PA 3.5: End of a Tail

Chapter VI Part I

Once she figured there was enough greenery and distance between herself and the school, Dell let fatigue set in. Her arms felt like noodles, and she had to take regular breaks when carrying Brownie. Eventually, she arrived at the house where she had left her earlier letter.
 

The area around the house itself struck an ideal chord between rural and suburban. The commercial center of the town was only around 15 minutes away by foot if one took shortcuts, but the area surrounding the house was tranquil and home to some small animals local to the environment, without another house in sight.

When she finally came within view of the back, she saw a small trail of blood leading to Patches, who was sitting at the house's base on its grass yard.

In his paws were a set of two or three zip ties one might find for securing hardware or wiring, but large enough to make their purposes of binding clear. Dell let Brownie down near Patches, who was raspily breathing as blood soaked the fur around his left eye, almost entirely covering his head.

Dell took a second to pant. "Are... you... okay...?" she said between heavy breaths.

"N-No." Patches tried handing the binding to Dellanor. "P-Put her arms behind her, and tie them together at the w-wrist."

"What?! No." Disbelief washed over Dell, and she took another second to cough before continuing. "I- I should... heal that cut first." She looked at the two arrow-like protrusions coming from his arm and leg, "And- and those." She could feel herself beginning to hyperventilate, but her medicine kept her body calm enough for now.

Patches looked like he wanted to object but could only groan as the aching of penetrated flesh and severed muscles set in. He was clutching his broken rib with his good paw, trying not to move it around any more than it already had been.

Dell shuffled through her backpack, finding the medical supplies from earlier, and stared at the contents in complete ignorance. Patches raised his right paw up, tapping at the gash on the left side of his head, wincing in pain as he realized the cut was still bleeding lightly. It was a miracle he hadn't passed out yet.

Patches gestured for the bag, then grabbed it himself with a grunt. He took out the roll of gauze and tried unwrapping it but found the pain in his arm too much to cope with yet. Patches handed the cloth over to Dell as forcefully as he could with a squeezing of his eyes and a groan of pain.

"Wrap that around m-my head. Make sure it's-s under the fur, or it won't d-do anything," Patches said, snagging a disinfectant wipe, ripping it open and slowly going over the wound, flinching as the alcohol stung him.

Dell nervously looked at the cut as she began to unfurl some of the bandage. She felt like she was about to puke at the sight of the parted flesh and texture of blood. His fur had helped to staunch the flow, but Dellanor found it difficult to wrap the bandage around the wound with the matted mess in the way.

She began by doing as instructed, and wrapping the cloth around the wound directly, then going over it repeatedly until the bandage was all used up. Patches had to order her multiple times to cover it tighter, but the dressing seemed to stop blood flow eventually.

Grabbing the second and last bandage, she looked to stop blood flow around the splinter in Patches' leg.

Patches stuttered, "No, st-top. We need to take them out, then c-close the wound. Get the disinfectant." Surprisingly, Patches already sounded like he felt a bit better; he didn't look the part, though.

Dell rooted around the plastic bag, dumping most of the supplies onto the ground for an easier time looking through them, almost losing the sutures in the untrimmed grass.

While she searched for the disinfectant wipes, Patches grabbed the splinter in his arm, noticing how it was loosely lodged in and indeed had penetrated much like a barbed arrow. He tested it, yanking gently on the thing; it hurt like hell, but after the tug, the wood came out alongside a new flow of ichor.

"Oh, s-shit," Patches said, quickly applying pressure to the area. He snatched the sutures from the ground, grit in his eyes, as he started separating the thread from itself, getting ready to hook the curved needle under his flesh.

Dell watched in horror as he pricked his own skin, making him yell out in pain, and causing him to pause as he tried to recuperate and continue before the blood loss became too much to handle. The yell shocked Dell from her stupor. She fumbled her paws towards Patches and grasped the area around the wound.

Grunting, Patches shoved her off of him weakly. "AGH! What the hell are y-you doing?!" he yelled.

Dell approached more gently, keeping her paws in the air. "I'm going- let me help you." She gently tried to take the needle from him.

"Haha. You have no idea how to do a-any of this. Don't pretend."

Dellanor unfurled her paw that wasn't clutching the needle now, revealing two red pills she had gotten from the first aid kit. "Oh, r-right! Here, take these." Patches had forgotten about the tablets in all the commotion of trying to stop the bleeding. "They're, uh, Tailenol. I don't know how much they'll help, but..."

He fumbled for the two pills and downed them with saliva, ignoring Dell's concerns. Tilting his head back made him woozy, and he remembered any puddle of blood over a paw's width meant he was suffering from blood loss; this was more than a small puddle.

"... You know I could have gotten you some water, right?"

"Start doing the s-stitches, right there." he said.

Dell nodded in understanding and focused as her shaky paws slipped the needle further into the other dog's flesh. She felt the sensation of blood on her paw-tips, and her whole body was numb from the experience. The terrier began slipping the needle through the wound, making Patches groan and cry out in pain each time he felt it penetrate skin.

Dell pulled taut on the thin wire after following Patches' instructions to loop the sutures around one another. After making sure the suture was as tight as the bandages, she snipped off the half she hadn't used.

"Is that good?"

Patches nodded in response. "Hand me the o-other bandage and scissors. Start on the leg; twist it and pull unless I say stop."

Patches grabbed the bloody piece of chair that had just been in his arm, biting down on it and then dully looking at the new sutured wound. He began to wrap the wound after touching it with the wipe some more, then snipped the bandage just as Dell hit a nerve, causing Patches to yell out in muffled agony. She stopped with fear in her eyes, and Patches looked at her and gestured to keep going.

Dell twisted and rotated the wood, much like one would coax an axe from a log. A weak spatter of blood came from the wound as it finally dislodged. She could hear Patches muttering curses as she quickly tried focusing on the task at paw.

Dell tried to ignore the winking of the circular wound, finding it harder and harder to keep her stomach down as she inserted the first bit of the needle. Her work was incredibly sloppy and did nearly nothing to stop the bleeding until Patches gritted his teeth and began instructing her.

When they were done, Patches used the rest of the bandage to staunch the sutured area while Dell looked him over again and then began to heave. She turned her head away from Patches and got on all fours, placing a paw to her mouth and trying to calm her stomach down.

"You know, most people do that before they've done anything useful."

He snickered to himself, trying to keep himself awake and in the moment. Patches couldn't feel his feet, and the world became dizzy as he tried kicking Dell in the shins to bring her attention to him.