darker_london | GET BETTER! (Quinn, Flynn)

Quinn was mad. Quinn was really mad. Frankie had beaten the shite out of the man he loved and nothing could possibly make Quinn angrier. What gave Frankie the right to decide what was best for Flynn? Even when Quinn believed Flynn to be doing terrible things back when they were both 15, he hadn't insisted that Flynn become like him. He had simply disassociated himself with Flynn and Flynn had done all the changing on his own. It was no one's business but Flynn's what to be like. No one's.

Talking to Reagan didn't help. While Flynn lay in bed, Quinn paced the room, backwards and forwards, anger practically radiating off of him. Flynn, who was not asleep, was watching Quinn with a worried expression on his face, and finally he spoke up. "You're going to start glowing red soon..."

"ARGH!"

"I'msorry!" Flynn said quickly, looking shocked.

"No, that...that wasn't at you." Quinn turned to Flynn, but he bent his head down and he ran his fingers roughly through his hair. "Fuck, Mal. Fuck. This is fucked."

Flynn pulled himself up in the bed, painfully and he cocked his head to the side. "You're usually more coherent and verbose." And then Flynn gave himself a mental pat on the back for using big words that made him sound smart and he would have to thank Deirdre for giving him a word of the day calendar. "I'm alright."

"No you're not!" Quinn protested. "You can hardly move!"

Flynn couldn't argue with that. It hurt to breathe. But he was breathing and that was the important thing. "I'll just have to lie here in bed and make you all wait on me then." Flynn said with a smile which drained away the second it appeared because he realised then what was wrong here and why Quinn was so upset. He had been hurt and all he could do was just lie there while everyone else waited on him. "Oh, Honey. Frankie isn't going to hurt me like you were hurt."

Quinn stopped raging around the room and he cast a worried and slightly embarrassed look Flynn's way. "How do you know?"

"He's not a demon." Flynn soothed, though he knew a person was quite capable of putting another person into the state Quinn had been in. "And he doesn't want me like that. He wants me alive and well so I can join him." Flynn could see Frankie doing it to anyone else. Hell, he wouldn't be surprised if Frankie tried to take every single person he loved away from him until he had to go back to Frankie because he was the only person left that Flynn had. Though Frankie was going to have a hell of a time if he tried, because Flynn wouldn't defend himself, but he would defend the people he loved. Flynn couldn't see Frankie killing him or sending him to such a state until he was sure there were no more options. And that was a long way off.

"I don't think I could do it." Quinn admitted quietly and all at once, he reminded Flynn of how Quinn had been so many years ago. So vulnerable and sweet, before years with a loving family had aided him to cover it all up with self-confidence. "I'm not strong like you." Quinn crawled onto the bed then, and he curled up at Flynn's side, burying his face in Flynn's hip. "I don't know what I would do." Quinn said, muffled against Flynn's body.

"You won't have to." Flynn soothed, though it hurt too much to try to turn his body so he could stroke Quinn's head. He settled for rested an arm against Quinn's hip. "Hey. I'll be okay."

"You coughed up blood before." Quinn said flatly, clearly disenchanted with the entire idea.

"Yes well...only a little." Flynn looked sheepish, even if Quinn didn't see it. "I just swallowed it. It wasn't from anywhere else. I bit my cheek when he-"

"I don't...need a play by play. Unless you need to tell me." Quinn lifted his head to look up at Flynn then. He frowned cutely at Flynn's already heavily bruised face. "Why didn't you fight him, Mal?" Quinn knew Mal could have avoided this. Flynn was a fighter. And in Quinn's mind, he was the best fighter ever because Quinn was darling and he believed Flynn was the best at everything he tried.

"Because then I'd never be done fighting." Flynn said softly. "And I'm done, Quinn. Done like that, anyway. I'll fight for you and I'll fight for Spectre and Tristan and Deirdre and everyone else, but I won't fight with Frankie. I said there were better answers than violence and I meant it. I'm still here. Still where I belong. And he still doesn't have me. I accomplished what I wanted to accomplish."

"With bruises to show for it."

"Yeah. Well. Nothing's broken, far as I can tell. Thank fuck." Flynn said, thinking of his precious guitar-playing fingers. "Bruises are a small price to pay for freedom."

Quinn made a discontent little noise, but he knew Flynn was right. "I think you're sexy anyway, you know." Quinn whispered and he kissed Flynn's leg.

"Mmm. Good to know. Am I sexy enough to feed?" Flynn asked cutely. "I feel like hell, but I want a metric fucktonne of fish and chips."

Quinn snorted then. Flynn really was incorrigible and his love affair with fish and chips was never ending. At least no one could ever say Flynn was hard to please. "And a metric fucktonne you shall have, Beautiful. Wait here." And Quinn rose from the bed with a wink.

"Oh, hah hah, joke's on the cripple."

"Like you never said that to me while I was all braindead." Quinn arched one eyebrow as he chased down his shoes.

"I admit nothing." Flynn said, looking coy. "Though I believe Deirdre asked you 'why so serious' once and I had to retaliate by hiding her OhMiBod."

"That's fair." Quinn grinned. Flynn was very good at setting him at ease. Flynn was the one injured in the bed and he was talking care of Quinn. Of course he was. It was what he did. "I love you, Bub."

"I love you too, Cyclops."

"That's it. I'm eating your chips." Quinn said before he disappeared out the door.

"Tea leaf!" Flynn yelled down the stairs and he was answered by a distant chuckle that made him feel heaps better.