#ive got a pain in my sawdust

[explicette]

[matiistosservice]

Report 006-06-021420

Date of Report Submission: 2020/02/14

Possible Entity: The Eye

Original Text:

“During June of 2017 I, an American, was in and around the Chicago area. I was on a book tour selling my latest batch of poetry chatlets, when I encountered an odd man inside of one of the diners there.

My memory is not the best so I dont quite remember much about the podunk dinner, except for the fact that the coffee was oddly good compared to everything else. There in that dinner, sitting in a corner booth by himself with a view of both exits was an Indian man with greying brown hair. He had a skunk stripe down the left side of hair and circular glasses. I remember him in more detail than I remember the food I had ordered, because after talking with him, the food I ate, all seemed to taste of sawdust in my mouth.

He had these eyes... sharp as a hawks with crows feet in the corners, but they seemed unendingly weary, much like he was an old soul stuck in form that was not his. He was dressed like a little librarian; a white button up, under a plaid blue and black sweater vest ,whose cuffs were rolled up out of the way, and tan khakis. Of the skin that wasn’t covered there seemed to be little pockmark scars across his arms and neck. He would have been very cute, had it not been for the slightly glowing tattoo of a third eye above his forehead and the nearly melted scarred flesh of his hand that held his coffee cup. 

Nobody seemed to pay him much attention. Nobody else seemed to notice his oddities, but he sat in that corner of the dinner, a mound of papers around him and too many coffee cups and empty sugar packets around him to count. 

 When he noticed me sitting three tables away, it was if a great looming sense of dread washed over me. It felt like it was not just his eyes staring into me. I tried to make myself look scarce, tried to shrink into the booth at my back and worm my way under the table, but he kept watching me a quizzical look in his eyes. A odd facial expression flashed across his face before he made his way over to my table as if a cat had just cornered a mouse. 

 And there he stood before me. And there I tried to sink deeper under the table, till in a soft gentle voice with a strong british accent he asked me, " You seem to have a story you want to tell. Why not indulge me?" And sat down across from me at the booth.

And I did tell him a story. One I have been trying to forget for years. I told him of my time in the Cult of Antiquis, of how as a young man, I, desiring love and acceptance and never getting it from my Born-again family, found a preacher woman in New Port, Ohio telling the good gosple of how you could be religious and trans and that god made you they way you are and that there is nothing wrong with you. And in that she was right... but not in what happened following that... not in what the cult was actually about... 

But that tale is not one I wish to relive again. The man from that dinner already pried it out of me once. I don’t feel like reliving it again. I never did get his name... but when I finished my story, he thanked me, like my pain and trauma was something to be savoured and enjoyed. An eerie half smirk was on his face, when he bid me goodbye, got up from my booth, walked back over to his, collected his papers, left some money on the table and left the dinner. And I sat there for a few more hours not really eating the food in front of me and forgetting what I had to do the rest of the day. 

 Ive been having nightmares of that man and the story I told him since. Therapy and medication hasnt helped. I figured this would be a good source of closure.”

M.I.S. Notation: oh god another one. im so sorry you had the dire misfortune of coming in contact with the archivist. not much to say here. contact us if the nightmares get worse.

[ravenvsfox]

prompt: andreil + emergency room visit

(this is a sequel to THIS ‘I think there’s someone in the house’ fic!)

The paramedics hammer on the door, and Neil looks up, teary-eyed, from where his face is pressed into Andrew’s damp hair. He’s feeling for his breath with the back of his hand, waiting moment to moment for Andrew to die in his arms, silently like he does everything else. Urgency keeps stunning Neil all over again, hysterical defibrillators. The EMT’s are calling out through the wall, muffled but calm.

It feels unthinkably wrong, their absolute evenness and ease outside his door when his life is an exposed neck and Andrew’s death is the whirring blade of a saw.

He realizes that he has to get up to let them in, and it seems as impossible as it would be for Andrew to spring up and answer the door himself. He feverishly wants them to crumple the door to splinters and be inside already. 

It’s a herculean effort to ease Andrew to the ground, like he’s gritting his teeth and cutting off his own leg. He touches Andrew’s clammy face briefly but he can’t bring himself to try and slap him awake. He props Andrew’s bare feet up on the rim of the bath so the blood will flood towards his head, at least.

He feels untethered to his body when he stands, a helium balloon with its usual weight passed out on the bathroom floor. He falls into the wall immediately, adrenaline neck and neck with exhaustion.

