Darryl stood outside the door to Eric's apartment, listening closely...mostly because he wanted to make sure Sarah wasn't inside with the man. Or whatever it was Eric Draven was right now. Even having seen the man shake off injuries like they were nothing, and heal bullet wounds in a matter of seconds, he still wasn't entirely sure he believedit.
Of course, the alternative was that he'd lost his mind and was just as crazy. But that would be a whole other problem if he let himself believe that.
There was no sound from inside the apartment, but that didn't mean Draven wasn't inside. If he wasn't out working his own case, or working at Blackout, this was the place he was most likely to be.
Satisfied that Sarah wasn't there and therefore not going to eavesdrop on the conversation he was about to have with Draven, Darly raised his hand and knocked on the door. He waited a beat, then opened the door and stepped into the apartment.
Draven was sitting in the window, watching the door...and therefore Darryl as he walked in. "Aren't you supposed to wait for me to open the door before you just walk in?"
"Shouldn't you have a lock on that door?" Darryl carefully avoided looking at the open window Draven was sat in front of. Looking at it made him think of the video of the murder. He thought he could understand whyDraven hadn't had the window repaired; it had to allow him to feel closer to Shelly. And he'd outright admitted to Darryl that he'd seen her more than once. Includingwhen he was more injured.
"What do you want?" Draven's question broke into Darryl's thoughts.
"To talk." Darryl gestured towards the window. "Mind if I take a seat?"
"Be my guest."
Darryl nodded and walked over, sitting down next to Draven in front of the shattered window. "I'm not here on police business."
"You need my kind of help?" Draven asked.
"No. Not at the moment." Darryl shifted a little, trying to get comfortable, before he said, "I went to see the house with Cordy."
"You made your decision, then? You're sure?"
"More sure than I was. Because of what you said," Darryl admitted. "At least partly. But after I got back home, I got to thinking about what elseyou said." He paused, waiting to see if Draven would realise what he was talking about.
"What else did I say?"
Darryl took a few moments before he responded. After all, he'd seen just how powerful Draven was now; how he was able to just get up after taking multiple bullets to his chest. Of course, that hadn't happened the last time. Draven had healed, eventually, but it had taken a hell of a lot longer than it had done before. "Do you think Shelly wants you to keep getting hurt?" he asked finally.
"I heal fast. I don't stay down. You've seen that."
"I've also seen that it has its limits," Darryl said. "I thought you were actually going to die this time. Gotta admit, I never thought I'd be so relieved to see you as I was when you came out of that vent." He paused briefly. "Whatever thisis, it's made you reckless with your own safety. You don't care whether you live or die."
"I'm already dead." Draven laughed, although it contained very little humour. "It doesn't make a difference what I do."
Darryl glanced behind him at the window, wondering if Shelly was there...if she could see him and Draven. He didn't feel anything, but he'd only just recently accepted that Draven was something supernatural. He'd be more surprised if he didfeel something. "I'm sure you want to be reunited with her again," he said out loud.
"Of course I do. More than anything." A slightly hoarse note crept into Draven's voice, betraying how much pain he had to be feeling.
"Okay." Darryl nodded, though it was more to himself than in response to Draven's words. "So you're telling me that you can'tdie. Right? No matter what happens. Nothingcan kill you for a second time."
Draven hesitated.
Darryl picked up on it immediately. "You gonna tell me that you candie, aren't you?"
"I'm not the only one like this. Although the only one I've met wasn't exactly like me either." Draven glanced to the side. "He had a snake. Not a crow."
Darryl followed the line of Draven's gaze, noticing that a crow was perched on one of the ledges. "You have some sort of symbiotic relationship with that bird?"
"Maybe?" Draven shrugged. "I don't know. Sarah did research, but all she's found is that people used to belive that a crow guides a person's soul to the land of the dead after they die."
"Did your crow get turned around?"
Thatbrought a laugh from Draven's lips. It was a tiny one, but real all the same. "No. No," he repeated. "According to what Sarah found, sometimes a soul can't rest because it can't let go of sadness. The sadness is so strong, it lingers and makes it impossible for the soul to reach its final rest. When that happens, the crow brings the soul back to put right what went wrong." He looked down at his hands. "It's not as simple as bringing those who killed Shelly, who robbed us both of our lives, to justice, though."
"It's not?"
"It's about checks and balances. Get enough merits and I can be reunited with her. I have to help those in need. Do enough good to balance out the bad."
Darryl frowned. "That doesn't seem fair."
Draven gave a half-hearted shrug. "No one said anything was fair. Fairwould have been me getting to live a full life with Shelly, not separated from her and only able to see her and speak with her when the stars align exactly right."
"But that's the end goal, right?" Darryl asked. "To earn your redemption? To reunite with Shelly? And then what? You both pass onto the afterlife together?"
"If that's what waits for us. I don't really care about where we'll end up, only that I can be reunited with her."
Darryl nodded slowly, eyes tracking towards the crow once more before he asked, "But you can still die?"
"Yes," Draven admitted. "There are weapons that can hurt...that can kill. I was told that weapon would destroy me completely, though I don't know how much of that is true. The only person who could have given me any answers is dead."
