[attr="class","nikita"]Even a verbal spar would be a welcome respite from this hell. Already, the incessant beeping was grinding on his nerves, reminding him of the heartbeat of an enemy that just would not die. The open-ended protest was greeted almost hungrily by those tired eyes. Unfortunately, it seemed Mister Wynter’s brain had taken the majority of the bloes. So, that statement merely hung in the air between them like a dangling modifier for some time. Well, there we go.

At the toddler’s protest, Nikita felt his normally stoic cheeks redden. Had he truly been out so long? His mind turns not to thoughts of mortality but to the things he’d left undone. The Rocket whose base he was meant to infiltrate and the meeting he’d planned with his dealer. A hand rose to idly scratch at a pockmarked arm. “Well, I am certain there is homework and such to be done.” A fact that Nikita did not know for sure. “Something more useful than caterwauling at my bedside.” Such things were always Robin’s territory. He saw the children off to school but did not pester them about their work, merely trusted it would be done.

The talk of parents made Nikita shift in his bed. His own mother and father were still alive, albeit in a far-off region. The latter a gangster of no small means and the former a doctor of English turned teacher. Though cordial in their interactions, the trio did not see eye-to-eye on many things. Still, there was love there. But he did not remember ever feeling worried for them as Samuel now was. “His worry is unnecessary, I assure you.” If losing his entire world and being left with this consolation prize had not done it then gravity did not stand a chance.

At the talk of the island, Nikita sighed. He could feel Samuel straighten as if a bug whose antenna had detected a vibration. “What island? Grandpa said he was at work I thought he’d slipped in a bathtub or something!!” Those big eyes were pools of endless curiosity. A void just waiting to be fed whatever tidbits Kazimir chose to reveal. “Uh—” Sam’s eyes widen as Kazimir’s monster hand locks around his grandpa’s shoulder.

With a noise of irritation, Nikita slaps it aside. He does not enjoy being touched. Especially not by some meat-handed vigilante intent on lecturing him about things he knew nothing about. There would be no taking it easy. There couldn’t be. The question hung in the air between them. The truth jumped to his mind unbidden: I would have to think. Certainly, he does that all the time—it is part of the job. But in this silence, well, the void stares back. All of the things he’s built a wall against threaten to encroach upon it, like a tide shattering a dam.

His fingers twitch for something to shift his focus. Already, he can feel it prowling the recesses of his mind. All of the failures and the feel of crisp flesh beneath his nails. How ironically similar a burnt human body smells to a barbeque. The steady beat of his son and grandson’s heart monitors beside an all-too-empty chair.

“People die, Mister Wynters.” Or, worse yet, don’t.

[attr="class","samjerpoke"]

[attr="class","nikitatag"]

@kodiak