Antidote for the unknown soldier

[hajimenoippolit.livejournal.com]

It was odd, Polya thought as he opened the infirmary door, armed with the antidote Khostov had provided from the base's medical supplies. These past days he had been preserving life more often than deciphering the messages left in the act of dying. It did little to balance the harm he had done to a man already lost and afraid.

Maybe in the interim he had remembered his name.

The room was cool and white.

"I've brought the antidote," Rakitin said quietly, loath to unbalance the delicate approximation of peace.

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[zabytsya.livejournal.com]

David ran a hand over his hair.

It was a deep, coal black, he knew, cut military short, with bangs that spiked across his forehead.

He supposed a true amnesiac wouldn't know what he looked like. David hadn't had the opportunity to see himself in the mirror since he'd woken up, after all.

"I'm not blond," he said, and let it be a statement. The fine hair on his forearms was dark.

His gaze went to Rakitin.

"You are."

There had been a serial killer in Chicago at the turn of the century that David remembered learning about in school, a little sordid bit of local history. The man, a medical doctor, had opened a hotel for the World's Fair, and lured women there with promises of employment, then trapped and murdered them. They called him the torture doctor.

"What's his MO?" he asked, more curious now than anything. It seemed unconnected to either Snake or him, but if he had stumbled into such a volatile situation, he wanted to know as much information as possible.

"How many victims so far?"

[hajimenoippolit.livejournal.com]

"Two. Dismembered and...posed. He likes to make a show of it."

Rakitin hoped that was enough detail to discourage further questions.

His hand unconsciously went to his hair, mirroring the man's gesture.

"That's true," he said thoughtfully.

It wasn't the first time someone had mentioned that Rakitin fell rather neatly into the demographic of potential victims himself.

"There's something surreal about thinking of it that way. Then I'd never see how he gets caught."

That aspect was the more disquieting. Ippolit had long since accepted that death came, like a cat, at its own whim.

"I don't think I'd make a very good hungry ghost."

[zabytsya.livejournal.com]

"Don't worry about it," David said. "You'll see how he gets caught. You'll be instrumental in catching him."

He spoke matter-of-factly. Even not knowing the man well, David could see his obvious competence, though Rakitin seemed to try to downplay it at every turn. He wondered why that was.

"So I imagine that with a killer running around, finding the person who...poisoned me is less of a priority," he said, and his voice was matter-of-fact for that too.

Professional and emotionless, like he was discussing an op.

That made it easier.

"Unless you think it's connected somehow," he added.

[hajimenoippolit.livejournal.com]

"No," Rakitin said, his voice taut with resolution and low, banked anger. "We'll find him, too."

He met the wounded soldier's grey eyes.

"Count on it."

[zabytsya.livejournal.com]

"No," David said. "That's not what I meant."

He held Rakitin's eyes even though he wanted to look away.

"I really mean that it's less of a priority. Your work on these murders has to take precedence."

David regretted he'd said anything now. He wasn't even sure what had prompted him in the first place. He'd still been poking at the connections between things, but if the two perpetrators weren't related, that made it different.

"Look, forget I said anything."

There were some things a man had to handle on his own, he decided then and there.

[hajimenoippolit.livejournal.com]

Confusion knitted Rakitin's brows.

"Don't you want him to be found?"

Give horror a name and a face, a reason, and you take away its power.

"In any case, this one at least has a limited pool of suspects. There's only so many people with the skill and wherewithal, let alone the inclination, to extract venom from local fauna and apply it as a weapon against a random target."

[zabytsya.livejournal.com]

"All right. I'm sure...you'll find him."

David decided to give up, stop protesting. Any more would look too suspicious.

He lay back, and didn't have to feign exhaustion.

"How long until the poison is out of my system?" he asked.

It was better, to change the subject, move on.

"When do you think I can get out of here?"

[hajimenoippolit.livejournal.com]

"The poison should be gone within twenty-four hours," Rakitin said. "It was never meant to last. The antidote just sped up the process. This poisoner wasn't intending to kill you."

What the assailant had wanted was less clear. Could it have really been so simple as a random act of violence?

"As for here, well, the poison shouldn't have slowed down the healing process much, so it depends on your wounds." Polya smiled crookedly. "And when the nurses will let you go."

The man's movements spoke elegantly of exhaustion.

"Sorry," Polya said quickly, standing. "I should let you rest."

[zabytsya.livejournal.com]

"Do me a favor," David said.

He paused, and glanced at the door for a moment, then lowered his voice.

"After the poison clears and I'm doing a little better, put in a good word with the nurses for me so I can get out of here early."

David smiled, slightly, faintly. He wasn't in the mood to smile at all, but he managed it, a faint press of his lips.

"And I promise I'll take it easy and rest in my quarters. I just don't want to be here."

His look was intent.

"Could you do that for me?" he asked, quietly.

[hajimenoippolit.livejournal.com]

"For that, we would need to know which quarters are yours," Polya pointed out gently.

He could sympathise. He hated the unnatural sterility of hospitals, the endless blank white. It was no place for a living soul.

Unfortunately necessary, like any number of things.

"I don't think asking that favor would get the results you're hoping for."

The businesslike Eurenides that had the run of these hallways had no reason to be kindly disposed toward Polya to begin with.

Rakitin's eyes flicked across the bandage on the soldier's chest concealing the star-shaped wound where the primitive poison had been administered.

"Don't be in any hurry to push yourself."

He wondered if amnesia felt like an itch across the memory, trying to make a connection that you knew was there but that refused to come to light.

"For now, just try to remember what you can."

[zabytsya.livejournal.com]

"Okay," David said.

If even the pathologist - who was qualified to work with the living, but still - didn't think he should leave the infirmary early, he supposed he was stuck.

The antidote must have been starting to work, because he felt warm and dizzy, as if the cure was flushing all the poison from him forcibly.

David nodded, getting drowsy.

"Are you - "

He hesitated.

"Do you need to check to make sure the antidote's working, later?"

[hajimenoippolit.livejournal.com]

The man must have been tired if he was agreeing that easily. Though Rakitin could hardly say he knew him well, he suspected this was not someone accustomed to giving up.

"That's right," he said. "I'll be back as soon as I can. To check on the antidote."

Hopefully no one else gets poisoned or murdered for a while.

[zabytsya.livejournal.com]

David murmured his assent, and closed his eyes.

When he opened them again, Rakitin was gone, and it was not difficult to close them again and succumb to the shadows.