The silence that followed was not hospital silence.
Machines still breathed in their soft mechanical rhythm. A monitor somewhere to Dean's left gave a steady pulse. Filtered air still moved through the vents with antiseptic indifference. But the room itself changed once the last person left.
Dean watched Arion in offended disbelief as Arion rose fully from the bed.
The movement was controlled, but not painless. Dean saw that too. The slight tightening at the mouth. The fractionally careful set of his shoulders. The pull at the ribs under the fresh bandaging. The shoulder dressing had already begun to stain through again in a narrow crescent of red.
"You are bleeding through your shirt," Dean said.
Arion ignored that and crossed the space between the beds.
Dean hated how quickly the room reorganized around that fact.
