Vanessa Peregrine (seeingthehunt) wrote in light_of_may, @ 2009-07-07 20:04:00 |
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Entry tags: | 2009-06-07 |
Staying strong
Who: Tayne and Vanessa
When: Late Night
Where: Tayne's Place
She'd woken with a jolt, her fingers clentching a piece of paper in one hand and a pencil in the other. She remembered vague flashes of things like a distant dream trying to get away. Quickly Vanessa flipped on the light and looked at the paper in her hand. "Oh god." She breathed before scrambling out of bed and into some clothes.
Without a car it took her a little longer than she'd've liked on her bike, but she got to Tayne's apartment thankful that she didn't get lost in the moonlight. Not bothering to lock her bike up Vanessa ran to his apartment. If he wasn't there she'd have to go find their other brother... god let him be there. She thought as she knocked rapidly on the door.
Tayne was there. He was in the kitchen, where the best light was, carefully cleaning his torn-up calf with stinging antibiotics. He'd wrapped up his leg on-site, back in his truck, in a basic way; he'd loaded up the poor werecat, some kind of lynx or bobcat variety it looked like, into the back of his truck; he'd dosed her with enough tranquilizer to keep her out all night, or so he hoped; and he'd taken her home and locked her in his closet, while he retreated to the bathroom for a hot shower, dry clothes, and come out here to deal with the bite more thoroughly.
All the while hearing every little drop of rain, every beat of his own heart, every rumble of the truck engine, every drop of the shower-water, and every creak of his own bones. And smelling water, water, water; blood and something tangy that seemed to go with it, but that he couldn't identify; exhaust fumes; wet fur; and a thousand other things he couldn't even begin to name. Halfway through wrapping himself up in the truck, it'd all hit him, and it wasn't going away.
And it never would go away. Not anymore. There was no cure for a bite from a were. He was what he was, and he had no idea how to handle that, so he wasn't paying any attention to it. Vanessa's knock made him all but fall off the counter, where he was sitting next to the sink, and he scrambled to get his balance, heart beating like a rabbit's and poised between leaping to attack and leaping to run. The knock, and his reaction to how loud it was, was just another indication of how badly he didn't know how to handle this. Shakily, he slid off the counter and limped around the corner to the door, peering through the peephole.
"Tayne?" Vanessa said into the door before rummaging in her pockets for the key. "God be in there...."
Tayne heard her clearly, even through the door, even if the wood muffled it a little. He could still hear it. He could even heard her rummaging for the key. He could, inhaling, smell something that reminded him strongly of her. He couldn't just leave her out there, to let herself in. "Fuck," he breathed, and he started unlocking locks, pulling the door open. "Nessa?"
"Tayne?" She pushed the door open as he pulled it and stepped into a hug, Vanessa was practically trembling from worrying.
"Nessa. Hey." He wrapped his arms around her, back, a little startled by this visit, and very glad she didn't bump him back onto his (still bleeding a little bit) leg. God, he hoped she didn't look down. "Everything okay?"
"It is now." She said with a nod. "I.." Vanessa reached into her back pocket and handed him the folded- slightly damp- piece of paper.
Taking the paper, Tayne stepped back, suppressing the limp as best he could, to close the door. He'd need to get her a towel, she was dripping all over the--
--what the hell. "Aw, hell...."
It was a picture she'd drawn from one of her visions, he recognized those, drawn entirely in pencil. It was disjointed, not a clear single image: claws, a splash of something that was probably blood, a pair of shadowy figures with one attacking the other, and his own face, all jumbled together.
Vanessa nodded, her eyes red with the threat of tears. She hadn't noticed his leg yet.
"I'm okay, Nessa," he told her gently. "Come sit down and let me get you a towel. Just-- don't go into the closet, okay?"
She glanced over to the closet. "Do I even want to know?"
"Probably not." He put a hand on her shoulder to guide her a step or two towards the couch in the living room, trying hard not to limp. "I'll be back in a sec with that towel. Go sit...." And maybe he could really quickly wrap up his leg and put on some decent pants to cover it up.
Vanessa sit, looking warily at the closet for a minute before back at her brother. "Tayne... you're hurt!" She said, standing almost as soon as she had sat. "My god... something did happen!"
Wincing, stopping halfway to the linen closet, Tayne said pleadingly, "Please, not so loud.... Yes, I'm hurt. And yes, something d-d-did happen. But I'm okay...." Really. He was. Only not so much....
Clenching her hands and shut her mouth as she watched him. This was bad, this was really bad. Why couldn't she have seen this coming? Maybe she could have done something to warn him, but noooo she kept drawing tame images of other things, not this... not until it was too late.
