It's getting to be late. Well, not late so much as dark. There aren't many people around, as one would expect,...and so Wick isn't even bothering to hide himself. He sticks to shadows and corners, but at most, he's got his glamours set to 'easily overlookable'. That's lax even for him.

So, it's dark, and Wick is terribly bored. He's also thought of a way to lessen the boredom...

Oh, Barclay, where are youuuuu?


(I am afflicted with crappypostitis. Sorry.)

((No worries.))

Barclay is on his way to his car. He's staying late tonight, grading things. Papers, tests... Do you have any idea how boring it is to read basically the same thing--but for variety in mistakes and phrasing--two hundred times in a row?

He's tired and irritable. I don't blame him, either.

His gait is brisk, as usual. His coat is open and flapping around his legs. He'd look rather frightening if one didn't know who he was...

... perhaps even if one did.

Ah. There he is.

Wick follows him - from above, because that way he can remain close without worrying that the odd humming-buzzing sound his wings make will be heard. He's smirking now, wondering just how he's going to get to do what he wants.
Unsurprisingly, Wick has remembered the one thing he did that got the best reaction out of the professor, and he intends to repeat it - only with a little more mess, and a little less getting crushed under a stack of papers.

How about getting crushed under a shoe, or maybe a briefcase? Or magic? Alexander doesn't particularly like mess, you know.

Wick will find the wallet of pictures in Alexander's coat pocket. He's been looking at it a lot today, probably because today is one of the days on which Katrina is in one of his classes, and he needs the distraction.

He's fingering them now, as a matter of fact.

Wick narrowed his eyes, peering suspiciously at the target. Alexander seemed to be unsuspecting,...now was as good a time as any. Much like a bird of prey (...a tiny, insect-winged, scrawny, featherless bird of prey), Wick focused in on the photos, and swooped in to snatch them. If all went well, soon they would be transformed into some lovely confetti.

Alexander felt them disappear from his hand. (When did he take them out? It was completely unconscious on his part. It's one of those habits he doesn't know he has.)

He whirled.

"No!"

Confetti, in this case, is a very bad thing.

Rrrrip.
Wick tore the photos right down the center. Two halves he let drop - the others he set to work on shredding, while hovering far out of Alexander's reach (or so he thinks, at least).

Alexander's face hardened. He snapped a harsh word made harsher by the loss of something so precious...

Remember that physical barrier he's encased Wick in before? Remember how it shrank the first time and got smaller and smaller and so on? It's the same thing. Only it's not going to stop shrinking when Wick is trapped in a small space.

"That was stupid, faery."

"Uh-oh."
Understatement, anyone?

Wick dropped the remaining shreds of the photos - he'd only managed to rip them once or twice more. "Aww,..so sorry, were those special or something?" he asked, mock-sincerely, not seeming to care that a shrinking barrier had appeared around him. Key word: seeming.

The pictures fluttered through the barrier and Alexander bent to scoop the bits into his hands. He was trembling as if he were about to cry or as if he were about to lose all control of his temper.

Perhaps both.

"I think I shall crush you now," he commented, completely without inflection.

The barrier contracted spasmodically.

Wick struggled, despite that space to move was growing extremely scarce.
"Let - me- out!" he hissed, pressing his palms flat against the invisible wall steadily pressing closer to him. He fixed his gaze on Alexander, hoping to be able to enspell him into releasing him.

Maybe this hadn't been such a good idea, after all.

Alexander is less easily influenced than his cousin, and he has shields. Wick's attempt at enspelling him doesn't work.

"No."

He's still speaking in that monoton that's really scarier than when he's raging.

Seeing as he wasn't able to magic himself out of this one,...instead Wick concentrated on not getting crushed, which was proving extremely difficult. His wings were already painfully crumpled, and he was forced to curl into a ball. Things were starting to creak oddly and ominously.
"Let go..."

Alexander looks at the torn photographs in his hands, at the faery, and lifts an eyebrow.

"Has it ever occurred to you that destroying someone else's property is a clever way to find yourself in exactly this predicament?"

The barrier stops shrinking, briefly. It does not expand or disappear, unfortunately.

