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noonmutter · 6 years

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Awkwardness Pt. 13 - Finale

Subtitle: “This Took HOW Many Parts?!”

Previous part can be found here!

(This one got long but that’s because there wasn’t a better place to cut it and frankly we wanna be done. Enjoy!)

The good thing about worgen bites is that even if he wasn't already a worgen, they can't spread the curse these days, so they really are just big stonking bite wounds, more or less easily mended. And she got him there awfully quickly!

Getting the priestesses in the room to stop staring and/or yelling at her for busting into the temple like she did long enough to realize there is a dying man on the floor and do something about it is actually much easier when all you do is scream "heal him" and point, too.

The tricky bit will be keeping him from changing back before they're done fixing him, because it'd almost certainly overtax his system.

The night elves probably see similar situations fairly often. They set up the city's primary portal in a healing temple. This is where Janosis brought Shedwyn and the hunting party when she got her body back, after all. They're probably just glad she doesn't dump the bloody pupper in a moonwell.

Still, there's enough shouting that Lucien goes from covering his eyes to covering his ears, and that is a mistake. Prae quickly covers the boy’s eyes with his wings after a tiny little gasp of horror, but it's too late. The next round of shouting is for an acolyte to get the boy out of there because he's trying to help and no.

Thankfully that command is accompanied by a higher-ranking priestess with her head on straight, because she starts shouting orders at the other priestesses and they listen. One of those orders is for them to flip him so they can figure out how badly he's hurt and fix it instead of merely stabilizing him with the magical equivalent of doing a transfusion on a patient who still has a gaping wound.

Boss Priestess looks over Shedwyn, takes in the fact that her only injury is a bruised and bleeding scalp (which she stops while laying a hand on Shedwyn's shoulder), gun still in her hand, the anxiety, the tiredness (a quick Enervate), the guilt... And because she's a damned good Priestess of Elune, she asks what happened, in between Shedwyn shouting for the other priestesses to watch out for his claws.

"There were three ferals, they came out of nowhere, they shouldn't have been that close to town-"

The shouting and shuffling about didn't rouse him, didn't even seem to register with him. Even being shoved around and turned over, though it had to hurt like hellfire, only got another low baying sound of discomfort, but no real attempt to move. But the smell of Lucien coming close, probably trying to tell them to let him help? The distress and fear in Shedwyn's voice? Those made him open his eyes and start shifting around again. "... sky..."

Boss Priestess loses her source of information, or rather, she has to follow it as it goes bounding over to kneel next to Terry's head. God damn it this thing had done its very best to eat her before, and now here she is petting it. "You're gonna be alright, honey, you just hafta stay still, please." One of the lesser priestesses, one who's dealt with a lot of worgen, murmurs, "Keep him from shifting, if you can... It's very rough on them physically." Dwyn whimpers. "I... I don't know how, I'm always trying to get him back to-" She turns back to Terry. "You hear that, honey? You can't shift back. It'll kill you, please don't-"

"...tired." One enormous hand raises (to the alarm and consternation of the healers around him) to try and touch Dwyn's face, missing by a few inches and thus sparing her the mess of even more blood smearing across her cheek.

She grabs for his wrist and sweet mother of life he is heavy. "Please don't leave me."

One of the healers scoffs. "He's not going to die unless he changes at this point. Just keep him talking."

"Talking's not really his strong suit." To Terry, "What do you wanna hunt when we visit Grizzly Hills, hm?"

There's a faint, puzzled whine in the back of his throat that, if he hadn't bled most of his energy away on the way here, would've been accompanied by a headtilt. "...big-deer. .. Elk. Lots of meat. Fast."

"Yeah, I thought so. They look delicious, right? And challenging."

"Run for long time. Might fight." He trails off after that, eyes unfocusing (though it's hard to tell when they're glowing), and mumbles something unintelligible.

"'Ey, no. No." She takes her life in her hands and pinches his ear, hard as she can.

That makes him yelp and snap at her, though he's sluggish enough she can probably avoid him. One healer swears, another stifles a laugh.

She sucks in a hiss of air through her teeth as she only barely dodges, her sleeve catching on those mad teeth of his. "G-good! No falling asleep!"

He leaves his head where it is, huffing almost dejectedly and somehow managing to let his tongue loll from his mouth without biting through it. "Tired."

She takes a deep breath, centers herself, and scowls at him. "If you go to sleep you will never see your sky again. Not ever."

