sirenspull_logs | The Normpocalypse!

It would have been difficult to tell from a distance how he was hunched over his sword, how he was actually shivering, of all things.

For some reason, that last part bothered him more than the injury, more than the immediate practical concerns of his power deserting him. He was cold. He literally could not remember ever being cold during his entire existence. Logically, he'd have felt the sensation when he'd been alive. But he hadn't been alive in over sixty years and had no memory of that life, besides.

The most minor of his problems right now, but it was the strangest and thus it had most of his focus.

He should have been moving. He should have at least been seeking some sort of shelter so he could check his wound. But the combined power loss and blood loss were disorienting; it was taking too long to get his head together. That wasn't right, either. Shinigami could endure injury better than this.

The scent of blood was a temptation to the creatures of the night, and with his senses so dulled, Hitsugaya hardly noticed it before it lashed out at him. But no blast of ice. No flare of kidou. Not even a high-speed dodge. Just a last-minute upturn of his sword to block the claws.

Anyone who had seen him fight before would recognize something off now, even from a distance.

Frau hadn't even considered calling out when he spotted the creatures closing in on Hitsugaya. He knew perfectly well that Hitsugaya could take care of himself, easily saw the monster coming, and had already formulated a plan. Only when he put the plan into action Frau's frown deepened. It looked like he was barely holding the thing off, which was ridiculous.

A moment later it clicked. Maybe he wasn't the only one who had suddenly lost abilities that were normally second nature to use. Possible, and if it was true then Hitsugaya could be in trouble. Swearing softly Frau grabbed his coat before bounding out the door to help. Or at least try to help. He knew that about the only thing he could do at the moment was snatch Hitsugaya up and book it toward the apartment again. Hopefully that would be enough.

Yes, he was in a bit of trouble. Not that he would admit it to anyone else. Because he didn't do things like that.

He sidestepped out of his own block; that extra bit of strength he usually had was even failing him now. Just a scrawny kid with a sword. That was essentially what he was at this point. If he'd stayed in the block, he would have toppled.

Weak, slow, injured, cold. No, he still couldn't get over that last one. What the hell was going on? Was there a Void nearby? If there was, he was going to gut the damn thing, powers or no. But he had to dispatch this creature first. If he couldn't overpower it, he'd just have to out-think it.

Which would have been easier without blood loss, but the situation was what it was.

Don't waste movement, look for an opening. Turning his back to get away would be more dangerous than fighting. Even without powers, he still had a weapon and he knew how to use it.

And he managed to lop one of the thing's hands off when it came for him, but the damn beast still kept coming. He really hated the Darkness monsters sometimes.

Frau wasn't worried about turning his back to a darkness creature even without any weapons. He was used to watching his back, and no abilities made him better at that. Well, his abilities as a ghost did, but that was only for things that were out of the ordinary. This he could keep track of with his normal senses.

He slipped around the side of the building, staying in the shadows where the darkness creature couldn't see him. Once he'd gotten as close as he could undercover, he waited a moment more, preparing himself, before running forward. In one swift movement he snatched Hitsugaya up and hightailed it back toward his apartment, monster right on his heels. It would be a damn close call, but he could make it. He hoped.

There was also the fact that Frau wasn't currently hampered by an injury. Hitsugaya trusted his mind a lot more than he trusted his speed right about now.

Of course, that meant his focus was narrowed and he didn't even notice Frau bolt out of the shadows to hoist him up. In fact, he nearly attacked when he was lifted, but the split-second glance up to a familiar face relaxed him marginally and he reversed the stroke to stab into one of the monster's remaining hands -- honestly, it had about five of them, however that even worked.

Fortunately, this seemed to startle the creature into backing off this time; it hadn't expected a counterattack with its prey in this position. Good riddance. He needed time to get his head together, anyway.

Which was probably why he didn't make any noises of protest while being hauled back to the apartment building. He needed to figure this out, and this gave him a moment.

Frau was rather appreciative both of Hitsugaya's sudden decision not to attack him and his actual attack on the monster. Had the attack on him gone through, Frau would have been pretty screwed. Had the darkness creature attacked he would have been just as screwed. Once he'd pushed through the door and gotten up a flight of steps he allowed himself to relax a little bit since they were out of harms way.

He slowed his pace, moving at a steady walk now instead of an all out sprint. Hitsugaya was easily held against him in one arm as Frau continued to climb. Once he reached his apartment he'd be taking a look at that injury. He'd likely be discussing this mess too, but again, that could wait til they got there. Frau figured that if he stayed quiet he had a better chance of Hitsugaya not starting to bitch about being carried. Not that Frau would listen even if he did...

Better chance? Possibly. But sometimes things still happened.

"We're inside now; you can put me down, damn it."

