Hello lovelies ! :)

Sorry I didn't update yesterday...

Hope you like it !

~Music~

the lonely (Christina Perri)

I edited a bit of Videl's cursing, FYI :)

The chapter title comes from an Edgar Allan Poe work, The Short Tales; however, the actual quote is: "But as in ethics, evil is a consequence of good, so in fact, out of joy is sorrow born."

Peter's name in the adaptation series is Andrew Sidney Riddle :)

Chapter 23

~Thea's POV-~

It's a miracle that Videl Jaunts us into another abandoned apartment; I wouldn't have been able to drag him out from the middle of a street. As it is, I can barely get him up onto the bed, partly because he is heavy on my sore muscles, and partly because he keeps snapping at me in delirious exclamations.

Once he is on the bed, I open his backpack, digging through it, looking for supplies that could help him. I find food-human food- and bandages and various supplies, but not much to go by in the way of the medical department. I recall the antiseptic and other random stuff on the nightstand in San Francisco with a pain of longing; Videl must have left them there.

Videl is breathing through his teeth, trying to get through his pain silently. I know that since he is making any noise at all, he's in agony. The cuts from the bear's claws are deep across his chest, and blood drips on the sheets around him, all over him. I'm bleeding too, and my own chest hurts from the same claws, but I grit my teeth and ignore the discomfort.

"Do you happen to know where we are?" I ask timidly, pulling on the jacket from Videl's backpack. It hides my injuries.

"No!" He snaps, clenching his fists and arching his neck.

"Okay," I say, then run into the bathroom. The entire hotel room is plain, and the bathroom is made up of only a sink, a tiny corner shower, and a toilet. I find a towel underneath the sink and run it under warm water.

"NO." growls Videl, as I walk back to the bed, "Go away, idiot."

I casually pretend he hasn't spoken and put the towel on Videl's torn chest. He groans and tries to swat me, but in his pain, he is clumsy, and misses me easily.

"I'll be right back," I say, trying to ignore my own pain by digging my hand into the cloth of my backpack.

"Where are you -no, you are not leaving this room!"

"Sorry," I say quietly, walking away from the bed.

Videl lets fly a particularly foul expletive and I glance back to see him trying to clamber off the bed. But he moans as he can barely move, and is forced back onto the mattress. His words run together in a slur of curse words and threats, "I will effing kill you if you step foot out of-damn it, damn all of this- I will drag you back and break your spine I did not do all this work for you to get caught on the- don't you effing DARE turn your back on-"

"See you in a couple minutes," I say, and close the hotel door behind me. It's dark, although not horribly, so I guess that we're still on the west side of the country. After making sure I leave the door open a smidge and memorize the hotel room number, I follow the signs down the red-carpeted hallway to the elevator, my nerves on edge the entire time, and my hand clutching my stomach. On the elevator, after I punch the starred button, I take deep breaths. My pain can't show.

It's early empty in the small lobby. There is only a security guard, who is on his phone, and glances up at me curiously, but makes no moves to stop me. There is a grandfather clock next to the concierge desk, where an elderly customer is talking to the foreman. The clock reads 9:26. My watch is still in Neidra's mansion, I imagine, and since my charm bracelet won't exactly tell me the time, I'm still completely clueless as to where I am.

Thank God, there is a small gift shop inside the hotel, with emergency food and medical supplies for sale. There's only the tiny problem of me not having any money.

There are two other customers inside: one, a woman with a softly whimpering toddler that looks to be feverish, and two, a middle-aged man taking his time at the refrigerated beer section. There is also a clerk, who looks very bored.

I watch the other customers as I make my way to the tiny corner section of the store where stacks of over-the-counter medicines and supplies lie piled neatly on the shelves. I don't exactly know what will be helpful to an ailing Velah, but I suspect that the antibiotic creams will help. I look around. The woman is consoling the crying toddler and the man is still at the beer fridge.

Because I'm short, I have to stand on my tiptoes and reach my arm up for the yellow and red Polysporin box. My reach causes a sharp throb to pierce by stomach, and I gasp, but manage to contain my pain enough to knock the cream off the shelf.

I had seen regular bandages in the backpacks, but not gauze, so I also pull a few rolls of that from the shelf. As I do so, I notice a wire rack of post cards, racks seen all the time in hotels. With a zing, my brain registers VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA on basically all of the cards.

Oh, great. I'm in Canada.

Deciding to think about this later, I peek over one of the shelves; the man has gone, but based on the loud cries, the baby is still here, and with him, his exhausted mother. I focus my attention on a stack of sodas near the back of the store. Then, I set my backpack on the floor and unzip the largest compartment, still holding my antibiotic and gauze.

Poking back over the shelf, I stare at the sodas stacked in a perfectly neat pyramid. I push my left hand to the right and summon all my concentration. The sodas collapse in a scramble, causing the baby to begin screaming, the mother to sigh and put her hands in her head, and the clerk to run over to the sodas to attempt putting them up straight.

Working quickly, I stuff the medical supplies into my backpack, zip it up, and shoulder it, ignoring the constant pain in my stomach. Grabbing a postcard from the rack (The Greater Vancouver Zoo!), I walk over to the clerk, who is still putting up the sodas.

