It’s not happy.
Oleander’s bond
The Damaged Dark One and I spend over an hour searching for my Bonded One.
My other Bonded all move off to help the survivors of the explosion leave this area and take out any new enemies that arrive while they're doing so. I can feel that my Bonded is alive and in pain, but it's still difficult to pinpoint exactly where he is in the mess and rubble that has been left behind by the Trigger.
He has to be unconscious.
I'm tempted to request that my Dark Bonded One bring me some Resistance to snack on to get a power burst so that I can find my Bonded One a little faster, but I become single-minded in this search.
The girl is terrified inside of me, fretting about our Bonded. No matter how hard I push, she doesn't go to sleep, always aware in the back of my mind as I work. There are a few survivors. My Damaged Dark One mostly directs me to kill them, whether they're ours or not.
“They're too far gone,” he says quietly, glancing up at the smoking epicenter on this godforsaken field that we’re stuck on. “We don't have any Healers with us, and to Transport them… they wouldn't survive the jump.”
I nod and do as he directs, happy for his humanity to direct what is right in this situation.
I'm almost ready to cast my Gift out and tear everyone to shreds, when finally I feel him nearby. The relief from the girl and the echo of the others realizing we’ve found him is palpable, all of them checking in with the girl while I work.
I go to my knees beside him, looking over the damage and fighting the urge to wipe out every living thing in a ten mile radius.
He's a mess.
A bullet wound in his shoulder, burns up his neck and face. He looks as though he was attempting to get away from the Trigger as it went off. From the position that he's fallen in, he had gotten pretty close, but there's a tree that has fallen over the lower half of his body, knocked down in the explosion, that’s pinning him to the ground. The fact that his chest is still steadily moving up and down as he breathes is a miracle of its own.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” the Damaged Dark One mutters as he kneels beside him, taking his pulse at his neck.
There's no real need to try and administer any medical assistance. I am his Bonded, and I will fix this. They've only ever seen me heal them in bursts of uncontrolled power being drawn out of me and into them during times of crisis, but this is different. I was hunting for him to find him and heal him. I know exactly what I need to do.
I lean forward and press our foreheads together, conscious that he must be in pain, especially when he grunts under the slightest amount of pressure against his damaged skin. The few souls that I had consumed on the way to finding him have given me more than enough of an extra kick, but I'm careful about how I slowly funnel that energy into him. I need to be careful to make sure that it is the least painful way that I can, not wanting to cause any more harm to one of my own. My skin begins to glow and then, starting from our connection at our foreheads and working its way down, his skin begins to glow with that same light.
Slowly, gently, we watch as the bullet hole knits back together. The bullet slowly pops out as my power pushes the foreign object out from where it doesn’t belong. The red and damaged skin gradually begins to change and heal, the swelling going down and the skin slowly healing from the red shiny burns until it is once again the perfect tanned skin of my Bonded.
Two shadow creatures approach and work together to remove the tree trunk from my Bonded’s legs, and he groans at the pain of it. I send a savage look to my Damaged Dark One, and he murmurs back,
“They're doing it as gently as they can, but his legs are crushed.”
I let my eyes slip shut, and then I gently funnel that same healing light down to the shattered bones. Slowly, carefully, gently, we knit him back together, me and the souls that I have consumed for this exact purpose, making sure that I can protect and love my Bonded exactly how they deserve and give them everything they could ever possibly require.
I heal everything that I can find on his body. I heal the blisters on his feet from tracking through the mud when they'd first arrived. I heal the splinters in his hands. I heal anything that might give him any sort of trouble, until he is returned back to the perfectly healthy Bonded that I had said goodbye to as they had left, only the scar over his eye left behind..
When the healing light slowly dissipates away from the two of us, I stay exactly where I am until his eyes blink open. He doesn't look startled to see me in control of the girl's body, and he doesn't look concerned at having me so close to him either. One of his hands comes up to cup my cheek, and he murmurs, “How did I know that you would come looking for me when all of this blew up.”
I press forward the few inches it takes to kiss him gently, and then I murmur back, “You’re mine. There's no getting away from me, so stop trying to find death by throwing yourself into these dangerous situations just to try and get away from the monster I am.”
He frowns and pulls me in for another kiss. “You're not a fucking monster. Even when you're in Oli's head, thinking all of that crazy shit about being a god and ripping people's hearts out, that still doesn't make you a monster.”
“No, it makes her right,” says my Damaged Dark One, and my Bonded glances over at him.
He doesn't look outright shocked that my Damage Dark One has said that, but he does give him a once over. “Is the Trigger dead yet? This wasn’t Unser. This was the other one.”
My Damaged Dark One curses under his breath and stands up, pressing the earpiece and muttering, “The bomb is still live. Do you hear me, brother? The bomb is still live.”
I glance back to my Bonded One. He props himself up on his elbows slowly, beginning to move as though he's checking that his newly healed muscles will actually hold up underneath his weight.
“Unser can go off once or twice a day, at most. If it were him, we would be safe by now, because he wouldn't be able to go off again. It’s the other one. Unless you have taken out someone very strong and not told us, then there is still a bomb somewhere in the Wastelands.”
I shake my head, glancing back at my Damaged Dark One as he scans the area around us more critically now that he knows the danger he is looking for. “I haven't consumed anyone of that level of strength, but I would like to.”
They both share a look, and then my Bonded One stands up to stretch out. He holds out a hand to help me to my feet. I enjoy the sight of all of my hard work. The smooth skin of his face, healed again, is a glorious sight.
“Glorious, huh?” he says with a grin.
I agree, and then I remember, shoving at his chest a little bit and enjoying that I caught him by surprise, and he rocks on his heels. “Don't you ever ignore me again, Bonded. If I call for you, you will answer me.”
He smirks and does a full body check of his weapons. More than half of them are missing, and I can tell that he is disheartened by how little ammunition he has left.
The Damaged Dark One hands him a few clips that he secures to his chest immediately. “It’s hard to answer someone when you are unconscious, my Bonded, but I will take note and try to do better in the future.”
It sounds as though he's teasing, but I nod because whether he's joking or not, that is the correct answer.