2022-05-19 - Red in the Morning

Nicasia plummets from dreaming into wakefulness like a stone through wet tissue, like a crane's beak through flesh. It's not exactly a pleasant transition, coming back into the dark gloom of the master bedroom where she's half-tangled in sheets, mouth dry and filled with the taste of salt and iron. It was just a dream would be a comforting thought except for the pain in her leg, alternately throbbing with the dull ache of stones thrown at a wall and burning with the heat of a laceration just shallow enough to really sting.

"Fuck me," she breathes, hand dropping to touch it and coming away sticky, fingertips red with half-clotted blood. Red with the feather that's still clutched in her palm. If there was any lingering doubt about what'd happened, any chance that the soft cloudy haze of reality might dampen it, the reality of the feather shatters it all into jagged pieces. It is a bit of a labor to untangle herself and to stand up, this done tentatively, but it doesn't hurt more to stand and that seems promising enough that she sets off for the hall. There is a first aid kit. It's in the kitchen.

Probably she ought to rethink that decision.

Lady, who has been camped out by the foot of Myles' bed for most of this, detects the motion first and goes padding over to nose the door open, curious and concerned as only a dog with sharp ears and a sharper nose can, and is summarily greeted in the hall by a, "Good girl, go back. Go on, now."

But perhaps things with Lady are more dire than they first seemed!

Lady whines in the doorway. That's not exactly normal. Her front paws stamp up and down as if unsure where and how to move. Where to go. Another pronounced whine is let out as she moves back into the room. Yet another whine in her throat. Scared. Upset. Something has her frustrated. And there's no grunt or command from Myles to quiet her. No stirring in the room at all. Not to Nicasia speaking or to her walking by his room. Just silence.

Maybe he's deeply asleep.

That really is unusual behavior from the dog, yes. But at the same time it is not unusual; she is very smart, from a line renowned for its various aptitudes and abilities, and Nicasia is only a few steps further down the hall before she realizes that Myles isn't mumbling at her to be quiet and go to sleep.

She doesn't backtrack so much as she half falls over turning around and heading for his door, pushing it open most unceremoniously. "Myles?" It's possible that she was the only one in the Dream. It wouldn't have been the first time. Yet there's a particular edge to her voice that betrays nervous energy, a certain desperate need for him to mumble at her and send her on her way. Somewhere there's a light switch but right now she can't find it, her hand sliding up and down the wall in some half-shocked, blind hunt.

Eventually she trips it. Blindly. The lights flash on.

The first thing she'll find is a lot of blood. There's blood all over the vacant bed. In pools. One of his pillows is a morbid gory mess. The blood continues off the bed in a direction, furthest from the door. Shielding more from the eye, initially. There is more blood pooling on the carpet there. And when Nicasia rounds the bed, there is Myles. Wearing just his boxers, laying in a pool of his own blood.

His hand is stretched out to the side. The other is held somewhat aloft. An axe. A tomahawk. Feathers dangling from it, held by the wooden haft, blood splattered all over the blade of the weapon. The hook of the axe is cutting into the bed, keeping his arm suspended as Myles lets out a muffled grunt into the carpet. He sounds dazed and delirious. He looks dazed and delirious. And he's not moving a whole lot.

This is not what Nicasia was hoping to find.

She stares for about half of a second, stark disbelief that this might actually be blood. That she might not still be dreaming, may've wandered from one nightmare into another, but the taste in her mouth is the same that is in the air. There's no mistaking blood for anything else, and there is so much of it.

Too much of it.

It's that half second later that she's moving, stumbling around the edge of the bed, heedless of what she's stepping in, tripping over, in her haste to get to his side. Another second and she's on the floor beside him, a brittle edge in the repetition of his name. "Myles?" Panicked horror of a kind found nowhere else pours through her like razor blades and chips of ice. It helps, yes, that he makes some noise, verifies that he's still alive, at least, but little more. One of her hands sets on his chest; the other reaches for the mess on his head. Apply pressure, that's what they say, right? But where? And how?

And it doesn't matter because there's a faint cool pulse, one little heartbeat of magic as unconscious and instinctive as the desperate rest of it.

Myles lets out a quiet grunt as she tries to soothe him, his hand coming up to gingerly press at his head. He lets out a what is close to a whimper, or perhaps that's Lady, standing just over there so concerned. She edges forward like she's going to help. Myles brings the axe down, the blade hitting the ground as he lets out another quiet grunt. "Ava." He lets out with some urgency. "Call Ava." Of course, Ava won't pick up. Not right now.

Nicasia wipes some of the blood away but it's way too dark here to even have a guess at what's going on. The sticky flash of metal and the dull sound of it hitting the ground makes her jump, but what else is she going to do?

Call Ava.

It means a reversal of the trip she just made, around the bed, to find his phone. It means wiping as much blood off her hands as she can so the screen will even work. Eventually she'll get the number in and it will ring, and ring, and ring, until there's a somewhat inarticulate noise of fear and frustration and it is only through an act of terrifying willpower that she doesn't throw it at the wall. "I think she was there. I think she got fucked up too. Her and..." There were other people there. Ones she has no clue about. "Fuck it. I'm going to call an ambulance."

