Finding Comfort

To [personal profile] clare_dragonfly‘s prompt “Rozen/Kai” in this flash-fiction meme (LJ).

This is Addergoole post-apoc, just after Retirement 2.

Short non-AdderHooligan summary: Rozen is, in main timeline, a Big Bad Wolf style bully of the Addergoole school, and Kai nearly becomes his victim. 50 years later, nearly 4 decades after the apocalypse, he becomes her captive and possesion after being starved and poisoned.

Kailani, Dean Storm, came home to her room, locked the door, and dropped her Mask, dropping with it fifty excess years of age, the weight of responsibility, the urge to solemnity.

Rozen was waiting for her, sitting on the floor by the door as if he’d meant to drape himself there, trying to hide with Mask and force of will how exhausted he was. His ribs still showed, his cheeks were still gaunt, but he was slowly filling out. Slowly. Hawthorne poisoning was a horrible thing.

Kai, looking at him, struggled with the conflict between her rage – he had had such a lovely body, and it would take such time to rebuild – and gratitude – every day he had to focus on rebuilding his strength was one more day for the Bond to work on him, make him more comfortable with the status quo and less likely, when he was up to full power, to fight her.

“I brought you broth.” She set the broth on the table, ignoring the small prickle in her spine at having her back to him, then came back, to present him with her hands. “Let me help you up.”

“I’m fine,” he grumbled, as he took her hands.

“I’m sure you are,” she lied. “I like helping you.” That part, at least, wasn’t a lie. She hauled him to his feet and shifted her hold to his waist. “You’re getting further along every day.”

“In a month, I’ll be able to make it to your office,” he quipped tiredly.

“By then, I’ll be ready for you,” she murmured back.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/106660.html. You can comment here or there.

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