The problem with having a conscience was that you felt guilty when you did something wrong or hurt someone you actually cared for. By the time Cassian had roused himself out of bed the next morning, he had worked himself up into a nice fit of feeling crummy.
Honestly, Cassian hadn't slept well at all last night and he rose with burning eyes and a heavy feeling to his body. Cassian was uncertain and he hated feeling that way. Hadn't he sworn to himself to keep distant from now on? Hadn't he promised he would never open himself up to getting hurt again? God help him, he was a fucking moron.
But he couldn't not like the confusing jumble of prickliness and odd sweetness that was Jezebel at times. There was such kindness and love beneath the surface of madness. Cassian found himself drawn to it just like the sparrows and birds the doctor was so fond of cooing over.
It was madness; surely the doctor's insanity had rubbed off on him or something? Why else would he find himself softening up towards a man likely to turn on him and kill him? Suddenly, Cassian was having flashbacks to his time spent in the lion cage. After the previous handler had been mauled and killed, Cassian of all people had been assigned to taking care of the aged and half-feral lion called Leo.
No doubt, the ringmaster had been trying to get rid of him, too, but Cassian was just too stubborn to be killed that easily. He'd formed a wary sort of rapport with the animal. It had taken more then a few sharp blows to the cat's muzzle to get him to behave, but Cassian had managed what three men before him hadn't. To 'tame' the 'wild' beast.
At any moment, the cat could have turned on him, but they had a grudging respect between them. Cassian fed the beast extra scraps and even his own food until the aged feline wasn't quite starving. Perhaps in its younger years it would have used that extra energy to cause mischief or try testing Cassian, but by that time, Leo was just too tired to do more then a few tricks and go find a nice warm spot in the sun to lay down.
It was strange because Cassian's relationship with Jezebel was oddly similar. They had each tested the other out until a grudging sort of understanding was formed between them. Sure, it was Cassian in the submissive role this time around. Jezebel was the one who held the reins, but that didn't mean he couldn't use some of the same tricks he'd used on the lion.
Feeling rather cheered at this (and with the thankful turn of his thoughts away from certain uncomfortable subjects) Cassian hurried down the kitchens to fix some food. He made his own breakfast and then made some for the doctor as well. For one thing, Jezebel would be in no shape to try and do little more then get out of bed. Food was always a good way to form a rapport with any creature. Who knew, maybe if he managed to endear himself to Jezebel enough, the good doctor would not vivisect him when the mood struck?
Strangely enough, Cassian's new treatment of the doctor actually worked. Jezebel was confused at first, and more then a little suspicious. Things had never been easy between them but now Cassian was actually making the effort to work together. Jezebel was unsure of how he should feel about that.
Sure, Cassian had no problem with telling him to go to hell, but now he was cursing him while seeing to it that he was eating regularly and taking care of his body. Ironic really, that he should think he had to tell a doctor of all people how to care for himself.
Not that Jezebel actually listened, of course. Doctors were nothing if not stubborn about their own bodies and what they thought was right. Cassian still saw to it that there was always food sitting at his elbow three times a day no matter how entrenched he might be in his latest experiment.
"Would you put that damned thing down and eat, for Christ's sake!" Cassian, it would seem, had lost patience with him once again when he returned to Jezebel's lab after an hour to find the food untouched. He stood there and glared at the blond until the doctor looked up and blinked blearily at him. Jezebel's eyes slowly refocused on something more then the tiny life forms squirming around under the lens of his microscope and he looked vaguely puzzled.
"What?" Sitting there with his hair tangled, clothes rumpled, he looked almost adorable as he blinked owlishly up at his hot-eyed servant.
"You! Eat!" Cassian pointed imperiously to where his dinner sat cold and untouched on the table next to him. At one point, Jezebel might have gotten annoyed by Cassian's pushiness and high-handed way of ordering him around, but now the doctor just found it amusing and passably endearing.
