THUMP!
"What was—?" Theodore glanced up at the noise, wondering if one of the piles had finally given into gravity and collapsed. It wasn't and he didn't have to wait long to find out what it really was. No sooner had he finished looking through the collection of baby clothes that he was sure were way too small for anyone to wear, did the sound of his ven's frantic calls reached him through the house.
"—eo! Theo! THEODORE!" Ven Allison called urgently.
"COMING—!" Theodore replied, slipping over a pile of magazines in his effort to race back through the toppling towers and follow his ven's urgent voice back to the attic stairs where he had last left her. "Ven?"
"Up here!" She called. He followed the sound of her voice up to the top of the attic stairs, which remained open for any others to join her up there. Glancing upwards, he was met with the sight of Don Diego and Ven Allison awkwardly trying to move an unconscious & bleeding Don Fën down the stairs without dropping him.
"Ven?" Theodore puzzled, "What happened? Did—did you kill him?!"
"Nevermind that" Don Diego replied, brushing off his neef's concerns with an almost blasé air. "Just help us get him down"
The next few moments were spent trying to decide how to best fit Don Fën through the attic's trap door without further irritating his wound (the haphazard bandage which had been shoved in the space between his shirt and his overalls bugled fantastically, but did little to ebb the flow of blood). In the end, Theodore—growing irritated with his ven & don's heeing & hawing—simply raised his splayed fingers to the figure of his bloody don and gripping him tight with buzzing telekinesis, slowly floated him down until Theodore was able to get a good enough grip on Don Fën without dropping him.
Shifting his arms slightly until Don Fën's legs lay hooked over his bandaged arm whilst his head lay in the crook of his neck, Theodore let his loralite Legacies flow through his veins, illuminating them in such a way that it looked like he had been cracked and painted in blue. Subconsciously, Don Fën curled in closer to the warmth as Theodore began to absorb the pain of his smallest uncle, just as he had been taught to do. Theodore gritted his teeth against the pain that flowed from one to the other, and tried his best not to let his don fall as he swallowed the whimper that threatened to make itself known. He'd never been shot before—the closest thing being his annual flu shots & other vaccines—and he found himself deciding that if this is what it felt like, then he certainly didn't want it to happen for real.
"What the hell is that?" Ven Allison demanded, eyes narrowed on the loralite which had webbed itself across Theodore's skin and seemed to be moving in an almost gulp-like motion; almost as if the boy were swallowing her brother's own pain.
"Calm down, Allison" Don Diego replied as he hurriedly descended the attic stairs, before closing the room behind him. "He's just helping"
"Helping how?"
"It's the loralite in my blood" Theodore explained as if it were obvious. "It heals"
"Fine" Ven Allison scowled, still not quite believing it. But she was more worried about her brother than any weird thing Theodore was doing and she couldn't deny that whatever it was, seemed to be helping the schoolboy assassin. "Whatever it is, just get him in the car. He needs a hospital—!"
"—No hoshtal!" Don Fën slurred, coming to for a little bit as they all hurried back down the stairs.
"Five—!"
"—NO!"
"…I know some first-aid, if that helps…?" Theodore offered as he was shooed back towards the front door.
"I'm sure, but a shrapnel wound's a bit more serious than what you're used to" Ven Allison gently denied him, before turning to Don Diego with pure conviction plastered across her face. "He needs to go to a hospital!"
"No…!" Don Fën continued to moan in protest.
"…Fine" Don Diego heaved a sigh in defeat as he ended the argument. "We'll se if Pogo can help"
"Diego—!" Ven Allison scowled, turning on her brother with barely contained rage colouring her expression.
"What?" Don Diego scowled as he stepped up to meet his sister toe-for-toe, but anyone with a brain could tell they were equally just as worried as each other. "He's clearly not gonna co-operate if we take him to a hospital!"
TICK~TOCK…TICK~TOCK…TICK~TOCK…TICK~TOCK…
What is that…? Theodore puzzled as he noted a strange ticking sound coming the bowels of the house. It didn't sound like a clock or the deteriorated voices of old children's toys, but he could have been wrong; it was a little hard to tell over the sound of his ven and don arguing so loudly in his ear.
TICK~TOCK…TICK~TOCK…TICK~TOCK…TICK~TOCK…
"Theo—Theodore, what are you doing?" Ven Allison puzzled as she turned to see what had captivated his attention. She found herself even more confused when she couldn't find just what that something was; a feeling, mind you, that was easily outweighed by the worry for her brother. "We need to go! Now!"
