Chapter 17: Xero's Other Side

A Chapter by Andrew Akuna

Xero's Other Side

"Stay awake, d****t!" Xero shouted at Longinus. He had managed to get the Wolf safely to his apartment and onto his bed, but he was still in danger. The only silver lining in this cloud was that the bullets had gone straight through. Longinus had lost quite a bit of blood and was slipping in and out of conciousness despite Xero's pleas for him to stay awake. The Panther had treated the wounds as best as he could without his usual magic, but seeing that more of Longinus's blood was on the floor than in his body was beginning to scare him.

There was a slam. Vladimir stormed out of the back of the apartment and threw a file cabinet drawer on the floor before doing the same to Xero to look Longinus over. Xero moved to strike Vladimir, but then turned his attention to the drawer. He crawled toward it and began going through the folders inside.

"Xero, how bad is it?"

"Um... I'm thinking the only thing we really have to worry about is bloodloss." Xero replied. "I've never treated wounds without magic, so I'm not so sure. I don't think the bullets hit any organs, but without an anchor, he needs a transfusion, but if he'll be okay for now, it might not be necessary. For now, let him rest."

Vladimir nodded, not once taking his eyes off Longinus for fear he may stop breathing.

Xero turned away from the drawer and put a paw on Vladimir's shoulder. "Hey, don't worry. He'll be fine."

The elder Wolf turned and smirked. "If I didn't know any better, I'd think you actually cared."

The Panther's eyes turned red as his claws extended into Vladimir's shoulder.

"Okay, okay!" Vladimir yelped, prying Xero's paw off his shoulder. His ears twitched, picking up the sound of Longinus snoring softly. "...will he really be alright?" The wolf's tone had changed from joking to worry.

"I'm sure of it, don't worry."

"Okay...so, lets get to work on finding your brother." Vladimir said, moving to the drawer.

"Nah, it wouldn't be right to move forward before he can." Xero replied, nodding to the sleeping Wolf. "He nearly died so we could get this. We should wait."

Vladimir nodded and kicked the drawer into a corner, then sat down in the chair opposite the bed Longinus was on. Xero stretched out on the couch near the bed so that he could keep an eye on the younger Wolf. Before long, all three of them were asleep.

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Three weeks passed. Longinus barely moved at all, let alone spoke. Perhaps it was because he had never had to recover from such injuries naturally. Vladimir and Xero took turns watching him for any sign of improvement, all the while fearinging the worse.

"Hey, Vladimir, did you catch the woman that shot us?" Xero said as he attempted changing Longinus's bandages without waking him.

"No, she got away, but I did get something." Vladimir replied. He went into the back of the apartment for a few moments and returned with a small, shiny object. He held it out to Xero, revealing that it was a digital camera. "Now we don't have to worry about whoever she's working for finding out what we look like."

"Nice work." Xero replied, tossing bloody bandages into the garbage. The wounds did not look very bad, but they were there, which was more than enough to cause worry. Xero looked back to the younger Wolf and ran a paw along the side of his face. "You'll be okay..."

"I thought you didn't like him." Vladimir said over Xero's shoulder.

"I don't," Xero replied, "but he's in my paws now, so I'm going to do my best to keep him alive."

"Careful, Panther, you're coming across as caring again..." Vladimir teased. The next instant found him blasted backward by a burst of unnatural wind. He got up and dusted himself off before sticking out his tongue and leaving the room through the door portal that lead outside.

Xero turned his attention back to Longinus and continued to clean the wounds, using a pair of tweezers to pick out stray bits of cloth that he found there. While he picked out the cloth, Xero listened to the Wolf's breathing for any abnormalty, this would tell him if he was causing him pain. Every now and then, he heard a sharp intake of breath, which signaled him to slow down, but eventually, the wounds were clean enough to rebandage. Xero lifted Longinus into a sitting position and slipped behind him with a roll of gauze and began wrapping it around his chest and over his shoulders. When the roll was done, he held Longinus up and slipped out before easing him back down on the bed.

"Phew..." Xero stretched and scratched his head. "Sometimes I wonder if I'm meant to kill or cure." he said as he admired his work on the Wolf. He turned and moved toward the window he had jumped out of the first time he was here. It was raining outside, as it had for about four days now. "So this is what these domestics do when it rains..." the Panther mumbled, looking down to see the multicolored circles of unbrellas walking about the streets, seeming to dance with each other for a moment here and there as their owners passed one another.

"Well we 'domestics', as you call us, don't usually like to get wet..."

Xero turned sharply to see Longinus sitting up on the bed.