#* & five plus one senses of love — mercy & jie .

[tewwor]

𝐄𝐃𝐈𝐓𝐒 — 𝐌𝐄𝐑𝐂𝐘 & 𝐉𝐈𝐄 .

@womanlives long overdue.. full quote here! | only mutuals may interact

[tewwor]

If it'd been just them, those weighed by the inner workings of 0, he would've stayed quiet. Kept his bloodied mouth shut tight and let the big dolt work his weird fucking ways. But it wasn't just the three of them. There's four, and the fourth outweighs in importance. He's kept Mercy's name out of their mouth for a reason. Knows that, despite their good intentions, it's easy to be dragged in and muddled with a whole different brand of fuckshit.

Too late now. They're all here because of him.

His hackles were raised the second Jie came to; before those weak, snapping words even left his heavy tongue. Mercy's here and he's on high alert, even if they're on the same team. He hears how she talks to him. Torn between how the sound of Mercy's voice acts as a balm to his haggard heart, and how badly he wants to lunge forward and sink his teeth into those stupid hands. Instead, he catches sight of Seojun's eyes. Steady. Grounding. Composed.

The depth of growling lets up slowly. His head cants towards Mercy's way, seeking comfort wherever she may go. Jie stutters a huff. Sounds more like the way he usually offsets his temper, albeit much fainter. "Either that or the head," he gripes back, means it as a joke but the translation's lost by the way he tracks Amine's movements. Jie knows what's coming. He'll be better prepared for the spike in pain now that he's aware. "Just.. Stay." A partial breath is drawn in through the nose. "Please."

The ribs still hurt like a bitch, but it pales in comparison to his stomach. Instead of thrashing and yowling, Jie barely makes a peep. His jaw's back to tensing, brows forever furrowing together. He tries not to crush Mercy's hand, but squeezing it tight is inevitable. It takes the same amount of time before Amine's finally moving away. Sits back on his haunches, looking like a barely put together ragdoll.

A pair of hands are there to support Cruor from the back. Vector made his way over at some point. Gives a reassuring smile down at the shivering man. The switchblade Cruor gripped is finally freed from his palm. He wipes the blade clean on the hem of his shirt without looking. Pockets it without another thought. "All good." Shaken as he is, Cruor still tries for a smile. Looks like he's about to sneeze, but he doesn't have time to worry about it. His vision's softening to black already. The blood was too much — both from and around him.

Cruor faints and goes slack against Vector's support. The elder healer merely sighs inwardly. Lays the apprentice down on the gentlest he can ( tall and wide as Cruor is, he's heavy ). "Don't worry, this happens. While he can heal with his own blood... He's also squeamish around it, too."

"Dumbest shit I ever heard." Jie comments, grumbling even though he knows some gratitude's warranted later.

There’s a common trope in literature. Two characters find themselves in a bad situation. In an attempt at levity, the first says to the other, “Well, it’s not like it can get any worse, can it?” And then it starts to rain. Classic. Mercy’s a sucker for it when she’s the one reading it.

Living it, however.

Amine. Seojun. Names she’ll forget within the next few breaths. Not critical to Jie’s survival; therefore, not critical to hers. What she does fixate on is the movement. Big Guy — Amine? — steps forward, jittery and uncertain. The healing won’t be nice. Calm Guy — Seojun — steps in for added context. A knife’s gonna be involved. My blood heals. On instinct Mercy clutches Jie tighter. What the fuck is that supposed to mean? “Who’s going to hurt?”

Probably best there’s no time for an answer. Mercy’s seen some fucked up shit in her worthless little life. Done some, too. What happens next, though? What happens next defies all rule, rhyme, or reason.

Magic. It’s magic. Slap a different name or technical term on it if you want. What Big Guy does is magic. He brings a switchblade to his palm, cuts — no, digs it into his palm. Mercy lets out the breath she didn’t realize she was holding: a hiss of half-sympathy, half-warning. Her eyes track the blade as Big Guy moves it away. Then he just — presses down. On Jie’s wound. Skin-to-skin, blood-to-blood.

It's almost humorously anticlimactic. Until Jie starts screaming.

He sounds like a shot dog. It’s the worst thing Mercy will ever hear in her entire life. Jie’s eyes snap open, sightless and wide. His body convulses, and Mercy panics. This is so far beyond her that she looks outward for reassurance. For help. Big Guy’s no use; his expression is locked in a grimace of discomfort and his eyes are squeezed shut. Calm Guy, though. Calm Guy’s still calm. Calm Guy radiates it like the sun radiates warmth. Calm Guy doesn’t look at her. Calm Guy stares straight ahead at whatever the fuck is happening to Jie, focused but relaxed. Just another Thursday night. His voice echoes in her head. Please keep in mind that it is helping.

