Wicked Man's Rest

[Kieran Abernathy]

Morning; 11/30

Kieran woke up.

He did not move for a few minutes. He exhaled and saw the fog of his breath in the gray light. His bones felt heavy. The only thing encouraging him to move was the increasing pain coming from his ankle, and finally he sat up, and felt the cold chains drop off him. 

He blinked.

They were not wrapped around his wrists and both ankles as they had been when he fell asleep. His wrists were raw where the beast had pulled and so was his left ankle. He was a yard away from his tree, the beast having pulled itself as far as it could go. His right ankle was not raw but bleeding profusely, and Kieran scrambled, hopping on his other foot to his pile of clothes with the bottle of dittany on top.

He applied the salve to his ankle and watched as his skin knit itself back together, leaving him with just the blood on his ankle. He touched his fingers to the new scar in disbelief and horror,and then grazed them over the chain itself.

It had tried to chew off his ankle and free itself, like a chained coyote.

Merlin only knew why it had stopped. Kieran's hands shook - not from the cold - and he pulled his wand off of the pile of clothes, unlatching the chains with a wave. His hands did not stop shaking and his heart was beating too fast and all he could think was this: I almost did it again.

He could not stop thinking that. Not as he pulled on his trousers and shirt and coat. He walked in a circle around the tree and the chains, kicking at them once - clearly he had not bound himself tightly enough. If he bound his wrists and ankles more tightly tomorrow, then it would be - fine, probably. It would be fine. His hands still shook and his ankle wobbled, as if something structural had been a bit damaged - something that he ought to get looked at sooner rather than later. And Finn would know of the cause of his injury - perhaps he would even guess at the cause. And then there was tonight. He pressed his palms against the tree.

I can't do this anymore.

Normally this would be when he picked up the chains and apparated home to catch a nap and make tea. But he felt as if his chest was splitting open and like It was taunting him and instead he gave the chains one last formidable kick and apparated away with a loud crack!

He wasn't home; instead he was in the kitchen of a substantially nicer London flat. There was a kettle on the stove. His fingers curled towards his coat sleeves. His wand dropped from his hand and clattered on the floor. Kieran wavered on his feet, the dehydration and exertion of the last night settling in with the heart-pounding terror and - 

There was Jude, sitting at the table, looking at him like you looked at a person when they apparated into your home unannounced shortly after dawn.

And all Kieran could say was the truth, or the most recent bit of the truth, because he had not planned coming here - had not really thought of anything at all since he was looking at those chains and thinking that he could not face this again, that he could no longer handle the weight of his life and his crimes on his chest.

And so finally he said it: "I've done something terrible." 

@'Jude Wright' @'Elias Grimstone'

The following 3 users Like Kieran Abernathy's post:3 users Like Kieran Abernathy's post
   Clarissa Cosgrove, Jude Wright, Topaz Urquart

[Jude Wright]

The kitchen was always warmer than the front room in the mornings, the warmest in the flat. There had been frost spiderwebbed against the glass of his bedroom window when he’d gotten dressed and padded down, but from the kitchen table, Jude could watch the windows gradually condense.

It was still early - the Daily Prophet had not yet been delivered - but Jude had laid out some work to get on with while he thought about tea or breakfast but wasn’t quite ready for either. Though accustomed to getting up at this time, he hadn’t touched the work much either; instead, he’d been gazing at the streaks of clouds in the lightening sky, with his elbows propped on the table and his hands under his chin.  

It was almost unfair to say it, that the full moon could possibly instil any dread in him when he was safe in the middle of the city every night, his body heavy with sleep, his head comfortable against a pillow. At the end of the day, he - most people - could get away from the awful truth of it, let it be a distant nightmare. Kieran, and T., and the others out there, their nightmare was a prison. They lived it.

Worrying about Kieran had become rote now. More alarming was the force by which this practice had intensified in recent weeks. By this point, Jude thought he might actually be relieved if he discovered this inability to stop thinking about him was all through fault of his own - some, some problem of focus, an odd kind of fixation in his head, perhaps even attachment - but at the same time and more seriously, he was convinced all his concern was not unwarranted. Kieran hadn't been right, recently.

After a while, he'd put the kettle on and returned to his spot at the table. And then came the crack of someone apparating. Jude’s head snapped up, instinctively expecting to see his flatmate, despite knowing full well that his hospital shift wouldn’t finish until at least lunchtime. But it wasn’t his flatmate he saw: it was Kieran. The next idea in Jude’s head, for a wild split-second or so, was that somehow, amazingly, he’d conjured up a vision of Kieran by having been just thinking about him, right that moment. That in itself was a lie, since Jude had just managed to move off the topic of Kieran (though, admittedly, not before resolving to stop by later today - maybe in the afternoon - to check up on him, replete with good intentions and flimsy excuses and perhaps some pepper-up potion, or another of his flatmate's remedies bottled up in the cupboard that might take the edge off utter exhaustion).  

