Richard Richards hates his family (b4ckp4ck) wrote in superbabies, @ 2013-01-16 22:09:00 |
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“This is going to take some time...” Todd sighed to Rick, one hand moving to cup the side of the girl’s face, comforting her as she gasped for air through the blood in her lungs and throat, while his other hand rested on top of the gaping hole in her chest. “She’s in bad shape, but I should be able to get it. Just keep them off me...” He swallowed, smiling softly down at the girl, reassuring. “You’re going to be okay. I’ve got you. You know who I am, right? I’m everybody’s best friend today...” Her pulse was slowing down but he knew well enough that it had little to do with her calming down from his words and more to do with blood loss and drowning. Thankfully, one of those was his specialty, and the other was easy enough. In fact, since most of the blood hadn’t even left her system, the cells were still viable. He could make it work. Rick was behind him, watching his back, had been for the entire fight, guns -- guns, of all things -- blazing he imagined. The sound was deafening whenever Rick fired, providing cover while Todd tended to the injured. They moved as a unit, Rick guiding the blind boy where he otherwise might’ve stumbled, making sure that when he put his hands on someone it was one of theirs. The Friends could find their own fucking doctors. He’d already lost count of how many folks he’d patched up, from minor cuts and sprains to cases like this, the girl’s life slipping away as he forced blood out of her lungs and back where it belong, stitching up sinew cell by cell with an ease that shouldn’t be this practiced, not at this age. He’d have been impressed with himself, if she wasn’t just the latest in a long line of mortally wounded he’d saved today. “When I’m done, I want you to go inside,” he explained. Talking about things as if it was all normal and okay would keep her calm, would help her focus on him. “I want you to go to the Danger Room. You did great out here, and I know you may want to help more, but it’s okay. You’ve done your part. You need to rest now.” Another smile, before he turned his attention back to Rick. “I just need another second. How’re you holding up?” “I’m fine,” Rick said, keeping his tone reassuring, as much for the girl as for Todd. “Take your time, okay? Don’t push things. I’ve got your back.” He’d been aiming his shots carefully, going for knees rather than torso shots. It meant he wasted more bullets, since legs were a much smaller target than bodies, but he wasn’t comfortable with killing anyone. Shooting to cripple was bad enough. But Todd needed the cover. “Yes, Mom,” Todd chuckled, shaking his head. “He’s always coddling me. You’d think he’d forgotten that I can put people back together...” To be fair, Rick wasn’t entirely wrong. The strain was wearing on Todd, and he knew it, and he knew Rick was starting to see it. The laws of physics were simple: Energy could not be created or destroyed. It had to come from somewhere, and with so many injured, it all had to come from Todd. “Okay,” he said eventually, pulling his hand away as he felt her breathing steady. “You should be goo--” His words were cut off by the arms that suddenly wrapped around his shoulders and the grateful sobs that echoed in his ears. She was younger than he’d thought, now that he could hear her voice, and he swallowed as he patted her back reassuringly, before finally pulling away and sending her off toward the school. “You didn’t say how young she was,” he mumbled, standing up. “She’ll be all right,” Rick said, firing another shot and taking down someone who’d been running at them, someone huge and kind of creepy in a Swamp Thing sort of way. He reached down to take Todd’s elbow, ready to lead him to the next patient. “The shrinks are going to be up to their necks in trauma cases...” Todd mumbled, smirking as he leaned into Rick’s arm. It wasn’t right, none of it was right and he didn’t suspect it would be right for a while, but the girl was alive. That was the important part, wasn’t it? A deep breath, and a moment to fall back on his senses, cutting through the sounds of chaos around them and the sheer mass of living matter on his radar. “That way,” a nod to their let. “Two of them. Maybe fifty feet.” “That’s what they’re paid for,” Rick pointed out, picking their way around some rubble, eyeing the pair of fallen fighters. He was pretty sure he recognised one of them from classes, but he couldn’t get a good enough look at the other one to recognise them. Holding onto Todd’s arm firmly, he said, “Stick close. I don’t like the way this feels.” He could see blood, though, and that meant they needed to get there sooner rather than later. He moved slightly ahead of Todd, just in case, keeping the gun in his free hand up and ready. He hadn’t been expecting