"My sky." A somewhat ridiculous argument, that his sky wasn't allowed to take his sky away again solely because it was his, but it was enough to make him turn his head.

"Yes. Your sky. But you have to stay awake to keep her. You have to fight."

The glow of rejuvenation fades and one of the healers breaks out the wire and needles for stitching, giving her an encouraging nod over Terry's side. He grumbles much too doglike for a wolf's dignity, licking his chops. "Mine. Fought. Killed. Mine."

"Yours. Your sky. You killed them both very dead. But if you sleep now you still don't get to keep me." It takes both hands for her to squeeze his wrist, but it takes two hands just to hold it up, so...

He doesn't say anything else, but his eyes stay fixed on her face and his fingers curl just the slightest bit. Behind him, the healers finish enchanting the wire so that it'd shift with him, and start a-stitchin'. Terry...does not like that sensation, not at all, and squirms.

Shedwyn's eyes flick away from his to the stitching, and she wishes she hadn't looked. "Shit, no." She puts a hand on his forehead. "No. You have to be still, love. Just a little longer."

Another whine, both of discomfort and indignance, but he tries to be still. It doesn't last very long, and it becomes something of a battle between keeping him still, and keeping him awake. Sooner or later, he was bound to pass out, though, in spite of pinching or talking.

One of the remaining healers stepped in to stop Dwyn from panicking outright when she took notice. "We are nearly finished. If we must, we will complete the stitching after he changes. The worst is past, and at this point, we are no longer concerned about his intestines falling out. Please relax."

Shedwyn stares up at her like she has no comprehension of the word. Given the last few days, she may genuinely be forgetting. "I... he needs his medicine. I should go get it."

"By all means, do." Anything that made her step back and breathe is seen as a good thing just now.

"I'll be right back. Don't put him in a hospital, or he'll freak out. You don't want this thing freaking out." She rubs at her eyes. "He beat a worgen to death with another worgen after they'd done this to him. So... yeah. No hospitals. Where's my son?"

"Acolyte Alonika took him for a walk. They will be back shortly."

"Great. Have him sit with Terry. The wolf likes him. I'll be right back. ... Thank you." And poof, she's gone.

There's a lot of dubious glancing shared between the cluster of acolytes and priestesses once she's gone, but they'll do as she's asked for the time being. Putting the little boy near the wolf while he's still a wolf is largely ignored, but once he'd shifted, Lucien was allowed to be nearby.

Box is grabbed, along with anything that looks like it might be the key. A message is sent off to his doctor, letting her know that Terry was severely injured and lost a lot of blood, but he was magically healed, and Shedwyn doesn't really know how that will affect him or the effectiveness of his medication. She includes her own address in Darnassus in the post-script, in case they need to he found quickly. Once that's sent off, she returns with the box of his medicine.

Moving Terry as a human is far more viable than the wolf. Once the priestesses let her, she'd have him moved to her apartment.

Thankfully, the priestesses want this mess out of their temple now please, so are more than happy to help Dwyn move him once she's returned. They've already gathered up his ruined clothing in the unlikely event they still wanted the pieces, and the one that had taken charge was about to ask Lucien where they were planning to go when Dwyn popped back in. Terry is out fuckin' cold, which an acolyte admits they encouraged for the time being. He moved less when he was properly unconscious.

They get Terry upstairs into that stonking huge bed of hers. Lucien asks to be excused almost immediately, and Dwyn lets him go after a promise that he won't leave the apartment.

Dwyn only gets as far as trying all the keys she could find to open his lockbox, but ends up falling asleep sitting up.

Normally it takes a bit of doing to rouse a guy who was not only sedated, but magically sedated. The upside to this being Terry is that doing it with magic actually makes it less effective, so Lucien won't have to struggle too horribly long before Terry is groaning his way back to something approximating wakefulness.

Lucien continues to prod his face. It's the one area he's entirely certain poking Terry won't damage anything. All that happened when he tried to wake Dwyn was that she fell over and bubbled herself, making it really difficult to poke her, but also letting the kid know she wasn't as dead as she looked.

"Terry, please wake up. It's been hours..."

"mnfit. .. stpit. .. stobbit." A groggy attempt to bat Lucien's hand away assures he is, in fact, alive and not crippled. "Lucien?"

"Yes." He's perched on the edge of the bed. "Mom won't wake up. I promised not to leave the house, but there's no food and we're hungry. I know you're not supposed to move, so can I leave the house to go get food for everyone?"

