The Facility

It's subtle at first, hard to notice, when the air thickens, and the clear blue sky over Arizona slowly, slowly turns a sickly green. Like sticky dust, the sweet stench of flowers begins to cover every surface, every rock and every grain of sand. But only as it starts to seep through the AC does Ron startle awake, head jerking up from where it had fallen back against the headrest of his car seat.

"Oh fuck," he bursts out. "Nat, there's a storm coming."

"What, seriously?" Nat snaps. "Now? We're at least three hours away from the next city! Check the map."

"Nothing on here to hide in," he frantically scrolls across his phone screen. "We're caught out."

"Fuck that, no we're not," Nat grits their teeth, and floors it.

Sand tears away under the wheels of their lime green beaten up all-terrainer as it speeds through the desert, over dunes and down onto a dusty road. As the sky turns from green to a nauseating amber yellow, Ron slams the air re-circulation button and rolls up the already closed windows as far as they'll go.

"We should've charted the fucking weather path," he grits out, sweat beading on his brows.

"Shut up. I need to focus."

"Fuck off, dude" he bites right back. "If I die out here, I'm gonna die complaining."

Nat rolls their eyes, hard. "I'm sure that's how you've always wanted to go."

"Damn right it is. Oh shit, over there!"

It's not just his nose that's better than Nat's. His eyes are a lot better than theirs too, despite the disadvantage of it really only being an 'eye' singular, a thick scar running down the eyebrow and over the lid of the other one, ending on his cheek. Whatever he's pointing out in the distance now, Nat can't see it. Regardless, they steer towards it and put the pedal all the way down to the metal, and they don't lift their foot again until they've made it inside the gates of a subterranean garage, located right towards the front of an impressively ugly building.

They come to an abrupt stop in front of a striped boom barrier that blocks them from the parking spots, and listen to the gates slam shut behind them, reverberating through the garage like thunder. Nat turns the motor off, and the two of them sit in the dark as a wall of water bursts out over their car, washing away the pollen.

"Damn," Ron says.

"Yeah," Nat says.

"Close one," he says.

"Close one," they say.

A door towards the side of the parking garage opens. Their eyes have to adjust to the dim light for a moment before they're able to make out why: a short, blond woman waddles across the concrete and quickly disappears into the booth. Her tired, grey face appears again behind the glass, and Nat has to quickly roll down a window as her mouth begins to move.

"—visitors," her voice crackles.

"Sorry, what?"

"I said, no visitors."

Nat looks over their shoulder at the shut gate, the hairs in their neck pricking up. That's just their luck, to hit on a place that would throw innocent visitors back out into a storm. Where on Earth are they, even?

A lone building in the middle of the desert. Not charted on the official maps. Mostly built out of steel and concrete, not much stone, and with ugly, greebled walls that all the sand catches on. So probably built around a hundred years ago, maybe longer. Their eyes flick to the space in front of them—the parking lot is too big for a regular researcher team, and too small to hold a whole scientific community. There were also no satellite dishes outside, so this cannot be a weather station. No high towers on the outside either, meaning no space for sentinels to hunker down and guard the invisible containment borders that govern the desert.

That means—

"We're the water filtration techs you called," Nat lies, hanging their elbow out the window.The guard, a woman in her forties, leans over a table towards them, eyebrow raised.

"Sup?" Ron waves to her.

"...Cards and identification," the woman purses her lips. Oh, bingo. It actually is a water facility. And there's always something wrong with these damn things, of course they're waiting for techs at any given moment.

Nat raises their hands from the steering wheel, placating. "Sure, of course. Identification coming right up."

Ron knows the name of the game. He ruffles through their hand compartment, pats himself down, then leans towards the backseat to grab one of their bags and go through that too.

Nat drums their fingers on the steering wheel, mock-annoyed. "Tell me you've got them."

"I've got them!" he bites. "I've got them!"

Nat exchanges a long suffering glance with the woman behind the table.

"Well, I'm not letting you at the filters without any identification," she says, stone faced.

"Is your problem that postponable?" Nat raises an eyebrow. "It didn't sound like it."

The guard seems to consider this for a moment, mum with suspicious disgruntlement. Then she hits a button by her desk and the pike next to her booth swings up.

"Cheers!" Nat salutes her and hits the gas so hard that Ron has to catch himself on the dashboard to not be thrown around.

