Cohl has been down a long time before Yui can get to him, but he refuses to give up. No matter what logic dictates. Features M resus, M rescuer, mechanical CPR, intubation, prolonged resus, hypothermia, drowning.
He couldn't even remember why they were diving in the middle of this godforsaken planet. Drowned treasure? Some ancient alien wreckage? All Yui knew as he piloted the little drone sub down the black depths was that Cohl hadn't responded on comms in a very long time. They'd exceeded the point he'd told Yui to find him if he didn't respond, and gone well past it in the twenty minutes it took him to even find the spot the Captain had dove to. The GPS and radar systems didn't play well with the planet's near constant electrical storms. When he did at last find the ship, he drove the submersible until the lights finally caught a flash of something reflective in the dark. His heart seized. Cohl was lying on his side on a platform outside the sub he'd taken down, unmoving. In an instant he snatched him up into the drone sub's hull and drove the thing as fast as he could back up to the waiting Hawk. Her bay opened up to recieve the little craft and he tore open the door as water sloshed out.
Yui heaved his Captain's sopping wet body onto a stretcher. His usually deep bronze skin was ashen, and he looked so utterly dead that it took everything inside the second in command to not burst into tears. The stretcher rose on its thrusters and he shoved it towards the Medbay. All the while he chattered to the ship's intelligence system, "How's he looking? How long has he been without oxygen?" "Body temperature is extremely low. Patient is in full cardiac and respiratory arrest, no BP or oxygen saturation. His suit marked the start of the cardiac event." Yui's stomach lurched. He asked quietly, "How long has He been down?" "37 minutes," replied the Hawk's comms. His legs went weak at the knees and he nearly fell. Adrenaline pushed him forward, careening into the medical unit. No wonder he looked like a corpse. He'd been one the entire time Yui was looking for him. He'd hoped, somehow, the oxygen reserves would last a bit longer than the projection. Cohl was lucky like that. Luck only got you so far with faulty equipment.
He slammed the levitating gurney into the dock and the medical system hummed to life. Another intelligence system with a masculine voice to contrast the Hawk's system piped up from the hub, "Warning, Code Blue. Warning, Code Blue." "I know, goddamnit," Yui sobbed, the strength going out of him for a brief moment. He almost crumpled over the side of the gurney as a sob bubbled up. He had to grip the railing and control his voice enough to say, "Start resuscitative protocol." "Patient's system has high levels of-" "Get him back!" he spat, jamming the controls until he got to the screen for the revival procedures. He blindly jabbed at any prompt, initiating CPR, defib on standby, airway, IV push with both epinephrine and adrenaline queued once the line was established.
He started cutting away the wetsuit clinging tightly to his Captain's clammy skin, so frozen and stiff he nearly lost it again to touch him. Every inch of exposed skin was cold and gray where it should have been warm and brown. The only color to his skin was the blue and purple edged around his lips. His stomach distended slightly from water inhalation. Yui continued to run the shears through the side seam of the fabric, under his armpit and down to where it ended at his ankle. He pulled away the shorn fabric from underneath his still body and discarded it, leaving him bare under the harsh lights of the Medbay, making him look all the paler as it caught on the rivulets of water collecting here and there in the dips and hollows. Yui planted his hands over the too firm and too round stomach and shoved down, expelling a gush of foaming white seawater from his slack lips and nose. He did this a few times, shuddering as Cohl gurgled and grunted with dead lungs. The Medbay's small mechanical arms and pincers moved about the body as it started an IV and raised the bed beneath his shoulders blades so his chest sat in a slight arch, forcing his head to tilt limply back. When Yui returned to the head of the gurney to clear away the foam from his face, he shivered to see his eyes had slid slightly open. "It's okay," he whispered as he dried off his lips and nose, though he wasn't sure if he was saying it to himself or his Captain.
"Beginning cardiopulmonary resuscitation," the system announced, sliding a thin band around Cohl's chest. In the middle of this sat a small rubber plunger, and in an instant the band was tightening in a vice and shoving the plunger against his sternum. His body rocked, the little device having a surprising amount of strength. It forced his shoulders to shrug inward, his arms rocking at his sides as his stomach, flattened by Yui's efforts, again bulged with displaced force. An additional arm lowered to pull his jaw open, easily sliding in a narrow breathing tube that split into two. A clip at the halfway point extended over his cheeks and mouth to hold it in place, and nearby a ventilator began breathing for him. The other tube in his throat suctioned out the remaining water and fluid in his throat, and for a moment the room was full of wet gurgling and squelching as the compression band beat against waterlogged lungs. Even when his airway was suctioned clear, Cohl still rasped out any air the ventilator fed him, the plastic tubing making each soft grunt whistle slightly.
