It was very evident that Mattie was not, in fact, okay. Neither Nicholas nor Mattie were okay at the moment -- and Jacob had no earthly idea what the hell had happened. One minute, he was walking out to go get a damn meal, and the next minute these two were all but dying in front of him. He was irritated, but more frantic than irritated. They needed immediate medical attention. Although the pool of blood around Nicholas was steadily growing, Jacob knew the limits of his brother and knew that he could withstand a few more minutes of bleeding out. So Jacob gathered Mattie in his arms -- she was surprisingly light -- and rushed her into the motel room. It was a good idea to get them both in before someone else saw. She wasn't bleeding. Wait, yes she was. She had a tear in her wing, the wing that Jacob remembered ripping years ago. He winced at the memory, laying her on one of the two beds. 

Next he had to get Nicholas in. Nicholas was significantly heavier than Mattie, but Jacob had carried him a couple of times before. The hard part was that Nicholas was now half-conscious and obviously not in his right mind. He kept struggling in Jacob's hold. "Stop," Jacob hissed. "I'm trying to save your life, [i]again[/i]."

"Is Mattie okay?" Nicholas groaned.

"She's fine, she just had a breakdown and passed out. What stabbed you?" No response. Jacob drug Nicholas into the room, slammed the door shut, and threw his brother on the other bed. "Lay on your stomach," he commanded him, but walked over to Mattie. He gently turned her over onto her stomach as well, lifting her shirt to inspect her wing. There was only a minor tear, from what he could see on the outer appearance. Nothing that couldn't be fixed immediately. His hands hovered over her wing, omitting a faint, green light, and within three solid minutes, the tear had healed and scarred over.

"Now," Jacob said, turning to Nicholas, who had obeyed his command and was lying on his stomach with his shirt already pulled up. "Let's see what you've got here. Hold still." There was a shard of [i]something[/i] sticking out of Nicholas' back, covered in blood. Jacob's eyebrows knitted together, and he grabbed hold of the shard, then slowly began to extract it from his brother's skin, eliciting a very loud, shrill, and pained scream from Nicholas. He began to squirm. "Hold still," Jacob hissed. "I can't get it out if I can't grip it. It's bloody and slippery."

"It's bloody?!"

"Well, [i]yeah[/i], it stabbed you." A tight grip and a yank, and the shard was out of Nicholas' back and in Jacob's hand. Nicholas screamed again as blood started pouring out even quicker from the gaping wound that the shard left behind. Jacob sat the bloody shard on the dresser top, pulled open a drawer and retrieved a roll of gauze and a bottle of rubbing alcohol, then faced Nicholas again.

"I know what's coming," Nicholas moaned pathetically. "You're gonna pour alcohol on it."

"Got to," Jacob snickered, reaching in the bedside table and pulling out a dry towel. He soaked it in alcohol and pressed it to the bleeding wound on Nicholas' back. Another scream. Actually, a series of shrill screams, and then Nicholas went limp again, but not unconscious. Jacob laid gauze over the wound, then taped it to his skin with medical tape. "Now, I'm not a doctor," he said, "but I think I did a pretty good job patching you up."

The gauze was turning a pinkish color even as Jacob stood and watched. The wound would have been too much to heal through his powers. It was definitely going to need stitches -- but Jacob didn't have those here.

"Kill me," Nicholas groaned. "Kill me because nothing matters now anyway."

"Oh, shut up. You're alive, she's alive, and we can work this out." Jacob rolled his eyes and carefully turned Mattie back onto her back, fetched a cold, damp cloth from the bathroom, and laid it on her forehead. "Stay on your stomach," he said Nicholas. "If you lay on your back, it's going to hurt. A lot."

"I'm sorry, Mattie," was all Nicholas said.

"She can't hear you, bud. She's out cold. Not hurt, just out." Jacob put a finger to the vein in Mattie's neck -- her pulse was quick, but slowing the longer she laid there. "She's gonna be fine. Don't worry. You're both gonna be fine. You've lived through worse."