Long Live. // Luke Hemmings 5SOS (Vampire)

Chapter 35 - So Close

That phone call from Helena gave both Luke and Rosemary a sick feeling in their stomachs. If Luke wasn't already on edge from the parts of his past that he was preparing to share with Rosemary, he was practically over the edge by the time they arrived at Helena's.

Luke could smell blood.

He could also hear Helena's panicked breathing, her attempts to hold back sobs, from down in the basement; he didn't hesitate to rush down there, disappearing before Rosemary's eyes and leaving her confused. He didn't want her to be left alone, but he was afraid that she'd see something that she'd never be able to forget...

Luke certainly did. Down in the basement, in the doorway to the wine cellar where Sebastian was being kept, was Helena in a pile on the floor... Luke almost didn't register that Michael was laid, unconscious, on the floor in front of her, his head on her lap, his mouth dripping blood, and his torso soaked in it. Luke's breath caught in his throat before he quickly came to kneel in front of them, eyes wide in shock and horror.

"What- what happened?" He stammered, looking around frantically to examine the scene as quickly as possible; there was a hole torn in Michael's shirt. An open wound in his chest. A broken wooden chair at the side of the room and its bloodied leg right beside Helena. "What the fuck happened?"

"He's not healing. I took the wood out- I gave him blood and and he's not healing, why isn't he healing?" She choked out desperately, her shaky hand gripping at Michael's shirt as she rocked back and forth, hoping he would just wake the fuck up. Luke looked back at that bloodied wooden leg and felt a lump in his throat as he imagined that thing embedded in Michael's chest... He looked back at his friend. Noticed his damaged chest, barely rising and falling.

"He's still breathing. He's-..." Luke paused, his eyebrows furrowing as he looked around for any clue of what to do or say... He'd never directly dealt with anything like that before. But something came over him, some kind of adrenaline rush that told him he had to remain calm and think straight. Luke could hear Michael's faint breathing but he could also hear his slow, struggling heartbeat... He couldn't think about the possibility of his friend dying. Hell, he couldn't even think about his friend suffering right then... He had to think of how to fix it.

"Why isn't he healing?" Luke wondered out loud as he examined Michael's wound. "Something must be-..." A thought struck Luke. An image of the weapon used against Michael - that jagged piece of wood. Luke hissed in a breath, his eyes widening again as he put some unsavoury thoughts together in his mind. He shook his head.

"What? Luke, what-" Helena couldn't even complete her sentence before Luke was suddenly plunging his hand into Michael's chest, earning a shocked scream from the witch - and a sudden, waking gasp from Michael, who seemed to choke on his own blood as he felt Luke's fingers brush against his heart. Luke let out a huff of breath, seathed it back in and then held it, unable to talk or even acknowledge any of the reactions in the room.

He focused on the feeling of his hand, moving carefully in Michael's chest cavity, searching... feeling... finding what didn't belong.

"Oh my god." Helena whispered fearfully, one hand over her mouth and the other grasping at Michael's face as if to let him know that he wasn't alone. Although he was conscious, he wasn't fully... aware, of what was happening. He was confused, in pain and unknowingly fighting for his life. His eyes were glassy and wide and he was struggling to breathe.

"I've got it." Luke spoke quietly, and then he was slowly but surely pulling his hand out of Michael's chest with a chunk of bloodied, splintered wood between his fingers. Only then did it seem like Michael's wound could begin to heal, and his eyes were able to focus on what was around him. And Luke let out an exasperated breath, throwing the wooden chunk to the far side of the room as if it were poisonous.