The Songbird and the Wolf

[ IV ] Collars and Daggers

In the blissful first moments after waking up, Quinn believes himself dead.

It is a fleeting belief, as soon the ache sets in. A bone deep sensation that splinters through his every bone and muscle. 

He lurches upright, groaning as it lances through him, stealing the breath from his lungs.

For the first time in years, he wakes without chains encasing him. Instead, now there are pristine white bandages wrapping around his chest and abdomen, inhibiting his breathing. 

He presses his fingers to his neck, where mere hours ago his throat had been slit. 

Now there is only a pair of unfamiliar scars. One the jagged, line from the dagger. The second the uniform set circling his neck from the chains that had sat there undisturbed for so long.

A hospital room? 

It is the first time in years he has woken to peace. Not the sounds of screaming, not the stench of terror and dirt.

This is almost as unsettling. 

Overhead, the glow of the artificial dice is blinding. A medley of chemicals burns in his lungs. He shakes his head, orienting himself. 

When he has enough of his wits to think somewhat straight, he realises at last he is not alone. 

He is off the bed in a heartbeat, knees almost immediately buckling from beneath him under his weight. He crashes through a nearby medical cart, balancing himself and snatching a scalpel in one smooth motion. 

He is moving again, putting his back to the nearest doorless wall, armed, and ready for whatever threat he might face. 

But it is a familiar one. 

One he never expected to see alive again. 

Oscar Bennett, a gun gripped between his hands and pointed directly at the wolf's head. 

Without thinking, Quinn drops the scalpel. It clatters to the tile, bouncing out of reach. 

"Os-" but the words are stolen from him. 

"Not a word." 

"O-" He doesn't even get more than a couple of letters out when he is cut off by the click of the weapon. 

"We thought you were dead Quinn," the voice is wretched. "We mourned you, we buried you..." The younger man is fighting back tears, but he doesn't move to wipe them away. "Only to learn you were never the brother we thought you were." 

In the years of pain he had suffered, of torture and torment and fear. That was the worst pain he had known. 

A sliced throat, a broken rib, the butt of a gun to the jaw, were all quantifiable pains. Things he could give measure and reason to.

This has no such sentiment to it. 

"Nothing has changed, Oscar," Quinn fights back the pleading tone from his voice. "I am still the man you once knew."

But the words lack conviction, as he no longer believes it true. 

Oscar's laugh is a barking, bitter sound that doesn't quite hide the pain from it. "All those years we spent hunting the killer, the Umbra Lupus together, and all this time it was you." 

That sends electricity through his veins, shock, horror and pain. 

"I spent those years hunting that soldier with you myself," Quinn gives up any attempt at keeping his dignity, and falls to outright pleading now. "I wanted him found and dead as much as any of us."