Future Ghosts • TWD

163. Guilt.

"It's ok. It's ok," Rosie said quickly as she practically carried Ian into an old cabin. He was losing so much blood that he was on the verge of passing out, so he had been leaning on her ever since they got out of the Reapers' place.

"Fuck," Ian groaned as he took a seat on the dirty floor. He reached up to his shoulder, stretching the collar of his shirt out in order to see the wound.

"Don't look at it. That makes it worse," Rosie scolded, forcefully turning his head away. She huffed out a breath, looking around the abandoned cabin for something to use to help Ian. There wasn't much left in the cabin, but, luckily, Rosie was able to find a needle and thread in a sewing kit, tucked away in a cabinet.

As Rosie approached Ian with the needle and thread, his eyes widened dramatically. "You're not stitching me up with that shit! It's not clean!" Ian argued, pushing himself further into the corner and cowering away from the needle.

"Do you want a potentially infected wound that is probably fixable or do you want to bleed out, Ian? There's an exit wound, so I won't have to dig out the bullet. You should be grateful," Rosie said. She grabbed a t-shirt from the closet and a wooden spoon from the kitchen. "Take off your shirt," she said, returning to Ian's corner.

Ian scoffed out a laugh. "I never thought this day would come."

"You're not funny," Rosie said, giving him a glare. He rolled his eyes and took off his shirt. "Put this in your mouth and bite down on it if you feel like screamin' to attract walkers." Rosie handed him the wooden spoon and Ian placed it between his teeth. "Ready?"

"No," Ian muttered, his words slightly muffled by the spoon in his mouth.

"Ok," Rosie huffed. She wiped away some of the blood coming from the wound in order to see better, but more blood just kept coming. She continued wiping it away until she felt like she could start on the stitches. "Never given anyone stitches before, but first time for everythin', I guess."

"Wait, maybe we should just wait and see if-"

Before Ian could finish his sentence, Rosie stabbed the needle into his skin and he let out a loud groan of pain. Rosie shushed him, but continued on sewing up his wound, anyway. She really hated this almost as much as he did. It was disgusting to see and disgusting to do, and she would rather have been doing anything else than stitching up a hole in her best friend's shoulder at that moment. Every time she stuck the needle in, he let out a repressed yell or groan of pain.

"Ian, you really gotta be quieter," Rosie muttered in a hushed tone.

"I'm trying," Ian insisted, his eyes shut tight.

"You're gonna attract somethin' here, and whether it's dead or alive, it'll fuckin' suck either way. You gotta shut up," Rosie hissed.

Despite Rosie's wishes, Ian could not remain quiet. Lucky for them, only a few walkers were nearby and made their way to the cabin only to slam on the doors aimlessly. Rosie pulled the needle through and over repeatedly until the entire wound was sewn shut. Once she was done sewing up the wound, she wrapped a strip of the t-shirt she found tightly around Ian's shoulder.

"See? Look, I'm already done," Rosie said as she finished tying up the t-shirt. Really, though, the stitches took a long time- much longer than it would have taken if she knew what she was doing. "Now you gotta clean off your face. You still got blood all over," she said, gesturing to his face.

"So do you," Ian told her, slowly and carefully pulling his shirt back as he tried his best not to move his shoulder too much.

Rosie's eyebrows furrowed and she reached up to her face, rubbing her thumb along the side of her nose. Surely enough, a bit of blood was on her thumb when she checked. "Daryl wiped it off," she said.