Rose Hathaway (roza_) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2015-06-04 18:33:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, cinderella's prince, neal cassidy (baelfire), rosemarie hathaway |
Who: Rose, Tom, and Neal
What: Dream wounds manifest
Where: Tom's place
When: June 3rd
Rating: PG-13 for all the blood
Status: Complete
The drama level in her dreams was reaching a whole new peak. The main good thing to come out of them so far was knowing that there was another shadow-kissed dhampir out there. Mark and Oksana had been incredibly helpful in discovering how to get a handle on the whole ghost problem and she prayed the ring would show up in the real world. Unfortunately, there was also a lot of bad that involved her getting into an argument with one of Dimitri’s sisters and then running off with a group of other dhampirs who wanted to have a good time finding Strigoi to kill. Of course, Dimitri just had to make an appearance during that part of the dream and she couldn’t believe how completely different he looked.
She wanted to shake her dream self because she could immediately tell that her feelings were going to get in the way of common sense, but Dream!Rose just stood there like a deer in the headlights, which of course lead her to being kidnapped. Being held hostage by Dimitri was not how she intended to accomplish her mission and she learned quickly that the mission was not going to get accomplished if she stuck around. Dimitri still had a great pull over her and informed her that she was going to have to agree to be turned before he would release her from his hold.
Part of that ultimatum involved him slowly turning her into his blood whore and completely confusing her senses. It was so easy to get lost in that ecstasy that came with someone drinking your blood, but it also reached a point where it became too much. She didn’t have long periods of time between the feedings like she did in the dreams, so when the bite decide to manifest in the real world she didn’t have time to heal.
Now her neck bleeding all over Tom’s sheets and she was already beginning to feel the effects of blood loss as she tried to make a strangled scream. Her hand flew out to grab at any part of him that she could in order to rouse him from his sleep to get his help, while her other hand reached up to try and put pressure on the wound.
Tom had been out cold in the bed beside Rose. Her wound was on the opposite side, so he hadn’t felt the sheets go wet. Not yet, anyway. When her hand came out and smacked him in the gut, Tom let out an ‘oof!’ sound, startled awake. He turned to her with anger that instantly faded into fear when he saw the blood. “Oh my God, Rose, what happened?” He asked, sitting up straight away to try and help. But… what to do? He had no idea what to do.
It was getting hard to breathe with her hand pressed hard against her neck. She grasped for Tom and turned her eyes over to him. She wasn’t quite sure how this was going to work since it was something from her Dreams, but it didn’t seem to let up quickly. Once she found his hand she squeezed it tight, “Get -- phone. Call -- Neal.” She didn’t think she would die from this, but she was probably going to need something stronger than her hand to make it stop.
Neal, for his part, was fast asleep. A deep REM cycle, void of the dreams he loathed most of the time - since he was dead, he was done, but occasionally he’d get repeats. The ones he liked the most, the ones that didn’t fill him with dread when he awakened, were the dreams involving Henry. And Emma. His family. Maybe even the few moments with Rumple where things were actually okay. The rest of those dreams could get sucked into a black hole - he really wouldn’t care.
Sometimes Ruby stayed over at the house she’d be moving into after her lease was up in July, the often too-big place where it was just him now that Neena and Clarice had flown the coop. But tonight she was at her apartment, and he was pretty sure he heard his cell phone going off, and also vibrating on the bedside table. Wasn’t his alarm, was it? He got up early but not this early, and coherent thought was sort of falling by the wayside when he grunted a barely-understandable yeah? into the piece of tech he wanted to smash.
Tom did what he was told. He got the phone. It wasn’t like he could put pressure on the wound, right? He didn’t want to suffocate her. And they had the same kind of phone so he easily navigated her contacts to find Neal. (Did he know Neal? Not a time for jealousy, thanks, Tom.) He dialed and waited while it rang.
“Neal. Neal?” Tom said into the phone. “I’m Tom. Here with Rose Hathaway, and she’s asked me to call you.” He was talking really fast. Panicked, even. “She’s bleeding and needs your help.” Then, without waiting for a response, held the phone out to Rose’s face so she could talk into it without taking her hands from her neck.