It didn't help that Cassian's deceptively youthful form made him even less intimidating and thus amusing when he got it in his head to order Jezebel around. Despite his intentions otherwise, Jezebel found himself fond of the older man. Cassian was the first kindness he had known in years, and against his better judgment he found himself warming to the other.
When they were alone like they were now, Jezebel let himself grin and be more free with his emotions around his capricious and temperamental assistant. "You nag like an old woman, Cassian. Are you sure wouldn't be happy with the body of an old granny?" Jezebel allowed himself a smirk before turning away from his experiment. He removed the gloves he'd worn and washed his hands after discarding the gown he'd been wearing. After Jezebel was certain he was clean, he settled down to eat.
Most people would think living and eating out of the same rooms as the ones in which you conducted dangerous and sometimes poisonous experiments was madness, but it had been firmly ascertained that Jezebel was anything but sane, and he found it more convenient to have his lab near at hand rather then having to trudge through snow or chilly English weather when the mood struck him to work at three in the morning.
With the creatures he was currently dealing with, extra precaution was needed because if he had succeeded in engineering them correctly, then a gruesome death awaited those who got infected with those tiny little eggs.
"Whelp, I'll show you old granny," Cassian threatened with a mock-growled, but
an answering smirk curled the corners of his lips. "If you would learn to take care of yourself like any three-year-old could, I wouldn't have to nag." As Jezebel began eating, Cassian wandered over to the lab table the blond had been working at and looked around without touching anything. He did peer into the microscope curiously and drew back with a curious look on his face. "What the hell are those things?"
Despite having been Jezebel's assistant for months now, Cassian could still get grossed out by some of the doctors more gory experiments, and the creepy insects crawling beneath the microscope had been like something out of a horror dime novel. Cassian bent over to take another look and cursed as his sleeve caught on a beaker next to the microscope.
Glass shattered as the beaker broke against the edge of the microscope and the formula went everywhere . The pale red fluid went all over the table and splashed down his shirt and clothes. "Shit. Doctor, I'm sorry I made a mess." Cassian grimaced and started wiping up the liquid with a nearby towel.
Considering his skin wasn't beginning to burn and bubble off, Cassian could only thank God the compound didn't seem harmful. Maybe it was a base? Wasn't that the term? Not acid since that burned. It must be some kind of base Jezebel was using for his experiments? Pleased with himself for having retained that much chemical knowledge, Cassian continued to wipe up at the now splintered pieces of glass and cherry-scented fluid.
Jezebel had been too lost in his deliciously garnished salad at first to really pay attention to what Cassian was prattling on about, but the sound of glass breaking had him glancing up in time to see Cassian begin to wipe up the mess with a rag, his hands in bare contact with the fluid teeming with parasites. "Cassian! No!" Jezebel was shocked to hear his voice break as he leapt from the table with a crash of cutlery and overturned dishes.
Cassian jumped guiltily at Jezebel's cry of dismay and cursed as he sliced his finger on a piece of glass. By the time the doctor reached him, he was raising his hand to suck the welling blood from his finger when his wrist was trapped in a steely grip.
"Don't." Jezebel's face was white, amethyst eyes a touch wild as he held Cassian's wrist crushingly tight. "Go wash your hands now." There was steel in the doctor's voice. It brooked no argument, and Cassian felt a chill run up his spine. For once, he did as bidden without arguing, and scuttled over the sink to wash his hands that were covered in the sticky red fluid.
Aw shit, he was in trouble! He hadn't thought the liquid that important, but it was. To Jezebel's twisted mind it would make sense to get more upset over loosing his precious experiment then be worried about his assistant getting hurt.
What Cassian didn't see was Jezebel standing there shaking and chilled to the bone as he looked down at the ruined experiment. So close, too bloody close! If Cassian had gotten some of that serum in his mouth or maybe even in his bloodstream then those parasites would have eaten him alive from the inside out. The kelsias parasites he'd been working on were true horrors beyond imagining.
