Reaper

Jesse and Noah rushed into the room as Sawyer tried to – unsuccessfully – find his voice. The other two men were breathing heavily, their faces pale, as they caught the end of Mason’s sentence, apparently understanding the nature of the conversation that was about to take place.

Noah made his way over to Charlie’s head, standing over her opposite Sawyer. With a suspicious look to Sawyer, Noah carefully brushed Charlie’s hair off of her forehead, stopping to take in his sister’s pale face.

Jesse looked around listlessly, uncomfortable but obviously committed to being there. The concern was written clearly on his face as he searched for a place in the room, finally settling on perching in the armchair in the corner and holding his head in his hands, watching the others intently.

Meanwhile, Mason was barking orders at Lily, who was working diligently despite the pressure Mason was putting on her. She carefully began a pelvic exam on Charlotte that Mason was too uncomfortable to perform while he turned back to his interrogation of Sawyer.

Sawyer, realizing the spotlight was once again on him, clutched Charlie’s limp hand more tightly, as though it was going to offer him support.

“Sawyer, now would be nice,” Mason said, his voice low and tense. Sawyer wasn’t sure if it was because of what he suspected or because of the stress of the situation, but either way, he knew this wouldn’t likely end well for him.

He opened and closed his mouth again, searching for the words that wouldn’t come.

Mason groaned. “Goddammit, Sawyer! Did you have sex with Charlie?”

Sawyer’s eyes widened as his gaze went back and forth between Mason and Noah. Noah’s face contorted with rage as he hovered over his unconscious sister, and suddenly Sawyer understood what this must look like from their prospective. They were Charlie’s brothers. They had watched her grow up from an innocent little redheaded girl, only to end up unconscious and bleeding because of a man they inherently distrusted. He understood, then, that he had no leg to stand on.

When he didn’t answer, Mason toned down his voice. “Look, I know that this probably isn’t easy for you to admit,” he said softly, though his voice still had an edge to it. “It’s probably not easier with Noah trying to prove that looks can actually kill.” Noah promptly looked away, his face flushed with embarrassment. “But I’m not asking you as Charlie’s brother right now, okay? I’m asking you as a medical professional who wants to keep her alive. And I know you do, too.”

Sawyer squared his jaw and tried his best to muster up his confidence.

“Yes,” he said quietly, his voice shaking.

“Yes, you-?”

He nodded. “Yes, I… I had sex with Charlotte.”

Noah let out a strangled sound and promptly punched the wall behind Charlie’s bed. It landed with a loud bang and a sickening crack no doubt the sound of Noah’s knuckles fracturing under the pressure. Jesse quickly sprang up from his place on the chair and held Noah back as he snarled in Sawyer’s direction, a stream of curses pouring from his mouth.

Mason glared at his younger brother. “She’s 23, Noah, get a fucking grip.”

Noah’s face was pained as he struggled against Jesse’s grip. “She’s my little sister!”

“She’s my sister, too!” Mason roared, clenching his fists and turning menacingly toward his brother. If Sawyer had any doubt as to which one was the older brother, all of his suspicions were confirmed as he watched Noah cower under Mason’s merciless gaze. “But right now, she’s my patient, and you’re interfering with my ability to treat her, so as your brother, I’m telling you to chill the fuck out.”

Jesse pulled Noah down into the plush chair, where he slowly sat down, shaken. Jesse, confirming that Noah wasn’t going to spring back up, carefully took Noah’s place beside Charlie’s head.

Sawyer was startled to see the resemblance between the three siblings at that moment in time. He thought of Charlie, and her face as she defended her pride in the face of all that had happened to her and he saw the same determination and ferocity in the faces of her brothers.

“Alright, now that he’s got that out of his system,” Mason said, gritting his teeth, “Sawyer, what I’m about to ask you might not make sense to you, but I’m trying to figure out what is happening to Charlie so that I might be able to treat it.” He sighed, checking on Lily as she examined Charlie. “Did you use a condom?”