If the cat was out of the bag, he could at least give the wound a proper dressing. Tayne returned after disappearing briefly into the hall, tossing her the towel. "Kitchen," he said, gesturing for her to take the towel and follow him, and limped in there. He hauled himself back up onto the counter and propped up his bare foot so he could get at the bite, cleaning off the renewed blood.
Vanessa took the towel and wiped her face, following him into the kitchen. She'd managed to pretty much hold it together, until she saw his leg. "Oh god." She whispered, putting her hand over her mouth and trembling slightly in an attempt to not tear up.
"Sit," Tayne instructed wearily, pointing to a chair. "I'm fine." Only not really. His voice was shaking a little, as was his hand as he went back to cleaning. He tried again. "It'll heal...." He cast her a look that was both nervous and apologetic. "Please don't tell Mother...." He knew Vanessa had seen enough wounds to know this was a bite; she had drawn claws. Surely she could guess what'd happened.
Vanessa took a deep breath, trying to move past the shock of the wound. Her brothers had gotten bad ones before- though this seemed worse than most. "You sit." She told him as she stepped forward to help him tend to the wound. "What happened?" She suspected whatever the dark shadow she'd drawn had done this, but the problem with rarely remembering what she saw was that she had no way of knowing what the dark shadow was. She also strayed from the 'Mother' comment as Tayne knew full well that if you tried to keep something from Mom, she always found a way to get it out of you.
"I am sitting," Tayne told her, grinning wryly in an attempt to lighten the situation. "This is where the best light is." He batted her hands away self-consciously. "I'm all right... I d-d-don't think it needs stitches. Just tight bandages, and watch for inf-- infec-- problems." He went for the peroxide again. One more cleaning and he'd wrap it up. "You can do the b-bandage part," he promised, since he knew she wanted to help, and since her hands were steadier, and all. But the peroxide seemed to hurt less when he was the one doing it.
And since she hadn't figured it out, he'd probably better explain. "C-caught a loose were," he said after a moment, hissing at the sting as he dabbed the cotton balls on the bite.
The towel slipped out of Vanessa's hand. "No." She gasped, remembering back to the last time she had a horrid vision of their family and weres. That was a bite, not a scratch... Those were teeth marks clear as day. This was not good.
"Hey... hey." Tayne dipped his head to try and catch her eyes, well aware of where her mind had to have gone. "I'm okay. And I'll be okay." He swallowed a bit. "I'm not Dad all over again, promise. There's just this, and this." He twisted a little to show the scratches that hadn't drawn blood, on his shoulder. "And I'm-- okay." If you could call hearing his own sister's heartbeat speeding up, over the sound of the fridge and the drugged were in the closet breathing okay, anyway. He could smell that sharp-tangy smell again, that he'd smelled when the senses first hit him. Fear, maybe? Animals could sense fear, maybe they smelled it.... He roused himself again to add, "It'll heal."
Tayne was right, it wasn't like their father. There hadn't been much left of their father to speak of. But he had been bitten, and she knew enough of what was, and wasn't true in the stories to know that this was bad... Really bad. "But then what?" She asked, not afraid of what might change in her brother- he was still Tayne after all, but more afraid of how he'd view the change. It was no family secret that out of the three children Tayne was the strictest when it came to their job and acceptance and what not while Vanessa was the more open and accepting of everyone- even when she shouldn't be in some cases. Vanessa crouched down and picked the towel back up to place it on the counter before grabbing the bandages.
At least Tayne actually had friends who were weres, so it wasn't like it was completely the end of the world. If he'd somehow been turned into a vampire, now that would be the end of the world. He huffed out a pained, unhappy breath. "I hadn't gotten that far. I've-- I've only been home ab-about an hour." He glanced at the clock. "Little less, actually. Only happened... a little before that." Right now he was having a hard enough time dealing with the sounds and scents bombarding him; wrapping his mind around being something else simply didn't have room in his head, right now.
Vanessa nodded, understanding and once he was ready started to carefully bandage and wrap his wounds, careful to pack the deeper ones so they'd heal better- and had a less chance of infection. It wasn't surprising that she knew how to do this, what was surprising was how emotional she still reacted at times to the wounds her brothers got. At least she could still remain professional. "You're lucky, this doesn't look like it went too deep." At least he wasn't bleeding like it hit an artery or anything that bad.
"Didn't loose too much blood, either, don't think...." He didn't feel woozy or light-headed, or anything that might suggest a bad blood loss. If anything he felt jumpy, too alert, bombarded with all these things he had to try and sort out and put names to. He winced at the handling-- not ungentle, but still the kind of firm pressure it needed. "I've had worse, actually." Strictly physically speaking, anyway.