"Dwyn?" There's a moment of alarm when his mind catches up with recent events, and he tries to sit up. He succeeds, but it makes him hiss and hold his stitched up side. "...right. right. Yeah. Okay." His free hand comes up to push his hair out of his face, and he winces when he feels the crustiness of dry blood there. "...should be someplace nearby enough. Kin you make it in 30 minutes?"

Lucien hums thoughtfully, but Praecormu is already nodding. "Apparently. Is there anything you would like aside from fruit?"

"I'll be all right. Get what y'need for now an' we kin deal with proper groc'ry runs later when yer mum an' I aren't passed out an' covered in gross." He isn't about to tell a ten year old and a young dragon that he isn't hungry after eating a worgen's throat meat.

Lucien and Prae share a look. "Alright." And then they're off, leaving Terry alone with a woman who's slightly less dead than him (but significantly more dead to the world) and a bunch of trashy porn romance novels stashed in the headboard.

By the time Lucien and Prae get back, Terry will have tried to get Dwyn into bed (hoping her bubble lets him move her at all without frying him), gone looking for a shower, then a tub, then evidence of a benevolent god, then the goddamned sink. He won't be very fluffy or shiny till later, but at least his hair will be bloodless by the time he lifts his head out of the water.

Prae and Luc don't say a damned word while they eat raisins and watch Terry use the sink.

The fact that his wound is probably seeping after he moved around as much as he did prolly isn't helping his disposition any.

Lucien is not a complete idiot or asshole. As soon as he sees the blood seeping through the bandage over his sutures, "You're bleeding!"

"Mm? ... yeah, prolly."

"{Stupid idiot. Did you hit your head, too?}" Lucien grumbles and walks over to put his hands on Terry without permission. Unless quickly stopped, he's gonna try to at least stop the bleeding.

"{Watch your mouth,} Lucien!"

"{Shut your face, I wasn't even cursing,}" Lucien responds distractedly, closing his eyes and concentrating on trying to feel the wound to make sure he won't make things worse.

Terry will wait until Lucien is actually done, because messing up magicking that's aimed directly at him seems unwise.

It hurts at first, just a fraction of a second as the enchanted sutures and Terry's weird physiology reacting strangely to the magic. Lucien gasps and his hands twitch like he wants to yank them back, then the usual feeling of radiating warmth takes hold.

"Nnkffff--" The effort he puts into not being the one to swear is immense, before he's allowed to settle.

Lucien removes his hands a few seconds later. "... That stopped the bleeding, but you should probably see a real healer. You should also change that bandage."

Terry lifts his head from the water, pushes his hair off his face, then turns around and stares down at Lucien.

Lucien stares wide-eyed back up at him. Kid doesn't know what he did or said.

"You don't talk t'me like tha', boyo. 'Stupid idiot,' pff. Yer mum gets away with tha' crap because she's not ten."

He shifts uncomfortably, then looks down at his feet and nods.

"Somethin' else y'oughta say instead?"

"... I'm sorry?"

"Askin' a question?"

"I don't know?"

"Are you sorry or not? Pretty simple thin'."

The kid shudders. "Yes. I'm sorry."

"Good." Terry gingerly touches his ribs. "Thank you fer 'elpin' me."

Lucien doesn't look up, just nods.

"Don't be a dick about it next time. We get enough o' tha' when yer mum's right."

"{Yes-} Yes, sir."

He pats Lucien's shoulder and pushes away from the sink, heading back up to check on Dwyn. "Sorry t'day's been a mess, by th' way."

Lucien grunts. "Wait." He goes to get an trio of apples from his grocery bag: a red, a gold, and a green. "For you. You like apples, right? All the books say you have to eat." Kid still doesn't look at him, even while holding the apples up for him.

He pauses, watching the kid move, and tilts his head as he picks up a golden apple. "'Ey. We're all right, Lucien. It's done, y'apologized, y'meant it, we're good. Okay?"

"Uh-huh."

"Mm." He takes a big obnoxious bite out of his apple, crunching with a great deal of satisfaction on his face. Lucien turns and leaves the apples on the kitchen counter.

"If I kin wake yer mum, we'll go get dinner in a bit. I'll try not t'bleed all over th' place." With that, he goes to check on Dwyn.

Dwyn is twitching and whimpering when Terry gets upstairs.

