iii.
Y/N has seen a lot of blood.
The first time she'd seen it and had a complete understanding of what it was, she was five. There was a dense thicket just outside the garden of her grandmother's home entangled with roses. When she was young, she enjoyed playing around it, pretending that there was a monster that hid within the bushes who ate little kids but she was the only one he liked. She had been a lonely child so the thought of something who despised other beings but her had made her feel good in a way. And part of being friends with the monster was to share snacks, only she couldn't toss him a slice of cake like how she would potato chips or fruit snacks.
So she took the cake, held it out to the monster, dipping her hand into the bush and the thorn of a rose dragged against her skin. She snatched her hand away with a yelp, eyes beading with tears from the sting, but Y/N becomes distracted by the small droplets of blood that pool up to the surface of her skin. It was the first time she recalled seeing it on herself and a small bead of panic dripped down her spine but it was overcome by a certain wonder. A wonder that only a kid could have about their insides, because at the time she had no clue she had broken a protective layer of skin, damaging the blood vessels. At the time, she had thought her skin was mad at her - that her body was crying.
She touched it, found it sticky, tasted it just to see before smearing the bit that had dribbled down her hand, sliding around her knuckles. The monster had felt so terribly guilty about her wound but she promised him it was okay, that he had shown her something new that day and that was pretty darn spiffy, wasn't it?
As she grew older she saw it more and it had never made her squeamish. Big gashes where you can see muscle and bone kind of do her sometimes, but the blood never did. Then she became a nurse and sometimes she'll see it every hour, it just depended on the day. She was used to it - she had been since the monster had made her privy to it.
That didn't mean she particularly wanted it on her couch.
There was no time though, at the moment that Harry and Mickey showed up at her door with Mitch, pleading for her help. He needed to lay down, only halfway consciousness, and as strong as she wants to believe Harry and Mickey are, they've been tossed around a bit as well. So she told them to get him on the couch while she rushed to her bathroom, where she had effectively stored a ton of medical supplies that she either buys or takes from the hospital during the night shift (which every nurse does; Janet had explained to her that they order too many supplies and "don't pay us enough anyway, we get our digs in how we can"). She had bandages, gauze, antibiotic creams, a saline solution for cleaning it, gloves, adhesive patches, and some medical tape. All of it would be too much to carry so she bundles it all in her shirt, including a few wet flannels (and some dry) so that she could clean it in the first place, and her scissors.
Her pace is quick, ushering Harry and Mickey out of her way, "Mickey in my freezer there's a few ice bags in the door, could you grab them for me?" He gave a curt nod and pivots on his heel towards the kitchen, "Do ya know if he's allergic to any kind of medicine?" Harry shakes his head quickly, Y/N notes the wild look in his eye, worried and frazzled beyond belief - it was weird to see him this way...he was never like that, "Alright, I've got some extra strength Tylenol in the medicine cabinet, it's on the left side of the microwave. Bring me that and a glass of water could you?" He jogs off into the kitchen and Y/N turns her attention to Mitch, giving a little tap to Mitch's cheek, "Oi, Mitch, can you stay awake for me, Babe?"
He gives a halfhearted nod, groaning as she does a quick scan over his body, noticing blood on his shirt, so she peels up the fabric and reveals a nasty cut starting near his belly button and dragged outward towards his hip. It wasn't deep, mostly a surface wound, but it was enough to where this would take her first priority. She stuffs his shirt up, letting the things pool from where they were cupped in her shirt, snags the gloves on her hands and taking the wet cloth, cleaning the area around the cut so that she could visualize what was actually wound and what was just blood. The blood smears and watery it dribbles down his side, Harry and Mickey both arrive back in the room, so she nods towards him, "Give him two, put the peas on the table."
