#kat thank u for indulging me in The Fuckery

[corditeheart]

@yunhuntress

It happens without warning.

An escort mission, gone badly awry-- Rinoa Heartilly, in Deling General, recovering from a gunshot wound. Michele Xu, in a subterranean infirmary of Galbadia Garden, surrounded by walls backed with Odine metal, asleep for three straight days before anyone thinks to notify her wife that anything had happened at all.

(And it's only Squall that manages it, because this is the kind of thing that should be kept under wraps, that shouldn't be known. The succession happens, but they hadn't planned on it ever moving from Rinoa. At least, not without a good plan in place.)

Michele Xu, coming to, slowly, confused, blinking against entirely too much sleep grit in her eyes, feeling like her body weighs a thousand pounds, moving to rub at her face, and unable to lift her arms from where they've been pinned down with soft restraints to the cot.

"--What?" Murmured, exhausted, pulling her arms again and getting nowhere for her effort. Her head turns, searching for someone, anyone-- the room is empty, and she sees Fang behind the window, talking to medics in Galbadia red scrubs. "Fang?"

The whole place must be soundproofed, though, because her voice falls flat. Xu moves again, pulling, lifting her upper body as much as she can off the bed.

"Fang," she tries again, louder this time.

(Rinoa, bleeding all over the ground and Xu's lap, Rinoa, grabbing her wrist in an iron hold and whispering that she's so sorry, before all that magic lets go, and Xu has no choice in the matter, can't escape it, can't evade it.)

The panic is delayed, filtering up through those thousand pounds of exhaustion, sedatives, whatever else they'd done to her. Whatever the magic had done to her, an insidious, unwanted invader in her veins.

The panic is delayed, but it doesn't mean it doesn't break through eventually, and she feels something in her shoulder pull painfully, reigniting an old injury as she fights against the restraints, against the inevitability.

She can't be-- she won't be--

Why?

"Fang!"

#yunhuntress #kat thank u for indulging me in The Fuckery