"No. What do you think?" Wick snapped at him, unwilling to give in and plead (which he doubts would do much good, anyway). "And they're just pictures. This's what tape is for."

Alexander's eyes are very deep and dark and sad and angry.

"That's what magic is for, actually. I think I shall crush you anyway."

It starts to shrink again.

The faery's eyes widened briefly, then were tightly closed, tears beading at the corners.
"Ow - oww ow! Stop!"
Well, there goes his resolution not to plead.

"Didn't I answer that already?"

There was a pause. Alexander ignored what he knew that Keye would think if he knew of this. He ignored the little prick of his conscience saying This is wrong. He ignored everything.

Except his magic and the feeling of squeezing the little creature like mud in a fist.

What followed was a lot of screaming.
And odd little snapping noises, like toothpicks.
Followed by some more screaming. And then nothing.

Alexander smiled.

I can find no words to explain just how fucking scary this smile was. Sometimes he acts like he's maybe an okay person, and then he does something like this and reminds me that he's insane and homicidal and obsessive.

He let Wick drop to the ground and walked away.



Dave was moping, frankly. And he was wandering Keaton for no real reason, except that Vi goes there and--

"Holy shit!"

He almost stepped on Wick. What's left of Wick.

"Holy shit!"

Dave is not creative in his exclamations, have you noticed?

If Wick felt capable of talking he would have replied with something snide, but as the only sounds he was capable of making now ranged between a moan and a whimper, he said nothing at all. His only response to the exclamation was a twitch of one glimmering, badly crumpled wing. Wick half-opened his bleary eyes and tried to figure out just what the noisy, dark figure standing over him was. He wasn't too lucid at the moment, but who could blame him?

Dave looks at the little creature at his feet, at the retreating figure, nearly invisible in the darkness by this point, and decides that he does not in any way want to know who or what that person was, nor does he want to encounter them himself.

He kneels.

"Shit, it's you!"

Apparently someone beat him to the whole 'squishing' thing. Well. Somehow it's hard to be mad at something so pitiful--for normal people, anyway--and he is actually gentle as he hesitantly touches the faery.

"... Wick?"

The faery just whimpers - everything hurts at this point, even a careful touch like that.
"...who's,... who's 'at?...

"Me. Shit, you made somebody madder'n you made me."

He's vaguely impressed.

"Damn, you look like everything's... broken, or something. And there's no fucking way I can call emergency or something..."

I told you he's a nice guy. He wants to help, though he doesn't have a clue how.

"Alan," Wick quavered. "Alan'll ...help...''
And there go his last shreds of consciousness. It would have been nice if he could have managed to give a full name, I think. Goodness knows how many people there are in Bayfield with the first name 'Alan'.

"... aren't you helpful," Dave mutters.

He looks at the faery for a moment in silence and sighs. He is entirely too soft-hearted. The way Wick's been treating him, he ought to just leave him there... but...

Stupid faery.

He scoops the little guy into his hands with extreme care, knowing that he probably shouldn't move him and not knowing what else to do, and heads towards where he left his motorcycle. He'll wait until Wick is semi-conscious again before trying to find this Alan guy.

With extreme reluctance, Wick falls back into wakefulness. It wouldn't be noticeable, except for the fact that he puts up a soft, continuous whimpering noise the second he remembers that he's in pain, knows why he is, and starts wondering whether he's going to die.

"Fuck, if you're gonna make noise, make noise that makes sense, and tell me who the hell that Alan guy is and where the hell I can find him, so I can get rid of you."

In other words, he's starting to regret stumbling upon the injured faery and wants a way to get out of taking any more responsability for the creature than he absolutely has to.

Wick squirms a bit, unnerved by the sheer volume of Dave's voice.
"'S a doctor. At th' hospital," he explained weakly, "Alan Gar-somethin'. Iunno."

Nope, Dave's too far in now to back out.
Well, almost. If Dave were to drop the faery right now and leave, then he wouldn't be responsible for him.
But he wouldn't do that, would he?

"I hate hospitals," Dave mutters, then heads in that direction anyway.

