Rain thrashed against Jehovah's skin, sticking his already blood-soaked shirt to his torso. He pulled Leana tight to his body attempting to conceal her from the unrelenting rain though it did no good. There was no time for glamour though he spent every moment of the journey begging that he could fly – the journey would have been so much faster. Luckily, it was now around three in the morning in when the outskirts of Manchester would not be teeming with humans. After around a twenty minute dash to his home, Jehovah kicked in his door causing Dronolas to jump up off the couch. "The hell!" He cursed but his body loosened when his eyes followed a bloody, sopping Jehovah to his bedroom where he carefully laid down the injured woman in his arms. Once she was tucked in tight, he knelt beside the bed and brushed a strand of rain-soaked hair behind her ear as she exhaled deeply, still not opening her eyes.
"You're safe," He promised. "Rest," She adhered to his request and tipped her head to instantly fall asleep. Turning on his knee, he saw Dronolas standing in the doorway with his arms folded and his eyes on the sleeping Unseelie faerie in the bed.
Standing without a word, Jehovah took a pillow from across Leana and ushered Dronolas out the door, carefully closing it behind him, leaving it slightly ajar out of paranoia.
The men stood in silence as Jay began to set up for the night on the chair in the living room. Dronolas was dumbfounded. "Well?" He commanded. Jay looked up with sad, heavy eyes. He couldn't just expect Dronolas to be alright with this. After all, they were harbouring an enemy.
"I met the king," Dronolas dropped his arms. Diploma Dondarion? He had met the Unseelie king! He fought hard to repress the urge to bombard him with questions about the tyrant. What did he look like? Was he as evil as they say? Did he do this to that woman? He already knew the answer to the last question.
Jehovah's defences began to crumble as tears rolled down his eyes. "He did this," He told him holding his bloodied hands out. The woman had lost half of her bodyweight in the stuff by the looks of his friend and he was willing to bet that that was not all of it. "It's the missing piece, Dron," he told him, his voice trembling as he approached his friend. "It wasn't our men that made her like this, it was always him," Jay was loosing it, he began to turn, running his hands through his hair and gripping tightly at the root. "That day I asked her for a date… she was busy," He began piecing things together and grew more and more chaotic by the second. "She reported back, I know that now," His ignorance in that moment haunted him. "She went back there to him… and there was nothing I could do!" He yelled throwing himself down onto the couch. Dronolas sat beside him and took his shoulders forcefully.
"Listen, there was nothing you could have done then," That certainly didn't make him feel any better. "But you did something tonight, we'll keep her safe," He promised with a smile. We. He was willing to help her. Strangely enough, he didn't have to force his smile. He tried to encase Dron in a hug but he stopped him, palms planted firmly on his chest. "Get that bloody thing off first," He demanded with a laugh.
Jay complied and peeled the soaking shirt from his back, taking a quick glance at his now wet and bloody sofa with a sigh. He threw the shirt straight into the bin and made his way towards the bathroom, turning to address his friend one final time. "Come get me if anything happens," He requested but Dron pulled a face as he settled on the couch with a beer he had retrieved from the fridge.
"And walk in on your naked ass? Fat chance," He scoffed and sipped at the bottle. Jay laughed, shaking his head and turned to close the bathroom door.
It felt great to finally rid himself of the caking of Leana's blood from his body. Sweat, blood and rain washed from his skin, staining his shower floor for sure as he cleaned his hair of all the crap that had fallen from human rain.
He was sure that automatic showers were the best things that the human world had to offer. As someone who could not fly, transport was fantastic and phones helped to send messages infinitely faster than letters and ravens but showers were certainly a step up from bathing in the cold, infested lakes of the war camps that he spent so much time in back home. Perhaps he would miss these most of all when he inevitably had to move back home.
He wasn't sure how long he had been in the shower when he was snapped back to reality, only that the water running off of his body had now run clear. A frightened voice screamed for him. Jehovah leapt from the shower, pulling a towel around his middle, he ran out into the living room to see his bedroom door open and Dron staring white as a ghost at the bed. Running into the scene, he saw Leana tangled up in the sheets of his bed, contorting and hyperventilating as if she was possessed. Dronolas was paralysed with shock, neither of them knew what to do but Jay knew that he had to do something. "No, no," Leana muttered as her face curled and shifted, arms thrashing in jerky, uncoordinated movements.
Shaking himself back into the scene before him, Jehovah jumped onto the bed, towering over Leana as she thrashed – desperately trying to avoid her flying fists as she swung. Calling her name soon turned into desperate screaming for her to wake up as she became more and more agitated by the second. "Leana!" He screamed one last time as he made the decision to grasp her wrists in his large hands and yank her awake.
Suddenly, her bloodshot eyes snapped open as fear flooded her face seeing Jehovah poised above her. Instinctively, she kicked out, landing just in the right place. He released her wrists, his hands flying between his legs as he rolled off her in agony. Dronolas came to his aid to steady him so that he wouldn't fall off of the bed. Leana shook her head and sat up, reaching a still shaking tender hand in his direction.
"Jehovah!" She gushed. "I'm so sorry!" Tears filled her eyes but he held his hand up to reassure her.
"It's fine… I shouldn't have done that," He admitted, instantly realising his mistake in taking her wrists. Leana touched her now wet wrists from contact with his still dripping body, and looked down in shame. She didn't want anyone to see her like this. No one had ever seen her like this. Normally, she would wake herself and rush to the toilet to empty her stomach. But this, this was shameful. Dronolas stood, helping Jay to the floor before kneeling beside her, gently taking her trembling hand in his own.
"Miss," He began. There was something about this man that was different from the last time she had seen him. When his face held disgust and pure rage before, he now raised his brow in sympathy. "I cannot begin to apologise for what my men did to your family," That meant a lot. More than he would every know. Tears began to fall from her eyes. "But what's done is done, and the only way you're going to beat this, is by confiding in someone else and realising that you don't have to do this alone," He recommended, his eyes slightly drifting to Jehovah who began to move a little after recovering from the harsh blow between his legs.
"Thank you," She muttered, wiping a tear from her cheek. The pixie nodded before standing with a grunt and exiting the room after looking between them both. He closed the door behind him, leaving the two in silence.
The only sound in the room for a good while was the melody of thrashing rain against the window from the storm outside. She wasn't sure how long it had been before Jehovah stood with a huff and sat beside her on his bed. She dared not look at him. He said nothing, only slid his hand around hers, still wet from the shower. "You smell nice," She told him flatly causing them both to burst out laughing, even Leana who began to wipe away the remaining tears sticking to her face. After they calmed, he ran his thumb over her own.
"Leana," He begged, turning to look at her with large, sad eyes, his wet, mossy green hair falling in curls around his forehead and neck. "Please, tell me," she had never anticipated telling him about it all so soon. There was so much to tell! That night when the soldiers came for her, the first time Deploma approached her afterwards, the countless time she had refused to leave the palace in hope that the man she had once loved was still inside there somewhere. She wasn't sure that she was going to cave to his request at first, but when she saw the pain and feeling of hopelessness behind his emerald eyes, all that she could do was tell him everything.