"Christ, your fucking driving. Cannot fucking believe that worked, either," he snorts as he pushes himself back into his seat. "That was one hell of a crap shot."

"If you don't stop complaining—It worked, what else do you want?"

Ron rolls his eyes at them. "No need to get pissy."

The parking garage is cold and dark, but most notably of all, it's almost empty. There are only three other cars, although there's room for ten, maybe fifteen more. Still, regardless of all the space, Nat narrowly avoids scraping a concrete pillar as they pull into a parking spot. Thankfully, Ron has no more clever comments. He hops out of the ATV, slinging his backpack over his shoulder, and throws open the trunk to get out a coffer of tools they nabbed from a solar techie a few months ago.

"Always good to hold on to these," Nat says under their breath. Ron doesn't seem to hear them—he rolls his shoulders, his eyes darting back and forth to assess the situation. "Relax," they murmur to him. I've got this." And for good measure, they bump their shoulder into his, though he's so lanky that they need to get on their tiptoes to reach.

He sighs deeply and runs a brown hand over his shorn head. "I just really don't fucking like that they shut the gate behind us."

"I know," Nat says as they start to take off their jewelry. "But we'll be out of here the moment the storm is over. Okay?" They take their golden hoops out of their ears and off their wrists—but leave the nose bridge and the lip piercing alone, deciding that it's not worth the hassle of having to put them back in later, or, hell, potentially losing them.

"Yeah," he says, unconvinced, as he watches them. "Yeah, sure, okay."

Nat tugs at a black strand of their hair, unhappy. "And hey, you've got it good. You're already dressed for hard work."

Ron laughs and pulls their hair tie out of their hair to send the thin half-ponytail cascading against the back of their head. "Advantage of not giving a shit about what I look like!"

Nat snatches the elastic from his hand and sticks their tongue out at him as they put their straight, waist-length hair up properly. It's smooth and soft with grease—gross. They should've gotten out of the car when it was being rinsed down, just to finally get a chance at a shower.

The elevator doesn't work without a key card, the damn thing, not even when Nat slams their palm against the call button harder. They're forced to take the stairs. But just as Ron pulls on the handle of the door to the stairwell to head down, the elevator opens behind them with a 'ding' and startles both of them into jumping.

"Hello!" a man calls out for them, and only then do they turn around. "The filter techs, I assume? Apologies for scaring you." He's squat, pale, and somewhere in his fifties. The bags under his eyes sit deep—a heavy drinker, probably—and there's a scabbed over cut running across his nose.

Ron casts a subtle glance to Nat, an unspoken question.

"That's us," Nat greets the man in the elevator.

"Sup," Ron nods his head, relieved.

The man sighs. "Well thank goodness you're finally here. Robert Leeway, I am the current head of this station. Who am I dealing with?"

"Alexis Romano. This is Gabriel Kamau," Nat lies.

"Pleasure to meet you both," Leeway nods absentmindedly. "Very glad that Wavelength sent you so fast. Uncharacteristically fast, might I add. I seem to remember that it tends to take up to two weeks—but anyways. Before I can let you in, I'm going to need you both to go through decontamination and a physical."

"Dude, seriously?" Ron groans. "A whole physical? Do you do that with everyone who comes in?"

"Absolutely," Leeway says, unmoved. "We have a responsibility down here. Especially, and might I remind you, when you come in with a pollen storm. This way." The elevator works like a charm with a key card. Too bad, actually. "Close your eyes," he instructs as the doors slides shut.

"Our eyes?" Ron asks, shortly before the light in the elevator turns a searing blue.

Nat quickly shuts theirs before they can see what Ron does. There's a hissing noise in a corner, and then suddenly, it feels like all the air is blown out of the small space, out of their lungs. For a moment, Nat is convinced that they're being murdered, and the only thing that keeps Nat from lashing out about it is the knowledge that Leeway is right here with them and going through this too.

And sure enough, the elevator stops, and they're still alive. Nat carefully peers their eyes back open—according to the screen above the door, they're on floor -2. And the blue lights are out. As Leeway steps out, Nat exchanges a quick glance with Ron. Judging by his face, he agrees: That was fucking weird.

"What the hell was that?" they ask Leeway out loud.

"Decontamination," he says, like it's the most natural thing in the world. "You've never gone through this?"

"No?" Ron snorts, aghast.