"Gar-something? Great. Now I get to ask around for some doctor named Alan Gar-something and..." He continued complaining for some time. He likes complaining, you may have noticed. It usually happens when he's doing something that he has to do but might not like entirely.

Wick says nothing. It's uncertain whether he doesn't know who has him, or knows and just doesn't care, but he doesn't make any attempt to explain further. Instead, he just stays as silent and still as he can and hopes he'll pass out again soon.

It's a long trip. Dave decided against the motorcycle, because he has the feeling that riding around in the miniature version of a trunk that it has would probably be very bad for someone as badly injured as Wick is. He's grumbling about having to walk, too.

But they get there eventually, and Dave asks the first nurse he sees if she knows an "Alan Something. I don't remember his last name, but I think it starts with G."

She smiles and directs him to an office on the third floor. Great. That was easy. Hopefully Alan Whatever wants the faery more than Dave does.

At some point during this long trip, Wick got his wish and managed to black out again. It didn't last long - he kept fading in and out every few minutes, waking with a jolt and making little pained sounds until everything would go black,..and then the experience would repeat itself.

Maybe if he fully comes around, he'll be grateful for Dave's help, despite all the grumbling that went on,...

Heh.
Well, we'll see.

The aura--it's a silly word, but the only fitting one--of comfort and peace hit about three feet from the door. Dave blinked and looked uncomfortable, because he wasn't sure he wanted to be comfortable just because someone else was making him comfortable, which defeated the purpose, and...

Dave's reasoning is dizzying, sometimes. Anyway.

He knocked on the door.

"Come in."

In he goes, and the man inside winces.

Remember, Alan can feel the injuries of others as if they'd happened to his own body. (Usually somewhat weaker, but still. Wick's got a lot of pain for such a little guy.)

"Goodness, what happened?"

"Hell if I know."

"Hi Alan...," Wick mumbles, feeling that nice, calming aura surround him and sink in. He feels a bit better already, but considering the shape he's in, 'a little better' still isn't very good. "...B,...Barclay happened."

"Barclay?"

Both men seem surprised, Dave with a touch of 'I know that guy; he can do this!?' and Alan with a bit of 'I remember him but I never thought he was dangerous.' Neither of them seem pleased.

(Alan is a silly. He wants to confront Alexander.)

Pause.

"Let me see him," says Alan, being a doctor again. Dave wordlessly deposits the faery in Alan's white hands. "Oh dear..." He considers the injuries and decides that no, surgery is not an option. He isn't a surgeon anyway. Though he can set bones.

This is going to be painful, but then, there's not much that hasn't been painful this evening for Wick, is there?

There certainly hasn't.

"What're you g-gonna do?" he quavers, then adds fearfully, "...'m I gonna die?"

"I'm going to set the broken bones, and then I'm probably going to pass out because I'm doing something I don't understand. It does seem to speed healing, though, whatever it is."

Alan's had a few more experiences with his magic, and he's not any closer to figuring out what exactly he's doing and how he can control it better.

"I don't plan on letting you die, either."

His fingers are deft and quick, and he's working his way through the obvious fractures and to the less obvious ones. It's much like mending a toy, except this toy is sentient and can feel pain.

Dave is standing awkwardly by the door. He wants to go home now.

"O-okay." Not that Alan would have needed the faery to agree before going ahead.

Wick cries, loudly and quite a lot, before he blacks out again.
Only this time he stays unconscious, which is certainly better for him than remaining awake and struggling through this mess.

Alan murmurs things that don't really mean anything until Wick is unconscious, and then he glances at Dave with a small smile.

"Nice of you to bring the little fellow to me. Thought he'd forgotten I existed, but that's nothing new, of course. I'm Alan. Dr. Gardinier. And you are?"

"Dave Tuckey. Wasn't being nice, just wasn't gonna leave him on the ground, all crumpled up like that. Didn't seem right, even if he is a sneaky little bastard who probably deserved it."

Alan glances at Dave again, then returns his attention to Wick and doesn't answer. There's a faint glow to his hands, invisible in the brightness of hospital lighting, and he suddenly slumps and sighs.

"That should help."