"How much is this?"

She looks up at me with slight annoyance that I have interrupted her, "Five dollars."

I hadn't known that Canadians use dollars, or that post cards were so expensive, but I say "Oh," in the most angelic voice I have and walk over to put the postcard back.

"Are you not buying anything?" the clerk asks as I walk back towards the door of the store.

"I'm not buying a postcard for five dollars," I say.

The clerk humphs and then resumes stacking the sodas. I resume walking out of the store and beginning my life of crime.

By the time I get back up to the hotel, I realize how tired I am, and how much not only my stomach, but my waist and broken toes, are hurting me. I gnash my teeth together and open the door.

Videl is still lying down on the bed, thrown dramatically across the mattress, his left hand hanging off the edge.

"You didn't die?" grunts, opening one amber eye at me and baring his fangs.

"Sorry to disappoint you," I say, opening my backpack and taking out the antibiotic and gauze.

"I am going to- eff everything-" He groans, shifting slightly, "I'm going to kill you when I get my hands on you."

"Why? Because I stole stuff from the store?"

He looks like he wants to say something snarky again, but instead, he gags, coughing raucously. I open the antibiotic cream and sit next to him on the bed.

"Get away from me," he barks.

"Stop snapping at me," I say, "It won't work. I've been snapped at before when someone is hurt."

He grunts, and then sucks in a breath as I dab some of the ointment on his wounds. "I...assume you're talking about your father."

"No," I say, which is a lie.

"You're effing lying."

"Stop cursing," I say.

He suggests that I do something technically anatomically impossible.

After this though, Videl seems to dissolve completely in his pain. He tosses and turns as I put the ointment on his chest, trying to cover everything. Doing the gauze is slightly more difficult, because he is too heavy for me to move, so I have to push-slash-prod him to roll over so I can dress the wounds. I do a terrible job of it, but at least it's covered.

The entire ordeal, complete with Videl cursing fluently at me, takes about fifteen minutes. By that point, I am practically bending over in agony. Videl, his eyes already fluttered shut, doesn't notice.

I stumble into the bathroom just in time to throw up in the toilet. I feel flushed, half from the wound on my stomach and half from the continued effects of the immortality potion. Clutching the sides of the toilet, I finally let myself cry.

*

After a very late dinner, Loki walks into his chambers to find Neidra already lying on the bed. She is wearing a silver low-cut nightgown, that exposes her generous, pale bosom, and has a high slit down the side that reveals her long, strong legs. Her black-and-silver hair hangs in cords around her neck, and her long fingers are around a golden goblet filled with a light mint liquid that emanates a sweet scent into the air.

"Is there still no sign of her?" asks Neidra, taking a sip from the goblet and throwing her legs around the bed, sitting up and facing Loki.

"None," says Loki, taking out his silver dagger and inspecting the point of it.

Neidra stands and walks over to Loki, then looks up at him, blinking her long, silver eyelashes slowly. She offers him the goblet, and, exhausted, he takes it and then swallows the last of the liquid in a single gulp.

As soon as he swallows, Loki clutches his head and grits his teeth. When he looks up at Neidra, his eyes are slits, slits that are a bright green and slowly turning silver , "Witch."

"I never said I played fair, Loki," croons Neidra, taking the dagger from his shaking hand and running the very tip over the contour of his cheekbone, "But your daughter is getting in the way. What better way to rid myself of her than through you?"

He snarls, and then lunges at her, grabbing her arm and throwing her hard against the vanity. Neidra laughs, for as his red eyes become a bright silver, he kisses her long, hard, and hungrily.

She is still laughing as he throws her on the bed, as she wraps her legs around his waist, and then lets herself turn liquid to his lips that attach onto her neck, and to his hands that begin to pull at the sheer fabric of the silver dress.

*

Thea drags herself back into the bedroom at almost eleven. She is still breathing heavily from the pain, but she had managed to put the last of the antibiotic on the her stomach, which had eased the stinging somewhat. She is still flushed and clammy, but at least she has stopped throwing up.

Videl is taking up the one bed, so Thea takes a cushion from the small sofa across from the television cabinet and pushes it next to the bed. She covers herself in a blanket from the backpack, her clothes still damp from the rain and the blood. Pushing her short strands of hair from her face, she lies down, curled up in the shadow of the bed above her.

She is still in both physical and emotional pain, and a few teardrops trickle silently down her cheek. When she remembers her father's harsh stare, the stare that had once been loving and comforting, she whimpers softly, burying her face in the pillow.

When she feels a hand on her head, she jumps slightly, and looks up. Videl is lying partially off the bed, his fingers reaching down and pushing her messy dark hair from her sweaty forehead. His fingers are warm, and there is something vaguely, surprisingly comforting about them.

Thea looks up. Videl is looking at her through his amber eyes that are now drawn with fatigue.

"Thank you..." she whispers, "For saving my life."

As he gazes down at the girl, one side of Videl's mouth goes up in a soft, contented smile.

"Go to sleep, idiot," he says, his drawling voice husky.

She does.

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