Work Text:
The last thing you feel is hands shaking you, pain lancing through your side.
Metal in your mouth choking
Jack’s face above you grey his mouth moving eyes burning can’t hear what he says can’t hear
Too tired Jack tell me later tell me
Tell me
“Quincey!”
“Chloral”
“Bandages”
“I need that hot water now!”
Quincey’s eyes narrow slits a shine of dark iris
Mina Harker’s sleeves rolled up above her elbows, her face set and grim. “Tell me what to do.”
“I’m not a surgeon, I’m a psychiatrist,” but there’s a trace of a smile at the corners of his mouth and you feign misunderstanding because he enjoys the argument and in truth there is no one else — surgeon or psychiatrist or MD or anyone — that you would trust to stitch you back together.
Who better than the man who knows your body better than anyone?
Already he is pressing an iodine pad to the gash on your arm and you try not to wince.
“That may be the case, dear Dr Seward, but the appellation before your name suggests some knowledge of the healing arts and that is quite enough for me.”
“We’ll have to stay here for the night, too dangerous to move him. Art you’ll have to fix the tarpaulin. Mr Harker the fire. Can’t risk him becoming cold.”
Art
Where’s Art?
Where’s
Haven’t seen haven’t— was with Harker safer to travel separately faster where—
Blue eyes swimming before you pressure of a thumb on your cheek
“Don’t speak, Quince. You’re all right you’re going to be all right.” Brush of lips against your forehead. “Going to be all right.”
Jack said to lie beside Quincey, to keep him warm, and Art presses himself close, Quincey’s hand cold in his, skin clammy.
Quincey doesn’t stir, a spot of blood still at the corner of his mouth though Mrs Harker has washed his face.
The firelight hides how grey he is. As grey as Lucy, before they gave her the transfusion, but they’ve already given him a transfusion and the wound smarts in the crease of Art’s arm.
Another reason Jack made him lie down, so he wouldn’t get too dizzy.
His blood in Quincey’s veins and as he presses his face into his neck, Art tries not to think of how that blood didn’t help before.
Quincey’s pulse fluttering against his lips.
Hold on just hold on won’t lose you too
“Don’t want you freezing to death after that dunk in the river.”
Art’s teeth chattering, fingers fumbling on the buttons of his shirt and you brush his hands aside, open his buttons for him.
“Wh-wh-what would Jack say?”
“That I’m talking sense and you should listen to me.”
Art snorts and you pull the wet shirt off him, chafe his arms.
“Get a blanket and dry off. I’ll make some coffee and we’ll find your dry clothes.”
His clothes are stiff with Morris’ blood but he barely notices, smooths his thumb over the hilt of the Bowie knife.
That a man who had just been stabbed had the strength to plunge this knife into the Count’s chest seems beyond comprehension, but Jonathan supposes it is no more strange than how he himself flung the box off the back of the wagon.
In the heat of the moment, strange things can happen.
The knife had slipped from Morris’ hand in the moment before he collapsed, and as Seward worked over him with Mina’s assistance and Godalming holding the lamp close to them, it was all Jonathan could do not to set fire to the remains of the box then and there, obliterate it. Van Helsing was looking it over, oddly calm for how Morris was potentially bleeding to death, and there was fresh water heating and Jonathan couldn’t settle his hands so he went looking for the knife, because it would grieve Morris to lose it, and tried not to think that he may be past knowing if it is lost or not.
He found it, cleaned it. Found the hat too that had fallen, the feather stuck in the hatband, and brought them both back, set them safe to dry.
He’ll give them to Seward, to look after until Morris is well. Give them to Seward, but not yet.
Best not to distract him from sitting at Morris’ side.
“We should go boating, just the three of us.”
You can picture it now, the three of you lying close together, Art in the middle because you always put him in the middle. Pressed close, the stars above you, a still night. The Rio Grande, stretching on and on, moonlight rippling on the water. Jack would pretend not to enjoy it, pretend to be worried but you’d catch him smiling and he’d have a good night’s sleep by the time you’d be through, you’d make sure of it. You’d stay up to be sure he wouldn’t stir and when morning would come then you’d doze and Art would call you lazybones with that knowing gleam in his eye and you’d let him because the next night he’d be the one to watch over Jack and you’d tease him.
