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staycalmandhugaclone · 11 months

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Arrows (Special Request) - Doc - Part 2

Part 2 of Arrow. If you're new, this all starts with Touch Starved!

My dear friend loves the whumpiest of whumps... this is what I have provided. This chapter Hurts. Happy Birthday @arctrooper69!!!

Also: got a new Poll up for your thoughts! Should Doc Have Her Own Blog?

Warnings: Bone/joint injury, profanity, vomiting, heavy whump, medical procedures/language, needles

WC: 2,650

Only the occasional rumble of Wrecker’s voice marked the passage of time as my mind lapsed into a haze of pain and silent pleas and something not quite reality. I wanted him to stop – needed – him to stop, the words begging for just a moment’s reprieve filling my mouth and halting my already choppy breath, but if I had managed to force them into existence, I was too far gone to truly hear it. The growing guilt and fear tensing his shoulders and quickening his stride, however, left what logic flickered within me certain I had spoken them, screamed them as my body struggled against him even now, unable to keep still beneath the relentless hurt coursing through me.

I vaguely saw the way my fingers clawed atop his back plate, felt my uninjured leg strain to find purchase against his hip, his stomach, boot dragging over plastoid in a futile attempt to push myself free of him. My throat felt raw, burning at the very thought of attempting to speak even as cries of pain continued to catch on nearly every breath.

“… seen her hurt before!” He was shouting. “This ain’t just some…!” Fading in and out. “…am hurryin’!” I hated the note of fear in his voice, hated my inability to offer him even a whisper of reassurance as the sickening chill of panicked sweat soaked into my blacks, mind balking amidst the lingering uncertainty that the world was spinning madly around me.

“Wr-eck… please…” Stammered. Broken. As soon as the ruined semblance of my voice choked past the tortured flesh of my throat, I couldn’t say with any certainty that it had ever existed as anything more than one of countless half-formed thoughts flitting too quickly through my mind to find any meaning.

“..ry! Kriff, I’m s… -ost there, jus… on…” I remembered the distant fear that nights on this planet would bring with them a chill, that I should pack an extra blanket for Echo, just in case… but the merciless cold at war with the fire raging through my veins was inescapable. Cursing through gritted teeth, Wrecker came to a sharp halt, sending a shockwave of sickening motion rippling through me.

“…orry-sorry; jus’… argh, just hol…” I tried to focus, tried to find some reason behind the sudden stop. A light thump seemed to echo from somehow just below me followed by the telltale trill of a blaster firing, the shimmer of a blue ring just catching my attention from the corner of my eye, and then we were moving again.

It wasn’t until feeling their hands ease me from Wrecker’s shoulder that I even realized we’d finally reached the others, and I had to fight to hear them over the deafening boom of my heartbeat, the static screaming around me… screaming… I was… I was screaming. Their touch felt like acid. The suffocating humidity from my frantic gasps sat heavily within the too-small hollow of my bucket, rebreather overloaded from how long I’d been hyperventilating, from how long I’d been abusing my vocal cords with ceaseless, shouted pleas, but, body nearly convulsing beneath the fresh torture of nerves shrieking against even the most delicate caress, those too-quick huffs came even faster, chest fluttering in something closer to a tremble than actual breath as they lowered me onto the ground… no… it wasn’t soil beneath me… a cloth?

“..ong with her?!” Hunter demanded. My uninjured arm coiled at my side, fingers burring mindlessly into whatever bit of fabric they’d laid me down on, leg continuing some listless attempt to push me up, to move, to flee this agony.

“-ey, hey, hey; come on, Doc; you’ve got to stop moving.” Some blurred visage of Echo flashed before me.

“…uncertain. I’ll need… remove the proje… test for toxins.” Pressure… pushing against my back, pinning me firmly to the ground… Panic resurging in a rush, whatever broken sounds of hurt caught in my throat turned desperate, body straining to reach for the man before me despite the arm nearest him refusing to even twitch.

“I’m here; I’m right here.” Echo murmured, so nearly stifling the fear from his voice as he quickly caught my hand in his. Somewhere nearby, Wrecker and Crosshair were… arguing? Yelling about something… at something… I tried to look, but someone held my helmet still, tilting it just enough to expose my neck. The sting of the autoinjector should have been a familiar nuisance, but the nerves reacted as though the thin needles gouged through muscle and veins and bone, and shied from it with a barked cry of agony, certain I would find a river of blood pouring onto the ground if I could just convince my eyes to focus.

