damned_institute | Night 57: Medical Wing Hall

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Night 57: Medical Wing Hall

[from here]

He glanced idly at the doorways as they passed them, and yet still none read infirmary. "It's only a waste of time," he replied. "If you can't find them. Which would be a bit pathetic in a small building like this."

There was another hallway to the left and Albedo ducked into it, coming up short. Draping his hands behind his head, he walked back to the other, tilting his head. "Especially since I saw Sora about twenty minutes ago. Hopeful with hair at unrealistic angles?" Which would make sense. Sora was sky and didn't Riku speak as shore?

It was annoying, that. It spoke of a beach, and that reminded him too much of a girl.

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When Carter fell to the floor, the roach fell with it, ending up crushed under his body. Luckily, it was the armored side that was taking most of the pressure, but that didn't mean that it had the strength to wriggle out from under the man's leg. It struggled in vain to do so nonetheless.

The second that the body was lifted off of it, the roach darted backward, wanting to regain its bearings before attacking again.

Meanwhile, the two that had been rushing them before continued with their charge, leaping toward the men once they got close enough.

Carter gratefully snatched the crowbar out of McCoy's hands. He darted backwards, trying to stay out of roach range for a few moments. "You gotta flip 'em over!" he explained, dancing around and trying to catch up to the one he'd fallen on. "Then just beat 'em up until they stop moving." Simple, really.

Carter was grinning with childish, almost mad glee. He wasn't a man accustomed to violence against his fellow man, bombs aside, but the alien nature of his enemies made it seem almost exciting. The idea of pummeling the green squish out of them was exciting him like he was a child shooting at woodchucks again. He awaited the next charge with his crowbar lowered, and tried to flip his attacker onto its belly.

Good, Carter was armed, now he wasn't again, besides the flashlight, which had done as much good as hitting it with a twig. McCoy would have been a little happier about the revelation of the insects' weakness if Carter wasn't suddenly beaming like he'd won the Enterprise off Jim. Or treating this like it was some kind of game.

Maybe he should have kept the crowbar until this was over. As it was, McCoy had to wonder if he should be more worried about Carter's swings, because considering how enthusiastic Carter suddenly looked at the idea of a fight, he might get hit.

He did the next best thing, which was stay out of the way of his arms, and swung the flashlight at the roach leaping at him.

Unfortunately, now that their weakness had been discovered, the roaches barely stood a chance. First the crowbar and then the flashlight smacked into the two attacking monsters, the swings angled in such a way that when they were hit back they landed with their underbellies facing upward.

And, due to the curved shape of their armored backs, it wasn't exactly easy for the creatures to turn themselves around fast enough to avoid any blows that might follow after.

More than that, it seemed that the other two roaches had finally wised up enough to flee the scene, leaving their so-called companions behind.

Now this was how a space age hero did it. No need for silly ray guns or normal guns or a stick of dynamite, he'd take them all on with just his crowbar and his wits.

(Newkirk might express his doubts that Carter had any wits to begin with, or at least that they were enough to outwit a cockroack, but since this was his space hero fantasy moment Newkirk wasn't here either)

"Ha!" With a laugh of childish glee Carter leaped at the cockroaches, striking down with the sharp curve his crowbar into the cockroach's belly.

McCoy didn't waste time. He brought the flashlight down on the last roach, and then watched the others flee.

Good lord. Was it over? God, he hoped it was. Unlike Carter, McCoy didn't quite share his enthusiasm or glee at the fight, much less the victory. Now that the adrenaline was dying down, the doctor felt like he'd just aged ten years in five minutes. His calf stung like nothing else, and he felt tired just watching Carter. His head felt tight, cottony and throbbing to the same faint ringing sensation he'd been hearing on and off earlier.

Once he was sure no more roaches were coming back, McCoy slumped against the wall.

"Carter. I gotta check your wounds out," he said. This hallway was about as bad as a place to stop as any, if the last minutes had proven anything, which they most certainly had, but the way he saw it, the wounds had priority, even over moving to somewhere safer. He remembered what happened the last time he'd been around an unknown substance from one of the animals here. He remembered it all too well. The only reason Spock hadn't ended up with a stab wound was because he had those nerve pinches on his side and he was Spock. This might make all the difference difference between stopping the poison and blocking an infection before it started or having either of them try to knife the other in a few minutes.

Green ichor was splattered on Carter's legs and forearms and he was grinning like a madman. That had been his best battle ever, he'd only gotten a little nicked and he'd crushed the opposition. He turned to McCoy, breathing hard. "I'm fine, don't worry about me!" he said gleefully. It took him a few moments to notice that McCoy had gotten off a little worst.

"Maybe you should look at yourself, though? I think that bug took a pretty big chunk out of you." The giddiness faded as he lowered his crowbar and looked around on the floor for his flashlight.

