September 1st, 1887 — London

His father likely wouldn't appreciate him appearing in the middle of his office at the hospital, just as he probably wouldn't appreciate the bloody mess he'd made of both office at home and his eldest son, but these were as far from Theo's consideration as they could be.

Theo had flooed to the hospital and barged into the office, a slightly sooty and bloody mess, wand drawn and breathing heavily. "Father, you have to come home at once!" he blurted out, face reddened from his haste. It hadn't once occurred to him what he looked like or what sort of disturbance he might be causing if not just for his father, then for the hospital in general seeing as he'd dashed out of a fireplace and to his father's office. He at least had the excuse of being an auror and in a hospital to excuse his bedraggled and blood-strained state.

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“…if we—” the hospital director was not able to finish his thought, for in that moment his son burst into the room, bloody and frantic. Almost at once, Charles was on his feet, moving to grip Barnabas by the arm, completely disregarding the rather confused-looking assistant as he moved to haul his son from the room.

“What’s happened?!” Charles demanded.

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lady makes pretty things <3

Theo realized moments after his outburst that his father hadn't been alone but this didn't really bother him, it wasn't as though he'd said anything revealing. His father was thankfully already maneuvering him though so he could be a little more candid, although he really didn't want to have to spend a moment longer there trying to convince his father that he was very urgently needed at home. His mind was back on Lou who had barely been conscious when he'd left him. Fuck, how long had he been gone already? It seemed too long but also like he'd only been gone a few minutes.

"I came across him at the Ministry by accident and I had to stop him but there was splinching and I think it might be really bad, Pa, we don't have time for this!" His voice got increasingly more frantic and higher in pitch as he thought increasingly more of how he'd last seen Lou and the time he now felt they were wasting.

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The younger wizard did not say who the ‘him’ was, but from his tone and his state and the way Charles’ life had been going of late, he had a sinking suspicion that he knew precisely who. Still gripping his son by the arm, the healer disapparated with a pop! and appeared swiftly in his home parlour—he could make his excuses to the assistant later.

“Take me to him—and explain as we go!”

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lady makes pretty things <3

His father apparated him away almost as abruptly as he'd apparated Lou away earlier, although with significantly less bodily damage which is to say none at all. Now that they were back at the house, Theo wasted no time in heading for his father's study. In his head, his brain was presenting him with taunting scenarios he might find upon opening the door. Maybe Lou would be gone, nothing left of him to find but blood stains and he'd never figure out where he'd gone to before it was probably too late either to stop him from bleeding to death or to stop him from turning himself in still. The worst, however, was the though that they'd walk in and find him dead. How could he possibly live with himself knowing he'd caused his brother's death, his real death? A werewolf couldn't kill him but his stupid little brother could? It just wouldn't be right.

"I left him in your study," he began, his voice cracking a little. He was now walking so fast it was almost a run. "He wanted to hand himself in to the Ministry, I couldn't let him do that but he was insisting, I- I don't know why I couldn't just sidelong apparate like a normal person, I'm an Auror for fucks sake, Dad!" If anyone thought he looked and sounded close to tears, it would be an accurate assessment.

Finally, he reached the door and was so agitated trying to turn the handle that he was about ready to try ripping the door clean off its hinges. Not that he would have actually succeeded in doing so with just brute strength. "Lou?"

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Of all the fathers in the world, what had Charles Jameshill done to be saddled with such an idiot for a son? Lupus, in this instance, was the idiot—though he had botched the attempt, Barnabas could only be commended for his efforts to save his brother from himself.

Unless Lou died, then all bets would be off.

“It’s difficult to apparate someone who does not wish to be apparated,” the healer reassured his son, but his voice, and indeed his mind, was distant. How bad truly was it? What would cleaning this up entail? What had Lupus Jameshill been thinking?

The sight that greeted him in his study, for all of Barnabas’ hysterics, was far worse than Charles had expected. At once, he was at his unconscious son’s side, wand in hand as he tried to figure out where in the hell to start.

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lady makes pretty things <3

As his father moved to take over, Theo leaned against the door they'd just walked through, shutting it in the process. Lou was no longer in the chair he'd left him in but lying on the floor, bloodier than before and disturbingly still. It wasn't far off the scenario he'd imagined seconds earlier, the main difference was the insistent belief that Lou had to be alive still.

Now what was he supposed to do? He was no healer, he was just an idiot who couldn't sidelong apparate without mangling someone. He knew enough from his auror training to know that the neck wound was the most worrying and that if either wound was going to kill him quickly it was that one. He'd just gotten his brother back, and not even properly, not publicly. They still couldn't get drinks together at the Leaky Cauldron or even go anywhere together without having to be furtive and careful if they wanted to.

