kore_logs | It scares the hell out of me...

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It scares the hell out of me...

Who: Meyer & Ned, possibly Bruce & Charlie later.
Where: Starting near the woods. A little too close to the woods.
When: Late evening, Day 81
What: Meyer got a little too close to an angry sabertooth tiger, and unfortunate mauling occurred. Ned is his rescuer.
Warnings: Tiger attacks, and all the blood and pain that they entail. Swearing. Angst.

Lying there, facedown in the dirt, unable or unwilling to move -- was he supposed to be playing dead? He couldn't remember. What had seemed very important at the time now seemed like nothing more than a hazy, half-formed thought. There was something you were supposed to do in a situation like this. There was a protocol, a way to survive being attacked by an animal, but Meyer didn't recall it.

He knew what to do when people attacked, knew that if you were outnumbered or overpowered to curl yourself into a tight ball and protect your head and neck, protect your vital organs. He'd managed to curl himself into a ball of sorts, protecting his face, but there was a screaming pain in his abdomen -- maybe his ribs, he didn't know -- that prevented him from curling himself up entirely.

Motionless, barely breathing -- was he not breathing on purpose, or was he losing the need to breathe? -- he wanted to reach for the gun that had been knocked out of his hand after firing one shot. The animal had been on him in seconds, knocking him to the ground, although from the noise it had made, the outraged and pained roar, he might have shot it. He hoped so.

Maybe someone would hear the shot. Maybe someone would come. Maybe he'd die here. That thought enraged him; he'd fought tooth and nail to live his whole life, and now this. He moved his head slightly, trying to see if the tiger was still there; it was. It was watching him from a slight distance, and for a moment he thought about going for his gun, about finishing off the animal completely -- if he was going to die, he could take the damn thing with him -- but he couldn't seem to get up the strength to do. There was blood, he realized, blood all across his back where the tiger's claws had gouged him, blood trickling down his sides and onto the dirt, but that, he thought grimly, wasn't his problem. No, it was the problem of whoever showed up and discovered this scene, once the tiger gave up its waiting game and ate him like he knew it intended to.

He let his eyes slip closed. He let his breathing grow stiller. He hoped he looked dead. He wondered if he might be.

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Ned lingers near the edge of the woods after everyone else has dispersed. He is looking over the tilled soil as the last of the daylight fades, checking that everything is as it should be. All the equipment has been put away, all the volunteers gone home, all the seeds planted and watered and waiting for the dawn to start growing. He wishes, not for the first time, that he still had whatever power he possessed for that one brief week, to make things grow by sheer force of will. Praying won't do any good, he knows, but he looks over the rows in the ground all the same, hoping for their tenacity and success.

That reverie is interrupted by the violent report of a gunshot from within the woods. For a second, Ned freezes. Experience tells him not to go in the woods and instinct tells him to head away from the sound of gunfire. But he stays where he is. What if someone is in trouble in there? Someone he knows, someone he cares about? He thinks about Jesse, dying in the woods with no one to help him, and makes his choice.

He doesn't have to go far before he spots the two of them. Ned has never seen one of the tigers this close to the edge of the woods - never seen one of them at all, actually. Perhaps they are encroaching on the town because their prey is getting hunted by the captives, or perhaps it's the start of some new sick experiment. Maybe it's bad luck. In any case there's a saber-toothed tiger right there and a huddled body on the ground. Ned can see blood on the man's shirt, see that he's not moving.

Then he recognizes Meyer, and his stomach clenches with panic.

The tiger is creeping closer to Meyer, cautious but predatory. It is barely putting weight onto one of its back legs, and Ned spots a trickle of blood running down from its haunch. Without thinking, without further hesitation, Ned runs over, puts himself between the tiger and the curled-up body of his friend. There's a broken branch on the ground nearby and he picks it up, swinging it in front of him like a baseball bat. That's what people always did in the books - the boys' adventure and wilderness survival stories - when they ran into mountain lions. Saber-toothed tigers can't be all that different, can they?

"Why d-d-don't you p-pick on someone your own size, huh?" he bellows. The tiger hesitates, sizes him up. Ned does his best to look big and terrifying. His whole body is shaking with fear but he holds his ground. The thing must be quite hungry, or else aggravated over its injury, because it lunges for him regardless. He swings the branch, manages to hit it squarely in the ear. Pain blossoms in his arm, hot and sharp; Ned glances down to see his sleeve shredded, three long claw-marks on his upper arm.

The tiger is reeling, disoriented from the blow, and Ned spots Meyer's gun on the ground between them. He lunges for it, fires off a shot in the tiger's direction. His hands are shaking so badly that he almost misses it entirely, hitting it in one of its front paws. Apparently, that is the last straw for the thing. It turns and runs off, back into the forest, its gait unsteady.

Ned drops the gun immediately, turning back towards Meyer and sinking to his knees. The man hasn't moved, doesn't look like he's breathing.

"Shit," he says under his breath, hands hovering indecisively in the air. Should he feel for a pulse? What if he's dead and in doing so, Ned brings him back? He knows already that if he did that, he wouldn't have the heart to touch him again, to kill him a second time, and then someone else would have to die. "Oh God, please don't be dead, Meyer, c'mon. C-can you hear me?"

