The pain was unbearable.
Gavner pulled himself forwards another few metres and then collapsed to his stomach, groaning with frustration. The rock slide had taken him by surprise, the quiet scenery erupting into noise and chaos in the blink of an eye. He had been unable to do anything to save himself.
He didn't know how long he had been unconscious for, but when he awoke he found his legs covered in snow and upon trying to pull them out had realised one was horribly misshapen. It lay at a completely unnatural angle, covered in blood and throbbing painfully. The boot was missing from his foot, and he could feel that his toes were broken.
Looking back at the leg now, now he lay exhausted in the snow, he could see that his toes on his broken leg had blistered up to twice their original size, the skin yellow. He couldn't move them, or even feel them. Gavner figured they must be frostbitten.
Nights and nights had passed since the rock slide, days and days of uselessly trying to shelter from the sun out in the open, dragging his body through the snow, hoping for a glimpse of the mountain. Council was a few months away, but Gavner always liked to get there early, liking the quiet time he could spend with his friends before the masses arrived. He didn't even know who was actually at the mountain at the moment. Larten could have been anywhere and Arra was the same. Kurda was most likely mapping out the tunnels of the mountain, reluctant as ever to leave.
Gavner smiled to himself and let his head fall onto the snow, overcome by pain and exhaustion. He could feel in his bones the hopelessness of his situation. He was broken and battered, bloodied and exhausted. And he didn't even know where the mountain was. And there was no one he could call for help.
The vampire laughed sadly at his predicament before drifting off to sleep.
Gavner was awoken hours later by someone roughly shaking his shoulder. He groaned and tried to push them away, feeling it much easier to go back to sleep and be rendered completely unaware of the pain.
"Don't be so fucking awkward, Gavner," the person growled, attempting to lift the vampire off the ground. Gavner recognised the voice but couldn't bring himself to be happy that his friend had found him. He was just so tired.
"I can't... I just want to sleep, Arra, c'mon," Gavner complained, but let his friend pull him onto his hands and knees, his broken leg jutting awkwardly and making the process more difficult. He noticed how bright it was, feeling the heat of the winter's sun on his skin and through his clothes.
Arra rolled her eyes and hooked Gavner's arm around her shoulders, pulling him to his feet. She knew from experience that the man became completely useless when injured and knew the only way to deal with him was to be rough. Cruel to be kind, almost. She was just relieved she had spotted him when she had.
Gavner cried out at the motion, pitching forward and causing both of them to fall back into the snow. He felt like crying from the pain and the lack of feeling in his foot – it was numb, and that worried him – and from exhaustion, and from the notion of being utterly pathetic. "I'm sorry," he whimpered.
"Can't you just put in a little bit of effort?" Arra snapped. "We're burning up out here. We need to move, don't you get it?" When Gavner didn't answer, just continued to lie sniffling on the cold ground, she threw her hands up in annoyance and walked away, calling over her shoulder, "Fine! I'll just leave you here then!"
He listened to the crunch of snow get further and further away. Tears brimmed at the corner of his eyes. He curled in on himself, shivering and sniffing, feeling like a little half vampire again. It had only been a few years ago, after all, that he had been exactly that. He'd been fully blooded for three years, and this was his first trip to the mountain alone. And he had fucked up royally.
The sound of crunching snow was getting louder again and soon he was greeted with the sight of black, snow dusted boots in front of his eyes, and then was covered in some material as he lifted his eyes upwards. "I hope you know how much of a dick you are," Arra muttered,and Gavner lifted the material from his eyes to see she had taken a seat in the snow next to him, noticeably now without her coat.
She glanced down at him and pushed the coat back over his eyes, "It's to keep you from burning."
Gavner wanted to protest, feeling the need to tell her he had survived for days in the sunlight so far without any protection, and made to push the fabric away again but she held it down. "I've told you," he heard her sigh, "stop being so awkward. We've got a few hours until nightfall. Try to get some sleep." Gavner smiled at her change in tone. He had known she wouldn't leave him, but it was still a relief to feel her hand in his hair, and he focused on that – instead of the pain – while he fell asleep.
