[ His fingers close around the throat beneath them, and Mace knows objectively that he’s got seconds to get this shit done. Strangulation alone didn’t kill these fuckers, so it was going to take a lot more than a blood-choke to render this threat obsolete. Any moment now, he could expect a scalpel or a syringe to stab him in his now-bared stomach, the tatters of his shirt barely hanging off him.
But subjectively, the only thing registering in his head right now is an unadulterated anger that’s overriding his usual pragmatism. It’s not red-hot. It’s not panicked, rushed, distorted. It’s the sort of concentrated, cold fury he’s felt only a handful of times in his life, preceded by drawn weapons, ending with blood on his hands and a clear conscience.
Where did James Mace learn to knife-fight? They don’t teach that at ROTC.
Probably helps that his hands are already bloody right now, or at least one of them is — rivulets running down his busted knuckles, sliding over the wrist that the doctor is gripping, for once showing something other than that fucked up tranquility that was their trademark.
Good. It’s scared. It’s struggling. It’s —
… raising its coat up and patting the skinned flesh of its — ]
The fuck are you doing.
[ A vicious hiss, his eyes narrowing in furious confusion, still locked on its stitched sockets. Thinks at first that it’s some mocking attempt at distraction, because even though he can’t see precisely where it’s patting itself, it’s obvious that it's the same spot they’d cut Ian open.
But the confusion only grows, steep and fast, when the thing’s other hand comes up
and
strokes along the skin of his inner forearm, soft and slow and so utterly strange that even through the rage, it gives Mace pause. It's not the touch of a monster. There's nothing about it that adds up in any way, not even mockery. Too light to be a distraction. Too deliberate to be an accident. He blinks hard, his vision swimming for a brief second before clearing.
The stitches disappear. Melt into long lashes, dipping lower and lower as the eyes of the man underneath him go out-of-focus. And realization is a slow, heavy wash of acid as Mace sees exactly who it is that he’s been attacking, who he's been trying to kill.
Ian.
He’s fucking hurting—
A horrible sound rips out of Mace and he wrenches his hands back like they’ve just been scalded with liquid nitrogen. They might as well have been for all the use he gets out of them in the next few seconds, his gaze widening and aghast as he stares at the long-limbed, prone body of the person he's been trying to protect this whole time. The person he did this to instead. And then he's scrambling forward, uncoordinated and urgent. ]
Ian — no, no, no, Jesus fucking —
[ One hand cups the side of his face, the other raising his hitched shirt higher as Mace, agitated, tries to see what further damaged he's caused. ]
no subject
But subjectively, the only thing registering in his head right now is an unadulterated anger that’s overriding his usual pragmatism. It’s not red-hot. It’s not panicked, rushed, distorted. It’s the sort of concentrated, cold fury he’s felt only a handful of times in his life, preceded by drawn weapons, ending with blood on his hands and a clear conscience.
Where did James Mace learn to knife-fight? They don’t teach that at ROTC.
Probably helps that his hands are already bloody right now, or at least one of them is — rivulets running down his busted knuckles, sliding over the wrist that the doctor is gripping, for once showing something other than that fucked up tranquility that was their trademark.
Good. It’s scared. It’s struggling. It’s —
… raising its coat up and patting the skinned flesh of its — ]
The fuck are you doing.
[ A vicious hiss, his eyes narrowing in furious confusion, still locked on its stitched sockets. Thinks at first that it’s some mocking attempt at distraction, because even though he can’t see precisely where it’s patting itself, it’s obvious that it's the same spot they’d cut Ian open.
But the confusion only grows, steep and fast, when the thing’s other hand comes up
and
strokes along the skin of his inner forearm, soft and slow and so utterly strange that even through the rage, it gives Mace pause. It's not the touch of a monster. There's nothing about it that adds up in any way, not even mockery. Too light to be a distraction. Too deliberate to be an accident. He blinks hard, his vision swimming for a brief second before clearing.
The stitches disappear. Melt into long lashes, dipping lower and lower as the eyes of the man underneath him go out-of-focus. And realization is a slow, heavy wash of acid as Mace sees exactly who it is that he’s been attacking, who he's been trying to kill.
Ian.
He’s fucking hurting—
A horrible sound rips out of Mace and he wrenches his hands back like they’ve just been scalded with liquid nitrogen. They might as well have been for all the use he gets out of them in the next few seconds, his gaze widening and aghast as he stares at the long-limbed, prone body of the person he's been trying to protect this whole time. The person he did this to instead. And then he's scrambling forward, uncoordinated and urgent. ]
Ian — no, no, no, Jesus fucking —
[ One hand cups the side of his face, the other raising his hitched shirt higher as Mace, agitated, tries to see what further damaged he's caused. ]