He finds his way to the front door without his mind’s help. His head is in the bathroom with Andrew, and he knows that no matter what happens it’ll be there for a long, long time.

The next time he blinks, a man in uniform is holding his biceps and peering down at him seriously.

“—sir? Sir, are you hurt at all?”

“No,” Neil says, lips numb. “Bathroom. He’s in the bathroom. He’s bleeding to death.”

He turns, easily slipping the paramedic’s grip. There’s a procession of them, hefting a gurney and a couple of kits, and they’ve brought all the cold from outside in on their heels. They’re such a foreign object in their warm, messy apartment — uniformed, official, and precise.

It’s deadly, walking in and seeing Andrew spread out in his boxers, blood oozing through his t-shirt from his loose stitches, pale enough to match the porcelain. Neil’s seen enough corpses to recognize what they look like. 

He falls heavily to his knees and puts his head directly to his chest, listening, tears slipping hotly over the bridge of his nose.

“Please,” he slurs. His heartbeat is a tentative thud, a knock from an unexpected guest. “Help him. Now, help him now.”

“We’re going to try our best Sir, but you’ve got to get out of the way,” someone says gently.

He topples backwards onto his hands. It’s a cramped space, and he knows it would be easier if he waited outside, but he also knows he’d rather die than leave them alone with him.

The first guy kneels down and takes Andrew’s pulse, and Neil shakes his head. They’re too slow, time is feeding directly into a wide open drain.

“He needs an IV. He’s two litres down, at least. You’ve got to—“ A petite woman puts a hand on his shoulder and he shrugs her off violently. “No! You have to listen to me.”

“We know what we’re doing,” she says. “Are you an MD?” She eyes him doubtfully, gaze flitting from his scars to where her colleagues are taking vitals and cutting through Andrew’s clothes.

“Yes,” Neil says wildly. “And he needs an IV. Possibly two. Large-bore, normal saline. He’s not getting any oxygen, and he’s been like this for as long as it took you to gather your meager response team.”

She purses her lips, but she’s a professional. He can see her repressing her anger and it infuriates him. He feels like he’s crashing, over and over again, and he’s watching someone daintily pump the breaks.

“He’s right,” one of the EMT’s says distractedly. “We’re gonna need to get some fluids started, he’s in hypovolemic shock, sats below 50.”

“You want to tell me what happened?” one of the men asks.

“No,” Neil says as evenly as he can manage, reaching out to graze Andrew’s cold fingers.

“Did you do these stitches?” the woman asks, pulling at Andrew’s skin to get a better look at them. He suddenly sees how they must look to them, sloppy and angry red. Neil bends her arm away without thinking about it.

“Don’t touch him,” he snaps. He could break her arm and it would make him feel better. He drops her, disoriented by his own violence.

“There’s no need to be antagonistic,” the first man says. “We don’t want to have to remove you.”

“You really don’t,” Neil agrees. “You won’t succeed.”

“Big talk,” he says, sounding faintly impressed. He starts to hike Andrew up onto his side and Neil jolts forward.

“You can’t—“ he starts, knee-jerk. The paramedics all look at him expectantly, and he feels time turn to sawdust in his hands. “Don’t hurt him,” he finishes, choking, burning in his own inadequacy. “He’s—“ he pants, cutting himself to pieces looking for the right words. “Everything I have.”

There’s a lot of somber nodding and fast hands, a three-count to get him onto the gurney, and then Neil wobbles to his feet.

“He’ll need a transfusion,” Neil says mechanically. “And my stitches— they’re loose enough to cut and redo. It was the best I could do. The best—“ his vision shakes and blackens for a second, and he catches himself hard on the doorframe.

“Hey, hey, woah. Are we gonna need a second gurney?”

“No. Andrew, he’s— your only priority.”

“Alright,” the first guy says, brow furrowed, hands out to steady him. “Just try not to cause any more trouble. None of us want to separate the two of you. Really.”

Neil nods, not really listening. He follows Andrew’s limp body, desperate not to fall even a pace out of step. He feels like a child learning to hold a gun. He keeps waiting for the keen sting of his mother’s slap. He keeps thinking about the way it felt to cling to physical pain because it was all he had, all he could understand. It’s easier, he thinks, to deal with death yanking you back by the hair than it is to watch it creep up on the only person that matters to you.

