Catboy and Lizardman (Amori!)

[Anonymous]

The boy did not look good.

Malachi stepped back looked at him worriedly as he stood up. He almost immediately fell forward, and Malachi rotated to catch him against its chest. He was crying... the poor child. It held Adel close, out of habit, and stroked his back, deliberately keeping its hands away from the mage's head. "I'm sorry, Adel... I can't take it off you..."

It whipped its head around to stare at the back door, as though willing it to open faster. "Hurry," it ordered, voice ringing in a commanding tone. Malachi never wanted Adel to have to go through this... crippling pain. It made its stomach turn to see the proud mage beg.

The nurse returned, with another dose of morphine. She had only filled the syringe halfway the first time. Like that did anything but make him dizzy, Malachi thought bitterly. "Sir..." she said, a bit more sheepishly, "could you hold his arm out?"

Malachi did not respond directly to the nurse, but took Adel's arm by the wrist and held it out, gently but firmly. "Please don't move, Adel. After this, you won't feel the pain anymore."

[Anonymous]

Adel whimpered more when Malachi said he couldn't take the band off. Even him stroking his back helped him a little. It only helped him calm down a little more so than helped the pain go away. It just would've been so much better if he could take the band out. It would probably hurt more to take it out though so maybe it wasn't the best idea after all.

He did as he was told, holding still. It whatever they were about to do was going to get rid of the pain he'd definately do whatever he was told. He unburied his face from Malachi's shirt and opened his eyes a little so he could see what they were doing. He sniffled and hiccuped a little as he wiped some of the tears from his eyes so he could actually see. Another needle.

It wasn't like the needle the first time had done any good, obviously. Despite that though he still didn't move, hoping that this time there really would be no more pain. He watched the nurse for a minute before looking up at Malachi, noticing that he was watching her intently.

After that he buried his face back in Malachi's shirt, not wanting to see the needle being put into his arm this time.

[Anonymous]

Malachi stayed with Adel, holding him partly to make the mage feel better, and partly to make itself feel better. The needle slid easily into Adel's arm, and the nurse depressed the syringe all the way before removing the needle. "There," Malachi said calmly. "You won't feel it anymore, now..."

The surgeon waited until the morphine took hold, then spoke. "Sir, I think he will be fine now..." Malachi looked up at her, no longer acknowledging the existence of the nurse at all, nodded and reluctantly set the mage down on the hospital bed. "You'll be alright, Adel... just stay still." It stayed near Adel anyway, wanting to keep itself between its mage and the nurse. Not surprisingly, the nurse didn't protest, but rather stayed as far from Malachi as possible without being obvious.

When Adel had sufficiently calmed down, the surgeon hefted a professional-looking drill with a shallow bit, so she wouldn't hit anything important. "Can you hold him steady, sir?" She asked, a hint of a quaver in her voice as she briefly looked into Malachi's eyes. "Yes," it answered, and placed one hand under Adel's chin and the other on the opposite side of his head.

With the press of the trigger, the drill buzzed to life, and the surgeon held it precisely to one of the holes in the metal band, and slowly pressed it in. She moved very carefully, not wanting to damage the mage's brain, and instructed Malachi to hold Adel's head sideways as she fitted the bolt in. She twisted it in with nimble fingers, then used another chrome instrument to tighten it. "One down," and smiled uneasily at Malachi. "You don't have to stay, sir, if you don't want to."

"I'll stay," it said adamantly. The surgeon could not have expected less. She wiped the blood off the metal band with an antibacterial pad, and began again on another hole.

[Anonymous]

"Okay.." Adel mumbled, his voice muffled a little since he still had his face buried in Malachi's shirt. He'd much rather stay like that than have to sit back on the hospital bed. He didn't want anymore to do with the band after all even if the second dose of morphine was getting rid of the pain he already felt when it set in fully.

Too bad it couldn't be that way. Not that he was in any right state of mind when he was moved back to the bed. In fact he couldn't even really even sit up without swaying a little back and forth and side to side. He only nodded slightly when he heard Malachi tell him to sit still. It didn't really register of course because it wasn't like he could keep himself still.