You’ve always wanted to show them Texas, would have taken them there and Lucy too after she married Art and the four of you would sleep in one bed because Lucy has always been very understanding and she wouldn’t mind, would say she couldn’t have found three better men to love each other and her and she’d love Texas, love the horses and the sun and the smell of the grass and the river and it’d brown her skin and she’d lie in your arms and you’d tell her stories about being a boy, tell her about that time you went up in a balloon and marvelled at the whole wide world before you, tell her about mock battles in the ruins of the Alamo with your father’s old Henry rifle and it was nothing on the Winchester never anything on the Winchester but she’d laugh at you and tell you that you were always a rake breaking girls’ hearts and leaving and you’d kiss her and say
Ah but I didn’t leave you didn’t leave you and didn’t leave Art and didn’t leave Jack and I told you I wasn’t fit to regulate the fixin’s of your little shoes but you took me anyway just as I am took us all and didn’t that just prove my point really because what other lady would do that? What other lady would take us as we are?
Tears slipping down Quincey’s cheeks and his eyes are closed and Jack knows this is normal, has seen this before with chloral, but it is not normal for Quincey, not normal for him and that ache pierces his heart as he dabs the tears away.
How strange that for all his own eyes have burned no tears have come but then no tears came after Lucy and—
He tastes the salt on Quincey’s cheek, tastes it at the corner of his eye, the wet of these fresh tears. Swallows them down, swallows them and smooths back Quincey’s hair, smooths back Art’s.
Art regards him through one eye.
“I’m not sure he’s warming up any.”
A check at his heart and Jack forces himself to take a steady breath. “It’s going to take time.”
Going to take time
A light touch on your arm and you look up from your revolver, find Mrs Harker watching you, her fingers smoothing over your sleeve. She decided to lie down, after the others left, after you persuaded her that it would do no harm for her to rest, and you would keep watch, and you wonder now if she was feigning sleep, wonder if the scar on her forehead truly does not pain her.
Or at least, does not pain her in a physical sense. As to the rest— that is more than you can speak to.
It would not do to pry.
“Mr Morris,” her voice soft, “I want to thank you for doing this.”
You know what it is that Lucy saw in her, know that she shares some of the same sweetness and the sight of it now catches in your chest, beneath your ribs.
Forty days, since she ceased to be Lucy. Impossible to think that she died though she did. Forty days, each one etched in the throbbing of your heart, and you look now at Mrs Harker, can only manage a nod.
Her hand is cold as you take it in your own.
“I would not wish to do anything else. It is an honour to be of any small service.”
Tears shine in her eyes and you pretend not to see them as she flashes a watery smile.
“Nothing small about it, Mr Morris, not in any way.”
Jonathan’s arm is warm around her and she leans into him, feels the brush of his lips against her forehead. It does not prickle now the way it did. She had thought that should the curse be lifted she would want to see her reflection, the proof of it having passed, but with Dr Seward pressing hard on Mr Morris’ side to keep him from bleeding to death there was not the time, and she has no desire now to consult a mirror.
Enough to know that it is gone.
Jonathan has already asked her if she wants to sleep, and though her bones ache and tiredness pulls heavy at her eyes she shook her head, knowing that she would not be able to sleep. Knowing that her mind would replay the images of him fighting his way through to the wagon and the knives that almost caught him. The image of Mr Morris crumpling to the snow and the spreading stain of blood, the tremor in his hand as he pointed at her head.
worth for this to die
She never wanted anyone to die for her. Not something she could say because they would argue it as their duty, argue that it is only right and Mr Morris argue most of all. And what was it he called it? Some small service. How could there be anything small in his willingness to sacrifice his life?
This sweet man, who proposed to Lucy in such a way that left her giggling, and though she could not accept Mina knows she loved him. And she has Jonathan, but she can understand that.
Understand too the dampness on Lord Godalming’s cheeks, the tightness in Dr Seward’s face.
As she watches, he smooths back a lock of Mr Morris’ hair, leans in and murmurs in his ear, and it feels an intrusion to see it, but she cannot take her eyes away.
It has seemed wrong somehow to pray, knowing the curse upon herself. But the curse is gone and she holds tight to the crucifix she took from Jonathan’s pocket, never taking her eyes from Mr Morris, the grey of his lips, the stuttering rise of his chest, and it is prayer she gives herself to, to keep him safe.
