[closed] just the way the sunlight hits your eyes

[hellshaped]

CHARACTERS: Hellboy and Olivia
DATE: After this thing
WARNINGS: Blood, injury
SUMMARY: Hellboy got in a fight with a dead guy. Olivia helps him stop bleeding everywhere.

Hellboy is not really sure what he was expecting to have happened.

Part of him feels confused. Betrayed, maybe. He didn't know Koltira that well, but he had him pegged for more or less a good person, if not a little on the morose side. He certainly didn't expect to find him terrorizing some person in the woods, and get shredded for intervening.

Another part of him feels elated; he's loath to admit it, but something about fighting like that has always made his adrenaline flow like nothing else. He tries not to think about it too hard as he trudges back toward the goblin settlement, leaving a trail of blood behind him. It's not that he's not concerned with being found by some ravenous animal following the proverbial breadcrumbs, but what else is he going to do?

As quickly as his wounds will heal, it's not instantaneous. He's going to have to take it easy for a few days. And, most importantly, find something to stop himself from bleeding out.

Comments

[winces]

It's pure chance that has their paths crossing. Being a human, Olivia wasn't really all that welcomed among the goblins, though that didn't often prevent her from venturing further out in an attempt to find better vendors with better deals. That's what has her this far out, now, arms laden with a satchel newly washed from glowworm gathering and full of various produce that the emergence of the celestial bodies seem to have encouraged vendors to let go for a decent price.

It's a burden she forgets about the moment her eyes catch on Hellboy's lumbering figure, emerging from the outskirts that she'd been warned away from. Instinct has her fear spiking for a moment — somehow, his imposing figure looks only more so all cut up and covered in blood — but it's a moment that quickly passes when she remembers their shared drinks, the quiet smiles and laughter they indulged in under the influence of mead.

"A-Are you okay—?"

She is by his side in an instant, scurrying over with her arms still full, but one hand is already stretching out towards him, as if to help steady him should he need it.

[hellshaped]

It's not as though Hellboy hadn't been expecting to run into anyone. It's not like this place is abandoned. But seeing a human is a little startling -- he'd been expecting a goblin, if not some kind of animal attracted by the blood. He stops once he sees her, a combination of surprise and an instinctive unwillingness to appear imposing.

It's Olivia, her soft pink hair setting her apart from anyone else, and Hellboy relaxes in the presence of someone he knows, even distantly.

"It's just a scratch," he says, trying to make a joke, though the loss of tension means he kind of loses his balance and he begins to tilt toward Olivia alarmingly. He may need her steadying after all.

[winces]

There is a brief scuffle—

A sharp squeak of alarm, some frantic flailing, and the muffled sounds of several vegetables and meats thudding to the ground, but by the end of it, Olivia has managed to catch the tipping demon without any real struggle. He is a large man, for sure, with the weight to back it all up, but she has somehow managed a steady footing when she scrambled towards him, and her hands now hold his shoulder and chest steadily.

"Y-You're cut up all over...!"

Not that he probably needed to be told. Even just in this, she finds herself suddenly covered in blood, soaking through the thin material of her garments and staining. Panic bubbles up in her chest, moving to ease them both down towards the ground, lest his knees give out on them both.

"What happened — was it the King's guards? Enemy goblins? M-Monsters??"

[hellshaped]

There is a lot of blood, but luckily (?) Hellboy has a lot of blood to lose. He'll apologize for it later, because wow, is coating an acquaintance in your blood not a really good impression to make -- but he can barely comprehend what Olivia is saying right now, let alone realize how much he's bleeding all over her.

He is distantly aware of being lowered, and he instinctively puts his hands out to catch himself so he doesn't just crumple over.

"No," he says, once he figures out what she's asking. The change in elevation is probably good, because he finds he can concentrate a little easier now. "One of us. I don't know what the hell happened."

[winces]

Her small hands freeze over his chest, right where she'd been about to pull aside the frayed material of his coat to get a better look at his wounds. Now all she's looking at is his face, his eyes, wondering (hoping) if he were joking.

"One of us?" she echoes, the air around them seeming to still and cool from her trepidation alone. It hadn't even occurred to her that one of their own could turn on them, and somehow that thought is scarier than all her previous suspicions combined.

"But — how? Why?"