The danger had passed and thus he didn't need to suffer this indignity anymore. He squirmed a little, but the flare of pain in his side kept him from moving too much. Damn it, damn it, damn it.

He hated getting Voided. So much. It left him in situations where his size was actually a detriment rather than an annoyance. He couldn't just shove off things that would normally be no problem.

Where was that fucking thing? Damn it all to hell, he was going to rip it apart.

"Easy."

Frau was trying to keep the grumble of annoyance from edging too far into his voice as he continued to carry Hitsugaya up the steps. He had every intention of putting his friend down once they reached the floor of the apartment, but climbing steps would only make Hitsugaya's injuries worse. Thankfully it was only a few more steps up and when he reached the landing he lowered Hitsugaya to the ground.

"Come on. I'll take a look at it."

He would have been more difficult about this, but he had enough sense not to aggravate the wound. It had been a while since he'd been hurt this badly, and combined with everything else, it just put him in a foul mood.

"I've gone on with worse."

Which was true, but right now, he was painfully, pitifully human. Things hurt worse that way. Blood loss got to you quicker that way. The gash on his side was moderately deep, dirt stuck to it from when he'd hit the ground, and it had a sluggish but steady bleed. It looked like an utter mess. Worse than it actually was, he would maintain.

Nevermind the chilled shiver that went through him. He was trying to ignore that in favour of being annoyed.

"Just get the bleeding stopped and it'll be fine."

"That's what I intend to do. Clean it out, wrap it up. I'm not a doctor or anything."

He kindly left out the "you idiot" part since he could tell that Hitsugaya was hurting pretty bad, and he wasn't really trying to be annoying.

"Want to get you warmed up too."

Yes, Frau had noticed the shivering and had every intention of getting Hitsugaya wrapped in a warm blanket. At least. Maybe even get him a cup of tea or coffee too. First things first though. He needed to get the would cleaned up.

Opening the door to his apartment, Frau headed in, aiming for their small bathroom and hoping Hitsugaya would follow along without any complaint. It would be a heck of a lot easier that way.

There was a soft growl at the mention of warming him up. It wasn't at Frau specifically, and more at the fact that he was actually cold and people could tell. For that alone, he wanted to break something.

And if he were in his own house, he might have. But he wasn't. He could at least try to have some measure of dignity, here. Even if that meant walking through the apartment with his hand pressed over the wound and using his sword as a bit of extra support. He may be proud, but it was beyond stupid to leave an injury like this untreated if he could help it.

"... You got hit by the same effect?"

It was something that occurred to him just now. Frau would have fought off that creature if he could have. Running probably wouldn't have even been a consideration if he had his power.

Frau hesitated for a brief moment before giving Hitsugaya a curt nod and continuing to pull out medical supplies. It was only after he had them gathered that he turned back and verbally answered the question.

"Yeah. Why else would I be awake in the middle of my apartment at night?"

Of course, Hitsugaya may not have realized that Frau could literally feel when his powers had suddenly disappeared. Or maybe he did realize and could feel it almost the same way. Frau wasn't sure, and he didn't care all that much either as long as there weren't more questions.

"It's not like I know how you spend your nights."

That probably came out more nastily than he'd intended it to. Whatever. This whole situation was pissing him off. Weak, slow, powerless, cold . . . and he had to get helped out by him. Yes, there were worse people, but there were also better ones.

He got himself off his feet, but he didn't sheathe his blade. Mostly because he would have had to create the sheath out of water vapour and that wasn't exactly an option right now. But also because . . . well he wanted to feel some sort of connection to the sword. The constant presence of Hyourinmaru in his mind wasn't constant now. No power, no zanpakutou spirit.

It was just wrong.

Frau let it go, knowing Hitsugaya was probably more put out by the loss of his power than Frau was his. If anything, Frau was more friendly because of the loss. Or maybe not friendly, but at least light. The constant presence in his mind only weighed him down.

He moved over toward Hitsugaya with the supplies and dropped down to one knee in front of him.

"Let's see it."

At this point, it was mostly the whole being cold disaster. He'd been injured before, had his powers flicker away from him before, but the cold? Never.

Focusing on the most minor things was alway best, surely. It wouldn't make him unreasonably irritable at all.

He moved his hand and peeled his shirt away from the wound, probably getting a few bits of skin with it, but that couldn't be helped. He hissed a little at the pain, but again, it was the chill that bothered him more. Concentrate on being cold, and things wouldn't hurt as much.

"I guess I shouldn't be surprised that you're taking this so well."

He'd seen Frau's power get loose. He'd had to contain it, along with Hinamori, for days. At least someone was getting something decent out of all this. For his own part, he couldn't wait to get back to normal.

