It had been a long day and Gavin had never been quite so happy about the bottle of scotch he'd left in the car. Aaron's surgery was a success but he'd been pretty much out of it ever since, only barely waking up sometime that afternoon before sleeping more. The people fretting and hovering had grown bored after some hours of watching him sleep so this time they were taking turns being there for him. Gavin was sitting by his hospital bed, finding himself dozing off every so often. It was too quiet in there and the steady beeping of Aaron's heart monitor mixed with his slow breathing became hypnotic with time. Gavin might not have noticed the change in his breathing except he was so finely tuned into it now that any little change was loud and obvious to him. He opened his eyes and peeked only to find Aaron's eyes open which made him instantly sit up and lean forward, grabbing his hand.
"There you are," he whispered and his sleepiness was washed away just like that as emotion overcame him all over again. His little brother was alive but far from well. The next weeks, maybe even months - or, worst case scenario, years - were going to be brutal and Gavin felt woefully unprepared for it all.
Consciousness could be a slippery thing. Aaron had been in and out of it for what felt like eternity. He had no memory of anything else -- like his whole existence had been nothing but a swimmy sea of blurry faces and lights and voices that were speaking a language he couldn’t piece together, because he had none of his own. He remembered that it hurt to breathe for a while, and it felt like his chest might burst with pressure, and there wasn’t enough air. Then things were dark and comfortable for a long time. Then the pain came back, slipping along the floor like some insidious mist to wash over him again.
He kept his eyes closed and breathed through it for another age, and memory slowly started to seep back in. He was Aaron. He had a bar, brothers, a sister. Niece and nephew, parents. He loved Mila, though he couldn’t remember her last name. Mila ... who was pregnant. The dark was fireworked with joy for a moment, then Aaron remembered she wasn’t anymore. And she was sad and ... in trouble. It came back faster then, and Aaron’s eyes popped open. He was disoriented and confused, not sure where he was. He felt someone grab his hand and his eyes cut to Gavin’s face to his right. The heart monitor was beeping quicker now. Aaron tried to grip Gavin’s hand back, but only managed a pathetic squeeze. “Gav--” he managed to whisper, and everything felt so dry.
There were few times in Gavin's life when he was reminded that he loved his people fiercely. Most of the time he went through the motions and felt numb, like he'd buried all his feelings under tons of cement rather than dealing with them. And then it came rushing through the cracks, all encompassing and suffocating. He'd felt it when Amelia went missing and when she came back, when Jasper had come to him in the middle of the night, terrified and traumatized, and now... Now it came back, making him feel choked up and ridiculously small in the face of everything that threatened them.
"Hey," he whispered back, squeezing Aaron's hand gently. "You're okay now, you're in the hospital, you had surgery." He paused for a beat. "You're safe." Mila wasn't and Aaron was going to ask about her as soon as he was less disoriented. The cops hadn't found her yet and Gavin just knew that it was going to bring Aaron even more pain. Could he lie for now? Was his brother in bad enough shape that lying was a good thing? Fuck, he hadn't really thought this through.
Aaron’s eyes roamed around the room for a second, the unfamiliar surroundings making sense as soon as Gavin said ‘hospital.’ Because he’d been hurt ... Aaron took a deeper breath and felt a sharp pain in the left side of his chest. His body gave a restless squirm, every muscle feeling weak and useless. He’d been stabbed, he was starting to remember better now. He tried to ask about Mila, but his mouth felt like the Gobi desert and everything was just so hard. “Water?” he rasped, looking imploringly at his brother. Aaron wondered vaguely if Gavin was the only one there, since the rest of the room was empty.
"I got you," Gavin said quickly. "Don't try to move too much." He let go of Aaron's hand, albeit reluctantly, and went and got some water from the jug sitting in the corner of the room. It was room temperature but cold water wouldn't go down well in a tired and traumatized body. Gavin plopped a straw in the glass, then brought it over and positioned it so it would be easy for Aaron to drink. "You're gonna need a lot of rest," he said quietly and for some reason he found himself staring at Aaron's chapped lips like they symbolised all the hurt he was going through as much as his bandaged chest did. It hurt Gavin's heart and he swallowed it down for now as best he could even if he felt awash in a sea of it. "We'll take care of you."
Gavin held the glass so Aaron didn’t even have to move, which was nice. Still, his head lifted a bit just with eagerness as he caught the straw between his lips and drank greedily. The water felt amazing going down, and he almost finished the glass before he pulled back and licked his lips. “Where’s Mila?” he asked in a whisper. His hand automatically reached for Gavin’s again. “Did you find her? Is she okay?” The words felt kind of big and clumsy in his mouth, but they were banging so loudly in Aaron’s head, he had to get them out. Mila had stabbed him, yes, but it hadn’t been Mila, not really, and Aaron had to make everyone understand that and make them find her.