Meyer's mind is drifting somewhere else -- or, perhaps, to be more accurate, it's not anywhere at all. He's not focused on anything, not even what's going on around him. If this is death, he thinks bitterly, it's awfully painful. Isn't death supposed to be the absence of pain? He doesn't know what's supposed to happen after death, whether there's any white lights or whether there's just nothingness, but he's pretty sure that being dead doesn't involve hurting anymore, and he hurts like hell.

Maybe, he starts to think, maybe that means he's still alive, and that the tiger hadn't finished him off. There's voices, he thinks, or maybe he's just hallucinating -- the voice of a man yelling, words indistinguishable to him, mixing with the roar of blood in his ears. The noise of the gunshot startles him, though, although to an outside observer, the slight twitch of his hand is the only noticeable sign that he's moved, that he's still alive. His breathing is still slow, and he doesn't dare open his eyes. If there's someone out there, if they're fighting with the tiger, if they're shooting the tiger, maybe they'll help him. He'd say something, but he can't seem to figure out how.

When Ned bends down beside him -- although he doesn't know it's Ned, doesn't know anyone is there at all until he hears the voice, coming from a great distance off, it seems -- he struggles to open his eyes. They're hazy and unfocused, seeming to stare at something beyond Ned, but he realizes very suddenly that he's alive, he's alive and there's searing pain coursing through his body. It must have been Ned, then, that fired the shot, and if Ned's not injured, if Ned's here, then Ned's driven the tiger away. He's never known Ned to carry a gun, and he deduces after some struggle that Ned must have used his gun, the one he'd dropped onto the ground.

"Did you waste all my bullets?" he asks weakly, and it's meant to be a joke, a reassurance that he's not dead, but the fact that it comes out of his mouth in a barely audible whisper and the fact that it's not in English but in Yiddish might not reassure Ned much. He tries again, mustering his brain power -- had he hit his head somehow? Why does he feel so groggy? -- and manages to focus his eyes a little more on Ned. "I can hear you," he chokes out.

When he hears Meyer speak, even if he can't understand the words, Ned lets out a breath he hadn't even realized he was holding. He laughs with relief but it's a breathless, shaky thing, and he's blinking back unshed tears at the same time. It's too early to celebrate, though, because Meyer is badly hurt. Ned can see it in the way he's curled up and barely moving, in the feebleness of his voice and the lack of focus in his eyes when he blinks them open.

"Oh thank God, okay, okay, good, you're gonna be okay. Just- hold on." Ned lays a hand on Meyer's shoulder gently, not sure if he's reassuring Meyer or reassuring himself. What should he do? He knows that you aren't supposed to move injured people until qualified medical help arrives, but aren't exactly EMTs in this place. Besides, who is to say that tiger won't be back, isn't going to get a few of its tiger friends to help finish the job? No, best to get Meyer out of here, to the clinic. Yes, that's it.

"Listen, we need to get you to the doctor, okay? Can, um- can you move?" He doesn't like the look of how pale Meyer is, or of the amount of blood on his shirt from those gashes.

The doctor. Yes, that sounds reasonable. He's vaguely aware that he probably needs a doctor; the gashes on his back are beginning to hurt more and more the longer he lies here, but he's not quite sure he can uncurl himself, either. He makes a tentative try, wincing in pain as he does so. It's hard to tell what hurts more, his ribs -- which by now he's convinced may be broken -- or his back, which he knows is bleeding through his torn shirt. His head doesn't feel right, either, and he tastes blood in his mouth. Had he bitten his tongue or cheek when he'd been flung to the ground and shaken mercilessly by the tiger?

There's a long deep gash across his collarbone, too, and although he can't see it, he's becoming slowly aware of just how much it hurts. In fact, it's bad enough that the bone is showing through the cut, which might alarm him slightly, were he aware of it. He manages to uncurl himself, but knows better than to roll over onto his back, not with those bleeding wounds, so he stays uncomfortably on his side, which should expose the majority of his injuries to Ned. "I'm..."

He coughs a little, wincing again at the pressure it puts on his ribs. "Maybe if you can..."

A deep breath, and he makes an obvious effort to focus. "If you can help me, maybe." He doesn't want to stay out here, but despite the fact that his legs, fortunately, seem relatively unhurt, he feels woozy from the blood loss and can't move his upper body without his ribs screaming out in protest, neither of which seem conducive to walking.

"Oh god," Ned breathes out, one hand coming up to his mouth automatically at that wince. "Stop- stop moving," he says, quickly. There's no way he's asking Meyer to get to his feet and walk in this state - not with that amount of blood loss, and not if only moving a little is that painful to him. He's probably going to need stitches, maybe even a transfusion - did they know about blood types by his time? Does Bruce have any blood on hand? Does he even have the equipment that he'd need for that kind of thing?

Ned's mind is racing with these and a thousand other questions, but he lets them race in the background, focuses on what he can do right now.

"I'm gonna pick you up okay?" He's already moving as he says it, lifting Meyer into a sitting position by his shoulders, shifting his own stance so that he can get to his feet more easily. "You c-can yell at me for this later if you want but for right now I need you to put your arms around my neck and hold on, okay?" Ned works an arm under Meyer's knees and another around his shoulders, higher than the cuts. As gently as he can, Ned picks him up, gets to his feet. Meyer isn't exactly light, but Ned manages it with only a small wobble.

