hot to icy cold in a matter of hours if she didn’t do something.
“Fine, fine, fine!”
There was nowhere else to turn. She secured one arm around Shay’s shoulders and slipped the other under her knees to scoop her up. Too desperate to change her mind there and then, Ziana rushed to the passage leading to Sam and Dean’s room.
~~~
By the time she reached the opening behind the nightstand, Ziana had considered going back home no less than a dozen times. It occurred to her that she hadn’t brought her climbing gear. Not that it mattered. Hauling Shay around meant that hooks and ropes weren’t going to do either of them any good. Still, she felt naked without her usual supplies. She wanted to kick herself for not grabbing her needle on the way out, at least.
If Sam was lying and Dean was the snatch-em-up type, she and Shay were royally screwed. But what else could she do? She couldn’t leave Shay to die, even if others would do just that rather than go to a human for help. She could barely handle watching Shay when she first broke out in a fever.
The floor shook again–a sure sign that Dean hadn’t left the room. The drone of the TV was mere background noise between the human’s stomping and Ziana’s instincts screaming in her head to flee back to safety.
A glance down at Shay’s troubled face was enough to force Ziana through the opening and walk along the edge of the wall. She moved out from behind the nightstand, but stayed hidden between it and the bed’s shadows.
The towering human stood by the far table, packing things up by the looks of it. Sam hadn’t been lying when he said they were only staying for that night, and it seemed neither of the “brothers” had pursued any interest in finding people in the walls after last night’s incident.
Ziana swallowed hard. “H-Hey,” she said, quieter than a mouse.
And then Dean’s boots were on the move.
Ziana held Shay tighter, biting back a cry and shoving her back against the wall, but the human didn’t move in her direction. In fact, it seemed he was still minding his own business. He hadn’t even heard her. She squared her shoulders and tried again when he stopped moving in front of the dresser.
“Hey.” It wasn’t much louder than the first time.
Again, she was ignored.
Feeling her cheeks grow hot, she bit down hard on her lower lip and released a long, shrill whistle to get his attention. “Hey!” she roared. The giant’s movements paused. “Yeah, I’m talkin’ to you, long legs!”
The moment the words left her lips, Ziana realized she should have at least left Shay within the opening of the passageway until she could get a better read on Dean’s personality instead of carrying her vulnerable friend directly into danger. She should have grabbed her needle. She should have had a backup plan in case things went south.
She should have not yelled at a freaking giant.
But it was far too late to take it back and do it over. The boots turned and started for the nightstand.
Tag: ziana
Nowhere Else to Turn (Part 2/8)
( This is my entry for the @brothersapart 2016 Contest: http://brothersapart.tumblr.com/post/136391836334/brothers-apart-contest-2016 . Enjoy! )
Heart still pounding, Ziana navigated the short distance to her home. If Sam had come any deeper down the path, he might have found it. She wanted to kick herself for not heading in the opposite direction when she retreated upon being spotted. When he caught up to her, she thought for sure it was all over–all because of a stupid mistake. All because she had to go check if the human and his small companion would be checking out of the motel any time soon and put her mind at ease.
Falling to a crouch, she scooted off the edge of the wooden path to fall into the ‘foyer’ of her home. She removed her satchel and needle, blinking in the pale light that washed the low-ceilinged room beneath the floorboards. It was a modest place separated into three main sections: a general area for eating and food storage, and two bedrooms.
“You were talking to someone,” a voice rasped from the corner when Ziana walked into the far left bedroom. Shay sat up halfway in bed, propped on her elbows. Her arms arms shook, barely able to hold her torso up.
“Lay back down,” Ziana said with all the authority of a parent, though her friend was only a year younger than her. “It was nobody.”
The blonde flopped back down with a droll sigh, pushing in both sides of her pillow to fluff it up. “Well then, ‘Nobody’ has a deeper voice than yours. C’mon, who was it? New neighbors?”
“Just some guy.”
Ziana refused to look at her, feeling a stab of guilt at the tone of hopefulness in Shay’s voice. She set her satchel down on the lopsided table across from the bed and rummaged through it. Usually she would go straight to the pantries to store most of it, but Shay needed food now. As terrified as Ziana was to see a human shaking the floor in the next motel room over, that hadn’t stopped her from checking out the other rooms to scrounge up some food.