Yui stood to the side of the mechanical assault. After punching in a few hypothermia procedures to be done alongside resuscitation, there wasn't much else he could do. He tried to help, tried to find something to do to not feel so useless, but the Medbay was an advanced system from a newer model of space cruiser than the Hawk, and most of a doctor's work was automated. It did a lot more than a failed med student could do. So he watched, his knuckles white around the bed railing, as Cohl was shifted and pounded into the back support like a ragdoll. The compression band made his head rock and he shifted to the side to slide a pillow underneath to hold him somewhat still. He couldn't stand watching the way his body bonelessly jerked and spasmed under the chest compressions. He glanced up at the monitors. A flatline, broken by the artificial pulse, raced across the nearest holo. His gaze slid to the cardiogram beside it. Cohl's heart was being squeezed, coiling and releasing in tandem with the machine, but the muscle didn't so much as twitch on its own. Yui pushed back dark hair from Cohl's lidded eyes for want of something to do with his hands.
One of the Medbay's arms implanted a small device over one of Cohl's kidneys, a port which connected to a suspended bag of saline. Heating coils hummed in the dispenser the IV liquid appeared from, and Yui could feel the table radiate a low warmth against Cohl's skin. He wanted to just crank the damn thing up, but knew he could easily kill him that way. As if he could get any deader. Cold, bloodless, without a pulse or respiration. He scrubbed his hand over his face to chase away the morbid thoughts. He dropped out of med school, but one thing had always stuck dealing with the cold: you're not dead until you're warm and dead. Medbay put his Captain's core temp at 75 degrees and climbing by minute percentiles. Not warm, and not dead. Not yet.
Machines pumped his heart, circulated his blood, filled his lungs, and some piece of hardware was in charge of his every vital organ. Yui told himself there was no way Cohl wasn't coming back. But the minutes crawled by. His body temp got to the upper 80s as the warm saline piped through his kidneys to heat up his bloodstream from the inside. His skin wasn't so wooden anymore, and although still noticeably cooler than usual, Yui could finally touch him without wincing. The band zipped in against his chest and pulsed through his upper body, his belly rising just a touch whenever the ventilator hissed oxygen into his lungs. There was no longer the wet sucking sound, which marked an improvement as well as his core body temp. At least his lungs were finally clear of water.
The minutes stretched on. He kept imagining Cohl in the dark, swallowed up by pitch black water, waiting for him. Drifting off. Laying dead on that platform for over half an hour. He checked the time marked on a nearby holo and flinched to see he'd been in cardiac arrest for an hour. His organs had been pumped and blood suffused for the latter half of that hour, and there hadn't been a sign of ventricular fibrillation, no improvement. Yui touched the cheek that finally had back some of its color. "Any change?" he asked as his voice cracked. "No change," announced the Medbay, "Patient is exhibiting a low level of brain activity, but no electrical activity in the heart. Temperature has risen another three points since last reading, and circulation to femoral and carotid seem to be unimpeded." Yui pressed down hard against Cohl's thigh and lower belly, squinting as he felt the pulse from the machine. "Yeah... Yeah blood is circulating. Push..." His chest felt too tight to speak and he pressed a bit harder into Cohl's femoral for the comfort of his pulse, even if it was one being forced on him. "Push another round of epi." It wasn't bound to be much help while his temp was still so low, but if he didn't do something, even just order something, he might break down completely. There had to be something he could do besides stand around like a jackass while machines jostled and pumped his body. Yui slid his hand under his Captain's neck, the other resting just above the thumper jamming down into his cracked sternum. He tried not to focus on the way his entire body seemed to pulse with each compression, or the way his throat flexed with each breath shoved into his lungs, unwilling to take up their own task.
"Surat," he whispered, invoking the name the illustrious Captain Cohl only ever trusted Yui with, "If you leave me alone in the middle of nowhere, I will never forgive you. If you-" His voice caught and he sagged over the rippling body, pressing his forehead to Cohl's cheek. He rubbed his hand gently over his clavicle as the thumper jabbed again and again at his heart. "Don't leave me," he pleaded in a quiet rasp, "Please... please, just come back." The warm saline had softened him again, raising his body temp enough he just seemed slightly cool to touch. Yui continued running his hand back and forth over the space just above the compression band as if in apology. It was, in a way. He hated doing all this to him. Every bit of it felt invasive and violent in a way he would never wish on the Captain he loved as dearly as anyone in his life. More than anyone, if he were honest with himself. Seeing his ribcage pulverized, his organs forced to function, the tubing and wires snaking from his body. One in his throat to make him breathe. One cycling saline through his kidneys. A catheter, also helping pump warm fluid through his system. He felt like he would break if he had to watch much longer, but knew he would never recover if he stopped the resuscitation efforts. He checked the temp gauge one more time. 90.9 glowed in red. A few more degrees and he would be in the normal range. Warm and dead. Yui shook his head, trying to clear it of that thought.