They follow Leeway as he leads them down a hallway, which opens into a small, sterile room, nothing but white walls and an examination table, and a buzzing of lights that sets Nat's teeth on edge. They are not prepared. This is not good. It's barely a few seconds and, already, they can feel their lungs constrict again and—Ron reaches over and squeezes their hand.

The head of facility glances down at it with unashamed curiosity, but Ron doesn't let go. "The nurse will be here in a second," Leeway tells them, and shuts the door.

Nat sinks down on the examination table, heavy, while Ron checks the room for surveillance as covertly as possible. They watch him do it, watch his long fingers probe the wall, watch the curve of his neck as he cranes it.

"Clear," he whispers.

"Well,"  Nat says. "At least there's that. Is there any way out of this?"

"Don't think so," Ron shakes his head. "If shit gets dire I'll throw up. Cool?"

"Not cool." They sink their head into their hands. "Then what? You get quarantined? What happens to me, then?"

He wrinkles his nose. "Or we just run and hide, uh."

"Where exactly?"

"Yeah. Where."

"The gate is shut."

The gate is shut, the overseer is adamant about the physical, and the elevator only works with a key card. Nat and Ron stare at each other. It's incredible how quickly they've gotten themselves from one bad situation into another. Ron worries his lip.

"Shit's fucked, huh?"

"Yeah," Nat says, "Shit is indeed fucked. We can only hope that whoever they send in is bad at their job."

They don't say anything else to each other, just sit on their hands.

And then, when the nurse finally comes in, it's the blond woman from the entry gate.

Nat nudges Ron to get his attention, and Ron blinks at her. "Hi, what's up? Personnel shortage?"

"Oh, don't start," she sighs, and pushes the tray she's pulling with her into a corner.

"Where is everyone else?" Nat wants to know. "There were four cars upstairs, counting ours. That's... not enough to man a station like this, is it?"

"Don't you worry about that," the apparently newly appointed nurse tells them. She fumbles around with a small light, looking for which end is the right one. Despite the anxious pit in their stomach, Nat watches with growing amusement.

The nurse gestures for Ron to bend down first. Sitting down on the table, he's just a little too tall for her. She shines the light into each of his eyes, hesitating when she finds the glass one, then moves on to his nose, then the back of his throat. Satisfied, she moves over to do the same to Nat. They've gone through enough exams to know that those vitals are fine, and readily let her.

The nurse turns back to her table and semi-discreetly pulls out a checklist for the exam. Nat and Ron exchange a glance. Ron looks like he's smelling blood in the water, a spark in his eyes. It's moments like these that tell Nat they're with exactly the right person. It couldn't be anybody else.

Test strips in hand, the nurse turns back to them. "Whatcha got there?" Ron wants to know.

"I will be testing your saliva for a few different things," she explains patiently. "And then I need your blood for a few more. Open your mouth, please."

Ron sticks his tongue out wide. Slightly befuddled, the nurse swipes test strip after test strip over it.

When she looks away, fresh test strips in hand, Ron bumps her arm and swipes the test stripes, quick as he can, and sticks all five of them into his mouth at once. By the time the nurse notices she dropped the strips, they're laying neatly on the table between them. She touches her forehead, shaking her head, and picks them up to test Nat.

Nat leans forward, grinning, and opens their mouth. In that moment, Ron hacks an impressively loud cough into the crook of his elbow, making the nurse jump half a foot in the air. Nat tugs on the strips with two fingers instead of their mouth, and when the nurse looks again, they're smiling.

"Ah, you got them?" she asks.

"All done," Nat smiles.

The nurse holds them up and sees the strips change color. She shakes her head and fetches the blood test.

It's a small device, shaped like a white egg, with a screen to the side and a needle at the tip.

"Your finger, please," she directs at Nat.

Nat stretches out a hand obediently. The needle pulls back into the egg. The nurse lowers the egg, and Nat breathes in deep, then sneezes as loud as they can, doubling over so hard they jostle her.

Nat only knows what happens next because they know Ron. The nurse fumbles the egg and Ron snatches it out of mid air, disappearing it into a sleeve. Leaving her empty handed.

"Now where—" She looks left, right, behind them, then bends down to inspect the floor.

"You dropped it up here!" Ron chirps, using that to cover up the click-chack of the blood test on him. When he hands the nurse the test back, it's with the uninjured hand.