He ran his hands through his hair and blinked hard several times to keep the threat of tears at bay. There was no dignity in weeping like a child in front of his father and Lou, assuming he ever regained consciousness.

"How bad is it? What should I do?" Or had he done enough already? He almost wanted his father to give him some mostly useless mundane task to keep his mind away from his hemorrhaging brother on the floor which was entirely his fault.

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Charles was quite sure that they had already lost far too much time, and was not inclined to waste any more.

“Go to my workroom,” he instructed clearly and with a tone that gave no room for discussion. “Fetch me a bottle of essence of dittany—two, in fact—, a roll of bandaging, and a bottle of laudanum for the pain. Summon them, do not waste time looking, and then return to me at once.”

He gave Barnabas one last look before turning his attentions instead to Lupus once more. Merlin, he was lucky to still have his jugular intact, though the paper-thin casing of the artery was perilously at risk of perforating if Lou’s heartrate rose to high. Instinctively, Chares tore a strip from his robes, wadding it up and holding it against the throbbing vein in a desperate, pre-emptive defence against his son’s rapidly approaching death.

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lady makes pretty things <3

So much for wishing he had something useless to do, procuring the instruments for saving his brother seemed suddenly like too great a responsibility after what he'd done already. In a philosophical sense, he ought to be the one to get the life-saving supplies so as to atone for nearly killing him in the first place but Theo wasn't into that sort of waffle and karmic mumbo jumbo. He had potentially murdered his brother and clearly he couldn't be relied upon to not mess that up too.

Fortunately for Lou's gaping wounds, Theo was also just about smart enough to recognize that arguing with his father would waste even more time that he might not even have. He stepped away from the door, flung it open, and ran for his father's workroom as instructed.

Two bottles of dittany essence, a roll of bandages, laudanum. Two bottles of dittany, a roll of bandages, laudanum. The words repeated in his mind like a mantra staving off his fear. The thought of apparating to the workroom did occur to him but he held back at the terrified thought of being too frantic to not splinch himself thus ruining Lou's chances and maybe even killing himself too in the process. If it didn't kill him, he'd certainly have wished it had. Two dittany, bandages, laudanum.

He hurled himself into the work room and with a shaky hand, got to summoning the objects. He retrieved the dittany essence first, taking a third bottle just in case, then summoned bandages and found himself bombarded by probably every bandage in the room. He collected about five rolls in his panic, and then almost forgot the laudanum. Thankfully, he didn't forget it, although he only had enough space to carry one bottle so he couldn't overcompensate on that one.

What he hoped was only a minute or two later, Theo barged back into his father's study and nearly dropped everything on the floor in his immense relief. Thankfully, he didn't but he did throw himself rather roughly at the floor next to Lou in a move that would probably leave a bruise on his tailbone for the next week or so but that didn't even register. One roll of bandages did bounce out of his arms and across the floor though. "I've got it all - bandages, dittany, laudanum." He was lightly out of breath from running across the house like a madman.

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Lou hadn't lasted long after his brother had left. He'd only been tenuously hanging on to consciousness while Theo was there, to be honest, and he didn't have the strength to do anything once he left. He could hardly even hold on to any thought long enough to follow it to its conclusion, and his head was a swirl of three stunted worries:

Theo was going to get their father. He was fucked.

The full moon was tonight. He was fucked.

He was bleeding out. He was fucked.

It was hard to decide, with his vision blurring and his fingertips starting to lose feeling, which of these was the chiefest concern. They were certainly all bad. One of them was probably worse than the other two. He didn't have the mental capacity to figure out which was which. Then he was out, in a sort of cold sleep, unaware of everything around him.

Lou had no idea how long he'd been unconscious, but then he suddenly wasn't, because someone had just attacked his throat and Merlin, that hurt. He was disoriented enough that he didn't realize the thing at his throat was cloth, and he didn't recognize the vague noises as the voices of his father or brother. He gasped for air on instinct, but trying to breath hurt terribly. He coughed, an impulse rather than a choice, and that hurt even worse.

He was dying.

  

Damn.

While the cough was a sign that Lupus had not yet drifted off the mortal coil, consciousness was not in their favour at the moment.

“Hold his head up—gently—and get him to take as much of the laudanum as you can,” he directed Barnabas hastily, summoning the bandages and one of the vials of dittany for himself.

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lady makes pretty things <3

Theo nearly jumped out of his skin at the sound of his brother's coughing. Gasping and coughing was definitely an improvement on corpse-like silence, but Theo thought it sounded all too much like a death rattle and he had to force himself to be extra careful when lifting his head up as their father instructed rather than blundering in and moving his head around like a sock puppet in a desperate attempt to keep his brother on the right side of death.