Hands, touching you, caressing you, fingers pressing into your neck light on your brow curled in your hair
Voices murmured low words half-caught muffled
Water rushing down from the hills dive in feel it break over your skin like silk join me join me join me laughing Quincey you fool
Quincey
Quincey
Quincey
Echo of your name shape of it weight of it and you told Jack once it reminds you of quinine and you were burning then shivering his hand splayed over your heart to feel the hammering get these relapses just need to sleep it off the blankets tearing your skin the light piercing your brain and his hand over your eyes blotted it out his arms tight around you
Take a little quinine morphine sleep I’m not going anywhere lips pressed to your forehead the sigh of his breath
Sleep now
Sleep
Just
Sleep
Van Helsing brings him hot coffee, laced with whiskey. Presses it into his hands and the look he gives him warns him not to say a word.
The heat of it against his palms is almost more than he can stand, but he holds on to it anyway.
There is a cup too for Art, and Jack watches as he eases himself up, fixes the blankets carefully around Quincey.
He tries not to see the hollows under Art’s eyes.
“I don’t want you to donate again.”
The words are barely a murmur, feel like gravel in Jack’s throat.
A long moment, silence broken only by the crackle of the fire, the sigh of Quincey’s breath.
Art’s nod is slight, his gaze never leaving Quincey’s face.
“All right.”
All right
And one of the knots that has been tight inside Jack loosens.
What’s the matter with me, anyhow?
You know you have only to tell me what to do
(Only to tell me what to do)
(Only to tell me what to do)
Those earnest eyes, the firmness of the jaw.
And in the face of all the love of years— this thing to bind them closer.
Their blood, in the body of the woman they love.
Your head spinning but you couldn’t tell Jack, he’d worry.
His hand on your arm a steadying weight.
“You could not have given more,” the murmur of his words soft, and he bid you lie down, bid you have wine, kissed your face and squeezed your hand and brushed back your hair and you thought of Art and how he must have done the same for him and you ached to draw them both into your arms but all you could feel was the chill in your bones, air cold on your skin, but you would not ask for a blanket, would not ask for anything, not with the memory of Lucy’s waxen face swimming before you.
All this and more you would give if you could.
Jack fixing the cushion beneath your head as if you were the invalid.
“I feel fine,” your words soft, and he nodded, smoothed his hand over your hair again.
“I know.”
He sleeps.
Sleeps despite the cold, despite the swimming of his head, despite the stinging in his arm.
Sleeps despite the stillness of Quincey beside him, and the metallic smell of blood.
The knowledge that he could be dying.
Sleeps, and dreams. Dreams of Jack disinfecting the wound in his arm, the light pressure of lips. Dreams of Van Helsing’s hand steady on his shoulder, of Mrs Harker in a pool of blood. Dreams of Harker falling, Harker the one with the knife in his side.
Wakes with that image before his eyes and wishes for an awful moment that it had been true.
(How could he be so selfish as to wish another man stabbed in place of the one he loves?)
He keeps his eyes closed, smooths his thumb over Quincey’s knuckles. Quincey doesn’t stir, but he didn’t think he would.
What Art would not give to be lying in his place. Would not give to be the one who’s haemorrhaged, to take that from him.
He could not save Lucy, could not take her place.
Why is it that he could not take Quincey’s either?
I’m sorry I let this happen
I’m sorry I wasn’t faster
I’m sorry
I’m sorry
I love you
I’m sorry
You wake to muffled words
Wake to breathing, soft in your ear
Wake to a hand curled around yours, fingers pressed into your throat
Wake to voices you would know at the ends of the world, hoarse and cracked but still beloved
Wake with eyes too heavy to open and bones aching too much to move so you lie still and listen to those voices, focus on the hands and the kisses that you know best, so that they are all you feel, those soft touches
Faces swimming before you
Impression of spectacles, of gold
(Jack)
(Art)
Damp on your cheeks, pressure of a thumb wiping it away
Something muffled, feel your lips moving and then that thumb is pressed to them, willing you to be quiet
Far away there is pain
Some part of you
Some—
In your side
Prickling
Stabbing
In your side
Get it out need to get it out need to—
“Don’t move.” The words clear, Jack’s lips moving, Jack’s voice, a hand clamping tight around yours
Need to—
Listen to Jack
He’ll keep you right, always keep you right your Jack foolish man who does his best always does his best
The damp again the pressure and he’s saying something see his lips moving can’t hear him the words washed away can’t hear you, Jack, say it again say it Art’s eyes deep with lines someone put those lines there who put those lines? Art shouldn’t have lines not your Art he should be laughing should be smiling at you and singing not pale as snow not with those lines you could fall into can’t look at them
Shadows
Shaking
Hand on your shoulder “Quince—”
Stars spiralling above you, an arm under your neck
“Drink”
Rim of a cup against your lips and you sip tea sharp on your tongue swallow stomach churning but Jack asked you to drink he asked you and you sip again bile burning rushing up and the cup is pressed again and you press your lips closed shake your head air cold on your face
The stars are fading the light
A hand on your forehead
“Rest now”
Rest
When he is sure Morris is asleep again (kinder to think of him as asleep than unconscious) Jonathan winds his watch for something to do with his hands, and so he doesn’t hear the hushed conference between Seward and Van Helsing.
