milliways_bar | OOM and return EP

Emcee's breathing is shallow, but he is breathing.

And somewhere in the haze of his mind, he knows that he's reached Milliways.

And he knows that someone is trying to help him.

Possibly two someones. Their voices are muffled, and they are only shadows silhouetted against the light.

In a brief spike of consciousness, he utters a weak, strangled cry when hands press down on his stomach. It burns. It hurts.

The sound hurts Rae's heart to hear - an unconscious sob escapes her in response. But she can't risk diverting any of her efforts to ease the pain. Strength is pouring out of Emcee as fast as she can pour it in. She can barely think straight, the thick, golden whorls of power filling her, pressing hard on her mental boundaries, pouring forth in a torrent.

"We've got to get him to the infirmary," she insists quickly, tonelessly, turning her head towards Jay with slightly unfocused eyes. Her hands upon Emcee's chest, pushed up against Jay's, are sticky with his blood. This isn't a cut or a bruise or a scrape or something she knows how to fix. This is Emcee, with a still-widening pool of blood around him, dying under their hands.

"We need to slow this bleeding before we can move him." Jay's voice is urgent and angry. He shouts something over his shoulder as a pair of rats run over with a large first aid kit. He kicked it open and grabs a large wadded bandage.

"Emcee. You have to stay awake. You have to fight."

fight

What is that?

Emcee's eyelids flutter, the whites of his eyes showing under dark, curling lashes, still inordinately pretty in his current state.

He coughs on some blood, and the strain sends a bolt of agony through him, tearing him apart.

Yet he feels...something else. Something trying to counteract the pain, trying to keep his life force from ebbing.

When Jay opens his coat to bandage him, they'll find his shirt completely soaked through. He'd been shot twice in such close range that it's practically one, large wound.

Edited 2016-12-13 23:14 (UTC)

"We've got you, Emcee. Stay with us," Rae murmurs, trying to focus. His body is trying desperately to give in, and it's all she can do to keep up, to keep what strength she can from flowing out of him like so much blood.

"Tell me - what you need me to do," she says to Jay, as he works with the bandages to try and slow the bleeding.

"Fuck." Jay growls, pushing the bandage in tight. "I need to check the back. Need to know if they went through. Hold him."

He tilts Emcee up to see if the bullets went though. It'll hurt but there's nothing he can do.

Their voices are a little clearer to him now, at least distinguishable from one another. He wants to say something, to say that he's trying to hold on, but his own voice is lost to him.

And then he feels his upper body being raised, and he lets out a gurgling moan, leaning forward limply in Jay's arms.

There's one exit hole in the back of Emcee's leather coat.

(He's going to miss this old coat, if he ever makes it to the point of being able to miss it.)

Rae holds onto Emcee, supporting his upper body while Jay checks his back. She murmurs encouragement to him, but the words are nearly toneless for all their urgency; all of her attention is taken by keeping up the flow of strength from herself into Emcee. The sun that warms Milliways is not a true sun but part of the spell that long ago created the lake and grounds. It is similar in spirit and purpose but far weaker, and even then it set hours ago. The golden sunlight-web set into Rae's skin and hair glimmers in waves along her arms and across her face as it wakes and calls on the sun she cannot see or feel, pouring that strength into her as she in turn passes it on to Emcee.

"Did they go through?" she asks, her right hand supporting the back of Emcee's head while her other hand rests over the wound to his front. Healing such a wound is beyond her, but she will do what she can to slow the loss of blood and strength.

"There's one still in him." Jay growls, furious at any world that would let this happen. "We've got to get him to the infirmary. I'm sorry, darling." He slips his arms under Emcee. "Get the doors open and find Guppy."

Emcee is cold. The shadows around him are growing. But even as they loom and darken, there is still...light. And a faint tinge of warmth, like the sun's rays on a winter day. He wants to follow it. He wants to feel it.

He hears Rae's voice in his ear, much closer than before. It's like a dream.

"Sunsh..."

The whisper on pale lips is cut off by another moan of pain as Jay lifts him. His head lolls against Jay's shoulder, his arms dangle limply.

X slips in between the crowd around Emcee and the room at large.

She is not glaring, but her presence does seem to suggest to the rest of the bar to keep away.

This will remain true for quite some time.

Just to be safe. And to make sure Emcee feels safe.

When he is more himself again.

Sunshine hesitates but stands as well, head swimming as Jay lifts the limp form; she's torn between holding onto Emcee, continuing to bolster his rapidly draining blood and strength, or doing as instructed and getting the doors to the infirmary open for Jay.

What if she lets go and he dies?

But Jay can get Emcee to the infirmary faster with her not in the way, and she had said to tell her what he needs her to do - so with a quick squeeze to Emcee's hand and another rush of strengthwarmthlight passing from her into him, Rae lets go of Emcee and rushes to the infirmary doors.

Her bloody hand slams the call button on the wall next to the door, alerting any infirmary staff and any infirmary doctor in Milliways that there is a genuine emergency.

"Guppy! Are you in? We need your help!" She calls urgently into the infirmary, her voice raw. Shaking slightly, Rae holds the infirmary doors open wide so Jay can pass with Emcee in his arms.

Jay doesn't run, he strides. Muscular legs chewing through the distance between the door and the infirmary as if he has a personal grudge with them. Emcee's blood falls down his chest as he does, utterly ignored.

"Emcee, stay with me. You have to be strong. We need you." His words are firm and direct as he lays Emcee down, making way for Rae as he moves get more bandages.

The moment Rae lets go of Emcee, he plunges into darkness, drowning in it.

It isn't supposed to end like this.