Part of him wants to protest the indignity of being lifted up like a small child, and an even larger part of him wants to tell Ned that lifting him won't be as easy as it might look -- despite his height, he's fairly bulky, and he must feel more like dead weight than anything else at the moment, unable as he is to really assist in the process. He keeps his mouth shut, though, because he knows that Ned's right; this is going to be the easiest way to move him, uncomfortable as it is for both of them.

Carefully, he puts his arms around Ned's neck, wincing as he does so, shaking his head slightly. Just when he thinks he's realized how badly he's hurting, he seems to find another new and exciting way of experiencing pain. He's felt pain before, many times, been beaten and bloodied and bruised, but this is a new experience, and not something he can honestly say he'd recommend to anyone.

He knows the blood from the wounds on his back has ruined his shirt entirely, and he feels vaguely embarrassed, too, that he's probably staining Ned's shirt red with it, too, even if Ned's cautiously avoiding the injured area. "How bad is it?" he manages to ask, and he really wants to know. He doesn't want to hear reassurances that he'll be okay (he's fairly sure he'll live, at least), he wants to know what kind of damage he's looking at, whether what he feels matches up with what Ned sees.

Ned catches every wince and indrawn breath, though it's obvious to him that Meyer's doing everything he can to hide how much pain he's in. He can feel the blood soaking into his own shirt, but it only worries him in that it indicates how badly Meyer is bleeding and how quickly he needs to get him to the clinic. Ned is walking as fast as he can without risking tripping, arms already aching under the weight of Meyer - particularly the injured one. But he presses on because he has to, because it's important. Meyer is his friend and he's hurt terribly, and no amount of discomfort is going to stop Ned from helping in every way he can.

But still, it's a bit more than he can manage to casually chat at the same time, so he merely answers Meyer's question with a small shake of his head. He's thankful, perhaps for the first time, that this town is so small, that he can get from the edge of the woods to the clinic so quickly. He tries not to let the impact of his steps jostle Meyer too badly, but he knows he's causing him additional pain with every second he's carrying him. Time seems to distend around him, seconds stretching themselves to the breaking point.

The door to the clinic is closed, but Ned doesn't want to set Meyer down on the ground. So, he compromises, leans one shoulder on the doorjamb for support and kicks violently at the door - once, twice, three times. He accompanies this by yelling, "Bruce! Bruce, open the door!"

Thankfully, the doctor is in. It isn't very often that he gets emergencies, at least ones that don't come with their own vaguely apocalyptic warnings. The days in between bizarrely topsy-turvy happenings are usually pretty quiet, with the exception of people thinking this time it'll be different and nearly getting themselves killed in the woods. He's no expert -- well, he sort of is -- but he doesn't exactly think that that's going to work anymore. They need to find other avenues of escape.

Or, you know, deal with people banging on his door and screaming. He's up and headed over, moving from a walk to a jog-shuffle-thing, until he gets to the door and yanks it open.

Right, okay. That's a lot of blood.

"Get him in on the table." Bruce moves in to help support him in any way he can, whatever way might be needed.

If asked later to explain exactly how he got onto that table, he wouldn't quite be able to -- he knows it involved being carried, that it was not particularly easy, that he felt frustrated that he couldn't do more to make it easier for Ned, who'd had to carry him all this way in the first place. Things still seem a little hazy, a little blurry, like he's observing them from a distance. He wonders detachedly whether that might be the blood loss, whether shock is setting in, or whether he might have hit his head and simply doesn't recall.

However it happened, he knows he ended up on the table, though, trying to find a way to lie down that doesn't further hurt the bleeding back wounds, the possibly broken ribs, or the serious gash across his collarbone. He settles for his side again, letting them help him, hating that he has to be helped. Of course, he wouldn't have preferred to die out there, but the pain and indignity that has come with this particular set of injuries would be more than he could bear, if he weren't concentrated quite so much on how all of this hurts.

Then he remembers something, or thinks he does, at least. "Where's my gun?" he asks, raising his head to look at Ned and visibly wincing as he does so. Was it left in the woods? Did Ned pick it up and bring it with him? He's somehow aware that he should be asking more pertinent questions, questions about his injuries, but this is what springs to mind, what strikes him as vitally important.

With Bruce's help, Ned is able to set Meyer down on the table very gingerly, on his side. He can see that even that hurts him, but it's the best he can do. Ned immediately takes a step away, giving Bruce space to do whatever it is he needs to do. He stays near though, because what if Bruce needs help with something, needs an extra pair of hands?

Not that his hands are going to be very useful, if they keep shaking so badly. The fatigue in his arms and the comedown from the adrenaline surge both hit him hard; he stands there trembling like a leaf, can't even process the meaning of Meyer's question for a few seconds.

"D-dropped it," he says, distractedly. Who cares about a silly gun, right now? Meyer must be delirious, might have hit his head, or maybe it's the blood loss or the pain or both.

Ned runs an unsteady hand across his mouth. He realizes a few seconds later that his hand was covered with Meyer's blood, that he's smeared that blood on his face. That detail somehow makes it all real, snaps him out of the half-dreaming haze and fully back into reality. He makes a tiny, panicked noise and wipes at his face frantically with his sleeve, looks down and sees how much blood has gotten onto his (unfortunately white) shirt. His arm hurts and he looks at it, is surprised to see the claw marks. He'd forgotten about them.

His head is spinning pretty badly. Actually, the whole room is spinning. Ned leans his shoulder against the wall, tries to focus on breathing deeply, holds onto self-control by fingernails. He can't let himself slip over that edge into complete panic.

