Who: Mateo Santiago, Kent Brightstar, Felix Weissman, Njall Strand What: Emergency! What the *bleep* happened? When: Tuesday, May 7, 2019 | 2:30 PM Where: Medical Warnings: Language, Violence, Injuries
There seemed to be an unspoken rule around Brightstar, one that even the creatures and beings adhered to: Lunchtime was sacred.
There hardly ever seemed to be any catastrophe that extended into or began during the staggered lunch hours that the Reserve observed. This was still the case today; the medical offices were actually quiet, and had remained so until there was a crack of more than one Apparation from out in the hallway corridor between the treatment rooms. Not even a second later, there was a tremendous crash and the sound of something hitting the floor hard.
Felix's eyes flew open, and for a second or two, he was aware of all of the inconsequential things: the brightness of the building around him, the coolness of the floor under him, the metallic rhythm of some object to his left that was rolling around and hadn't quite stopped. And then all at once his body caught up to him, and the only thing he had was white-hot pain so pervasive that he couldn't even tell what was hurting. He thought he might have cried out, but already the world was starting to go fuzzy again. He lifted one hand to see that it was covered in something dark, but he couldn't keep his eyes open long enough to figure out what it was.
As far as Kent was concerned, he didn't feel a damned thing. He was sprawled out over the strewn contents of the mobile medical unit that had been toppled over when they'd Apparated in, well and truly knocked out.
Mateo was finally beginning to find his rhythm on the Reserve. He’d finally gotten the last of his belongings delivered (seriously, why did moving companies suck so badly?), which meant he was finally settled in to the house he was renting. As for his job? Well, that was easier than the rest for him to find his place. Out of everything, work was the one thing that always made the most sense to him. Right up until it didn’t.
The distinct pops of Apparation arrivals, followed by the metallic sound of medical supplies hitting the floor, snapped Teo from his post-lunch daze, sending the young man nearly falling out of his chair. The fuck? Scrambling to his feet, he moved into the hallway, and was greeted by the sight of a very unconscious dude who bleeding on the floor, and Kent Brightstar.
Mateo went into full Work Mode, drawing his wand and quickly working to stop the bleeding. Of course, that didn’t stop him from taking two seconds to look over at Kent with an eyebrow raised and ask, “The fuck happened to him?”
Felix twitched under the onslaught of spellwork, moaning in discomfort but not quite coming fully awake. He was dimly aware of voices, but everything was still distant, like watching movement through a distant pane of tinted glass. His bloody hand fumbled for something that it wasn't finding, instead hitting slick tile and open air. He tried to turn over, maybe to sit up, and that jolted him awake again as he grunted and fell back to the floor, side throbbing. He may have tried to curse, but all that came out was an incoherent mix of sounds.
Life was doing its best to tear away the heavy blanket of black nothingness that was mercifully keeping the "thousand natural shocks" at bay. Awake meant feeling this pounding in his head, and Kent wanted no part of it, dammit! The world could keep its stupid conscious life. Something was filtering through, however, tugging insistently. It resolved into a familiar voice, even if there weren't actually words. Kent bolted awake in an instant. Felix!
Ignoring the lightning flashes of pain that were radiating from a spot near his temple, Kent pulled himself to his knees and grabbed his wand from where it had apparently fallen out of his hand when they'd gotten there. Here in the harsh light of Medical, the other man looked even worse off than Kent feared. "Fuck." He added his own stabilizing spells to Mateo's with barely a glance at the newest people-healer, though Kent's castings were far weaker and a bit wobbly. "Motherfucking Occamy. Never trust a goddamn Occamy."
Kent paused a second, muddled thoughts trying to grasp at something else. When they did, his eyes narrowed, and he growled. "And fuck poachers. Never give up the chance to curse the shit out of 'em."
The last thing that Mateo and Kent needed was Felix moving about and making things worse. Gently, Mateo put his hand on the other man's shoulders, pushing him back down onto the floor. "Hey there, easy does it, my man." His focus, for the moment, was making sure that Felix was stable.
"Jesus Christ." A goddamn Occamy had done this? There were a number of injuries to deal with, though he was most worried about the gaping hole in the man's side, and the broken ribs. The dislocated shoulder, and sprained ankle could wait for the time being. They weren't exactly likely to puncture a lung, or cause him to bleed out, now where they?
Looking over at Kent, Mateo took a deep breath. "I'm going to need you to hold him down. He's got some broken ribs, and I can't move him until I've gotten those fixed." Which was not going to be a pleasant time for Felix.
With a grim nod and a still pounding head--willfully forgotten for the present time--Kent moved around Felix and got into place. He set his hands steadily on the other man's shoulders and started pressing them toward the floor. "Really sorry for how much this is gonna fucking suck for you, man."
Felix moaned, but considering all the various numbers of things that were causing him pain right now, it was a bleeding miracle that was his only reaction. His eyes kept drifting between open and closed, with varying levels of awareness of what was happening around him. His head was cloudy, but when the memories of what had happened starting coming to him, they were starkly clear against the fog that was his brain otherwise.
He opened his mouth to try to comment, to join the conversation, to say something of what he remembered—really anything to distract himself from the rest—and then a spell hit him, and he screamed.
As soon as he was sure that Kent had him secured, Mateo set about fixing Felix’s ribs. The screams that accompanied the spell nearly made Teo flinch, but he managed to keep his composure until the job was done. He hated that, which was why it was usually done when patients had already been sedated. Right now, however, he didn’t think they had that luxury. The ankle and shoulder could wait until later. With the ribs taken care of, it was time to move him out of the hallway.
