“You really need surgery,” Leon said, his face as pale as ever. “Like, seriously. We can try to patch it up, but we need to get you to a hospital, and-”
“How are we going to explain it?” Daniel whispered. “What, are we going to say I accidentally shot myself? Oh, I know, we can say you shot me on accident.” He shook his head. “What kind of idiots would believe something like that?”
“W-Well, I’m magic now, right? Maybe I could-”
“It’s too risky,” Daniel whispered, leaning back against the wall. His head pounded. “Even if we could convince the hospital, with those people still looking for us...no.” He clenched his fist, a lance of pain rippling through his gut as Leon prodded. “I’ll...I’ll figure something else out for the long-term. Let’s get through the now.”
“...I guess. If you say so.”
“I do,” Daniel whispered, grinning. It only looked a little like a grimace. “Now, uh. There’s a curtain over there.”
Leon stood with a final, weary look at Daniel—and then his gaze turned to the elegantly-woven fabric in question. His lips curled up. “Sorry, Alex,” Daniel heard him say.
The ripping of cloth filled the air a moment later.
Pack the wound. Pad it. Wrap it—tighter. No part of it was terribly complicated, when push came to shove. But with both of their hands covered in blood and every twist filling Daniel’s limbs with agony, it was still harder than he’d expected. He kept a smile on his face as best he could, refusing to let Leon see how much it hurt. This was just the warm-up, the dress rehearsal.
The bullet hadn’t gotten lodged in him. That was the single positive he could think of. Even his painfully basic medical knowledge had given him plenty of insight on how bad an idea digging the bullet back out of his leg would be, but the idea of spending the rest of his life with a hunk of lead inside him was equally unappealing.
He’d been almost fast enough. He stole glances now and again before the wound vanished entirely behind scraps of deep blue and silver embroidery. The shot had torn clear through the back of his leg, but it could have been worse. Much worse. He’d spend the next few weeks limping, but it hadn’t hit an artery. In the end, that was the best he could hope for.
By the time they finished, Leon’s shirt had soaked clear through with sweat, and Daniel knew he didn’t look much better. But the wound had vanished, tightly wrapped in whatever usable fabric they could find.
Overhead, the winds hadn’t stopped shrieking since he unwrapped the bandage. Daniel leaned his head back again, flashing an exhausted smile toward the ceiling. “Sorry,” he whispered. “I know you gave me better medicine. I just...needed to figure this out.”
“She mad?” Leon tossed the last of the fabric aside, sitting on the other end of the bench.
Daniel shrugged. He eased himself straight, turning until his leg dropped from the padded fabric and his heel hit the floor. They needed to be moving, not lazing around. “I guess,” he said. “You know how she is. It’s not like she tells me what she’s thinking.”
“But you can tell.”
A chuckle burst from his throat. “Can’t you?”
“What, you mean the fact she’s screaming like a pissed-off cat, and the whole place feels more like a haunted house than a library?” Leon snorted. “I’m getting the message.” He lifted his chin, mirroring Daniel’s searching of the rafters. “Hey, Miss Alexandria. Sorry. We’ll get out of your hair in a little bit. Please don’t eat me?”
“She’s not going to eat you,” Daniel mumbled. “She only eats people she hates.”
“W-Wait, what?” Leon said, twisting back to face him. “She eats people? Daniel, I was joking.”
“Eh. Anyway, we should-”
“Eh?” Leon’s voice rose sharply. “This is a bit more than an ‘eh’ moment.”
Daniel laughed, but his thoughts were drifting away, turning sour. Alex only ate people she hated—but while he’d been certain that she liked Leon, now, he wasn’t so sure. She’d put him here at his side, like some kind of matchmaking old biddy, but...that was when Leon had been fully human. He wasn’t, anymore. So much had changed.
Now, all he could see was Alex pinning Leon in the door. She’d stood against him once. What was to say she couldn’t do it again?
His eyelids drooped, wobbling lower. “I-It’s fine,” he whispered, rubbing at his face. “We...We should go.”
“What?” Leon said from alongside him. “Go where? What, uh. What did you have in mind?”
Daniel shook his head. His lungs ached with a yawn that fought to escape. He pressed a hand to his face instead, trapping it inside. “We...We’re still in trouble. They’re out there. While we’re here…”
“We should take it easy.”
“We should make the most of the resources we have,” Daniel said, casting a sidelong glance toward Leon. His vision blurred. He blinked stubbornly until it cleared. “There’s a fight coming. Out there. We should...We should-”
“Okay, I amend my earlier statement,” Leon said, arching an eyebrow. “You should take a nap.”
“Damn it, Alex,” Daniel muttered. He wasn’t enough of an idiot to wonder at his sudden exhaustion—although given everything they’d been through over the last twenty-four hours, it’d make sense for it all to be catching up with him. “I don’t- I’m not tired. I’m just-”
“Don’t be an idiot.” A hand landed on his shoulder, firm without being rough. In the time it took for him to make an irritated noise, Daniel found himself yanked back down to the padded bench. “We’ve got all the time in the world, right?”
“W-We should…” Daniel gave