"C-c-can I h-help?"

Bruce needs to figure out how he can help first, and he scans the patient, taking in his injuries; his back seems the most severe from the outside, but who knows what's happening internally -- that's what he needs to find out now. He starts to form a mental list, and then he gives Ned a sharp look, designed to hopefully help him focus on the urgency of the situation, give him something to hold onto other than his fear.

"Tell me what happened." He turns that same look on Meyer too, giving a nod. "Tell me everything you can."

While they do that, he'll wash his hands and sterilize some scissors to cut Meyer's shirt off.

He knows that Bruce is addressing Ned just as much as he's addressing him when he asks what happened, but he can provide some of the information, at least, the information pertaining to what happened before Ned showed up. It's better to concentrate on that anyway, to try to put together some kind of cohesive story, to try to get it straight in his own mind. Things are seeming a little less hazy now, although with that clarity also comes more pain, as he starts to realize the extent of just how much everything hurts.

"I was on the edge of the woods," he says, immediately attempting to make it clear that he hadn't been doing anything stupid, hadn't been doing anything reckless. He takes a deep breath, which he immediately regrets as pain lances through his side again. "I don't know where it came from, but a tiger attacked me, threw me to the ground..."

He tries to recall the exact circumstances. "I shot it once, but I guess it must have clawed my back first, then my..." He gestures to his collarbone, too tired to think of the right word. "I think the force of the attack broke some ribs." He's had broken ribs before: he knows what they feel like, and he feels that way again.

Ned is glad that Meyer manages such a complete answer to Bruce's question, since he wasn't there to witness the attack himself. When Meyer stops speaking he adds, "He was already on the ground when I showed up." In typical fashion Ned does not think about the help that he did provide - doesn't explain how he'd dived into danger and chased the tiger off - but lingers, with a nauseous feeling of guilt - on his own belatedness to the scene. He might not have been too late, but he had been late. And now here he is, standing there like a statue, useless, watching Bruce snipping away at Meyer's blood-soaked shirt.

That is just... an awful lot of blood. Ned has never been squeamish around gore, but it's different when it's someone he cares about, when that person is so obviously in a great deal of pain. That thought - that his panic springs from his concern for Meyer as a person - puts an idea into his head. If he can't be immediately useful to Bruce, maybe he can help in a different way.

That's what they do at hospitals, isn't it? Get a hold of the emergency contact. Ned lets out a steadying breath, turns his attention to his wrist communicator. He inputs the settings to contact Charlie privately, doesn't think twice about the wisdom of turning on the video settings. Ned doesn't worry about what a bloody mess he looks, or the fact that Meyer's occasional and muffled hisses of pain are audible in the background.

"Charlie," he says. The video feed is doubtless unsteady, no matter how still Ned tries to hold his wrist. "Listen, Meyer's hurt. Run in with a t-tiger. We're at the clinic. He's gonna be okay-" there's just a hint of uncertainty in his voice then, and he looks up at Bruce as he says it, expression twisted in pained uncertainty. Please, let it be true, he thinks. He looks back down at the video, says, "-look I better go the doc might need help."

With that he cuts the connection, only realizing a few seconds later that that might have been rude, that the whole message might have been ill-advised.

Oh, look, tigers are horrifically dangerous and can attack and hurt people. Go figure. His issues with his one-time pet tiger aside, he can focus on Meyer and getting him put back together again, so to speak. He carefully cuts away his shirt to get a better look at his wounds. Whatever Ned's doing over there doesn't really concern him.

"Okay, Ned? Get me some of the sterile saline from that cabinet over there and gauze, a lot of it. A lot of both."

Bruce is thinking he'll have to put in some stitches, but first he wants to clean the wounds out and make sure the bleeding's stopped, and he also wants to make sure Meyer isn't suffering internally.

"Meyer, I want you to tell me if you're feeling lightheaded or out of breath. If you've been vomiting or coughing up blood." He reaches around to his abdomen, palpating his stomach to see if it's rigid. "And if this hurts a lot."

He hears Ned calling Charlie, and immediately wants to tell Ned just how bad of an idea that might have been, but he can't seem to concentrate both on listening to what Ned's saying over the communicator and listen to Bruce's questions and answer them adequately, so he turns his attention back to Bruce, shaking his head slightly.

"No vomiting, no coughing up blood--" That's a relief, at least. He knows those are signs of something potentially worse than a couple broken ribs. "A little lightheaded and a little short of breath, I guess." He'd been lightheaded enough that walking steadily would have been difficult, even had he not been seriously injured, but he's sure the dizziness and shortness of breath has something to do with his injuries.

At the pressing on his abdomen, he winces a little. "It's not there, as much," he says, gesturing higher up, on his left side, the middle of his ribcage, "It's more here that hurts. That's why I think my ribs're broken." He has no idea how many ribs are broken, nor how severely, but he's absolutely certain that his back wounds are going to require stitches.

Ned goes to the cabinet in question, brings Bruce maybe a dozen boxes and packets of gauze, dumping them on a nearby counter where he can reach them. He sees the way Bruce is feeling for internal bleeding and hopes there isn't any, hopes that the visible damage is all there is. It's certainly enough. He catches another look at that cut across Meyer's collarbone, out of the corner of his eye, and feels a wave of nausea.

