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“Angel!”
Angela Shepard is no stranger to yelling. The name Shepard carries with it the guarantee of a temper hotter than the late Autumn sun and the vocal cords to make sure the whole street knows it. Ma is only ever happy when she’s hacked off, Curly has never once been quiet for longer than three seconds back to back, and she herself wears fury like socy girls wear their hair ribbons.
So yes, she’s no stranger to yelling– but she ain’t never heard Curly yell like that. He doesn’t sound mad, he sounds scared – and that is infinitely worse. There isn’t a lot that scares Curly Shepard, or any Shepard really. They’ve all seen too much.
“Goddamnit Angel,” Curly roars again, “get out here and bring the first aid kit!”
That spurs her to action and she snatches the small first aid kit out from under the bathroom sink and hightails it to the living room.
Curly is there, wide eyed, Tim propped up against him. For a second Angela doesn’t realize what the problem is. When she does, her brain refuses to let her believe it.
A dark stain is spreading rapidly across the side of Tim’s shirt, even as Curly half drags half carries him over to the couch and deposits him on it as gently as he can. Despite how careful Curly’s being, a pained grunt still forces its way out from between Tim’s clenched teeth.
“Call Manuel,” Curly orders, naming Tim’s second in command, “get him to bring the truck back now and be ready to drive. And get Sylvia down here too.”
Running to the kitchen, she dials Manuel’s home number and hurriedly explains the situation, cold terror making her harsher than usual. She doesn’t bother trying to get ahold of Sylvia- Sylvie knows everything that happens on the east side, she’s probably already on her way.
“What happened?” She demands as soon as she gets back to the living room. Curly’s hands are slippery with blood and he’s got a wad of rapidly reddening gauze pressed tightly against the wound in Tim’s stomach. Her older brother’s face is twisted in pain, his breathing even more laboured than it was a minute ago, tight gasps forcing themselves out from behind clenched teeth.
She’s seen knife wounds before, of course she has. Connor Tyrril from the Brumly gang had died from an infected knife wound last year, and Tim and even Curly had been sliced before, long gashes that eventually faded into rough scars– but never anything like this. The slashes they’d sustained in the past were meant to hurt, but this wound was very specifically meant to kill.
She doesn’t know what to do.
“Who did it?” She demands, hands fluttering uselessly. Curly seems to have a handle on what to do, his wide eyes at odds with his steady hands, counting under his breath as he applies pressure, but Angela doesn’t have a clue how to help and isn’t even sure that she can . “What happened?”
“A few of the boys from Tiber street apparently weren’t too fond of Tim’s latest shipment,” Curly explains, pressing a new piece of gauze over the others, already soaked through with blood.
“ Names Carlos.”
“Dustin Blackwell and Ian Forrester. Tried to fight ‘em off but they had about seven buddies backing ‘em.”
“They’re dead .” Angela vows, horrified to feel the way her eyes are stinging. She means it too. If anything happens to Tim those assholes are dead, juvie and jail and records be damned. The steely look buried under the panic in Curly’s eyes tells her he agrees.
Tim groans, despite how hard Angela can tell he’s trying to hold it back, and Curly stiffens, hands jerking slightly and tearing another horrible sound from Tim’s throat.
“Go see if there’s any more gauze somewhere,” he orders, pressing the last of the stuff over Tim’s wound, the fabric reddening as if by magic, “grab some of my t-shirts if you can’t find any.”
Angela runs to do as she’s bid, wishing she could do something, anything else. For all Curly is usually the last person who should be left in charge of anything, let alone any sort of crisis, right now he seems to be about the only person who knows what to do and Angela can’t help but cling to it like a lifeline. She can’t fix Tim, but she can sure as hell help Curly help him and if all she can do is grab t-shirts, you can best believe she’ll grab the whole stack in her drawer and Curly’s too.
She can’t have been gone more than thirty seconds but Tim is noticeably worse when she returns, sweat beading on his forehead, his skin looking closer to grey than its usual light brown.
“Hold this for me,” Curly nods to the wad of gauze he’s pressing on with both hands, “don’t worry about hurtin’ him, just press as hard as you can. I’m gonna check his pulse.”
