This was no Accident

Lochlann woke up gasping and clawing at the air. He was a frenzy of desperate movement, writhing in the bed, trying to untangle himself from the monsters holding him back.

But it didn't matter. He couldn't fight it. Lochlann sunk back down into the darkness.

When he woke up again, Lochlann wasn't screaming. The room was dark, the only light being the faint spill over from the small hallway window. He was in a room, one that he recognized and loathed with every irregular heartbeat, but he couldn't remember how he got here, or where he was, or why he hurt so damn badly.

He swallowed and gripped the side of the bed, trying to force himself into a sitting position, but a jolt of pain lanced through him and forced him onto his back. He was covered in a cold sweat and his hands were shaking. He was too hot and too cold. He wanted to scream and run, but he wanted to fall back into unconsciousness. He hated these conflicting feelings.

He tried again to sit up, but again he failed, and now Lochlann was forced to lay still even longer, fighting with his body to try and tame it into submission.

He didn't know where he was. He didn't know how he got here. He didn't know he was so painfully afraid. He barely even knew who he was.

At least he was alone.

At least, that's what Lochlann thought until he heard someone clear their throat.

His eyes searched the dark room and tried to make out the figure in the shadows. He could barely focus, and the fever that was ravishing him made everything blurry. Still, he frowned, and somehow Lochlann managed to wrestle two words out of his mouth, two words that he understood more than anything else right now.

"It's you."

---

"I didn't think I was going to see you again," Lochlann said. He was quiet for a long time after the sentence. His throat was raw and scratched, like he had been screaming, and just the act of looking at her was exhausting him.

He closed his eyes for a minute and when he opened them back up, she was still there. He rolled onto his side to face her, which he immediately regretted, and a soft groan escaped him unwillingly. He clenched his fists, but the pain didn't pass; he just got used to its presence.

"Why are you here?" he asked her. He wasn't sure where he was. He knew where he was. He didn't want to be here, but she was here.

The last time he saw her, she'd shoved a needle into his neck. He woke up outside his apartment building and for the next few weeks, Lochlann did everything he could to try and forget her. None of it had worked.

His voice was barely a whisper when he asked, "Did you come to kill me?"

In the moments of silence, Lochlann kept his gaze on her face. He was made unabashed by the fever and the drugs pumping through him; in many ways, his reactions were the same as someone who had woken up in the middle of a deep slumber.

"I dreamed of you, you know," Lochlann whispered.

He was dreaming of her now, he was sure. Lochlann couldn't piece together a coherent structure of thoughts; he was trapped completely in the present. If he could piece together where he was at, what happened, and what was likely to happen next, Lochlann would have been making a break for the window.

Instead, he simply closed his eyes and nodded when she said she was here to kill him.

"I'm ready then," he said. He swallowed, but his throat was dry and the action did nothing to soothe him. "I'm glad you're going to be the one to do it."

The fight was gone from him until Guinevere handcuffed him to the bed. It took a few tired blinks to realize what she'd done, but the moment it registered his pale face blanched further yet and the heart monitor started to spike in indication of the sudden increase.

"Not like this," he pleaded.

The look on his face was similar to the one she'd given him when he faced her up against the window in her apartment. It was pure reflexive terror.

He didn't even register what she said about his condition because he was just mouthing the word please over and over again. He'd lay still, he wouldn't move, he would make it easy for her if she would just take off the damn handcuffs. Being restrained in the bed like this was worse than dying.

"Please, not like this," he whispered again.

She told him it was going to be okay, but Lochlann's mind had gone somewhere else.

It's going to be okay," she said, tying his wrists to the bed. He pleaded but she just kept telling him it would be okay. Then, they'd shoved a tube down his throat.

His free hand had the IV in it and his arms were covered in the plastic bracelets that marked his allergies and status as a flight risk and other useless information. His attempts were weak, but he fumbled with the handcuffs, finally relenting to scratch at his wrists. His eyes were clenched shut and he'd broken out into another cold sweat that somehow left him freezing.

She had to let him out or he'd--

"Pleas-" he started and then her mouth was on his, taking him by surprise. He kissed her back reflexively, but her mouth was cool and he slowly yielded himself to her. His heart didn't stop racing but he'd stopped clawing at his wrist and exhaustion grabbed at him again.

"Why are you doing this?" he whispered.

Now Lochlann was certain she was dreaming because, in this moment, Guin looked so very human. Up close, he was able to take in enough details to know that she didn't look as flawless as normal. Her eyes betrayed her lack of sleep and her hair wasn't perfectly arranged like a god damn portrait, but it didn't make her look any less beautiful to him.

Because she told him to, Lochlann took a drink.

Even if he tried to fight it, tried to pretend that they never met, the truth was inescapable. Lochlann belonged to her.

His free hand came up to try and hold the cup, but his fingers trembled the entire time. He'd been sedated for so long but it felt like it'd been years since she slept. The water burned his throat, but he was grateful for it, and he murmured his thanks.

"It's not fair," he whispered at her. "I dream of you every time it rains. No matter where I store that ribbon of yours, I wake up holding it. Do you ever dream of me, Guinevere?"

He tried to focus on her eyes, but his gaze kept coming back to her mouth.

"Never?" Lochlann said, frowning. "That's a shame. I didn't fuck you well enough then. I wanted you to wake up whispering my name."