He goes for the saline next, getting an armful of the plastic bottles from the cabinet. Unfortunately, when his back was turned Bruce had moved and is closer than he'd expected. He turns and nearly collides with Bruce, reels out of the way at the last moment, dropping several of the bottles. He winces when they hit the floor, though they don't break. His heart is racing and there is a tight feeling in his chest as if it were being crushed between metal bands. Shaking badly, Ned bends and picks up the scattered saline bottles, deposits the lot next to the bandages.

"I'm-" he chokes out, glancing at Bruce, feeling wretched that he can't be more useful but knowing that he's going to cause more harm than good if he's in here when Bruce gets down to the delicate stuff. "I'll- I think I'm gonna-" he can't even get enough breath for a proper sentence, shakes his head and moves out of the immediate area, hovering near the door to the clinic but letting Bruce work in peace.

Edited 2013-06-16 20:04 (UTC)

Gonna... puke? Bruce is half listening for Ned being sick outside, but he thinks maybe Ned's in the clear now. He's glad he didn't have to say anything; Bruce can keep himself together well enough, but not if someone in the vicinity is about to anxiety hulk all over the place.

Anyway, back to the patient who thankfully probably isn't injured internally. If he was, Bruce probably would've had to call for Mina to help. Bruce can handle surgery on his own, but he's not a surgeon, and there's a difference.

"Okay then. Good news is that I think what you see here's what you got. I'm going to work on cleaning up these wounds, making sure the bleeding's stopped, and then start stitching. How're you on pain? You want something now or you want to hold out longer?"

"I think..."

He's past the point of even particularly noticing that Ned's stepped away. He's trying to concentrate on the one thing he can: Bruce's words. The injuries hurt, there's no doubting that, but it doesn't sound as though Bruce is overly worried. That's a good sign, he thinks, although he's not thinking entirely clearly at the moment, despite his pause for thought.

"What do you have for pain?"

If they don't have anything good, anything strong enough to knock out a significant amount of this pain, he'll hold out longer. He doesn't like the way drugs make him dopey and out of it, but that might be the only choice right now. The pain just seems to be getting steadily worse as the shock from the attack starts to wear off.

Bruce helps him figure out his pain management plan before he really gets to town cleaning the wounds out because that's not going to feel really good, not when he also needs to stop the bleeding before he can get to work on stitching him up. And it's not a pretty sight -- though not because Bruce is sloppy with the stitches, just to clarify. Meyer's back is a mess because of the tiger, and Bruce does his best to clean it up.

He covers up the stitches carefully when he's done, then loses the gloves and washes his hands, letting Meyer get his breath, before he comes back around. He pulls up a chair so he's closer to his eye level as he checks him over from the front again. His ribs are going to be really painful, but there's not much Bruce can do; they can try to manage some kind of brace, but with the injures to his back, that won't feel good either. For now, Meyer needs to lay here for a bit though.

"Okay, I'm done poking at you now. I think that's the most stitches I've done all at one time on one person, so that's something to take away from this." He has a glass of water with a straw, which he holds up. "You want some? How're you doing?"

"I'm..."

He licks his lips, trying to figure out how to phrase it. The drugs Bruce had given him for the pain are already starting to kick in, leaving him feeling distanced from what's going on around him, but that doesn't mean that the stitches hadn't hurt like hell.

He looks at the water thoughtfully, then nods, wanting to reach out for the glass, but finding that even movements like that hurt his ribs. "I'm not sure whether I should take it as a mark of pride or a mark of shame that I've got the most stitches you've ever done," he finally says, attempting to find humor where very little exists.

"I feel fine," he states, although from the look of him, that's far from the truth. He feels embarrassed, is what he feels, and while the drugs dull the pain, they don't dull the embarrassment. He's had stitches before, but never quite as extensively as this.

Bruce is ready to help position the straw in his mouth because that's just good bedside manners; don't worry about it.

"You should go for the pride angle. You saw the bad end of a tiger and came out with an impressive, but ultimately non-life-threatening batch of stitches. I could go into all the other outcomes we could've had here, if it'll make you feel better."

When he's done drinking, Bruce sets the glass aside and picks up his candy dish, shuffling the contents around. He has suckers, though they might be difficult to manage; maybe some good meltable chocolate?

"Avoid the major choking hazards, okay? And if you want to add a few more badass details to your story, I'll back you up."

Despite the pain, despite the fact that he feels like he wants to sleep for days and wake up with all of this behind him, his eyes light up when he sees the candy dish. So far, that's been about the only perk to this whole thing, and he reaches for a piece of chocolate, managing a slight smile.

"I shot it and didn't kill it. Not sure how 'badass' the story can be."

In truth, he thinks, it's Ned who should be telling the badass version of the story. Not because Ned had killed the tiger -- he hadn't, the damn thing was still out there somewhere, albeit with two gunshot wounds -- but because Ned had saved him. He hasn't fully processed that. Why would Ned save him, endangering himself in the process?

For now, though, there're others matters to attend to. "I know we don't have money here, but how can I pay you for all of this?" He gestures around the clinic; every time he's been stitched up before, back home, he's given the doctor cash and a stern warning not to talk to anyone about his injuries, but he's not sure how it works around here.

"I'm still impressed you walked away without dying or suffering severe injuries, but maybe I'm biased." He takes a sucker for himself and sets the bowl aside, leaning back in his seat. He's sure Meyer is tired and needs rest, but this chat is also helping Bruce to make sure that he's okay.

The offer to pay surprises him, enough that he takes the sucker out of his mouth.