Sure thing. He was going to be fine until he came out of the adrenaline rush and noticed the wounds. McCoy didn't intend to sit around, waiting for that to happen. Or the infection to set in. Besides, he'd only been bitten once, and just on the calf. Granted, it had gone right through his boot, but he'd live. Carter, on the other hand, had suffered a nastier gash on his thigh, where the thing had hung on stubbornly while he'd flailed at it. And on top of that, he was the one splattered in a foreign substance. McCoy didn't even want to think of how much of that had gone into open wounds. At the moment, Carter was the walking textbook definition of a priority patient.

Aside from the fact that he was grinning like an idiot.

"When you got the medical degree, you get to make that call." McCoy muttered. "Come on. Sit down."

"They'll just fix it up again in the morning," Carter grumbled, like a child called back from recess. "I got a broken hand fixed in three days, just like that and I didn't even have to ask for it." He sat down in front of McCoy and stretched out, exposing the injured portions of his legs.

McCoy was from the future, didn't he know his own medicine? Having someone poking around at your scratches diminished the whole space hero business, unless it was a beautiful space princess who was doing the looking.

"That's not an excuse to ignore an injury. What're you going to do if they break routine one day?" he pointed out.

Carter sat down, grumbling but ultimately giving in. He gingerly stretched out his leg. Kneeling on the ground next to him. McCoy set the first aid kit down and cracked it open. He went still. The doctor stared down at it taken aback. Where did they go? He rooted around with a hand. He didn't expect everything to stay in one place in the fight, but there wasn't that many places those vials could hide.

The drugs were gone. For one insane second, McCoy had to wonder if he'd just imagined the entire infirmary. Just thought he picked up drugs. Maybe they were going there right now. He looked at Carter out of the edge of his vision uncertainty. He couldn't have imagined the entire thing. Carter's presence proved it. But he could have sworn he'd taken drugs for samples. Swearing it didn't do a lot of good when they were no longer there.

McCoy pulled on a set of sterile gloves, and leaned over, probing at the wound. It was a mess. The roach hanging on like a bulldog had done a number on him. "On a scale of one to ten, with one being negligible and ten being excruciating, how's the thigh?"

Carter lay on his side wiggling impatiently as McCoy hunted through his medical supplies. "It heals up fast anyway," he kept protesting. He didn't want to have to get an injection for this, or whatever they used in the future.

McCoy's question made him frown and have to seriously ponder the matter. It was a good thing McCoy hadn't set ten at the worst pain he could imagine or they'd be here for the rest of the night wandering the depths of Carter's imagination. "I suppose it'd be different for every person, different people can handle different things. And I've never felt a pain I'd call really excrutiating so I don't have the standards to judge it by and you can't call any particular pain negligible because it's all pretty bad." He came to the end of his ramble and realized he hadn't given an answer yet, and had to finish with "Worse than a sprained ankle and better than getting bitten by a bat."

This had to be the first time he'd had a patient try to argue the definition of pain by person when it came to that scale. Carter continued to surprise him. McCoy looked at him a long moment. He didn't think the pain scale was nearly that much of a big deal, at least not in terms of defining it to a tee. It was an intuitive thing, and generally, at least in McCoy's book, anything five and up was bad enough to be serious. That was if the patient was trying to be tough for appearance's sake. He'd had a bunch of those before. McCoy always wanted to give them a good shake. It wasn't like he or his staff were going to judge the person for admitting they were hurt, or that they actually could get hurt. And passing it off as less than it was, rather than being honest, only ever caused more trouble.

McCoy's eyebrow just lifted. "I'm just saying you shouldn't get too reliant on the institute to follow through all the time," he said, probing at the wound and reaching for disinfectant and a swab. "But generally the scale's on a case by case basis. Your body usually knows what's excruciating the first time. I'm talkin' getting a paper cut versus getting a third degree burn. That kind of difference."

He'd done this hundreds of times. Granted, he'd been using different equipment than something as basic as this sort of disinfectant and a simple swab. But he could've done this in his sleep. The only thing that made McCoy look down, away from keeping Carter relaxed and distracted, at his hands was the odd feeling that the swab felt a little heavier than normal. What he saw chilled him to the bone.

It wasn't a swab. He'd been just about to inject an entire syringe of morphine into Carter instead.

Even as McCoy looked at it, he could have sworn it felt like a cotton swab. Slightly different weight, but overall, his fingers and brain were registering the sensation as something else than what it was. The reality set in. It hit him with the force of a gut punch. Jesus Almighty, he could've killed him! Death by respiratory depression. He knew he hadn't picked up anything earlier, nor did he have the equipment, to administer medical treatment for this kind of overdose. He could've killed him.

McCoy shakily removed the syringe from his skin, and setting it down in the kit, leaned away from Carter. Just to be safe. He couldn't just stop the check up, but deep down, he knew could not longer trust himself to do this. The doctor looked strained, but tried not to show it. "Maybe I'd better give you a crash course. You won't always have a doctor around. You're a soldier right? You know some first aid?"

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Night 57: Medical Wing Hall

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