Rose watched Tom with a semi-helpless expression. There wasn’t much she could do except keep the pressure on her wound and she was actually feeling quite guilty about bleeding over his sheets, which she was sure were expensive. Maybe she could use something to make a tourniquet around her neck and she could move somewhere else. Ugh, her head was starting to feel a little woozy at this point, so keeping up a coherent thought process was not going to happen. Thankfully Tom was good at following directions and Neal was promptly dialed.
When the phone was held out towards her she didn’t even try to hear the man on the other end, “Dream wound -- bite wound -- won’t stop bleeding. Need some magic.” Lissa wasn’t able to do any kind of spirit magic in this world, so she wouldn’t be able to turn to her like she would do normally, which left her with very few options. Neal was the only person she knew who had connections to different magic users and one of them had to be able to help get this wound to heal or else she was going for a trip to an actual hospital.
Bleeding and Needs your help registered with Neal right away, the name Rose fully pulling him from unconsciousness. He shook free the last cobwebs of sleep, and he was suddenly alert and focused. The ‘speakerphone’ option was hit, and he tossed the covers back so he could stumble out of bed and find clothes. Actual clothes.
“I’ve got some things to heal her, I’ll leave right now,” he promised, for the both of them listening on the other end of the line. “Be there in a couple minutes. I’ll speed,” a wry assurance, and he added, “Just keep pressure on the wound til then. Ruin some towels.” Once he found jeans and a Henley, he rummaged for the various bottles on the shelves in his room that he knew would be what Rose needed. Leftover healing potions from Severus, and a couple from Regina from when he’d broken his arm and cracked his ribs after being run over during that crime wave. He wasn’t sure where the bite wound was, but the things Sev had made were salves, and Regina’s were something to swallow - he’d figure it out, when he got there, and just bring everything.
Tom wasn’t concerned about the sheets. Sure, they were three hundred dollar sheets, soft and perfect, but they were replaceable. Rose was not replaceable. Ruin all the sheets--and towels, like Neal said--but just don’t die, okay? Tom was doing his best to swallow down the panic. He took the phone back away from Rose’s face.
“Thank you.” He said into the receiver. Of course, putting the thing on speaker so both of them could hear would probably be best. Then he rattled off his home address and some directions to get there. It was a high-end, two-bedroom condo. Hopefully it wasn’t far from wherever Neal was coming from. “I’ll text you the address, too,” so he could do the Google Maps thing. Just in case. The worst thing would the magical healer getting lost on the way, and Rose bleeding out on Tom’s bed.
They led really, really fucking strange lives, Tom thought.
“Towels -- need towels,” she managed to choke out as she tried to keep pressure on the wound and move her head up slightly so that her body was above her heart and it would possibly help slow down the pumping of blood to the wound. God, this was painful as hell and she couldn’t help but grit her teeth and let out a guttural groan as she did so. She was only holding onto part of a sheet at the moment and she needed something else to soak up the blood. All she could do at this point was hope that she wouldn’t bleed out from this and that Neal would get there soon. This was not how she intended to die so she would fight this until the very end.
When Neal was texted the address, he put it into the GPS and was on his way. Fancy digs, he was assuming that all of this belonged to Rose’s boyfriend. He never met Tom in person, but right now seemed as good of a time as any? True to his word, he sped all the way there - luckily, there wasn’t anyone else on the road this late at night, and no cops hiding in the shadows. Neal didn’t have time to use his gift of charm to talk himself out of a ticket right now.
Arriving at the condo, he brought the potions with him, all in a box he carried up to the front door - where he knocked, pretty frantically. “Rose? Tom? It’s Neal, I’ve got the goods.” Jesus, he hoped she hadn’t bled out - he couldn’t be too late, right? Would have been really handy to teleport over in a puff of purple smoke, but unfortunately that wasn’t one of Neal’s talents. So he simply hoped for the best.
Tom was more than willing to get towels, text addresses, whatever. He did what he was told, gathering towels to sop up the blood, put pressure on the wound--just not so much to stop, like, breathing? And the like? Tom was way, way out of his league here. The worst he had to deal with in his own dreams was people cutting off parts of their feet to fit them into shoes. (That was fucked up, too, just in a very different way.)
