it's jarring, the suddenness with which everything is thrown into chaos around him. it's not quiet, doc wouldn't dare say such a word in the hallowed halls of the emergency department, but it's definitely not as chaotic as usual. that is, until he hears the startled gasp of what can only be a med student. his head snaps up immediately as one of them comes bolting out to him ( dr. moretti, there's been an incident, i - i sedated a nurse? oh my god, i sedated a nurse- ) and then he's on his feet.
as he rushes into the room, he finds @hvndredbattles and the rest of the med students looking objectively horrified. and mckay, eyes wide, looking at him, as if he knows what to do. something angry and sharp flares in marco's chest. " alright, everybody out! richie, you gonna drop on me? "
"Petal," Richie curls his hands around the sides of her shoulders, gentle but sure, to steer her out of the main thoroughfare of the ED, "you're not meant to be wandering." (For one of Liv's 3-day holds in the Pitt, meb?) || From the ask box || @hvndredbattles
Damn it.
"Oh come on. You and I both know 3am is when things get spicy. And I've been back there in that stupid glass box staring into space for 12 hours, I can't even people watch. They took my cell phone. You can't just expect me to sit still."
Well. He could, she supposed. Especially this late at night. But she was dead set against sleeping here, even if it meant trying to keep herself upright and moving for three days to manage it. It was confusing every time she drifted off and woke up, never quite certain if she'd been roused by staff or some kind of wandering ghost.
"And it's like 60 degrees, I feel like I'm gonna freeze to death." Yes. Now was definitely the time to lodge all of her minor complaints. "If I'd known I was gonna be stuck here for three days, I'd have brought a sweater." And gloves. And a book. "Look, my fingers are basically blue, and that's not why I came here."
@hvndredbattles for richie ft. just some coworker chit chat! just like the break room!
mel is standing more still than she can ever remembering being in the er. she’d started the case appropriately quick on her feet, in a room full of people. emts handing off the patient to their care, mel and a half a dozen others flitting around, readying sedation, intubation, examining the alarmingly large chest wound ( could it even be called a gsw at this point? ). mel grabs a fistful of gauze pads and presses a hand to the wound, an initial attempt to stop the bleeding. everything is normal, busy, loud, until an emt arrives and sucks the air out of the room. at the same unfortunate moment, mel’s hand connects with something metallic and hard inside the patient's chest.
the patient and his friend had been playing around with explosive ammo, he tells them. mel hears perlah suck her teeth in disapproval, a typical chiding reaction to a patient who’s injured themself doing something unbelievably stupid. it’s such a familiar sounds. everything feels so normal until the information catches up with them. explosive. still lodged in the patient’s chest. mel’s hand on that explosive, still lodged in the patient’s chest. oh.
security starts to clear the room. the bomb squad’s been called, someone tells her. everybody needs to leave the building, now, and they move to do so, carefully extracting themselves from around the patient, their instruments, and mel.
mel doesn’t move. she looks up and realizes richie hasn’t either.
“the patient - he’s - he’s sedated.” mel can’t imagine why else richie would linger but to check his work one last time. he’s good at what he does, that way. “he’s - he’ll be good. won’t wake or move until - you know, until help arrives.” another pause to swallow, to blink, her brain still playing catch up ( she’s in shock, she’s sure. it’s sort of better this way, a few steps outside her own body ).
mel’s voice shakes and she worries it will reverberate down to her hand. “you should go, too, richie.”
Smirk curls at the corner of his lips and presses against the soft skin of Yves' collar where his mouth rests. He seems to know exactly what he is doing and the reaction that his words would garner. A little thrill shoots through him at every noise and utterance from the other man.
"Hm?" Sobieski begins to hum in response to the sound of his name though it chokes off into his own responding sound of pleasure. Who knew that the sharp pain of nails digging into his skin would get such a reaction? He's learning something new every day with Yves.
The lieutenant presses in closer, borderline pinning the other man to the wall behind him. He takes his sweet time to give one languid grind of his hips, one arm hooking under Yves' knee to hike a leg up to shift the angle, hit that much deeper. "Gotta ask nicely for that, baby."
