Characters: Diwa and King (played by rc.)
Content Warnings: Light gore
Location: A hidden room in the cruise ship
A continuation of sorts of double date update, which follows up on Diwa's promise to heal King once they gained more power.
Diwa and King finally execute the deal they made. King's leg is back in business.
TIME: 2:37 AM.
LOCATION: BELOW DECKS, GUEST ROOMS
This hallway, unused for the duration of the show's exclusive use of the ship, is a dark, lifeless place -- there's simply no reason to come down here. The row of doors along the corridor are shut, dark and locked.
Except for one, somewhere in the middle. Light peeks through a door that's been left ajar.
You agreed to meet me here. Don't flake out. (Please.)
(I'm waiting for you.)
Exec. doesn't sleep enough to not notice Diwa sneaking out, but she knows as well as Diwa does that both of them have many skeletons in their closet. Enough for them to go 'I'll tell you later' and leave it at that.
Nobody goes on this floor. It's dark and quiet, and Diwa's footsteps have grown more and more quiet the more time they spend with Exec. So it might almost look like they left King alone.
At least until the door fully opens, bleeding light onto Diwa's all-black clothes. A button up dress put on over sleepwear.
"King," they say, pleasant.
"Diwa," King greets, voice a little hoarse from a lack of use.
The room's furniture, bed and all, have been brusquely pushed to the sides -- creating a raw, gaping hole of old oak flooring in the middle.
King stands in the center of it all, dressed in a plain black robe. Unyielding, as ever.
Something like fear catches in their throat. They look at Diwa, thumbing the red necklace and empty vial around their throat as they do so. King chokes out their next words.
"...Whenever you're ready."
Magic is second nature to them, so much so that they're almost surprised at King's nerves. Their rational mind reminds them that of course King would be nervous. There really is no other way to be.
"Sit wherever you'd like and lay your leg flat."
They set a black briefcase on a distant table and open it up. Thumb through the materials.
"Would you like anything? Water?"
"No," King replies, firm.
They take a cautious seat on the floor. One leg splayed out in front of them, the other tucked underneath themselves. The robe slips from their knee, here, revealing a black, canvas brace that swallows their right knee and some of their thigh. Their hands hover over it, an unsaid question. This has to come off too, doesn't it?
They give Diwa a cautious glance. Part of it is a mistrust in magic, but, really, a lot of it is thanks to the nature of its user. Ruthlessly competitive, selfish to the core. A quality they'd respect, when they weren't placing their life in those hands.
Still, King thinks, there's really left to lose.
Death would be a mercy. It has been, for a while.
"Last chance, Diwa. If you want anything from me. Ask, and it's yours."
They cast a look at King's brace and wordlessly nod. It wouldn't work with anything covering King's skin, anyway.
They are unbothered by King's caution because, at the end of the day, they are trusting Diwa to do this regardless. It does not matter what King feels toward them, and they won't work to win his trust now.
King sees Diwa pull out what looks like a small ink pot, and ||slice the palm of their hand, letting the blood drip into the pot.|| There is a bamboo reed pen beside it.
"Mm..." They look unbothered by the pain, but sound like, for the first time, they are considering King's offer.
"I want your unconditional friendship. No matter what happens during or after the weddings."
Yes. It's true. They'll both do what it takes. King respects Diwa for that exact reason.
Their fingers hover over the velcro strap of their brace.
"Friendship. What exactly does that entail?"
"Let's keep talking and spending time together, shall we? I've grown fond of you over time."
Their voice sounds as neutral and calm as ever. They are mixing something else into the jar of blood.
"I didn't think you were someone who lacked companionship," King bites back. "You're breaking Exec.'s heart."
But it's not a no. Gingerly, King pulls apart the clasps of their brace, and slides it off their leg.
The skin underneath is ||an angry, mottled red, bruised and chafed blue where their brace rubs against their knee. The kneecap itself is dented, a little misaligned from the rest of their leg. Like an angry animal in a trap, killing itself in a struggle to escape. ||It's not a pretty sight.
King doesn't acknowledge it, nor do they ask Diwa what they're doing. They do, however, watch them with keen intent. Curious of their methods.
"Oh, did I make it come off that way?" A sharp laugh. "I'm not close to anyone outside of this show. I wasn't lying in my introduction. I am lonely." Whether King believes it or not is up to them.
They're done with the mixture. King can see Diwa suck in air through their teeth as they see the injury properly. They kneel next to King, proper, placing the pen and ink pot beside them.
"This will feel mildly uncomfortable. We can clean the blood off after I'm done." They dip the pen in the pot, staining the brand new wood red. Carefully, Diwa begins drawing a large rune around King's knee.