He rushed to the front door to let Neal in, barely taking in the other man’s appearance. Tom was wearing boxers and a whole mess of blood on his hands and arms. “In here,” he said, and turned to lead the way back to the bedroom.
Bleeding out was a serious concern, but Rose was more than stubborn. However, when they returned to the bedroom they would find her with slightly blue tinged lips, pale skin, and her eyes were growing heavy. It was hard to stay conscious during this and Rose hoped that Neal could help and quickly. Thankfully she had worn a tank top and shorts to bed, so at least she wasn’t completely naked in front of Neal. The towel was currently bright crimson and pressed tightly against her neck - who knew that the Strigoi would bite so hard and deeply. It felt like what she imagined a shark bite to be like - jagged teeth just tearing into her skin. When she saw them she lifted her arm to give them a limp wave over. She hoped that her face would convey things for them right now because she didn’t feel up to speaking.
Rose’s appearance was really all needed to see. If he didn’t think the situation was dire before (and a bite wound still sounded dire, now matter how you sliced it), then seeing a friend about to fall onto Death’s doorstep really kind of cinched the deal for him. Dark eyes flickered over Tom’s nighttime attire - mostly just the blood, that was what concerned Neal - and then back to Rose, making a quick assessment. In the span of a mere millisecond, because that was all the time he felt they had.
“Hey, it’s gonna be alright. You’re good, Rose,” he promised her, opening up the magic salve first and foremost. She probably couldn’t swallow the potion meant for healing infections and internal damage until that outer wound was taken care of, so he coated his fingers with the ointment (they were clean, not to worry) and gently pressed them to the wound where the towel had once been. “This one needs to be swallowed,” he told Tom, nodding to the other bottle. It was dark purple glass, with a topper stuck into it. Straight from Regina’s crypt, really. “I...can you get her to, and I’ll find something to bandage this up with?”
“Jesus,” Tom said, running his hands through his hair. He was pretty much covered in blood now. He rushed back over to the bed with Neal, watching him with … whatever it was. Magical ointment? But his reservations about the stuff were quieted when the wound started to close right before his eyes. He had to blink a few times, and leaned in. “Rose… it’s working,” he said, softly. This was… fucked up shit, man. The whole thing. Made him want to cry. Then laugh. And, oh yeah, vomit.
“Bandages. I can do bandages.” Tom said, and rushed off to the bathroom. He had a first aid kit in there--actually, he’d never even opened the thing. They were kinda small and piddly, but now that her wound was already starting to heal? In a moment he was returning with the box, offering it up to Neal. Tom’s blood-covered hands were shaking so badly he couldn’t hold the thing still let alone rip open a sterile bandage.
The moment the wound started to heal she could feel it. It felt so amazing that she just wanted to break down and cry. Luckily for the two men surrounding her she managed to fight that urge for the moment as she laid there and felt her body start to normalize a little bit at a time. The idea of showing the potion scared her, but now that the wound was healing she could most likely get it down. She managed to lift her hand up to hold it out to Neal to receive the potion as her eyes watched Tom. Making him go through this was never something she intended, but she was so proud of him for sticking around her and not running off in fear. There was a small smile on her face as she watched him because she felt so much love in her heart for him, but her attention turned to Neal, “Let me drink it.”
Neal thanked Tom, opening the box, taking the bandages. The bite wound wasn’t large, so nothing substantial would be needed - just something stuck on there to cover what was unfortunately a wound that had been in a delicate spot. As in, it bled a crap ton when punctured. But that had passed, luckily, and now that the area was clean and not leaking crimson life force, Neal carefully made sure it was covered before giving Rose the other potion. The top came off, the contents of the bottle a bit smelly - it wouldn’t taste like ambrosia, but it would do the job.
“She’s going to be alright,” he assured the worried, frantic-looking boyfriend. “This will help her feel good as new. Sorry - “ He had to wince though. “It probably tastes like feet.” Maybe they could figure out something better in that Magic Guild or whatever, that Regina was a part of. Experimentation and all that.
Definitely not something that Tom was prepared for. Or ever would have imagined. But he’d stuck around--he couldn’t just let her die without doing everything in his power to save her. He loved her. Thankfully, he didn’t have to jump through his somewhat limited hoops, she had her own. Neal. These potions, or whatever. It was saving her. When he saw the smile on her face, he moved closer, over to the bed to take hold of her hand. “Thank God,” he said in response to Neal’s promise she was going to be okay. “I dunno what I would have done.”
