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minniethemoocherda · 16 days ago

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The Dirt Under Your Claws: Chapter 2

A/N: Skipping a head a little bit now to the end of episode 9 in the aftermath of the battle! And thanks again to @roninreverie for letting me use their Steb headcanons!! Xxxxxx

Ao3

FF.net

Steb came too in a daze, not quite sure if it had all been a dream. The battle. The betrayal. The sensation of his soul being sucked out of his skin.

Then he saw the metal man.

He startled, instinctively kicking the thing off his legs.

It didn't retaliate. It didn't even move. The eerie light that had once glowed from it's former eyes now gone.

It was dead. If it had ever truly been alive.

Slowly Steb stood on unsteady feet having been sprawled against some statue.

Around him he could see his fellow enforcers follow suite. They appeared to have been sprinkled across wherever this courtyard was that they'd ended up in. There was still smoke and dust clogging up the air so Steb wasn't one hundred percent sure exactly where he was.

Still he stumbled over to his men, checking them over as efficiently as he could. He never finished his medical training before transferring to the enforcers. But because of it, he was usually the most medically knowledgeable person around. Therefore it was his duty to ensure that his people were all alright.

They were bruised and battered from when they'd been dropped out of the sky, but for the first time that day, luck must have been on his side because nobody had landed on their head.

Then he heard a scream.

Steb ran towards the sound. He rushed past the side of the statue to the street, trying not to trip over broken cobbles and metal bodies.

There, pinned to the floor by a spear seared straight through her upper leg was a girl.

Steb skidded to a stop next to her.

She wasn't an enforcer. Judging by the cracked bird shaped mask covering half her freckled face, she must have been a Firelight. Not that it made any difference to Steb. All she was now was his patient.

The dark skin of her upper leg was stained red. Thankfully it mustn't have hit her femoral artery otherwise she would have already been dead. But that didn't mean she wasn't out of the water yet. She was still leaking blood and Steb had no idea how long the wound had been bleeding for and that wasn't even accounted for whatever the hell those metal men had done to her head. Regardless, he had to do his best to help.

As Steb ripped away the fraying fabric of her trousers, he felt someone skid into a crouch besides him.

Steb spared them a glance, startled when he realised who was now next to him.

It was Scar, Second in Command of the Firelights. The Chirean with large ears and even larger muscles. The one who had called him a traitor.

He wasn't the first to do so. And Steb doubted that he would be the last. All Steb had ever wanted to do was help people. So as long as Scar didn't stop him from trying help his patient than Steb didn't care what he thought of him.

Suddenly Scar reached for the spear.

"Don't pull it!" Steb shouted, his voice barely more than a scratch.

It was no surprise that his throat was fucked. He'd been awake for over twenty four hours. Amidst the chaos he couldn't remember the last time he'd had a chance to have a drink. And that was before taking into account whatever he'd inhaled in that gas.

It hurt to talk in the best of times, the dry air of the city drowning his gills. He needed to down ten litres of liquid then spend the rest of the week in a water tank. But for now, that would have to wait.

"I'm not." Scar snarled. Instead he wrapped his hands just above where the spear had been shot into her leg and snapped it off.

Steb breathed a sigh of relief. If he'd pulled it out then the girl would have most likely bled to death.

"Can... you... lift-" Steb finished the rest of his sentence in sign as coughs cut off his voice.

Scar blinked. Perhaps momentarily surprised at the sign. At least he seemed to have understood it as in the next moment, he lifted up the leg.

He only moved it half an inch, but the girl screamed as though she'd been stabbed again.

Steb quickly looked underneath. The spear had buried straight through her leg into the concrete bellow. Shit.

Knife? Steb signed.

"Back pocket." Scar grunted, inclining his head towards the belt of pouches around his waist.

Steb nodded, reaching into the pocket at the back. He pulled out a handle covered in painted paw prints attached to a two inch wide serrated blade. Perfect.

Steb slid the knife under the leg, sawing the spear as close to her body as he could. He could hear the girl writhing against the pavement but thankfully, Scar was able to hold her leg still. A minute later, the spear finally snapped.

As Scar laid her leg back down, Steb reached into his own pocket. He pulled out a handkerchief and a vial of disinfectant. He'd already had to use most of it today. There wasn't enough left but it would have to do for now. Steb doused the cloth in the disinfectant and pressed it against the wound.

"I'll be back." Scar stated.

Steb let him go, too focused to care about where he went. He couldn't clean the wound properly without taking out the wooden staff of the spear. But that would have to wait till she was seen by a proper doctor. For now all he could do was make sure the flesh around it was free of dust, concrete and debris.

He felt someone bump his arm.

