#also Eropental:

[i-eat-worlds]

Stab O’clock

Phoenix gets stabbed, whump ensues.

Thanks to @snaillamp and @whumpy-daydreams for helping with the medical stuff in this! Aaron and Phoenix belong to @pigeonwhumps

cw: medical whump, dubcon medical care, past medical abuse, graphic depiction of medical procedures (tube thoracostomy), needles, blood, implied current abuse, fear of punishment, wound fingering, immortal whumpee, wishing for death, past death, comfort believe it or not

“Firebird!”

Phoenix rolled away from the voice calling their name, trying to drag themselves deeper into the alleyway. If they were discovered like this, it wouldn’t end well. You couldn’t fight if you could barely breathe.

“Firebird!”

A black, blue, and orange uniformed hero rounded the corner, and Phoenix shrunk back further. Absurdly, they wished they could bleed out and die quicker, so they could heal. Being found like this was sure to end badly. Injured heroes were useless heroes, and useless heroes got punished. The hero called out for them again, moving towards the alley way.

They held their breath, hoping the hero would walk by and ignore them.

They didn’t.

Instead, the hero turned into the alley, dropping to their knees in front of them. He mumbled something into his coms before he looked at them. “Hey Firebird, I’m Exhale, I’m a medic.” He gestured to the patch on his left arm. “I’m here to help you, yeah?”

Medics? Who had sent medics out for them? That was a gross waste of resources. Phoenix shook their head. “ ‘m immortal.”

Talking was hard. Every word stole precious, precious air that was getting harder to take in by the second.

Exhale nodded. “Good to know, thanks for telling me.” He quickly located the wound on their chest and started quickly cutting the fabric away.

“No, ‘m immortal.” Phoenix whispered, pushing his hands away. “You don’ need to do that.”

“Not how that works. Let me help.” Exhale pressed a clear, sticky bandage over their chest. It was clear he wasn’t planning on arguing.

His hands wrapped around them, checking their backside for another wound. “ ‘m sorry,” they wheezed.

“It’s alright.” His hands pulled away. “I need you to lay down. I’ll help, yeah?” Phoenix let him gently set them down on the ground. This moved them out of the shadows, casting streetlight over their upper body.

Their chest still felt heavy and tight, even though the weird bandages he’d put on helped a little bit. It did nothing for the pain, every movement of their rib cage extending the burning ache. In the distance, they could hear sirens. Stupidly, Phoenix wondered if the sirens were for them.

That was silly, though. Why would they need an ambulance? It wasn’t like they were going to die.

“I’m gonna need to decompress your chest,” he said. He was holding something in his gloved hand, but Phoenix couldn’t really see what it was. “It’ll probably hurt, but it’ll also make it easier to breathe.”

They whimpered as Exhale pressed his fingers next to their sternum, only a few inches away from the wound, then slid them across their chest. In the corner of their vision, they saw light glint of of a very long needle.

They didn’t have time to really process what it was until after it was driven through their chest.

Shocked, they gasped, breathing hitching and head popping off the ground. Exhale didn’t seem so surprised, pressing his hand onto their shoulder to keep them from moving too much. “You’re alright, you’re going great.”

It certainly didn’t feel like that.

“The ambulance is on its way, they’re a few minutes out.” For some reason, he was still gently squeezing their shoulder. It wasn’t that they minded, it was just odd.

It was easy to tell that the ambulance was coming, sirens screaming through the night. Phoenix closed their eyes to try and get away from bright flashing lights as it parked. It was so easy to keep them like that.

“Phoenix, can you open your eyes for me?” He shook their shoulder a bit, but when they didn’t respond, he switched to grinding his knuckles into their sternum.

Their eyes popped open, and they raised the arm on their uninjured side to try and push his hand away. “I need you to try and stay awake, for me, yeah?”

The ambulance ride passed in a blur. So much was going on. While Exhale was starting an IV, another paramedic was attaching them to a monitor. An oxygen mask was looped over their face and then they were covered by a blanket. They felt a strange coolth running up their arm, and they realized that they’d been given painkillers.

It was too much, really. All the care and attention would've been better spent on someone who wouldn’t live anyway. The thought of having to pay for this made them nauseous. Hopefully Kai will believe that they tried to say no, because Abbie wouldn’t care.

Phoenix heard the arrival alarm go off as they were rolled into HAL’s medbay. Aaron, along with a cache of other nurses met them by the door. They clumped around the stretcher, and Exhale started rattling off a long list of words and numbers that they didn’t understand at Aaron.

