ways_infirmary | (no subject)

"I dun'...I dun' like doctorsss..." Harper slurred, his eyes rolling back in his head. "I can't...I c-can't see. I c-can't s-see Isaac, B-Brendan. They're--the uuuubers're g-gonna kill'im. He d-doesn't know it's an ambush."

"They're all right. You got the numbers you need, man." Duo learned last time that it's better to humor a Harper in shock.

Giving a slightly panicked glance at his hands, Duo hurries to wash them off, then gather the supplies for an IV. Stand, artificial plasma, needle.

He returns to the bedside and prepares to hook it up when the doctor signals.

McCoy gives Duo the go ahead for the IV. He is still carefully searching for more of the larva, and Laini is weaving foxfire around each one that is found.

They do not survive much longer than that.

Four out before. Six more found. Four more to go, if Harper's estimates of fourteen are close enough.

"... Almost there, Super Genius. See? Told you so." Laini murmurs quietly.

They're getting harder to find, little buggers. But he's patient, and quick, and soon they fall one by one.

While Laini fries the last of them, McCoy loads up a hypospray with the standard shock drugs - epinephrine, steroids, lidocaine, atropine. Those are shot in to the jugular while he monitor's Duo's blood drip rate, and nods. It's going to be messy, but it'll work.

Quickly he begins suturing and closing, running scans every few minutes to make sure he isn't closing in any more of those creatures. However, he can't quite keep the victorious smile off his face.

Feels good to save them.

Duo watches Laini and Nita work carefully over the larvae, then acts as another pair of hands for the doctor, passing over thread, needles, scissors.

He flips a sweat-soaked and bloody clump of hair out of his eyes. Another day, another set of scars.

Another day, another set of scars.

Another day.

Harper could have screamed.

No more days. That's what he wanted.

But he had another day, and that meant he was going to keep living and hurting, and things like this would just happen over and over again. Over and over and over and over, it made him want to slam his head into the wall over and over and over and over, until all he saw was red and then he saw nothing.

Maybe he was just delirious, or maybe he was just fried because every endorphin in his body had been used up, leaving him unable to cope with stress.

Maybe he just felt miserable.

Come Bitter Rain

And Wash from my Heart

That Saddest of all Words

Home

He wanted to go home.

He wanted his mother, and there was blood everywhere, like when her throat was slit, and he kept seeing red and it was always red.
"Don't--" he croaked out, his eyes flitting open.

Red everywhere; voices...

("You get your hands off my son! Run, Seamus! RUN!" "Dad! DAD! MA! YOU BASTARDS! I HATEYOUIHATEYOUIHATEYOU!")

"Why did your father fight when the slavers came for your mother?"

"Because he was a fool. Would you shut up about my father?!

"He fought because he was sick of lying down for them, because he was sick of being spat at. Laughed at, stolen from and beaten. Sick and tired of living in fear and desperation. So tired that he was willing to give up his life so long as he hurt them!

"Yeah, yeah and they laughed at him right up until they slit his throat and after."

"That's true but in the end, he laughed back. We both heard it Seamus. He fought. He finally fought. And after that nothing else mattered."

"Yeah, especially not to him."

"Seamus, you gotta let it go."

"I don't have to let squat go! You don't know what you're talking about! You don't even know what happened! You wanna know what really happened?! They didn't come for my mother, they came for me! Okay? They both died because of me!")

("Then leave. Then just leave. Leave! And let me do my job! You know, Harper, I've saved your skin before, and I'll save it again. But you have got to get off my back or SO HELP ME, I will drop you back on the trash heap where I found you!")

His blood was spilling across the floor in a pool, even though it wasn't, spilling out over two bodies and then more bodies and his cousins, their stomachs writhing like his own had, and--

Spiral, spin, ride the whirlwind.

Knowing when the drumming stops,

There’ll be no second dance

"Nooo," he moaned, trying to struggle away from McCoy. "Nooo. Don't. Stop. Wanna die. Wan--wanna die. Wanna sleep. Wanna sleeeep."

"You can sleep when we're done, Harper," Duo replies firmly. "But then you'll wake up, got it?"

He leans over the prone man to hold down his shoulders.

"Or just sleep now." Laini bites her lip, helping to pass instuments to McCoy.

She is still watching for more of the magog as well, but her ears are up. She is hopeful. And looking forwards to telling Harper an "I told you so" after he is better.

A faint smile, and she pats his hand, then looks to McCoy. "Is there something, so he can sleep now?"

"How about vodka?" suggested a groggy, semi-delirious Harper, tears pricking his eyes.