The blood immediately drained from Sawyer’s face. He hadn’t even thought about using a condom. He’d gotten so caught up in what was going on – how could he forget about a condom? How had that not occurred to him sooner? What if – what if Charlie had gotten pregnant? How would he have dealt with that? How would she have dealt with that? What if-

“I’m assuming that’s a no,” Mason remarked. “Alright. Was there ejaculation?”

Sawyer stared at him blankly. “Um, y-yes, I-“

Mason held up a hand. “That’s alright, I get the picture.” He looked between Charlie and Sawyer carefully, and Sawyer could see the thoughts racing in Mason’s mind.

Lily suddenly stood up, frowning. “The bleeding seems to be letting up and her blood pressure is stabilizing,” she told Mason, squinting her eyes at one of the many screens that was monitoring Charlie’s vitals. “I wouldn’t say we’re out of the woods, but – she looks like she’s not getting any worse, at least.”

Mason nodded, turning back to Charlie. “I have a theory,” he said slowly, not making any eye contact with Sawyer. “It’s just a thought – it might not be true, but it’s the most logical explanation I can come up with short of an internal hemorrhage caused by trauma that didn’t happen.”

All eyes were on Mason as he looked down at his sister, his face deep in thought.

“Charlie’s blood allows her to resist attacks by Vampires and Reapers. It attacks these invasions on a cellular level. I think – and I haven’t tested this as much as I would have liked, so don’t take my word for it – but… well…” Mason trailed off suddenly, trying to choose his words as carefully as he could. “I think her body may be attacking Sawyer’s, uh, sperm cells, and I think it threw her body into overdrive. Once they eliminated the Reaper DNA, they kept destroying cells until they started destroying Charlie’s organs.”

“Oh my God-“

“Ew.”

Lily nodded in agreement as she began to tuck Charlotte’s legs back under the blanket. “If Charlotte’s cells act like CS-22 does, then it’s not exactly a hard conclusion to jump to.”

Sawyer suddenly felt his head spin. He wished he could have reassured himself that what was happening to Charlotte wasn’t his fault but, in reality, it was. He could live with the idea that perhaps him being in her life might cause her some danger – as selfish as that was of him, he was confident that he could protect her from what was to come, so he could justify it, in his own mind. But how would he ever be able to protect her from himself? The danger had always come from others, but… never from him. Perhaps he was the biggest threat to Charlotte’s safety. He loved her, but becoming intimate with her had nearly cost her her life.

Perhaps upon waking up, Charlie might think the risk was worth it. Perhaps not, given the argument they’d had just before she collapsed, but still – Sawyer knew Charlie wasn’t quite so careful about her well-being as he was. He knew if it were up to her, she would choose to continue to take this risk. She could end up dead because of it.

And that wasn’t a risk he was willing to take. Not anymore.

Sawyer swallowed hard as he watched Jesse bend over Charlie’s head. He stroked her hair back off of her forehead as gently as he could, his mouth moving ever so slightly. He was singing softly, under his breath, so low that Sawyer could barely hear it feet away. His eyes were tense and wide with fear, but the way he looked at Charlotte, there was little doubt in Sawyer’s mind that he cared – deeply – for her.

The thought made his chest tighten.

It dawned on him suddenly that he wasn’t the only person capable of loving and keeping Charlotte safe. As he looked at the other three men in the room – Mason, then Jesse, and then Noah – it occurred to him that they had been caught in Charlotte’s web just like he had. They were all silently bound to her in the same way, wanting only to see a smile on her healthy face. Sawyer may have been in love with her, but there was no doubt in his mind that he was one of many who loved her.

And he realized, with a sickening feeling, that he would probably not be the last.

“So it’s my fault,” Sawyer said quietly, letting Charlotte’s hand slide from his grasp.

Mason’s eyes quickly shifted to his hand before returning to his face. “We don’t know anything for sure,” he told him, uncertain. It was the voice one used when they didn’t want to give bad news. “Sawyer, I – I don’t blame you.”