"Babygirl?" He's quiet, but not so much that he'd be easily missed, as he approaches the bedside. She gave no response. There might be a bit of prayer running through his head that the stupid and unfair part of their week is over before he reaches out to touch her shoulder. "Dwyn."

She shivers when he touches her, but the twitching stops. The whimpering slowly shifts pitch to be more like mumbling.

"{Come back to me, my sky.}"

The mumbling stops, and she places her hand over his. Otherwise doesn't seem to be awake.

He sighs and sits down at the head of the bed, running his thumb across her fingers. "Been a mad fuckin' coupla days, babygirl."

Her eyelids flutter when he sits, but she still doesn't open them. When he speaks, she sighs, "Why are you out of bed?"

"Lucien needed feedin' an' then I was awake an' covered in muck. You needed th'bed more'n I did."

"Your insides were outside. Please lie down."

"I need a shower before I peel my skin off just t'make th'itchin' stop, Dwyn."

She gropes blindly for him, and when she finds him, he probably wishes he hadn't said anything. But hey, at least he's clean now!

"Ff--" There has been entirely too much magic done to him today, and he's all kinds of jittery now. "Dammitall."

She does herself next. "Sleep." She finally opens her eyes to look up at him. "Or kiss me, and then sleep. Please?"

"We need t'get food in this place or yer boy's gonna eat th' furniture."

Closing her eyes, Shedwyn sighs. She sits up the way he should - like every movement is a trial in and of itself.. She glares at him a moment, then knee-walks closer to pull him into a kiss.

There's no attempt to stop that, since he wanted a kiss rather badly now. His breath is a bit better than it could have been thanks to that apple and him gargling an awful lot of water earlier. "Sorry, love." Like Leon, he pronounces that just a little differently from 'luv.' "'E already woke me up t'ask t'go out an' get some stuff once. Doubt 'e'll wait fer permission again."

She rests her forehead on his shoulder. "Let's never do this again."

"Agreed." His fingers brush gently through her hair a few times before he sighs. "When this bullfuck'ry is over, I'm gonna propose on th' spot. While th'other one's body is still coolin' on th' ground in front of us."

She chuffs out an attempt at a laugh. "We'll see about that."

"I will fashion a ring o' bones if I 'ave to."

"Such a romantic." She pats his chest. "For now, though, I'd best go get some groceries, while you get some more rest."

"Please. I am beggin' you. Begging you. Give me a bathtub."

She hesitates, but then her fingertips ghost in a circle around his bandages wound. "Is it alright to get this wet?"

"I cannot put int' words 'ow much I don't care."

"... No. No, I'm pretty sure you shouldn't get them wet for at least two days, love."

"Dwyn, I don't 'ave th' clearest recollection o' th' past twelve hours but I'm almost positive I nearly died an' prolly ate somethin' while it was still alive. I would really, really like t' bathe."

"... If I summon the tub for you, will you promise not to get that wet?"

"I cannot promise anythin' I need t' submerge myself in 'ot water an' not move a while please."

"... Then no."

"Dwyn, please. I dunked my 'ead in th' fuckin' sink an' you did yer magicky thin' an' it's not enough."

Shedwyn pushes herself away from him. "Terry, you will make yourself sick, and then I will have to take you to the Temple again. Is that what you really want?"

He digs his fingers up into his hair and gets to his feet, starting to circle the room and making noises only properly described as 'fuming.' "I feel like I'm fuckin' covered in things an' I just need it off!"

"I get that, hon, but- ugh." She scrubs at her face. "Alright, compromise? You come with us to get food. When we get back, you can sit in the tub and I will scrub for as long as you need. How's that?"

Given the agitation he's exhibiting, it's probably not just a minor thing that he'd feel better about and more on the order of the kind of compulsion that shaving has turned into. He keeps walking for a few more steps before he makes himself stop and turn back to her. "Yeah. Yeah okay. Promise?"

"Promise." She relaxes for a fraction of a second and is almost asleep again, but she snaps back awake and hops to her feet. She pulls a vial out of the air, downs the contents, and leaves the vial on the headboard. She head for the closet first, tossing out some spare clothes for him, and stripping unceremoniously out of her current grubby clothes and shrugging hurriedly into her standard, flashy robe. "Food first. I'm thinking Pandarian vegetarian stir-fry for the next few days. Maybe some vegetable stew. And mmm, pie. Pecan and apple pie both sound amazing right now."

