All that is dark | ✓

13| blood

ZION WAS LYING FLAT on his back on the floor when they passed him, staring at her like she was a witch instead of human. Helene tried to apologize to the server before they left, halfway through asking how she could compensate them for the teacup when Dante just pulled her out of the cafe before she could finish her sentence. He didn't let her stop once on their short walk to the nearest ER, Helene not bothering to protest after a while. She had wanted to bandage his hand, but he wouldn't let her, so there was not much for her to do.

They only had to take four steps into the ER for her to be recognized, the doctor smiling at once. Oliver, she remembered his name was. He'd co-authored one of her papers, but at this point, with all the research she had completed over the years and the articles she had published, she had worked together with any well-known doctor in the city. His gaze snapped towards her hands then, only just realizing as his eyes widened. They were in a hospital room within moments, a nurse following along as she hurriedly placed all her material to bandage the wound down in a sterile field.

"Treat her first," Dante said.

"No need," Helene said, waving her hand," I only have light cuts, not deep enough to have hit any prominent arteries or nerves. You held onto the glass much tighter than I did."

"I'll survive," Dante began.

"You could've severed a tendon," she interrupted him," they're quite superficial on the hand, not to mention the veins you cut."

Dante refused to give his hand to the nurse, most of the bleeding having stopped already during their walk towards the hospital, but still enough for Helene to be worried. Why was this man so stubborn?

"Fine," she said," I'll let my wound be treated, but only if you treat yours. Now give her your hand."

Reluctantly Dante agreed, though he kept his gaze on her to check if she was keeping her word as well. While Oliver asked her questions about how it had happened she let him sterilize her wounds, before taking the bandage from him so she could put it on herself.

"He's going to need stitches," she said to Oliver," you should check through which layers of the skin he cut."

"I will," he reassured her, the nurse briefly taking the pressure off Dante's wound to show Oliver the scar. "How did one teacup accidentally breaking hurt you both like this though?"

A faint frown pulled at Dante's eyebrows, the man clearly unpleased with her lie. Still, what should she have said? That she broke it on her own and tried to stab herself with it? She wasn't about to get admitted to the psychiatric ward today, not when she was supposed to be on the other side of the table again tomorrow.

"I'm afraid we're both a bit clumsy," she smiled.

"She's right," Oliver said," we are going to have to stitch this up. Hopefully it won't scar when it's healing."

"I don't mind if it does," Dante shrugged.

And he was the one calling her crazy? She supposed though that it didn't matter to her either if it scarred. It probably would, even if it wasn't deep enough to have severed much. Her skin always had been prone to marks, that she had discovered early.

Dante was taken along to be stitched up, Helene answering the last questions as they checked her vital parameters and other injuries. Afterwards she waited for Dante, who emerged with his usual frown and a set of instructions about how to keep his wound clean, none of which he would listen to. She had expected him to give her a sermon as soon as they were out of the hospital, but it was only when they had walked back towards the cafe that he spoke.

"You're strange," Dante said," one moment you're the least confrontational person I know and the next you snap completely."

Helene's eyes had wandered over the trail of blood splatters beneath their feet from Dante's wound, dark on the stones.