Field Medicine - Robin, John Stoker

Robin picks a handful of yarrow clusters and tucks them into his bag as well, snapping off only the tops with his knife. The plants he leaves rooted to continue growing.
There’s a balance to give and take, in nature, and while he knows it’s illogical, some part of him that’s latched onto John’s somewhat superstitious nature is telling him that maybe if he doesn’t take too much from it, it won’t take John from him.
He knows that’s not how this works.
But it’s the only thing he can control right now.
He’s painfully familiar with life and death, and the fact that they are inextricably intertwined. There’s no room in his world for not understanding it. There is no chance for forgetting that nature is a harsh place and completely beyond a human’s capacity to reason with.
Even fae can be bargained with, despite how dangerous it can be for a human to attempt that. Nature…just is. Neither cruel nor kind, simply existing. Most days, Robin finds it comforting that the place he’s most at home is not a place that can treat him with true malice. But today, he’s finding it hard to accept that it also will treat them with no compassion.
It had been a perfectly good hike until John literally stumbled over the wreckage of an old tree. A piece of shattered wood had somehow slid under his pant leg just above the boot, and left a five-inch gash up his calf.
Robin has seen worse. John insists he has too.
The problem is, they’re a two day hike (and Robin pushes back the thought that that was two days with John in perfect health) from the nearest thing approaching human civilization, and while the wound bled freely, they’re down a first aid kit. A very determined bear climbed partway up a tree to get at their packs one night, and their well-stocked kit vanished with it into the forest.
John insists it had to be Bigfoot or werewolves, because what use would a bear have for a first aid kit? Robin counters with the fact that both those legends come from shifter-fae sightings and a fae would have absolutely no use for a human medical supply kit.
Their emergency sat phone fell victim to the same attack, not taken but bitten clean through as if it was a high-tech dog toy, and Maira doesn’t expect them back from the mountains for a week. No one will be coming to get them. They’re on their own.
I’ve met humans who envy the fae for living, in their words ‘so close to nature’. But the truth is, to live like this, you have to make your peace with the fact that you may not survive it for long. The fae have to accept death as just as much a possibility as life. And today, Robin doesn’t want to.
…
TWENTY MINUTES EARLIER
John holds out his knife. “Well, on the bright side, we don’t actually need to build a fire for this.”
“You can’t be serious.” Robin looks at the shining blade of the Bowie knife. “I’m not cauterizing your leg. If I do that…it could get infected. Faster.”
“And if you don’t, I have to walk on it, risk opening it up again, and bleeding out up here.” John shakes his head. “I have to walk. You can’t carry me out. And an infection’s probably gonna happen anyway. Not like we have a clean surgical suite up here.”
“I could try and suture…” Robin offers.
“With what? Yogi ripped off our supplies in case you forgot.”
“At least you’re accepting the fact that it was a bear now,” Robin mumbles. “I could find a bone shard, or a porcupine quill…and there’s thread on our clothes…”
“Which is just as bad as the burn. Trust me. We have to get out of here, the sooner the better. This is the fastest way.”
Robin swallows. “Okay, but…I’m gonna try and make a salve for it, to keep it healthy as long as I can. That’s gonna take me some time.”
“That’s okay.” John sighs. “I’m gonna need to pad a branch for a crutch anyway.” He shrugs, wincing. “Well, let’s get on with it. More time we waste, the more blood I’m losing.”
Robin nods, looking down at where he’s cut the pant leg away from the raw red wound. He rests the tips of his fingers on the knife blade, watching the metal turn red and heat rise shimmering from it.
John pulls off one of his wrist cuffs and bites down on the leather, then nods.
And then Robin presses the flat of the blade to the gash, holding his breath to block out the terrible smell of scorched flesh and wishing he could cover his ears to stop hearing the muffled scream.
…
“Okay, I got what I need.” Robin sets the sticky honeycomb down on a fairly clean, flat stone and starts laying out the rest of his ingredients.
He was already carrying small pouches of comfrey and St. John’s wort from his garden, and he was fortunate to find both yarrow and plantain growing wild in the meadow nearby.
“The honey will make a base for the ointment and also help slow down infection,” Robin explains, not sure if it’s more for his benefit or John’s as he squeezes the comb into one of their tin bowls. “This won’t be exact portions, not like I make at home for myself, but…” He begins grinding together the herbs on stones that he left with John to wash with hot water from over the campfire before he scampered off.
Robin pauses, fingers stilling in the thick paste. Wait, this will work on humans…won’t it? He runs through his mental list of the ingredients. He knows they’re safe for fae. But…he can’t be sure if they’ll work on humans.
He knows they’re all safe for him, but the thing about fae is, their nature remains dominant down to one-sixteenth ancestry, just like their magic. Robin is only one-fourth fae, but he’s still allergic to iron and most human medications, bound by his true-name and his promises, and able to summon his element. Fae cures are really the only medicine he trusts to work on him.
John isn’t fae at all.
It’s possible Robin is as dangerous to John as anything else out here. While he has a very human side, there’s also plenty of the fae in him, making him far more like the world around them right now than he cares to admit. He’s everything John called him at first. Dangerous. Unpredictable. Maybe even deadly.
“I…” Robin pauses. “You don’t know if any of those are toxic to humans, do you?”
“Don’t think so.” John frowns. “I recognize all but the St. John’s wort from Abuela Rosa’s cures. And…that plant looked familiar when you pulled it out of your bag so I think she just called it something different.” He gives Robin a lopsided smile, one that slightly softens the creases of pain around his mouth. “You’re not the only one who had a grandparent obsessed with herbal cures.”
The tight knot in Robin’s stomach loosens a little.
“Robin, I trust you.” John’s hand wraps around his wrist, resting on top of the wrist guard. “You’re not gonna hurt me. I know you won’t.”
Robin takes a deep breath. “Well, actually, I already did. And probably will again; this will sting on the burn at first.”
“Darn fae honesty. You’re probably right, this is gonna hurt.” John shrugs. “Let’s get it over with.”