"Sorry." She said at his wince. She knew he knew she had to, but still made her feel bad. Vanessa wasn't sure he actually had, had worse but she didn't argue. "I'm sorry I didn't see sooner..." She said softly.
He reached over to brush her hair back a little. "Nessa, you don't see the future, you know that. Nobody expects you to." He rested his head back against a cabinet, letting her finish tying the bandage off and shutting his eyes. "My own stupid fault. It'd been a b-bad day, clumsy, hung over.... Half-sure I ran into a Horseman last night, wouldn't that just be peachy, if this was all her fault." At least this'd be the worst of it. It'd been over twenty-four now.
Heh. The worst of it.... Well, he wasn't dead.
Sometimes she drew 'mundane' images before something happened, like pre-badness (of course nothing of whatever future intent there was) but she hadn't in this case. "How can I be of any use if I can only draw things that can't be helped?" She sighed softly, finishing the wrap and stepping back. "And it's not your fault, you were attacked."
"All sorts of things," Tayne said encouragingly. It was easier to focus on her than himself; it always had been, whenever he was in trouble, to find something else to deal with than himself. "We can track trouble based on where it's been. Pick up the pieces it leaves behind, find the victims. And it got you here now, at least, didn't it?" He gave her a little grin.
"Could've just as easily got me to your pieces." She said softly before stepping around to his side so she could wrap her arms around him- gently. "I'm glad I didn't have to."
Shifting on the counter, he turned to put his arms around her, back, resting his head on her hair. "So'm I, Nessa," he admitted, a little shakily. That wasn't the closest he'd ever come to death, but every brush like that took their toll. He could have died. But so could an innocent who had no idea what had happened to them. A woman. A child. His family. Better him bitten, even killed, if he stopped whatever did it to him from doing it to someone else.
He was just glad the death part hadn't been required, this time. That wasn't something he wanted to think about, but it was right there in his brain, now that she'd said it, and he couldn't quite suppress the trembling.
After holding him for another long moment she let him go, moving back to the counter to clean up the mess made by treating his wound. "You should probably get some sleep." She said as she capped the peroxide.
Reluctant to let go, or do anything other then cling like he had been the past couple minutes, Tayne only slowly pushed himself off the countertop, landing carefully on his good foot. "Can't," he admitted. "The were I caught... she's what's in my closet." And besides, he really, really didn't think he could get to sleep with his head ringing with sounds and smells he never used to notice before. "I gotta be awake in case she wakes up...."
Vanessa wrinkled her nose a little as she finished cleaning up. "Well then at least get SOME sleep today... or something, you're not going to be able to heal quickly if you don't... hire risk of infection and stuff." Or so 'they' say.
Tayne chuckled weakly and gave her forehead a kiss. "I'm taking today off work. I'll get plenty of rest, promise." After he... got used to all the noise. Or bought earplugs. God, he didn't like that idea, but it was going to be necessary, he had a feeling....
Vanessa nodded. "You'll let me know if you need anything." She told him- didn't ask.
Though he couldn't imagine what he might need of Vanessa other than another hug, Tayne nodded. "Promise I will. And just-- don't tell Mother." He paused, winced, and added, "Or Tor', or Granddad. I'll... figure out how to tell 'em myself, so they don't freak." Or maybe he wouldn't tell them, at all. Though he doubted he could get away with that.
Nessa nodded. "I won't say anything, but you better tell them something soon... you know how Mom always knows when we're not</u> telling her something."
"Yeah... yeah, I know." Tayne sighed. "I'll figure something out. You go home and get some sleep, yourself, a'ight? No sense both of us staying up until who knows when."
Not like she was going to be able to sleep after all this but at least she could try. She gave him another hug, gentle but supportive. "Call me later when you need to re-wrap if you want... Or if you need anything." She told him again, as she moved to the door.
He didn't want to let go, again, but he made himself. He didn't need to be dragging anyone else into the confusion and shock he was covering up. "Will do." Though hopefully not for a while. He was just going to sit on the couch and... not think, probably. "Ride safe. Try not to get too wet out there, a'ight?" Damn rain.
Not like she had much choice on her bike, but it didn't matter to her- unlike her brother she actually didn't mind the rain. "I'll be safe." She said with a nod. "Night."
"G'night, Nessa." Tayne showed her out, closed the door behind her, and leaned against it for a long moment before he got up the gumption to limp back to his couch. It was gonna be a long night.