Jezebel trembled, but forced his knees to cooperate as he walked over to where his assistant was scrubbing industriously at his hands. Cassian grimaced as the lye soap burned in his wound but he thought it a minor pain compared to the one burning in his chest right now. It hurt that in spite of all they had accomplished and the things they had done together, he still meant about as much as a gnat to the beautiful doctor. No, less then a gnat because he was human, not one of Jezebel's prized animals.
"You got it on you," Jezebel noted dully as he saw the sticky stain of the liquid on Cassian's shirt. He forced his hands to be steady as he yanked at the shirt and started to pull it away.
"Hey now!" Cassian squawked as he practically found himself yanked off his feet along with his shirt. "Don't get grabby!"
"Get out of those clothes now!"
Cassian misread the firmness and desperation in Jezebel's voice for barely leashed rage, and he felt his own temper flash hot in answer. "I'm sorry I broke your stupid beaker, but calm the fuck down!" he snapped and slapped Jezebel's hands away with a hiss as he twisted around only to find himself trapped between the sink and a wild-eyed Jezebel.
"Get out of those clothes, or so help me, I'll kill you myself if the damned parasites don't do the job for me."
"Para-what!?" Cassian yelped and started to yank his clothes off in an almost comical tumble of limbs. "They're on me!?" If the situation hadn't been so dire, Jezebel probably would have found the entire horrible ordeal hilarious. Right now he was too busy trying to get his heart out of his throat.
"What did you think I was experimenting with? Cough syrup?" the blond growled and just… sagged against the counter next to Cassian who was currently clad in little more then his small clothes. "Go take a very thorough shower, and don't get that finger anywhere near your mouth. You could accidentally ingest them."
"I-It smelled like it," Cassian muttered but nodded, too numb to even argue as Jezebel shooed him off. Once his assistant had disappeared, Jezebel gave into the urge to just sink to the ground. He sat there shuddering and gasping for breath in the throes of a full-blown panic attack. He couldn't breathe!
He couldn't breathe, he was going to choke to death!
Jezebel hadn't felt like this since a child, had not gasped and clawed for each elusive breath since he'd eaten…oh God, don't think about that! Cold sweat beaded on Jezebel's brow as he clutched at the cross around his neck tightly, the points digging sharply into his flesh as he did so.
When Cassian came out after his shower ten minutes later, he found Jezebel shaking and still hyperventilating on the floor. "Doctor!" Fresh fear shot through him as he skidded to his knees beside Jezebel. "Doctor! Did you get them in you too?"
Cassian, of course, was completely clueless as to what was running through Jezebel's head and he clutched at those icy hands in an attempt to capture the blond's attention. "Talk to me, dammit!"
"C-Can't br-br-eathe," Jezebel gasped and violet eyes turned to Cassian with a heartbreaking look of fear in them. The poor man was terrified of choking to death, and even his normally logical and razor sharp mind couldn't quite convince his body he wasn't going to asphyxiate.
Casssian swallowed and stared with numb confusion as the normally collected doctor just sort of unraveled and fell to pieces in front of him. It was a scary and unnerving sight to behold. "Calm down, just calm down and you'll get through this. You're hyperventilating. You need to calm down. You're not going to asphysi-whatever and you're going to pass out or something." Jezebel was still trying to educate his assistant. And while Cassian's mind was like a dry sponge and soaked up knowledge at a startling rate, the man still had problems with longer medical words.
Vapors. He was having vapors or whatever it was when women started to freak out and fall over! Cassian didn't have anything to lay Jezebel out on, so he settled for cupping icy hands in his own much smaller ones and massaging them to warm them up. "Doctor!" Jezebel's eyes were wide and still panicky though he did look at Cassian. "Look at me, keep looking at me, kid. You're going to be okay I promise."
Spots were beginning to dance in front of Jezebel's eyes and his breathing, gasping really, accelerated even more. He shuddered and closed his eyes in order to try and block out the spots and Cassian gripped his shoulders tightly. "Look at me!" He shook him lightly and the blond's startled eyes flew open. He met Cassian's now stormy dark grey eyes and tried to concentrate on them. They really were lovely eyes. So changeable with his moods and if he looked close enough, he could see chips of paler grey floating around the irises.