"You two need a respiratory test," the nurse scolds them.

"Sorry," Ron smiles sheepishly. "We got caught in that pollen storm, no?"

"Well—yes, I suppose you did. It's just that—your throats both look clear. I'd expect at least a little swelling, if the pollen is already affecting your airways." She finally looks down at the egg, which now shows a clean test. "Did I already—" She cuts herself off, embarrassed, and turns away from them to switch the needle for a clean one. Ron lets her do the test on him without any fuss.
And just to be sure, she runs a respiratory exam on them too.

By the time they're back out the door, Nat is barely suppressing a giggle. "Her face."

"Hush," Ron grins.

"All clean?" Leeway asks. Both Ron and Nat straighten up instantly. He's been waiting for them out here, it looks like.

"All clean!" Ron gives him a thumbs up.

"Always great to have a test done," Nat purrs. "There's nothing like a little extra peace of mind about your health, am I right?"

"Hm, perks of the job," Leeway agrees. "Follow me then, please." His eyes follow something behind them.

Nat turns and sees the nurse leave, a juice bottle from a vending machine clutched in her hand like she's mad at it.

A filtration system is a terrible beast. It's a knot of pipes and tubes and tanks, of metal and wires and a whole lot of faith. It needs to account for every eventuality, every stroke of bad luck, and the moment that it doesn't, people die. It's the reason why the certification to become a water technician takes three years, and why the systems that connect to the reservoirs of groundwater, deep under the dry heat of the desert, can be found on no map, no internet search.

Nat appraises the state of the filter, squinting closely at the numbers on the screen. They have precious little idea what they're doing.

Leeway clears his throat, standing by the entrance of the room with his arms crossed behind his back. "I already told you where the problem lies."

"What," Nat drawls, "are you gonna pass up the chance for a general inspection? We're already here."

Ron thumps his fist over parts of the machine, knocking here and there, his ear to the metal. He doesn't actually know shit from fuck about these things either, only how much they're worth cannibalized and stripped for parts.

Leeway makes a noise of displeasure. "Fine. Go ahead. I hope you've taken your broadband anti-parasitics, though."

Ron perks up. "Broadband? What's the sitch, exactly?"

"A week ago, we had an... ah. Incident," he explains, mouth drawn into a thin line.

"Incident?" Nat turns around.

"A zombie made it underground, somehow, and spent a good amount of time in the groundwater reservoirs. Contaminated just about everything." Ron whistles. Nat squirms uncomfortably.

"Well, damn," Ron says. "Bet that's cutting into the supply volume!"

"You could say that," Leeway nods.

"What strain?"

"The regional variant," the guide says. "Our usual issue. Devil's claw flower. It's just never been... This much of an issue, let's say."

"Are you lacing the water with devil's claw sanguiherbicides right now?" Nat wants to know, their eyes grimly on the task in front of them.

"No, we ran out two days ago. It's a broadband right now." Fucking great. Nat rolls down their sleeves as subtly as possible and starts to lightly hit the wrench they're carrying against the tubes, listening for any blockages.

"Whatcha do with the body?" Ron wants to know, further distracting Leeway from breathing down Nat's neck.

"Standard procedure," Leeway replies. Nat tenses. Does this really need to be the topic of conversation for a distraction? Can't he come up with something else that will have Leeway looking away as they clang around incompetently?

"C'mon, dude," Ron pushes. "Did you burn it?"

"Where are you from?" Leeway shifts the conversation, seemingly uncomfortable with all the questions. "This is the longest I've heard you talk so far. I figured you were, how do you say, African Canadian? When you came in, but your accent is intriguing."

Ron stops himself for a moment, and Nat can feel his internal cringe from where they're standing, but then he laughs it off. "Good ear, my guy! Yeah, I'm Brazilian."

"Oh, you immigrated?"

"Citizenship and all," Ron grins. Liar.

"How interesting," Leeway says. "Most young people move out of the south of Canada instead of in, don't you think? At the very least into one of the major cities up north where food and good weather aren't as scarce, if not further. I didn't realize many of you kids could be found anywhere past the Great Lakes. I guess Arizona is still an upgrade over Brazil, economically? I mean, you immigrated looking for honest work, I assume?"

"Uh", Ron says.

"You probably couldn't find much of it in South America, what with the whole..." Nat sees Leeway gesture out of the corner of their eye, though their own focus is on the sample tube, where they're currently trying to get enough drops of water onto a test strip to make it indicate, but not enough that they flood the floor.

