reveal narrative: the green cushion What: Reveal/medical attention When: After the party. Warnings/Rating: Sadness and blood. Isn't that always the way.
If anything could make his wounds sting more, it was the fact that he hadn't wanted to go to the party in the first place. He'd been dragged by something with a will beyond his own, insistent and coaxing. There had been a small part of him glad to get out of the house after days of self-imposed exile. A bit of him hoped that anonymity and a draught of something mind-altering would make his current worries seem distant and remote, but still, his fear far outweighed his hopes.
Funnily enough, that fear hadn't turned out to be justified. He had feared the wrong thing.
He left the party in the clothes he'd approached it in, before his outfit and face had shifted on the approach. His sweater (the good Irish wool, he thought, what a shame) was intact in front, but soaking through with blood. He pressed it tightly to the wounds on his chest, and he walked toward home.
Putting one foot in front of the other was soothing. The wounds stung, but they didn't hurt really, not yet. Logically, a hospital ought to be his next stop. He had lost blood, and the wounds were still oozing. The claws hadn't punctured anything vital, but the wounds were open, bound to get infected, or worse. And there was that blood loss.
He walked, steadily, slowly, back home. No hospitals.
He didn't think of calling anyone. Everyone he knew had seen more than enough of his troubles, lately. When did he become a magnet for this kind of mayhem? Was it the sort of thing a person could purge?
When he reached home, he took pains to grasp the doorknob with his clean left hand, so there would be no bloody print to draw attention to the building. He stopped a few steps up the stairwell to catch his breath. A headrush made his vision swing. He remembered the creature that dripped fire from an endlessly twisting death's-head, and he felt as if he would fall forward into a vision of that sharp mouth.
He took a few slow breaths, and then took the stairs, a step at a time.
This was stupid, he realized, when he reached the top. If only the hospital wasn't an equally bad option. He could either get infected in his apartment, or disappear at the hospital, never to be seen again. Good show. What a fun party.
He made it to the bathroom and sat on the edge of the bathtub as if it was the last seat before the end of the world. He stared balefully at the mirrored medicine cabinet. The peroxide was up there. Getting it meant standing up again.
He took a few slow breaths, then stood with a hiss. He prized the medicine cabinet open and pulled down the squat brown bottle, doing his level best not to look at his own ashen face. There was a streak of blood in his flattened blonde curls. He must have swiped a hand through them without thinking.
Before he tipped the bottle over his chest, or thought about pulling the sweater away from the wounds (fresh bleeding, what fun) he fumbled for his mobile phone, heavy in his hand. His fingers were a little tacky, but perfectly capable of hitting his contacts.
He set the phone on speaker, laid it on the edge of the bathtub, and began fumbling with the child-proof cap on the hydrogen peroxide. It sat in his lap between his closed legs, which shook a little.
Louis wouldn't hope for next time. As far as he was concerned, there would never be a next time.