It was probably best that Malachi held his head so that the surgeon could put the bolts in because he definately wasn't going to be able to hold it still himself. That was already made obvious of course. His ears twitched a little as he heard the drill start up. Once again it didn't really register and if anything he glanced up at Malachi with an expression that made it seem he had no idea what was going on anymore.

Adel closed his eyes after a moment and probably would've fallen forward off of the hospital bed if Malachi still wasn't holding him still. He wasn't feeling pain anymore, which was good, but he was feeling quite sleepy then. He wasn't sure if it was from the morphine or if it was from finally getting relief from the pain. Either way drifting off sounded so nice and in fact that was exactly what he was starting to do.

[Anonymous]

Malachi watched the feeling fade out of Adel's eyes, the way it was supposed to have the first time, and relaxed a little. He was alive and not in shock, which was very good news. Selfish as it was, Malachi hoped the mage wouldn't blame the pain on it. That would put them off to a bad start, and mean it would inevitably have to use fear to right the situation...

...And I don't feel like dealing with another of those.

It was a good sign when Adel fell asleep. That meant he was numb enough to let his mind wander a bit. Malachi stayed with its mage as the surgeon drilled into the catboy's skull, at one point rearing its front legs up onto the hospital bed and resting Adel's body against its own. Its arms were tired, and so was the rest of it.

Soon enough, the surgeon held the last bolt up to the last hole, and carefully drilled it in. She wiped down the band and smiled weakly at Malachi. "Thank you for your cooperation, sir. And sorry..." The nurse had slipped out of the room as soon as she found the opportunity, presumably to go re-sterilize herself.

"You're welcome, Doctor," Malachi said with a nod, and set Adel down gingerly on the hospital bed. It returned to the floor, sitting back on its hind legs. The vertebrae in its tail slowly pivoted to one side and then the other as it waited for the mage to awaken.

[Anonymous]

Sleep was a very satisfying escape. He didn't feel anything else and didn't have to worry about anything. Even if he was sleeping sitting up, which normally would be an odd position to sleep, he was comfortable. He didn't even wake up when Malachi adjusted himself.

In fact he didn't even wake up until everything was done and Malachi had laid him down on the hospital bed. He stirred slightly, curling up a little before actually opening his eyes. He wasn't entirely there though since the after effects of the anesthesia hadn't quite worn off yet. Rolling over onto his back, he whined a little and covered his eyes some. "Turn off the sun...." he murmured. "Five more minutes...."

When the light remained on and he could see it when he looked through his fingertips. He turned over again but of course miscalculated how wide the hospital bed was. This time when he turned over he turned right off of the bed and said hello to the floor. "Ow...ow...ow...ow.. ." he whined, not even bothering to sit up. His head was spinning and even the floor looked like it was moving.

'Stupid...anesthesia....'

[Anonymous]

The lizard man's heart did a little leap when Adel awoke. "Aww," it said softly, so not to force the mage into a higher level of wakefulness, and smiled. It paced a bit, anxious to find out whether or not Adel was doing well, but reluctant to forrce him awake. After all, if I'd just had a band drilled and bolted into my head, I would want to sleep for at least a week straight.

However, Malachi's pacing took it too far away from Adel's bed to impede the boy's fall. It rushed over, though, and picked Adel up and cradled him a little. "Poor thing! You must be having a bad day... first your mind-link band, and now the floor... what you need is a warm meal and an actual bed. Which reminds me..."

It turned its head to the surgeon. To her, it was probably still frightening, but that was the least of its concerns. "Doctor, is my band set up? It would be a pain to take him home and have to come back, or something like that..."

A look of realization came over the surgeon's face. "Ah! Yes, sir. It should have been with this one." She set the drill down and walked over to the counter where the box sat. After rummaging through it she pulled out a thinner band, without bolt-holes in it. "Here you are, sir," she said timidly, and handed it to Malachi. "I trust you've done this before..."

"I have," it said, and smiled as pleasantly as possible as he took it from her and placed it around his forehead. He adjusted it so it fit, and moved his hair out from under it, all the while keeping a front paw around Adel. "Are you alright now, Adel? Can we activate the mind-link?"

[Anonymous]

His head was still reeling so he couldn't really concentrate on anything except how cold the floor was to his exposed skin. The coldness of it didn't motivate him to move any sooner though. He had thought about moving once and even went to but his body protested, refusing to move even an inch. It still felt a little heavy like he was actually awake, could see and hear, but his body wasn't.

