Geoffrey Wood is going deeper than ever before. (honey_trap) wrote in lockdown, @ 2011-09-05 04:47:00 |
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Entry tags: | ! log, ! september 1979, geoffrey wood, gideon prewett |
RP Log: Geoffrey and Gideon
Who: Geoffrey Wood and Gideon Prewett
When: Sunday, September 4th, after this
Where: Their flat
What: First Aid. Conscience complications. Lies on both sides.
Warnings: Lots of blood. Vague implications of self harming.
Geoffrey knew what was going on in Little Hangleton. He still was in the DMLE loop enough to be aware of the call to arms, though he couldn’t rise to meet it. That, he thought, was the real curse of his position, particularly when his mark seemed very likely to be there, if their suspicions were true.
He sighed as he flicked the wireless off. News hadn’t gotten back to the people -- yet -- and sitting waiting up for it was just going to make him more anxious about the entire ordeal. Gideon had gone out, seemingly in a hurry, and still hadn’t returned, and Geoff had gone through a number of scenarios in his mind as he sat there on the couch. First and foremost, it was possible his flatmate was an innocent man who was having another depression bout and had excused himself to the pub, hurriedly so to avoid further awkward conversations with Geoff considering what their last encounter had been like. Or Gideon could be late for a prior engagement, perhaps even a date with some man/woman/whatever he’d met recently and hadn’t seen fit to tell his flatmate because, well, it wasn’t really Geoff’s business. Or Gideon could have a family member who is sick or injured (in an accident unrelated to the attack) in hospital he needed to visit.
Or Gideon could be a terrorist, a member of the Order of the Phoenix, and out fighting Death Eaters and the Department of Magical Law Enforcement in Little Hangleton.
Geoff sighed as he stretched out on the sofa, looking up at an odd purple stain on the ceiling. If that last one was the case, then a number of further scenarios explained why he was still going on. Most simple was that the battle wasn’t over. Less helpful was that he could be working to clean up. Further unsettling was the thought he might be out with his terrorist friends, enjoying a post vigilantism drink in the pub. Most troubling was the thought that Gideon could be dead. Geoff shook his head. It was silly to worry about, really. What did he care if some terrorist got himself offed in battle? So he’d be reassigned, probably to something less exciting. It wasn’t anything to get worked up over -- so why was he getting worked up?
He swallowed the lump in his throat and sighed, shaking his head at the purple blotch above him.
“Do me a favour and don’t get yourself killed, hero,” he mumbled, closing his eyes.
Not killed, perhaps, but the amount of blood that was staining Gideon’s clothing as he stumbled up the stairs to his flat was alarming. He was used to blood and pain, certainly, but he wasn’t used to this much blood, and this wasn’t the sort of pain that he found helpful. This was the sort of pain that came in fire-hot pulses between numb stretches, the sort of pain that said there was something very wrong and he should be seeing somebody about it, not trying to make it home and into his bathroom before anybody saw him.
Going to St. Mungo’s was out of the question, though, and Gen would have enough people to deal with. Gideon had a rather sizable collection of medical supplies in the bathroom, and he was decent at healing spells; he could at least get himself patched up enough to be out of danger.
He tried to keep quiet as he opened the door, but his hands were slippery with blood and his keys slipped from his fingers. Cursing softly, he kicked them aside and closed the door behind him, spotting Geoff on the couch and hoping the other man was asleep as he made a beeline for the bathroom.
“Speak of the devil...” Geoff mumbled as he heard the keys rattling in the lock, though he didn’t sit up immediately -- he was comfortable, and the fact that Gideon was home instead of in a body bag was immediately relieving enough for him to take his time.
What wasn’t relieving, however, was the sound of Gideon’s laboured breathing, the little swear when the keys fell, or the awkward shuffle to his step. Opening his eyes and sitting up, Geoff saw Gideon disappear into the bathroom, his brow starting to furrow in concern. Why would he dive for the bathroom? Maybe he had gone to the pub, and was plastered and sick and bleeding--
Geoff’s eyes widened at the trail of blood on the floor, straight from door to bathroom and immediately he threw himself off the couch, charging after his flatmate and slipping a bit in the mess he’d left behind him.
“Gideon!” Geoff snapped, rushing to the mostly-closed door and pushing it open. “Jesus fucking... What the bloody fuck happened?!”
“Accident,” Gideon gasped, trying to keep his injured side out of Geoff’s view. “It’s fine. I’ll take care of it, just -- just leave me alone for a few minutes, okay?”
