A Curse Upon Thee 24

The sound of screams hit his ears again.

Blue eyes blinked slow, eyelids dragging like sandpaper with each flutter. Dark red flowed out around and in front of him, pooling into the hardwood and already seeping into the grain.

The same dark red he could feel sticking to his cheek.

Another blink — sluggish and slow — came with more sound as the world came back to him in a bigger way, everything outside of his head muffled and distorted as if his head was below the water.

Even still, the screams reached him;  high, frantic, and desperate.

The third slow blink helped somehow, as much as it could. Even with the world still dark around him, the fog around him cleared just enough for Finn to actually manage something close to a thought. 

Right now, though, lying face-down on the hardwood, Finn McHale had three very specific, very immediate, things to think about, and each and every single one of them were all currently burning jagged holes straight through his goddamn chest.

Literally.

One of them burned especially bright, a white-hot fleck of coal pushing nothing but agony right into his chest with every single beat of his heart. How… He’d been shot, that was how.

N-no… no, how?

Finn dragged in another copper-filled breath, blood bubbling by his mouth as he tried to put his thoughts in one place to piece together what just happened. How…

The flare of red still covering him, Cursed Energy burning bright as he broke into the house, that was how. He might have only had dregs but dregs were enough to do something. He was still a sorcerer and even that much CE was enough to do something. Catching a heavy slug of lead before it tore clean through his heart was more than he could ever have asked for but it was still something. 

The bullet was still in there too, lodged deep past cracked bone, and torn muscle; pushed deep into a spot of flesh, where it absolutely, fundamentally, should not be. 

Its friends weren’t much better.

Finn knew that the way every single breath made his left arm scream, every nerve in it lighting up like cheap backwoods fireworks. Somewhere lower down, he could feel a third one burning away. 

But it was already hard enough to think and he didn’t have it in him to figure out exactly what or where it was.

Really, it was hard to tell with most of him currently on fire.

Breathing hurt. Moving hurt. 

Hell, just existing in this specific moment was hurt.

His chest struggled for air, lungs fighting him and fighting instinct as they refused to expand no matter how much he tried. Each breath came in with a wet wheeze that rattled his insides with the taste of pennies. His heart was hammering just as hard as his lungs shook, every beat against his broken ribs another jolt of pain to his system.

Ruby… He breathed in more blood. Ruby’s gonna be so pissed.

It was a stupid thought, but it was his thought.

The first full sentence he could manage in his own head drifted past the haze of pain, dumb enough to almost make him laugh. That… that would have been even stupider, a mistake of the catastrophic kind, considering Finn was pretty sure his lungs were quickly filling with what was definitely blood right now. 

Blue eyes drifted shut again, heavy lids dropping down at the command of gravity no matter how hard he tried to fight the darkness.

He couldn’t help it, he really really couldn’t.

There was only so much he could try to do with his whole body screaming at him, physically and spiritually. A body bone-dry of any power was still wringing out the sponge as everything he had left went to his heart, the tiniest barely-controlled drips of what he had left flooding his circulatory off raw survival instinct. It was pure and desperate effort, his soul pushing every shred of power he had left towards holding shattered pieces of bone and shredded tissue together. His body was as stubborn as he was, and it was refusing to die on the floor of this house; Cursed Energy going towards keeping his heart beating, his lungs moving, and his brain from shutting down entirely.

It wasn’t enough.

It really wasn’t.

With three holes in him, it was never going to be enough.

But it was what he had.

Heavy boots scuffed hardwood somewhere in the distance, footsteps frantic as they moved away from him. The man’s voice — loud, manic and as quick as the steps — echoed from above him. “Work on the hat. You have to make it work. You’re the Savior, you ca-“

Mary Margaret’s scream sounded loud over his voice, high and terrified and like an ice pick into his ears, not too far from where he lay on the floor.  

“You just shot a f-fucking kid, Jefferson!” Emma screamed back, voice cracking as it ripped through the house, completely raw with more anger than fear. “He’s bleeding out and you’re up here talking about fucking hats, you psycho!”