Fine. Fuck. “I’m trusting you,” she says through gritted teeth. If it sounds like a surrender, that’s because it is. This is out of her depth, and she hates herself for it.

Mercy spends this short eternity comforting Jie. Or trying to, anyway. She thinks back to when she was broke in both legs and crying and dying. The scariest part was the loneliness of it. So while Big Guy hunches over the both of them and bleeds, Mercy presses her forehead to the side of Jie’s face and whispers to him. I know, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I know it hurts, just a little longer, please, stay with me, I’m sorry, he’s almost done, you’re doing so good baby, I’m sorry. She only pauses when she needs to take a breath.

Big Guy interrupts. Mercy looks up at his hands. They’re massive, and shaking, and they make the bullets he extracted look almost comically small. What the — ? Actually? Who has time to give a fuck. Mercy follows his gaze to Jie’s torso and blinks. It’s healed. Completely. Covered in blood, sure, but no longer bleeding. The gaping holes are gone. He’s damn near good as new.

“Tell me I’m not dreaming,” she says. She’d laugh if her throat wasn’t so tight. There’s a lot of screams pooling beneath her jaw, begging to be let out. Not yet. “Tell me I’m not fucking dreaming. Is this real?”

Big Guy ignores her and goes for the ribs. Or tries to. There’s a rumble from Jie’s chest, one that vibrates into Mercy’s bones. Gonna kick your teeth in.

Oh my god. He’s okay? Mercy’s gaze whirls to meet his. Jie’s eyes are open. More than that, they’re alert. Angry. Her heart stops. There he is. That’s her man.

Somehow, her laugh gets out. Clipped, maybe, and breathless, but her relief is audible and buoyant. She frees one of her hands so she can wrap it around Jie’s shoulders, hugging him close. Her face presses to his; she drops a messy kiss just to the side of his lips. “Shut up.” She’s so happy. She feels like she’s floating. Like her laugh lifted her way. “You let him work. He’s fixing you.”

Jie’s okay, Jie’s okay, Jie’s okay, Jie’s okay —

After a moment she releases him. For the first time since the door opened, Mercy uncoils. Not fully, mind, but enough. She slips to the side so she won’t get in the way of Big Guy and Jie’s ribs. Her hand still tangled with his relinquishes him with a little squeeze. Behave. She gives a curt nod in Big Guy’s direction. “Keep going.”

Then, an octave lower, murmured against Jie’s cheek, “Big words for someone who got shot twice.” A solemn pause. “He’s gonna start again. Can I do anything for the pain?”  

[tewwor]

Sure enough, it's that same voice that answers.

Cruor steps up to heave against the barricaded door. The metal protests and groans, but gives way after a long second. The state of things are catastrophic inside. Then the first delicate crunch of glass sounds, and they both look down immediately. What in the world happened? Why does it look like an entire glass manufacture exploded? Disquieted, but no less determined, they step carefully through the debris. Over the long expired corpses. Through the blooming pools of rosewood blood.

They spot two figures in the far off room. One of which sits hunched, knife sharp and wound tight in vigil. The darkened glare feels just as potent as the fallen on his best of days.

"Hi, um, ma'am." Surprisingly, Cruor's the first to break their silence. He maneuvers past the elder healer, steps further into the common space with open facing palms. It only takes about five big strides to reach the pair. Nervous and fear ridden as he is of the felled hound, his instinct to help takes over. "I'm Amine, that's Seojun." A thumb's jabbed backwards towards Vector. "Not sure how much he told you about us, but, ah... It's not going to be, nice? The healing—"

"Amine, go ahead and work on him. I can explain things," Vector suggests, a pleasant smile scratched thin across his mouth despite the urging.

"—'kay." Cruor gives himself one last second to steel his wits against the bloodbath below. It's okay, it's nothing, it's a lot of nothing — holy shit that's a lot of blood. Already, he feels nauseated, but he doesn't pale just yet. A hand gently removes any cloth and gauze from where the bloodflow looks heaviest. Fingers stop short just before the exposed ruin of Jie's stomach.

"Before he starts, I want to warn you how a knife will be involved. It won't be used to harm him, I assure you. Amine, here, needs it to.. Bloodlet, so to speak."