The response didn't surprise Darryl, but it did spark a new feeling of worry inside him. "So you don'tknow if this will just...run out? If you'll stop healing and one day bleed out?"
"I don't think it's something that will just run out," Draven replied.
Maybe he was right, but Darryl was a policeman. He'd long since learned to trust his gut instincts. It was a necessary part of being a cop. And right now, his gut was telling him that if Draven continued along this path, he'd eventually receive a wound he wouldn't be able to recover from.
Darryl nodded slowly. "Okay," he said to himself.
"Okay, what?" Draven asked.
"Okay, I guess I'm gonna have to step in and stop you doing something that'll get you killed. For good, this time," Darryl said. "I took on your case a year ago, before you came back. I guess I feel responsible for you, in a way." He cast a glance at the crow. Would it try to stop his next actions? Would Draven? The other man was still looking confused, but Darryl knew that confusion wouldn't last for long. He settled back, bracing himself against what remained of the window frame, and closed his fingers around Draven's wrist. He leaned back, stretching his legs out in front of him, and pulled Draven across his lap in one quick, swift movement.
The action obviously took Draven by surprise, because he lay there, across Darryl's lap, in stunned silence for a moment or two.
Taking advantage of Draven's momentary shock, knowing that he wouldn't be able to fight back against the man's supernatural strength, Darryl quickly wrapped an arm around Draven's waist, pulling him in close and tight against his stomach. He then lifted his hand and slapped it down with force on Draven's bottom.
"What the hell, Albrecht?!" Draven braced his hands on the window seat and tried to push himself up. "You'd better let me up. Right now."
"Or what?" Darryl kept Draven in position more easily than he was expecting to. "You'll kill me?" He began to swat firmly, going from the crest down to mid-thigh before starting over from the top. "I knowyou're not gonna do that. You're a good man, Draven. Took me a while to see that, but I see it now."
"If I'm so good, why're you spankingme?" Draven demanded.
"Because you're gonna get yourself killed. And I don'tmean the kind of death you come back from, or heal from." Darryl reached Draven's thighs for a second time and then paused, hooking his fingers in the waistband of his pants and tugging them down.
Draven threw his hand back to try and stop the descent. "Don't."
Darryl grasped Draven's hand and pulled it out of the way, holding it against his back, before he continued pulling Draven's pants down. "I saw you get too close to that line earlier. You stayed dead for a longer time when Kessler shot you." He began to swat again, this time with only the thin layer of Draven's boxers between his hand and the other man's backside. When he swatted Draven's thighs, though, his hand connected to bare skin and it clearly had an effect, because Draven was letting out tiny whimpers and moans when his bare thighs were smacked.
"You shouldn't even care!" Draven burst out. "You don'tcare about what happens to me!"
Darryl paused, resting his hand on Draven's thigh. "That's not true," he disagreed. "Even beforeyou came to save me from Kessler, I didn't want you to get yourself hurt, or even killed. Now that I know who you really are, those feelings are even stronger."
"What do you expect from me?" Draven sounded close to tears. "I can't just stop being what I am. I haveto help those in need. It's the only way I can get back to her."
"I don't expect you to stop." Darryl lowered Draven's boxers now, removing the final piece of protection between his hand and Draven's bottom. Then, he began to smack again, the sound of the swats almost abnormally loud in the silence that surrounded them. "I want you to be careful. Keep me in the loop. Ask me to back you up. You came to help me. Let me do the same thing for you. Let me help you."
Draven was obviously crying now. His legs were jerking up and down, as if they'd kick if they weren't tangled in the material of his pants.
Darryl gentled his smacks a little, although he continued to swat Draven's bare bottom. "I know what you need to do, and I'll help you do it. But you gotta let me in, Draven. You've gotta keep me in the loop. Okay? You need help. You can't do this alone."
By this point, Draven had slumped over Darryl's lap, his body shivering, as his audible sobs reached Darryl's ears. "You want to help me?" he whispered through his tears.
"I want to help you." Darryl squeezed Draven's hand, then released it. He carefully pulled Draven's clothing back into place and then helped the other man to his feet. Standing up as well, he wrapped his arms around Draven and held him close.
Draven's body shuddered and he wrapped his own arms around Darryl, breathing in deeply to calm his tears before whispering, "I don't know why you'd want to, but maybe you're right. Maybe I can'tdo this on my own."
"So you'll let me help you?" Darryl asked.
"I'll let you help me."
"Good." Draven hadn't stepped away from him, and Darryl decided that meant the other man needed some form of human contact. He sat back down on the windowseat and gently tugged Draven down with him, still holding the other man close.
Draven let out a quiet sigh and his head dropped to Darryl's shoulder. "I actually feel tired," he whispered. "I haven't felt thatsince I came back."
"Yeah?" Darryl rubbed his back. "Go to sleep," he directed. "I'll stay here while you do. Watch your back."
Draven mumbled a response that almost sounded slurred...and within a few seconds, he was breathing in a deep, even rhythm that indicated he'd fallen asleep.
The End