"Stay back Lady." Myles rumbles with labored breath. "Fuck." He swings his hand at her. Looking up blearily at the dog. What's she saying? She's saying something. "Fuck." Myles grunts, swinging his hand again as if trying to ward Lady off which will just surely hurt her feelings. "She's sniffin' at all the blood, baby please call her away." Because in this moment of life and death, Myles is very concerned about the dog.

That's why she sits in front of him, Nicasia.

Lady is VERY CONCERNED okay.

"Fuck," says Nicasia. She tried calling Ava again, possibly because explaining this to an ambulance crew is outside of her ability to cope with right now. "Fuck. Fuck." The phone is tossed. At the bed; it bounces but at least it doesn't break. And then she's going to call the dog off with a hissed, "Fuss." It will get the dog to heel, yes, though perhaps a touch reluctantly. Especially because it means she's going to get locked in the study, right next door.

The axe is pushed under the bed. Pushed further away. He's operating at diminished capacity. But EMS is not going to see a bloody tomahawk near him. When Lady pulls away, Myles flops to his back, letting out a groan. "Okay." He lets out. "Okay. I'm just gonna rest for a second, baby. Just for a minute." His head slowly lowers to the ground in his own blood, eyes starting to close. This is a Very Bad idea. But it seems like a very good one.

Well, she wasn't going to call an ambulance, but when Nic gets back into his room and comes around to see him looking like he might slide back into dreamland she loses whatever desire she may've had for anything like, say, secrecy and grabs the phone again.

It takes more blind swiping because now there's blood on the screen to smear through; it gets wiped on her not-injured pajama leg to clear some of that off and then she stabs in the number and waits for the operator and manages - mostly - to sound calm. "Yes. Hello. I need an ambulance at 30 Elm Street. My husband. He got hit in the head and there's a lot of blood and tell them to fucking hurry. Please."

EMS may not see a bloody tomahawk near him, but that doesn't mean they aren't maybe going to leap to some really obvious conclusions. Like maybe the police need to be involved as well.

Myles was pleading to go to sleep to rest for a moment. But somewhere, deep down in there. There's a Myles that realizes--

"Don't let me fall asleep."

He lets out in a quiet grunt, even as he's slowly closing his eyes for a little bit of a night-night. He may even miss that she called him her husband. What a shame.

Some part of Myles, deep down, is probably well aware of what a concussion is and why it's a bad thing. There might even be a piece of Nicasia that is familiar with that, from the times he went into the ring. But this is different, somehow, and once she's been told to stay on the line - fat chance - she drops the phone again and comes around to sit by him.

"Hey," she murmurs. "Somebody's coming, okay? You're gonna be okay." Her shirt is already a mess; she pulls the hem loose and uses that to wipe some of the blood off of his face, so at very least it isn't still running into his eyes.

Hey

Myles slowly opens his eyes, looking up to the woman, dabbing at his face, cleaning his eyes. A small smile curls up his features as he looks up at her. Weak. Delirious, likely. One blood soaked hand comes up slowly, fingers going to press at her cheek. "You..." He loses the word for a second, eyes fluttering. Slowly he gains his composure and looks up at her.

"You're hot as a tribal woman." His hand drops down to the ground as his eyelids flutter close once more.

"Asshole," Nic answers gently. "I told you I was going to wear a garbage sack next time you said that." She at least is lucid enough to carry the conversation, and even now, life or death, threads the needle with the fondest of insults. "That fucking bird got you good, huh? Good thing you have a hard head." Which she is now effectively cradling, trying to coax him to sit up just a little, to fight off the desire to sleep.

And, "Lady is really worried about you. I practically had to peel her off with a crowbar. You better hold on, because I don't know how I'm going to explain if... if..."

Her free hand comes up to cover her mouth, fighting back words, a choked noise, something. He missed her calling him her husband; he'll probably miss the tears that have welled up and now clot in her eyelashes. "...they'll be here soon. Just stay awake, okay?"

There's just a low mumble that comes in response to her okay. No words, really. Just a sound. A sound someone makes on the brink of consciousness. Riding that fine line between waking and sleep. Cradled in her lap, a god damn mess. He's awake, for now. Or something close to it at least. But it may not last much longer.

He needs to stay awake and Nicasia needs to stay put until help arrives. Until she's summoned by lights to go unlock the door, anyway. That's a problem for a future version of her.

This one strokes his cheek and his jaw and rocks, just a little. "Hey," she murmurs. "Do you remember the day your mother caught us up here? We thought we were all cool and stealthy and she... invited me down for pancakes." The most random of memories drifts to the top of the stack and is peeled off, given up as a thread, something to tie him here with.

"Hm?" Is grunted out. DId he lose it for a second? "Ma." Is rumbled out with no small amount of fondness. Even if his head is a blur, either the mention of the memory or just his mother. "She loves you." He murmurs quietly, almost distractedly. Beat. "I love you."

Nicasia, who never cries, is crying now. The first tear that escapes lands on his face; she catches the next one and ends up wiping blood on her cheek but this is also a problem for a future version of herself. "She's a pretty good mom," she agrees. Then, a lot more quietly, "I love you, too. Don't... don't leave me."