The only thing that grounds him and steadies him is the slight female at his side. Her strength is exemplary for he wasn't a slight fellow and he recognized this in a hazy sort of manner. He tried as much as he could to maintain his own weight, to avoid putting more pressure on her. It was his duty to protect her and not to lean on her in support. It is difficult to speak the word that drowns him, that burns him, that consumes him from the inside out. He can't see very well by this point and has no notion of what is going through the head of Blaise or that his compliments were becoming a bubbling point for her. That she is distracted by his overt reaction to her very presence. From day one he had felt an attraction to her and that had not lessened, only grown, for she had proven herself this day to be a strong fighter. His life had been built around protecting the weak that he found it alarmingly attractive that she could hold her own.

By the time he slumps it is too late. He can hardly hear her because his ears are swollen with the sound of buzzing. He coughs suddenly, jerking them forward, and spasms in the wake of it. Blaise continues to drag him and it seems that it takes forever. With each step he fades more and more, noticing less and less as his mind focuses on the pain that suddenly blazes within him. The numbness that seems to splash cold against his abdomen. The need to rush dwindles as he grows sluggish and tired, eyes drooping, and Blaise has to force him forward. More and more and more until his tired body suddenly hits something solid and he is dropped down onto it.

A low oomph can be heard as he lays spread out on the couch but his eyes are closed and his breathing ragged. Sleep beckons, a beautiful and healing sleep. Stay awake... those words are so faint it is almost hard to understand. But Archer knows at a deep, bone deep, level that they come from Blaise. That HE has to protect her and he has to listen. So his eyelids twitch as he struggles to open them, the world a mass blur of colors. "Fuuu.....ck," he groans out, suddenly feeling as if he is in an inferno. Fever has begun to set in, his body belated trying to attack the thing that is killing him.

One long arm swings out wildly, knuckles rapping against the coffee table but the pain diminished by his own demons. They plague him. SHE plagues him. She stands over him with her long hair and coy smile, flashing elven eyes and cooing words. To please her is what he wants. NO, no, he wants to get away from her, from the way those pouty lips suddenly turn into a fierce scowl and her beauty diminishes beneath the revelation of what she is. And she curses him, digging claw-like fingers into his jaw. He jerks from Blaise's hold, mind in the throes of memory of the fae who had doomed in, but when she finally gets ahold of him again he eagerly drinks down the tea that she drips into his throat.

It is as if his throat was arid, as if this curse had sucked all hydration from him, and he longs for more. More, more more. He can feel something on is stomach suddenly and his body seizes up as she presses the poultice in his wound, a deep screeching groan coming out. If he was lucid he would hate himself for the pitiful sound, for giving in to the pain. "Gerrrtt..." pant, "offfff! You wicked..... wicked... wicked.... bit...." and he fades out then, slumping into unconsciousness, yelling out at her but really at the past that flashes in his eyes. Hopefully when he awakes she will understand. She is like the oxford comma, seperating the past and the present - the fae of before and the fae he knows now.

(So if you want in the next you can have him stirring awake :P)