But no, Kieran was actually here - in the kitchen, right now, of his own accord. And he looked beyond utterly exhausted. His wand had slipped out of his grasp, he was nearly swaying on his feet - like he wasn't standing right, his weight not distributed properly, perhaps - but it was the look on Kieran's face that was worst, ashen and haunted, like he'd been to hell and back.

I've done something terrible.

Jude's heart leapt into his throat, the worry skyrocketing all at once. "What?" His chair scraped horribly as he pushed it back, rising up and rounding the table towards him in an instant. Done something terrible echoed only as something terrible in his imagination, visions of the Werewolf Capture Unit stumbling across him or hunting him down in the forest or - "What happened? Are you hurt?"

The following 1 user Likes Jude Wright's post:1 user Likes Jude Wright's post
   Clarissa Cosgrove

[Kieran Abernathy]

Kieran still swayed as Jude's chair scraped against the kitchen floor. The horrible sound felt almost like the only real thing that had happened all morning.

Now that he was in the process of admitting it, the process of his confession, he felt almost - relieved. Maybe. There was no going back now, wasn't there? And he couldn't go back; could not face the risk again with the knowledge that it could have happened again. He could not think of his future past this conversation, past Jude's kitchen.

Suddenly he could not really think of anything.

He reached out one hand to grab onto Jude primarily because he was not actually entirely sure about standing, but also because more than anything he wanted to hold onto something. There was blood on his fingers, and the obvious literary references almost made Kieran laugh, never mind that it was his own. 

He did not know how long his ankle had been bleeding; the wound had veered towards gruesome, and besides that there was the feeling that he had had since looking at the ankle and those chains. That shaky out-of-body feeling, the horrible anxiety and the knowledge and more than anything that perpetual guilt.

It had been so close.

"I almost got out last night," Kieran said, in a tone he did not quite recognize, "I - it tried to chew off my foot."

  

[Jude Wright]

Kieran reached for him, and Jude gripped his arm in return in order to steady him. His hands were bloodied slightly. Shit. As he raked his gaze over Kieran, Jude tried to settle his heartbeat from this frantic thrumming, but it was hard to with his thoughts hurtling towards the picture of Kieran bleeding out on the kitchen floor. No, but he was conscious and he was standing - just about - and he had managed to apparate, that was something. He was fine, he would be fine.

Jude glanced up again when Kieran explained what had happened. He flinched involuntarily, more at the horror of the second statement than the first. It might have been different, if he had gotten out... but no, it didn't even bear thinking about. He had said almost. Almost. The word wasn't much, usually, and in this case exposed the possibility as a very narrow miss - but still, almost was an extraordinary comfort. It was enough. It made all the difference in the world.

But what Kieran had done to himself - what the creature had done to itself in the night - was as terrible as he'd said. Still trying to steady him, one hand holding on firmly, Jude knelt down to get a better look at his foot. He swallowed uncomfortably at the sight of it, quietly examining how the skin had been fused back together already but had left the damage scarred and plain, the whole ankle mangled somehow, and blood smeared everywhere.

He'd had the vague idea that some animals would do that sort of thing to free themselves from a trap out of sheer desperation, but it was another realisation altogether seeing the effects of it, the work of a wolf's maw, on a human body. How awful for him to have awoken to this. "I'm so sorry," he breathed, not sure whether he was battling the urge to recoil from it or to keep staring.

Jude got to his feet again, his brows knitted. "Here, sit, you should sit," he instructed, hastily hooking a leg of the nearest chair with his foot to drag it out towards Kieran. He could prop his foot up on the other chair: take the weight off it, that sounded like a clear first step, and elevate it to stop more bleeding. He ought to clean it up a bit, Jude thought. As well as he could. He wracked his brains for how to go about that, sure that they had some medical supplies in one of these kitchen cupboards. His flatmate was the healer though, obviously. That at least made more sense about why Kieran had come here, anyway; although Jude's flatmate didn't know, and what was more, he wasn't home, and Kieran might also have gone to Finn's, though maybe Finn didn't know either. Taking him to the hospital was clearly out of the question, so Jude let out a breath to steel himself. "It's just me at home but I - I'll do what I can -"

  

[Kieran Abernathy]

Jude was sorry, he was sorry for him, and he would not be once Kieran confessed. Still, he sat. He was weak and wavering and it was time to do his penance, but he had never envisioned this moment before and there was dried blood thin on his fingertips and his ankle.

The ankle was somehow far down on his list of concerns. Jude was thinking of it, though, with that familiar little line of concern between his eyebrows. The angle of his body projected it, concern and worry and Kieran already felt awful.

He slumped in the chair and looked down at his feet. With one foot, Kieran nudged his shoe off the foot attached to the damaged ankle. "It's not that bad," Kieran said, although it absolutely demonstrably was, "But - I just -"

He had to confess. I've done something terrible. He could not keep this a secret any longer, could not live with it, the wolf itself had rejected the secrecy. Finn knew, or had guessed. T did not.

