ways_infirmary | (no subject)

Spoon nods (gingerly) and sits down on the edge of the bed. Then stands. Then sits. Then stands.

He's got issues with hospital beds, alright?

Then sits. Then stands. This may continue until Sarge yells at him.

Wells looks around a moment and grabs one of the chairs that turn up in the Infirmary for people who're visiting the injured. "Here," he says, shoving it in Spoon's direction. "This'll be easier for you, yeah?"

Spoon bumps Sarge once, then sits in the chair doing his best to not look at anything other than the alpha.

Sarge won't let anything happen. Doctor Ford won't do anything. It's alright. Really.

While they've been settling in, Kim's gone to the computer terminal on one side of the counter and logged in under her access code, then called up a new entry. She leaves it waiting and opens first a lower cabinet, pulling out a white lab coat-- which she shrugs into-- then a drawer, from which she takes a pair of latex gloves. Those she puts on, too.

(They're not blue. Very little in this infirmary is, as it turns out.)

Kim loops a stethoscope around her neck and collects a tray of instruments, which she sets on the bed that Spoon's refused to sit on.

When she speaks, her voice is gentle.

"I know this is going to be difficult for you, Spoon, and I'm sorry for that. But I'm not going to hurt you, I promise. Okay?"

Spoon's head jerks up in a nod and he tries to keep his eyes on Doctor Ford's face when she talks so that he's not seeing the coat.

His whole hand, after a startled movement, reaches out toward Sarge. It may not be a terribly adult thing, but this place is frightening and he's in pain and he wants the physical contact.

Wells reaches for the hand, putting his own over it as easily as if it were Philippa getting stitches in her knee. His eyes flick a moment to Kim at the pang of extra distress in Spoon's already-overwrought scent. "Dr. Ford," he says quietly, remembering the ghost-shapes in Fionavar, "I don't suppose there's any chance you could do this without the coat?"

"Sure," she says, quietly. "I can do that."

Kim slips out of the coat and drops it neatly in a laundry bin, out of sight, then comes back to stand in front of Spoon again.

"I didn't mean to upset you with it," she tells them both. "It's -- well, habit, for one, but there are reasons-- less important under these circumstances, however. Still--"

Kim holds up her hands so they can see the gloves.

"These I need to keep on, just in case you still have any open wounds." A quick, rueful smile. "Although I realize that's a little unlikely, better safe for all of us, right?"

A horrible, frightening image of horror comes through the door.

Then Ace brings in the head.

It's pretty damn ugly too.

"There are laws, I think, outlawin' this sort of ugly. Somwhere under 'anything that's this ugly needs t'be hidden under armor somewhere so the rest of us can eat our meals in peace." Time alone has let her at least come back down to snark level.

For now.

She sets the very ugly head on an unoccupied table.

Clear gray eyes are very wide, now. Kim stares at the head, then turns back and gives Spoon a look.

A beat.

"At least its blood was acid and not silver," she says, finally.

This is the first chance Wells's had to get a really good look at the damn thing. "Fucking hell, Spoon," he says. "I'm going to have t'kill some sort of demon or something just to keep up with you." He peers a little closer. "With my toenails."

Spoon makes a fairly high-pitched sound of Really! I only attacked because it attacked me first! Please don't make mum eat me!

Ace makes glowery faces at both werewolves, and makes herself comfortable on the pillow-having end of the bed Spoon refused.

They all suck.

So she's just gonna stay right here and watch. Who knows what might happen if she goes away?

"Not right at the moment, you're not," she informs Wells, but it's an aside, as pretty much all of Kim's attention is on Spoon.

"The jaw I can see, the chest, and your hand as well--"

She's looking him over in terms of a general visual inspection, and her glance sharpens as she takes in the absence of scarring where the new skin is forming. For a moment, Kim Ford looks very, very satisfied.

"Do you have other injuries?"

"'course not at the moment," says Wells. "I meant later."

He doesn't seem to be joking, but his expression softens as he looks back to Spoon. "It's all right, mate. I'm not gonna do anything stupid, I promise."

Spoon's eyes say better not, or you'll have the couch for the rest of your life. He gingerly shakes his head at Kim, then nods, then shakes it and shrugs.

It means not as far as I know, I healed a lot.

Ace eyes Spoon for what seems like a decidedly unhelpful answer.

"Think he's still tryin' f'more." Ace grumbles to Kim, from her pillow perch.

"We'll see what we can do about that," Kim tells Ace, then, to Spoon,

"Okay. Hold still, now-- but if anything hurts when I touch it, at all, I want you to stamp your foot on the floor, once."

She lifts both hands, one to either side of his face. Carefully, deftly, Kim begins to explore the edge of damage around his jaw, then the sides of his throat, moving gently down towards his ribs.

Wells isn't going anywhere unless Kim needs him to get out of the way, or until Spoon lets go of his hand. But when he does, he's moving over to put his hand on Ace's shoulder instead.

Spoon lets go only very reluctantly, and closes his eyes. It all hurts, but nothing hurts more than anything else right now. It's the familiar ache of regrowing bone with the much less familiar ache of the look in Ace's eyes when she saw him.

Ace isn't watching. She can't watch, when the doctor's hands move parts of her mate that aren't supposed to move like that. If she watches, she's going to lose whatever she's managed to eat today, and that'd just be counterproductive.

"Okay. Well, everything seems to be as your records would indicate," Kim tells them all, with a long sigh. "So that's good."

She takes the stethoscope from around her neck and puts it to her ears, then starts running the bell over his chest and back.

"Take a deep breath-- hold it-- exhale. Again, please?"

Wells is going to rest both hands on Ace's shoulders if she'll let him. He knows perfectly well Spoon'll grow everything back, but from the way Annie's always been he figures it's probably pretty tough to be Ace right now.

Spoon follows Kim's directions, breathing, holding, and exhaling. Everything sounds fine, too.

(Actually better than normal: the new lungs don't have cigarette damage.)

She knows, in her head, that he'll be fine. He's talked about worse happening to him, all off-hand.

But he's sitting there missing fingers and ribs and jaw and it hurts to see. She wants to scream at someone. She just hasn't sorted out who that should be, just yet.

"Good," she says absently, listening. "Good."

She pulls the stethoscope from her ears and drapes it around her neck again, then looks intently at Spoon. She'd give a lot for a portable X-ray right now, at the very least -- but there's not one here and Kim Ford's never been one to spend a lot of time wishing for what she doesn't have.

"It looks like everything's growing back as it should, for you, but there's two things we're going to need, okay? One is -- if you feel any sort of allergic reaction at all, I need you to let me know instantly. Any itching, burning, trouble breathing -- your lungs sound fine, by the way, and so does your heart -- but anything like that, you tell someone."

"As for the second thing--" Kim turns to Wells. "Any chance that armor of yours will fit him?"