"Teddy…?" Don Diego hedged, knowing the boy far better than his sister. "What is it? Is there something there?"
TICK~TOCK…TICK~TOCK…TICK~TOCK…TICK~TOCK…
"Do you hear that…?" Confusion coloured Theodore's features as he paused in the middle of the living room and tried to figure out where the noise was coming from.
"Hear what?" Don Diego asked, his gaze flitting back & forth between the boy's furrowed brow and the back end of the house where he seemed to be so focused.
"It kinda sounds like…"
"Like what?" Ven Allison huffed, growing tired of all the half-assed answers and blatant procrastination. She was aware that Theodore probably wanted to further investigate his childhood home, but they had bigger priorities right now.
TICK~TOCK…TICK~TOCK…TICK~TOCK…TICK~TOCK…
"Ugh…!" Don Fën groaned pitifully in pain as he curled up despite Theodore's attempts to absorb as much of that ache as possible. Theodore still wasn't sure just what it was that he was hearing, all that he knew was that if it was in Doro's house, then it probably wasn't something to hang around for.
"Theodore, what is it? What's going on?" Ven Allison pursued as she grew increasingly antsy.
"Uh…it sounds like ticking" Theodore replied absently, head titled to the side as he continued to try and discern what the thing was.
"Ticking…?" Don Diego spared a concerned look with Ven Allison, as the two straightened to their fuller heights. "Like—like a clock?"
"No…" He shook his head.
"All right, let's go! Everybody out! Go, go, go!" Don Diego quickly shooed them out of the house, his eyes blown wide as he quickly jumped to the worst conclusion possible.
The journey back down the lawn was much quicker than the previous dawdle when they had arrived earlier; mostly because Don Diego was more or less shoving all of them back towards the car in an attempt to get away from the little golden home as fast as possible. "In—! In, in, in! Get in the car! Hurry up! Everybody in! Hurry up! In, in, in—!" Don Diego rambled as he yanked open the door to the backseat allowing both Theodore & Don Fën to slide inside.
"Diego, stop, stop—!" Ven Allison interjected as she came to a stop at the passenger's side door. "What's going on?"
"Allison—!" Don Diego panicked, half in & half out of the vehicle as he tried to get it to start. "Get in the car!"
"Not until you explain what the hell all that crap was!"
"GET IN THE CAR!"
"…Fine"
Ven Allison almost reluctantly drew herself into the car, pouting sullenly at Don Diego's insistent commands for her to get inside. She had barely sat her bottom upon the cracked leather seat before they were peeling away from the curb, squealing off down the road with doors flapping in the wind as Don Diego slammed on the accelerator. Theodore was forced to wedge himself in one corner at an odd sort of angle so that he didn't go flying across the backseat and so that he could keep a hold of Don Fën, to keep him from doing the same. It wasn't until they were more than halfway up the street with Don Diego sparing wild glances over his shoulder at the house in the rearview mirror, that Ven Allison finally turned to face Don Diego with an indignant expression plastered across her face.
"Okay" She smiled sardonically, lips pressed into a thin line. "What the hell?!"
KA~BOOM!
"…Oh" She blinked dumbly as she turned to watch the remains of 147 Murillo Street blew sky high, whilst the skeletal bones of the house caught fire. If they'd stayed there any longer, they would have undoubtably been dead meat. She suddenly found herself to be very grateful of her brother's pushiness as they drove away, serenaded by the responding emergency vehicles that passed them by.
The drive back to the Umbrella Academy was a stressful one; Ven Allison & Don Diego were tense in the front seat, with Don Diego practically hunched over the wheel, despite the fact that he really only had one good arm. Occasionally he would spare a glance towards the rearview mirror to check on Don Fën & Theodore still huddled up in the back. The illuminated veins decorating the Garde boy were less prominent than they had been previously and their movements were now far more sluggish than before, but that didn't mean he had to like the idea of him acting as a human morphine drip for his brother. Meanwhile Ven Allison kept turning around in her seat to either check on the two kids in the backseat or to see if they had been followed by one of the responding emergency services, with a look of permanent worry plastered across her face.
In turn, Theodore didn't take his gaze off Don Fën as he pressed the already soaked (impromptu) bandage against his weeping wound. He wasn't exactly an expert on these kinds of things, but he was pretty sure that the fact that his don kept drifting in & out of consciousness wasn't a good sign. It was only thanks to the gentle rise & fall of his chest, plus the pained scrunch of his brow that Theodore even knew his don was still alive.