“ ‘m sorry,” they mumbled to them, but he was too busy talking to hear them. “I promise ‘m sorry, sir.”

Nobody responded. Of course they didn’t. They were being annoying, and they needed to shut up.

“Three, two, one, lift!” Somebody called, and they were hoisted off the stretcher and set back down on the table. The movement caused pain to flare in their chest, and they groaned loudly. The assault of hands returned as they were attached to the medbay’s monitor, nurses swarming around them.

“You with me, Phoenix?” Aaron was standing at their head. His face looked weird upside down.

They nodded, feeling the tears starting to build. “Yes, sir.”

“Good, good.” Aaron’s eyes flickered up, watching as their blood pressure cycled. “We’re gonna take an x-ray, okay. Just lie still for us.”

Someone pulled an x-ray machine over the bed, and Aaron backed away. There was an awkward moment of quiet as the machine hummed and wirred, and then everyone briey stared at the radiograph that Phoenix could neither see nor interpret. Aaron rattled o a list of stuff he needed done, and the room descended back into organized chaos.

“I’m gonna need to place a chest tube. You’ve got blood in your chest, so we're going to put a tube in and drain it out so you can breathe better,” he explained as he rubbed cleaning gel on his hands.

Phoenix swallowed nervously, giving up on holding back tears. They could feel the pain of the scalpel slicing through their chest, of cold metal pushing their ribs apart, of hands digging around inside them as they died and resurrected and died again.

“You’re lucky someone is willing to help you at all. You know you don’t deserve it.”

A nurse pulled the blanket all the way to their belly button, revealing the myriad scars that covered their body. Burns, several GSWs, an old wound from a spear, and the long, thick, almost keloid scar from the thoracotomy.

“If you stopped fucking moving I wouldn’t need to paralyze you. It’s not like you need to breathe.”

Their attention was drawn by Aaron’s voice. “Phoenix, I need you to keep breathing for me. In and out, in and out.” He looped a mask around his face, then plunged his arms into the sleeves of a waiting gown. While he spoke, the nurse wiped the skin around their chest and up their arm with a stinky orange solution.

“Please, ‘m sorry, sir,” they gasped. The monitors screeched as their heart rate spiked. “I promise, sir, ‘m sorry for getting hurt.”

Aaron’s eyebrows furrowed. “I’m not mad at you for getting hurt, Phoenix. I’ll never be.” Cold flared in their arms, but they were too scared to recognize it as pain medication. Latex snapped as he donned a pair of sterile gloves.

The squelching of viscera echoed in their brain.

“If you don’t stop screaming I’m going to cut it. I can literally see your aorta. Don’t test me.”

He started to unfold a drape on their chest, looking up at a nurse on the other side of the table. “Can you get Joseph in here? They need more support than I can provide while I’m doing this.”

Phoenix whimpered, tears rolling down freely down their cheeks. They’d known that Aaron’s kindness wouldn’t last forever, that it was too good to be true, but it still hurt. And Joseph as well? Was he going to hold them down while Aaron cut them open? Or would they just slit their throat and be done with it?

“I told you I wasn’t fucking around. You could’ve prevented this if you would’ve just kept still.”

“I‘m sorry, please, I promise, I’m sorry, sir.” They tried again, desperately. “I didn’t mean to get hurt. I know I don’t deserve it, sir. I know. I promise, sir, I know.”

They gasped for air, hand clawing at the tide of the table.

“Can someone gag them please? I don’t want to hear them breathing like that. It’s annoying.”

Joseph appeared in the entryway to the room, quickly crossing on the side away from Aaron. He was wearing his full INSUPA uniform, med patches and all, same second in command stripes as the person in the alley had. Was Joseph Exhale?

It didn’t really matter now. He was going to hurt them anyway.

“Can someone hold them down? They move too much when they resurrect.”

“Hey Phoenix, can you look at me?” He was smiling at them, but he still looked terrifying.

They tore their eyes from the needle in Aaron’s hand to look at him. “That’s good. Eyes on me, eyes on me.”

“Don’t look at me like that. You know it's your own fault.”

Joseph kept talking to them, voice low and calm. “Is it okay if I hold your hand?” They nodded, knowing their answer didn’t really matter anyway.

“We’re gonna take care of you. I know it’s scary.” His hands were calloused and hard, and he gently started to massage the top of their hand with his thumb.

Why hadn’t he killed them yet? What was he waiting for?

“Stop crying. It’s distracting me.”