There was that urge to just tell Aaron that Mila was fine, that she'd be by later but it was just prolonging the inevitable and Gavin had a feeling Aaron - despite being a little out of it - would see right through the bullshit. "They're looking for her," he told him as steadily as he could muster and put the now empty glass on the tray next to Aaron's bed. He then covered his hand with his free one and tried to look and sound reassuring. "The sheriff knows what's going on so they'll be careful with her when they find her." If they find her. He couldn't say that to Aaron, he had to be certain. "You just worry about getting better, y'hear?"
Aaron felt a bit of relief that they were looking for her, but it was followed by another wave of anxiety that they had to look for her in the first place. His emotions were jumbled and his memories of what had happened were still fuzzy, but he could clearly recall the look in Mila’s eyes accompanied by the pain of that knife. She’d said something too ... but that felt wispy and hard to grab. “It wasn’t her fault,” he told Gavin rustily, his brow furrowing. “You believe me, right? She did it, but it wasn’t her.” Aaron needed his biggest brother to believe; he was the one who knew the most, he knew that bad dark things existed, and that they sometimes got their claws into people.
"I know," Gavin told him and this time he could lie because he knew how much it had kept him going when people lied to him about Amelia. He hadn't realized it at the time, but hope had been scarce back then and any little bit of it had helped. "We're gonna get her back, Aaron. Like we got Amelia back. Our girls just got a bad habit of wandering off but they come back." He wasn't so sure Mila would ever be the same, if she even survived this, but Aaron needed to believe it now because he was badly hurt on a hospital bed and there was nothing he could do for her.
Maybe it should’ve been impossible to believe, but it was exactly what Aaron needed to hear. Mila had always come back before, right? And he knew now that she’d been to that tunnel more times than he’d suspected. She would come back, or the cops would find her, and they could explain it all and get some real help and then everything would be okay again. He relaxed back against the bed, his grip on Gavin’s hand easing. Not that it had far to go, he felt so weak. Aaron closed his eyes for a beat and repeated ‘we’ll get her back’ a couple of times to himself, then looked at his brother again. “Is everybody else okay? How bad was it?” If he’d needed surgery, it had to have been pretty bad, right?
Gavin wasn't letting go of him, content to cling while his emotions were running high. It was a relief to see Aaron relax a little, like the words had really gotten to him or else he was just really tired - that was just as likely. The way he repeated them said they were at least a little soothing, they had to be. "You got stabbed twice," he told him in reply to his question. The doctors would tell him if Gavin didn't so what was the harm in letting him know. "One lung collapsed. You're gonna have some badass scars after this and you and me? We're gonna get you some tattoos like mine, the guarding kind, how about it?" And not think about how he should have taken him to get that done years ago.
Twice, it had been twice, hadn’t it? Once in the gut and the second in the chest, and that was why it didn’t feel like he could breathe very deeply. He must have called 911 for himself, or a neighbor did or ... something. Aaron couldn’t remember that part. Just pain and not enough oxygen and Mila’s blank face. God, he was so scared for her. His heart started to pick up again, and Aaron tried to calm it. They would find her. It would be okay. It had to be, otherwise he didn’t know what he would do. He nodded about the tattoos, then recalled Mila’s reaction to them the other morning and a firm lump formed in his throat. Part of him wanted to say no to them, because Mila couldn’t stand them, and what if she still couldn’t when she came back? But that would mean the Thing still had her and it had tried to kill him, so there was no living with it. The backs of his eyes burned and his face half-crumpled, but Aaron didn’t have enough energy or hydration to really cry, not yet.
Gavin wasn't the best at human interaction but he was closely tuned into Aaron's reactions at the moment and it fortunately didn't take a genius to pick up on what was going on with him. He wasn't sure if he should keep talking or if he should just sit there in silence; it was a gamble either way. "And when Mila comes back we'll take her too. I hope you like tattoos on your woman." He didn't think Mila had a tattoo already but then he didn't really know her well despite her near constant presence in his life for so long. "Don't worry, won't be as big as mine."
Gavin was trying, that was obvious, and Aaron felt dumb gratitude mingle in with all his worried grief. He didn’t miss the ‘when’ in that statement, and he knew he would be clinging to every utterance of that word until Mila was found. “She’s got a couple, that’ll be good for her,” he agreed, his voice thick. Aaron gave a little sniffle. Mila would need to feel safe when she came home, and God knew it would ease Aaron’s mind a bit. His gaze ticked toward the door, then back to Gavin. “You can’t let Caden do anything to her, okay? You know how he is. Is he here? Mom and Dad?”
"He won't," Gavin reassured him. "He's knows what's going on, he won't hurt her." He doubted Caden wanted to go anywhere near Mila but that was something he didn't need to tell Aaron about. "We'll call mom and dad later and I sent Caden home to get some sleep." They still hadn't called their parents because really, who needed that particular drama on top of everything else? "Do you wanna pray with me?" he asked gently, fumbling for something that might make Aaron feel at all better and religion had so often been their go-to when they needed comfort. In the last few years witchcraft had done more to protect Gavin than the church ever had but he wasn't quite willing to give up his faith - or perhaps he was too scared to. Fear was a powerful motivator.