With a surprisingly steady hand, Theo took the laudanum bottle and with his other hand holding Lou's head, he set to the awkward task of trying to pour the liquid down his brother's throat without drowning him. As the laudanum started to trickle into his mouth, Theo's steady hand became less steady and the realization of this only made it worse. He poured a little too much and then he spilled it down Lou's chin. Disgusted with himself, he put the bottle down for a moment and maneuvered his lap beneath his brother's head so he might at least make that more comfortable for him. "I'm sorry, Lou," he muttered quietly, hoping his father wouldn't hear. He doubted Lou could even hear him but he felt the tiniest bit better for having said it.

With a deep breath to steady himself, he picked the laudanum up again and set to feeding it to his unconscious brother. "When should I stop?" Was it even going down all the way? Swallow, damn it! Please!

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For all his grandstanding in the letters he'd sent out that morning, for all that he'd written about being ready for whatever happened next, Lou had never expected this. He'd told Xena he might never see her again, but he hadn't expected to die so soon. He might have told her that he was ready, but he wasn't. He didn't want to die.

The matter was, at the moment, rather out of his hands.

He was vaguely aware of motion (and pain, more pain) and then something was in his mouth. Liquid. Lou gagged but couldn't bring himself to cough again with the pain in his throat, and after one startled, panicked moment he swallowed as much of the foreign substance as his mangled throat would allow.

  

“When he’s no longer moving, but not so much that he dies!” Charles returned, his businesslike demeanor giving way to paternal panic for one blissful moment before he shoved that panic back aside to focus on the task at hand, but having released it once, it lurked more forcefully, waiting for another chance to free itself.

With the throat momentarily tended to in a patchwork sort of fashion—though it would need more thorough attention to heal properly—the healer turned his attentions to his son’s missing forehead, applying a similar technique but much less slapdash.

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lady makes pretty things <3

His father's alarm heightened his own and Theo abruptly stopped trickling the substance into his brother's mouth to watch him carefully. He seemed to be swallowing just about, or so it seemed. If only he'd trained as a healer instead of an auror! Or not, on second thought that might mean he'd have tried to save him on his own and he doubted he'd do as good a job as his father and even then Lou might still die. It was probably a very good thing he hadn't been a healer, if only for the sake of Lou's life. Now, if he'd gone into the Department of Magical Transport perhaps he'd have brushed up on his side-long apparation skills and avoided the entire debacle. Not that there was any good focusing on ifs and maybes and other hypotheticals. 

"I'm so sorry, Lou, I'm so sorry!" he heard himself whining. Who knew if his brother could even hear him? He hoped he wasn't in pain at least now, he was hesitant to give him anymore laudanum in case, as his father had warned, it was too much and he killed him that way instead. Pain was better than death. He seemed pretty still at least? Theo wasn't sure how long it took for the stuff to work, if he'd ever been given laudanum he hadn't paid much attention to how much he'd needed. "Don't die on me, okay? Promise me you won't die on me again, I just found you again and we haven't even caught up properly yet, we've got all sorts of things we have to do, like- Like broom race each other and- And see a quidditch match together and things that brothers are supposed to do together." His eyes felt warm and scratchy but he ignored it. "Perhaps you could even teach me to apparate better, what do you think?"

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   Lupus Jameshill

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The stuff in his mouth tasted awful--bitter and pungent, and maybe familiar, like something he'd had a long time ago but couldn't quite remember. The taste lingered there after the liquid was gone, and he wasn't cognizant enough to think much past that. He was starting to feel vaguely numb in more than just his fingertips and feet--which either meant that whatever they'd put in his mouth was some sort of painkiller, or else the blood loss was starting to get to him and he was going to die soon. He hoped the former.

Theo was talking. He could recognize the voices now as his father's (a short sentence, something that sounded angry and rushed) and Theo's (much longer, panicked) but it took him a moment to make the syllables resolve themselves into words. He didn't know what Theo was talking about, but something was happening on his forehead--he could see the vague outlines of spells lighting off on the other side of his closed eyelids--and breathing was getting easier, less painful. Still painful, but less painful.

Theo was apologizing, he realized. Right. Theo had splinched him. Things were starting to come back, though it was still hard to hold on to them over the sound of his pulse and the numbness and the pain. Theo had splinched him because... Because he'd been at the Ministry. Right. Shit, that was right. Theo had stopped him from turning himself in, and he needed to do that--he needed to do that now, so that he was there and not here when the full moon came up.

He made an attempt at stirring (though how he thought he was going to get away from both his father and his brother, he had no idea) but the laudanum had started to set in, and all he managed was to momentarily raise his head off of Theo's lap, eyes fluttering open briefly, before he'd reached the limits of his strength and collapsed back down, drawing long, slow breaths.