Slowly, oh so slowly, does Cruor slip a switchblade into his free hand. The quiet shink sounds far too loud in the otherwise stagnant air. "My, um, blood heals." It's the easiest way to explain. He lifts the exposed blade for the lady to see first. Then he moves it to the palm of his already bloodied hand. Presses it deep to spill forth a rivulet just over the gut wound. "It's going to hurt, a lot." For Jie, he means, but the teeth gritting pain already starts to voice itself from the way the hound groans.

"It's going to sound harrowing," Vector adds, now grim-faced but with an air of empathy. "Please keep in mind that it is helping. Amine's blood speeds up the regenerative properties of the body—"

The groan turns into a throaty rasp, a second winded rattle. "Please don't punch me." It's all that Cruor says, quiet like a prayer, before he catches some of his own blood and presses down over the wound. Tightens his grip around the switchblade to dig into the tenderness of his own flesh.

That's when the howling starts. The baying of a limp sickened dog. Every part of Jie goes rigid. His eyes snap open, unfocused on anything but the searing agony reignited in his fucking core. It burns — oh, fuck, does it burn. He writhes involuntarily but doesn't lash out. Some part of him knows who this is, recognizes the method of which his body's forced to mend itself at a faster rate.

Ten minutes of this and the source of suffering finally presents itself. Two stubborn pieces of ammunition clatters from Cruor's shaking hands. The wound is gone. Organ matter, muscles, and skin alike look as if they'd never been scratched. Somewhere between the start of healing and this moment, he closed his eyes. Now, he opens them again. Immediately tries to find a not bloodied body part to focus on. "Hey— uh, ribs?"

"Gonna kick.. Your teeth in." Comes the strained growl, but Jie speaks. He's trembling as well, but his gaze is lucid once more — pinned on the sniveling wimp that's doing him a solid.

Cruor's throat clicks from swallowing dry. "Right, um, ribs." So he repeats the process from stomach to side.

By the time three knocks echo through the halls, Jie is barely there.

But he is there. Mercy knows this because she stole his hands for her own when she ran out of bandages. Curled her fingers through his, been running her thumb along the pulse-point on his wrist ever since. She curls around him like a protective, black-fanged viper.

 Next to her the medkit’s gone to empty. Gauze covers the couch and surrounding floor. All soaked to the bone, through and through and through. It’s gotten harder to hear him, so she’s opted to snuggle in, snuggle close. She rests her head in the crook of his neck and tries her hardest not to count his breaths. Doesn’t lift it until she hears the knocks. Her cheek comes away red.

“Past the kitchen,” she calls out. Compared to the sweet nothings and desperate fucking jokes she’s been whispering to Jie — I’m here, I’m here, I’m here — her voice is loud and harsh. Sandpapery undertones. She’s held back from crying. “Lock’s broken. There’s a body shoved to the door. House is clear. He’s bleeding out.”

Anyone else and Mercy would’ve been on her feet, claws hidden but not sheathed. But this isn’t anyone. This is Jie. Her body tightens but doesn’t move. Her palms itch for the feel of her knife. But they itch for Jie’s touch even more. Oh, well. No choice but to go all in. “Jie? You’re still with me, right?” Mercy gives his hands a gentle squeeze. “Wake up. You gotta introduce me to your friend.”

Well. Friends. Two sets of footsteps echo through Jie’s house. Mercy’s hackles lift. Fine. That’s fine. She can handle it. She’ll do anything she needs to. When the first shadow looms over them, Mercy’s expression is murderous. A fox in her den, puffed between the unknown and her home. Then the other shadow appears, even larger than the first. Fuck. Moment of truth. The monster unlocks her jaw.

“Fix him.” A shaky breath. “Please.”

[tewwor]

"Trust me," he grates out, trying for that smile again. Failing miserably when the hurt surges and he's left partially winded. "Don't wanna." Leave, he means but cannot say.

Death lost its luster after the fifth time around. When it became apparent that his broken, busted body will just reform by astral minerals and crash land back onto this miserable Earth. All of that to say, he hasn't felt fear in dying for quite some time. Before, it'd been just him. Then came Rayaan, that stubborn stupidly reliable shithead. And now, it's Mercy, with her checkered past and spitfire antics. How could he leave her alone? He can't. He won't.

