“Don’t move, you’ll only make it worse!” Dario/Quinn
He never got used to it.
Never got used to seeing the ones he loved with blacked out veins, with blood running down their arms, with glazed eyes or, even worse, eyes bluer than they should be. Never got used to the constant influx of consistent patients, of one time patients, or of the hurry up and wait of the clinic. St. Mungo’s had been structured - he worked his hours at the ER like everyone but he was a specialist in pathology so they rarely called him in for the trauma cases.
Quinn would work his hours helping the public then spend his nights in the secret labs below the Ministry doing the work he fought to atone for now.
He had thought, all those years ago, that the little trauma he’d witnessed in St. Mungo’s was bad - having worked his free clinic for the last several months, Quinn could now say, with utter confidence, he’d never really known trauma.
He’d been about to close his eyes and rest after a morning full of petty scrapes, minor bruising, and one very nasty broken arm on one of the King’s Men when Joao’s voice came ringing through the clinic - an edge of panic to it Quinn never got used to hearing.
He tried to brace himself as he leapt from the bed. He let himself picture the worst case scenarios as he pulled his specialty bag out from under his bed - Anita with her throat ripped open, Nate bleeding out faster than they could staunch it, the Minister with bright blue eyes and veins crumbling to dust, Tommy turning to bark under Joao’s trembling hands - but the reality was nothing close to what he’d prepared for.
“We’re losing his heartbeat,” Joao growled out, trying to hold Dario to the bed while simultaneously trying to pull the man’s skin together again where it had been torn to pieces down his abdomen, across his hip, and down the back of his thigh.
So much blood.
Too much blood.
Quinn felt himself freeze, and watched the world slow around him, as he took in the scene in its entirety.
Black blood - poison, paragon? Yes. Quinn remembered where he’d put the antidote, under the gauze and wrapped in bandages at the bottom of the kit in his hands. Joao would need to prep the aftercare, Dario would feel this for a few weeks and be a danger to the crew for a few after. The wound singed along the edges, smoked in the air, and Quinn knew someone had tried to cauterize it in the field - had it burst back open? No, it had worked - he could see where some of the parts at the bottom remained sealed - angry red welts against Dario’s tanned skin. Moving him had ripped the wound back open then. It was deeper than they had though - muscular, vascular - bone? He would need physical therapy. A dozen jokes about canes and who was the grandfather now jumped to Quinn’s mind but he shoved them back - he had to save the kid before he could joke.
A single breath after he’d paused, reality snapped back into place and Quinn leapt into motion, “Move,” he told Joao, his voice brooking no arguments, “get me something to keep him out for a week - the withdraw is gonna kill him once we pull the paragon from the wound. It's no use saving him if he's just going to die of shock. Get the fuck off him and do your job.”
“So … bossy,” a voice gasped out, and Quinn glanced up at Dario’s face contorted in pain, “Grandpa’s … got …. an …. edge.”
“Stop,” Quinn told him, “Don’t move, you’ll only make it worse.”
Dario didn’t speak again, but his eyes watched every move Quinn made as he inspected the wound, hands holding the blood in his body waiting for the wound to begin to clot, “It’s alright,” he murmured, every few seconds, and as he waited, pressure on the gaping wound, he let one hand brush sweat slicked hair off Dario’s brow, “I’ve got you, it’s alright.”
“He won’t die, right?”
Quinn’s eyes snapped up to the kid who he’d completely overlooked in his single minded calculations of Dario’s injuries and immediately clocked the massive amount of blood on the kid’s hands, “Are you alright? Are you hurt too?”
“N-no,” he answered, “He took the hit for me, it was supposed to be me. I didn’t … The Thirteenth told me to come, told me I would be safe but they were waiting. I tried to close the wound, tried to burn the infection free, but it didn’t … it wouldn’t stay closed.”
Quinn looked down at the wound under his hands, saw that the blood was finally beginning to stop ebbing under the bandages under his hands, and looked back up, “It's alright, its clotting now. We’ll be able to get him closed - what did you use to cauterize the wounds I don’t see …”
Quinn realized the kid's hands were burned as though he’d pulled a cast iron pan from the oven without a holder, “Shit kid - you did it yourself,” Quinn sighed, “Ifrit?”
He nodded. Quinn nodded back, “You’re safe here - the Thirteenth didn’t lie. No one will use you or your magic against your will again, but you need to help me with Dario or he will be addicted to the Paragon he took for you.”
The Ifrit nodded and stepped up to stand by Quinn’s side, “I’m not …,” Quinn cut him off, “It doesn’t matter if you’re not precise, I’ll fix the rest. Push it through me and I’ll direct the flames. I’ve …,” Quinn winced, knowing what he was admitting to, “I’ve done this before.”
To his credit, the Ifrit didn’t shy away, and Quinn only saw a momentary flicker of fear before he pressed his hands to Quinn’s shoulder and began pushing sacred flame into Quinn’s magical core.
Dario was what mattered now, the rest would be absolved or atoned for later.
(My Twelve your Nine) “You’ve been so quiet, lately. Is there something we need to talk about?”
@savants-nine-and-twelve [ Misc. sentence & symbol starters ]
They were really doing it – again. After having lived through the shooting and the mighty forces trying to blemish them, they had taken to hiding in the city still and were staying out of sight.
Looking out the window at the night was a little custom of Nine’s since his nightmares about Five and everything that went with it as they had fought and nearly died.
“Twelve…” Nine’s voice was soft - they had to be considerate of the other sleeping with them in the next room - Lisa.
“I’ve been thinking. Would the world be alright without us?”