"That's it, Jezebel, just concentrate on me." It dimly occurred to the doctor that it was the first time Cassian had actually called him by his first name, and he concentrated on that, concentrated on Cassian's eyes, those wonderful kind eyes that held nothing of their usual scorn or fire.
"Good boy, you're okay, you're fine." Cassian's voice had dropped to a soothing murmur and he massaged Jezebel's shoulders to give him a constant reminder of companionship and to help relax tense muscles. It was something he'd done whenever he had to calm down an animal or even a human while working at the circus.
Jezebel slowly stopped trembling as he tried to convince his lungs to draw in breath regularly. It finally got to the point that Cassian was directing him by his voice when to breathe and when to exhale. "That's it, in.....and out..." A small eternity of a pause and then another husky, "Breathe in.....and out."
"That's it, just slow and easy." Cassian gifted him with a brilliant smile. His youthful features all but glowed sweetly as he smiled and Jezebel was dazzled by the charm in that simple expression. Cassian was usually so gruff and serious. This was the probably the first time he'd seen the man smile so freely. It did odd things to his heart, or maybe that was just the adrenaline still coursing through his blood?
Eventually, Jezebel's breathing slowed and his head fell back to rest against the cabinet with a soft shudder as his eyes slipped closed in a grimace. "I…."
"What the hell was that stuff, and am I going to die from it?" Cassian asked bluntly once Jezebel seemed to calm down. Amethyst eyes flashed open and met Cassian's briefly before falling away.
"Unless you ingested them, probably not. I don't know enough about the kelsias to know if it can be transmitted by exposure to the blood stream. You did thoroughly scrub, right?" Now that the panic attack was over with, Jezebel made one pertinent observation. Cassian wasn't wearing anything but a towel, and a badly wrapped towel at that.
Seeing people naked, or near enough to it in Cassian's case, didn't normally affect him, but for some inexplicable reason, Jezebel felt his cheeks color and burn in a mortifying blush. Shit. Jezebel looked anywhere but at his assistant now, his ego all but standing on its last legs. There were only so many strikes to his pride he could take and Jezebel was certainly approaching his limit today.
"Yeah, I scrubbed down real good, and I didn't touch my mouth or anything," Cassian murmured, a frown twisting his brows as he watched the doctor's cheeks turn a bit pink. Glancing down at the towel that was slipping dangerously open, he felt a touch of amusement at his superior's discomfort. He hadn't taken Jezebel for a prude, but apparently he was. "Er… sorry. I didn't have time to get, er… dressed." Finding your assignment and superior gasping or possibly dying from some creepy parasite sort of took precedence over personal fashion.
"What? Oh, no, I don't mind," Jezebel whispered, his voice weak even to his own ears and not very convincing. "I've seen plenty of people unclad, cadavers and all that." For the love of God, Jezebel Disraeli, get your act together now!
"Uh huh," Dammit, Cassian was smirking at him, and that was starting to do weird things to his heart as well.
"Cassian..." There was a note of warning in his growl.
"So, what will happen to me if I did get the creepy crawlers in me?" the seemingly younger man asked bluntly enough.
"If they are transmitted by blood, then you'll waste away within a month," Jezebel answered just as bluntly. "The symptoms are similar to arsenic poisoning, the paling of the skin, the pheromone release that makes you more attractive. The parasites will literally eat you up from the inside out." Cassian paled just a little and Jezebel felt a bitter twinge of vindictiveness. "That's why it's dangerous to fiddle around in my lab."
"So says the bloody idiot who knows about this shit and eats in the same lab as that crap?" To mask his uneasiness and fear, Cassian relied on his usual bluster and sarcasm. Jezebel saw right through it and a long-fingered, delicately boned hand reached out to touch the other's cheek. Cassian flinched just a bit, but didn't pull away as Jezebel smiled at him sadly.