After Don Fën began to stir again, Theodore began to murmur a Loric prayer under his breath for a lack of things to do (it was one of the few things that A'Vera Katerina had taught him within their brief interactions with each other. This one was supposed to promote health & wellbeing, or something like that). Even so, the Garde boy couldn't be sure if the prayer was meant for him to focus on or just something for his don to help him to latch onto something in an effort to remain somewhat conscious.
In no time at all the had arrived back at the academy, where Ven Allison helped Don Diego to carry Don Fën's limp body inside, whilst Theodore hurried ahead to hold open the doors for them. "I still think we should've taken him to the hospital!" Ven Allison griped as he propped the door open enough for them to shuffle through with arms full of bleeding Fën.
"Kid wish shrapnel wound migh' rash sum queshuns…" Don Fën slurred as he was hauled through the foyer and into the living room.
"Yeah? Well, so does the murder shrine in Harold Jenkins' attic!"
"Murder shrine…?" Theodore puzzled in confusion, "What murder shrine?"
"Nothing!" Don Diego hurried to reassure him, before shooting a scalding glare at Ven Allison who winced at the slip.
"Nngh!" Don Fën groaned in pain as he was deposited on the closest flat surface.
"He's still losing a lot of blood!" Ven Allison worried as she hovered about her brother. "What do we do?"
"We gotta get the shrapnel out" Don Diego replied as Theodore rolled up his sleeves and moved unprompted to carefully pull the bandage off of Don Fën's side, revealing the wound to the world.
"I can do it" Theodore said as he grabbed a fistful of denim in order to burn away enough of the material to get better access to his side.
"Do you even know what to do?" Ven Allison asked skeptically as Theodore grabbed a bottle of whiskey and bit down hard on the stopper to uncork it with a pop.
"Uh huh" He nodded, gently trying to both clean away as much of the blood as he could and sterilise the wound with the whiskey, despite Don Fën's pitiful groans. "Ven, can you get a bowl, please?"
"Uh…right" Ven Allison paused for a moment to watch as Theodore liberally poured a slosh of whiskey over the wound on her brother's stomach, before she moved to search the bar for some kind of bowl.
Whilst she was occupied, Theodore quickly set to work plucking the shards from the shrapnel wound and into the olive bowl that Ven Allison had procured. Using a pair of tweezers that Don Diego had left on the bar counter before he trotted out of the room, intending to try & catch up with A'Vera before she disappeared up the stairs and disappeared into the further bowels of the house. Ven Allison called after him, asking what he was doing, but she was ultimately ignored much to her chagrin.
"How…?" Don Fën moaned, his voice thick with pain as he tried his best to stay awake.
"Hm?" Theodore hummed as his focus was pulled from the task at hand.
"How do you know what to do?" Ven Allison clarified as she gripped tight to Don Fën's free hand, more for her own comfort than his. "How're you so good at this? You're, like, five years old!"
"First of all, I'm twelve—nearly thirteen—years old" Theodore replied derisively as the boy then proceeded to burn the flesh with ease—an unflinching expression upon his face—as he cauterised the wound with lumen fingers. "And secondly, it's just practise. Vera & Doro like to argue"
"…Vanya?"
"They're pretty good at it" He shrugged nonchalantly as his ven's expression grew frustrated at the vague answers given to her.
"Wha ya doin'?" Don Fën tried to prop himself up to see what Theodore was doing now.
"Just getting the last little bit" Theodore replied as he bit into his thumb hard enough to draw blood. With several of the blue drops beading on his thumb, he then drew the bloody limb around the edges of the cauterised wound, sealing it shut for good. "This might hurt"
"Wha—?" Don Fën's confused expression quickly morphed into one of pain as the Garde's blue blood sizzled against his skin.
In the time it took for Ven Allison to process what she was seeing, the liquified loralite had worked its magic, numbing the area and sealed shut any further irritations, preventing further infections. Over the years (of helping to stitch up his parents after each bout), Theodore had come to find that when the loralite in his blood reacted to that of a human's anatomy, it would help them to heal exponentially faster than if the wound was left to be. He could only assume it was because Lorics were a superior species to humans, thanks in part, to their Legacies (even if he wasn't totally sure how it all worked out; he was just thankful it did).
"…Since when was your blood, blue?" Ven Allison puzzled as she noted the strange colour of the liquified loralite decorating her brother's stomach.
"Since always" Theodore shrugged.
"Huh" Ven Allison hummed in thought.
"I think I got most of it" Theodore eventually sat back on his haunches. "But you might wanna get A'Vera just in case"