"What's that mean?" Ron asks, forcefully cheery.

"Well, you know," Leeway immediately flusters. "There's a lot of... Gang activity down there, in South America, with all the warlords taking over right now, and the cult problem as well. And most of your kind especially end up either in gangs or cults nowadays, don't you?"

Nat has to cover up a disbelieving laugh with a cough.

"Well!" they distract loudly, feeling that this conversation has run its course. Ron looks both grateful and slightly dead inside. Poor guy can't even antagonize Leeway without giving up the entire jig. "You still have spores floating. You're covering it up with the broadband in the machine's inbuilt readings, but the issue remains."

"Which means?" Leeway asks.

They have no idea. Their eyes dart to Ron for help.

"How many filter cycles have you run?" Ron asks quickly.

"Two full ones," Leeway says.

"Then something's fucked with your filter," Ron shakes his head. "Two should do it. This is a multi day fix." Nat eyes him suspiciously, unsure if this is real knowledge or just well-put bullshit.
Leeway takes off his glasses and pinches the bridge of his nose. "Wonderful. It's not like we aren't already behind schedule. Especially with such few hands on deck, the noose is tightening."

"Problems like this don't really care about nooses, do they?" Nat crosses their arms, leaning back against one of the massive tanks.

"No. No, I suppose they don't. Well—"

"You also need new parts," Ron interjects. "We won't be able to fix the whole issue until that's done."

"The storm is predicted to last four more nights," Leeway sighs. "Terrible timing. Let's get to my office then, to order those parts as fast as possible. And we will put you up while the storm lasts, of course."

"Good shit," Ron grins wide, "thanks for not throwing us out into the pollen storm!"

"We are eternally grateful for that," Nat drips with sarcasm.

Leeway shoots them an uncomfortably embarrassed look, but doesn't seem to have much to say about that. "Well. Not how I meant—oh well. ...This way, then."

For all the security at the gate, once you're in, the water reservoirs are really just out in the open. Leeway guides them over a metal bridge in the style of the early aughts of the 21st century, painted in that standard telltale green of the period, the kind of green that makes you want to claw your eyes out when you make the mistake of looking at it a little too long. They're somewhere on floor -6 now, and the cold makes Ron shiver lightly as he leans over the railing of the bridge to peer down.

"Damn," he whispers to Nat. "That's so much water."

Nat takes his luggage from him so he can lean over a little further, glad that he's relaxing after the incident with Leeway.

"It is impressive," Nat agrees. Deep and dark, and perfectly still.
Leeway stands a few feet ahead, his arms crossed behind his back, and waits for them to catch up. Ron lets go of the railing, but as he keeps moving, his eyes are stuck to the lapis blue mirror surface of the water reservoir.

"Have you talked to Teo lately?" he asks under his breath.

"We're not in touch," Nat answers, short.

"He's with some kind of religion thing right now," he continues. "Flower something. I haven't sussed out if it's one of the ones that eats people."

"Flower children do not eat people, Gabriel. They just ritually pretend."

He cackles. "Semantics!"

"You're worried about him, are you?"

He rolls his eyes. "Dude, you know him."

"Constantly hurtling towards his own downfall."

"Like an overbred racehorse desperate to break its fucking legs," he agrees, bitter.

"Let him," Nat flaps their hand. "You have a life to live."

Ron turns his head away from them before Nat can catch any expression on his face. He digs his hands into his pockets and falls silent.

It gives them a moment to get lost in their own thoughts. Nat's skin is still prickling with the rush of the examination room, the smell still in their nose. They run a hand over their shoulder, gentle with the large patch of waffle shaped scar tissue under the fabric of their cactus cotton clothes, and even gentler with what they've hidden underneath elastic bandages, pressed as flat as they can get it so it leaves no suspicious outline.

"Sore?" Ron asks quietly. Nat nods. They could use some TLC.

Leeway puts them up in two small rooms, their doors right next to each other. There's nothing but hallway to the right, and a communal shower room somewhere to the left. There's room for over twenty members of staff here, but the entire time they're walking, they don't see a single face.