Suddenly being lifted from the ground didn't really help too much either. Being moved just made everything start to spin. He glanced up at Malachi but couldn't just focus on him. Everything had stopped spinning after a minute but his mind was everywhere at the moment and it hurt to try and concentrate. A bad day was an understatement though.

Adel remained quiet as Malachi just went on to talk with the doctor..or whoever it was that was still in the room. He didn't want to look since he knew it would probably cause the spinning to come back. Not something he wanted again. It had already started to make him feel ill to his stomach before it stopped a second ago.

He blinked when Malachi addressed him again. At least this time when he did, Adel could see straight. "..I'm okay. I think.." He wasn't entirely sure if he was okay or not. It depended on the definition of okay. "Activate...the mind-link..? Will that hurt too?" he asked, not wanting anymore pain or anything like it for the rest of the day. Really all he wanted to do now was to sleep a little bit longer without having the risk of falling off of another bed.

[Anonymous]

Adel just looked so tired. The mages always did, after this stage. Some of them fought more than others, so some got more tired. Adel hadn't put up that much of a fight, but still... Malachi ran its fingers lightly through Adel's hair, careful not to touch the band. "I hope you're okay. You'll be better once we get you home."

It smiled pityingly at Adel. "No, it won't hurt. The part that hurts is over, okay? We'll just do this, then I'll take you home, and you can rest and heal." Malachi regretted keeping Adel for one more thing, but it was necessary, in case Adel wandered off or something. It had heard far too many stories from disgruntled Mordecai who brought their mages home the first day without activating their mind-links, only to have them run off.

Malachi looked at the surgeon again. "Alright, ma'am."

The surgeon nodded and pressed a button on the side of Malachi's band and a matching one on Adel's, at the same time. "There. Now, it should gradually fade in, and by tomorrow, the two of you will be fully linked... though I don't know why I'm telling you this, Malachi."

"It's fine," it said. "Adel would like to know, probably. So it doesn't freak him out." It turned its head toward Adel. "Like she said, by tomorrow, our minds will be linked. We can communicate that way, as long as you don't get too far away. It doesn't look like you're up to moving much right now, though." He looked back at the surgeon. "Thank you. We'll be going now... is that all right, Adel?"

[Anonymous]

Adel closed his eyes when Malachi ran his fingers through his hair. It felt nice and there really was no stopping the purring that ended up starting shortly afterwards. He was too tired to worry about not purring or anything anyway. It would take too much concentration to keep himself from doing it.

A small sigh of relief escaped his lips at the mention of the process not hurting. He was still a bit wary of it though. "Okay...thank you." he murmured, opening his eyes a little before yawning quietly. He really was tired..more than he thought actually. When the surgeon pressed a button on his headband, he closed his eyes for a second, still afraid that it might hurt. Once the surgeon was done though, he opened one eye for a second before opening both. No pain. That was nice.

"I understand." he said when the surgeon explained what would happen. He had heard a little bit about it but experiencing was something that was needed to understand it fully. Adel blinked and looked up at Malachi as he explained a bit more. "Okay." At the mention of leaving, Adel quickly nodded. Of course he regretted it soon afterwards when it made his head spin again. He'd have to remember not to do that for a little bit. "Yea. I'm ready to go." He was actually more than ready to go and it was probably obvious.

[Anonymous]

Malachi felt Adel's purring before it heard it, and smiled. "Poor thing. I'm sorry this is taking so long." The surgeon flinched a bit as it said that, even though it hadn't meant it as her fault. Malachi kept running its fingers through Adel's turquoise hair, admiring the color and the seemingly-obvious fact that his ears matched. It was fascinating, to someone who only had hair on his head and wasn't quite sure why it had that.

Adel, apparently, possessed some uncanny ability to get cuter the longer one knew him. Once the surgeon moved away and Adel made his intentions clear, Malachi gently lifted him into its arms, not about to just throw him on its back and expect him to hang on. That would be irresponsible. It could already feel the barest hints of murky, tired thoughts coming through the link. That was the most exciting part, at least in Malachi's opinion. Maybe it would get to listen to Adel's dreams.