But the shock's coming. It's marching through his veins in a desperate attempt to save itself. Jie has to close his eyes again, but he feels the comfort of her leaning in. Uses that as a means of distraction and not the shit he just opened them up to. Helpful as the healers are in 0, they don't give out favors scotch free. He'll have to take up one of their more gnarly hunts, but that's later. Right now, he just has to hang on until the cavalry arrives.

Something like a barking cough's made. "You'd suck shit.. As a secretary." And he'd make an even shittier employer. "As much... As you want." Whether or not the cards play out right tonight, he means it. Đồ Chua and Bánh mì both, she'll be fed and taken care of no matter what.

 They say good things come in threes. Two of which appear at that steel door with the urgency of first responders.

"I get why we're here, but.." The taller, more bulky, figure hesitates just behind the older gentleman. "Are you sure?"

The shorter of the two levels a slightly amused, slightly exasperated look behind. "Fairly certain that the words 'Jie's dying' makes things crystal clear, Amine." Just saying the wounded's name makes Cruor visibly balk. Vector sympathizes, truly. Whenever Jie's not on the verge of dying, he has a tendency to.. Well, bully the youngest of their bunch. "If it's any consolation, there's a good chance he won't be able to chew you out if he's really in critical condition." And speaking of which.... Three knocks rap on against the reinforced door.

Might as well get this over with before the last third of their party arrives.

If not for Jie’s voice, the world would be burning right now. Outside to inside and then back to outside again. It’s worse than he said, Mercy realizes, as she peels back the pieces of his shirt. Ribs. No shit. The whole left side of his chest is a deep vibrant red from a fresh bruise, and it’s getting darker by the second. Gut. Technically correct. His gut’s a mess. Only problem is, he didn’t mention he’d been shot.

Mercy grabs gauze by the fistfuls and presses them firmly against his open wounds, whispering a soft apology against his skin. Jie, bless him, does his best. Does as she asks even though each breath is agony that makes his whole body shake. Daikon, he says. Đồ Chua. Like you.

Her breath hitches. She jerks her gaze to his. Catches the tail-end of it, the almost-smile, and feels it again. The barest hint. Happiness. No, no, no — bad luck, bad luck, bad —

Jie tells her about the third contact. Everything screeches to a halt.

“Wh-what? But — ”

Dying.

“ — you can’t.”

There she is: the girl from the docks with the bad-burned feet and the off-brand tattoo, the monster she’s been so desperate to hide. Disbelieving, frightened. Helpless. In love.

Angry. So fucking angry. What does he mean, dying? It’s so unfair. What the fuck’s wrong with this world? Hasn’t she been through enough? Hasn’t he? She’s finally gotten used to it. The happiness. How he fits. The way he makes her whole.  

Not dead.

“You motherfucker.” It comes out furious, and scared, but most of all it comes out a confession. Tenderness in every goddamn syllable. Honey pouring from the sides of her mouth. “You do not get to leave. If you give up on me right now, I will never forgive you. Ever.” She wants nothing more than to take his hands and kiss him head on. To give him all of her. Her breath. Heartbeat, marrow, all of it. Whatever the fuck he wants. It’s his. But she can’t lose the pressure on his wounds, and she’s gotta — fuck. She’s gotta make a call.

Mercy shifts her grip so she can keep the gauze down with one hand, then shoves the other in Jie’s pocket to grab his phone. Knows his passcode — of course she does — and swipes desperately to the contacts. It takes two seconds too long, because her fingers are bloody. They slip and smear and leave red streaks along the screen. First contact. Her. Second. Third.

O. No, wait. 0?

She dials.

It’s the longest wait of her life. Even burning alive was faster than this. Probably because this time the flames are on the inside, and now that they’ve started, there’s no putting them out.

A click. The other line picks up.  “Jie’s dying. We’re at — we’re at — ” she blanks for a terrifying moment, then remembers the address. It feels like sacrilege, giving up his secrets like this. She doesn’t care. Anything to save him. “Hurry. Knock three times before you come in or I’ll kill you. I’ll give you whatever you want. Please.”

The line goes dead.

“God.” Mercy makes sure his phone’s ringer is on, then reaches back to get more gauze. Packs it on top of the rest, already soaked and red. It’s too much. Her whole body’s wound tighter than a two-dollar watch. She pitches forward, leaning her forehead against his shoulder. She’s shaking now, too. “Can’t believe you got me making your calls. What am I, your secretary?” A sharp breath. Hold on, baby. Just a little bit longer. “You’re gonna pay me for this, right? Make me đồ chua?”