The code went on. The second in command had nothing to do, so he simply held Cohl's hand, trying to find comfort in the artificial pulse he could feel in his wrist. "Doctor Yui," the Medbay said after some time, though it was hard to tell just how long- he couldn't bring himself to look at the clock ticking down the seconds Cohl had been without a heartbeat. "Not a doctor," he sighed. "Noted. Commander Yui," the voice corrected. Suddenly the body went still. The automatic CPR stopped, and the heart monitor went from the rhythmic pip pip pip pip in time to the compressions to a long, flat whine. He sat bolt upright, jabbing at the controls. "What the hell are you doing?" he demanded. The controls had locked. He slapped at the RESUME button, but it wouldn't obey. "Patient has suffered a total lack of cardiac activity for two hours." Yui's blood went cold to hear that. The Medbay went on, "Protocol dictates the attending physician calls time of death and ceases all resuscitation efforts." "Don't you dare fucking stop," he snapped, trying to shift the compression band out of the way. It held firm. Yui cursed under his breath and awkwardly stuck his hands between Cohl's chest and the machine, shoving as well as he could. The plunger got in the way of actually pumping his heart, but he got as close as he could with the intrusion. He looked up pleading at the health display. "Please don't stop, just- he's got a chance, he was in subzero for long enough to preserve-" "Patient has had a temperature of 98 degrees for the past twenty minutes with no electrical activity." Bile rose in his throat. Indeed the display which marked his temperature was in the green, and still he had laid unmoving on the gurney, without even fibrillation to suggest his heart might remember how to beat. "Just a little while longer," Yui gasped out, shoving against Cohl's heart. "He's gonna come back, alright? He has to." He clutched the sides of his face and shook him slightly. "Surat, just fucking breathe, please! One breath, come on!" The ventilator stuck out from between his teeth, but this too had been stopped. Yui pulled his mouth open enough he could get somewhat around it, pressing their lips together as he pushed a breath into his throat. "Protocol dictates-" "Override then!" he shouted, returning to the display, "Override security code, fuck... s-security code 226784, Yui H-" "Insufficient clearance."
The stupid thing was designed for this exact situation. A doctor who didn't want to admit defeat. Who would keep a patient's heart beating and their lungs inflating until the ship lost power, because he was too stubborn and stupid to know when enough was enough. A higher ranking crew member would be the one to have to make the call on whether it could continue. But on the Hawk, it was just the two of them. It was always just the two of them. And the only person who could tell the Medbay to keep it up was the one laying pulseless on the table. Yui shoved a hand through his hair, his breath quickening. "Goddamnit, override security code-" Cohl only ever used two or three passwords repeated through computer systems on the ship. It had always been a huge security risk, but he was glad of it now. He tried, "Code 011289!" Cohl's birthday. "Invalid." He tried his mother's birthday. "Invalid." He tried the anniversary date of the day Cohl had adopted his dog back on Earth. "Invalid." A sob stole Yui's voice for a moment as he collapsed against the bed. His mind raced, heart thudding as he tried to think of what else his Captain might use, his blood rushing almost too loud to think. He again cupped his face, searching his slack features like he might have some answer to give him. Then, as a last resort, he quietly murmured, "Override security code... code 122492." "Override accepted. Would you like me to continue resuscitation?" He shuddered. The big idiot had used his birthday for the Medbay's systems. "Yes," Yui sobbed, pressing their foreheads together. "How long should efforts continue if there's no change?" "As long as it takes. Keep going."
Again his body spasmed under the compression band, again air hissed into the ventilation tube. Yui's gaze flickered over the body in front of him. Naked in a nest of wires and tubes. Bruised black and blue where the mechanical thumper pistoned into his chest. He pulled a sheet over his lower half to preserve some kind of dignity, but there was no dignity in assaulting a corpse like this. But he couldn't give up. Even if, by now, it felt less like giving up on him and more like letting him rest after a long, drawn out fight for his life. Tears ran warm down his cheeks and he shuddered in a breath. There was nothing he could do but wait for the inevitable warning on the ship's power supply, when he'd be forced to stop or risk shutting down the whole place. Until then...