It was Mina who pressed the watch into his hand, after she took it from Morris’ pocket, after the clothes had been cut away from his wound. He tucked it into his own pocket to keep it safe, only drew it out when he saw Seward ease the man back down and give him more morphine. Blood had dried onto the case, but he’s rubbed it away with his thumb, and now he checks the watch face, to be sure none managed to seep through.
There is an inscription on the inside of the cover, and it doesn’t feel decent to read it but his eyes catch on the words despite himself.
The wrong of unshapely things is a wrong too great to be told
All our love
-A, J, L
He closes the watch, tucks it safe into his pocket.
“He’s going to need another transfusion before we can move him.”
The words float to him across the fire and just now he can’t tell if they’re Seward’s or Van Helsing’s, his eyes too misted, a buzzing in his ears, but Jonathan pushes himself to stand.
“I’ll do it,” and the tone of his voice leaves it final.
“When this is over we’ll go away together. Hide somewhere and hang anyone who comes looking for us.” Art’s voice firm, his jaw set and you laugh despite yourself because he sounds like you, sounds like something you’d say, did say some time.
“What about your estate, my lord?” smiling to tease him with his new title and something flickers in his eyes, as if he is trying not to smile too.
“Damn my estate. What does it matter now?”
“And what about our dear Jack’s asylum?”
“We’ll tell them we’re taking him away for his health, that the eminent Dr Van Helsing has decreed he needs a sabbatical.”
“I see you’ve been thinking this out.”
“Of course. We’ll go to Ireland, somewhere they won’t think to look for us and where we can hide away. Take a cottage by the sea, do some fishing, rent a little boat. We’ll find horses, bicycles, anything, stay as long as we like…”
He talks and talks and doesn’t notice as you take his hand, doesn’t notice as you kiss it. And when Jack comes in you make him sit and listen and not argue and he’s smiling too by the end, smiling for the first time in an age, and you’re going to do it, going to go away together where no one will know you, where no one will ask about estates or asylums or dead fiancées or where you’ve been that you haven’t come back in so long
Where you’ll be
As Dr Seward is setting up the transfusion, Mina sets about making coffee. Jonathan will need it after, and the stronger it is the better. She watched how the colour drained from Lord Godalming’s face as he gave his own blood, not that he had much colour to begin with, and the thought of Jonathan offering up his known makes anxiety claw at her heart even beside the little flair of pride.
She watches Jonathan’s face, see the slight flicker as the needle eases into his vein, and then she averts her gaze because he would not like to think of her seeing him suffering, not even for something as noble as this. And because she is looking at the fire, watching the water boil, she does not see what it is that makes Dr Van Helsing swear, looks up in time to see Dr Seward pull the needle from Mr Morris’ arm.
“It’s not compatible,” his voice cracked and as he pulls the blanket back from Mr Morris’ chest she sees the red flared across his skin, sees the arch of his neck tendons standing out and the doctor peels open his eyes, jaw tighter than she’s ever seen it and—
“Jack he’s not breathing.”
Her heart stalls at the words, at the terror in Lord Godalming’s voice. “Jack—”
“Camphor”
Van Helsing with a syringe, searching the bag for a bottle and Dr Seward rubbing hard on Mr Morris’ chest “come on, Quincey, come on” the firelight shining in Mr Morris’ eyes his face and she should look away it isn’t right to be seeing this should look away but she can’t she can’t and she’s beside them now and Jonathan’s hand is trembling in hers and there’s nothing she can do nothing she can do only watch Van Helsing inject something into Quincey’s arm only watch Dr Seward cup his chin and pinch his nose and press his mouth to Quincey’s and for a moment she thinks he’s kissing him and then she realises he’s breathing into him and he pulls back draws another breath and leans in, breathes it into Quincey and when he leans back this time Lord Godalming replaces his mouth with his own and gives Quincey his breath too and Quincey isn’t breathing he isn’t breathing why isn’t he breathing?