She knows things have been tense since Michel's disappearance, but she didn't think it would have risen to the point of discord among them. There are so few of them in the first place — hardly an army by Basilio's standards, for sure; not that an army is what's required here, but sometimes Olivia does wonder...

[hellshaped]

Hellboy's expression is naturally inscrutable, the deadpan set of his features often making it difficult to tell exactly what he's feeling, if he's being serious or joking. His eyes are flat and yellow, and he looks up to study Olivia's face. He can tell she's worried, his words making it even worse.

But he can't help that. It's the truth.

"I don't know. He was attacking a girl," he says, gesturing vaguely in the direction he came from, the blood trail he left. "It was like he was possessed."

Pausing, Hellboy lowers his hand back to the ground. He can feel the moisture under his palm, his blood soaking the snow and the dirt.

"He would have killed her."

[winces]

Her eyes naturally follow the wave of his hand, falling over dark silhouettes of trees that all of a sudden seem menacing. Her mind kicks up a lot faster than her body — racing over this new information. She tries not to fret (which is a feat for her, even on a regular day) and tries to focus instead on the things he isn't saying: "would have" means he didn't, which means that hellboy had managed to help.

"It's a good thing you were there..."

And he wouldn't be here unless she were safe, so that means regardless where she is, she's alright.

But as for their comrade-turned-enemy...

There's time enough to worry about that later.

"Sorry — I'll have to ruin your shirt," she murmurs, distracted as her hands get back to work, ripping into the material to expose more of his wounded chest. The wounds make her wince, conjure up a sickness that bubbles in her throat, but she hastens to swallow it all back down. Later, later, she screams in her mind.

Her hands press up against the gaping injuries, eyes falling shut as she tries to concentrate.

[hellshaped]

"That's me," he says vaguely, "always in the wrong place at the right time."

Hellboy's bad luck is absolutely legendary, but sometimes it turns out well. He doesn't want to think about what Koltira would have done had he not been interrupted -- he'd been choking the life out of that woman, who thankfully just got up and ran away as soon as she had the chance. He's a lot more durable than humans, so at least he was able to take the brunt of the rest of it for her.

He makes a noncommittal noise when she mentions his clothes, because it doesn't matter. He is a little confused by what she's doing, though, her hands going over the deep slashes and cuts on his torso --

"What are you... it'll stop bleeding on its own soon enough, you don't have to staunch it."

[winces]

She doesn't stop to question his choice of words. Stop bleeding on its own? Does that mean he self-healed at a faster rate than usual? She knows he isn't human, and so she has to wonder if perhaps this much blood is nothing to him, where it certainly would have been fatal for anyone else she knows.

But at the moment, she can't afford to let herself get too distracted. She needs all her focus to concentrate on healing the wounds presented to her. Some gashes are deeper than the others, and those are the ones she'll only be able to partially stitch up. The other, more minors ones heal up without any problem, though by the end of it, she is looking considerably winded. She's only been practicing these past few weeks, after all — she hasn't graduated to wounds of this magnitude yet.

With a light sheen of sweat dotting her brow, Olivia pulls back, lips parting on small puffs of breath. She looks over her work, and while she wishes she could have done more... It's better than what she could have done without ALASTAIR's meddling, that's for sure.

"It's... It's not much, but... That should get you through the night, at least."

wow this is a lot older than i thought it was... i'm so sorry ughh

[hellshaped]

Her assumption about Hellboy's turn of phrase is right, at least, though there's not much time for discussion. He knows his injuries must look frightening to a human, so he doesn't put up much of a fuss as Olivia does... whatever it is she's doing. He's still not entirely clear, but --

But then it doesn't matter. Her hands move away and he's staring down at his torso, already half-healed, the deeper gashes knitting together much more quickly than his body would do on its own. The smaller cuts are gone altogether.

Hellboy looks up at Olivia, eyes wide. He's lost enough blood where he still feels slightly weakened, but at least he doesn't have the pain to deal with anymore. He reaches out to touch her face, concerned by how exhausted she seems, but then thinks better of it when he realizes his hand is covered in his own blood.

"I don't know what to say. Thank you," he says, sitting a little more upright. He still doesn't quite trust magic, but it'd be rude to bring that up when it took so much out of her. "Are you okay?"