Whumpuary Jan 15-16 - Muffled Screams / Hostage / "You look awful" / BONUS 2: "Let me see"
(cw: urban warfare setting, no-anesthesia surgery, descriptions of pain, the briefest discussion of concussions)
It took longer than it should’ve for Jaye’s eyes to adjust to the dark. One of her arms looped around her teammate's shoulders, and Red dragged her over the threshold of the abandoned building, shards of broken glass crunching under their feet. Their difference in heights made Jaye’s side stretch as she hung off of him, and it pulled at her wounds. Between the pain, the disorientation from the blast, and the complete lack of light in the building, she found herself straining to see even the ground in front of her.
Or maybe she’d lost more blood than she’d thought.
She groaned weakly as a wave of vertigo hit her. The floor shifted beneath her feet, and Red’s grip on her waist tightened as she stumbled into him. He hauled her upright again.
“Hang on, Bluebird,” he said. “Just a few more steps.”
The strain against her ribs made her forget how to breathe. Thankfully, Red took over as her knees decided they didn’t need to function anymore. He handled her like she didn’t weigh anything at all - certainly no more than the fuckoff huge sniper rifle he carried on his back - and dragged her through piles of rubble and into a room further back in the building.
He maneuvered her over to a couch relatively free of debris and set her down. She collapsed against the worn furniture, and the impact jammed all the way up her spine. She bit back a yelp and focused on taking calm, even breaths. The walls muffled the sporadic pop of gunfire from outside, but they still had to be quiet, even in this relative safety.
Red set his rifle down against the wall and drew his pistol. He frowned down a darkened hallway. “I need to secure the building. Sit tight; I’ll be right back.”
Jaye nodded. The tread of his combat boots retreated further into the abandoned house, and she let her head fall back as she waited for the pain to ebb. She closed her eyes to focus on the air moving through her lungs. Every inhale sent knives stabbing into her side from her broken ribs. Warm blood oozed against her palm from where she clutched at her side, fresh from the ragged gouges torn through both clothing and skin. The sharp ache made her fingers dig into the couch cushions, and a whine lodged in her throat. The pressure on open wounds stung, but it calmed her, somewhat.
Her arm stung, too, though not as much. She'd thrown up her arms to protect her head during the explosion, and she imagined the shrapnel had caught her there too. Close to her shoulder. She didn't bother looking.
By the time Red returned, her breathing had slowed to a shallow rhythm. An armful of supplies dropped onto the couch next to Jaye, and his heavy footsteps continued past her to the other side of the room. Without lifting her head, she cracked open her eyelids and tracked his movement to the boarded-up windows along the wall. Slivers of pale light fell across Red's face as he peered through the splintered gaps. His eyes sharpened as he looked out into the street. Bursts of gunfire still checkered the silence outside, but whoever was still shooting at each other was too far away for voices to carry. That didn't mean no one lay in wait around their hideout, though.
After a few tense seconds, the barest amount of tension released from Red's shoulders. Jaye breathed a small sigh of relief when he pulled away from the window.
“Clear.” He re-holstered his gun and joined her by the couch. Concrete dust still clung to his hair and clothing - it had rained down on both of them when he'd hauled her from the ground, and it made the blond look ashen. “Still with me, Bluebird?”
“...‘Course, sir.” Despite the circumstances, she managed not to sound horribly feeble.
Red unclipped her field kit for her and set it on the floor. He smoothed one of the things he’d brought with him over the couch cushions: an old bath towel, faded and frayed. “How’s your hearing?”
“Quiet. Ears’re ringin’.”
“Dizzy?”
She whined. “...'Little.”
Red glanced at her, scanning her face as a line formed in his brows, probably gauging her awareness. “If you start to feel nauseous at all, let me know.”
Jaye nodded, barely moving her head.
“I’m going to move you so I can get a better look at this. Try to breathe through your nose.”
Without waiting for her to respond, he slipped one arm behind her back and another under her legs and lifted her off of the worn furniture. She tensed with a strangled gasp. He laid her down so her head rested against the couch’s arm, and she held her breath to keep from crying out too loud. The hand not pressed to her side gripped the back of the couch until her nails clawed the upholstery.
Red pushed her hair off of her forehead. “Easy, now. Easy.”
He clicked on his tactical flashlight, and Jaye flinched at the sudden brightness. There came the sound of latex gloves stretching over skin, and then a hand laid against her stomach, right under the worst of her wounds. Red’s touch stilled some of the anxious thoughts flitting around Jaye's mind, but she still hissed a breath through clenched teeth. He placed a warm, gloved hand against her wrist.
“Let me see,” he said.
