Black Eye (Gen, Sheffield and O'Brian, R)

[themirr]

Title: Black Eye

Author: remy_ice_angel 

'Verse: Digital Devil Saga

Characters: Sheffield and O’Brian

Rating: R for language

Warnings: Spoilers for the Five Years Ago segment of DDS2

Disclaimer: DDS and all its characters are the property of ATLUS. This is a non-profit fanfiction.

Summary: Losing patients is always hard on doctors. Every doctor except for Sheffield, anyway.

Table/Prompt: Phrases/It’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye

 

 

His hands are still shaking, and he can’t get them to stop. He feels like a drink. Or a million of them. If he doesn't drop the bottle because his hands are shaking so damn hard and he can’t even think except for wishing he could have done something. Anything. Anything but giving up, than letting that life slip through his fingers instead of just keep trying and he’ll be okay, just three more seconds and that telltale beep will start up again, and the kid will be okay. 

 

Sheffield. That damn bastard, he kept saying the kid was dead, it wasn’t worth it, he’d been flatlined too long... What did he know? Dissocial Personality bastard. He kept going. Everyone hauled him off, called it, and himself... He had been staring at the bruises on the kid’s chest. 

 

How Heat had ended up hidden in a second floor stairwell, he didn’t know. Probably had wandered here after. The kid was haunting him, he could feel it. That bright smile, those braids, the way he was always so happy...even when he was in pain. 

 

“Everytin’ gonna be okay, Heat! You’ll see. I’ll give your sis a message when I talk to God.”

 

You weren’t supposed to leave yet....

 

The strong smell of bourbon burns his nose, making him look up. That fucker Sheffield again. But at least he has booze. “Here. You look like you need this.”

 

He takes it, downing the liquor, grimacing at the aftertaste in his mouth. “What do you want?”

 

“You’re upset. It’s obvious. Isn’t this what friendship is? Comforting each other after a rough day?”

 

Heat snorts derisively, his tone a bit more caustic than he likes. Same temper as his father, and its fuse is burning up fast. “You don’t even know anything about comforting. A kid just died. You think that’s something that can be comforted and forgotten?”

 

“Actually, yes. I do.” Sheffield takes the glass, inspecting it from all angles. “It’s funny. It’s like I’m an outside observer, constantly looking in at this wild party we have down here, unable to join it myself.” He pauses, regarding Heat with that same mocking smile as ever. “Do you think that’s what God feels like?”

 

“You’re not God. You never will be.”

 

Serph tilts his head, slightly amused. “Just like a child will never die on your watch?”

 

“Fuck you.”

 

A heavy silence falls between them. Heat doesn’t look at him anymore. The man is looking at him with that superior little smirk...Serph isn’t even trying to comfort him, of that he is convinced. Arrogant prick doesn't even care about Cielo...doesn't care how much the kid was hurting. Heat knows jack shit about psychology, but even he could tell that the kid put on a happy face to keep the world from worrying about him. And damn it, he knew. He knew that Cielo was too small for the treatments, and his poor little body couldn’t take it. How the hell had Serph been able to convince him...?

 

“He was the first of yours to die on the table, wasn’t he.”

 

The tone is so offhand and empty that Heat couldn’t help but slip an ugly tone into his response to make up for it. “Yes.”

 

Silence again. 

 

He feels the hand on his face, looks up. What the hell?

 

A smile crosses Serph’s face, one that sends a sinking, cold feeling flooding through him. “Tell me, Heat...were you thinking of your dearly departed sister as you watched Cielo die?”

 

His fist makes a satisfying thunk as he rams it into Serph’s face. Shit. Shit, he’s just fractured the zygomatic bone, he’s sure of it. But it felt good. Fuck yeah, it felt good to haul off and hit the sick disconnected bastard in the face and send him flopping onto the stairs.

 

Heat stands over the other, his fist still clenched, still throbbing from the impact, teeth gritted so hard they grind together as they slip back into his overbite. “If you ever talk about my sister or Cielo again, I am going to kill you. You understand that, Sheffield? Fucking kill you!”

 

Serph is stunned for a long time...long enough that Heat gets worried about a concussion or a fragment of bone in his brain. But no, he starts moving again after a while and oh damn, he’s going to have one hell of a black eye. And...Jesus H. Christ in a Can, he’s laughing.

 

“Kill me, huh? I guess that answers my question. I was just playing, Heat. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

 

Like hell you didn’t.

 

“Yeah, well, you know what they say about playing around. Someone usually ends up losing an eye.”

 

“I’ll remember that.” He’s on his feet now, wobbling a bit. “Don’t stay up too late kicking yourself, now.”