They really both needed to sleep. He'd been able to crash, but two wolfenings and a near-fatal wound sort of ruined the effects of what rest he'd gotten. As it is, he's sort of muddling along and nodding with everything she says just now, watching her dress. "Okay."

She's a little surprised to see him not dressing when she turns back. She goes to grab the shirt she tossed onto the bed for him, but doesn't quite make it before she stops to ask, "Or I could just summon a mountain of fritters and brownies for Lucien and we could get a bath and go back to bed."

"But y'wanted me not to yet." Normally that'd be the sort of thing he said just to be contrary, but the events of the last 48 hours or so have finally had a chance to set in for a nice solid ass-kicking in his head.

She sighs and moves closer, and while she's shaking slightly from how much energy she suddenly has, the exhaustion is quite clear in her eyes as she reaches up to cup either side of his face. "Semi-bath. Half-bath. Mostly you sitting in some nearly-scalding water while I scrub for you because god damn if I don't know exactly how you feel right now."

His eyes close and he does his best not to lean his entire weight into her. "Yes please."

He can hear her lips part to say something, but she just blows out a noisy breath. After a second, "Get undressed." She summons the tub next to the window, then hurries on downstairs. "Start it filling and get in, would you? I'll be right back."

If he had the energy for it he'd be looking at that tub like he wanted to have sex with it right now, but he'll settle for getting out of the remains of his clothes without falling down. "Yes'm."

True to her word, she's back in under a minute, bustling around, putting out towels, pouring sweet-smelling soap into the water, stopping the water when it's gotten as high as she's comfortable with, and then finally shucking her clothes and climbing into the bath with him. Also true to her word, she starts scrubbing. Gently at first, then gradually harder. The only thing she says for a while is reminding him to tell her if she's being too rough.

Once he's sat in the tub and there's water in it, he completes the shutdown process and just lets all his muscles untense as much as he can. Answers come in quiet grunts, and protests in slightly louder grunts and a small flick of his hand. The most he tries to do on his own is wash his hair, because putting his head into unsoapy water had just made it feel grosser somehow.

She allows him to soap up his hair on his own, but when it comes time to wash it she makes him lean back so she can pour water over his head. At one point she says, "I'm sorry," but it's weirdly out of place as all she's doing at the time is rubbing his back. She says nothing else unless she gets worried he's going to fall asleep in the tub.

It seems like he very well could after she puts his head on her pillows, but he exhales like he's been holding his breath for an hour and touches her wrist with the tips of two fingers. "Why?"

"... 'why' what?"

"Why're you sorry?"

"... this is all my fault."

"...pretty sure I'm at least 'alf faulty 'ere."

"If I'd had you or Leon take me to their graves instead of Pin..."

"Can't be anythin'..." He trails off, frowning as he mouths what he just said, sighs, and starts over. "Can't do anythin' for it now. An' th' stupid part's done. I know now, an' we 'ave a plan."

Nodding, she kisses the top of his head. Teasingly, she asks, "Am I still allowed to feel guilty for a bit?"

"Only til we get 'ome an' I've melted Doc down fer materials."

"Pft. Heh." She thinks he's joking.

"Start from scratch. Proper."

"You don't have to melt him down to- wait, are you serious?"

"Told you. Don't wanna see it ever again."

She tangles her fingers with his so she can squeeze his hand. "Give it a few weeks, hm? For me? As often as I give you shit about paying more attention to him than to me, that gun has saved both our lives more times than I can count."

"Took too many I want back. Almost took another one."

She freezes a moment, then nods. "Sure."

He squeezes her hand this time. "What?"

"Sure, we'll melt it down."

"...d'you really want me t'wait? Important?"

"Nah."

"Stiffened up."

"...I didn't think about the fact that it... that your mum..."

"You did. Yesterday."

"Yeah. That's why I feel even more dumb right now."

"Wasn't goin' fer dumb. Just...y'were right."

"... yeah."

There's a silence, eventually broken up by a soft huff of amusement. "... you fin'ly won fer my affections over 'im. Heh."

"Pft. Maybe, but you'll have a new baby on the way in no time at all."

"We'll see."

( @shedwyn )

#and so arrives terry #shedwyn #terwyn #modified chatlogs #awkwardness #FINALLY #upside this only seems super long because it's a lot of dialogue #plus some foreshadowing!#woooo~ooo

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