“..et worse… can’t wait…” Tech’s voice seemed to spin around me, lilting on some faltering orbit as the words fluctuated between near silent and deafening. Maker, my chest ached from the frantic racing of my heart. “…lp hold her… pull…” The weight shifted atop me as something tugged at my armor. The first jostle of my shoulder as they removed the bell sent a burst of white across my vision, stomach heaving against the sickening hurt and fire and wrong as something clicked against bone. My hand wrenched away from Echo to claw uselessly against the joint, body trying to curl onto its side despite that relentless weight holding me down.

“Don’t le… move her arm.” Something tightened around my elbow, locking the useless limb in place. I think I was still screaming. Begging them to let me go. But I couldn’t move. I couldn’t fight them. Every muscle lay taut, teeth clattering violently from the terrible tremor wrought from cold and panic and pain.

Only when the wretched thing piercing my shoulder began to move, did I fall silent, throat locking shut in those first few seconds, the entirety of my existence too overwhelmed with that deathly wrong hurt to remember anything else. With a sickening hyperfocus, I felt every shift, felt the faint tremble from how his hands shook, felt the tiny twists as he worked to ease it free without furthering the damage or severing a tendon.

For just those for first few seconds, no sound could escape me, but then the trance broke, and I couldn’t remember how to stop as air I didn’t know my lungs still possessed tore from me in a sound I could barely hear over the static blaring in my ears. I don’t know when the thing finally came free, the vague awareness of Tech calling Echo’s name more akin to a near forgotten dream than reality before a new pressure burr down against the wound.

“Why … still awake?!”

“ …’t know, but …”

The weight shifted atop me, centering over my hips as their voices pulsed in a nauseating dysrhythmia. Hands tightened around my thigh like a vise and, before I could more than gasp at the terror of what was to come, something else settled over my calf, trapping my leg between them.

“-on’t look, Doc,” I didn’t even realize my head had been trying to twist enough to see them, movements halting and unsteady, until Echo’s words rumbled through my helm’s speakers. If he said something else, I couldn’t hear it as Tech began prying the second projectile from my knee. My back snapped up, body thrashing in a futile attempt to unseat them.

The pressure against my shoulder faltered slightly amidst a tiny grunt of pain, just audible above the frenzy of orders being shouted between the others, but my entire focus locked on it. The guilt that twisted through my chest was crippling as I quickly wrenched my hand back, unaware when it had lashed out for something, anything, and found only Echo’s thigh, fingers clenching ruthlessly around the muscle just above his prosthetic.

“Kriff, no-no, it’s okay.” I think he called my name, offered some manner of gentle reassurance, but that brief flash of lucidity was already overwhelmed by the deathly cold slicing into my knee, the certainty that they were cutting through the joint entirely as fumbled pleas tangled once more atop my tongue between the feral keening my screams receded into.

“Tech, yuh … -thing for the pai…” Wrecker was shouting.

“I – ng – I have!” He snapped, and even I could hear the struggle in his voice. “Hunter, hold h…”

“I am!” There was no relief when it finally came free, when the notches of whatever stone was lashed to the tip of that slender shaft broke through cartilage and tissue alike before slipping out from the ruined joint, nerves still aflame in the echo of that agony.

“Need to flush… try to… -oxins…”

Crosshair’s rifle fired twice, followed by a shrill cry from somewhere in the distance.

“More incoming.” There was a sharpness to his words I wasn’t used to. I wanted to see him, to understand why, but I couldn’t move beyond the way my body shook. Something pressed into the wound, stretching torn flesh before forcing liquid into the joint. My torso bucked, writhing against the cold and pressure and Maker, why wouldn’t it stop.

When the same hurt poured into my shoulder, I couldn’t hold back the gag, stomach convulsing as my body seized. Someone cursed and wrenched my bucket off. I didn’t notice the way he paused, didn’t see who dragged the wet gauze over my cheek to clean away the remnants of sick.

“Wh… what the kriff is …” I understood the horror in his voice more than the words, and fought to search for him amidst the churning colors… Echo… Confused, I belatedly realized he wasn’t looking at me so much as my face; my skin. “Tech, what is-”

“Think they want their friend back.” Wrecker called out through an audible scowl.

“Later – we need to move!” Hunter yelled over him. The rapid chirping of a heavy repeater joined Crosshair’s rifle.

“Too bad,” He growled, “That thing’s coming with us.” The cloth shifted beneath me, hugging my form as it began to rise. A stretcher… that’s what they’d laid me down on. Echo and Tech stood at my shoulders while Hunter took the position at my feet. I could still hear Crosshair and Wrecker firing rapidly behind us as we fled.