"It's not working anymore. What I'm doing. It's not."

  

[Jude Wright]

Now that Kieran had sat and had kicked off his shoe, Jude rounded the table and began to root through the drawers for - anything that might help. Not that bad, he said now, like he hadn't just shown up at the break of dawn in this sorry state, sounding more serious than he had ever done!

Jude scoffed in wordless dissent. There wasn't much he trusted himself to say in protest, in case it came out as trembling as his hands suddenly seemed to be. No sense in panicking, he told himself, as he lifted up various jars of medicinal pastes and creams to read whether they would be of any use. Kieran had gotten hurt, but he'd made it here, he was safe, it was over. There was nothing else to worry about.

So he waited intently for Kieran to finish his fractured sentence, pouring the last of the boiled water from the kettle into a bowl and setting a cloth to soak in it.

It's not working anymore.

Jude hastily carried everything back over to Kieran, where he sank to his knees again to treat the wound. He didn't reply in haste - didn't have an answer, an easy solution - but surely, he thought, talking about this could wait. Not long, not nearly long enough: the moon would be back out tonight. But a few moments more. One thing at a time.

Rolling up the bottom of Kieran's trouser leg to see it better again, he wrung out the warm cloth over the bowl and began washing off the worst of the dried blood. Biting his lip, he worked in careful circles around the wound, getting as close to the scarred area as he dared. No, Kieran was right, what he was doing wasn't working. They couldn't have this happen again.

"Alright," he agreed, eyes still on Kieran's ankle but nodding anyway. Perhaps the forest wasn't the best place to be, to begin with. For one, it was dangerous - out where someone might just happen to come across him - and maybe the setting made the creature more restless, being chained up. "Is this the first time?" Jude asked. "That it's happened?" He was utterly unaware if it weren't, though he wasn't sure he trusted Kieran not to have been battling against the werewolf trying to maim him for months already. But perhaps it had only been this time, perhaps something had provoked the creature to wrest more with its chains last night. Heard something, or seen something, maybe.

"Maybe something was different last night?" he wondered aloud. There had to be something to do. If the chains had worked all the rest, then Kieran maybe wouldn't have to create a new plan from scratch, maybe he'd be able to avoid what had happened this time. It would do no good to make this ankle worse, of course...

  

[Kieran Abernathy]

He couldn't lie anymore.

It was the overwhelming sense of guilt and the perpetual anxiety; the sense that sooner or later he was going to drink himself to death if he didn't confess; the sense that if he hurt someone else there would be no repentance.

"It's the first time that I've hurt myself this badly,"Kieran said in a low voice. He studied the bow of Jude's head, the way the slowly-advancing sunlight shone off of his hair. There were the usual scrapes and bruises of the beast flinging itself against the chains, but this was new - although it was not, really, why he was here.

He was failing.

There was blood on the cloth in Jude's hand and the sharp ache in his ankle and he was failing, Kieran was just as bad as the werewolf who had bitten him, and what did he do now?

"It hurt someone else," he said, finally, "In August. I hurt someone else."

The following 3 users Like Kieran Abernathy's post:3 users Like Kieran Abernathy's post
   Elias Grimstone, Tessa Darrow, Topaz Urquart

[Jude Wright]

He grimaced in sympathy at Kieran's first answer, most of his attention still on the wound in question. Having to chain himself up couldn't be a sustainable situation if it made the werewolf more aggravated, but at the same time there was no way to be outside without them, lest someone stumbled across his path -

So what had Kieran just said?  

"No," Jude replied, sincere and certain of this. How could he have? He'd always been careful, chained himself up, had never wanted to hurt anyone, Jude knew this without question. "No, you couldn't have," he added gently, eyes flickering upwards in an attempt to be reassuring, to settle the misplaced sense of guilt Kieran was clearly feeling about last night's near miss.

He found his gaze caught on Kieran now, slow to decipher the expression on his face. But it was probably the last thing Kieran had needed, for this to happen, when Jude supposed there must have been a seed sown of this feeling already. He'd been acting differently in the last few months, had seemed to have found a new agitation about his condition. Jude had been worried about him.

Since... since August.

Since the news about Topaz Urquart.

Jude's hand stilled suddenly, the bloodied cloth halfway between Kieran's ankle and the washbowl. His grasp on it tightened without him noticing, wringing a few accidental droplets out onto the floor.

No. There was no connection there, there wasn't. Hurt didn't mean bitten. Jude pushed away the idea that was burrowing its way into his head, offended by the mere notion of thinking it. No, because it made perfect sense already that Kieran had cared so profoundly when the news had broken, without being personally involved. It was natural. He'd... if he'd done anything, it had been try to help...

"You're exhausted," Jude said steadily, meaning you don't know what you're saying.

The following 1 user Likes Jude Wright's post:1 user Likes Jude Wright's post
   Topaz Urquart