After pushing himself to his feet, Mateo levitated the young man into the closest exam room, setting him down onto the table. Moving to the cabinet, he pulled out two vials of a mild pain potion, handing one of them to Kent before doing his best to get the other down Felix’s throat.
The soothing coolness of the potion, hastily downed after a nod of thanks at the healer having followed him into the treatment room, went a long way in calming the jagged pounding that was still trying to beat its way out of his skull. It wasn't completely gone, but at least he no longer felt vaguely nauseated, nor like his ears were still ringing from Felix's cries of agony. Kent hadn't thought it possible for a human throat to make that kind of sound, and now he kind of hated that he knew that it could.
As more of his pain faded, he became aware that his hand had curled protectively around Felix's forearm. Kent looked at Mateo, expression grim, but determined. "What can I do? What do you need?"
Felix swallowed the potion reflexively, because it seemed like far preferable thing to more spells. The sharpness of the pain was fading into more of an ache, but despite the descending numbness, he could tell from the looks of the others above him that something was still very wrong. He squeezed his eyes shut, not wanting to see more, and vaguely hoping that he'd pass out again before the healer had to do anything else.
Mateo wished that he could say that you got used to the screams, but the truth was? You didn’t, or at least he never had. Grabbing a pair of scissors, he cut what was left of Felix’s shirt off, peeling it away from the nasty looking wound. “Blood replenishing potion. It’s in the cabinet, should be on the third shelf.”
After coaxing Felix onto his non-injured side, Mateo got the wound as clean as he could manage, before finally setting about the task of getting it healed. Thankfully, his diagnostics earlier hadn’t shown any organ damage, or else this could’ve been a lot worse.
Having come across the mess in the hallway and hearing noises from one of the treatment rooms, it was only natural that Njall would go to investigate. The door was open, so he stuck his head in to see a rough-looking Brightstar rushing to grab a potion while the new guy, Mateo, worked on-- "Felix… What?" He shoved down a spike of fear and concern that wanted to paralyze him. "Healer Santiago, do you need an assist? What happened here?"
There was a heavy silence that followed, wherein Kent handed the blood potion over as he tried to piece his memories of the events together. Felix was still really out of it. Kent doubted he even knew where he was, let alone who all was in the room. "We were out after lunch," he said slowly, "catching up on the BACO investigation. I saw something silver in the long grass and lalalwent to see what it was. It was the broken shell of an occamy egg--weird, because the enclosure wasn't anywhere near where we were. We heard voices through this thicket of trees nearby, and that's how we found the poachers. I think we both startled the hell out of each other, but the bastards got off the first shot."
Kent glowered a moment, but went on at an impatient wave that Njall gave him. "I got thrown into a fucking tree. Hard to remember things clearly after that. I think they lost containment or something, 'cause next thing I know for sure is there's a damned occamy rampaging around, and Felix was down and the poachers were gone. They must've run, 'cause we were in a non-Apparating zone. I managed to subdue and secure the occamy, then got us here by using my medical override. Guess my head was still pretty banged up, 'cause we popped in and I passed out."
"No, the egg was—" Felix opened his eyes again, blinking to try to clear his vision, which was blurring and tipping despite him laying on a flat surface. It was easier to breathe now, and the numbness had permeated much of his torso, leaving him with mostly pressure and the memory of pain...but his thoughts hadn't cleared. Everything still seemed jumbled, distant. "We were on the west side, near the...." He searched for the information. "Near the nest?"
He distinctly remembered that there was a nest, and several silver eggs. But that would mean they had been near the occamy enclosure. But it had all happened so fast and with such trauma that even the morning before their walk seemed fuzzy now.
“Try not to move around much, yeah? I’d hate to fuck this up,” he muttered, placing a hand on Felix’s shoulder to keep him still. As much as Mateo wanted to listen to Kent and Felix attempt to piece together what had happened, he needed to focus. Letting out a slow breath, he put all of his attention on mending the wound on Felix’s side. He took his time, making sure that everything was knitting together nicely. It was delicate spellwork, but something that Mateo prided himself on.
Even if he was still recovering from the interesting events of the weekend in Vegas, Mateo took his job seriously, which was saying something considering how cavalier he was about most other things.
Seeing as how the other healer had Felix covered, Njall steered Kent to a nearby chair and started doing spells of his own. Although he sat patiently, Kent couldn't help the tick in his jaw. Poachers! AGAIN! The absolute fucking gall of them. His mood was black as pitch, and he barely registered when the diagnosing lights faded. "Mild concussion and a bruised spine," Strand announced, "which seem to be consistent with the attack you described. We should get security down here. Get their statements while everything's still fresh."
"Thorne could do it," Kent put in. "He's good at his job."
Njall paused and looked at him for a beat. "Uh, yes," he said slowly, "he is. I'm...sure they'll send someone capable. I'm gonna get you something for that head."
Felix stifled what wanted to be a giddy laugh at the last minute, because he was supposed to be still. The pain potion had apparently gone straight to his head, because numb had become drunk...and he couldn't say he minded it. It no longer seemed important to describe what had happened, especially since he wasn't entirely sure anymore. He mostly just like listening to everyone talk. One more so than the others.
He was smiling and still trying not to laugh as he said, "I'll just...lay here and wait, shall I?"