I had a 2hr flight today so I wrote this while I was in the air (these are just random characters that I made for this specific scenario)! Hope y'all enjoy!
The pain spiraled up from his hip with a renewed intensity. He bit back the groan that threatened to spill from his lips.
The fall had been nasty; the landing had been nastier. The crunch had been less than promising, and when Gabriel tried to roll onto his back, the spike of pain confirmed his fears. He felt the area with the pads of fingers.
Something shifted under his touch- he whimpered- something was definitely broken. He squeezed his eyes shut for a second, bracing himself against the throbbing that was already starting up.
"Gabriel? Holy shit!" Vivian's voice reached him like a knife to the ear. Anyone else, he thought bitterly, I would rather have been stuck with literally anyone else.
She dropped to her knees beside him, brown eyes wide, curls swinging down around her face. If he didn't know better, he'd say she seemed concerned.
If he didn't know better, he wouldn't have ever agreed to do this mission with her. But he knew how bad The Wrangler was- what he could do to them, to their city. He knew this, and so he agreed to sneak up on his lair with Vivian.
He didn't agree to being caught, and chased across open desert by Wrangler's men, but he hardly had any choice in the matter.
He certainly didn't agree to climbing up a sheer cliff face with absolutely no rock climbing equipment or experience, or to falling off said cliff face and getting hurt. But as with many things today, his lack of agreement was irrelevant.
Now he had Vivian Johannes leaning over him, eyes huge with panic, and a potentially (probably) broken hip.
"Well, this isn't my idea of fun. Are you at least having a good time of it?" He forced a smile over his pained expression, cracking what he hoped came across as a joke. She blinked like he'd just spoken gibberish.
"Come on, admit it, you've always wanted to get me under you. Maybe not like this, but still." He wiggled his eyebrows as he spoke, knowing with certainty that she had never wanted any such thing. He'd bet dollars to doughnuts that Vivian despised him at least as much as his archnemesis, Bloodwing.
"How the hell are you joking right now?" Her voice was at least half a step higher than usual. "You literally just fell off a damn cliff!" She gestured up at said cliff.
"Oh, really? Hadn't noticed," he replied, still pushing calmness into his words, still keeping his tone as even as possible. His leg flashed intermittently hot and cold and numb, but he tried to push down the part of him that was scared by that. "Thanks for letting me know!"
She did not appreciate his sarcasm even a little bit. "Is this a joke to you? This is a serious mission Gabriel!"
Luckily for him, her voice seemed slightly more normal now. He needed that.
"Is it? Really? Why didn't you say so Halo?" He threw in her alias to really drive home how casual he was being. He almost never called her that- it required him to respect her as a hero, and he was almost never willing to admit to that.
Her brows furrowed, eyes flashing with something new. "Fine, joke all you want. See if the Wrangler appreciates your humor." She immediately hopped to get feet and started walking away.
He'd gone too far. Shit. "Viv, wait, please." He tried to turn his body in the direction she was stomping, but it pulled at his leg. Something scraped, and he was too slow to swallow the whimper that followed.
His words did nothing but that little sound stopped her in her tracks. She turned back to him, and he swallowed thickly. He hated letting her see the strain in his gaze, but it was getting harder to keep it quashed. His hip was really starting to hurt.
"Do you want me to help you or do you want to keep making stupid jokes Nightfox?" She managed to infuse his alias with a particular kind of venom that only she alone seemed to have mastered.
"Depends. Are you gonna freak out if I stop?" Her mouth practically fell open.
"What is that supposed to mean?"
"It means that I've watched your work before, and you panic when you feel stuck somewhere. It means that on our left is an approaching horde of Wrangler's mean and on our right is a sheer cliff face so we are literally in between a rock-" he gestures to the cliff- "and a hard place." He points toward the open desert, wherein the approaching enemies were somewhere concealed.
"It means that I know you don't actually hate me or want me dead, which is why you came back for me instead the lair, and I know you don't really fancy leaving me here to die. I am cracking jokes like it's going out of style because I'm more than a little worried that if I don't distract you, you're gonna panic and we're both gonna die. Because, truthfully, it literally pains me to admit it, but I actually need your help."
He could have slapped her and she'd be less shocked. She just blinked, once, twice, mouth working.
