OOM and return EP

[i_am_your_host]

This is not the end.

The door creaks open to the sounds of voices shouting in German.

People screaming and crying.

Violence and confusion.

A body drags itself in through the doorway and crumples into a rapidly growing pool of blood on the floor.

The door closes and disappears.

And Emcee is dying.


[OOC: Plot-locked to Sunshine, Jay, Eric, and Guppy. Warning for gory traumatic injury in the first thread. Reactions are welcome!]

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[i_am_your_host]

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

[guppy_sandhu]

"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."

[sunbaked_baker]

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.

[i_am_your_host]

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.

[runningred]

"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_sandhu]

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."

[sunbaked_baker]

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?"

[runningred]

"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."

[guppy_sandhu]

"I wouldn't normally go for this plan, but Rae, if you collapse, both of you are in trouble."

Admittedly, it'll be the kind of trouble that gets him pressing the infirmary's ultimate tool - the stasis machine - and going for more help, leaving them trapped in a time bubble. But that's a risky solution, because at some point, you have to start time again.

"If you can't find Eric send any healer or doctor you can find in here." he says. "Atton would be good, hell, I'll even take Vyvyan, he at least knows where everything is."

[sunbaked_baker]

Rae is having trouble keeping her eyes in focus. The edges of Jay's shadows are as red as fresh blood. She knows if she turned her head, she would see the movement of Emcee's shadows slowing under her hand. The rustle of the gown as she moves sounds to her like leaves in the breeze.

"Go then." she asks, voice cracking in defeat and urgency together. Even she knows she can't keep this up much longer. "Get him."

[runningred]

The pump secure and his duties handed off to a rat, Jay runs for the main bar and upstairs, shedding and pocketing his bloody gloves. "Eric! Eric, where are you?" He yells at the top of his lungs as he runs toward Eric's room.

He could be anywhere but Jay knows very well how sensitive Eric's hearing is. "Eric, he needs you!"

[onceaviking]

The door to Eric's room opens and there is Eric, leaning against the door frame.

"Would you mind keeping it down?" he says.

Flatly.

[runningred]

Jay growls under his breath. "If you can hear me, you can hear him. He's dying, Eric. He needs your blood. Now."

[onceaviking]

"And?"

Just as flatly.

"He's a queer Jew in Nazi Germany. It's not exactly a surprise, is it?"

[runningred]

"But he's not in Nazi Germany." the you complete prick is implied in his tone. "He's here, now. Which means we take care of him. Now. Eric, he needs you."

[onceaviking]

Eric narrows his eyes.

"What I do and what I don't do is up to me. Besides, you've got little Miss Sunshine there, don't you? Do you real think I'll risk her freaking out and accusing ne of whatever?"

[runningred]

"Eric, you're not this much of a prick." He shakes his head. "I will deal with Rae. She wants him to live too. I'm not asking you to turn him or anything, just feed him enough to get the bleeding to stop. Eric, please? He doesn't have long."

[onceaviking]

"I'm a vampire, Eric replies.
Of course he is that much of a pick.

Then he sighs.

"I suppose I can go have a look."
Ans He considers telling Jay that yes, he can hear his heartbeat, even from here (from inside) and that he isn't sure that he has got any time at all.
Any alternatives to being turned.

But he doesn't.

He just pushes away from the doorway and runs down to the Infirmary.

[runningred]

Jay growls an expletive and races after him, aware he can't keep up with Eric but hopefully he can arrive in time to keep Eric and Rae from each other's throats.

[i_am_your_host]

When Eric enters the infirmary, he'll find Rae and Guppy tending to Emcee.

He's unconscious, covered in blood, looking as if a hole had been blasted through his stomach. Paler and smaller than he has ever seemed. His pulse is a weak whisper, a tube down his throat helping him breathe. The blood in his veins is draining faster than the machine can pump fluids back into him.

Rae's magic has a tenuous hold on him, keeping him just this side of alive.

[onceaviking]

Eric walks over to the bed and looks down at Emcee.

Tiny and fragile.
And dying.

Then he lets his fangs drop.

(This won't help).

[runningred]

Jay comes running in a moment later, his hands out in a placating gesture to Rae and Guppy.

[sunbaked_baker]

Sunshine makes no move towards Eric as he comes in - both of her bloody hands are busy, in any case. Her glare at the sight of his fangs is formidable, however, despite how hard it is for her to focus at the moment. The light web set into her skin is hardly glimmering any more.

(When had she crossed the irrevocable line? When she had gone out to the lake that night? When she had determined that she would take Con with her when she escaped? When he had healed her with the blood of the doe? When Bo's heart had burned and deliquesced through her fingers to drip black and foul upon the broken pavement? Or when she, wishing to die, ready to die, chose to live by accepting Con's own blood, the heart blood of a vampire?)

She does not like this. She cannot like this. But it may be Emcee's only hope. "Well?" She demands of Eric. "Can you save him?"

Will he save him?

[guppy_sandhu]

Guppy doesn't look up at the placating gesture, he's too busy. He's making progress, just not fast enough.

"If you can't, decide quickly." He says. "If you can't, I'll have to freeze him in time until we find someone who can, but that requires me and Rae to let go of everything we're holding and I don't like those odds."

[onceaviking]

Eric steps closer, biting down on the meaty part of his hand as he does so.

(It won't work.)

He lets the dark blood drip down directly at the gaping wounds and briefly new skin blooms around the edges, stretching inward - before curling up and into itself again.

(It doesn't work.)

He looks back up.


"There isn't enough life left in him," he says, his voice cool and flat.
"Even my blood won't work here."

A pause.

"Not like this."


And the alternative is - no.
That wouldn't work either.