He didn’t have it in him to deal with this right now. He didn’t know how to deal with this right now beyond trying to heal the damage and pretending nothing had happened. That had been his modus operandi for four years, why should it change now?
“Bull fucking shit!” Geoff snapped. He wasn’t a Healer, he didn’t need bedside manner. Moreover, if his mark bled out in front of him because he was too busy playing Geoffrey the perfect flatmate, he’d be in the same useless boat as his cover being blown. “Look, I know some healing. Sit the fuck down and tell me where your first aid kit is. You can’t handle this, not in this state.”
There was too much blood. Gideon’s hands kept slipping in it, staining the bathroom wall where he had to put a hand out to steady himself. He eventually nodded to the cabinet under the sink, saying weakly, “In there. I’ve got gauze and antiseptic and some sutures.”
St. Mungo’s didn’t use sutures, but Gideon had got used to treating injuries on his own, and Lynette had taught him Muggle first-aid. Stitches were better than nothing.
Geoffrey stared at him for a half a second. Sutures? What was this, the middle ages? He sighed and obeyed the directions, anyway, hoping to find some proper medical supplies along with the mundane, and snatching up what he found quickly. First, a painkiller potion which he put on the counter next to the sink, followed by a potion to staunch bloodflow --definitely helpful in this situation -- and a salve to help wounds heal. It looked like he’d been hit by a curse, so his healing abilities wouldn’t be able to close everything completely, thus the plan was to do the best he could magically, then apply the sutures -- fucking sutures of all things -- and the salves, with the gauze over it.
“Drink these,” Geoff said, turning back to Gideon and handing him the two potions before kneeling beside him with his supplies. “And I hope you didn’t like this shirt, because you’re never seeing it again.” Not waiting for Gideon to make a reply, Geoff cast a spell to slice the fabric, one taught to him in his first aid training just for situations like this. The shirt cut along all the perfect places for it to simply fall away, exposing Gideon’s wounds for Geoff to get a good look at him. The muscles of his left side were torn to shreds, gashes going from his ribs down... into his jeans. Geoff swallowed. He knew a spell for that too, but he felt he should at least ask.
“Your, um, injuries go down onto your leg. I’m going to need to get you out of your trousers.”
“They’re not too bad there.” It was getting hard to focus, but Gideon had enough presence of mind to know why that was a bad idea. Bad enough that Geoff was seeing all of this; how much worse would it be if he knew the rest of it? He shook his head, holding onto the sink and leaving a bloody handprint in his attempts to stay upright, adding, “I can take care of that later...”
“Gideon,” Geoff said firmly. “We don’t have time to argue this. I can’t bandage some of it and leave the rest open. You’re going to be weak for a while. You don’t have anything I haven’t seen before, you know.”
Yes, I do.
Gideon closed his eyes, too tired to argue, and whispered, “Promise you won’t ask questions.”
That was an interesting request for the moment. Still, Geoff didn’t have time to argue.
“Promise.” He said flatly -- though whether he intended to keep it or not was a matter he’d decide later. “Drink the potions.”
Casting the same cutting spell on Gideon’s jeans was easy enough, and the denim fell away and, well, Geoff was starting to understand when he saw the network of scars across Gideon’s leg, up from his knees to halfway along his thigh, crossing and hatched all along his flesh. Vaguely, he processed quickly what those were -- and why Gideon would have sutures lying around -- and put it out of his mind. Firstly, he’d promised not to ask questions, and would at least let that stand as true for now. More importantly, he needed to tend to Gideon’s wounds.
He moved in to get a closer look, making sure there wasn’t any shrapnel or bits of shirt or jeans stuck into the wounds as he began to clean them out, running his wand along their pathways and mumbling a spell to siphon away any dirt and debris along with the excess blood. The staunching potion at the very least ensured he wouldn’t bleed much more for now, buying him a bit of time to get things back together. Rebuilding shredded muscles wasn’t exactly easy work, and he knew that the most he could do was make it so that Gideon could move without being in agony -- it’d take some time before he’d healed up properly.
Still, once he’d reassembled as much muscle tissue as he could, Geoff set his wand to closing the wounds, a task made rather difficult by the dark nature of the spell used. In the end, his limited healing skills managed to get the wounds down to thin slits, but they still weren’t completely patched up, and he knew he couldn’t get it any better with his wand -- which was where the salve came into play. More than a little grateful he’d gotten them small enough that suturing Gideon’s entire side wouldn’t be needed, he took the healing salve and applied it a bit liberally along Gideon’s injuries. It would still take time, but at least it would work. Next came the gauze, and Geoff started wrapping it around Gideon’s torso, knowing it was a bit of overkill but wanting to be sure to get everything thoroughly covered.