"You don't owe me anything, except taking good care of those stitches and yourself while you heal up."

"I'd hate to see what you called serious injuries," he says, with a weak little smile. It sure had seemed like a lot of stitches, and Bruce had confirmed that it was. Still, he was damn glad he wasn't dead, too. It had seemed likely for a bit of time there. He's faced death before, and walked away unscathed, but the threat of a tiger isn't something he'd ever thought he'd have to contend with: it's man and not beast that scares him, more often than not.

"So what're my orders? Don't pull the stitches out, don't go get in another fight with a tiger...?"

True, true, Meyer isn't exactly skipping off to a picnic, but...

"I could list off everything bad you could've had. Severed spinal cord, which could lead to paralysis; internal bleeding. Things I couldn't easily treat." Though he could call in one of the angels, come to think of it. He'll file that away mentally, but not mention it now. Let people think they shouldn't go and severely injure themselves. Because obviously.

"Both of those are good. I recommend a lot of rest, definitely don't overtax yourself. Your stitches are sort of all over, and in twisty areas, so you shouldn't move around too much or you'll pop them. You should get someone to change your bandages, or I can come around and help you with it. I'll send some home with you, along with stuff for the pain. Do as best you can with that; it's not an unlimited supply. I'll check up on you to see how you're healing, and then when the time's right, I'll take your stitches out and we can talk care again."

That sounds like everything, but it's been a while since he gave this kind of talk.

"Do you have any questions for me?"

"I've got someone that can help me with the bandages."

Admittedly, that someone might complain about it, but he'll do it nonetheless. He tries to think of any questions, brain still fuzzy and slow, although he's starting to feel a little less baffled by the whole incident. It had occurred, it's over now -- except for the unsettling fact that the tiger's still out there, potentially threatening other residents -- and he's alive, albeit in pain. He has to focus on that for now; anything else just gets his brain whirring, makes him start worrying again.

"Yeah, just one question -- what kinda pain stuff are you going to give me?"

It's not like he's going to come right out and say it, but he's got a stash of something back home that can help with the pain, too, if he runs out of whatever it is Bruce can provide. It just depends on how good the stuff the doctor wants to give him is. If it's good enough, maybe he won't need to break into his stash just yet.

"I can give you codeine, which you can take in combination with ibuprofen, so like Advil, things like that, if you need the extra support."

That should be enough to ease the pain without being too much. Bruce was glad to get a supply of it in that pile o' stuff that fell a little while back. It still seems so odd to him to be doing, like, actual doctor work. It feels like an age since he tackled anything this serious. Ruby had some stitches on her finger, but nothing like this.

"Okay," he nods. He recognizes the name of the drug -- it's an opiate, and that suits him just fine. A few seconds later, he gives Bruce a rather weak smile, although considering what he's just gone through, it's probably the strongest smile he can muster. "Thanks for..."

He gestures to the stitches, not knowing exactly how to phrase it, but knowing that Bruce will understand what he means anyway. He's always been suspicious of doctors, but in this instance, he might have to reconsider his stance; Bruce has been nothing but helpful to him, even if getting the stitches hadn't exactly felt great.

"A near obscene amount of sutures and some drugs? You're welcome." He smiles and gets up to gather the things Meyer will need, putting them in a brown paper bag. He does get that, underneath there, there's some relief over the whole thing being relatively calm and easy, as easy as emergency care ever gets. He's just grateful he managed to ease whatever anxieties Meyer may or may not have about doctors; that's always a point of personal pride for Bruce.

"I'll pop back out and talk to Ned. You lay there and rest, okay? I don't want to move you yet."

He slips outside.

Ned's message reaches Charlie like a punch in the gut. There was too much to take in - too much information all at once and by the time it's even started it's over. He's left dumbstruck, staring at his watch not even sure if what he saw was true.

But it doesn't take him long.

He's overly familiar with the feeling that follows. He may be better at controlling it these days, but it doesn't mean those fits of rage which have plagues him almost his whole life had ever gone away. And this one is a slow burn, starting in his gut and moving through him until he's shaking with it.

He's not sure how he manages to find his shoes, only that he got them on somehow. For all he knows he might have left the front door open and he couldn't give less of a fuck.

He barges straight through the clinic door, looking nothing less than wild and practically boiling over.

"Where the FUCK is he?!"

Ned happens to be standing just a few feet away from the door, pacing nervously. Things had gotten to the point where he was really more in Bruce's way than helping him; he is filthy from being outside and holding off a panic attack with both hands. Not exactly the sort of presence Bruce wants around while he is cleaning cuts and making stitches, feeling for other breaks or internal bleeding. So Ned had excused himself and moved away from their immediate area.

He is distracted enough not to see Charlie's approach, jumps half out of his skin at the bang of the door being flung open. The look on Charlie's face and the growl in his voice certainly don't help matters. To Ned he doesn't seem worried, or frightened, or even grateful that things aren't worse: he seems uncontrollably, violently angry.

"He's g-gonna be fine," he says, answering a different question than the one Charlie asked. He holds up his hands instinctively, calmingly, "Bruce's stitching him up in the back, b-but we should probably w-wait here-"

"Like fuck I'm fucking waiting here, come on, where is he?" Under normal circumstances he might feel a little bad about clearly scaring Ned out of his skin (again, and on purpose this time.) Generally he likes the guy. Or doesn't mind him at least, which is unusual for Charlie. But today he's too damn wrapped up in what's going on, his blood roaring in his ears and that primal, urgent need to find Meyer right the fuck now, wherever he is. He might be dead as far as he knows and that can't happen, it just CAN'T, not in this hellhole and not from a fucking tiger not with everything they've been through.