Tim lets out an almost inhuman scream the second she touches him, and it’s almost enough to have her jerk away and apologize if that wouldn’t render the whole thing useless. Curly waits until Angela’s hands are pressing hard beside his before he deigns to move one away, deftly pressing two fingers under Tim’s neck with one hand, counting under his breath. It seems like a long time before he stops counting even though the clock says it wasn’t more than a minute, and the tightness in his jaw belies his anxiety.
Not good then- or getting worse.
“Well?” She snaps, too full of fear to know what to do with it, trying to hide behind a more familiar anger.
“It’s slow,” Curly snaps right back, her twin in soul and temperament and right now a visceral type of fear, “and gettin’ worse. He’s fucking bleeding out, Angel what’d you expect!”
“Shut up! He ain’t gonna bleed out! Shut up!”
Curly glares a second longer before his mask slips just a bit and she sees herself in his blue eyes. For a second they’re three years old again and Tim is in the reformatory and they’re both so hungry and alone and scared it feels like nothing will ever be okay again. Then she blinks, and Curly’s jaw tightens, and they’re back to now, in a no less horrible present.
“Damnit,” Curly snarls, but his voice breaks, “where the fuck is Manuel?”
“Quit arguin’” Tim speaks for the first time since Curly dragged him in and Angela could sob. His voice is the same gruff bark it’s always been, just as steady as it always is despite his laboured breathing, even as his lean form has started to shake uncontrollably under her hands, making it hard to keep the gauze and now one of her own t-shirts pressed against his wound, “and listen’ to me.”
Curly watches him with wide eyes, forever in awe, the way he’s always been, always willing to follow Tim anywhere, even off a cliff. Of course, Angela can't exactly blame him when she’s the exact same way.
“L-listen,” Tim repeats, his black eyes shining with an emotion Angela can’t place, and she is listening because its Tim talking and he always knows what to do. He’s going to tell them what to do and he’s going to be okay. They’ll do what he says and everything will be fine. “Listen.”
He swallows, grimacing as he lets out another strained breath before his sharp eyes focus on them again.
“You’re good kids,” he says, fierce, so fierce, and Angela blinks because that isn’t right, it isn’t a plan , it isn’t a way to fix this . And it isn’t even true. She and Curly are about as far from good kids as it’s possible to be.
“You’re good kids,” Tim repeats with conviction, like he can hear what she’s thinking, “don’t let nobody tell you otherwise, savvy? I’m damn proud of you. Both of you.”
“Tim-”
“Good kids,” His eyes have taken on an almost glassy quality, “My kids.”
His entire body goes limp. Angela screams.
Manuel chooses that exact moment to burst through the door, Sylvia on his heels, and there's no time, no time for anything anymore except for Curly to grab Tim’s shoulders and Manuel grab his feet, and Angela try to keep pressure on that fucking stab wound all the way to the truck and then to the hospital until a team of nurses rolls Tim away on a gurney. Even then, the only reason they manage it is because Sylvia and Curly both half drag her away.
“Let go, I’m goin’ with him!”
“You can’t.” Sylvia’s voice cuts like a blade. “They ain’t gonna let you in the operation’ room Angel, so quit havin’ a fit and come sit in the waitin’ room.”
“Shepards stick together.” Angela turns to Curly for support but Curly doesn’t seem to be all here right now, staring vacantly into space and trembling like a leaf. “Right Curls?”
“C’mon,'' Sylvia shakes her head when Curly doesn’t answer, “We aren’t doin’ much good for ol’ Timmy in this parking lot, and we won’t do much more in the waitin’ room but at least there’ll be a place to sit.”
Unable to argue, Angela follows Sylvia inside, Curly trailing dreamlike after them, and they sit in the waiting room and do just that: wait. Manuel had left as soon as the doctors got Tim inside so he isn’t there with them, but Angela can’t find it in herself to care. Tim runs a gang, not a family. Manuel knows that as well as any of them.
Angela squeezes her hands into fists to stop the tremble in her fingers. Wonders how Sylvia can still be so unfeeling when her best friend has just been stabbed. Decides she doesn’t care. Watches as Curly slowly returns to himself, pulling out a cigarette and offering her one. They both pretend it’ll stop their hands from shaking. They’re both wrong.
She wants to do something. To start a fight or cause a problem, maybe kick up a fuss in the food court or swear at a nurse, do something to assuage the fear and the anger burning it’s way through her chest, do anything that isn’t just sit here and wait.