The words cut through Sawyer’s heart. “Maybe not. But you should.”

Sawyer slowly turned back to Charlotte’s sleeping form, breathing calmly under the white sheets. He bent down and placed one last kiss on her forehead, trying to memorize how she smelled and how it felt to have her skin beneath his lips. Then he stood up, turned, and headed for the door.

He only got a few steps down the hall before he heard someone following him.

“Sawyer.”

He turned back over his shoulder to see Jesse standing there, his hair messed up and his face pale.

It occurred to him that he rarely ever talked to Jesse one-on-one. Now that he thought about it, he couldn’t really recall any, except for the night on the subway when he had gone back for Jesse upon Charlie’s request. It was clear that they both shared feelings for her that made it difficult for Sawyer to talk to Jesse without wanting to hurt him, but given the circumstances, his anger at Jesse seemed to ebb as he thought about the way Jesse had been trying to comfort Charlotte, even in her sleep.

He was good for her. And Sawyer was not.

Jesse’s jaw tightened. “You can’t do this.” His voice was quiet, but firm – Sawyer was surprised by his tone.

“Do what?”

“Leave her.”

Sawyer turned around completely then. He could feel his own body tense as he was faced with the prospect of having to explain himself. “I can’t hurt her again.”

Jesse held his hands up. “I know you think you’re bad for her, okay? You both have some sort of martyr thing going on for each other that can’t be healthy,” he joked, offering Sawyer a half-smile. When he didn’t respond, Jesse awkwardly cleared his throat. “But I saw what she was like when you were gone. She was… broken. And that was when you hadn’t left her willingly.”

Sawyer felt a wave of guilt wash over him. “She doesn’t need to know.”

Jesse’s face contorted with anger. “Look, if you think for a second that I’m going to lie to her on your behalf, you’ve completely misjudged me, Sawyer. I think she’s in love with you, and I think she’ll ruin herself without you, but if you do this, I will let her know exactly what happened.”

Sawyer wasn’t going to stand around and be harassed like this anymore. He felt like the shell of the person he used to be. As each second passed, he felt himself being drawn back into the room with her. He wanted to badly to stay by her side and to watch her heal and be herself again. But he was terrified of what would happen when she woke up. Would she blame him? Would she put herself at risk again? Would he have the willpower to say no?

No, he thought. He wouldn’t.

When Sawyer didn’t say anything, Jesse pressed on. “I can’t let you walk out of this compound without the complete knowledge that you know you’re going to break her heart. The choice is yours – but whatever you do, you’re going to have to own up.”

Sawyer sighed, running his hands through his hair. The thought plaguing his mind was one of Jesse, for once – of how he looked at Charlie in the room. How he was there for her when Sawyer couldn’t be, how he was a constant reminder that Sawyer had never been good enough for her in the first place.

He looked the blonde-haired, blue-eyed pain-in-the-ass in the face and mustered up the most concerned expression he could manage. “Take good care of her, Jesse. Tell her-“ He swallowed hard. “Tell her I’m doing this because she wanted her freedom. This isn’t me being a martyr, this is me giving her what she wanted. Tell her I… changed my mind.”

Sawyer turned around and left before Jesse got a chance to respond. He could hear Jesse’s annoyed grunt as he turned the corner, but he kept walking, as fast as he could, toward his room. He would need to grab something before he left the compound. If they let him, that is.

Sawyer burst into his room, suddenly overcome with something foreign to him. It was a strange feeling, but a familiar one, rising in his chest like a balloon, filling it from the inside. He felt all of his nerves begin to stand on end and his mind began to spin, focused on anything and everything all at once. He felt a tingling sensation in his hands and glanced at them.

He rushed to the mirror in the bathroom, only to see confirmation of what his hands had already told him.

His eyes flickered with the characteristic Reaper glow. Once, twice. And then they were dark.