Aaron wasn’t too surprised about the lack of parental involvement, and he wasn’t sad about it either. He knew his mother would be hysterical and his father belligerent, and Aaron honestly didn’t want to see either of them at the moment. He hadn’t died, so they could hear about all this later, once he was in better control of his emotions and the hospital let him go. He was in no shape to deal with them now. As if to prove it, Gavin’s offer of prayer made Aaron’s chin wobble again, and he swallowed hard and nodded. He was starting to believe now that they should’ve taken Mila to a priest right away, that he shouldn’t have let her talk him out of it. But it was too late now. He squeezed Gavin’s hand and closed his eyes, wishing he had his rosary with him. He didn’t have any words in his head but the Lord’s Prayer, so he let his brother lead.
After a Hail Mary and Our Father, Gavin added one more prayer to St. Michael. St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle. It was a favorite of his after the evil he had confronted in his life, a prayer that wasn't simple praise but also a request for the protection against evil. Be our defense against the wickedness and snares of the Devil. He spoke the prayers quietly and slowly, imbuing them with meaning and feeling as best he could. It was important right now, giving Aaron all the solace he could muster and Gavin wasn't overly good at that, but he could give him this. Oh Prince of the heavenly hosts, by the power of God, thrust into hell Satan, and all the evil spirits, who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls. Amen.
Aaron listened close to the words, concentrated as much as he could on them and the low quiet of Gavin’s voice. Out of all the siblings, they’d always been the most fervent believers. Aaron couldn’t remember the last time Caden went to church. He’d always believed that God looked after the downtrodden and lost, even if you couldn’t see it right away -- and that was a comfort that Aaron desperately needed right then. He’d never felt more downtrodden or lost. He silently added an extra prayer for God to look after Mila, to protect her and bring her home safe, then opened his eyes as Gavin finished up. “Amen,” he repeated, and crossed himself. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to cry and cry and cry until he drowned, or just go back to sleep. “Thanks for being here,” he murmured after a pause. “You don’t gotta stay.”
"Yeah I do," Gavin told him and he had his own reasons for staying and part of was that Aaron shouldn't be alone. Gavin didn't pretend to know the motivations of pure evil but he could absolutely imagine the Mila shaped one coming back to finish the job. There probably wouldn't be much Gavin could do to stop it, but he'd be there at least to die trying. Even if it didn't return, Aaron shouldn't be alone with his thoughts right now, they were no doubt dark and devastating, the kind nobody should deal with alone. "You just rest," Gavin added softly. "I'll be right here if you need anything."
That assurance made a few tears leak out of Aaron’s eyes, and he nodded a bit as he reached up to swipe at them. There was a dam in him ready to break, but for right now he was too tired for the flood. It still hurt to even breathe deeply, his body just didn’t have the energy for a breakdown. He knew it was going to be a rough road ahead though. He was going to need all the prayers and company he could get. “At least go get you somethin’ to eat,” he murmured to Gavin. Aaron wasn’t trying to kick him out, he really didn’t want Gavin to go anywhere, but he still had that sense of not wanting to be a burden too. “Think I’m gonna sleep some more.”
"I already ate," Gavin muttered. "So you'll just have to deal with me sitting here and watching you sleep." He might snooze again but he knew he wouldn't sleep very deeply, too tuned up and worried about his little brother and everything that could go wrong tonight. He'd stay until Kat or Caden came back to sit with him, there was no way in hell he was leaving him alone. "You won't get to be alone for a while now. Sorry."
That mix of gratitude and discomfort at being taken care of swirled around in Aaron’s stomach. He tried to latch onto the former more than the latter. His brothers hadn’t always been there for him when he’d needed them, but he’d never needed them more than now, and it looked like Gavin wasn’t going to let him down. “Thank you,” he whispered with feeling. He really was worn the fuck out, so Aaron adjusted his head a bit and closed his eyes. “Can you bring me a rosary next time?” he asked softly. Aaron wanted his own, but it was in the house and he wasn’t sure if anybody was allowed in yet. Gavin probably had plenty at home.
"Of course," Gavin told him and for a just a split second too long he thought about calling Mila to ask her to bring it tonight, as if she wasn't missing and everything was just peachy. "I'll see if I can get yours for you but I've got some if not, that okay?" he asked, thinking along the same lines as Aaron only his thoughts were now chock full of guilt and squirmy emotions. Mila was missing and he'd jump-started this whole shitshow. Maybe Aaron would have been a good dad, maybe it would have been the thing that got him to shoulder more responsibility. It was too late now but if Gavin could go back and stop himself from acting... That was his life though, nothing but regrets and shadows.