You’re good kids, Tim’s words echo in her head every time she’s about to get up and do something, keeping her rooted to the stupid plastic chair, doomed seemingly forever to the horrific purgatory of the waiting room. She isn’t a good kid, but Tim thinks she is, so she can be, at least for now, at least until she knows he’s okay.
“Anyone here for Timothy Shepard?”
Angela’s on her feet immediately, Curly at her side. Sylvia rises more languidly to face the woman at the nurses station, cool as ever.
“I don’t have any news yet,” the nurse says apologetically, seeing Angela and Curly’s tense faces, “I’m sorry. I just need someone to fill out the intake forms. Is he a minor?”
For a second Angela hates the warm faced woman more than she’s ever hated anyone.
“He’s eighteen,” Sylvia strolls forward, reaching a manicured hand towards the woman’s clipboard, “I’ll fill it out.”
The nurse starts to hand the clipboard to her, then freezes. “Um, I’m only supposed to give it to an emergency contact…”
“I’m his wife ,” Sylvia lies smoothly, “you ain’t gonna keep me from seein’ my husband. I doubt he’s even got anyone listed considerin’ we only recently got hitched.”
The nurse checks the chart again.
“What’d you say your name was?”
“Sylvia Shepard. Maiden name Devares.”
“Well it’s true he ain’t got anyone listed…” Angela can see the nurse crumbling, “I don’t suppose you got your marriage licence with you?”
“‘Course I do,” Sylvia reaches into her cleavage and pulls out the forged marriage certificate Curly had made a few months back when Sylvia needed Tim’s help opening a bank account, “there, see?”
The nurse glances at it and finally passes over the clipboard.
“My apologies Mrs. Shepard.”
Angela winces. Sylvia is many things, but she ain’t a Shepard, and she sure as shit ain’t Tim’s wife. Still, the charade has worked wonders in the past, and it’s working wonders again now.
“Thanks.” Sylvia offers her a perfunctory smile and turns on her heel, strutting back to her seat, Angela and Curly trailing behind.
“What’s takin’ so long?” Curly mutters to her, while Sylvia purses her lips, flipping through the forms, “we’ve been here an hour. How’s he still in surgery?”
Angela doesn’t know, so she doesn’t answer.
They wait.
Sylvia finishes filling the pages with her chicken scratch handwriting and returns them to the nurses desk. An ambulance arrives with some broad sporting a gunshot wound. Nurses bustle, doctors hustle, people come in and out of the waiting room, and still, they are not called.
Curly’s knee bounces more with each passing minute. Sylvia looks so bored Angela could slap her. Something somewhere is beeping and Angela is going to lose her mind.
“Family of Timothy Shepard?”
He hates being called Timothy, is all she can think this time, when a doctor gives them a practiced sympathetic look and tells them Tim's finally out of surgery and they can see him. He says a bunch of other stuff too, but Angela doesn’t understand half of it, and she isn’t really listening anyway because they can see Tim now and everything's gonna be okay.
Then they walk into the hospital room and Angela’s world shatters.
She is used to Tim being many things- tough and smart, the type of responsible someone only becomes when you walk the fine line between being a father and a brother. She is used to his rage, the one thing he inherited from both parents, is used to the cold fury he tries to mask it with, with the almost inhuman level of self control he wields like a knife. She is used to Tim fighting, lying, cheating. To Angela, Tim has always been untouchable, larger than life. Not a hero, no, but not a villain either, instead something amorphous and not entirely human, more powerful than anyone else she knows. Now though, for the first time in years, he looks entirely, brokenly human.
And small. That isn’t right, Tim isn’t small, has always towered over her and Curly, even now they're going on thirteen and have finally started to properly grow.
He’s lying on a pillow, his brown skin still that same bloodless grey tinge as earlier, even though at least two of the tubes plugged into his arm seem to be giving him more, which is good since half the blood in his body is still on the couch in their living room. Even still, what use is the hospital blood if it isn’t making him better? There’s a bag of clear fluid- what do they call that again? An IV?- in a needle beside the blood going into Tim’s arm, and a tube taped under his nose. At first Angela thought there was a sheet pulled up to his chest but when she stumbles forward she realizes with a jolt of horror that those are bandages wrapped so thoroughly and tightly around Tim’s entire chest she can hardly tell where they end and the actual sheets begin.
