#elias.

The last thing Elias remembered was crying about how he was going to die, the dread that pooled in him as he slipped from consciousness. His life had flashed before his eyes, key moments with friends he considered closest dancing in visions around him as he watched himself walk away from the pit, dragged by Regan. But in the end, he couldn’t hold on. His life slipping away like sand through his fingers. Completely unaware of their surroundings, Regan had left Elias out of the way and let out a scream, hoping it would attract someone to help. 

Elias was bleeding, stab wounds to his left shoulder, his upper left arm, and three stabs to his lower abdomen, all bleeding. The man looked pale and grey, as if he had nothing left in him. Despite all of it, he still drew breath. Despite everything, the barely-there pulse and shallow breathing was still there. Elias Kahtri wasn’t dead, not yet. But he would be if he wasn’t treated soon. And fast.

_____

They couldn’t manage it, hiding in the clinic attic and waiting for the evening to come. It couldn’t come quick enough, this moment of escape that seemed more far away the closer it came. Until then Wynne tried to practice patience. They played some Animal Crossing (which was sweet, but made them think of the small town they lived in and how they missed ‘their’ villagers) and abandoned the attic. As it got closer and closer to the end of the day and Elias remained absent, though, they grew worried. They were supposed to be all together — but the clinic remained empty and quiet. No Elias, no Regan, no Nora. No notifications on their phone. They felt something harden in their stomach as they looked at their and Elias’ belongings and figured it was time to go look for their friends and inform them it was time.

So they ventured out. The aos sí was covered in a heavy cloak of what Wynne could only describe as grief. The wailing women paid little attention to them as they all moved around in dark clothes, some faces hidden behind dark veils. They weren’t sure what Worm Remembrance Day entailed, but they had expected it to be a more happy occasion as remembering worms seemed like a good thing. The banshees seemed to be in a state of mourning, though. They could not help but take it as a bad omen as they continued slipping through cobbled streets and alleyways.

But even though they had thought the atmosphere of grief a bad omen, they hadn’t expected to find Elias like this. Near that pit of no-good tar, covered in his own blood and injuries, a pale shadow of himself. When their eyes fell on the image straight out of a horror movie they’d never watch, they let out a strangled noise. They were supposed to leave tonight. Safely and all in one piece, but here Elias was, looking more dead alive. Wynne looked over their shoulder and rushed over, crouching at their friend’s side. “Elias? Elias — hey, can you – can you stand? We should —” Eyes flicked to the tar pit in the distance. Someone was screaming and they felt their ears buzz with the sound. “Elias can you hear me?”

_____

Elias’s shirt had been removed and pressed against the wound on his lower abdomen, but he was no longer conscious. He was pale and almost gray from the blood loss, face confronted in pain. This was it, wasn’t it? This was where he died. Overseas in Ireland without a way to contact his family one last time. No, he couldn’t. His eyelids fluttered as he heard a familiar voice calling his name. 

He opened his mouth to speak, but it was too much effort to do so. He was being asked if he could walk. He couldn’t even speak, let alone move his body. He’d been through so much, but the words that Marcus had told him echoed in his mind. “Even if you’re at death's door, don’t break your resolve.” He had to keep going. He thought of his sister, how she’d be devastated to lose him, even if she was in London. He thought of his parents, who called every other day to check on him, and how he’d had to continue to lie to them about where he was, what he was doing. 

He had to remember that giving up wasn’t going to just affect him, but the people around him that mattered to him. So with that in mind, he let out a cry of pain as he forced himself onto his knees, wavering as he wanted so desperately to just curl up and sleep. He needed rest, but he couldn’t. There was no safe place here. Instead, Elias held out a hand to Wynne for help. He couldn’t do this alone. He was too weak. 

_____

Wynne had seen blood before. They had slit a rooster’s throat and watched it bleed out. There had been the lambs and other animals laid on the altar to bleed, red mixing with fur or bristles. There had been Jac, laid down and bled out as the ultimate sacrifice. There was Iwan, bleeding out in their dreams. There was all that blood back in the barn. They had seen blood before, but they’d never get used to the sight of it in large quantities. 

Their hands trembled as they took stock of the situation. A trail of blood leading up to the tar pit, a mush of shirt pressed against what seemed like another wound. The scream continued, in that tar pit, and they were afraid it would come closer — but it seemed it wasn’t. That was good. They watched with wide eyes as Elias was trying to get up and their hands trembled, not sure where to support him.

He extended a hand and they took it, placing their other hand under his armpit. They used all their strength (which was not totally insignificant) to pull Elias to his feet and then turned 180 degrees so they were aligned with him. They draped his hand over their shoulder and held onto it, then took hold of his side. His tallness had been a thing of awe before, but now it was quite a bother. “Okay, we should go, to the … to the clinic.” There were things to help him there. They swallowed thickly and tried one step. “Can you … can you manage?”