Steb glanced to his side to find that Scar was back, a bottle of vodka in his hand. The label stuck outside proudly claiming it was ninety-three percent ethanol.

Steb signed a quick thanks before pouring it over the wound.

The girl started to sob through her screams.

Out of the corner of his eye, Steb watched as Scar brushed a hand through her honey coloured hair, his claws gently untangling her curls. Steb could feel the soft rumble of the Chireans purr against his arm. Soon the girl's sobs stopped.

The soft sounds and gentle gesture was so startlingly different to the snarling soldier Steb had seen seconds ago.

Steb hadn't expected to see this side of him, or that he even had a side like that at all. Steb wondered what else there was about Scar that he didn't know.

Once he's cleaned the wound as best he could, Steb placed the bottle to the side. He didn't judge when Scar downed what was left in it. He wanted to take a swill himself, to drink away the sight of Maddie's smile as she shot their friend in the head and the blood of her brain splattered all over her identical uniform. But he couldn't without killing his already dying throat. Instead he tried to focus everything on his patient, so that there wasn't anywhere else for his thoughts to wander.

Steb started unbuckling the buttons on his uniform, intending to use it as a bandage when Scar ripped off the fabric of his own shirt.

Stunned, Steb stared as the muscles under the purplish-grey of his skin flexed and stretched as the Firelight wrapped the remains of his shirt around the leg. It wasn't tied how Steb had been taught at the academy, but it looked tight enough to stem the bleeding and keep the wound clean.

Between this and Scar's knowledge not to pull the spear out before, it was clear that he had some medical experience even if it was most likely self taught. It shouldn't have been surprising that someone on the Firelights must have for them to have survived for so long. It made Steb wonder what Scar had seen in order for him to know so much.

Scar turned to face him, the edge of his snout curled into the beginnings of a snarl. Steb's face frills flushed as he realised he'd been looking for far too long and quickly averted his eyes.

Across the street he saw the smashed window of a liquid store, where Scar had presumably gotten the vodka from. Next to it was suitably placed the Piltover Pub, the cog shaped metal of it sign broken off and pointed into the direction of-

Suddenly Steb realised where they were.

Stay here. Steb signed.

Trusting Scar to take care of their patient, Steb ran along the crackled cobblestones towards the museum. His breath burnt with every intake of air and black blobs started to block his vision. It felt like he was running through fire.

But he didn't slow down once. He couldn't. Not when he had people depending on him.

Eventually, he made it to the museum. The big stone building mostly consisted of one large cavernous room. Cots now took up the majority of the space, the inventions of Piltover's past professors, currently pushed to one side. The pieces themselves weren't worthless but they had little military value so it was less appealing target to the Noxians and therefore it had been set up as a temporary medical station.

Thankfully, Steb spotted Dr Kiramman standing just inside the thick wooden doors. The doctor had been colleagues with his father before he passed and was one of the few doctors who knew sign.

Kiramman had just finished stitching up the side of someone's head when Steb reached him.

Spear in leg. Leaking blood. By liquor store. Steb said.

Kiramman nodded, shouting to someone to bring a stretcher before following Steb back down the street.

As Steb lead them to the liquor store, the air somehow felt even thicker than before, like trying to wade through tar with lead in his lungs.

When they reached the store, Steb wasn't surprised to see that Scar was still there, his hand held tightly around the girl's who had since fallen into unconsciousness. As soon as the Chirean saw them heading his way, he sprung to his feet, snarling as he stood protectively in front of her.

Kiramman said something to him, presumably to try to calm him down. But Steb couldn't make out a single word over the pounding of blood pouring through his eardrums.

Steb tried to sign at Scar to trust the doctor but his arms had stopped responding to his brain. Suddenly his legs stopped responding too. He crashed into the concrete unable to bring up his arms to break his fall.

It should have hurt. But he couldn't feel anything over the pain in his lungs. His throat was on fire. Each intake of air was like swallowing shards of glass. Breathing was a battle. One that he was losing. Badly.

The medic in him knew he needed to sit up to get air into his lungs. But all he could do was curl into a ball.

Suddenly strong hands scooped him up. Steb couldn't see who, his vision blocked by spiralling spiderwebs of black. But whoever they were, their hold was secure despite the speed they were traveling. The steady beat of their heart under soft skin made Steb feel safe.

Then the hands were gone and he was falling.

He wanted to scream. But he was out of air.

Just as his vision faded to back, he was welcomed by the cold embrace of the river.

#arcane #steb #scar #bird mask #birdmask #magpie #arcane steb #steb x scar #batfish #fins and fangs #fishbats #scar x steb #arcane scar #tobias kiramman #league of legends

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