Aaron touched their chest. Fear exploded in their gut, along with boiling waves of nausea. Even though they knew they’d come back, they didn’t want to die.

“Aaron’s starting the local now.” Joseph said, squeezing their hand a little.

“I don’t care that it hurts. Just keep still.”

The needle punctured their skin, and they did their best to not wiggle away. There was an acidic burn in their chest as the medication took hold.

“I know it burns, but it’s nearly over,” Aaron said, grabbing another syringe. “That’s the first round of local anesthetic in, you’re doing great.”

Joseph smiled at them again, and Phoenix wondered what the point of the medication was. Weren’t anesthetics supposed to make things hurt less? That couldn’t be right.

They were supposed to be dying.

“Pain meds? That would be wasted on you. I don’t think it’d even work.”

Aaron swamped out the syringe for a scalpel, and their eyes went wide with fear. This was how he was going to kill them then.

“Eyes on me, remember?” Joseph’s voice was commanding, and their eyes snapped back to his face.

“I’m sorry sir,” they said, voice filled with fear.

“I didn’t know you were too stupid to follow even simple instructions. Stop. Squirming.”

They prepared themselves for the pain of being sliced open, waiting for the agony to spread along their ribs.

“Tell me if it starts to hurt,” Aaron said. There was a strange pressure on the side of their chest, and the metallic smell of blood filled the air.

It was strange, but it didn’t hurt. It was supposed to hurt.

“It’ll go faster if you don’t cause problems.”

There was an uncomfortable tugging and pulling sensation, and then Aaron’s finger slid inside their chest. They suppressed the urge to cringe away.

“They need more local.” Joseph said, his tone switching from soft to business when he talked to Aaron.

“ ‘m okay,” they insisted. They didn’t need any more superfluous medication wasted on them. It already wasn’t as bad as they’d thought it’d be.

“I wouldn’t have had to do this if you’d just behaved.”

Joseph kept holding their hand as Aaron reached for another syringe. “You’re doing great, keep it up,” he assured them.

The burning sensation returned, and then they were being spread open again. A rush of blood splattered onto the floor, splashing on Aaron’s gown.

“What, are you afraid of a little blood?

He stuck his finger into their chest again, rotating it around inside them. “Any pain, Phoenix?”

“No, sir.” They were crying more now than before.

He snatched the tube off the tray. “Give them another point-two of Eropental.”

“If you complain that it hurts one more time, I’m going to just leave the rest of the shrapnel inside.”

Joseph let go of their hand to administer the medication, and for some reason, Phoenix didn’t like it.

Meanwhile, Aaron was deep in concentration. He carefully threaded the hard, plastic tube into their chest, then quickly connected them up to the strange looking drainage machine and opened up the clamp. “Tube’s in.”

It was quickly filled with blood. “Now all we gotta suture it in place. You’re nearly done, Phoenix.

“It’s kinda useless to stitch them, since they'll heal up anyway.”

This, at least, they were familiar with. Aaron had stitched them up way more times than was justied for any one person.

Joseph was back to holding their hand now. If they’d made it this far, the punishment would probably come later. “You did great, Phoenix.”

They didn’t believe him, but they weren’t going to argue.

“Just catch up after you heal. We don’t have the time to carry you back. You have to pull your own weight.”

Aaron dosed the wound liberally with another round of anesthetic before he covered it with several layers of gauze and tape.

The blood was practically flowing out of them, out of the tube and into the pump. “We’re gonna get you scanned next,” he said as he tore off his blood flecked gown and gloves. “Hopefully your healing is doing a good job of patching it up.”

Joseph squeezed their shoulder. “We gotcha.”

For a brief moment, Phoenix let themselves entertain the thought that they weren’t going to be killed at all. If Aaron was expecting them to heal, then maybe they’d be okay. But the anxiety settled in there chest again.

Now they had to do was survive what Abbie would dole out to them.

Aaron and Joseph had let them off easy.

Abbie wouldn’t.

Taglist: @/pigeonwhumps @rainydaywhump

#worlds babbles #whump #medical whump #past abuse #medical procedure #needles tw #blood #fear of punishment #multiple caretakers #medic caretaker #wishing for death #joseph oc #aaron not my oc #phoenix not my oc #this is long and I love it #also Eropental: #superhero strength narcotic #this was fun I should write more surgery #it’s dubcon bc Phoenix doesn’t want it #bc they think they’ll be hurt #but HALs/INSUPAs implied consent policy is very broad #superheroes don’t get DNRs basically