His words were at odds with his physical condition and location, but he didn't seem to realize that. It was a shame he wouldn't get another chance.

He pressed his free hand to his side and closed his eyes. He swallowed again, waiting for the pain to start to fade or at least become a manageable ache. Unknowingly, his cuffed hand had grasped at her fingers, desperate for the contact she offered.

He was unsettled, unable to relax while the handcuffs were on him, but he hurt too much do put up a real struggle.

"I've had this dream before, too," Lochlann told her. "You're there when I wake up. I dream of the way your face looked the first time I kissed you. Do you remember that?"

He opened his eyes and looked at her while she repeated his condition, but no recognition flashed across his face. He shook his head and then had to rest it back down against the pillow because it was too much too soon.

"I don't understand," he said. "It failed what?"

"Is it that absurd?" Lochlann asked. His fingers still gripped hers and his heart was still racing, even if his words and posture were exhausted. Lochlann was all arms and legs and lean muscles, but somehow the bed seemed to be eating him whole like a sterile white monster. He'd never felt so small before, so...incomplete, somehow.

"I've never experienced what I did with you, with another person," Lochlann said. "That wasn't an ordinary fuck for me Guin, but then again, you're not an ordinary person to me, either."

What was she to him? Lochlann was in no state to ask such existential questions. Had he been in less pain, less drugged, he probably would have pondered it for a while, but then again, if he were in a different state they probably wouldn't be having this conversation at all.

A small smile played across his lips, too, at their first meeting, and Lochlann closed his eyes.

"I remember," he whispered. "I wanted to eat you. I wanted to know what that hair of yours looked like floating up in the current while I kissed you. And then you hurt me, and that's when I realized--"

He stopped, because he couldn't quite bring himself to say the words out loud. He could love her, but he didn't, right? He hated her, right? This was the woman who stole his amulet, who shot him, who stabbed him, who took advantage of him, and who....saved him from being an even worse monster.

He was quiet for so long that it might have seen like he'd fallen asleep if it wasn't for the uncomfortable way he shifted in the bed, tangling himself in the sheets. He picked at the IV in his hand, and then at the cuffs, but he lost the energy soon enough.

He laughed at her.

He actually laughed.

"I'm not an addict," he told her. He didn't even know where he was, but he knew that with the conviction that came from absolute certainty that he was not an addict. "But I know what you are, Guin."

“I’m not imagining it,” Lochlann insisted. A small smile played across his lips, the kind of a smile that was shared between two people who knew a secret. His eyes were narrowed and a thin curl of dark hair hung over them like the soft feathers closest to a crow’s heart.

“I’ve had a taste of you and I can’t get enough. I don’t believe in Fate, Guinevere. I don’t believe that our meeting on the beach was anything other than a coincidence, but I do believe that what we shared that night went far beyond chance.”

He closed his eyes again and clenched his fists as the pain worsened. When he opened them, Guinevere’s hands were on his throat. His smile slowly returned and he blinked lazily at her. She was proving him right, even if she didn’t realize it.

“You’re no different than me, Guinevere, although you might be worse,” he said. He reached up his free hand to caress her face and then run it through the strands of her hair that hung over him like prison bars, but he couldn’t keep his hand up for long. He swallowed and his throat pressed up against her gloved hands.

“I kill and eat people, but I’m just doing what nature designed me to do. Every part of me was bred for that purpose. But you?” Lochlann shook his head. “What do you kill for, Guin? What do you get out of it?”

He focused on her eyes and for a moment, the only sound in the room was the lull of the machines keeping time to the tempo of his hear, and Lochlann’s ragged breathing.

“You’re a monster, too, Guin.”

"Everything," she finally said. "I get everything and more."

Lochlann could do nothing but look at her. He was trapped in this body, trapped to the bed thanks to her, trapped in this miserable life.

But he smiled again and said, "I don't believe you."

Her hands were tight and he was struggling to breath as it was, but Lochlann didn't care. He reached up and grabbed her by shirt collar and gave a sharp tug, hoping to unbalance her enough to pull her into the bed with him.

His luck must have been good, or bad depending, because it seemed he was successful. Sure, her hands were still on his throat, but he shifted to allow room to rest his head on the top of hers and close his eyes, breathing in her scent.

She was warm and clean and smelled of her soap, and sleepless nights, and the kind of laundry detergent that removed bloodstains.

So what?

"So you understand me," Lochlann whispered. He clung to her with his one free arm, holding her body up to his. His skin was feverish and hot and this close, it'd be easy to see how his hands were shaking.

With her body splayed against his, hands on his neck, and his hand caressing her hip, their pose might be mistaken as intimate unless a person had ever seen two dogs fighting.

Her hands dropped from his throat and his breathing became deeper, pulling her closer to him yet.

He didn't know what else to say to her, but Lochlann wasn't worried about the silence between them. All he knew was that holding her deadened the pain stronger than morphine ever could.

"I need you," Lochlann said. His voice was barely audible, vibrating because of how close he was to her. He tugged his restrained wrist and let out another whimper, but then clutched her closer to him.

Why was she here? He didn't even know where here was.

He was fading very fast, this fever was tearing at his veins and making the ache in his side knot and twist like a vine choking out an old building.

"I don't know why you're here," Lochlann whispered, "But I don't want you to go."

And then, pressed the top of his head to hers and said, "Please."