He heard me coming. Glancing over his shoulder, he looked me up and down before nodding. "You're looking good. Did you eat?"
"Everything left in the house," I confirmed, settling down in the fall yellow grass and resting my arms on my knees. "Need any help?" The fence looked fine to me, sturdy as hell. Chain link, which sat oddly in the pastoral setting, and now he was stringing wire along the top. I didn't know much about that sort of thing, but he looked to be in the process of turning the fence into an electric one. A very large electric one, and I had a good idea who it was for. Catcher had… spells. An old-fashioned word, but an apt one. I'd seen only one of them and I had no desire for a repeat performance. It would be unpleasant, damn unpleasant, if he ran off in the midst of one of them.
"No. I'm almost done." The reply was a curt and clear "Keep away" sign.
I respected the unspoken request. In his position it wasn't something I would've cared to chat about either. "No problem," I said easily. "Manual labor's never been a hobby of mine anyway. Just ask Nik."
That stopped him in his tracks. Setting aside his tools, he turned, head tilted down toward me. "He's fine, you know. Healthy as a horse. I patched him up, but he probably could've done without me. Forget flesh and blood. Your brother's made of piano wire and pure grit."
"Yeah, he is." Tough and gruff Rafferty trying to reassure me, it was one for the record books. Darkling hadn't been far off on that one. The man didn't waste much time on bedside manner; he was more concerned with keeping patients alive. In the dire straits he was often called into, there wasn't always time for both. Running a piece of grass through my fingers, I ducked my head, then sucked it up and met his eyes. "Sorry for all the shit we brought to your door." Even through the haze he'd used to soften the edges of my memories, I still recalled the expression on his face as I'd watched him with silver eyes. Sheer revulsion, the kind saved for something wholly unnatural. "Not to mention what I brought inside me."
He snorted. "Don't get stuck on yourself, Cal. I've seen worse than that piece of shit. Hell, I've wiped my ass with worse."
Utter bullshit, every word of it, but I still appreciated the effort. "Gee, I had no idea you were such a badass," I remarked blandly. His choice in bathroom hygiene I thought better left undiscussed.
"But I always knew you were a smart one," he growled, getting back to his work with a snort. "Go wake your brother up. It's time he ate something too. After that, send him back to bed. And if he has a problem with that"—I caught only a glimpse of the smile, but it was enough to make me glad I wasn't Nik—"you come tell me."
I could handle Niko myself, but that didn't mean I wouldn't enjoy watching him at the mercy of someone else for a change. "Will do." Standing, I hesitated before saying softly, "Thanks, Raff. For saving my life, keeping me sane. I don't know how to—"
He didn't let me go on, waving a hand at me impatiently. "Get out of here, would ya? I'll never finish if you keep drooling all over me."
Thanks offered and received.
I went ahead and fixed Nik's lunch. I was willing to bet that there wasn't anything remotely acceptable to his palate in a twenty-mile radius. Once again peanut butter sandwiches were the name of the game. I made four and piled them on a plate. I'd finished off the milk and ended up carrying in a bottle of orange juice that hadn't even entered the fermentation state quite yet. A real find. In the surgery I passed through the door and made a wide circle around the area of the floor where Darkling had died. Or if I wanted to be more honest with myself… the area of the floor where I had turned him into a macerated mound of bleeding flesh. Honesty… who the hell needed it?
Putting the food on the small table beside the bed, I leaned over and laid a hand on Nik's shoulder. I could count the times on one hand I'd woken up my brother instead of vice versa. Giving him a light shake, I cajoled, "Up and at 'em, Cyrano." Dark blond lashes parted instantly to show a gleam of irritable gray. Following that, they just as promptly lowered, uninterested. "Okay, be that way," I drawled. "I can always call Robin in. He was saying something about sleeping beauties and princes. I didn't catch it all, but I'm sure he'd be willing to explain it. Maybe even demonstrate it." So much for my resolution to lay off the teasing for a while. But desperate situations called for desperate measures.