These things don't have happy endings.

Augh this is full of sucking and awkward transitions and it's almost impossible to figure out what's actually going on without lots and lots of exposition! Blaine and Silverlock are officially introduced for the first time. Angst and vomit ensue.

Blaine's technical title is "Apostle," but he only expects it from people who piss him off- and nothing pisses him off more than a mangled body, so healing puts him in a state of almost constant rage.

(Also? I am derivative and unoriginal and a hack, but I love Eve Forward too much to care.)

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"Shit, shit, shit! Where the hell is Maddel?" Blaine pointed at one of the apprentices with a gore covered finger. "You. Go get him. Drag him by his hair if you have to, just get him here. And you, bandages, needle, thread. You, second storeroom, third shelf, green box, and one of the small water jars. Why the fuck are you all just standing there? Go!"

The wide eyed apprentices scattered as he pulled out a pair of surgical shears and clipped through layers of blood stained cloth. "Fucking idiots. Acting like they've never seen someone dying before."

"S'not their job, is it, Healer Torkehaav?" The assassin on his table looked like he'd been through a meat grinder- which, given the identity of his target, wasn't entirely out of the realm of possibility.

"With all due respect, Lord Coriss, we're all members of the Guild. If you can't handle a little blood, you don't belong here. Try not to scream." The assassin snickered as Blaine pulled away the remainder of his clothing. "If you're feeling well enough to laugh, Midnight, perhaps you'll feel well enough to remember my proper title," Blaine snapped.

"You're bitchy when you're working, Apostle." Midnight grinned, though it was more of a grimace. It was a wonder he was still conscious. "I think I like you better when I'm not bleeding to death."

Damned assassin stoicism. Of course he wasn't going to scream. They never screamed. "You try keeping idiots like you alive every day. Now shut up and let me work." He began removing the larger shards of glass from the wounds, cleaning away blood and grime as he went. He could feel Midnight's life force beneath his hands, growing fainter with every moment.

Blaine closed his eyes and concentrated, but the spark of energy didn't respond. Usually they never screamed because they were trained not to scream- but sometimes there were other reasons. "Midnight. What did you take?" The apprentices he'd sent for supplies appeared at his elbow, looking terrified. Blaine ignored them.

"Quirim." The assassin's eyes went glassy; his breathing took on a definite gurgle. "Three doses."

"Shit." Blaine tore open the lacings on his sleeve, revealing a set of vials strapped to his upper arm. He pulled out the stopper of one with his teeth. "Keep breathing, you idiot. I said breathe!" Noxious looking smoke rolled out of the vial; Midnight inhaled a lungfull of the stuff. His body convulsed once, and then he began screaming, horrible, hoarse, drawn out wails of incoherent pain.

Blaine could feel that spark of energy beneath his hands jumpstart; now all he had to do was put the man back together before the pain and bloodloss killed him. "Where the hell is Maddel? Here, the lot of you- get those wounds cleaned, starting with the one in his gut, then do the lungs."

He took the green box from one of the apprentices and upended its contents into the water jar. The silvery-pale dust gave the water a diffuse glow as it dissolved. Blaine submerged his hands in the water and started chanting. He ignored Midnight's screams and the twittering of the apprentices; the water was cold enough to numb his hands, and growing colder. By the time his fingers were swollen and aching from the chill, the water was glowing brightly, and Midnight hadn't stopped screaming.

"Keep screaming, Mid. That antidote will burn you out soon enough, so enjoy the ability to breathe for as long as you can." He pressed his dripping hands to the gaping hole in the assassin's abdomen; the apprentices had stitched up the smaller cuts and lacerations, but the truly life threatening injuries were things he had to deal with on his own.

The water was a catalyst, a link between his hands and the source of his power. His world narrowed to blood and bone, too-cold water, and the dry whisper of snakes in the back of his head. He stopped the worst of the bleeding and set bones straight. Where infection threatened, he burned it away. Throughout the entire process, he ignored the assassin's hoarse screams; it wasn't within his power to dull pain, and his brand of healing didn't take well to drugs. Once Midnight was no longer in danger of dying, he would be put into a healing coma for a few days until he recovered completely.

Blaine worked as quickly as possible without risking himself and his patient. Healing was dangerous; it was too easy to give too much, and the Guild lost nearly a dozen healers to burnout every year. He couldn't fix everything; all he could really do was keep the man from dying immediately.

The sound of snakes cut off suddenly, jarring him out of his healing trance. Midnight was still screaming, but after a moment, that sound stopped, too, replaced by shocked, labored breathing. Blaine looked up, dazed, then promptly doubled over, and vomited all over the feet of the nearest apprentice. He managed a few garbled curses between bouts of violent retching.

He shook off the worried hands of his apprentices when he finally managed to get his stomach under control. "I'm fine, you idiots. Pay attention to your work!" He pulled himself to his feet, clenching his jaw against the wave of blackness that obscured his vision.

"Blaine. Get out of here."

He opened his eyes and glared at the Master Healer, who stood in the doorway beside another man. "Where the hell were you, Maddel? And what is that doing in here?" He pointed at Maddel's companion with a shaking finger. His ears were ringing, and he couldn't see straight through the swirling blackness, but what little he could see of the other man screamed wrongness.

Maddel glared right back at Blaine. "I was with the Guildmaster and Lord D'Alestri, not that it's any of your business. Now get out. I'm relieving you of this patient."

"I'll be fine once someone gets that fucking Leech out of here!" He had to grab the edge of the operating table to keep from falling; his hands, covered in blood and holy water, nearly slipped.

"I'm here on the Guildmaster's orders, Healer Torkehaav. We need intel on Midnight's target, and we can't get that from him when he's in a coma." D'Alestri shrugged, and wrongness in the air intensified. "I wouldn't disturb your work otherwise."

"It's Apostle, and who the fuck asked you?"

The master healer rolled his eyes and pointed at the apprentices. "You two. Take him out of here. Go on, drag him away. He's too muddled to do anything, and even if he weren't, he'd still be more likely to hurt himself than you."

Blaine snarled curses at his apprentices, but they were all more afraid of Maddel than they were of him. By the time they pulled him into the hallway and shut the door behind them, most of the nausea faded away, replaced by feverish shivering. He could still feel D'Alestri's presence in the other room as a steady pulse against his senses, disgusting and wrong in a thousand different ways.

They deposited him on a bed in one of the empty wards and left him with a glass of water at his elbow. Anxiousness rolled off of them in waves, but they made a hasty exit anyway, not willing to spend another moment in his presence. A dry chuckle forced its way out of his throat; it had taken him months to instill that sort of bedside manner into his apprentices.

His laughter turned into a hiss of pain as his hands cramped and curled into useless hooks. He turned on his side in a half-hearted fetal position and began to pray, forcing the words out past the sickness that consumed him.

He was familiar with this sort of pennance; Varun was neither a patient nor a rational god, after all.