“He’s n-not…” Jefferson choked down a sound that could have been tears or laughter, Finn unable to tell as it made his voice tremble either way. “He’s not one of us. One of the people who belong here, at least. He’s not even like you or Henry. He doesn’t fit the pattern. Come on, the speaking in tongues… the surviving…” The man’s laugh was as brittle as it was loud, sharp enough to cut glass. “He’s just a glitch in her perfect little prison. He’s proof the curse isn’t absolute. H-“

A heavy crash rang in Finn’s ears, something heavy breaking apart against the floorboards upstairs. “NOW.” Footstep paced back and forth, harder and faster, across the ceiling directly above him. “MAKE! IT! WORK!”

Blue eyes snapped open.

The ceiling above him was white, everything spinning in a slow sickly circle.

Move. His right hand came up, fingers curled into the slick warm puddle on the ground. His arm pushed down against the floorboards, nails digging into grain. Cursed Energy surged just a bit, flooding his limbs with just enough to give him strength. 

One knee scraped against the floor as he dragged it up under his body.

Then the other.

Finn forced his dead weight upright, left hand pressed hard against his chest where the blood was spreading the fastest, soaking the leather of his jacket. The entire world tilted, vision swimming as it crept dark at the edges.

Get up. He stumbled forward. Get up. His right hand slapped flat against the wall for balance, a long smeary print of red across the surface. Get the fuck up.

The stairs stretched out in front of him like a tunnel as he gripped the banister tight, dragging himself up it with a grut leaving him every moment.

He kept moving.

One step up.

Then the next.

By the time he dragged his bloody soles up the final step, lungs burning in his chest, he could see them through the open doorway. Emma was tied tight to a heavy wooden chair, face bruised to purple and speckled with red from a split lip where the psycho had hit her with the gun. The psycho himself, still wrapped in that ridiculous scarf, was standing over Emma with his back to the door, waving the stolen gun around like it was still a threat.

Empty.

The gun was empty, he knew that much because he’d done the math through the pain. Emma was shit when it came to actually managing her ammo. Last he checked, she hadn’t reloaded her spare magazine since the last time she practiced with it.

Three shots total left in that thing; all three currently inside him.

He took another shaky step into the room. Then another.

“You!” The man spun around, dark eyes impossibly wide as they landed on Finn gripping the doorway with one bloody hand, still unsteady but on his feet. “You should be dead!”

“Yeah.” Finn’s voice came out rough and bubbling, blood in the back of his throat forcing his words into a wheeze. “Should be.”

Jefferson didn’t waste a moment, grunting with effort as he palmed the backrest of a thick wooden chair and swung it right at Finn.

Finn’s right arm came up, bone creaking as he took the impact directly on his forearm and his body rattled for it as something did more than just creak. A grunt slipped free but Finn held his ground all the same and pushed forward.

He swung out with his left, right into the psycho’s chest.

Once.

Jefferson staggered backward, eyes wide as his breath left him from the force.

Twice.

The man crumpled hard, Finn’s second punch straight to the jaw enough to make him kiss the floorboards. 

It wasn’t clean or neat, or anything even close to a fair fight. Not when one of them had brought a gun and the other was already bleeding out from said gun. But the guy was just a man.

A crazy man, but still just a man.

And Finn had definitely survived worse.

Probably.

Finn turned toward his beat-up boss, vision blurring as all he saw was a blond smear for a second as the room began to spin again. “Emma-”

“Finn, look out!”

He twisted back around on the sound of her voice, moving with speed that he barely had left in him to see Jefferson already back up on his feet.

Heavy fabric shears stood out in his hand as he gripped them tight, the tool looking sharp under the light. Jefferson knew they were sharp too as he held the weapon high and lunged at Finn with nothing left to lose.

Instinct pushed Finn forward, right hand shooting out without a thought and catching the psycho’s wrist mid-swing. Fingers locked down like a vice before the metal points could meet his neck.

Jefferson didn’t even get a second to gasp, mouth barely falling open before Finn twisted his grip and yanked hard, throwing his weight into it and dragging the man with him. The shears clattered harmlessly to the floorboards as violent momentum carried the both of them stumbling across the room in a tangle of struggling limbs.

