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aggressivelyaverage21 · 1 year

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Holy War - Chapter 8

After turning a few slow circles to clear the area, Lilith let herself do what every person in training has always been told not to do - she put her hands on her knees and took several deep breaths. Off to the side, she catches Ava doing the same. Slowly, but not too slowly, she composes herself. Five more breaths.

One . God I’m exhausted.

Two. You fought well.

Three. Control your breathing.

Four. One more.

Five. Ok time to move.

Lilith takes a breath as she unhinges at the waist slowly standing before she makes her way over the couple of feet to the still recovering halo bearer. Ava had fought well too. Really well. It was impressive how far she’d come from that selfish kid who’d first woken up with the halo. She was proud of her sister and who she had become. Lilith would never admit it out loud but she cared a great deal for her.

Her breathing hadn’t slowed at all after a few seconds, in fact it was trending in the opposite direction. The younger warrior was struggling, so Lilith did what she often saw Beatrice do - she reached out to lay a comforting hand on the halo bearer’s back, running her hand slowly up and back her spine. “Control your breathing.” She reminds the warrior, trying to adopt a gentler tone than she usually used to tell her to do things.

Ava tries to stand up straight, nodding her acknowledgment of the instruction, but she stumbles after doing it, maybe a little too quickly after fighting for several hours at this point. Lilith lunges forward as soon as she sees the wobble to the woman’s knees, catching Ava against her side. “Easy. I’ve got you.” Lilith squeezes her against her side to keep her tumbling forward. When she was satisfied Ava wasn’t going to end up on her face in the street. She nudged her with a firm hand on her back, encouraging the Warrior Nun to stand up - expand her lungs. “Breathe slower, Ava. Deeper.”

So for once in her life, Ava listened to Lilith without adding a rebuttal or a joke of any kind and just let the air burn into her lungs a little slower on the exhale each passing breath. Lilith was surprised something to the tune of “that’s what she said” wasn’t the rebuttal, hell she’d even heard thought it. As she regained her composure she let herself lean away from Lilith who had yet to step from her side. Ava took another bend forward stretching her lower back as she straightened out with a small wince. “Are you hurt?”

“No. No. I’m good.” Breathing heavily through the words still hoping they’d start working a little better. Just a little. They burn. God, do they burn. The cold air raw against her throat as she greedily sucks it down. Her lungs dry from the dust lingering in the air and the severe need for water. She doesn't think she’d be able to move if she didn’t feel the need to get back to Beatrice. “Thanks.”

Lilith just nods with a small smile, wiping at her brow with the back of her arm and smearing blood across her forehead in the process. She pulled her hand away to look at it before wiping it on the side of her pant leg. “Are you ?” Ava checks in as she does a quick head to toe scan of her friend looking for evidence of anything not healed yet. The halo hadn’t really started working on her own minor ones yet, too used up for the time being. She imagined Lilith’s extra bits were probably doing the same.

“I’m not sure.” Lilith groans, taking another incredibly slow breath, trying to recover from the fight just as she’d told Ava too. Her shins hurt, her shoulders ached from where the wings attached. A feeling she hadn’t quite gotten used to yet, one she didn’t know if she ever would. “I don’t think so.”

Ava huffs out a laugh at that. “Yeah. Everything hurts. I think even we might be sore for a while after that one. Come on.” Ava pats Lilith's shoulders in return of a favor for her comfort earlier. She starts walking back to Beatrice, thankful for the sun starting to turn the edge of the sky gray.

The entire pocket of this street was nearly destroyed. It might take the city of Assisi years to rebuild. Ava always felt horrible leaving these cities. History wasn’t something you could rebuild. Structures maybe, but it wasn’t the same. And here they were destroying buildings, some older than the halo in her back all over Europe. She didn’t much care for the religious stuff herself, but she knew it was important to people. But getting these things, fighting these fights… it was far more important than some old bricks.

“Ava.”

“Huh?”

“Come here, I’ll just-”

“We can walk, Lilith. We’re both gassed. There’s no way I could phase right now. I’m not going to make you do that. It’ll take an extra thirty seconds.” Lilith mumbles her thanks as she trails Ava through the rubble.

They eventually find Camila on both knees over Beatrice. Her ear close to Beatrice’s mouth as she looks down the length of her injured sister, one hand pressed to her neck, presumably looking for a pulse.

“Camila, how is she?” Lilith pants, her hands on her knees while Ava has her hands on her hips, leaning backward and trying to expand her lungs. Even just walking up those short steps and climbing through the rubble in the most direct path to their people serves to wear them out more.

The medic glances up to see both of her supernatural friends, both covered in blood, though after slightly more than a first glance, most of it isn’t theirs. Both of them look exhausted. Actually beyond exhausted. Ava for one wasn’t sure how much longer she could keep this up.

