AN: ah, yes, this is me hopping off a cliff into the LOTR fandom. please be nice iM tRyInG
word count: 1305
Her eyes snap open.
A crash, heavy breathing, and a thud.
Someone is in her living room and had just smashed the living hell out of her bookshelf. Clara cringes at the thought of her books' pages getting wrinkled and crush beyond belief— not only is this person going to completely ruin the sense of safety that came with being in her apartment (assuming she survived this of course), but it's also going to destroy the things she treasures the most.
Bastard.
She rolls over on her side as stealthily as possible, grabbing the baseball bat she snatched from her ex three years ago and left on her bed. It was a constant figure in her room since he threatened to kill her. Clara had left it there for three years, moving it only once when the kid in the apartment next door wanted to play baseball. Quietly, she pulls it onto the bed and under the covers with her, resolving that should the burglar/potential murder come in here, she would fight, but otherwise let the person do as they please in her apartment. It's not like she has anything more valuable than a few used textbooks. She just really, sincerely, hopes that the heavy breathing she was hearing isn't the intruder doing something strange, like, for instance, fucking her couch.
Clara catches a grunt through her bedroom door and she raises her eyebrow. If he really is fucking her couch she could probably sneak up behind him and beat the ever loving shit out of him. She didn't take three years of martial arts so she could wait for another man to threaten her life. With a white knuckled grip on her bat, she slowly eases out of her bed, her senses trained on the door in front of her and the noises coming from her living room. Holding her breath, Clara eases the door open, wincing at the small creak of the hinges.
Her eyes land on the lump on her floor, the darkness all around her making it nearly impossible to pick out any defining features. The slow labored breathing she hears from The Lump makes her think that her intruder is in pain or doing something extremely questionable and not at all appropriate. She's not sure what's better at this point. Keeping her eyes trained on the intruding lump, she fumbles for the light switch she knows to be by her bedroom door and she nearly crows with triumph when she finally finds—
"Who are you? Where am I?" Her fingers freeze over the switch and she swallows a lump down. That was not a language she had ever heard in her life. In fact she's beginning to wonder if the strange, melodic noises coming from the lump is a language at all and not just odd singing. This is it, she thinks hysterically and she raises her bat up a little higher, this is where I die, killed by a strange lump on my floor that I assumed was fucking my couch. Way to go Clara.
She flips the switch on.
There is a medieval cosplay man (leather armor and everything) bleeding out in her apartment living room. On her carpet too— though it wouldn't exactly be the first time a strange man has burst into her apartment and bled everywhere. That was at the other house though.
She drops the bat and sprints back into her room, slamming into her bathroom door before wrenching it open and grappling for the first aid kit she knows is there. She grabs it before freezing in her tracks—
Clara should be calling the police.
She snatches her phone from her nightstand on the way out of her bathroom and stares at The Lump once more. She asses his breathing quickly, pulling on some latex gloves before ripping open his shirt and examining a cut scored deep into his left collarbone and a puncture wound that perforated the Right Hypochondriac region, any closer further to the left, she suspects, and he would have punctured his liver, something she didn't think she could take care of on her living room floor. There are minor burns across his body that she can't do much about other than disinfect and bandage, so she leaves them for last, as they aren't life threatening.
Judging by the blood soaking into her carpet, he has wounds on his back as well— possibly more dire than the wound on his front, judging by the amount of blood that's already left. She slap dashes dressings on his his front, stopping the bleeding as much as she can before gently easing him on his side. Once she's removed of his blood soaked shirt, she takes a moment to imagine what the fuck kind of thing did this to his back.
It looks like someone took a cheese grater to his back. Or a meat shredder. Or a particularly vicious rolling pin.
She can see his fucking spine, the middle of his back looking more like raw hamburger meat than an actual human back. She pours almost half her bottle of hydrogen peroxide all over the exposed flesh before applying dressings and praying that she can stop the bleeding— she's an ex-trauma surgeon, not a miracle worker.
"Hey Siri," she starts, her phone beeping to life next to her, "call—"
"No!" The Lump yells over her, blue eyes meeting hers as she stares incredulously at him, (how the fuck is he still concious) "do not call anyone, I do not know your people, and cannot give away my location to potential enemies."
"Sorry, there doesn't seem to be Potential Enemies in your contacts. Should I look for businesses with that name?" Siri answers, but they both ignore it.
"Your location!" She nearly screeches, "your location in my apartment that you broke into? What, do you not want your mugshot in cosplay? I'm trying to save your life, you bastard!" She shouts her voice reaching higher and higher decibels as she voices her incredulity.
"Listen buddy," she starts, calmer now that she's gotten that out and his back wound seems to have started to clot, (or at least, the bleeding has slowed, which could be a bad thing or a good thing) "you're not exactly in a position to argue with me right now. If I don't call someone, you are going to die. Probably." She adds, while she grabs her stitching needle.
On his cut near his collar bone, she pulls the dressings off, causing the man to wince. "If I am to die, it will have been for a valiant cause, mortal." He hisses as she pours hydrogen peroxide on the cut.
"Mortal?" She mocks as she stitches the cut, "oh and you're not mortal? Let's see how immortal you are after you bleed out on my carpet!"
"You know not of Elvish kind?" He asks, his voice incredulous.
"Elvish kind?" She mimics, "no! I don't know of Elvish kind! You're insane!" She once again applies gauze to the wound, before moving on and repeating the same to his puncture wound.
There's a contemplative noise from her companion. Neither of them mention that she doesn't try to call again.
"The bleeding has stopped. I must rest for two weeks time. Thank you for your help, maiden."
Blue eyes flutter shut.
She still has to disinfect the burns and go to work tomorrow. Clara eyes the clock on her microwave before deciding she can't make it out from this distance and she really doesn't want to touch her phone with her bloody gloves.
"What the fuck." She asks, but only light breathing answers her.