one of the bodies to leap up, though. The moment it -- he, a guy whose hands looked like burnt skin -- leapt to his feet, Rick fired off a couple of shots, but they went wide as the guy lunged towards them. Moving on instinct, Rick gave Todd a mostly-gentle shove to the side, out of the way of the attack, and fired again. This time he hit a glancing blow -- not enough of one to stop the guy’s momentum. The guy hit, knocking him back a few steps, and locked both hands around Rick’s left arm. Everything went -- not black. It was too hot, too bright, to go black. He couldn’t feel his hand, couldn’t feel whether he was even still holding the gun. The sound of gunshots indicated that he was, but he couldn’t tell past the impression that he’d plunged his hand halfway up to his elbow in fire. Sarcasm was Todd’s first language, and he’d been ready with a comment as he felt Rick’s grip tighten, had been ready to chuckle and smirk and call him paranoid -- until he felt one of the bodies move, clearly not as injured as it should have been, from how it felt. The shock of it, of something that shouldn’t be able to move jumping up and charging at them stilled his tongue, and by the time he even realized what had happened he’d stumbled, pushed from Rick to avoid their attacker. Well. That just wasn’t going to work for him. He could feel Rick being hurt, could tell something had changed about him, something bad and he charged toward the monstrous figure that loomed over his friend, leaping at it with a snarl. His charge was wild, and too far left, only barely catching the man in the middle with his shoulder, but it was enough. They tumbled away from Rick -- Rick who was bleeding, and bleeding badly, he realized now that the bastard wasn’t doing any more damage -- and onto the ground, rolling into each other before Todd found himself pinned on his back, burning hands on his shoulders, pressing him into the ground. It hurt. More than anything he’d ever felt before, it hurt, and as the man above him moved his hand to press on the center of his chest, Todd realized quickly enough that even his own healing factor wouldn’t be able to stop him if he burned a hole clean through his heart. He panicked, thrashing, grabbing his attacker’s wrists and trying to wrench him free, but the man was bigger, stronger, and he heard him laugh as he felt a burning hot palm against his sternum, searing the skin. For one brief moment, Todd was sure he was going to die. But he could feel Rick. And the other, still bleeding and unconscious body. He could sense heartbeats slowing, feel cells collapsing in on themselves, and he knew he couldn’t let that happen. Not after everything they’d been through. He already had his hands against the man’s skin, and that was enough, the cells under his touch dying one by one, cascading up his arms in a ripple effect. He could tell it hurt, could feel nerves firing as if they were his own as the man above him screamed, trying to pull away and finding he couldn’t, as once strong arms hung limply at his side, dead and useless. Todd didn’t let go, though, rolling them over so that he was pinning the attacker now, letting go of his wrist to grab his throat, wrapping his power in the vital arteries toward the man’s brain and severing them neatly, without even breaking his skin. “Rick?” he called, stumbling away from the body. “Rick!” For a moment, Rick couldn’t make sense of the cacophony around him. The only thing that registered was pain, starting somewhere around his elbow and turning into frightening nothing not too far down his arm. But he could hear Todd, even if he couldn’t understand him, and he managed to shove the pain away enough to clear his vision, stumbling over to where the guy with the lava hands had shoved Todd down, reaching out with his right hand to wrap it around Todd’s elbow again, like everything was normal. Nothing was normal. But shock was setting in enough that he could pretend, for now. “Stop moving,” Todd snapped, grabbing Rick’s arm to steadily drag himself up to his knees. “Just... just stop. Stop.” He felt sick. He felt dizzy. But most of all he felt pain. His own chest, Rick’s arm, and the cold, seemingly endless ache of the body he’d held onto for just too long. “Your arm,” he mumbled through clenched teeth, trying to focus on the present. “Rick, gi... gimme your arm. There’s somethin’ wrong with it...” His chest was already healing itself, burns fading away perfectly, without even a scar to remember it as skin closed. His shirt was hopeless, full of holes and blood and charred something, but he didn’t care. Rick was hurt. “It’s fine,” Rick said numbly. Oh, there was pain, but mostly there was nothing, like the pain of getting a tooth drilled under novocaine. Getting Todd to safety was more important. He’d lost his gun somewhere, and while he had another one in hammerspace, somehow