Retrospective:Taming the turning Who: Cian What: Pain When: Sometime, 2008 Where: Basement, Home, County Tyrone, N. Ireland Ratings PG
County Tyrone, Northern Ireland, 2008
If he squeezed his eyes shut, rolled his eyeballs up, then cracked his eyelids open and slowly rolled his eyeballs down, he could begin to make out shapes and movement. He ached all over, and the cold stone floor beneath his back seemed to be drawing all the heat from his body.
Which after consideration was maybe not such a bad thing. His muscles twitched, and he let his eyelids slowly close again as he realised he'd never felt pain like this, not even in the worst of hits he'd taken on the field, or the aftermath of the odd post-game drinking session fights. This was the sort of pain that came from inside, from the very beds of his fingernails right through to the joints of his toes. Every part of him seemed to be screaming more than the other, and the cacophony in his head was getting louder and louder...
"Cian, lad, y' c'n hear me?"
The voice, a woman's voice, broke through. It was like a soft breeze dancing lightly on his ears, and he wasn't sure he'd heard it, perhaps imagining it. It sounded like his mother, when she'd come into his room on the morning after a big match, and even bigger night, and drawn his curtains to wake him.
"Cian, y' still w' us?"
But his mother was dead. Burnt beyond recognition, a pair of blue eyes that had dulled only when the spirit had finally left her body.
"C'mon Cian, y' need t' wake now."
The voice was still there, even after the realisation had settled in to his mind. Again his eyes rolled up, eyelids cracked open, and eyes tried to focus. There was now a pale blur in a dark frame, a face, hovering over him. It definitely wasn't his mother, or her ghost, for Bernadette O'Neill had blonde hair, and a cloud of it that Cian had called her halo. No, this face was framed with dark hair.
"Aye, he's comin' round now."
Annie! He dragged his eyes open, rolling to prop himself up on his elbow, and grimacing at the aches and screams from all his joints, even those that weren't moving. They'd been through the 'shift' and he could feel each one of them now complaining about it.
The potion.
"Did it work?" he croaked, rubbing at his left eye with the heel of his left palm, opening it again and trying to focus. "Did it work?" he repeated, looking around the cellar, the shapes around them starting to become more solid and the room steadying.
"It did, laddie, worked a treat!"
"Good, cuz I think it near killed me," he groaned, getting to his hands and knees, and swaying a little.
"Well, y' might be lookin' like death warmed up, but y' definitely no' dead," laughed the woman who'd woken him.
"Seen y' lookin' worse," came another voice, male, and Cian's head turned, a tired grin curling the corner of his mouth as he squinted in the direction of his best mate.
"You can't talk. Least I got this 'thing' as an excuse!" he manged to get out through his grimace as he dragged himself to his feet. "What's yours?"
"Aye, Annie, he's back, more's the pity!" Shane chuckled, hiding a huge sense of relief that washed through him, and stepping into the small room. "Goddamit man, you need a shower, you're rank!" he added, lifting his arm to cover his nose and drawing a glare from the now upright man in front of him.
"'nd you're shortenin' y' life expectancy," Cian retorted, still groaning inside, but taking a step. It was unsteady, his hips sore and knee a little weak. Shane leapt to his side and put an arm around Cian's waist, supporting him. "Steady there big fella, don't want you squashin' Annie now, do we?" he joked, a concerned glance darting across to the woman who was on the other side of Cian, also supporting him.
"I wouldn't," Cian said through gritted teeth. "You'd be m' first target," he added, taking another step, this time successfully, thanks to the support.
"C'mon laddie, we'll get y' showered, and Oonagh's got the stew preparin', wi' plenty o' mash," Annie said, the pair of them supporting the Were out of the room and toward the stairs. When they reached the bottom Cian stopped and looked from one to the other, lips tight then parting as he spoke.
"Thank y' both. F' everything."
The two looked at him and nodded. They knew what it took for him to say it. Almost as much as it took for him to accept the help in the first place. He'd been a proud and somewhat vain athlete, looking for a place on the world stage in his sport, and had had his world shattered by a bomb blast that had ripped his family to shred, and left him with a guilt that was enough to destroy anyone. And as if to take him to the gates of Hades again, he'd been turned. A simple memorial he'd been planting for his family, an oak, out on the moors, had instead seen him left a bloodied and changed man. A were.
Annie looked up at Cian and gave his waist a gentle squeeze. "Y' just keep workin' on it laddie, and that'll be thanks enough f' us," she told him, and started up the stairs, and the long road to recovery for her ward.