Once I make sure Tadhg is all right. Or even here.
My swing finished at midnight, but it was so chaotic trying to give report to the oncoming nurses on the patients I had to transfer over that I didn’t get out of there until after one. Which means it’s now past 1:30am and there’s absolutely no reason that Tadhg shouldn’t be back from a meeting he left for this afternoon.
The apartment is still and quiet when I unlock the door. It swings open silently, and nothing moves inside. No lights are on, and there’s nothing moving except the ceiling fan in the living room that I think I left on earlier.
When my eyes hit the couch and he’s not there, my stomach drops.
God, what did Patrick do?
But it does look disturbed, and when I see a dark streak on the carpet that might be blood, everything in my body curdles with fear.
I should probably hit the lights, but I’m too distracted and there’s enough light streaming in the kitchen windows from the parking lot halogens that I can see everything.
“Tadhg!”
A rustling sound is all I get in return, but I follow it to the kitchen, terrified of what I’m going to find.
Whatever it is, I can’t help but think it’s my fault. I was the only person who should have known better than to leave him alone, and what did I do? I abandoned him to his father’s clutches. Again.
Tadhg is in the farthest corner of the kitchen. The little island blocked him from my view when I first stepped inside, but as soon as I move deeper into the apartment, I can see him. He’s huddled in the corner, sitting on the ground with his legs bent in front of him, even though it probably hurts to put pressure on his abdomen like that.
It looks like he tried to get undressed at some point, because his t-shirt is discarded next to him, but the pants are only unbuttoned and slid halfway down his ass, black boxers showing but no further. His shoes and socks are kicked off, and the way his borrowed jeans are pulled down makes the legs swallow up his bare feet so they’re only half sticking out.
It makes him look child-like, in a weird way. Like he’s being swallowed whole by these clothes that Colm brought him. Like they were drowning him, even though they’re technically his size.
But that’s a weird thought. There’s a lot of strike-through on his bandage where the wound at his hip has started bleeding again, but the one on his arm looks relatively clean.
I take this all in over the course of a few seconds, mostly out of instinct. Assessing and calculating a patient’s condition comes with the gig.
Unfortunately, I’m flustered enough by the fact that it’s Tadhg, so it takes me longer than I’d like to get to his face.
He looks… Vacant. No. Hollow.
Like someone scooped out all the things that make him my brother and left this damaged husk behind. His eyes are open,but they’re not looking at me, and his body is still. If it weren’t for the barest rise and fall of his chest, he’d hardly look alive.
The only part of him that’s actively participating in existence are the fingers of his right hand, which are curled around his gun.
It’s resting on his knee, but he’s clinging to it with a level of commitment that makes me deeply uneasy.
Once I see him, I push down my own panic to keep my movements smooth and slow. I don’t want to startle him or make things worse, whatever’s going on. A little at a time, I move deeper into the kitchen before sinking to my knees in front of him, joining him on the shitty, cheap linoleum.
“Tadhg?” I speak softly this time, reaching out to put one hand on the knee that doesn’t have a weapon resting on it.
He blinks before turning his head slightly to look at me, but everything about the movement is syrup-slow. Like he’s moving through a vat of molasses, and getting his face to re-angle a few degrees is the hardest thing he’s had to do all day.
“What happened?”
He licks his lips, and I can hear how tacky his mouth is, like he hasn’t opened it or swallowed in a long time. His lips part like he’s about to speak and his head cocks to the side, but whatever thought is trying to circle to the top of his consciousness gets stuck somewhere and can’t break through.
When the words fail to form, he ends up sighing instead, and I can see his fingers rubbing over the metal of the gun in his hand, his thumb flicking the safety off and on like a nervous habit.
“I’m tired.”
It’s all he says, in the end, and his voice sounds gravelly and hoarse.
“Okay. Can I help you get back to the couch and you can try to get some sleep?” My tone is carefully neutral, but he’s shaking his head before I even finish.
“I can’t sleep. I hate the fucking couch. I couldn’t just… lie there. Anymore.” He blinks again, slowly, and licks his lips. “I’m too tired.”
