Survivoirs ( Elis ) - Tumblr Posts
🪐 — ELIS HOWELL.
For the record, Elis had not started this argument. Tensions between an Englishman and a Welshman were not unheard of but the latter honestly was just trying to enjoy his damn drink and self pity in peace thank you. The man was seated on a stool at the bar while the sounds of the pub around him began to blur a bit into one. He was trying to ignore the man he’d accidentally pissed off. He was drunk, words came easily, not the words the other wanted to hear. His ignoring only stoked the flames. A warning of watch yourself sounded from behind his shoulder from a man dressed far too nicely for this place. Elis was dressed finer as well but his clothes had began to appear a bit tattered in some areas.
At his peripheral, Elis could see the first man stumbling and readying to hit him. He sighed and shifted his beer just in time so he could flatten his chest to the bartop as the fist came flying for his face. The fancy man who had told him to watch himself, unfortunately, maybe needed to be told the same. The fist struck Stede in the jaw and sent man down to the ground and into one of the empty stools.
Shit.
It was at this moment, Elis stood up, letting his height give the drunk brawler a pause. It was usually something like this. The doctor wasn’t one for fighting but it was wiser to not let someone know that. Forget the fact he’d not thrown a punch since he was a boy, it had never been proper of him to do so. He’d never really had to. People tended to assume he could. Some saw him for what he was. Another rich boy whose life was fucked over by cruel chance. The inkeeper/bartender knew him as such and shot a look of warning at him.
“Elisedd. — You out,” he added to the other man who had started it, pointing to the door. “Now before things get messy.” All eyes were on the pair and the blond man on the ground holding at the side of his forehead where some skin had split from hitting the stool and was bleeding. Elis didn’t say another word, continuing to let whispers and assumptions be made but he was holding his breath and didn’t let it out until the drunk had waved him off and stumbled outside the bar.
“Sorry Martin,” Elis apologized quietly with a small smile.
“One of these days they’re going to actually hit you.”
Elis shrugged at the barkeep, he probably deserved it, before turning to lower down and help pull Stede to his feet.
“Easy – easy now. Let me take a look,” said Elis, his accent was almost musical even with his words slowed a bit by beer. His hands brushed away Stede’s hair and fingers and his eyes narrowed. He let go, stumbling a bit. “I should – you should probably sit down,” he adjusted himself, hand gripping at the bar top for some balance. Yeah, Stede was the one who needed to sit.
Martin cleared his throat. “Elis. You can take him to your room, if you’d like?” Code for. Get this blood out of my bar.
HE HADN’T EVEN BEEN INVOLVED in this particular scuffle, but that didn’t seem to be enough to protect stede from it. the punch wasn’t meant for him, but it found him all the same. & it was enough to send him clattering to the floor, his drink becoming a dark red stain across the front of his handsome silk vest. but the ruined outfit was the least of his worries — the punch seemed to have bent his nose to one side, & before he struck the ground, his head cracked sharply against one of the stools, sending white stars spiraling behind his eyes. his head spins a little as they slowly fade & the tavern comes back into focus, stede gripping the nearest stool to haul himself into to a sitting position. the place where his head had struck the leg ached & he lifted a hand to it. pain lanced through him at the point of contact, & stede flinched. his fingertips came away from his face wet & red, & a droplet of blood tracked down his jaw. & then his head started spinning again, & his clean hand must grasp at the stool to keep him at least halfway upright. when his vision steadies again, the man who he had tried to warn of the danger was standing in front of him, his hand extended to pull stede shakily to his feet. but the other man — the one whose knuckles he’d been on the receiving end of — appears to have gone, at least. the fight was over, with stede himself being the only unfortunate casualty. just his luck; he often found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time. ❝ thank you, ❞ he says upon finding his feet again, the deeply ingrained etiquette always the first thing that returns to mind. but then there are hands against his face brushing his bloodied hair back to get a better look at the wound, scarcely more steady than his own. ❝ oh, no, but i’m quite alright. i insist, that’s not necessary. ❞ although he is still a bit dizzy, slightly disoriented, stede doesn’t want to be a bother to anyone. though he does allow himself to slump back against the bar a bit, grateful for something solid to lean up against. ❝ just give a moment to catch my breath & i’ll be right as rain. ❞
🪐 — ELIS HOWELL for stede !
If his hands shook at all it was more due to feeling amped up a bit from the previous encounter than the drink. Unfortunately his hands shook when he didn’t drink these days. Which was why he had removed himself from his work. A surgeon whose hands shook because his body was craving a drink was no use to anyone and that was even if he could stop the daily drinking to start with.
Still. He could help this stranger who he’d gotten punched for nothing. He had similar deeply ingrained etiquette as well.
“And I insist you allow me to render you aid, sir,” the Welshman urged with a pointed expression, hands moving to hover near the man, worried he might fall over. “Please. I’m a doctor,” Elis added. One of the other regulars seated at the bar loudly huffed and rolled his eyes at that. The innkeeper shot him a stern look and pushed a clean rag across the bar top. Elis took it and offered it to Stede.
“Here. Your nose is bleeding. Pinch at it with your fingers against the septum wall — that’s the cartilage between your nose. And don’t lean your head back, you don’t want to flowing backwards. It doesn’t actually appear broken so you lucked out. But come to my room. I can patch up the side of your forehead. Head wounds bleed a lot but I promise you’ll make it,” he added dryly, trying to make a bit of a joke as he held out his hand to gesture towards the door to the hallway of rooms, one arm near Stede in case he got a little dizzy.
HE DOESN’T WANT TO MAKE A FUSS, especially over an injury that wasn’t truly all that grievous, in spite of the blood that’s seeped into his previously flawless starched lace collar. oh it hurts, to be certain, & stede knows well that he has a rather low tolerance for pain. but he will be fine, just so long as he has something solid to hold onto until his feet grow steady again. & he is grateful for the bar, leaning against it to steady himself, expecting to be left alone to nurse his wounds. yet the man who had started it all hovers stubbornly nearby, his hands raised as if to catch stede if he falls. it seemed a strange kindness for someone he didn’t even know, though his profession may have had something to do with his desire to help. ❝ a doctor, you say ? ❞ he asks, inquisitive brow raising as he looks the other man over. to stede’s eyes, he looked — & smelled — like little more than any other drunk in the tavern that night. ❝ i imagine it’s quite rare to find your kind in a place like this. ❞ but he speaks with confidence as he relays his orders, a clean cloth pressed firmly into stede’s hand. & although he is a pirate now, & a captain to boot, not required to take any man’s orders in a free port such as this, there is something in the doctor’s tone that makes him acquiesce, pressing the rag as he’s been instructed against his nose & pinching. but that only makes the pain sharper, & stede winces, keeping his grip light. he can only hope he is applying enough pressure to stem the bloodflow. he hesitates at the idea of going elsewhere with a strange man he scarcely knows, but for as lightheaded as he is feeling, he is also grateful for the chance some care to his wounds, minor as they may seem. ❝ well, if you’re sure it’s really necessary, doctor. ❞ stede’s voice is distorted slightly by the cloth pressed against his nose, his tone gone nasal & muffled as he pulls himself away from the bar to follow the stranger’s gesture, only swaying slightly on his feet. ❝ i’m stede, by the way. ❞