“Wait-!” A gasp sounded off in Finn’s ears, Jefferson’s dark eyes wide as he seemed to realize exactly where Finn was taking him.

Right toward the massive, floor-to-ceiling window at the back of the workshop.

“No, d-!” Whatever Jefferson had to say went uheard as the heavy pane of glass exploded outward as his body met it. Razor-sharp shards glittered into the night as Finn shoved the man with all the force he had left clean through the frame.

Finn didn’t bother to look out the broken window to see him land.

He was already collapsing backward, legs finally giving out beneath him. His body hit the floor again, hard enough to knock what tiny bit of air he had left straight out of his failing lungs. He couldn’t move his arms anymore. He couldn’t feel his arms anymore.

Not as hot wet blood pooled out beneath him, spreading out all around his body.

“Finn!” Emma screamed his name again, the heavy wooden chair scraping as she fought frantically for freedom. “Finn, stay with me! Don’t you dare close your eyes!”

He opened his mouth, an answer on his lips. 

That failed.

He tried to turn his head to look at her. 

He couldn’t.

By the time he tried one last time to open his eyes, he wasn’t awake to.

– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –

Sound came back first, dragging him out of the void.

Sirens; loud, wailing, and incredibly close fighting to be heard over the contant mayhem of people shouting over each other against the harsh burst of radio static and dispatch chatter.

Light flashed in thick strobing bursts of red and blue, enough to cut right through his closed eyelids, painting the darkness in angry colors that made his head throb in time with his own heartbeat.

Finn’s eyes cracked open, that much an effort on its own.

The back doors of an ambulance stared back at him, thrown wide open with paramedics in dark blue rushing past his line of sight, across the grass of a well-trimmed front lawn.

Someone was talking directly to him, words he couldn’t make out from a man in an EMT uniform beating at his ears as the man decided screaming would help. The guy crouched low beside his head, something heavy and painful pressed tight against his chest. 

“Stay with us, kid. We’ve got you. Stay awake. You’re gonna be fine.”

Okay, he could hear that.

Then, a face cut through the chaos and flashing lights, hovering directly above him like an angel in black and red.

Ruby.

She was pale, like a ghost almost, the usual confidence almost completely drained from her skin. Her hands shook as they found his face, cool fingers cradling his jaw like he was made out of porcelain. “Don’t you dare.” Tears spilled hot and fast down her cheeks. “Don’t you fucking dare leave me, Cherry Boy.”

Bloody fingers found hers, the action of squeezing her hand taking effort he didn’t know he hand in him.

“Wasn’t… planning on it.”

Ruby’s face blurred entirely as hot tears spilled on his face.

Finn McHale took a breath…

– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –

You Got Heart, Kid – 200 GP

Stay alive after a gunshot to the heart.

Die Hard – 200 GP

Fight on even while bleeding out.

They Call You Joe – 100 GP

Win a fight even if it pushes you to the brink.

ROLL: The Family (400) [The Games We Play] {Control}:

“The kind they whisper about and which get you looks on the street, that is. You have

a powerful and illustrious last name now, probably something rather impressive by

itself too. But more than the word, it’s important for what it means. Your family is an old one, and a connected one. You have huge levels of influence, wealth and power, probably being a noble family, or a huge business dynasty, a mafia organization or maybe even some mix of the above options. Either way, this is a powerful force with fingers in a lot of pies and a long, long reach. While not really comparable to names like ‘Schnee’, your family is easily the match of any of the old families of Mistral, whether there or in another nation.”

ROLL: Red Hoodies make great bandages (300) [Star v the Forces of Evil] {Benevolence}:

You’re rather harder to beat than you look… to the point even fatal wounds won’t slow you down for a while, even if it stops you eventually. You don’t stop until you drop, though, and even then you might be able to get back up with some healing. You’re not supernaturally tough; you just make people worry about how you’re still standing, and if they can drop you before you drop them.

FAIL: NFF Services (400) [Fate/Legends – Baba Yaga] {Domain}

Grimoire Points: 300