Camila reaches for the pack at her side and digs through it with her free hand. Finally finding what she was looking for, she turns her attention away from Beatrice for a split second to toss two bottles of water and two protein bars in their general direction. The two waste no time ripping into the provisions provided by their medic. Lilith snatching the items gracefully out of the air. Ava trapping the water bottle against her chest but needing to bend over to pick up the protein bar out of the dirt. The Halo didn’t always do much for her hand eye on occasion. Though in her defense, Lilith’s toss was a little easier to catch. At least that’s what Ava was telling herself

“She’s... She lost consciousness. I’m not sure when. I have a heartbeat.” Camila chokes out, pausing to listen to Beatrice’s lungs again before continuing her explanation. “She made me focus on helping you guys. I lost track of our conversation. Ava I’m sorry-”

“No, it’s not your fault.” Ava says, bending over herself as she tries to get her legs working enough to stumble forward to Beatrice’s side without collapsing on her. She looked bad. Really bad. Don’t go there, Ava. Don’t do it. She’s going to be fine. You have to beat these guys back to get any of you out of here. Now is not the time to panic. “What can we do for her?”

A couple more seconds of listening to Beatrice’s lungs has Camila’s eyes flashing wide, either unaware of ignoring Ava’s question. The medic immediately pulls the blankets back in a rush, not caring about the flashlight, the momentum of the cloth and flying toward Beatrice’s feet. “Ava, call Kiva to you. I need to get on that side.”

“What-”

“Just do it. Quickly.” She’d tried to move him a couple of dimes trying to get a little bit better access to Beatrice but he wasn’t listening to her. Their best bet at that would be Ava, his default mom when Beatrice wasn’t available.

“Here. Kiva.” The dog didn’t move, reluctant to leave Beatrice. If he had separation anxiety before, it would be almost impossible now. “Kiva. Kom hier . Now.” The Dutchie scrambles to his feet, a little reluctant to obey. He took a few steps toward Ava, but paused as he passed by Beatrice’s head. He glanced at his person then back at her mate and back again, trying to communicate. “Yeah. Okay.” Ava nods. Her heart couldn’t take Kiva’s whimper when it looked like she might try to call him to her again. With permission, secured Kiva curls gently around Beatrice’s head, laying his head on her shoulder opposite where Camila was working. “Good enough, I guess, buddy. Blif .” Stay.

While Ava was distracted by the damn near cinematic scene from Beatrice’s dog, Camilla had, in a fluid motion, ripped the side of Beatrice’s shirt open from the tear already started by where she had cut the blood soaked fabric from Beatrice’s puncture wound. Camila wasted no time in laying it over Beatrice’s chest, the damp end hitting Kiva in his nose, earning an annoyed huff from the Dutchie as he lifted his head just enough to resituate himself without the filthy shirt being on his very sensitive nose.

“Lilith, Bag.” Camila snapped her fingers rapidly as she pointed to the bag sitting now on the other side of Beatrice’s body from her position. “I need that scalpel, plastic tubing - should be about as thick as your pinky- and a hemostat.”

Side note: when did Camila put on nitrile gloves?And what the fuck is happening? Ava watched wide eyed and brain sluggish as Camila moved Beatrice’s arm, laying it as gently as she could over her head, resting her upper arm on Kiva’s ass and curving it around to be supported by the dog. Almost as quickly as she let her arm go, the medic started trying to count ribs with a gloved finger, working down Beatrice’s right side. Camila’s tongue sticking out of the corner of her mouth as she started the count over, pressing a little firmer with the pads of her fingers trying to get a better feel.

Apparently that wasn’t what she was looking for because she muttered a soft “Slow down. Take a breath,” to herself as she flexed her hand trying to get it to stop shaking. “Beatrice needs you steady. You can do this.” Ava was pretty sure Camila had tunnel vision at this point and was just talking to herself, completely forgetting that she had an audience. She reaches up toward Beatrice’s breast searching for something if the quick darting of her eyes back and forth over the black sports bra had anything to say about it.

Ava had no idea what she was looking for until Camila’s eyes stopped moving and her hand immediately reached for the subtle peak of Beatrice’s nipple with her pointer finger extended. She pressed down and traced a line toward Beatrice’s side where she had just been counting ribs. Ava watches As Camila looks up at the sky almost as her finger feels for that intercostal space she was so desperate for. A sigh of relief tells the other two watching that she’d found it as Camila’s attention turns back toward Beatrice, muttering a small prayer of “thank you,” as she did.

“Lilith, cut her bra on the side right here. The trauma shears are in their pouch on the side…”

“Here?” Lilith confirms as she works the shears so they are pinching the fabric just to the side of Camila’s finger at the seam of the bra.

“Yes. Cut around my finger. I don't want to lose the spot.” Ava’s tongue felt like it was about to choke her as she watched. Unable to even ask what Camila was trying to do or what was so necessarily about exposing the most modest of all of them.

Lilith proceeded as instructed, cutting the side of the bra, then taking the remainder of her water bottle and dumping it over Camila’s hand cleaning the blood away to expose Beatrice’s skin making the ridges of her ribs more visible for Camila. Then she takes several isopropyl alcohol swabs and does the same. Camila takes her other hand and stretches the now clean skin and takes the freshly opened scalpel from Lilith never losing sight of that spot she was so hesitant to move from.

Ava’s brain had finally caught up with what was happening as reality wasn’t just her hovering somewhere over the whole thing watching Camila and Lilith work on Beatrice as she checked over some of their other supplies. “When I asked what we could do, stabbing her was not the thing that came to mind. Camila, what the fuck?”

#avatrice #ava silva x sister beatrice #sister beatrice isn't doing so hot #it's a little grey's anatomy-y #medic!cam to the rescue #Lilith and Ava bicker like it's their job #it kind of is #lilith is a little soft though #mother superian being a mom bc of course she is

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