ways_infirmary | (no subject)

It may be a measure of Wells' current condition that he doesn't even bother to argue this time. He just nods, and sits.

*Andrew, with an effort, keeps his hovering far in the background.*

*He can stare and worry just fine from all the way over here where he won't be in the doctor's way, right? Right.*

"You missed a hell of a fight, Andrew," says Wells; he doesn't have to be looking to know his cousin's there. "Those Cyber bastards could really punch."

"Evidently that's not all they can do," Kim says dryly, turning back around. She's carrying a steel tray with an assortment of instruments, syringes, a small sealed bottle, antibiotic ointment, gauze bandages and tape, and a sealed surgical glove packet.

She walks over to the bed and sets the tray on the stand nearby, then gives Wells a look.

"At least none of you is melted."

"Cybermen don't have acid," mutters Wells. "Just lasers, and the arm blades. Fucking son of a bitch was immune to gold. Fucking bastard..."

She doesn't bat an eye at the profanity. Instead, Kim busies herself drawing lidocaine hydrochloride into one of the syringes, one with a narrow-gauge needle.

"Hold still," she says, reaching to take his chin in one hand. Kim raises the syringe to where he can see it easily.

"This is a local anesthetic, quick-acting. It'll help."

"I hope so," says Wells, eyeing the needle warily. "No offense, but this is starting to really fucking hurt."

He doesn't use that particular turn of phrase to describe pain all that often. Last time, there were guts involved.

"Not for long," she reassures him. "Now remember, hold still."

Deftly, gently, Kim works her way around the eye socket, at the edge of the hastily-applied patch, numbing the area with the injected anesthetic before she removes the bandage.

"You know, this would have turned out a lot better if you'd just ducked," she quips.

"I was busy stabbing that fucker through the throat," Wells points out. "It was a bit hard to duck, under the circumstances."

Pause.

"I suppose I should've been wearing the helmet. I don't expect I'll ever hear the end of that from Hephaestos."

"Probably not, no."

Kim can't help but glance aside at the silvery metal of the Cyberman's head before turning back to him.

"I'm just glad you didn't end up wearing that one."

"Yeah, that makes two of us," Wells says, sobering. "That's not death, that's a walking nightmare. I've got to get the contents cremated, bury that bastard's ashes... it's the only funeral the poor son of a bitch's ever gonna get."

He starts to raise his hand to gingerly finger the sore bits of his face.

"It's gonna be a long two weeks."

"Don't touch!" Kim slaps at his hand, albeit gently. "Do you heal as well as--"

A quick glance toward Andrew, hovering in the background.

"-- my other patient?"

"Ow!" Wells drops his hand. "I wasn't going to fuck with anything!"

He turns his head a little in the direction Kim looks; then he smiles fractionally. "That's my cousin Andrew," he says. "He knows about me 'n Spoon booth. Spoon's a faster healer than me. I take a few days to grow back lost teeth, even at the best of times."

"Not if you don't touch it, you won't," Kim points out, crisply.

"And okay." She can't wave to Andrew, but she gives him a nod and a quick smile before turning back to Wells.

"Then we'll just have to see you set up as best I can for the duration. Now don't touch."

With that, she turns away and goes across the room to retrieve saline solution and an irrigation basin.

Wells nods fractionally. More than that and it starts hurting again. "Full moon's in two weeks," he says. "It'll be healed by then, I can guarantee it."

But he's not putting his hand anywhere near his face,t hat's for certain.

"Good."

She walks back over, and puts a gentle hand under his chin in order to tilt his head back and slightly to one side.

Kim places the basin against his cheek and then guides his hands to it.

"Can you hold that in place? This may feel a little funny, but it shouldn't hurt."

"Even if it did hurt," says Wells, "I've been through worse." He holds the basin where it's supposed to be and does his best not to move his head any further.

"Yes, I'm sure," she says dryly. "But there's no reason for you to suffer needlessly, not when I'm treating you, okay?"

