Bleeding Out

[Tabitha Wolfe]

As Tabitha was trying to put a knife back under her shirt she noticed a problem. The dagger dropped to the ground as she tried to exchange hands. She stared at it. She still couldn’t hear over the pounding in her head, and she couldn’t feel anything for all the adrenaline, but as she pulled the knife up from the ground she saw blood sliding down her string. The slow turn to her left seemed to stretch for minutes. Her blue eyes squinted into the dark, seeing red glistening in the moonlight.

Everything seemed to fall apart after that. Tabitha fell to her knees, unable to grab her arm for all the openness of the wound. She gathered up her knives and stuffed them back with her right arm. She walked toward the guild hall as things began spinning. She wrapped string around her arm like a sleeve, trying to keep the blood from making a trail. That worked, although it hurt even worse. Her breathing became ragged and her steps crooked as she made it to the outside of the guild hall. She couldn’t go inside, she couldn’t deal with the people. Goodness knows, showing weakness to the wolves was a bad idea. She didn’t care about the money for doing the job, she just needed some help. **** her for not having any healing spells. As she slumped down to the ground outside of a window she lifted one of her daggers up with her string. She knocked the hilt against the glass loud enough to surpass any thoughts it might be an accident. Knock, knock, knock. She brought the knife back, putting it in its holster as she closed her eyes. She couldn’t feel her arm, even as the string magic faded out, still bleeding, but at least less now.

[Sharaku]

Sharaku had had is nose in a book. Sure, he wasn’t the bookish type, not by a longshot. But books were what gave him knowledge he needed, and so it was too books he turned. He didn’t trust anyone else to do a better job than said books when it came to teaching him anything useful. At least, not unless it couldn’t be found in a book – such as information about his father’s killer. It had been nearly a year and he was still being told their spy was investigating the matter. He wasn’t sure if there even was a spy helping find him information. Maybe he should take off and do it himself.

Sharaku’s thoughts were interrupted by the tapping of something metal sounding on the glass. He figured he should probably investigate. It had definitely been on purpose, after all. Getting up from the comfortable position on his bed, he sat the book down and strolled over to the window, opening it up and looking around. He looked down once he didn’t see anything else, only to spot a bleeding Tabitha on the ground. Of course she’d come to him. He was the only one she seemed to like that much at the guild as far as he could tell. The problem was, he didn’t have any healing magic to help. He let out a quiet sigh.

Sharaku grabbed Tabitha, and carefully hoisted her into the room, setting her down on his table. “I should have figured this would eventually happen,” he told her, sounding a bit calmer than he was. He wasn’t acting particularly surprised, but at the moment he was trying to figure out exactly how bad the wound was. She was covered in blood, so she’d been bleeding for a little while. He needed to do something fast.

[Tabitha Wolfe]

Feeling was hard. Emotions were hard, feeling things physical was easier. It was easier when Tabitha was away from the guild, with people she could sort of trust. It was impossible with her guildmates. They were just waiting to murder each other if it would be most beneficial. Perhaps that was a bit of an exaggeration, but to Tabitha it felt right. She felt someone picking her up and she let out a pained groan. She wasn’t awake enough to register much more than the movement, but when she felt a hard surface against her back she managed to open her eyes.

Aw, she was getting blood all over Sharaku’s room, that was too bad. “Hey… sorry…” she said, not sure what else to say. She wanted to tease him, but no short nicknames were coming to mind. She was tired and cold and still couldn’t feel her arm. If she didn’t have healing magic, he didn’t have healing magic. Well, she had magic, and he had a duplicate. Logically she could figure out how to pull another spell off. I’ll clean up the blood later if you want... She’d meant to say it out loud, but apparently that was more effort than initially assumed. Wasn’t that unfortunate? She was too tired to talk.

“Are you good at sewing?” she asked, eyes closed again, mumbling almost inaudibly. She couldn’t be sure he heard her, her mouth was too dry. She hadn’t been beat up, just cut, but it was still doing a number on her. She felt like telling Sharaku the whole story. She wanted to, after all. She liked talking to him, and he was here, but she was really tired.

[Sharaku]

Sharaku almost didn't catch the question about him being good at sewing. His eyes were darting around the room while he searched for his medkit he kept on hand for his own wounds. He wasn't equipped for sewing people up, though, and she definitely did need it. He stopped looking around looking around suddenly, his eyes freezing on Tabitha's bloody hand. Tentatively, he reached down and took her abilities, exhaling slowly as he found a couple of needles nearby, which he easily threaded with most of the talent of Tabitha. "This is going to hurt,” sharaku warned his friend. He didn’t have long before she passed out though, and that wouldn’t be good.

He reached over and grabbed some cloth for Tabitha to bite down on. “Bite this. It’s a better alternative than your tongue,” he told her, a serious look on his face. His hair wasn’t in his usual ponytail since he was alone in his room before this, and it fell over his face a bit as he looked down at the wound. Strings raised from his fingers, which he twitched a bit to manipulate the strings. “Here goes,” he told her, beginning to work on the wound. He didn’t stop until it looked properly stitched up, but sighed audibly as if letting out a lot of tension once he was done.

[Tabitha Wolfe]

Sharaku was playing a good nurse, apparently. Tabitha couldn’t focus on him enough to see him looking frantic. Things were blurry or dark, and she was going very pale, very quickly. He touched her hand and then let go. She knew what he did, but flexed her fingers slowly anyway. Right now she was laying on her back, with daggers under her. That hurt a bit, or she might have been imagining it hurting. Either way she reached around, pulling the two daggers out from behind her, and dropping them to her side. So this was going to hurt? Did that mean he picked up on what she was suggesting?