Jaye relaxed enough so Red could peel her hand away from her side. It unstuck from blood-soaked fabric with a faint wet sound, and more blood welled up without any pressure to keep it in place. She craned her neck to catch a glimpse, but the sight of her own wounds made her vision swim. She fell back with a whimper.
“Probably best not to look,” Red said quietly.
Jaye nodded. She couldn’t bring herself to argue with that.
He released her hand and cut at her shirt to expose her injuries. Jaye swallowed hard. She fixed her eyes on the ceiling while he surveyed the damage, determined not to look again. He worked with precision - without much emotion, but not without care. It still hurt, though. As he flushed out the still-bleeding cuts and gashes, Jaye forced herself to stay quiet. Her face twitched with every gentle prod, and the sound of her strained breathing filled the silence between them.
After a bit, Red pulled back. “Not the cleanest of injuries, but it could be worse. I don’t think anything pierced your lungs, so you're not in danger of hemorrhaging. I'd say you were very lucky.”
Jaye hummed and licked her lips. “Unlucky- t’get caught in the blast.”
Red didn’t look up, but she still caught the flash of regret on his face.
“I didn’t realize you’d be under fire,” he said. “I would have given you more direct cover.”
“S’alright. Only got blown up a little.”
“Hm.”
She really had only been blown up a little. The delay on the explosives she’d set should have given her enough time to run to safety. Even with the surprise combatants showing up, she’d at least made it a little bit down the street before the building exploded. At least nothing had collapsed on her.
Red pulled out tweezers, gauze, and medical tape from the kit. “I'll give you something for the pain, then remove the worst of the shrapnel. That should be enough to patch you up. We can take care of the rest once we get back to the ship.” He reached into the field kit again and froze. When he looked down, his lips pressed into a thin line. “...I need to brace you for some bad news.”
Jaye let her head roll toward him, eyebrows barely raised. She’d used up too much energy talking earlier to voice an actual question. Red lifted a handful of vials for her to see - or the shattered remnants of them, anyway. Cracked and broken glass dripped the last of the medicine they’d once contained. None of them held even a half dose.
“They must have broken during the explosion,” he said, “Or when you hit the ground. Painkillers won’t be an option for this one, I’m afraid.”
The information sank in like a stone in her gut, and Jaye closed her eyes with a heavy sigh. “Awesome.”
“I’ll work as quickly as I can,” Red continued. “It won't be pleasant, but hopefully no worse than it has to be.”
Glass clinked as he set down the broken vials and prepared the other supplies. Maybe Jaye should have been more afraid, lying there and waiting for the pain, but annoyance rather than fear set her teeth on edge. Annoyance, and the pressing need to just get it over with, already. Her fingers dug harder into the couch.
“Get me somethin’ to bite on, at least,” she said. “Don't feel like crackin’ a molar today.”
Red folded a thick square of gauze and held it out to her. Her hand only shook a little as she grabbed it.
“Thanks.” She licked her lips one last time before placing it between her teeth.
Red placed his hand back on her side and met her gaze. His piercing blue met her own eyes without wavering. “Ready?”
Jaye nodded stiffly, teeth clenched in anticipation. The ends of the tweezers in Red's grip looked sharper than they had any right to be, and she tried not to imagine them carving into her skin. Her stomach turned, and she resolutely looked back up at the ceiling.
“Alright. Deep breath.”
She filled her lungs in a long, slow breath - as much as the sharp ache in her ribs allowed - and cold metal dipped into her wounds. Jaye’s body seized. Every limb and muscle turned rigid, one hand gripping the back of the couch, the other clutching at the cushion beside her. It was manageable, but her breath still lodged in her throat. She forced herself to hold it to keep herself from crying out.
Red's hand slid up to keep the edges of her wounds open, and he methodically picked glass and bits of concrete out of her skin. He stayed silent as he worked. Jaye knew he could keep his hands steady. She'd seen the way he shot targets a kilometer away without so much as a tremor disrupting his aim. But Ra alive, every time those needle-sharp points dug into her ribs, she could all but imagine them tearing bloody gashes in their wake.
It took all of her strength to stay still and not writhe away from the foreign touch. Tears bit the corners of her eyes as the discomfort grew, every piece of shrapnel adding up like little agonies. Her fist slammed repeatedly against the back of the couch. The dull thwap-thwap-thwap on the cushions replaced any sounds that tried to tear themselves from her throat.
Just before she reached her breaking point, it stopped. The pain cut out, and Red pulled away. Jaye collapsed with a shaky sigh, breathless and with all the strength sapped from her limbs.
“We’re taking a break,” Red said.