"You... were trying to distract me?" The incredulity shone through her words. He just nodded, busy riding out a fresh wave of pain.
She came back over to his side, visibly calmer, and knelt down. She caught his gaze, eyes studying him for a minute.
"Is it bad?" There was no question what she was talking about. He bit the inside of his lip, looked down, then have a small nod.
His leg chose that moment to spasm, muscles clenching over injured bone, and Gabriel gasped. He took a slower, deeper breath, trying his damnedest to steady himself. He couldn't really afford to panic right now either.
"We can't stay here, Gabriel."
"I know." He did know- that's what scared him.
She glanced down at his leg, and he did too. His stomach twisted at the sight- the swelling was already pretty visible through the thin material of his pants.
"They're coming, we really need to go..." She paused, uncertain. She wasn't sure what to do here; she couldn't accurately judge just how screwed they were.
He refused to meet her gaze again, still staring down at his swollen joint. His voice was soft as he spoke. "Viv, I don't think I can stand like this, but..." He trailed off, partly because he had no idea what else to say and partly because he didn't want her to hear the tears starting to choke his voice.
She didn't say anything. That was somehow worse than whatever he expected. He couldn't take waiting in silence right now.
"Do you want me to try? Maybe I can?" Gabriel did not want to stand, not at all, but they needed to do something soon and it was all he could think of. His thoughts were a little occupied with the vicious throbbing at the moment.
"Are you sure?" Her voice was hesitant, almost as much as his tiny nod that followed. He held out a hand and she grabbed it silently.
A quick tug, and she pulled him to his feet. He shifted a little weight to his injured leg, paused a few seconds- not bad, not bad- bAD BAD BAD--
His leg crumpled underneath him and he dropped to the sand. A strained yelp tore out him. His hip twisted unnaturally as his weight landed on it, forcing further gasps of pain out of him.
Seconds later, a small hand was against his shoulder, grounding him. Brown eyes stared him down, inches away from his face.
"Gabe? You still with me?" His gaze must have gone unfocused for a few seconds. He nodded, taking a couple shallow breaths. He tried to focus on the expanding and deflating of his lungs instead of the ripples of agony coming off his hip.
"I guess, guess that's a no on the standing fr- front." He hated the tremble in his voice, but it couldn't be helped. The pain was bad and getting worse, and he didn't have the energy to bother hiding it anymore.
"Yeah, that's out." Her voice was low but even, her hand still resting on his shoulder. Actually, he realized, her hand was squeezing his shoulder slightly, in a gesture that was surprisingly kind for a woman who didn't even like him that much.
She chewed the inside of her cheek for a moment. "I have an idea but you're not gonna like it." He narrowed his eyes, cocking an eyebrow.
"You seem pretty light, weight-wise, and I do have plenty of experience with carrying people out." His mind rapidly connected the dots. She had been a firefighter before turning hero, had carried people out of burning buildings, down ladders--she wanted to sling him over her shoulder.
He had to admit it was a good idea, but then he had to admit to himself how much it was going to hurt to be carried at that angle. He whined softly in the back of his throat- it surprised him; he hadn't meant to do that.
"Like I said, you won't like it. I know it'll hurt, but it's the best idea I've got. You got anything better?" She was asking out of courtesy-- he clearly didn't have any better ideas.
"Let's just get on with it." The words came out in a thick rasp, pain tightening his throat.
Her arms laced around him, getting a good grip. A second's pause, then she hefted him up.
The scream was involuntary-- he didn't even realize he was screaming for the first few seconds. The pain shooting out from his hip ratcheted up from horrendous to unbearable. The joint twinged at the angle it was forced to hold in order to hang over Vivian's shoulder-- muscles tightened, and couldn't properly release the tension. Fractured bone pulled away from cracked socket, swirling cracks into his voice as he moaned.
Black spots swirled across his vision, his own cries of pain rang in his ears. As he ran out of breath, he heard a voice under his own.
A steady stream of apologies and comforting words flooded into the air in the shape of Vivian's voice. She didn't let up on it for a second.
As he watched the sand passing under him grow hazy, he began to wonder if maybe, just possibly, Vivian didn't hate him quite as much as he thought.
"You'll be okay, Gabriel. I promise, I'm getting you out of here."
The pain swelled as their pace increased, and blackness swarmed his vision, ripping everything away with it.