Night fell and they set off, Gavner being more cooperative now he had slept properly and drank some blood Arra provided him with. It was easy to struggle on now that she was at his side. He didn't want to let her down again, and with her constant stream of reassurance, comfort, bullying, and teasing it didn't seem like he would have the choice of failure.
He hobbled on for a few hours with Arra's support, and by the time they reached a way station he was ready to collapse from effort and exhaustion. "I won't make it up there," Gavner said, looking up at the small hill of rocks that the way station was situated on. In a better condition, he would have made it up there in only a few steps and with hardly any effort at all. In his current condition the small hill looked like a huge mountain.
"I'll help you," Arra offered. "You stay here and I'll pull you up."
Gavner – despite his pain – gave her an amused look, watching her climb the hill with ease, "You really think you'll be able to lift me and my dead-weight leg up there?"
Arra threw her bag into the cave and ignored him, reaching a hand down for him. "You can spend another day in the sun if you want," she grinned. "I'm stronger than I look. Now come on," she waved her hand, signalling for him to shut up and take it.
He rolled his eyes but reached up for her hand all the same. She pulled and he pushed off the ground with his good leg, one hand clawing at the rock. "Fuck, you need to lose some weight," he heard Arra say through gritted teeth and felt her other hand at his shoulder, adding to the effort by pulling on his coat.
The dead-weight leg banged against the rocks but Gavner ignored it, his free hand on the ledge that lead to the cave."It's all muscle," he managed to joke, pushing down on his hand hard. He felt his upper body slide over the ledge and he put in one last effort, launching himself forward with his good leg.
He crashed into Arra and sent her toppling backwards and he followed, unable to stand upright by himself, landing on top of her with a groan. Too exhausted to move, he lay there for a moment, feeling her heart hammering against his chest. "I thought you said you were strong," he teased after he had got his breath back, lifting himself slightly with trembling arms to look down at her.
She gave him a sarcastic grin and put a hand to his face, pushing him away. Gavner rolled to his side and Arra sat up, still panting slightly but smiling all the same, "I got you up here, didn't I?"
"Indeed. How are you going to get me down?"
"Oh, I don't know," she hummed thoughtfully and stood, going over to the small pile of logs at the back of the cave, "roll you off the ledge?"
Gavner laughed and pulled himself further into the cave, "Has anyone ever told you that you're hilarious?"
"Actually, they haven't," she grinned, placing a few logs at his feet and handing him a flint, "If you start a fire I'll go catch something to cook." He nodded and leant forward while she jumped out of the cave, landing silently in the snow below.
The fire didn't take long to burst into life, and Gavner relished the feeling of heat on his cold body. He rested back against the cave wall and shut his eyes, relaxed for the first time in days. The only thing that ruined the moment was an uncomfortable itch in his throat that made him reach over for Arra's bag, groping inside and bringing out three empty bottles that he would have liked to see full of blood. He sighed but could do nothing until his partner returned. The store cupboard at the back of the cave was beyond his reach.
Arra returned after an hour. Gavner was pleased to see the four snowy hares she dumped by the fire, but couldn't focus on the prospect of a hot meal when he was so thirsty. "Can you pass me some blood?" he asked, "There isn't any left in your bag."
She nodded and crossed to the cupboard immediately. Gavner's stomach dropped at the sight of the frown that appeared on her face moments later. "There isn't any in here, either," she turned and cast her eyes over the cave, as if hoping some bottles of blood would suddenly appear.
Gavner's eyes were on the hares, "Do you think there will be enough in them?"
Arra sighed and came to sit next to him by the fire, "I really don't think so." His eyes were worried as he looked back at her, asking the unvoiced question what are we going to do? "Is it bad?" she asked, referring to his thirst. He nodded and she sighed again.