Black dots dancing in front of her eyes but she can’t tear them away from him can’t tear them away
He’s dying and it’s because of you because of you because of you
Tried to save you tried to save you tried to save you
Your blood did this your blood your blood
Come on, Quincey breathe his lips still beneath your own taste of tea taste of metal come on don’t be so stubborn come on tears dropping on his face the white of his eyes
Should have been smarter faster should have made sure he carried something better than that damn knife
Hail Mary full of grace…
Hail Mary…
Spare him, Lucy, protect him, please please
Not losing him too not losing him
How many times they do it Mina cannot say.
Can only watch as they breathe for him, can only watch as Van Helsing rubs on his chest and the sweat glistens on Quincey’s forehead, his skin translucent-pale and at some point Dr Seward takes her hand and presses it to the pulse beat in Quincey’s throat “tell me if it falters” and she focuses on that thready beating beneath her fingertips closes her eyes to block them out and feels only the blood rushing through him, feels only this marker that there is life in him yet.
Jonathan’s hand in hers, and Quincey’s pulse beneath her fingers, gasps and broken whimpers all she hears and she listens and feels and waits
And waits
And—
A gasp, weak. A groan and her eyes flicker open to the clear light of dawn, to tears streaming down Lord Godalming’s cheeks and Jonathan’s hand tightening in hers.
Quincey’s chest stutters, rises, falls, and his lips move, a faint moan, and Dr Seward is cradling his face, kissing him and kissing him “thank God thank God”, and even Van Helsing, stalwart Van Helsing, even his face is wet with tears, his eyes bloodshot and it is then when she feels Jonathan’s hand dabbing at her face that she realises she is crying too.
Quincey alone is still, he alone doesn’t stir, but he is breathing, and that is enough.
After, there are apologies, needless, quiet.
(“I never thought—” “Sometimes blood is simply incompatible…no one to blame, least of all you.”)
After, there is another transfusion, and this time it is Jack’s blood, and this time it works.
(The fact that both Art and Jack have their blood flowing through Quincey’s veins— a quiet knowledge they cradle close, as they cradle him.)
After, there are bandages changed and wounds dressed and re-dressed and tears dried.
And there is a common agreement, that for all that’s happened on this night there are things they will never speak of and one of them is this mischance, of how Quincey stopped breathing, and how they saved him.
(A thing too terrible to speak of, how they almost didn’t.)
And they will take him from here, lay him out in the carriage, his head cradled in Art’s lap and Jack holding tight to his hand, listening to every breath, feeling every heartbeat. Van Helsing will drive, Mina sitting beside him or else back in the carriage, and Jonathan will lead the way on horseback, and they will make their way carefully, slowly, to Bistritz.
And Quincey will burn with fever, will murmur broken words that make no sense and try to fight phantasms when he has hardly the strength to raise his arms (red eyes burning through mist and a shadow through the graveyard her her it’s her the heft of a stake in his hand puncture wounds in a neck save them save them have to save them) won’t feel the hands holding him down, choke on the water they make him drink, the eyes rolling in his head, but at last the fever will break. At last he will rest quietly, peacefully. And when he finally wakes in the little room in the inn and has the sense to ask where and what and how, then he will begin to be well, and they will know they have not lost him, not yet.
When he is well enough, Mina will thank him for how he fought to save her, even though it almost cost his own life, and he will whisper that it was an honour, and Jonathan will promise to be of any service to him, should he ever need it.
They will name their first son after him, but they will not tell him that, not yet.
Art and Jack will take him to the sea when they get home, let the quiet and the air do their work, and watch the colour come back into his face, the strength back into his hands, and they will trace his scars and not speak of blood.
And when he is strong enough for adventures, there will always be at least one of them with him, and he will not argue.
When Mina writes her diary she will leave out the details of this terrible long night, only say that he was wounded, but that he lived, through the hard work of Doctors Seward and Van Helsing, and Lord Godalming too.
And it will be enough.
More than enough.
For now Jonathan holds Mina close, and watches from the distance as Quincey sleeps, Art lying on one side and Jack pressed close on the other, their arms around him, and thinks of the wrong of unshapely things, and how, on a morning like this, they can be built anew.