Red and Black 2

Trigger couldn't believe he'd be this much of an idiot.

The white stallion lay curled up in a heavy, warm blanket that smelled sweetly of detergent. He shifted about in his bed under the bright lights above him as two strong smells mixed horribly in his sinuses; a sterilized hospital room and burnt flesh underneath thick gauze.

Trigger's previous mark was a great success, as the poor sap didn't even notice the poison in his tea before he was already rolling around on the floor, frothing at the mouth. Said poison was supplied to him by the contract owner, as she whipped up the concoction specifically for her business rival. The target was executed so perfectly that Trigger was immediately offered another mark by the same employer.

This time around, it was requested by said employer that the next target would have to be eliminated in a way to make it look like an accident. Trigger did what he normally would, and cased the joint. It was a grand, two story antique store that hosted a panoply of old nick-knacks and former possessions. Above the register, where the target would be, was a forged iron chandelier, encrusted with decades of wax from tall candles. Perfect; all he'd have to do is find a way to drop that on the target!

After going through many different options, Trigger decided on chemically wearing out the chain of the chandelier, but not in a way that makes it look like malicious tampering. So, after a quick trip to the hardware store, he sat down and attempted to make a slow acting acid. While he did make a C in high school chemistry, he still tried to make an oxidizing solution that would corrode the iron in such a way to make it look like it had rusted apart and fallen.

However, as his luck would have it, he bumped into a stronger solution in a wrong way, causing it to spill all over his chest and the tops of his hind legs.

That's how he ended up here, still in a slight morphine induced haze.

Trigger lazily looked out the window, smelling the fresh breeze as it blew in from the hospital's front lawn. The scent of the inside of his sinuses told him that he had been inside for too long, and that he should rest up quickly so he would be able to leave this lumpy, old bed.

With that thought, the door to his room opened up, and Trigger flopped over on to his back and looked lethargically towards the nurse walking his way. The nurse was a fellow unicorn that was about his height, with a light yellow coat and dark green mane.

"Alright mister..." The nurse paused, magically flipping through a few pages on his clipboard. "...Trigger. My name's Patient Care, I'm your nurse for the time being, since your regular is out sick. First off, I'm gonna change out your gauze."

There was something off about him. He seemed a bit distant, his words were a bit choppy, and he had some bags under his eyes. The nurse had probably been through something.

"How badly is this gonna hurt?" Trigger asked, looking at him through the malaise of medical opiates.

"Not too much if I do this." Patient replied, turning a dial on an automatic IV drip, increasing the painkillers Trigger received.

Now that the nurse was almost right over him, Trigger could see a small pin that was attached to the upper breast of his scrubs; it was that of three golden chevrons with a pair of crossed swords underneath them. The nurse wasted no time unfurling a new length of gauze from a medical cart that had been left in Trigger's room.

"Sooo...you were in the army?" Trigger asked, awkwardly striking up a conversation.

"Yeah! I was a nurse for a field hospital." His caregiver smiles with forced mirth.

"Field hospital? Did you serve in the Zebra War?" Trigger asked, cocking his head.

The nurse breathed in through his nose. "Yeah..." Was his response, his smile now forced into a tight frown.

Trigger winced externally. He knew that he would be a bit more tactful were it not for the drugs.

"Aw shit. I'm...sorry I brought it up." He said sincerely.

"Oh, don't worry about it." Patient said before he began to unravel Trigger's right leg bandage. "I'll be honest with you, there are others worse off than me. Trust me on that, I've helped them to full recovery."

Trigger nodded as the pain of his burned flesh shot searing pinpricks through the numbness. He gritted his teeth as the nurse carefully began to clean the wound.

"If you don't mind me asking...what was it like?" Trigger asked.

Patient paused and looked up at him, unsure of what to say. Immediately, he returned to cleaning the burn, but he kept his mind on summing up his experience.

"Well, Trigger..." He began. "Let me tell you something about myself. I grew up in Marelin, and my best friend growing up with a zebra. We would do everything together, we hung out and played with each other every day. Hell, I even considered him a brother."

There was a brief pause.

"...Loved him like one, too. His parents loved me like I was one of theirs, and my mother loved him like he was one of hers."

Patient had finished cleaning Trigger's right leg and began to reapply the gauze.

"What changed?" Trigger asked, knowing where this was going.