"Let's go, then." It held Adel close to its chest, so he could grab onto its shirt if he felt dizzy. It thanked the surgeon, and backed through the door, walking toward the outside door at a steady pace, trying not to jostle Adel too much. The poor child had been through a lot already. It was all Malachi could hope for, to let him get comfortable before they started training or anything.

[Anonymous]

"It's okay." Adel murmured quietly, the fingers through his hair started to put him to sleep. He sort of didn't mind if it took just a little bit longer, even though he really wanted to leave, just as long as there was nothing else that dealt with pain involved. If there was he'd attempt to just get up and leave. Of course he probably wouldn't get very far due to being sleepy and probably very uncoordinated because of it.

When he was suddenly lifted up, Adel blinked and looked around to see what was going on. Realizing that it was Malachi that had picked him up, his cheeks flushed a little. "I can walk." he mumbled even though he knew he couldn't. Too bad it didn't seem protest from him was going to work any as Mal simply held him close and started to leave.

There wasn't much the cat boy could do to keep his eyes from starting to drift closed since even though he wanted to protest, he was comfortable being carried. Even twitching his ears and flattening them against his head didn't keep him awake as he soon found out when he slowly started to drift off to sleep, holding onto Malachi's shirt a little. Cuddling things while he slept, sometimes, was something he was used to and a lot of times did without realizing. 'Can't..stay awake..' he thought, the words actually just coming out as incoherent mumbles.

[Anonymous]

Malachi grinned down at the tired boy in its arms. "You can not either," it said calmly as it walked down the hall. "Maybe tomorrow, you'll be able to walk." It could see Adel wasn't quite up to answering, though, so it kept walking, looking ahead and ignoring the uneasy stares of passersby. After a few steps, Adel was asleep in its arms. Just as well, thought Malachi. The noise outside would hurt his head, if he were awake. It headed outside and started for its house, listening to the faint echoes of thoughts that meant his mind wasn't so lonely anymore.

-----

The rest of the day, Malachi drifted. It had set Adel up in the spare room it kept for a mage, with lights off, the way humans liked it, buried under covers instead of baking under an oversized heat lamp, as was customary for a lizard. He was very cute when he was asleep, Malachi couldn't help noticing.

Then it had retreated to its own room. Malachi's room was nothing extravagant. A huge, somewhat clawed-up bed with faded blue sheets and a veritable mountain of matching and unmatched pillows with an electric blanket or two and a heat lamp installed over it, a lighted vanity with combs and brushes and makeup and jewelry strewn haphazardly across it, for feminine days, a closet to keep shirts in, and an adjoining bathroom. Everything, somewhat unsurprisingly, had double doors. It left one of the doors open when it went in and lay on its bed, turning the lamp on and curling up with its humanoid half on the pillows. It spent the daylight hours neither sleeping nor awake, half-listening to Adel's dreams licking at the edges of his mind.

It awoke sometime in the evening, ravenous and rather un-rested, but otherwise feeling well. It wandered into the kitchen, worrying more about Adel then itself, and looked through its cavernous, but rather vacant, refrigerator. It spotted a carton of eggs it had purchased, knowing its mage probably wouldn't want what Malachi would be having, and took it out. Now the difficult part... cooking.

[Anonymous]

Adel slept comfortably for quite a while. The mix of wanting to sleep off the little bit of pain that was left and the left over effects of the anesthetic helped out a bit. He didn't even wake up because of being able to hear bits and pieces of Mal's thoughts. All sounds and anything else were blocked out for the time being. Sleep was more important right now.

In fact the only time he woke up was when he got too warm buried beneath too many blankets. He stirred a bit and closed his eyes a bit tighter in hopes of being able to go back to sleep because his head was throbbing a little. Just a slight headache he figured. It helped with the problem of getting back to sleep. Adel whined a little and pushed the blankets off of him before sitting up, rubbing his eyes a little. He still felt a little groggy and couldn't exactly see straight just yet. Still half asleep.

Despite that the cat boy carefully got to his feet and glanced around the room he was in. '..Hn...where is this...?' He had fallen asleep long before Mal got to his house so it was understandable that he would have no idea where he was. Rubbing his eyes a little more, Adel headed towards the door. Unfortunately his accident prone skills decided to kick in at the worse times. Rather than going out the door..he ran into the door frame. His expression went blank as he stumbled backwards afterwards. He was unable to regain his balance and ended up falling flat on his bottom. "Ow...."