Carefully, Kim starts irrigating the burned socket, washing away bits of debris and matter into the basin.

"Even if you'll be healed up in two weeks."

"A'right, point," says Wells. "Y'know, it's a good thing I don't have to look at what you're doing. I've had about enough mess tonight."

"You're tough," she says, smiling at him. "You could take it. Probably."

She finishes with the saline and sets it aside, then reaches for the antibiotic ointment and a pack of sterile swabs. Kim starts to apply it with a steady hand and deft touch.

"Is it over? We don't need to worry about another attack like this, do we?"

"Yeah, well, I had my guts out too once, doesn't mean I want to see them again, now do I," Wells says.

He holds very still as Kim goes about applying the antibiotic. "Yeah," he says, left eye closed to avoid causing any further trouble. "It's over, far as I know. I'll talk to EPOC when i go home, see what the deal is, but as far as I know it's over."

"Good."

Kim sets everything else aside and leans back, looking critically at him, then nods once and reaches for gauze pads, a roll of bandage, and tape.

"I hope you don't mind that you're going to look a little like a lopsided mummy for a couple of weeks," she says dryly.

"I've had my abdomen glued shut with superglue, with no antiseptic but a bottle of whisky," Wells says with a shrug. "Nothing wrong with a few good bandages."

*Seeing that the operation's wrapping up (no pun intended), Andrew starts to hover a little closer.*

You okay, Harry?

"Yeah, I think so," says Wells. "The rest of my face's gonna feel like shit tomorrow where the fucker punched me, but that's nothing new. How'd you lads do, anyway?"

Conversational distraction: almost but not quite as good as painkillers and booze.

Kim stays quiet, working on bandaging Wells's eye, but steals a second to dart a curious look at Andrew all the same.

We killed maybe half a dozen Cybermen and kept whatsisname safe, so I think we did good, yeah?

Oh, and the thing I told you I was gonna try? It worked.

*He beams.*

"You did good," Wells confirms. "Nice work. Wish I'd been there to see."

An odd expression crosses his face a moment.

"I'm in for weeks of shitty jokes involving my vision, aren't I."

*Andrew's smile goes a touch sardonic, though still sympathetic.* Talk to Xander about that sometime.

"I wouldn't be surprised," she says, stepping back and setting the rest of the bandages aside.

"Now." Kim looks steadily at him. "You're going to have to take things slowly, Wells. Your depth perception is going to be skewed, and while your eye tries to compensate, you're likely to get a lot of headaches."

"I'm going to give you some painkillers that should help, with a dosage tailored to your metabolism. If you have any trouble at all, I want to hear about it immediately, okay?"

Wells nods. Not much, because fuck that would hurt, but he nods. "All right. If they'll keep it from itching, that's all I can ask for."

"Okay. Just a minute, then."

Kim goes back across the room, this time heading toward a metal cabinet that's been fitted with a combination keypad lock.

*Andrew, meanwhile, settles against one of the empty patient beds.*

So other than the obvious, how'd your lot do?

he'd lean back if he thought he could get away with doing so safely. "Pretty good," he says. "Colossus and Kate beat the shit out of more Cybermen than I've ever seen in one place anywhere, even in my nightmares. Christine did a fair piece of hunting herself, that seemed to go over well with her. Ace did enough property damage to make an archaeologist hang himself, but it was all that kept the sons of bitches from coming at us from eight directions, so the only thing I regret there's that she dropped a cow through the roof of those bloody monks' church in the process."

... she dropped a cow through the roof of a church?

*And Andrew was nowhere nearby to make the obligatory 'fetchez la vache' reference? There's no justice.*

"Technically a chapel, but yeah," Kim says dryly, walking back over. "You should have seen Spoon's reaction."

She holds out a small plastic bottle to Wells. There's a label taped to it, with the information printed neatly on the paper in Kim's handwriting.

"Here you go."