A hmph. "I don't doubt that. But it's something you chose. Is it not?" Diwa isn't the type of person to just let anyone in, King thinks. They appraise people like items. A collector with a keen eye wouldn't keep finely cut diamonds and their crude imitations in the same room.
They watch her work, silent, refusing to wince at the unfamiliar sensation of cold mixture on their skin. Look, Diwa.
See how the mighty have fallen.
"I know," King murmurs. Silent. "I'm not scared of pain."
"I just never saw the point, I suppose. Friends would've been a hindrance to me."
They're going slower than they have in the past. Their brow is furrowed in concentration. Maybe that's why the words come easier to them, instead of their usual calculation to remain vague and ominous.
"But I'm reaching a new stage in my life. I don't want to lose sight of my humanity." Always seeking something to ground them, even saying so in their emails. "I suppose I would feel sad if you decided to leave after all this."
Once they're done they'll chide King over the new care they need to ensure to make sure this never happens again. Turning back time can only heal so much, really, and if they strain themself again they'll land in the exact same position they did last time. But they understand the desperation enough to not look down on King for the injury.
"Good." This might test that. But they'd hate to scare King off.
King scoffs. "I'm not going to. We made a deal." They tilt their head back, stretching their neck, resisting the urge to yawn. It's been a long day. They're exhausted. "-I make it a point to pay my debts."
Diwa knows this. No sportsman with some modicum of self-respect would think of cheating. If Diwa could save them, then, well --
"Do your worst, Diwa." A sigh. Get on with it.
"Good." Again. "Don't forget it."
The runes are small and intricate and surround King's knee and leg. Diwa is careful about it, more precise, constantly pausing to check over their work before continuing. They've begun mumbling what sounds like words, though it makes no sense once it reaches King's ears.
And then, it begins.
A searing pain which feels like it collapses into King's leg. It starts with their bones and slowly grows outward, like an unshakeable power rearranging the very molecules inside their body.
The runes begin to glow golden. Diwa is eerily still, eyes closed, still muttering.
King braces themselves, but it's still not enough to stave off the pain when it actually hits.
Fuck.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
Their eyes snap shut, body rocking forward so they can curl into themselves, tightly wound -- King vaguely feels the pain of their nails digging into their palms and the tang of blood against their teeth - that must've been their lip or tongue, they dimly think.
It feels like falling, all over again.
The initial impact, the ||hard shattering of bone on cold, hard, ice. It's something you can feel, you know. The yank of your bone out from under you, the tear of muscles around it, decades of work dashed in a single second.||
And then you fall further. Further, further, further yet.
Further. Into a world of sickening, hot, pain, cruel enough to kill, numb enough to convince you you're already dead.
Even further yet. Darker, with each second, a dragged-out last exhale of life, an overextended epilogue. A heavy price must be paid to lift the anchors of permanence.
King's whole body shakes, convulses once, and they let out a whine, high-pitched and desperate.
But, still, they hold on. It's not over yet.
They don't heal people much. Before the show, they purposefully stayed away from ever helping people. Because you get invested. Because you get attached.
In King Diwa sees so many of their siblings all at once. They focus on the chanting but have just enough mind left to remember their sister scraping her knee. Her crying as Diwa washed the wound off with sea water and an old rag. How they wished then that they could make her pain go away so she could go back to play with the others.
They were never one for playing. They simply watched, in the sidelines, ready with anything they'd need. And when they cried Diwa would wipe away their tears and try and make them laugh and the day they left none of them could even look at Diwa anymore. This is how life works. They want to make the pain go away all over again. They want to see King smile and fuck, they hate it. They hate it all.
So they speed up. The body remembers these injuries and Diwa sees how the injury goes from an old and settled displacement to fresh and angry. And they keep going. A month back, so King has the chance to work on it. Prevent it before it happens again.
Their free hand goes to King's shoulder. They rub it with their thumb and forefinger--a distant attempt at being comforting. Grounding, maybe.
Diwa's comfort falls, unfortunately, on deaf ears and numb skin. They're still falling, falling, falling, neurons on fire in ice-cold, searing agony. You don't get off the ice until your program is done.
Dimly, they wonder if their body even remembers how to land a quad jump anymore. Lutzes. Salchows. Toe-loops. And Axels, the death-kissed Axels, the one jump they'd loved the most - and which had ended everything for them.
With great effort, King fights their eyes open, vision blurred by tears and pain. Clumsily, with a shaky hand, they find Diwa's hand on their shoulder -- King closes their fingers around their wrist in a silent scream. It's not a prayer, no, it's too late for that. Oh, they've been a fool, all this while. Foolish to believe this would amount to anything, that just by changing this one small thing, they'd be able to rewrite their own history.
If they could muster the energy to speak, they'd laugh at themselves. Ask, Diwa, did you know? The first thing they teach people learning to ice skate is how to fall. There's a million things that could go wrong. Here, and in the future.