the idea of creating a pocket to find it was too exhausting. “Bullshit,” Todd snapped. He didn’t have time for Rick to put himself last, not with how everything was spinning. Reaching, he pressed his hand against Rick’s elbow, where he could feel undamaged cells that wouldn’t wouldn’t hurt to be touched. It only took a moment of contact for it to become apparent that there wasn’t much beyond that point. At about the halfway point on the other boy’s arm, everything turned to pain and death, and even without eyes Todd could see that there wasn’t a hand left beyond that barrier. “I can... I can fix this,” he mumbled, his stomach pitching at the mere thought of the damage. This was his fault, his fault for dragging Rick out here, for making the other boy his babysitter. “I can... I can fix it...” Taking away the pain was first, he knew that much, and it was easy, shutting down nerve endings that by rights shouldn’t have had the audacity to still function and hurt Rick like that. Healing what flesh was still damaged was doable, closing over the points where blood was still flowing and closing vessels to keep him from bleeding internally. There were going to be scars, he couldn’t focus enough with his head spinning to prevent that, but he could at least make sure Rick didn’t hurt, and that he wouldn’t bleed to death. “Better?” “We need to get inside,” Rick said, the sudden cessation of pain a sharp relief, almost painful in itself. “We need to... need to get whoever that is and... and get inside. We need to go.” He could feel how weak Todd was, how much he was pushing himself, and he knew the other boy wouldn’t last much longer. They had to get to safety. “No.” No, going inside meant stopping. Stopping meant thinking. “Can you move? I should’ve... should’ve fixed the blood loss. You should be stable. Just get me over to them, let me fix them, and we go on to the next ont.” A part of Rick didn’t want to stay outside. But the rest of him was numb enough that the only thing that mattered was making sure Todd was safe. If Todd wanted to stay out and keep helping, he’d need Rick to cover his back. Rick nodded, reaching for Todd’s elbow again to guide him over to the other patient, shoving everything else to the back of his mind. It didn’t matter. Wasn’t important. Keeping people alive was important. He was glad that, for once, Rick didn’t fight him, and he stumbled as the other boy helped him in the right direction, falling beside the other body and setting to work. His injuries weren’t too severe -- enough to knock him out, enough that without medical attention, he might’ve been in trouble, but not quite life-threatening, yet. Soon enough he was on his feet and running back toward the fray, unwilling to retreat to the school. “Rick,” Todd mumbled, reaching for the other boy’s arm. He could tell, now, that something was still wrong with him, that Rick hadn’t fought because he couldn’t, and he swallowed as he tugged on his sleeve. “Rick, look at me. Rick. Are you okay?” “You can’t tell if I’m looking at you,” Rick said numbly, watching the boy Todd had just healed return to the fray. He unconsciously went to make a pocket to hammerspace with his left hand, the movement coming up short as fingers he didn’t have anymore failed to close on anything. That wasn’t good. He needed a hand to guide Todd and another one for a gun, but his left hand wasn’t working right. That wasn’t good. “Don’t be an ass,” Todd whispered, smacking Rick’s shoulder lightly, even as he slumped toward it, leaning on him. “You’re... you’re having an acute stress reaction. It’s... it’s mental. I can’t fix it. I can feel the symptoms, though. You might lose consciousness. We need... need to get back. You were right.” He swallowed, forcing himself to his feet and tugging Rick’s shirt lightly. “C’mon. You’re not all right. I’m not all right. We need... need to regroup so we can come back out here.” “Get Lady Starsmore to look at you,” Rick said absently, following Todd, still trying to work out why he couldn’t get his hand to properly find what he needed from hammerspace. “You’re shaking. I need to... need to...” Needed to what? He couldn’t make his thoughts flow properly. They jumbled up on top of each other, a helpless mix of chaos inside his head. “You need to guide me back to the school,” Todd supplied. It wasn’t what Rick meant, he knew, but it was what they needed. They needed to regroup, he needed to get Rick to safety. He’d hurt him enough. “Just... just start walking in the direction, I’ll keep going and get us there. He didn’t respond to the comment about Starsmore. It didn’t matter. He wasn’t hurt, couldn’t be hurt, it was just his mind, his thoughts. Starsmore couldn’t handle that and the Cuckoos were busy. Besides. He wasn’t the one who’d lost a fucking hand. “It’s gonna be okay, Rick.” He mumbled, still shaking. “Just lead the way.” |