Tom turned his attention to Neal. “Thank you.” He pretty much owed the other man his life for saving Rose’s.
She wasn’t going to let the taste bother her if she knew it would help save her. She tried not to take a whiff of it as she lifted it to her lips and quickly downed the contents. Oh god, okay, he was completely right about it tasting like feet. She gagged once it was down and her free hand moved up to cover her mouth so that she wouldn’t help anything come back up. Her head was still a little fuzzy from the blood loss but things were starting to clear up now that she had a bit of magic inside her body to bring the healing along. Her stomach settled and she gave Tom’s hand a squeeze as she looked over at him, “I’m okay.”
Her eyes then turned to Neal and she reached out for him, “Thank you so much. I don’t know what I would have done without you.” Honestly, he was the first person she would always call in a crisis because there was a bond between them that no one else really got. He was trustworthy and he had access to things that she didn’t, but she might have to start learning more about the magic others had around here. Maybe after she recovered from this.
Neal took Rose’s other hand when she reached for him and he smiled crookedly, the infamous eye-crinkling version. She could always call him if she needed to, and he’d be there - no questions asked. “No problem. Not gonna let anything happen to you anyway. You still have to be the official cake-tester, right?” There hadn’t been anyone else who volunteered for the job! So as far as Neal was concerned, it was strictly Rose’s.
“You both should get some sleep,” he added, patting Rose’s hand a final time before standing, stretching - his muscles had been tense and knotted. Tense to match the situation. And Tom looked like he’d just walked away from a crime scene, all that blood. “Can I do anything else though, or are you good?” They were both probably shaken up and traumatized a little, but finding comfort in each other was best. Neal didn’t want to be in the way.
“No,” Tom didn’t want to ask anything more of him. He really couldn’t thank the other man enough. He was going to strip the bed, get some fresh linens on there, and wash up. Then back to sleep. He felt like he’d been awake for days, not just… had it even been hours?
Tom stood up, releasing Rose’s hand so he could offer one to Neal, but then glanced down at it and frowned. He really was covered in blood. He looked like a horror film extra. “Well. Thank you, Neal,” he added once more, feeling awkward about the bloody handshake. Really, he just wanted to get back to Rose. To hold her and stroke her hair as she fell asleep. He was such a fucking sap now, Jeez.
The comment about the cake-testing earned a grin from her and she managed an airy laugh as to not hurt herself in the process. “Oh thank god. I’m glad my job is that important. I’m really looking forward to it though,” that was the honest truth because Rose felt incredibly qualified to taste some cake and she would never turn down sweets, “And no, you’ve done enough. We woke you up, so you should get back home and get some sleep. We’ll probably just clean up and then go back to bed. But thank you so much, again, truly.”
She was never going to be able to repay him for this. How did you truly thank someone who just saved your life? It was almost impossible. She would have to think on that in the future, but for now she was more concerned about Neal getting back to bed and cleaning up the mess here. Her body was starting to recover and she could feel the adrenaline starting to wear off, so she knew it wouldn’t be long before she crashed hard.
Neal shook Tom’s hand, clasping it firmly, not really caring about the mess. It wasn’t the goriest scene had had observed while living in Orange County (sad that he’d seen worse), so it didn’t trouble him too much. He was just glad to have been able to help. “You’re both welcome, anytime,” he said, and he meant that sincerely too. “Alright, I’ll take off so you can clean up and rest. Maybe sleep in tomorrow. Turn off the alarm,” he grinned.
He actually did have to look into cakes, come to think of it. And like a million other things but ugh. That would come later. For now, back to bed - and he would show himself out, no worries. Tom and Rose had a rough enough night, no need to worry about playing the role of proper hosts, yeah?
Tom nodded, actually breaking into a tired smile as Neal turned to go. The adrenaline was definitely wearing off now, and he was starting to find everything a little funny. (Maybe this was so he wouldn’t start bawling?) And he was sleepy. First thing’s first. He had to get Rose off the bed, clean her and it up, then re-sheet and climb back in. It was going to be a really long day.