Beacon Hills, Home of the Supernatural

"Well the body needs to learn." Roa mumbled before wiping at his wounds.

"It takes time. It's learnt that sharp means pain, and pain is bad. I can't undo several years of conditioning overnight." Cedrick opened his eyes, which were wolf bright despite his calm expression.

"This will sting." Ria warned before starting to stitch up his wounds.

Cedrick's eyes flickered a shade brighter before he simply relaxed and closed his eyes again. "No more than it normally dose while receiving stitches."

"I'm sorry."

"You have nothing to apologise for. I'm the one who caused them to split, and you didn't inflict the original injuries. Don't be sorry."

"I'm hurting you now though."

"It's barely anything at all, Ria. Its the sting of brushing your hair and catching a knot, nothing more."

((Bb))

"Must hurt more."

"I've had many wound tended to, Ria. Don't worry yourself over this. You're being gentler than most."

"I just don't want to make you suffer any more than you have."

"I'm not suffering. It's better than the alternative of bleeding out, or having the wound crust to my clothes and get torn open later. I would have healed it myself, but my system still needs to recover. You're not at fault. Parts of me have less feeling than others while the nerves repair, so it's no real skin off my nose. Just do what you have to." His voice had dropped slightly, by almost an octave, a husky quality to it since he was on the fine line between man and wolf, showing considerable control that he managed to keep one form.

Ria just nodded and continued what she was doing, working a little quicker now.

Cedrick let his head sway forward, closing his eyes as he took in several deep breaths.

"Need a break?"

"I'm fine," Cedrick mumbled quiet. "Take as long as you need."

"I can stop, you sound like you need a breather."

"No, no. It's okay. Just get it over and done with."

Ria hesitated a few seconds, more so to still her own hands before going back to stitching up the wound, humming softly to distract herself almost.

"Cassius used to do this for me," Cedrick mumbled absently. "But he'd use hot needles. Burned his fingertips so he could stitch and cauterize the wounds in one. Helped with the bleeding. When you're done, not to be dismissive, you may have to leave."

"Whys that? Do you feel the need to change?"

"It's close," Cedrick agreed quietly. "It's mostly instinctive. There is pain, so there must be a danger. He's very simple, my wolf."

"Okay, I'll double stitch this up to reduce chance of tearing during the shift. I used to do it for Aaron, though he liked it stitched six, seven times over just in case... I don't think we have time for that though."

"The shift isn't going to be a violent one, just determined. The only danger is he might try to clean it and I don't know what trouble that would cause."

"Ripping out the stitches may open the wound further."