He can’t decide if it’s selfish or not, how desperately he wants to have been shot first, to grapple with a bullet instead of this panic -- so indelible and thick that it feels like a full-body suit of armour he’s trapped in. He’d rather try to survive, or die.

They roll out into the hallway in a clunky entourage, Neil taking up the rear with his hands on either side of Andrew’s head. He can’t believe how little has been done for him. He can’t believe the way they’re talking quietly to each other like the Earth isn’t about to plummet out of the sky.

They can’t all fit into the elevator, but Neil squeezes inside before anyone can do something stupid like pull them apart.

“It’ll be okay,” the man— Holland, his badge says— tells him. “The hospital is five minutes away if we sprint, and his breathing is surprisingly strong. You absolutely saved his life.”

“Right,” Neil says flatly. “Your turn.” He looks down into Andrew’s lax face, pale from his fair brows to his anemic freckles to his dry, blue mouth. The difference between his usual neutral face and this empty one is horrifying. The thought of Andrew’s eyes turning completely dull is enough to ratchet his breathing up.

“Hey,” Holland says quietly. “Breathe. Who’s going to bark orders at us if you’re having a panic attack?”

Neil shakes his head, holding his own side, gasping. “Don’t you— have a— boss?”

Holland grins, and then seems to realize how inappropriate it is when Neil slaps the wall to try to get a grip and sync his breathing up with something.

“So this is Andrew, yeah? What’s your name?” Holland asks. Neil shakes his head again. He can feel that he’s crying again, senselessly, his body trying to shake free of all its bolts and collapse.

Some part of him doesn’t even want to say Neil, the name that Andrew let him have, the person that would die for other people for the first time in his life.

“Neil, right?” Holland says, just as the elevator dings open. He wheels Andrew out smoothly into the foyer. “I’ve seen you on ESPN.”

Neil ignores him, taking Andrew’s pulse at his neck, a never-ending drum-roll in his chest.

“We’re not letting him go that easily.” Holland quirks a smile. “Best goalie alive? We’re keeping him that way.”

“Stop trying to be my friend,” Neil says. “Stop trying to relate to me. You’re not defusing me, you’re using your energy on remembering our positions and first names instead of starting an IV and checking his breathing. Do you honestly think I give a fuck about exy right now?”

“I’m trying to focus you so I don’t have a second patient on my hands,” Holland explains, smile gone. “You think it’ll help Andrew if you exhaust yourself into hysterics? If I have a guy in the middle of a panic attack I’m distracted from saving his life.”

Neil falls silent, teeth gritted. They maneuver out the front door, joining the rest of the paramedics on the dewy front lawn. The ambulance is wide open, a blinking, gaping doorway to everything they need to snatch Andrew back from a precipice. Neil picks up the pace, pushing the gurney at the same time that it’s pulled, hopping up into the ambulance to tug Andrew aboard. He knows he’s pushing it, skirting the edge of in the way, more focused on Andrew than on rules.

He watches the team go through the motions, jumping in and out, starting the engine, blurring circles around Andrew and Neil, who are wan and linked together at the hands. He looks at Andrew again, the stillness of him as they finally get a line started. He’d do everything with his own hands if they weren’t shaking so badly.

They’re pulling away from their apartment block, screaming into traffic with the sirens sobbing, when Neil holds Andrew’s hand to his mouth and says, “there’s a murderer on our balcony.”

______

Chaos. The rest of the ride is a checklist of anxious questions and disbelieving noises from the front seat, and Neil can see flashes of police cars swimming against the current to get to their apartment.

He blocks it all out mostly, focusing on all the living he’s going to force Andrew to do. His hair is never pushed back like this, flopping over the cushioned head of the gurney. Neil tugs it between his fingers and closes his eyes.

“—Neil. You’re not ignoring me now, are you Josten? That would be pretty uncooperative of you.”

“That’s not our Neil,” the woman faux gasps from the front seat. “He’s part of the team!”

“I don’t know when you decided it was okay to treat traumatic injury as a joke,” Neil says quietly, acidly. He can feel them exchanging loaded glances.

“Around the same time you started treating us like an expensive taxi. We’re trying to do our jobs, man. You’re not making it easy.”

“It’s not easy,” Neil hisses. “I don’t know who deluded you into thinking that I’m supposed to make the worst moment of my life into something you can chew more easily. If you can’t handle criticism you can’t handle people’s lives. You certainly can’t handle Andrew.”