Jaye’s hand dropped from the back of the couch. She only just barely managed to rip the gauze out of her mouth without hitting herself in the face. Her jaw ached, and she swallowed to keep her tongue from sticking to the roof of her mouth. She didn't think she could manage much more than that, so she focused instead on trying to pant for air without making her vision white out. Every inhale made her flinch.
Red didn't say anything while she collected herself. He never stopped watching her, either, attention splitting between her face and the rise and fall of her chest. That kind of look used to make her squirm under it, like a bug pinned to a board. Now though, the familiar intensity made the adrenaline in her bloodstream stop buzzing so much. She wondered how much of her blood coated his hands.
“Can you take a deep breath?” he asked.
Jaye shook her head with a whine. “Hurts.”
“Just try.”
Jaye grit her teeth and pulled a slow, purposeful breath through her nose. More tears swelled behind her eyes, but she pressed her lips into a tight grimace and ignored the feel of her ribs grinding against each other. She couldn't bear to hold it. Somehow, she forced herself to let it go slowly and not all in one rush. A tired groan edged her exhale. Red's gaze never wavered.
"Not in danger of pneumothorax, I don't think," he said. "Good thing; I've never preformed a needle aspiration before."
Jaye's eyebrows lifted a fraction. She didn't have the energy for inflection, and her words came out amusingly dull. "Ooo, that could be fun."
"No, it wouldn't. Are you ready to continue? We have about halfway to go."
"Sure. Why not?"
Before he could reply or ready the tweezers again, a mortar shell detonated somewhere in the city. Still far off, but closer than it should've been. Both Red and Jaye turned to the boarded-up windows. The explosion resounded in Jaye's sternum, tremors rumbling through the ground and making the building around them shudder. Dust shower down from the ceiling, just a little. It could have been Theo's Saladin. Could have been something else, too.
"Better make it quick, pretty boy," Jaye said after a moment.
The crease between Red's brows didn't leave as he pulled his attention away from the far wall. "You can flirt after I've removed the projectiles from your body." His hand returned to her stomach. "The others will take care of it. Bite down again."
He gave her just enough time to clamp her teeth around the gauze before the fire in her side started again. Red finished with her ribs and moved onto her arm, gripping just above her elbow to hold her steady. A headache pulsed in her temples with the effort to keep in her screams.
She'd braced herself to hold out for just as long as the first time, but then Red pulled his hands away before she expected.
"It's done," he said.
Jaye let herself melt into the couch. She caught her breath through layers of cotton, too exhausted to even take the gauze out of her mouth. With efficient movements, Red tore off lengths of corrective tape from her kit and began dressing her wounds. He pressed the tape against her arm to activate it, and the gentle squeeze made her hiss. The warmth eased her pain soon enough.
She nearly yelped when he did it to her side, barely holding back a yelp. Jaye forced herself to lay flat on the couch - at least the gauze muffled the strangled noises she made.
When he was done, Red pulled his gloves off inside-out. He eased the makeshift gag from between Jaye's teeth, and she snarled at him as soon as she could form words.
"Ribs're- fucking broken, you idiot.”
"Apologies."
He busied himself with gathering up stained towels and packing supplies back into her kit. Without the gauze in her mouth gumming up the rest of her senses, the sharp smell of blood sat heavy in the back of her throat. She rolled her eyes to look at her teammate.
"Second half went…quicker'n before," she said.
"I..may have lied." Red glanced up at her, but didn't stop what he was doing. "I had removed more than half of the shrapnel when I called the break."
Jaye huffed out a weak laugh and let her head roll to the side. "Fuckin' asshole."
Red gave her the barest of smiles. "If you can insult me, that means you're not dying."
"Jus' lemme know when we need to move. I know we can't stay long."
Red hummed. A blanket rested on the floor next to him, and he unfolded it to drape over her. It smelled of dust and mildew as he tucked it around her shoulders, and only then did Jaye realize she'd been trembling. She hadn't even noticed.
"Rest, for now," he said. "Once the others confirm that they've completed their mission, I'll contact them with our coordinates."
Jaye wanted to comment that the situation hardly called for abandoning their planned rendezvous, but arguing with her squad lead took more energy than she could spend right now. And…maybe she wouldn't mind a few minutes of rest - regardless how ill-advised. Instead, she simply narrowed her eyes at him.
Red's expression softened. "Close your eyes. If it looks like there's trouble, I promise I'll wake you."
"…Yessir."
Giving her shoulder one last pat, Red rose to his feet and unholstered his pistol for another perimeter check, taking his flashlight with him. Jaye watched him until he left her line of sight, then reluctantly obeyed his orders. The distant, bursting gunfire kept her company in the dark as she tried to rest.