There's a cheap plastic chair nearby, and that gets kicked across the room. Ridiculously unhelpful, maybe, but it feels fucking good. That's when he sees the door, and the way Ned was pacing in front of it when he came in, and his brain finally calms down enough to put the two together and he makes a dash for it.

"Meyer!?"

He can't quite help his flinch when Charlie kicks at the chair, but one benefit of having come face to face with an irate saber-toothed tiger shortly before is that Charlie, in all of his rage, can hardly make him any more panicky than he already is. That's why he doesn't just stand aside and let Charlie barge in. He gets himself between the stomping man and the door, barring his passage, speaking quickly.

"Look I understand you want to see him and you're really worried but Bruce needs peace and quiet, okay, and- and so does Meyer. You g-going in there like this is gonna get him all worked up and that could be seriously bad for him in the state he's in, okay? So if you're g-gonna go in there I'm gonna need you to c-calm down a little, first."

The words are a quick, nervous prattle, but he doesn't step out of the way, jaw clenching with determination. Like hell he's going to let Charlie jeopardize Meyer's health for his tantrum. Ned knows he looks a wreck, shaking and exhausted and covered in blood, but he tries to get across with his expression how serious he is about this.

Perhaps it's not quite as necessary as it seems to Ned just now - perhaps it's some subconscious lingering overprotectiveness, from the fight with the tiger. His brain can't help but register Charlie as dangerous, as a threat, and he can't help but want to get in between that and his friend when he's in such a defenseless state.

"You don't fucking gets it! He needs me in there, alright?" His breathing is speeding up every second, the anger turning into panic. He's been too close to where Meyer is for too long, and his brain is filling in all the worst case scenarios. Ned is just an obstacle, and without really seeing what he's doing he's grabbing him, trying to push him aside, the NEED to see Meyer right the fuck now trumping any other centres of logic or reason in his brain where Ned's words might have worked.

Ned doesn't resist Charlie or shove back, though he hisses a little in pain when Charlie (accidentally, he's sure) grabs right over the cuts on his arm. He lets himself be pushed but sets one hand firmly on the door and leans against it, keeping it closed for just a few seconds more.

He can tell that Charlie is beyond all rational arguments. It would be touching, how devoted he is to Meyer, how he isn't willing to listen or even wait thirty seconds before going in to check on him, if it weren't so inconvenient.

"Alright, alright, just t-take a deep breath first, okay, and keep your voice down in there."

Opening the door he sees that Bruce has finished stitching Meyer up, is to be looking through a small collection of prescription medicine cylinders for something to give to him. Relieved, Ned opens the door fully and steps out of the way, letting Charlie in, hoping it's the right decision.

As soon as the door is open enough to squeeze through he's inside. His mind does register what Ned said, slightly, just enough to stay silent as he beelines straight for Meyer's bedside. Or tableside, possibly.

Seeing him like that, laid out and helpless and bloody, it's a sharp stab straight in the gut. He finds his hand, relatively unscathed, and covers it with his own. It doesn't help much, but it's something.

"Meyer?" He's barely above a whisper, but sticks to Yiddish anyway as he speaks. "You stupid fucking idiot what the fuck did you get yourself into?"

He raises his head a little, gives Charlie a weak smile, like he's trying to say it's okay, but it's really not. He may be stitched up now, and not bleeding all over the place, but he doesn't feel right. His head is still fuzzy, and he can't quite form coherent sentences, not even in his mind, but he tries. Somehow, Yiddish seems a hell of a lot easier than English at the moment. He's not sure why, and he won't think about it too much.

"I wasn't... doing anything stupid," he manages, shaking his head a tiny bit, although every movement sends a stab of pain through his collarbone. It's a good thing Charlie can't see the fact that his bone had been visible through the cut -- that probably would have made things even more stupid.

"I'll be fine."

Ned watches the two of them from a little distance. He can't understand what they're saying based on the words themselves, but the tone of the exchange tells him a lot, as does the way that Charlie takes Meyer's hand and quiets right down as soon as he's beside him. One thing about times of stress like these: they really reveal a person to you. A thought occurs to him and he steps into the next room, picks up the chair that Charlie had kicked across it and brings it in, setting it down by Charlie silently so he can sit with Meyer, if he likes, rather than just hovering.

Charlie only registers the chair arriving once he's sat in it. Glancing up, he gives Ned a nod of thanks.

"He's coming home tonight, ain't he?"

Because otherwise it's going to be a very long night sat in this chair. Now that Meyer's hand is in his, he doesn't plan on letting go. He leans in closer, face practically right next to his now that he's sitting down. "I'm gonna have to drag your ass home myself, ain't like we have any taxi in this place."

He had better be going home tonight. He hadn't even registered any other possibility, but then again, his head hadn't exactly been functioning correctly. Now that he's not in the process of rapid blood loss, though, he's starting to think about the logistics.

Giving Charlie's hand a slight squeeze, he attempts to reassure him. "Ned already carried me here," he says, sounding a little sheepish about it, "I'm used to being dragged places by now."