He pouted a little and put a hand to his head before letting out a puff of air. His accident proneness couldn't just choose another time to kick in? He was still tired and groggy and didn't feel like running into things or tripping and falling. Adel whined a bit before getting to his feet again. This time when he went to leave the room, he actually managed to get out. Tilting his head a little, he blinked, thinking he smelt something cooking. Looking around, Adel just whined more. Where was the kitchen..? Shaking his head slightly, he put a hand on a wall to keep himself steady and followed the smell until he got to the kitchen, seeing Mal cooking something. "Hi..."

[Anonymous]

The eggs were sticking to the pan, and Malachi was not the least bit happy about it, nor did he have any idea how to prevent it. He scraped the bottom to the best of his ability, but that only caused them to smell burnt. After a while he got frustrated and fetched a plate from a cabinet, and picked up the pan to scrape the eggs onto it. Cooking was a pain, but he didn't want to risk Adel's health because he didn't feel like doing it.

Speaking of Adel... he turned his head toward the kitchen entrance to see the cat-eared boy there, leaning against the wall. He shut off the stove and set the pan down on a cool burner, then took the plate and a fork to the table. "Good morning," he said brightly. "I'm sorry... I'm not a very good cook... hopefully this is alright, for you. We can go shopping later, for food you like." He had set up a folding chair at the dining table for Adel. His house was sparely furnished, mainly because he couldn't use chairs very well himself. "Maybe a comfier chair or two, too. Things to sit on."

Malachi returned to the fridge and took out a few steaks and a bigger pan, which he set on the stove. He cut through the plastic wrap with one claw and placed the steaks in the pan, then threw away the wrapping. Then he took a plate down for himself and flipped the steaks over, not letting them cook too long. "Welcome to your new house, by the way. Not quite as catboy-friendly as it could be, but we can fix that, right?"

[Anonymous]

Something was burning...that wasn't a good thing. What was burning exactly though? He was curious. Adel stood on his tiptoes a little to see in the pan that Malachi was using but the result of that was him tilting forward, almost to the point of falling. He quickly fixed that by standing flat on the floor again. The food that was burning was shown afterwards when put on a plate. Eggs? Well it looked like eggs anyway...His stomach growled a little, betraying the small crinkle of his nose because of the burnt smell. "It's fine." he mumbled, not sure what else to say.

For a second he just stayed where he was at before the smell of the burnt eggs caused his stomach to growl again and he decided to follow Malachi. As a chair was retrieved for him, he looked at the plate of eggs for a second, tilting his head slightly. His ears twitched a little before looking up at Mal when he returned with the chair and set it up. "Okay. Thank you."

When Malachi returned to the kitchen, Adel tested the chair real quick just to make sure he wouldn't fall off of it too...since it seemed he was doing a lot of falling lately. When he found that he could stay on it without falling over, he made himself comfortable and then once again inspected the eggs. Not exactly what he wanted for breakfast but he was hungry so it was fine. Being picky could come later when his stomach didn't sound like it was going to eat itself.

Picking up the fork, he cut off some of the egg and stuck it in his mouth, his tail swishing back and forth a little behind the chair happily. His ears twitched a little again as silence ensued for a moment and the only thing to listen to was Mal in the kitchen. For a minute anyway. Adel glanced over to the kitchen, eating another bite of egg. He swallowed it and nodded. "Yes. It shouldn't be too hard." If he wasn't being picky it wouldn't be too hard. "Thank you for the food. It's good." Yea..despite it being burnt it was good. Though...he'd need to learn a bit more about cooking so that he could take over doing that...burnt food wasn't always nice.

The thing on his head felt a little weird there still so he couldn't help but reach up and just touch it for a second. Well that was until he got a little twinge of pain from touching it. He quickly hissed and left it alone, attempting to glare up at it. It didn't work...he couldn't look up and cross-eyed. His tail twitched in an irritated manner as he huffed and went back to eating his eggs, pouting a little.

[Anonymous]

Malachi nodded. "You can pick anything you want. Clothes too... I want to make sure you're happy, okay?" That was how Malachi treated all of his mages, in the past. Some of them had even wound up not hating him! Joy of joys, to have this one accept him... but he didn't want to get his hopes up too high.