Still, she had messed up by letting Sam spot her. If she hadn’t known that he was hanging around with that human, she might have led him straight to Shay upon meeting him. After all, it would have never crossed her mind that someone their size was chummy with a giant.
What she wished at the moment, though, was that Shay had been sleeping like she was supposed to. Then she wouldn’t have heard Sam.
“Some guy?” Shay echoed, a faint smile in her voice. “What, did you try to flirt him into finding us some meds?”
Ziana gave a tight chuckle. “No. Just some guy. Just passing through.”
“Liar,” Shay insisted. “What’d he look like?”
“Oh, dreamy. Tall, brown hair, hazel eyes, and out of his damn mind.”
There was a pause, and even with her back turned, Ziana knew Shay’s smile fell. “Hey. Ziana, what’s going on?”
Ziana slammed the wrapped granola crumbs down on the makeshift table so hard that she was surprised it didn’t collapse. “He’s with a human,” she said, baring her teeth. “I saw them. They were talking. The human was holding him, carrying him around. The guy says his name’s Sam. He came to check if anyone was here, and now he knows.”
When the explanation was met with silence, Ziana sighed and made herself turn around. If Shay’s cheeks weren’t so flushed with fever, she would have been paler than pale.
“Then we need to get out of here,” Shay croaked, adjusting herself to sit up and put her legs over the side of the bed.
“No, no, no, you’re too sick.” Ziana rushed over to push her shoulders back down and yank the blanket back up. “Look, I gave the guy a black eye that I’m sure he’ll cherish for the next week or so, and I called him out on what he was trying to do. He left. I don’t think he’ll be bothering us anymore.” She tried to sound sure of herself, but Shay didn’t buy it.
“You punched a guy and he went back to his gigantic human friend? Oh yeah, nothing can go wrong there.” Nonetheless, Shay didn’t try to get up again. Her breaths came shorter, rife with agitation. “What did he say when you told him you knew?”
Ziana snorted a humorless laugh and stepped back to grab a sticky piece of granola for Shay–the biggest one she could get her hands on. “He tried to tell me that the human doesn’t want to hurt us, obviously. Then he tried to feed me some bullshit story that the human is his brother. I dunno, I think he was trying to throw me off. He probably would have offered to introduce me to the guy if I didn’t have my needle out.”
She helped Shay sit up before passing her the food so she wouldn’t choke on her meal. Exiting the room briefly, she returned from the kitchen with a half empty bottle cap of water, setting it carefully on Shay’s lap while she ate. Ziana pulled up a stool constructed from a block of wood next to the bed and sat down.
Munching pensively on her granola, Shay frowned at the thin blanket. “What if he’s telling the truth, though? I mean, the human is letting him walk around in the walls without worrying that he’ll run off. Doesn’t sound like something a human would do. Maybe he’s… different.”
She received a laugh in response. “This fever’s getting to you,” Ziana dismissed, giving Shay a playful tap on the side of her head.
“I’m serious,” Shay insisted, waving her off. “What if… I dunno, what if you asked Sam if his human could give us some medicine? Maybe we wouldn’t even have to meet the human! I mean, if he’s as nice as Sam says he is, wouldn’t he help?”
Ziana went quiet. She hadn’t even thought about that, seeing as she hadn’t considered for even a moment that Sam told the truth. Shaking her head, she brushed off the idea of that being possible. “So what if the human lets Sam walk around? The guy’s probably trained up so well that the human doesn’t have to worry about his pet running off. We’ve gotten through fevers before, Shay. You’re going to be fine without some human’s help. Got it?”
Shay licked her dry lips and gave Ziana a long, uncertain look that sent another wave a guilt through Ziana. What, is she not worth the risk? a voice taunted at the back of Ziana’s mind. You’ll let her suffer because you won’t take a chance? Selfish, selfish, selfish.
“Yeah, you’re right,” Shay murmured finally. “He’d probably just trap us.”
Blinking hard, Ziana nodded firmly.
After offering Ziana the rest of her food, Shay slid back down in the sheets and curled up on her side. Once her breaths evened out to a peaceful rhythm, Ziana pressed a hand to her cheek, dismayed to find Shay was burning up worse than ever. The bandaged gash on her arm was most certainly infected, and their best option for obtaining medicine was unthinkable.
Sighing, she ran her hand through Shay’s blond hair and pressed a kiss to her forehead.
“You’re going to be fine,” Ziana whispered. “We don’t need them.”
Brothers Apart 