By the time Geoff started using the gauze, Gideon was decidedly more light-headed than was even remotely ideal. He’d swallowed the two potions as ordered, leaving blood-stained bottles in the sink, but the pain didn’t so much disappear as get more tolerable, and even then, it didn’t clear his head at all. He was swaying a little by the time Geoff had finished with the salve, starting to shake a little from shock.
“Bloody fucking fuck...” Geoff hissed as Gideon started to shake, realizing that he’d forgotten one very important potion for him to take. Scrambling back through the first aid kit in the bathroom, he wasn’t surprised to find it didn’t have anything that could help this fast enough, and found himself considering his options. One, he take Gideon to St. Mungo’s. Explain there was an accident or something, maybe wave his badge at them when Gideon wasn’t looking. Or he could call in one of his healer contacts, but take the risk of them coming to slowly. Or he could say fuck it, let the terrorist die, push Prewett into the bathtub, ward the DMLE and go for a pint.
Or he could pick Gideon up as carefully as he could, carry him into his room and lay him on the bed, and pull out his official DMLE medi-kit from the closet. He could set Gideon up on a few intravenous potion drips, cover him with a blanket to keep his body temperature up, and think of an excuse later for why he had such an extensive kit in his room, and why he didn’t just grab that in the first place.
“Guess I’m on the couch tonight,” Geoff said as he looked down at Gideon on his bed, shaking his head.
This didn’t make sense. It didn’t make sense, and Gideon was pretty sure it wouldn’t make sense even when he wasn’t feeling as though his head was stuffed with cotton wool. He frowned at the IVs, weakly turning his arm to examine them properly, and said eventually, “...why do you have a medi-kit this extensive? You work in a bookstore.”
Geoff sighed. He’d hoped Gideon had lost enough blood to look over that point for now, to give him more time to come up with something plausible. Still, this was what he did best.
“My older brother’s a healer,” Geoff said with a light shrug. “And paranoid. He got everyone in the family one and, well, I never had to use it before but I guess he was right. Came in handy when I needed it.”
It was a good lie. Reasonably plausible, impossible for Gideon to check up on, and simple enough that Geoff could remember it and be sure to never contradict it.
“How the Hell did you get this torn up?” he asked.
“Accident,” Gideon mumbled, still frowning at the IVs. He was certain that Geoff’s explanation didn’t quite make sense, but he couldn’t work out why, not with his head this fuzzy. He touched the gauze wound around his torso, frowning again, and said, “You know a lot more healing magic than most people.”
“Well, paranoid brother wouldn’t be able to relax much if he didn’t teach me how to handle the stuff he’d given me,” Geoff said with a light laugh and another shrug. “Sat me down, put me through the entire mediwizard routine. Wasted a whole week on it.” Less plausible, but still possible. Certainly more possible than Gideon’s excuse.
“And he also told me how to recognize a curse-wound when I see one. That wasn’t an accident, Gideon,” he said quietly. “Somebody took their wand to you -- somebody good.” He bit his lip. He could go for broke, but it might push things a bit too far. He took a deep breath; fortune favours the bold. “And if it was an accident, I’d like to think a trained cursebreaker like you would know better than to come home, instead of straight to Mungo’s.”
Something still didn’t ring right, but Gideon had more important things to worry about now, with Geoff questioning how he’d been injured.
“Don’t,” he said, his voice almost inaudible. He was suddenly very tired, along with the weakness and the chill that came from losing as much blood as he had. He could hear the weariness in his own voice, and just for a moment, he thought it might be nice to just... sleep. Sleep, without having to worry about waking up. He shook his head, whispering, “Don’t ask. Please.”
He was on the ropes. Geoff had the advantage, physically and emotionally and even socially with how obvious Gideon’s lie had been. He should press, he knew, he should force, he should get the information he needed while he could.
But he couldn’t.
Once again, something about Gideon made Geoff show mercy, and he sighed as he leaned back against his doorframe, shaking his head.
“Fine,” he said quietly. “For now. We’re talking about this tomorrow. Get... get some sleep.”
“I’m sorry,” Gideon whispered, closing his eyes. It wasn’t fair to put Geoff in this position, but he was just so tired. He couldn’t explain it any better.
“It’s fine,” Geoff sighed, backing out of the room. “Just... get some rest. I’ll see you in the morning -- do not get out of this bed until I’ve come in to tell you that you can, all right?”
Gideon nodded tiredly, lacking the energy to do much more. Sleep would be good. Maybe, if he was lucky, he could just sleep until it didn’t hurt anymore.