Leeway gives them a row of quick instructions—to use the shower water sparingly because there's not much left before it hits the sanguiherbicidal reservoir, where to get something to eat, and where to report for more tasks for tomorrow. Nat politely doesn't ask whether they're getting paid for any of this. Whatever paycheck Leeway is wiring is definitely going to their fake employer anyway, no use in bartering. And then Leeway excuses himself, and Nat and Ron are left standing in the hallway.

"Bed first?" Nat asks.

"Bed first, yeah."

They each lift one end of the bed and heave it through the door. It barely fits into the second room—it's basically all bed now, and then a small sliver of floor space for the shitty cheap closet to open so they can cram their luggage in. With that done, they grab a bite to eat at the automated canteen, but drag it back to their room instead of hanging out in the empty space for too long. They're both tired. The adrenaline of the day is starting to wear off.

Ron locks the door behind them, and he gives the room three once-overs before he's finally satisfied that nobody is watching or listening.
They eat on the pushed together beds, shoes crammed in a corner, cross-legged. Nobody is watching. Nat stares at one of the bland walls longingly—they won't see the sun rising for a good few days. This will be cabin fever galore.

"You still sore?" Ron asks carefully through a mouthful of fluffy instant bean burger.

Nat groans a sigh. "God, yes."

"You want help?"

"Yes," they pout.

They clean up first. Ron and Nat grab a fresh set of clothes each and explore the communal shower—a crusty room, tiled in a burnt sunset red that's definitely seen better days. Parts of the gaps between the tiles are black. Nat steps over them, disgusted.

But it's a shower. An actual shower. Ron leans his back against the door to keep it shut from intruders as Nat chucks off their clothes, peels off their chest binder, unwraps their bandages, and steps under the running water, shivering as it turns cold for a moment before it finds its temperature. A great problem to have. It's so nice not to wash up in a sink.

And their flowers agree.

Squashed flat from the indignities of the day, they uncurl again slowly from the position they've been pushed into by the tight bandages. They start to perk up again as the water of the shower wets them, soft red light refracting from their clustered petals and long spidery filaments onto Nat's freckled shoulder. They feel their flowers' roots shifting through their muscles, wrapped around their veins and reaching straight for their heart. Under the warm water, they massage at the waffle weave scar of their skin graft, rubbing their thumb around the deep grooves of flesh that their leaves and stems sprout from, enclosed by grown-back skin. Taking care of what was done to them can be hard work, but it's also rewarding. When Nat runs their fingers through the garden on their shoulder, there is no disgust to it, no fear. Only protectiveness. The worst thing about it, really, is that Nat is so damn sore from hiding.

Wet, their black hair hangs down to their hips. And although they try to enjoy this for as long as it lasts, for as long as they haven't hit on the reservoir laced with sanguiherbicidals and water isn't dangerous to their flowers yet, they can't shower forever. So they rinse their out to the best of their ability, scrunch, then wrap the entire thing up in a towel before stepping out of the shower space, shaking water off their feet like a dog. Ron drapes a towel over their shoulder and escorts them down the hallway, intent to make sure that nobody sees anything they aren't supposed to see and perhaps gets the bright idea to leverage a gun at the zombie, before heading back and taking a shower of his own.

When he comes back, Nat is sprawled out across both beds, the scar ointment already next to them, damp hair draped all over the sheets. They flop over dramatically to greet him. "Moisturize me."
Ron cackles and maneuvers them around so he has somewhere to sit too. He plucks around at their flowers and Nat bats at him, but he holds up a piece of lint that the shower didn't get. "Dude, just let me at them."

"Don't pull!"

"Yeah, yeah. I'm being careful."

He runs his fingers over the blossoms, nudges upright, removes broken leaves. He wouldn't be able to do this if the flowers were dangerous, if they were the wild type instead of something condensed, neutered, and lab grown. Something made by intelligent people, people with goals and skills, instead of the mind-bendingly stupid bullshit that the people who grew the first zombie flowers put out into the world nearly a hundred years ago. The stems of their flowers run through the scarred waffle-weave tissue of their shoulder and tug at the roots anchored deep underneath their skin, wrapped around their veins, feeding off their blood. They feel every shift, every pull, no matter how gentle he is, and they grumble accordingly for the first two minutes.

He gets them to relax though, gradually, both of them silent as he works the ointment into their skin. Right here, right now, Ron's fingers tugging gently and massaging at the hard scarred tissue of their shoulder, they feel safe. He would never intentionally hurt them.

By the time Ron is done, they're asleep.