Singh must have ripped someone a new one. Or just firmly reminded the powers that be how things were supposed to go. Either way, it’s all starting to sort out. To look familiar and make sense again. Rhys's address is the first one that hasn't startled her into the ceiling, though she still sits up fast enough to make herself wince lightly.
She knows what he means. Cleaned up; clothes that are clothes, a decent meal, maybe a real hair brush. Still, she glances down, half expecting to see dirt and blood. Sweat and tears and rips and tears. It's just plain scrubs borrowed off a nurse, drawstring pulled so long she'd almost had enough to loop around her waist a second time. They hide most of it.
She can’t bring herself to move yet. Just stares at him for a moment, counting both their breaths and the beeps of the machines in every corner of this cold place. Thinking he -all of them- should be sitting bedside, and she should be. Somewhere else. A place that isn't here. Out of the way. She pulls her arm off the bed, tracing the edges of the tape and bandaging.
She relaxes when she hears his voice; not who she expected. “Not in the clutch, no,” Dora answers pleasantly, accent flawlessly English. “Don't you know they check those?” Not the first time he's gotten that, though. Lips tip into an amused grin. Suppose she should expect that, given what she knows of him—military, boots on the ground, not a cushy commission—but his blasé reaction still surprised her.
“I doubt that at this proximity my pistol would do me any good with you, at any rate. Would it, Lieutenant?” This is far more her speed than rubbing elbows with the elite in the ballroom; she can play debutante for long enough, but she is her father's daughter, through and through. Her grin turns teasing. “Gonna offer a lady a cigarette, soldier?”
The sound reaches her before anything else, a quiet avalanche of tapping.
Skittering.
Horror and disgust crawl up her throat as she realizes what the sound is, and she gropes blindly for some light. The room floods blinding when she finds a switch, and it takes a few moments for her eyes to adjust.
She regrets it almost immediately; it seems to be a fountain of insects and arachnids of all sorts, pouring out of a pile in the center of the otherwise blank white room. She knows what she's searching for is in the middle of that fountain, though, so she steels herself and wades in.
The bugs flow around and over her, climbing higher and higher the closer she gets. About halfway to her destination, they start biting. She grimaces, trying to slap them off her skin, but all that seems to do is paint the stark white walls with fine splatters of her blood.
It's not long before her dress and shoes are also dotted with blood as she's bitten through her clothes, which she does her best to ignore, fixed on her search.
Once she reaches the center, she has to dig through the teeming mass of creatures. She tries not to retch as she pushes terrifying numbers of legs aside, knowing her prize is just under them. When she finally reaches what she's searching for, the cacophony of critters starts to die away. It takes several tries to get the foot locker open, and then there are more bugs to deal with. She grits her teeth and shovels them out by the armful, until finally, finally, she's found what she's been looking for.
He meets her gaze, and the relief there quickly morphs to terror as he falls apart in her arms. His eyes are the last to go, bright blue beetles scampering across her arms.
Her scream wakes her, and Jenn in bed beside her.
“Nightmare?” Jenn murmurs, offering a hug.
Mazie shakes her head, then nods. Not the nightmares Jenn is used to her having, but a nightmare nonetheless. She shakes her head once more, heading off Jenn’s next question—do you want to talk about it—before tucking herself in her girlfriend’s arms. She's not even aware of the tears on her cheeks until Jenn wipes them away.
Mazie reaches blindly for her mobile, squinting against the light to shoot off a quick text.
[ txt : 💍🤍🐺 ] Call me when you get a chance? Nothing important, just checking in.
"oh fuck, oh god. harder." tim doesn't recognize the sound of his own voice but he knows it's him talking because he's the one getting fucked, he's the one clinging to beck's arms as richie fucks him into beck. tim reaches one hand back, grabbing richie's thigh and spreading his own legs further, letting the other man fuck into him even deeper. he feels surrounded because he is, beck in front and richie behind, and he doesn't want to run away, just wants to stay right here.
when he finally manages to open his eyes, tim looks up at beck, eyes blue and shining with want. he can feel beck's dick underneath him and it takes a slightly readjustment of his upper body to dip his neck down and take it into his mouth. filled by them from both ends.
