[fic] things unspoken

[manic-intent.livejournal.com]

Title: Things Unspoken
Rating: PG13
Word Count: 300
Pairing: Lucci x Paulie
Topic: Captivity

The ward in the underground, illegally operated hospital was tiny, poorly ventilated, the stale air reeking of unwashed skin and cavalierly applied disinfectant.  Its single occupant seemed trapped, stretched on a too-small bed, bound in discolored bandages and pale drips, the narrowed, cold eyes golden with the wildness of a wounded beast.

 

Paulie froze at the door, as the slitted pupils flickered behind him, to Kaku, silent and still at the frame, then to the nervously rolled newspaper in Paulie’s hand, then up to his clenched chin. 

 

Then Lucci smirked, slowly, and so goddamned familiar that the tightly wound coil within his chest twisted smaller to breaking.  Behind him, there was a soft intake of breath that Kaku was too slow in stifling.

 

“I’ll come back in ten minutes,” Kaku murmured.  The squeal of the rusted iron door closing made Paulie clench his fist tightly over paper.

 

“Bone fragments in the spine.” Lucci broke the silence crisply, and Paulie flinched.  “I’m paraplegic.”

 

From the cast iron headboard, Hattori cooed sleepily, and Paulie wondered, not for the first time since setting foot in Saint Popla, what the bloody fuck was he doing.  He wanted to laugh, to scream, to say the thousand thousand words buried within his soul and snared under his throat, but he breathed instead, stuttered and harsh in the guttering light of the single lamp. 

 

His tongue bested him.  “Will you get better?”

 

Lucci flexed beautiful long fingers with a pianist’s sure and firm sensitivity, a touch he still sure as hell remembered even with all the alcohol he’d flushed through his system since Enies Lobby: Paulie watched, hypnotized.

 

“Likely not.”

 

“Make sure you do,” Paulie muttered, and added, too hurriedly, “There’s no point in kicking a cripple’s arse.”

 

“You never change.” Past the mockery, there’s almost relief.

Comments

[reddy-chan.livejournal.com]

D= aww, poor Paulie.. Don't worry, Lucci will be healed in short time

[paxnirvana.livejournal.com]

unguh! Hot.

[reflecttheother.livejournal.com]

::wibble:: Lucci...
For some reason, you're inclusion of Hattori just got to me, good stuff.

..

[horusguard76.livejournal.com]

This story fits my mood perfectly. Crippled Lucci. And go Paulie for refusing to hit him in that state.

[travellyr.livejournal.com]

....HATTORI. And Kaku, wisely leaving.
And Paulie, wanting to kick his ass so bad and refusing to do so until Lucci's gotten better... reassurance and "I'm still mother of PISSED at you" all in one.

[cptn-shinigami.livejournal.com]

I don't know why, but when you mentioned the newspaper I thought Paulie was going to roll it up and thwap Lucci with it :D Lucci will get better, his sheer scaryness won't let his legs stay wibbly for long. Failing that he'd develope a scary technique to kill people just by looking at them...

[manic-intent.livejournal.com]

Haha, I was thinking about it, but decided Paulie didn't need to die just yet ;3