_____

Every step was like stepping on knives. Every step felt as if he were trying to make his way through hardening concrete. His vision was tunneling again, and Elias knew that he didn’t have long before he’d be completely useless to Wynne. “Trying.” He forced out, voice hoarse and mangled. He couldn’t talk, he had to conserve what little energy he had to make it to the clinic. It felt like years, the walk to the clinic. It felt like a great trek, like he was walking up mount doom to throw the ring into the volcano. This was his Mordor. And dammit, if Frodo could do it, then so could he. 

Finally, they’d made it to the clinic, and everything Elias was using to get himself there with Wynne’s aid left of him. The second he’d reached inside, his body collapsed as he went unconscious once again, the pain too great for him to keep holding on. The blood loss and the pain culminated into a hellish existence, and all Elias wanted to do was sleep. He had to sleep.

_____

They made it. Eventually they made it to the clinic, that so-called safe haven where Regan had offered them shelter. Wynne grew winded but it was nothing compared to what they imagined Elias to be feeling and so they powered through. Teeth grit, eyes forward, breaths inhaled and exhaled with a steady rhythm. Wasn’t it always easiest for them to exist when they were being relied on, anyway? When there was someone look at them for a purpose. Now they had a purpose and it was to get Elias away from the banshees roaming around.

They made it and Elias fell down, eyes fluttering up but not seeing anything. They let out a mangled sound and looked outside, hoping the sound of the large man falling down hadn’t alerted any of the banshees. They spent a good minute barring the door and then rushed over to Elias, turning him on his back and taking a closer look at what had been done to him. Done to him. Someone had done this to him and left him there and Wynne had no idea how to solve this.

Their hands trembled again and they scrambled for the fallen t-shirt, pressing it against the gushing wound again. In their mind it was Padrig who reminded them to be calm. To be calm is essential. And it was. It was. They breathed in and out and got up, eyes scanning around the room. This was a clinic. There were bandages. There were things to clean wounds, there had to be. Dr Kavanagh was a good doctor. She had made Cass better when she’d been hurt, so she would have the stuff. She had to have the stuff.

There were books with things like First Aid: what to do in emergencies! on them, but also books titled First Aid: how to preserve bones in case of fracture and Worm First Aid, which made them worry maybe they weren’t reliable. So they pulled out their phone and Googled ‘what to do with stab wounds’.

Wikihow gave a to do list. That was good. Wynne tried to read it while gathering supplies. One: Survey the area. They had done that already, so that was good. Two: Call for emergency help immediately. That was not an option. They did not know the Irish number to 911 and there was no way they would be able to get here on time and also they would probably also be stabbed. Three: Lay the person down or get them to sit. Okay! That was also done. Wynne scrolled a little further, past the picture of someone on their back with blood everywhere. Elias looked like that, so it was definitely a stab wound.

They hit the section about ‘Attending the stab wound’, which was where they had to be. Wynne searched for disposable gloves because those were needed. Regan definitely had those and soon enough they found them, blue gloves peeled over their fingers. They then went over what WikiHow called ‘ABC’s’, rushing over to Elias to check if he was breathing and also pumping blood. He definitely was. There was a pool of blood spreading onto the ground below him. WikiHow told them to take off the clothes (already done) and to take out the knife (already done) and to stop the bleeding (definitely not done).

They speed-read through some of the article, gathering the supplies it told them they needed. Clean towels and bandages, something to disinfect the wounds, dressings and something called a ‘suture kit’. They wobbled back to Elias with their tower of supplies, changed their gloves once again because they were afraid they had gathered some kind of banshee dirt and knelt down.

There was a short moment where the air froze, where they looked at everything in front of them and wanted to do nothing but burst into tears. But there was Regan’s voice, too, telling them to demand better. They demanded better than Elias succumbing to wounds in a banshee clinic. And so Wynne got to work. They wrapped one towel tightly around Elias’ arm and then another around his shoulder, trying to give more pressure as they focused on the main problem. His gut. They peeled away the shirt, blood clinging and stringing away from it and they tried not to worry about all the blood he was losing. They tried to be single minded. To remember their purpose. Wynne was a person with a purpose. Once they were destined to die to save their community and today they had to try and save Elias by walking through the surgical fire.

So they tried. They cleaned the wound and kept their tears in their eyes. They Googled how to pack a wound because they didn’t understood what it meant and then did that, lips trembling but their eyes still dry. Calm, as not only Padrig demanded them to be, but the situation did too. They put down a dressing that fit once the wound was packed, taping it extra because they weren’t sure it was good enough. They breathed in. Out. In. And moved onto the arm. Then the shoulder.