"Don't worry. If it comes to that, I'll see to it that you die painlessly before that happens." The grey eyes he'd discovered to be so beautiful and surprisingly expressive flashed with a combination of cynical disbelief and fear.
"Oh, that's a comfort."
"It should be. You are not such a bad person, and you deserve just the type of death I would give to any of God's creatures." In Jezebel's eyes, that was the kindest and highest compliment he could give a filthy human creature. They were not one of God's creatures and didn't deserve the peace and softness of gentle death animals deserved. "That is all I can give you."
Jezebel didn't know if Cassian could appreciate or understand just what he was saying. There was only one other person he'd grant such a peaceful death to and that would be his father. No one else, no other human was held in such high regard in his eyes. Cassian studied Jezebel with a solemn expression on his face for a long moment before looking away, unable to meet violet eyes that told too much and yet nothing at all.
Jezebel's fingers were chill against his cheek, but Cassian felt as if there skin there was impossibly sensitive and hyperaware of that light touch. "Ah, thank you." What could you say to that? It was a promise of painless death in the event that he faced a far more horrible one? Could he really say anything at all to that twisted logic? "There's no cure for them, then?"
"Not to my knowledge, no," Jezebel murmured softly as his thumb glided along the delicate bone of Cassian's cheek before his hand fell away. "I was not looking at the project with the intentions of stopping the infestation." Jezebel's eyes went dreamy, then, and Cassian realized he'd lost him once more to the insanity steadily eating away at his mind and soul.
"I'm thinking about feeding them to Cain," he murmured with a beautiful and wistful smile. "They do such beautiful things to the eyes, make them almost glow with life, ironically enough. I think those golden eyes would be so beautiful and glowing in my jar. I can almost see it." Jezebel's words chilled Cassian to the bone and he stood carefully, mindful of any glass shards he might encounter now.
He frowned down at Jezebel with an unhappy expression as he noticed the misty-eyed look of longing in his superior's eyes. Jezebel was so obsessed and haunted by his supposed half-brother that Cassian didn't know what to do with him at times like this save for trying to snap him out of his reverie. "You need to eat. And clean up the lab." He nudged the doctor with a bare foot that was still wet from his shower. Water was steadily drying on Cassian's body and when Jezebel looked up, he smiled fondly.
Haloed in the light as he was, Cassian looked like some barbarian deity with that grim and stern expression on his face. Such a youthful and pretty face to hold such beautiful eyes; it would be a pity really to waste such a face. Cassian was considered desirable even in the eternally youthful form of his body. Cassandra would have had a field day with the man and Jezebel felt a stab of protective possession.
Cassian was his!
"Doctor, are you even listening to me, dammit?" A testy note filled Cassian's voice as he snapped impatiently at the dreamy-eyed Jezebel.
"Yes, yes I'm listening," he sighed wearily and tried not to frown. What the hell was wrong with him? Why was he thinking like this? Cassian was human and just as disgusting and corrupt as every other man. He wasn't supposed to be fond of him! "I'm tired, Cassian. I will clean up the lab myself. I no longer require your services for the evening." That was as smart a dismissal as he was ever going to get.
"Are you sure? I'm the idiot that broke the damned thing in the first place-"
"And I'm the only one who knows how best to treat the contamination," Jezebel pointed out imperiously with a good imitation of his usually cool and untouchable visage. "Go away, Cassian. I've got a lot of work to do." That wasn't a complete lie. He did have a lot of work to do. He just wanted to do this work alone. Unwilling to fight Jezebel on this, Cassian nodded and took his leave. He was happy enough not to have to touch that parasite infested liquid again, but he was worried for Jezebel. He was so… delicate. So easily broken.
Who was he trying to fool? Jezebel had been broken long before Cassian came into his life. But that didn't stop Cassian from wanting to put him back together, to fix him and make him whole once more. Such thoughts and feelings went against his personal promise to not care anymore, but somewhere along the line, Jezebel had weaseled his way into Cassian's heart, and he found himself incapable of not caring.
The question was... what did he do now?