Somewhere, somehow, the doctor is still talking, Sylvia taking in each word with sharp eyes and looking anywhere but Tim, but Angela can’t hear anything over the roaring in her ears. Curly trembles almost imperceptibly beside her and she knows he feels it too, the horrible wrongness that hangs in the air, making this room one of nightmares.
Angela isn’t stupid. She knows she’s seen and lived through a lot of terrible things, faced horrors that most kids never dream of. Still, this has to be the worst thing that has ever happened to her.
Finally, the doctor leaves and the room is pitched into silence.
Sylvia pulls out a pack of cigarettes and lights one carefully, admiring the slight glow of the tip for a second before taking a long, slow drag. Only once she exhales, blowing a cloud of smoke that almost seems to fill the tiny room, does she look at Tim.
Something grim and dark settles in Sylvia’s hazel eyes, hardening more and more with each breath she watches the tube force through Tim’s lungs. The look sends a chill through Angela, a horrible itch starting at the back of her mind. Next to Tim, Angela probably knows more about Sylvia than anyone in the world, but right now she hasn’t got the slightest clue what she might be thinking.
“Curly,” Sylvia says, in the same husky drawl as usual, disarmingly nonchalant, “you got your switch on ya?”
Curly blinks. “‘Course.”
“Give it here.”
Her tone leaves no room for argument and Curly doesn’t try to, pulling the blade from his pocket and placing it in Sylvia’s waiting palm. Manicured nails wrap around it with practiced ease and that horrible itch in the back Angela’s mind suddenly becomes painful.
“What-” the words die on her lips. She can’t bring herself to ask what Sylvia is going to do. She knows what she’s going to do. The dark haired girl has never been one to get angry, but she always, always gets even. An eye for an eye. A humiliation for a humiliation. A stab wound for a stab wound.
A life for a life.
Without another word Sylvia turns on her heel and stalks away, letting the door slam behind her.
Then it’s just Angela and Curly and the boy in the bed that is supposed to be their brother but isn’t.
There's a horribly ugly fake leather armchair in the corner of the room Angela drags it closer to Tim’s bed and perches on the armrest, Curly half collapsing into the chair itself.
She’d thought the waiting room was bad but this is worse, sitting beside Tim but being unable to reach him, watching him fighting a fight that for once neither she nor Curly can fight with him, no matter how much she wishes she could.
He’s going to die.
The thought rises, unbidden, from the part of her mind that is forever young and terrified and hopeless and immediately she knows it to be true. The earth is round, the sky is blue, and her big brother is going to die.
Panic flares in her chest but the more she tries to tamp it down, to banish the thought back to the depths of wherever it came from, the more it demands to be heard.
He’s going to die. Tim is going to die and there is nothing she or Curly or this entire fucking hospital can do about it. Tim is going to die. She and Curly will lose the only real family they’ve ever had and her whole shitty life will get so much worse without anyone to take care of her. Curly will go off the rails, will end up in jail or dead too and then she will truly be entirely, unequivocally, alone .
“Angel?” Curly’s voice is plaintive, small, and she knows he feels it too, “what are we gonna do?”
She knows what he really means, what he’s really asking. She doesn’t have any answers.
Instead she reaches out a trembling hand and Curly grabs hers like a lifeline, squeezing her fingers so tight her bones creak. Angela hangs on just as tightly.
They haven’t done this in years, not since they were seven or so, have barely touched at all in the intervening time, both too used to physical contact meaning pain to ever really be comfortable touching anyone. Now though, the pressure of Curly’s hand in hers feels like the only thing tethering her to the earth.
They stay like that, hands clasped together in a silent vigil, until Tim wakes up.
It’s neither a slow, nor a pretty process. First a machine starts beeping like crazy and then half a dozen nurses and doctors rush in and kick her and Curly out again into the hallway, but when all is said and done and they’re allowed back in the room, Tim’s black eyes are open and the breathing tube is gone from under his nose.
Angela Shepard doesn’t believe in miracles, but in that moment it feels like she’s been granted one. Then again, she thinks, as Curly starts mouthing off in an attempt to hide the unshed tears in his eyes, Tim has been the cause of nearly every miracle she’s ever witnessed, and this one is no different.
As Tim starts to yell and Curly’s unmistakable donkey laugh fills the room, Angela can’t help but chide herself for being so stupid. Tim Shepard never lost a fight. Just because this one looked a little different than usual didn’t make it any different.