Yui crawled onto the gurney beside his Captain as the compression band mechanically seesawed his body, making his stomach bulge when it hit. He laid down at his side, laying his head against his shoulder, which jerked underneath him with each thrust. Cohl's arm hung limp at his side, and he took his wrist and folded the limb over himself like a blanket. Like the embrace he'd only ever stolen during those nights of drinking and revelry, when Cohl would pull him into his body and he'd feel his warmth and smell the dust of some adventure on him. He smelled like salt water now, and antiseptic. Still, he curled in against him, the ripples and pulses of the machines serving to lull him into a trance like state. Yui slid an arm around his stomach as the thumper forced it to bob up and down, closing his eyes in the warmth of the embrace, and pretending, at least for a little while, that everything was fine.
He stayed like that for an eternity, waiting for the system alarm that warned him the code was taking up too much energy. Just listening to the steady blip of the monitor and feeling the Medbay's work jostle his limp body around. Then, nearing the third and final hour of Cohl's cardiac arrest, the Medbay said, "Commander Yui, please do not touch the patient." He jumped slightly and sat up, still holding Cohl's arm around his shoulders. "W-What is it?" "I've detected ventricular fibrillation. Stand clear while I charge the defibrillation unit." He felt weak with relief, almost too weak to climb down off the bed. Part of him didn't want to either, he wanted to lay there with him forever, suspended in a moment where there might still be some glimmer of hope. But this was better, this was real hope, and he reluctantly laid Cohl's arm back against the bed, drawing away. Two sets of thin robotic limbs placed pads against his upper chest and flush against his ribs on the opposite side. "Charging to 200," announced the Medbay as the machine whined with electricity, "Stand clear." Cohl jerked up against the plunger pinning him down, his limbs contracting inward. Yui glanced at the monitor showing an inside view of his chest, able to watch as the muscle, fluttering and thrown into chaos, seized up with the shock. When the contraction passed, it again vibrated without rhythm or meaning. "Shock advised. Charging to 260. Stand clear." Cohl bucked again, fingers jerking into a fist for a moment before his body slid back into stillness. No change. The Medbay shocked him again, then again, and again, but his heart wouldn't obey. The display showed it jerk, tense up, then continue quivering. Or it would push out a few quick beats and return to its useless shaking. On the fifth shock, when Yui was nearly broken from his catatonic mania and about to tell the Medbay to at last stop, Cohl's body jumped particularly hard. Then his heart started beating.
The sudden stillness felt so wrong after hours of rhythmic spasming and jerking that for a moment, Yui thought something else had gone wrong. But something had gone right instead. Cohl was alive. The compression band slid back into the ports it had come from, leaving his battered chest at last. His sternum was sunken slightly where it had been beating at his heart for at least two and a half hours, and his dark skin was mottled with an ugly bruise that stretched over most of his chest, but Yui could see his pulse leaping at the apex and pounding in his throat. As if not trusting the most advanced med system on board, he fumbled for an old fashioned analog stethoscope amidst the supplies, pressing the bell to a few points on his chest. He heard the ventilator hiss, the air filling his lungs in a whoosh, and beneath that, at last, was his heartbeat. It sounded like a lame animal, still shaky on its feet as it occasionally stammered in half-beats. Lub-dub, lub-lublub- lub-dub, lub-d-dub. But it was there. He was there.
It would be a long time before he woke up, miraculously with minimal brain damage. It still took months for him to fully recover. Yui still carried the shame of the event with him for awhile after Cohl was well enough to captain the ship again. Any other patient subjected to everything he'd put him through might have been angry he didn't just call time. But the shame warred with the joy he felt to see him alive, and most of the time that won out. He confessed one night the full extent- told Cohl of curling up next to his body in his grief and the guilt he felt for what he'd done. But Cohl had just wrapped him up in his arms and kissed the top of his head. "I'm glad you didn't give up," he murmured against his hair. Yui closed his eyes, pressing his face against his chest hard to take comfort in the beat of his heart, and whispered, "Me too."
First time posting medical fetish "erotica". Whump maybe? Medically inaccurate choices by the hospital staff and half AI written but oh well. This is an edited version of one of my personal POV smuts.
Awake Intubation - Patient POV
Part 1
You wake with a jolt of panic.
There isn’t enough air.
You try to inhale, but it feels like someone is squeezing your lungs with cold, relentless hands. Every breath burns. Every breath is too shallow. You claw instinctively at the oxygen mask on your face as your chest heaves.
(your SO) is standing beside your hospital bed in the regular ward, his voice sharp with fear.
“Nurse! Someone, please! She can’t breathe!”