Being carried hadn't exactly been his idea of him, but it had got him here in one piece. He has to give Ned that, and he does give him an appreciative, if pained, smile.

Ned was never really irritated with Charlie in the first place for his short-temper, but even if he had been, he thinks, he wouldn't be able to keep it up long. He's so clearly in a state of complete distraction, hardly noticing what's going on around him, attention focused entirely on Meyer. Ned looks at the way their heads are bent together, listens to the sounds of them speaking to one another and is glad that he got there in time: not just for Meyer's sake, now, but for Charlie's.

"I think so." Ned looks over, sees a nod from Bruce, amends his statement to a definite, "Yes."

Like Meyer and Charlie he starts thinking logistics, spots the wheelchair in the corner. It's got a stack of papers resting on it - probably from Bruce's research. He goes over and sets it aside on the ground, wheeling the thing forward a little, meeting Meyer's eyes and raising his eyebrows in mute suggestion. It would certainly be a bit more dignified than being carried, and probably significantly less painful, too.

The wheelchair doesn't look like anything he's seen before, but he's with it enough to work out what it's for. It's a chair, it has wheels.

"Yeah, that works. Can you sit up?" He switches back to English, since Ned seems to be involved in the conversation now. It's fucking weird, he keeps forgetting he's even there.

"Sure, yeah," he says, although he's not actually sure he can. He does manage to struggle up onto his elbows, barely biting back a groan of pain. The stitches seem to help, somehow, maybe just because he knows he's not bleeding all over the place, and the bandages help too, but there's no denying how much it hurts. He's glad, though, that he won't have to be carried.

Glancing at Ned, he nods. The wheelchair looks like a far better option than anything else, and as much as he's generally comfortable with accepting more help from Charlie than from anyone else, he's still not particularly interested in having Charlie carry him back home. He doesn't think Charlie would like it, either: he's pretty damn heavy for such a small person.

"Okay," he says, finally getting up the energy to sit up fully, although it takes some significant effort.

Ned rolls the wheelchair close to the table, looks for something he can use to cushion the back. Meyer might be stitched and bandaged, but his back must be killing him and Ned knows it. He spots a blanket folded up on a shelf, grabs it and drapes it over the back of the wheelchair. Then, when Meyer manages to sit up, he reaches a hand over to steady him. The gesture is not as automatic for him as it might be for some; his usual reservations about touch are still there, underneath the urgent desire to help. The hair on the back of his necks stands up, but he ignores it.

"Help me lift him down," he says to Charlie. They will be able to do it much more gently if there are two of them, and right now he's less concerned with making a nuisance of himself than he is with minimizing Meyer's pain.

Charlie nods, and puts one arm under Meyer's legs and the other around his shoulders, high as he can to avoid the bandages. He pushes aside the part of his brain that tells him to tell Ned no, to say that Meyer is his and his responsibility. Because this isn't about him, and two is going to be easier on Meyer.

So they lift him into the chair together. Every noise of pain Meyer makes sends another knife into his gut, so he keeps mumbling to him in Yiddish, insults and pet names overlapping with each other, because talking is better than this ridiculous, repressive silence punctuated by Meyer, his Meyer, sounding in pain.

He can understand why Charlie's helping him -- they help each other, that's what they do, that's what they've always done. Charlie's talking helps a little, mostly because he knows why Charlie's doing it, and it's strangely comforting. What he doesn't understand is why Ned is helping so much. While he didn't necessarily expect Ned to leave him to die in the woods (Ned's a nice guy, after all) he's not sure he expected Ned to stick around while he was getting stitched up, nor to help find a way to get him home.

The cynical part of his brain wonders what's in it for Ned, somehow believing that nobody would be so helpful and solicitous unless there was an ulterior motive, but nothing immediately occurs to him. It makes him take pause for a moment, completely ignoring the pain to focus on the fact that Ned might be helping him simply because he wants to. Does this make them friends?

His contemplation is broken by a stab of pain in his ribs as he's involuntarily jostled, and he can't help the sharp intake of breath as he's finally set into the chair. He's trying not to be dramatic about this whole thing, trying not to let on to too much pain, because he doesn't want to worry either of them. He just wants to get back to the house, just wants to sleep, wants to forget the pain and the embarrassment for now.

Ned mirrors Charlie's movements on the other side, being as careful as he can be not to jostle Meyer or put too much pressure on his wounded torso. Still, there's only so much either of them can do to cushion him, and Ned is only too aware of that gasp for air and the pain that must have caused it.

He can't understand what Charlie is saying to Meyer but the tone and pace of the words, the repetitions and cadences communicate plenty to him. It strikes him as curious for perhaps the first time that Charlie would know Yiddish. That can't be common, considering his own background and the time and place in which he grew up. Ned glimpses the look on Charlie's face as he's staring at Meyer, the focus of it, the worry and obvious love. It strikes him as particularly intense, but he doesn't think any more of it just yet.

Once Meyer is settled he lets go of him quickly, takes a respectful step back.

"Call me if-" he doesn't want to say if something goes wrong, substitutes, "-if you need anything." He addresses the words to Charlie, hopes that he will heed them, hear them through the haze of his concern.

"Yeah. I will."

If he were paying more attention to anything but Meyer, maybe he would have seen that look Ned gives them, the one that seems to understand more than it used to.

But as it is he only nods, and wheels Meyer out into the night, back home.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It scares the hell out of me...

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Some time later... a Chawlee!

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