And as they breathed Elias breathed too and as long as he did, Wynne would not tip over the edge. Even if blood covered their knees and hands and face, even if they wanted nothing but to howl and cry. When they spoke to him again after what felt like an eternity their voice was a whisper. “I’m sorry.” For what, they weren’t sure. Perhaps for not being better at this. For this being all there was. For having given in to this idea, to this journey to Ireland. For not having stopped whatever this was. “Please.” In that case, they were sure what they were begging for. A miracle.

_____

After Wynne had attended to Elias’s wounds, time passed. He still drew breath, but that was the extent of it. He was pale and unmoving with a contorted expression of pain on his face. While his body pleaded for death, for release from the pain. But it never came. Instead, the pain continued in the dreamless, fitful rest. Seconds turned to minutes turned to hours. When Elias’s eyes fought to open, it was dark. He couldn’t get himself to open his eyes. He was so groggy that it felt as if he were in a fog. Then, he finally opened his eyes. The pain was excruciating, but he was alive. He’d made it. “Wynne?” He croaked out, noticing them sitting nearby. 

“I should be dead.” He decided aloud, brows pinching together in confusion. They already felt a need to close their eyes again, lids heavy. “Regan…” he tried to say, the words becoming more and more hard to get out. “Grandmother. Tortured.” he couldn’t continue speaking. Instead, he closed his eyes and allowed himself to go back to the land of sleep. A dreamless, fitful slumber to repair the damage that had been done. “‘M sorry.” He forced out, eyes still closed. 

_____

Once they thought they’d done everything they good they peeled off their gloves, disposed of them in a tiny, bloody heap on the floor and pulled their knees up to their chin. Wynne rocked back and forth, a tear breaking through a smudge of blood on their face as they stared at Elias. This should be when they texted Teddy or Emilio, to tell them that they had to come, no matter the cost — or that maybe they should forget about them. This should be where they ran out and grabbed Nora and ran to the edge of this place and on and on and on and fulfilled their promise to Emilio.

But they remained rocking back and forth, staring at Elias and willing him to open his eyes. They had a duty and a purpose and this time they would not leave before it was fulfilled. When he finally did stir a sound of relief (that sounded a lot like a sob) was pushed from their throat. “Elias,” they said, moving over on all fours. He said Regan’s name and their stomach sank — was she hurt too? Was she bleeding out elsewhere? But then he tacked on the word grandmother, and it made a little more sense. “Tell me later, okay? You can tell me some other day. You can – when you feel better.” When, not if. “It’s okay. Just stay — just stay with me, okay?” They pulled back the blanket they had put over him, seeing that the dressings still looked considerably white and pulled it back to his chin. “Don’t be sorry.”

_____

Forcing a tight smile, Elias looked up at Wynne. “Make a good nurse,” he mumbled through waves of sleep. He was grateful that Wynne had been there, that Wynne had saved his life. He didn’t know how they did it, but they did. “Thanks.” He forced out, giving a pained half smile before closing his eyes again, sleep threatening to take him once more. He was just so tired. Everything was exhausting right now. 

He was relieved when Wynne bid him not to talk about it, and he nodded his head once, then winced at the pull of the muscles around his shoulders. He never really paid attention to how much pain he could cause from such a simple motion. “‘M not going anywhere.” He reassured Wynne, cracking open an eye to give a wry smile. “‘M a stubborn motherfucker.” The swear came easier from his lips, something he was hesitant with in the past.

Everything felt like it was in slow motion, as if time wasn’t moving correctly. What should have been a minute felt like an hour to him. He wanted to find Regan, he wanted to help. But if he tried to do anything, he’d be a burden and nothing more. “Gonna rest now.” He decided, eye closing once more as he let sleep claim him once again.

_____

Protherians weren’t healers. They never had to be with the demon’s blessing. It was not up to doctors or surgeons to keep someone in good health, but their community and the unknown they revered. So they didn’t know much about these things. But they’d seen the nurses and doctors at the hospital, had seen how they washed their hands before touching Wynne’s injury, how they had patched it up.

They didn’t really know if they did a good job, though. In the hospital they’d gotten blood transfusions but they couldn’t do that here. All they had was their amateur hands and their desperate determination to not see someone die. Elias called them a good nurse. They didn’t answer his compliment by pointing out they were not good enough. They just looked at him. “I am glad you are stubborn.” For once they were. Everyone’s stubbornness had made them feel lost and angry these past days but they felt grateful now. 

He seemed out of it, though. As if he was tethered to another place as well as this plane of existence. Maybe with his blood some of him had gone. “Okay. Okay. I’ll stay here. No one’s coming. Just rest — and next time —” They inhaled. “Next time you see me you’re drinking water.” Hydration was always good. Wynne rested their forehead against their knees as Elias dozed off once more.