The lizard smiled over his shoulder at the compliment. "Thank you! I haven't cooked eggs in forever... I was worried you wouldn't like them. If you want more, I can make more for you." Malachi had two cooking settings, he figured: burnt, and nearly raw. He placed the steaks on a plate and brought them over to the table with a fork and knife, sitting on his hind legs on the floor to eat.

He watched Adel as he touched the band on his forehead, and winced a bit when the young mage hissed in pain. "I'm sorry... it's going to hurt for a while. Maybe we can get you more painkillers for it." He cut his steaks into what he thought of as manageable pieces... that is to say, at any rate, he cut them... and started eating like anyone would expect a giant lizard to eat... that is to say, with lots of tilting-back-the-head, and very little chewing.

[Anonymous]

"Okay. Sounds like a plan." Adel said since he was sure he had next to no clothes with him. Actually maybe he didn't have any at all except the ones he was wearing right now. When he woke up it hadn't crossed his mind to look for other clothes to wear later on. Now that he was thinking about it...he was curious and really wanted to know. At the same time he wanted to finish eating though. He'd just go after eating or something since it wasn't like he'd die if he didn't check.

He glanced down at his eggs to see how many he had left since he really hadn't been looking. Still quite a few. He wasn't a really fast eater and it never took much to get him full either. "I'm okay right now." Considering Malachi was about to eat too, he would probably attempt to make them himself. It'd be a nice way to practice until he actually figured out how to cook.

When Mal came into the room and sat down, Adel just nodded at the part about the painkillers. He wasn't fond of pain, of course, so more pain killers would be nice. Maybe it'd take away the weird feeling too and he wouldn't want to touch the band again. He was taken from his thoughts when Mal started to eat though. He blinked and tilted his head a little, not really thinking about the fact that staring at a person while they were eating wasn't nice. "How do you do that?"

[Anonymous]

"Alright, then!" Malachi smiled brightly. He had completely forgotten to get Adel any clothes from the fortress, and didn't make a habit of having pants lying around, so a shopping trip seemed to be just the thing. It had been far too long since he had last had a mage to pamper, and he was determined to have fun with this one... and bipedal humanoids couldn't really begin to have fun without pants and proper chairs, right? Of course not.

He silently added painkillers to the shopping list. Adel was a good boy; he didn't need to be miserable just because he was a mage. He swallowed a bite and tilted his head a bit at Adel's comment. "Do what?" he said, then paused for a second. The way he ate was completely natural to him, but it occurred to him that Adel didn't do it that way. For pity's sake, he was chewing eggs. "Ah, that."

Malachi set his utensils down briefly, and did something akin to a wide yawn, accompanied by a cracking of joints, the action causing his jaw to unhinge and fall wide open like a snake's mouth, pointed white teeth revealed in detail. It's a giant lizard thing, you see. I find it very useful. Sorry if it freaks you out, he said, testing out the mind-link. The same thing reversed set his jaw in its natural position again. "If I couldn't do that, eating would take forever..." Malachi did eat a lot, being a formidably-sized dragon-centaur, and a  forkful at a time just didn't cut it for a semi-quick meal.

[Anonymous]

Adel watched quietly as Malachi demonstrate how he was able to eat the way he did. The cracking of joints caused him to cringe a little and his ears to flatten against his head because to him it sounded quite painful. What seemed even more painful was the fact that Mal had unhinged his jaw. If he tried something like that he was sure his would get stuck or something..or he'd break it and have to go to the hospital. It was a sort of disturbing thought but at the same time he was curious if he could even get his mouth open at least half the amount Mal could.

When Mal spoke through the mind link, he blinked and quickly looked around a little. He was not used to being able to hear someone else's voice in his head obviously so for a second he had no idea where it came from. Once Mal spoke again, he quickly looked over at him and connected what had been said through the mind link to what was said then. He had to get used to that..

"Ah I understand." Adel went quiet after that for a second before deciding it was a good idea to test and see how wide he could open his mouth. His ears twitched a little as he opened it normally and found that he could not open it more than that and thus tried to use his hands to pry open his mouth wider. It didn't work. Actually all that happened was his jaw ended feeling sort of funny. It didn't hurt to try though.