"I'm sorry, it's my leg. It's making everything worse," Gavner muttered, dejected, staring at the fire. He remembered having five bottles in his bag, but that had been lost under the rock slide. He heard Arra move and the next thing he knew she had held up her wrist to him, a thin stream of blood trickling from a cut. He stared at her, unsure, "What are you doing?"
"It'll be better than drinking from those rabbits," she answered. "Come on, before I bleed out." Gavner smiled at her, touched by the gesture, and she grinned back. He gently lifted her arm and closed his mouth over the wound, moaning quietly at the taste of her blood as he swallowed. Human blood was powerful, and animal blood would do the trick for a little while, but vampire blood was somewhere in between. It almost felt wrong to be drinking from one of his own kind, but it was necessary, and he could already feel it working.
He finished drinking and closed the wound before letting go of her arm. The tiredness and pain was diminishing and he felt much more alert. "Feel better?" Arra asked, smiling when he nodded enthusiastically, "Good. I'll make a start on dinner, then."
Gavner resumed his relaxation, once again soaking in the heat and letting his eyes slide shut for a while. The hares didn't take long to cook, and took even less time for Gavner to devour them, wolfing down every last scrap, even the remaining half Arra left. "Ah," he grinned, patting his stomach, "that was just what I needed."
Arra laughed, "That's good!" Her eyes flicked to his broken leg and she sighed, "I think we need to deal with that leg now, Gavner."
He frowned and almost protested but stopped when he took a moment to study his leg. It was a mess, and he knew the longer he left it the worse it would get. He groaned and fell back on the floor of the cave, beside the fire, "Just be quick about it."
"I'll try," came the answer, "but you know I'll have to break the bone again and then-"
"I don't need to know! Just get on with it!" Gavner exclaimed, motioning with his hand for her to hurry up.
"Okay," Arra answered and knelt down next to his leg. She took a few seconds to locate just where she would have to make the fracture and made sure she had bandages and the thin pieces of wood she had collected while hunting at hand. And then used all of her strength to snap his leg.
Gavner yelped loudly, cursing while he pressed his hands to his eyes. The sensation of his leg being manipulated back into its original position made him feel sick and made him wish they had done this first and ate later.
With his leg in a splint and bandaged tightly, Arra moved onto his foot, unable to ignore the colour of three of his toes; all black, no longer with the nail. While she knew how to set a bone and a number of other medical treatments, she wasn't confident enough to deal with frost bite, but knew that body parts had to be cut off or left to fall off on their own. She was reassured by the fact that he would hardly feel her do it, at least.
Using the knife swiftly to separate the destroyed toes from the rest of his foot, she asked, "How are you feeling?"
"Like hell. Are you done yet?" he croaked, voice tense from the pain.
"Almost," Arra replied, applying some cream to his foot to soothe the skin. The remainder of the bandages covered his foot completely, with only a small wad left over to hide his toes. He certainly didn't need to see them, so she bundled them up and threw them to the back of the cave.
She moved to sit by his head then, throwing another log onto the fire along the way. "You're all done," she smiled, and he gave her the smallest of grins. "Do you want some more blood?"
Gavner shook his head slowly, "I just need to sleep. Hey," he sat up, trying to turn around to face her, but she stopped him by sliding closer to him and putting an arm around his shoulders. He smiled gratefully and relaxed against her, "Thank you for doing that."
"Any time," Arra joked softly, moving her head so he could rest his own against her shoulder. He laughed and closed his eyes, falling asleep quickly with a smile on his face and the comfort of her hand in his hair again.
Just so it's perfectly clear, I did not mean any of the above to be hints at a Arra/Gavner pairing. I simply picture their relationship like this, being so close and so comfortable with each other that they can behave like this and not have any hidden meanings behind it. I am not implying that they secretly lust after each other. It's Arra and Gavner, for God's sake.
I felt the need to clear that up before someone sends me a disgusted PM.
Thanks for reading!