His near-lifeless body is laid out on one of the beds. Barely breathing now, pulse so faint it would take the steadiest of fingers to find it.

He can hear him, from behind the closed doors to the Infirmary.
Dying.

He almost takes a step toward the door - and then he turns on his heel and walks back down the stairs, through the room and out the door with the purposeful stride if someone going somewhere.

Somewhere not here, so he won't have to listen.

Fortunately, there is a Guppy.

He has gloves on and is over there in a second, taking over pressure on the wound.

"Rae, gloves on, then take over pressure here. Jay, gloves on, you're going to assist."

Two of the infirmary waitrats push over the crash trolley, a third goes to get the emergency blood bag from the bar. Keeping the pressure with one hand, Guppy pulls up one of Emcee's trouser legs and takes the interosseous cannula gun from the waitrat in his other hand. The waitrat sprays his leg with something cold and antiseptic.

"Emcee, it's Guppy. You're going to feel a sharp pain in your leg just for a few seconds. Keep still."

He fires the needle into the cold spot, hoping the local anaesthetic takes the edge off it.

As soon as Rae is able to take over the pressure, he attaches a connector to the needle in Emcee's leg, takes a bag of clear fluid from the nearest waitrat and attaches it via a tube. He hands the bag to Jay.

"Squeeze that as hard as you can. We need to put fluid back in. I'm going to anaesthetise and ventilate him so we can stop the bleeding."

Sunshine gets the gloves on as quickly as possible, rushing back to Emcee's side to put pressure on the wound and start funneling magic, warmth, strength into him once again. She resolutely ignores the feeling of sticky blood both inside and outside the gloves as she puts pressure where Guppy directs. She focuses her magic to support Guppy and Jay's efforts, trying to make sure there is enough strength in the weakening Emcee to endure what has to be done.

"Stay with us, Emcee. We've got you." The words are thick, the sunlight net in her skin gleaming brightly where not obscured by blood. It is getting hard to think beyond the immediate task. So much easier to just react.

Edited 2016-12-14 17:37 (UTC)

Emcee feels nothing when the needle goes into his leg.

He hears nothing more than voices mumbling, almost sleepily, languidly. The urgency is lost.

There's nothing here. There's nothing left. There's--

He takes one sudden, ragged gasp of air.

It's not enough.

Jay is doing all he can to get fluids back into Emcee's body, but the blood loss is so severe that the effort seems futile. The bag is already empty, and Emcee is still bleeding out--a little slower, perhaps, due to Rae's magic.

it's not enough

"Jay, keep attaching those bags, use the O neg blood bags the waitrats are bringing too." Guppy says.

In between bags, he injects something white into the drip, then moves around to Emcee's head.

"You're going to go to sleep in a few seconds, we've got you though."

As soon as Emcee is asleep, he intubates him and lets the machine support his breathing.

"Okay Rae, you're doing great. I'll take over in just a sec." he says, changing gloves, washing his hands quickly, and getting the surgical gown on.

"Right, Rae, I'm going to get this bleeding stopped. Get some fresh gloves and a gown on. I'm going to need you to assist and Jay is doing a good job over there."

She is more loath to step away this time. Even without the medical knowledge she can tell Emcee is even weaker than before, despite their best efforts.

But Guppy knows his field. He knows what to do. She can stand there and pour what healing strength she can into Emcee until she burns out and crumbles to ash, but it wouldn't help get that bullet out of him. She has been in Milliways too long, under its conjured pseudo-sun, and the chill of winter has creeped in at the edges of her strength. Rae can't help but think that she would be able to do more, if it were summer, and if she had had time to soak in true sunlight before this happened...

But one can't focus on what-ifs, only what one can do. And what one can do, one must do.

"Right," she says, her voice rough. She goes hurriedly but unsteadily to the sink and tries not to think about how the gloves feel as she peels them off her shaking hands. Rae makes herself thoroughly wash her hands up to the elbow - as she would when about to start the morning's baking - before putting on fresh gloves and a gown. Not that the gown will save her bloodstained clothes, at this point.

"Tell me what you need me to do," she says, as she returns to the bed where Emcee... sleeps, for now.

Emcee slips into the darkness--not drowning in it, but floating just beneath its surface. There is light at the edges, faint and blurry.

He's been here before, at the brink between life and death. But he's never been kept here. In limbo. Neither here nor there.

It would be so much easier to stay. To no longer feel pain, to no longer have any worries or troubles. To just sleep, to dream of dying, and to let the mad, mad world go by.

"Guppy, this isn't working. He's loosing blood faster than we can put it in. We need to find another solution."

He bites his lip, looking to Rae in the sure knowledge she's going to hate this idea. "We need Eric."

Guppy concentrates on what he's doing for a moment, tying off at least part of the bleeding.

"If you're going to let go of those bags you need to put the compressing machine on." he says. "We could do with another line in his other leg, if you saw how I did that IO needle."

Rae's gaze snaps into focus on Jay, the muted glimmer of the sunlight-net in her skin brightening. One of her hands is passing Guppy what he needs, the other resting gently on Emcee's forehead, still passing on what strength she can. The single point of power transfer leaves her feeling distinctly off-balanced.

"He needs Eric like he needs another couple of holes in him, Jay." But even she can feel her ability to keep feeding power into Emcee faltering. "What the hell are you thinking?"

"Eric's blood heals." He states directly, already moving to set up the machines. "I know you hate him but it's a fact. Even if he can only heal enough to keep Emcee's blood on the inside, it'll be enough."

"And you can't keep doing what you're doing now, Rae. It'll kill you both."

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