Every pounding footfall sent tiny percussions rippling through me, but my throat was too raw for anything more than a tortured wheeze. Muscles in my forearm, my thigh, stretching down my back began to lock, too exhausted to make sense of the continued abuse from how violently I trembled. Couldn’t unclench my hand… couldn’t breathe as I merely waited for my spine to cave; waited for that inevitable snap that never came.

“Everybody in! Get the ramp closed!” Hunter’s order boomed. The darkness of the Marauder’s halls granted a comfort at least in its familiarity. Home. This ship was home. Nearly the instant I was lowered onto my bunk, the faint hum of a scanner loomed over me.

“The toxin is blocking acetylcholine uptake as well as a few other autonomic functions,” Tech stated.

“What?!” Hunter barked. Someone’s hand rested over mine, but I couldn’t force my fingers to loosen enough to return that touch.

““It’s preventing her nervous system from self-regulating; she can’t moderate her heartbeat or”

“I heard what you said – what the hell can we do about it?!” He interrupted sharply.

“I… I d…” I could hear how desperately he fought against voicing the answer, how he balked at what it meant.

“Dank farrik!” It was such a rare thing to hear that kind of anger in Hunter’s voice; that fear. Knowing I was the cause sent a fresh surge of guilt twisting through me. “Is that thing awake yet?!” Silence followed by another sharp curse. Something shifted near the IV I hadn't noticed them place in my hand, and I vaguely noted Tech shuffling beside me.

“What was that?” Echo asked, not trying to hide the depth of sadness stealing through him.

“Beta blockers – I don’t know how to cure her, but I can try to treat the most dangerous symptoms.” He answered. A moment later, the daggers of the autoinjector tore into my uninjured shoulder. Despite how my breath caught, nearly hissing through clenched teeth, my throat was simply too raw to form anything near to the scream vying to escape.

“That was the same neural inhibitor she used for me.” He offered without waiting for the coming inquiry. “If her fever gets worse, there are more medications to try, but without knowing exactly what this toxin is, I can’t anticipate how it will interact with them. Until the need is urgent, that is all we should give her for now.”

The muscles in my arm were the first to respond, fingers slowly beginning to uncurl, and Echo’s small gasp held a hope I still couldn’t bring myself to feel. Fire continued to pour from the wounds, rippling through me with each beat of my still racing heart even as that terrible cold forced an occasional tremor from muscles long since driven past the point of utter exhaustion, but I could see… Thoughts once too frayed to grasp now lingered almost long enough to hold, and, as my eyes flickered listlessly before me, I managed to meet Echo’s gaze long enough for him to let out a sigh of relief.

Another touch settled atop my other hand, the sensation strangely numb in a way I would allow myself to worry over later. Gaze shifting wearily, I saw the anxious dread just twisting Tech’s normally sedate expression, saw how the fingers of his other hand tapped nervously against his thigh.

“Hey,” he sighed, thumb dragging softly over the back of my hand. “That stuff helping?” I couldn’t begin to answer him, eyes merely closing as my chest bucked in a weak sob. “Oh, cyare.” The heartbreak in his quiet whisper threatened to break me. When I forced my eyes open once more, straining to find him in the dim light, I ached at the defeated slump to his shoulders, the deep worry in the subtle downturn of his lips.

“I am doing what I can to chemically negate the effects of the toxin, but…” Desperate to ease his frenzy I forced my jaw to move, forced my shredded vocal cords to catch the huffs of air fleeing me in still too-quick huffs. “I would advise against trying to speak. I suspect you’ve damaged-”

“I…it,” I knew what he was going to say, but I didn’t care…. I needed him to know that his efforts hadn’t been worthless. “It… h-helped.” His eyes widened, and the rush of relief that swept through him was worth the razors clawing down my throat.

“Was that,” Hunter’s question died the instant he came back into the room, attention instantly locking on me, and the way he breathed my name still managed to send a tiny thrill down my spine as he quickly approached the bed. “We’re going to get you fixed up. Alright? You just need to hang on.” It wanted to be an order, but the threat of desperation in his voice rendered it into a plea. I tried to respond, lips barely managing to twitch around words my lungs and throat simply couldn’t manage.

“Hey, no-no; none of that.” He said quickly, hand reaching out to settle atop my shin. “Just breathe… okay?” It took a moment to convince the muscles in my neck to move, but I gave a small nod in reply. Hunter’s gaze suddenly turned pointedly toward the main hall of the Marauder, expression darkening.

“Tech. It’s waking up.” Before Crosshair even finished speaking, all trace of doubt fled the distraught man before me, shoulders stiffening as his jaw went taut, brows furrowing over suddenly sharp eyes as he turned toward the medbay door.

“If it has a language, I’ll decode it. They must have an antidote.”

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