if i stand up, i'll break my bones
and everybody loves to see a fall unfold

The poison running through Archer is strong, enough to be a lethal dose, if she knows anything about Icarus; more than anything, she knows the importance of time and how little they have of it before it's too late for the herbal mixture to work. Still, she has the flicker of a flame, a small flare of hope that keeps her working, steadies her hand as she brings the first dropper of medicine to his mouth. He fights like a wild animal let loose from a cage, his eyes widening in rage and terror seeing visions of what? She doesn't know. Her jaw tightens as her teeth grind together and she grips his chin in strong fingers, forcing the dropper into his mouth and squirting the first mouthful in.

He swallows slow, as expected, and she adds another dropper full of warm liquid, then another before setting the glass aside. The rest, she'll save for later, but the hard part...

She grits her teeth as she shifts to untie the makeshift bandage, her fingers gently tugging at the knots to alleviate the pain he's sure to feel soon enough. Her hand pauses over the wound as she looks at it, the edges blackened from the poison infecting him. Sadness softens her face and brightens her eyes with moisture and she bites down hard on her lip to clear her head, once again thinking about time, as if this night were an hourglass, the last few grains of sand threatening to slip through the funnel.

Numbly, she grabs at the poultice, wet and cool in her hand. She hesitates, looking to his face for some sign that the herbal tea might be helping. The sweat on his brow and the twist of his mouth are evidence enough. With a muttered prayer to her ancestors, she presses the poultice onto the wound, applying as much pressure as she can to keep the blood from flowing freely again. The poison, aside from all of its other nasty attributes, is a powerful anticoagulant, part of the reason Archer's body couldn't seem to heal. Hopefully, the tea and poultice working against the poison would be enough. Otherwise, she might have to use witch hazel, which she knows will burn more than the poultice.

And it does burn. The moment she applies pressure, he seizes, his eyes wide and blank with the pain. A frightening scream tears itself from his throat and he starts to speak, his words a jumbled mess. She hears them and something in her curls up, a small part of her that had begun to feel.. Unspeakable things. Her heart constricts as he curses her but she holds onto the poultice and his wound until he slips into unconsciousness, his eyes rolling back before closing. When he goes limp, so does she, slumping against the couch with wide, unfocused eyes. Her head pounds, her hands shake.

It takes her a moment to sit up, but she does, slipping to the bathroom to retrieve fresh bandages, gauze, and peroxide. The rest is simple, cleaning the outside of the wound and bandaging it with fresh, clean bandages. When she's finished, she slides down beside the couch, her knees pulling up to her chin.

Wicked, he called her. She flinches inward, biting her lip and chewing at it in quiet contemplation. He wasn't - isn't - wrong, and she's ashamed of it. She is a wicked girl, using him like a pawn in her own personal game with little regards to his feelings. It would be easy to help him end his curse, too easy and then what? He might leave her and she won't accept that. The darkness in her can't let him go, and the light in her? That peculiar shimmer of longing that she's come to associate with him? She doesn't know what to do with it, but she knows it would be broken if he ever turned his back on her.

It is hours before he begins to stir. At first, it's just a twitch of his arm, a curl of his fingers. Instinctively, she turns towards him with wide eyes, the hurt still reflected in them from the words he'd thrown at her. But behind the hurt, there is relief, so she watches him. It takes a while longer for his eyes to open and when they do, she is there. Her fingers are stained with his blood and some of hers, dried into the cracks of her skin and flaking as her knuckles curl but she doesn't mind. The only thing that matters is his eyes opening, his breathing so much steadier than it had been last night.

He's still pale, still burning hot with fever. But there it is - that flicker of a flame called hope, burning bright as the morning star. He will live.

"My Knight," she murmurs, her voice a sleepy whisper from staying up all night, but not too distorted to disguise the affection in those quiet words. She squeezes his hand, gives him a shaky smile. "I'm so sorry, Archer."

I'm sorry you were hurt. I'm sorry for betraying you even as I continue to do it. I'm sorry that I am an evil girl. She doesn't say them out loud, but they're the words that run through her head now as she lays her head on his chest, her dark hair a mess across his chest.