I don't want to fail again, They think, and this time it really is something like a prayer. I don't know, Diwa, Sam, Anyone -- God -- I don't know if I can survive another fall.
King's grip on Diwa's is cruel, unrelenting, hard enough to bruise. The pose they find themselves curling into is almost fetal. Reminiscent of a small child, alone, who'll come to learn that no one will save them no matter how hard they cry. They'll still dream of being saved, though. When it's dark at night, and there's no one around to listen.
"Di-wa," King chokes out, and this comes easy to them -- a wish as old as time -- "...please, don't - don't go-"
For all their cruelty, Diwa dislikes pain. It is a means to an end, for the most part, but you will usually not catch them hurting themself for fun, or if they don't need to be hurt. But they don't move their hand off of King's shoulder even when the grip starts to hurt. They chew the insides of their mouth in concentration.
The least they could do for King is make the spell perfect. Going back to their prime is up to them.
Once you finish turning back time like this you must re-establish the natural order so the rest of the body does not try and follow. So Diwa does that, and they know they are prolonging the pain, but they have no choice. The next thing King feels is a sensation as if their leg is clamping down on them, crushed under an invisible pressure that keeps it from moving. This is one of the most complicated spells they've ever done.
King's words almost break the concentration. The sensation pauses, for a second--Diwa's hand lingers over King's leg. It's quiet. There is an unfamiliar, tight feeling in their throat and it is more unpleasant than the open wound still on their palm.
"I'm here," they say, and soften their voice as much as they can. The spell continues. Their eyes burn. "I'm staying. We're okay."
Diwa's spell is unforgiving in its thoroughness -- a well-conducted orchestra, each sensation in their skin a sharp staccato. ||King feels each thick rope of muscle in their knee bend into one another, intertwining gracefully, dead ends jolted awake again|| -- the beginnings of a fresh spring after a long winter. It's so close. They're so close. They can almost taste the sun, if they reach forward, they could just --
Oh, they feel it. There's a moment of blissful, serene silence as the pain lifts, and then it returns in full force -- a relentlessly suffocating weight that penetrates every inch of their being and works its way up into their throat. It takes every fiber of their being to temper the swell of pain and desire to do anything, anything at all to put a stop to the pain. Their will, iron-clad, frays at the seams.
A ragged howl is dragged from King's lips. Even further. They drag themselves down, down, down -- all the way, back to the start, to their first skating class.
The yank of their skate's laces being pulled tight, the then-unfamiliar sharp tang of the rink's cold air. The voice of a woman - navy blue hair, sharp smile, an even sharper sense of ambition. And she said, she said -
I'll tell you. How you're going to live your life.
And then, the rest was cold. Cold. Empty. Freezing, they're freezing, and it's not just their leg. Everything has turned to ice.
Their hand goes clammy on Diwa's, but it stays. For the first time, they skate something more than a solo - a pairs routine.
You lead, I follow. We travel in tandem.
They're dizzy now, but this is so much more than making a singular item float. They are acutely aware of the way King's leg is changing, aware of how they're settling the molecules in their body into place so they don't react to what's essentially a leg that is one year younger than their owner. Everyone always thinks lengthy healing is nice, but the worse the injury the harsher the pain. No one goes into surgery expecting immediate relief.
They wonder if they could ever be brave enough to hash out this type of pain for their siblings and decide it is not worth time thinking about. Diwa is unsure whether the tears in their eyes are from exertion or emotion.
The magic hits its peak and then, like a puzzle piece settling into where it belongs, everything stills. Diwa's hand hovers over King's knee, anxious. Nothing happens. The spell is done. The time has been reversed.
They turn and wrap their arms around King, loose and weary.
King doesn't feel it, not at first, when everything comes to a sudden end. Their adrenaline tides them over for a few additional seconds, blood roaring in their ears, before everything comes to an abrupt stop.
It's ridiculous, but - for a moment, they almost expect a waiting crowd to start applauding.
Instead of a graceful bow and a turn on their skates before they clear the rink, all King can do is lean forward, head slumping into the crook of Diwa's neck as they gasp for breath, heaving with exhaustion. In turn, they accept Diwa's weight, balancing them against their own center of gravity -- only lifting their head for a few seconds to look at the other person.
It was Diwa, after all, who'd been their solution. Who could've known? The mysterious magician who they'd hated, despised for a good while -- and now, they were indebted to them for a good two to three years.
King blinks tears from their glassy eyes, straining from the effort to keep their body, now covered in a light sheen of sweat, upright. They muster a small smile, before mouthing very softly at the other, I - O - U.
And then, with a thunk, they lean back against Diwa, heavy and limp and, after a few seconds, entirely still.
King doesn't move, not after that.