“Aw, but how will I sass you?” she asked him quietly, swallowing again. Fine, fine, he looked serious. He looked very different than usual, and she felt slightly bad for him. She bit down on the cloth, saving her poor tongue, and soon felt something in her arm. Searing pain mixed with otherwise numbness felt awful. She by no means struggled with pain tolerance, but this was blinding. By the time he was done she had passed out, her vision blanking and then consciousness fading away. She’d grabbed one of her daggers to give her other hand something to hold onto, but it slowly slipped out of her grip when she passed out.

[Sharaku]

Even bleeding out Tabitha couldn’t help but sass Sharaku, it seemed. Even if it was a question on how she could sass him while he took precautions to not let her get hurt worse. By the time he was done, she’d passed out, likely from the pain. He wished he’d had time to get her some pills or something, at least, but he really hadn’t, and he only had a few things in the room that might help. It was stuff that would be better later rather than during the operation anyway.

Satisfied that Tabitha wasn’t going to die now, Sharaku laid her on his bed and sat down against the side, elbow on his knee as he stared quietly in the direction of the ground. She was a good fighter, especially with her string magic helping. He couldn’t help but wonder what she’d gotten herself into. He likely wouldn’t ask, but he did wonder.

When she did stir, his first words after noticing were “Glad to see you’re still alive. Sorry about the pain. We were short on time.” He stood up, looking her over quickly to make sure she was okay. She didn’t seem bad, and she didn’t have a fever or anything, so he didn’t think it had been infected while he sewed up the wound. That was a good sign.

[Tabitha Wolfe]

She was a good fighter, but she let herself get sloppy. Part of her fighting was the ability to not take damage. She was sneaky and fast, with spells that helped with dodging, misdirection, and blocking. She shouldn’t go out and get herself sliced up, but she let her emotions get the better of her skill, and she was paying for it in skin. Sharaku was being a gentleman, but Tabitha was going to tease him about it.

She stirred slowly from the bed. Things were soft under her, weird. Was this real? Where was she? She sat up about a foot immediately. She looked around and sighed. Sharaku’s room. Right… and his bed. She laughed, somewhat relieved, someone amused. Once she had relaxed she said, “The pain is worth it. Although I figured if you ever took me to bed I’d be awake for it,” she teased. “And you couldn’t even try mouth to mouth recitation? That seems like such a waste…”

Tabitha was having fun with Sharaku, and didn’t want to acknowledge her own slip up. “Thanks ladies man… it was good of you,” she added as an after though. She sat up, not using her injured arm, “I should probably go home and give you this bed back, since I doubt you want to share.”

[Sharaku]

It didn’t take long for Tabitha to start teasing Sharaku again. It was like she was made entirely of orneriness, at least when it came to him. “No, I couldn’t try mouth to mouth. You were still breathing, so it wouldn’t have helped much,” he reminded her, not taking the flirting bait. He stood by the bed, eying her to make sure she wasn’t going to keel over all of a sudden or something. He was no medical expert, but he expected that blood loss to the point of passing out wasn’t exactly healthy.

“I figured you would hate to see the guild’s doctor if you came to me instead,” he told her with a shrug, as if taking care of her had been no big deal at all. “You can go home if you’re up to it, but it isn’t that late. I can stand to keep you around for a short while if you need to rest first. The last time I lost that much blood I didn’t get up for almost a day, you know.” He also knew Tabitha was proud, and likely wanted to prove she was stronger than him. If she got up to go home out of pride, it was fine with him. He had nothing to prove except to the man that he wanted to kill.

[Tabitha Wolfe]

Tabitha was a proud and stubborn woman, but that wasn’t why she wanted to leave. She wanted to leave to avoid looking weak. Pride and stubbornness were aggressive traits, survival was a defensive trait. It wouldn’t do to look weak in front of anyone. “You’ll never get far with that attitude. You can always practice taking people’s breath away,” she told him with some mild teasing. It was necessary. He seemed to be a gentleman in their den of wolves. He could handle himself just fine, but it was still surprising. That wasn’t what drew her to him. He put up with her flirting, and he neither annoyed nor bored her. It was good company in her mind.

“I didn’t think we had doctors in our murder club,” she said with a slight smirk. He seemed to be trying to make her feel better about staying. She had walked away from bad situations before. Of course starvation always made things seem more dramatic, and being homeless had helped. “Sharaku, if I keep sitting still, I might sleep all night… and I’m not taking your bed from you,” she told him seriously, sighing. That was the truth. He didn’t seem the sort to kick her out, and she was not making him sleep on the floor. She’d share, but she knew better than to think he would suggest that.

[Sharaku]

“You’d be surprised what the Shadow Lord manages to attract,” Sharaku answered with a slight grin and a shrug. “Who’d have thought? More people here than muscle-bound morons like me, right?” he stated as if he were serious. He nodded after a moment when Tabitha told him she wasn’t taking his bed. Apparently she actually was thankful for his help if she was going to do that instead of insist that they share or something. Sharaku supposed he should count his blessings.

Tabitha left before too long, with Sharaku making sure she could walk okay first, though he did it as subtly as possible. “When you’re rested, I’ll probably be available for you to bug again,” he told her as he closed the door and went back to his bed. He picked up his book and went back to studying, figuring he should use the peace and quiet to do a bit more brain exercising. He didn’t want to become as stupid and ignorant as the idiots he worked with every day when he wasn’t around Fayte or Tabitha.

He let out a sigh, flipping a page on his book and chuckling to himself after a moment. “I’m sure that won’t be the last time something like that happens to one of us. Maybe you’ll do the same for me then,” he decided aloud, feeling a bit more secure, himself.

(end)

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