He was going to drink and drink after this...

("You wanna know how to deal with life, cuzzo? You wanna know how not to give up? Then you remember three things: liquor, laughter, and women." "Laughter, Brendan? Laughter?! Oh yeah, life's a huge laugh, isn't it. Isaac's dead, hahaha, hilarious--" Smack. "Issac's dead, Seamus. Now either we laugh at the time he got piss-drunk and wandered naked into Anders bunk, or we just--we just." A sigh, and a long pause. Then, "That was pretty freakin' hilarious, wasn't it, Brendan." "Yeah. Yeah." Laughter. "You remember that time that Isaac got his hands on those proton cuffs and got himself caught in 'em, and you had to saw 'em off with--" "Aha, god he was a freakin' idiot sometimes.")

He's fast, and he's careful - internal organs first, repair the fascia holding it all together, make sure the muscles are all attached correctly, dermis, epidermis. All done with one eye on the heartrate and blood pressure, wishing to God that the man would fall unconscious. He always feels like something of a butcher when he has to work on conscious patients.

"That's just about done it." He finally announces as he trims the last suture.

Harper fumbled with the straps.

"Screw sleep, I wanna drink," he insisted. Shakily, "At least get these damn straps off. I don't like--I don't like being restrained...I don't like it."

Laini laughs quietly, and pats Harper's shoulder gently.

"I can get you a drink. Prolly not much of a problem with that, but hold still so the doc here doesn't stitch you up to look like Frankenstien, okay?"

She looks questioningly up to the others.

Duo raises an eyebrow. "You sure that's such a hot idea, man? Dosin' yourself might make you feel better for about two seconds until the alcohol hits your guts."

"Fine, no drink, just get the damn straps off."

Well- he is coherant. And Laini can understand the sentimet quite well. So-

She starts undoing the straps.

Duo peels his own set of bloody gloves off and tosses them in the 'hazardous waste' receptacle.

He gives a barely audible sigh and leans against the counter for a moment.

As soon as the straps were off, Harper immediately sat up, and yanked off the theta-whatever. Which meant that pain came back full-fold and made him wince, but it wasn't so bad anymore, and he was no stranger to pain.

He was never a good patient, as Trance and any other doctor/medic who had worked on him would attest.

McCoy is no stranger to dificult patients. One firm hand on Harper's chest, he pushes him back down on the table.

"I don't think I said you could get up yet." He notes, drily. "Don't make me sedate you. I've got a hypospray with enough anesthetic to knock a horse on its rump for a week. If it can take out a Vulcan, it can damn well do the same to you."

"Dammit, this is why I freakin' hate doctors," Harper complained, still groggy. "Always freakin' think they know everything. I'm better now, okay? I just wanna go and get a damn drink or something and try to forget this ever--"

He stopped and suddenly screamed, as the skin under his ribcage stretched and burst, and a creature, insectoid-looking, covered in blood and fluids, and different from the Magog--(but most likely familiar, somewhere in another 'verse, to a woman named Ripley)--came thrusting out of his body, going, "SKREEEEEEEE!"

Laini startles, half jumping back.

And staaaaaaaaaaaaaaaares.

Didn't they just-

There couldn't be-

It doesn't look anything like--

The others are all staring too, with similar thoughts.

The creature skittered off the table, where Harper watched, wide-eyed and in shock.

...Then when it hit the floor, a top hat and cane appeared from nowhere and it started to dance (http://img93.imageshack.us/img93/6500/alien6bq.jpg) across the floor.

And sing.

"Hello, ma baby, hello ma honey..." (http://s36.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=0W6CCI4UEOMYO3S1VRY7NYW519)

Nita stifles a shriek when the thing bursts out -- she had nightmares about those when she was younger -- and hits it with a spell just after it hits the floor.

"Hello, ma r-" The rest is lost.

"Where did it come from?!"

Lucky Nita was on top of that, or else there would be bullet holes in the floor right now.

Duo pockets the gun once again. "I have no fucking idea!"

It's only years of medical training that keeps McCoy from pinching the bridge of his nose.

"That was not in him when I closed. I'd swear it on a stack of Bibles. Hell, I'd swear it on a bottle of brandy, if you like."

Laini is just muttering slightly. Its a string of curses in some language.

"I know it wasn't in him! Its not even the- the-" She waves her hand. "Those magog thingies!" She narrows her eyes, and looks at Harper. Her nose wrinkles as well.

Laini's ears flatten suddenly. "...its a spell. A fucking spell. Who the hell would put one like this on someone??"

She bares her teeth in a snarl, hair on her tail going on end.