"The war." Patient said bitterly. "I had just graduated college when it broke out. My friend and his family heeded the call, didn't even say goodbye, only left to Zebralia with hatred towards me, my mother, and the rest of pony-kind. I joined the army because it was either that or be conscripted, and since they saw that I was a licensed nurse, they sent me to officer school, and then got further medical training. Honestly, I hate what the war did to the zebras. I hate what it did to me, because I hated them back for a long while."

Trigger's frown tightened, he listened to the nurse rattle off his story as he felt the gauze on his left leg unravel. He remembered how the king of Zebralia hated non-zebras, and how he stirred up racial tensions to spark a war only he would benefit from. He knew that Patient here had immense pain deep down inside of him, and he understood that anguish completely.

"After the war, and after all the peace treaties and non-aggression pacts, and after they threw the old leader in jail, I went to the town in Zebralia where my friend's parents lived. The reunion was tearful, to say the least." Patient chuckled. "There was a lot of apologizing and wounds mended that day. However, they told me that my friend had died in the war. It happened on the day I was honorably discharged."

Trigger looked on speechless. He felt the nurse finish cleaning his left leg, the stinging and searing of his flesh still at odds with the morphine, but he didn't care. Patient's glum expression turned into a resolute smirk as he begins to wrap fresh gauze around the injured limb.

"Wow, dude..." Trigger could only say. "You know, man. Most vets wouldn't wanna talk about something like that to someone they don't know."

"Well, you're an open ear. And a sympathetic one at that." Patient replied, gingerly unwrapping Trigger's chest gauze.

He noticed the burns on the white unicorn stallion's chest were almost as if his skin was corroded, or was being melted or eaten away. Patient knew exactly what kind of burns these were.

"So, why were you playing with so much acid?" He asks, curiously as he swabs Trigger's torso clean.

"Uhhh...well, you see..." Trigger was really bad with making things up on the fly. "I, er, was trying to make some, uh...some..." He could tell this was getting him nowhere. It might be the drugs doing this, or the act of his caretaker opening up to him. "Alright, you know what, fuck it. I'll tell you, because you've told me about your shit."

Patient's ear twitched as he finished cleaning up the stallion's chest and unfurled a final length of gauze.

"I've already bribed the law in town to look away from me, so if you go crying to them about it, then you're out of luck." That made Patient stop in his tracks and balk at Trigger.

"What are you talking about?" He asked, deeply concerned.

Trigger sighed and rolled his eyes. "I'm a hitcolt. I got burned by acid because I was trying to find a way to...look, it doesn't matter, but I was working on a hit, alright?"

Patient could hardly believe what he was hearing. Was he even telling the truth? No, he couldn't be. Why would anypony just admit something like that? It doesn't make any sense! Trigger was telling the truth, however, as Patient could see it in his eyes.

"Why would you tell me something like that?" The nurse asked, finally continuing to bandage his torso.

"Because you told me about something deeply painful and personal to you and I...fuckin' understand it." Trigger sighs once more.

A long moment of heavy silence hung, as Patient and Trigger both searched within themselves for something to say.

"Well, I told you mine..." Patient finally spoke, finishing up Trigger's torso wrappings and turning the dial down on his morphine.

"I was really young at the time this happened. Maybe twenty or so? I was living in Manehattan at the time, and there were two rival mafias warring each other for control." Trigger began, trying to hazily find the right words through the numbness.

"I was living in my sister's apartment at the time, and she and I were inseparable. Honestly, it was actually kind of weird; we never fought, hung out with the same group of friends throughout our lives..." He trailed off, his voice beginning to well up. "But one day. One fuckin' day. The bookstore that she worked at got robbed by one of the mafias, because the owner forgot to pay the protection money that month. Long story short, she got caught in the middle of it and ate a crowbar."

Trigger's eyes began to well up.

"You don't have to keep on going if you don't want to." Patient spoke softly, his expression had slowly been softening as Trigger spoke.

"I, uh, went to the rival mafia and asked them for work...because I wanted to avenge my sister. They set me up with one of their hitcolts, and I learned from him. That's how I got into the trade." Trigger nodded.

There was another long silence as the two tried to find words to say.

"Damn." Patient uttered quietly after what seemed like half a minute. It was all he could say.

"Yeah. Don't here a story like that everyday, do you?" Trigger tried to smirk.

"Not really, no." Patient smirked back. "You know what? I like you. It takes a lot of guts to say what you just said."

"That's not the half of it, though." Trigger reasoned.

"And neither is mine. I'll tell you rest over after a few shows, however." Patient offered.

"Figured you'd be a drinker." Trigger grinned toothily and chuckled. "Once I get out of here, hit me up. I've always wanted a drinking buddy."