Edited 2012-12-15 05:08 (UTC)

Frau snorted and began to clean out the injury. As he worked he spoke, though his eyes never left the injury. Looking at Hitsugaya would give away far too much, and he wasn't willing to do that.

"I'm taking it well now. It will be a lot harder later."

Which was the truth. Once he got his powers back, especially if it was without warning, he would be in a lot of danger of losing control. Without wasting a moment with a segue, he continued again, this time about Hitsugaya's injury.

"It doesn't look bad enough that you'll need to see someone who can really heal you. I should be able to just bandage it up."

He wasn't in the most analytical state of mind right now, at least about his present company, so he let it go. He just gritted his teeth while the wound was cleaned, not as used to it as one might think. Healing kidou was a far more standard treatment for shinigami. Basic medical methods were strange, at least without the kidou backing them up.

"It'll heal better once my power is back. Normally wouldn't have me in this state."

Because honestly, this dizziness? He wouldn't be feeling it from such a comparatively small blood loss under normal circumstances. He'd fought clear-headed through more severe bleeding than this. It was part of being shinigami.

But nearly everything shinigami about him was gone, now. Another shiver.

Once Frau was satisfied that the wound was clean he started bandaging Hitsugaya up, using a liberal amount of cause and covering. He didn't want it to start bleeding through, and the injury looked serious enough that it very well could do that if Frau wasn't careful enough.

"That's good at least... not that we know when anything is coming back."

He finished the bandaging with a few pieces of tape and stood up before heading to the sink to wash his hands. While he was in the kitchen he started to make a mug of hot chocolate for Hitsugaya. It should both warm him up and help replenish some of the blood he'd lost.

He eyed the bandage work critically. Maybe he had no reason to examine it that intently, but that was how he did nearly everything. It wasn't something that he could help.

It occurred to him after Frau left the room that he should check in with work to let them know he'd be delayed. He was nothing if not responsible. And he was mildly suprised when he pulled out his NV to do that, that there was a message from the offices, asking everyone to let them know their status. Because powers had been cancelled out over the whole city.

The whole damned city. This wasn't just a Void.

He sent in a quick text, letting them know he was also affected by the outage, but he'd gotten indoors and was in no immediate danger. Nothing about being injured. Nobody else needed to know that. Superfluous information, of course.

Of course, Hitsugaya wasn't going to spend the whole time here sitting in the bathroom; that was more undignified than he cared to be. He used his sword to help him stand again, but declined using it as a crutch while he walked this time. He could balance fine, as long as he took it a bit slow.

He silently watched for a moment as Frau prepared a drink. "Everyone in the city got hit with this."

Frau startled a moment at that news and almost knocked over the cup of hot water he'd just pulled out of the microwave.

"You're kidding..."

Only he couldn't think of a reason why Hitsugaya would kid about this. Hell, why he would kid about anything. Well, that added a whole new twist to this whole thing, but in a way it made him feel better. It meant that something hadn't randomly happened to him. There was an explanation.

Pushing all of that aside for the moment, he nodded toward the two mugs of warm water on the counter.

"Coffee, tea, or hot chocolate?"

No, he didn't get to chose none. If he did, Frau would just pick one for him. Probably hot chocolate. Completely with marshmallows just to be an ass.

"Since when do I ever kid about anything?"

Anybody he would actually joke around with in his own way -- yes, he did actually have a sense of humour -- was gone. Well. Ella was back, but that was hardly relevant to the situation at hand.

"Probably a Core flux or something of the sort." He scowled at that last option. "Tea."

Frau didn't feel the need to comment to the question. After all, he'd come to the same conclusions himself. He nodded at the request and dropped two tea bags into the cups before walking them over to the couch in their living room.

So far Teito was still asleep, and Frau hoped it would stay that way. The kid didn't need to worry about this quite yet.

"You want anything else?"

He took the cup after sitting down. The tea warmed his hands, and he couldn't help the brow furrow at the fact that it felt pleasant. That was not supposed to feel pleasant. Everything was backwards.

"I'm fine."

"Sure you're fine. You're always fine."

Frau wasn't being sarcastic either. He meant it. There hadn't yet been a moment when he'd met Hitsugaya where he couldn't be considered fine. That wasn't what Frau had been getting at when he asked if he needed anything else.

"That doesn't mean you couldn't want something that would make you more comfortable."

And that brow furrow turned into a scowl when Frau decided to debate this point. What, precisely, had been wrong with what he'd said?

"I said I'm fine; it's not difficult to understand what that means. Now leave it alone."

The only thing he'd really count on to make him more comfortable right now anyway was getting his power back. That was out of Frau's hands and probably in the Core's.

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ibreakrules - 2012-12-19 02:19 (UTC) - Expand