You try again to draw air, but your body won’t cooperate. The room tilts. The edges of your vision pulse black.
Footsteps rush in. Two nurses, then more.
“Her sats are dropping. Eighty-two… seventy-nine…”
Someone lifts your chin. Someone else adjusts your oxygen flow. A hand touches your shoulder.
“(your name), look at me,” a nurse says, firm and close to your ear. “You’re not getting enough oxygen. We’re helping you, okay? Stay with us.”
You nod, but another wave of suffocation sweeps through you. Your back arches involuntarily as you gasp.
A doctor enters, voice low and decisive.
“We need to transfer her to ICU. She’s tiring out. Get the ambu bag, she’s not getting enough air.”
Your oxygen mask is lifted away. Immediately the sensation of drowning intensifies.
A larger mask replaces it. Hard plastic, tight against your cheeks.
“(your name), deep breaths if you can.” a respiratory therapist says.
Her hands squeeze the ambu bag, forcing air into your lungs. It’s too much, too fast, but the pressure opens something inside you and you choke in a breath.
You try to raise your hand toward the mask—startled by the sudden, forced breaths—but a nurse catches your wrist gently but firmly.
“No, sweetheart. Hands down. Leave the mask. Let us help you breathe.”
She guides your arm back onto the bedrail and keeps her hand over yours so you can’t reach again.
Alarms go off. Your monitor beeps erratically. Numbers you can’t fully see or understand flash.
“Get her IV pump unplugged. Foley’s secure. NGT stays in. Grab the portable O2 and monitor.”
“Bagging at twelve a minute. She’s still working.”
“Let’s move.”
The room becomes a flurry of motion around you. Equipment is unhooked, switched to portable versions, pushed alongside your bed. A nurse leans close to your ear as everything starts moving.
“(your name), we’re taking you to ICU now, okay? They’re going to help your breathing. You’re doing really well. Stay awake for us.”
Your bed jerks forward. The room slides sideways. The ambu bag hisses and whooshes in harsh rhythm with your gasps.
(your SO) moves beside you, walking quickly, face pale.
“I’m right here, love. They’re going to take care of you. I’m right here.”
Another nurse keeps bagging you as the bed rolls down the hallway. Her arm rises and falls steadily, forcing breaths into your starving lungs. Each one feels too big, too invasive—but also the only thing keeping you alive.
You hear voices as you pass open doors.
“Oh my god, is she okay?”
You want to close your eyes but the panic keeps them wide, burning.
The nurse on your right keeps talking softly.
“(your name), when we get to ICU, they’ll take over right away. They’re going to put a breathing tube in and put you on a ventilator. It's a machine that helps you breathe. You’re very sick, but you’re in the right place. Just focus on your breathing, okay?”
Another breath is squeezed into you. You cough weakly against the mask, but there’s no pause in the rhythm.
“Almost there, (your name). Just a little longer.”
The doors open with a heavy click. The lighting changes—brighter, colder. More voices.
“ICU team ready? Bed incoming! Respiratory distress, severe hypoxia.”
“Got it. Bring her in. What’s her sats?”
“Eighty-two on bagging. Very fatigued.”
Hands immediately surround you again. The ICU nurse takes over bagging with stronger, faster compressions.
The air forced into your lungs now makes your chest rise sharply. Too sharply. You try to cough around it, but you can’t.
“We need her over to the ICU bed. On three—one, two, three.”
Your body lifts and shifts. The sheets are cold under your back. Someone adjusts the head of the bed, raising it.
The new nurse leans close, her eyes sharp but kind.
“(your name), honey, listen to me. You’re not keeping your oxygen up. You're too unstable for sedation, so we have to intubate you while you're awake.”
Awake.
You freeze, lungs burning.
Her voice softens but stays urgent.
“Your oxygen is too low to safely sedate you right now. If we put you to sleep first, your breathing could stop before we get the tube in. So we need to place the breathing tube while you’re still awake enough to keep breathing with us. We’re going to help you—just follow our instructions.”
Another forceful breath is squeezed into your lungs. You cough, gag, gasp.
A hand squeezes yours.
“You’re doing so well, (your name). We’re right here.”
The room buzzes with activity—laryngoscope metal clinks, suction is set up, medications drawn but not used yet.
“Okay. We preoxygenated her. Let’s get started.”
The nurse speaks one more time, right next to your ear.
“(your name)… we’re going to put the tube in now. Stay with us. Deep breaths. You’re safe.”
Your vision blurs at the edges as gloved hands guide your chin upward and the bright laryngoscope light fills your eyes.
#lana del rey
#cats of tumblr
#horror movies
#bloodymary
#photography