He feels the ambulance roll to a stop in the emergency bay, and he takes it as his cue to throw the back doors open. He hears grumbling and movement behind him, and Holland flicks the legs of the gurney out as he handles Andrew onto the pavement.

The ‘emergency room’ in neon is brilliant where it’s reflected in day old puddles, and the bustle is noisy and wet the closer they get to the sliding doors.

Neil shields Andrew’s head from lolling into plastic when they move, and the paramedics jog ahead to the front desk, calling out numbers and fragmented abbreviations. He’s physically shouldered out of the way by a herd of bodies in scrubs, and he just starts punching. He takes down a couple of orderlies, and he catches part of an exchange about security before they’re on top of him.

“Wait, get the fuck off of me, wait, wait.” He gets his arms manhandled behind him, and he lets his arms go lax instinctively, avoiding a strain. “You can’t— I can’t leave him with them you absolute fucks—“

He bucks, kicking back at shins and facing another panic attack head on when it comes, fighting hard until his legs get pinned to the ground, an arm across the back of his neck.

“No,” he whispers, answering a question that no one bothered to ask.

_____

“You restrain all the worried family members?” Neil asks, cuffed to a waiting room chair, struggling not to think about how trapped he is.

“Just the belligerent ones,” the tackler says, tucking his walkie-talkie back into his belt and frowning down at him. “Can I call someone for you, kid?”

Neil considers this, considers his emergency contact being coaxed back to life somewhere out of his reach. He surreptitiously checks the give on his restraints and juts his chin. “Yeah, actually. You know Matt Boyd?”

Tackler frowns. “Uh. Backliner?”

Neil jerks a vicious nod, and lurches his whole body forward so the cuffs rattle and the tackler jumps. Intimidation is his last line of defence, paper thin. “He’s in town. I’m sure he’d love to meet you.”

_____

He can tell that Matt and Dan aren’t fucking around, because they come down the hall smiling. Matt says a courteous ‘hello’, then throws the tackler up against the wall. Dan drops into a crouch so she can swipe his keys from his belt.

She’s already unlocking Neil and murmuring reassurances when Matt knocks the guy out.

“Everything’s fucked,” Neil tells them shakily, standing as soon as he’s free. “They took Andrew to emergency, but I don’t know if he’s moved by now or if he’s— if he’s—“

“Hey, Neil, just tell us what you need,” Dan says, looking him in the eyes, and Neil suddenly feels like he hasn’t been taken seriously since the last slipping moments that Andrew was conscious.

“We need to find him. I need to…” he whips around, trying to find a useful sign, hand going to the back of his own neck, trying to ground himself.

“We’ll find him,” Matt nods kindly, putting out an arm to still him. “What sort of damage are we looking at? ICU? Surgery?”

“I—“ Neil starts, and swallows, closing his eyes. “Transfusion. Trauma. He’s probably— let’s check a trauma room?” It’s half a question and Matt shakes his head seriously.

“Your call.”

Neil holds his gaze, feeling something stretch thin in his chest. He holds his hand out and Matt uses it to pull him into a hug.

“Now you know what it’s like for us, punk,” Dan says wetly. Neil’s surprised to see how distressed they are for Andrew, and its such a screaming relief not to feel like the only one crying at the end of a tragedy.

He tries to smile, but he can’t commit to it. He turns to break into the stairwell, trusting the slapping sound of their footsteps following behind him. He’s gagging to go faster, and he stumbles and jumps down entire handfuls of stairs. He pushes out onto the main floor, flanked by his team, and they close in on the cordoned off trauma rooms, swollen with activity.

Andrew’s in the second room they come across. Neil plasters himself to the door, watching the lead doctor prop Andrew up to get a look at the back of his shoulder. He tosses bloody gauze directly onto the floor and gestures at something, guiding his team with the ease of a captain. 

Andrew is smeared with bright iodine, masked head drooping, bare from the waist up, forearms included. Neil’s hands flex. He watches him dangling from a dozen gloved hands, and bursts into the room, barely restrained by Matt’s arms around his waist.

“Please,” Neil gasps. “Let me watch. I need to see.”

“You family?” The three of them nod. One of the doctors snaps a look at another, and they both shrug. “Stay out of the way. Not another step.” Security’s not out to get them yet, then.

Matt thanks them, and Dan squeezes Neil’s hand. The room is strewn with blood bags and gauze, and Neil can see that they’ve hooked Andrew up to oxygen, blood and saline funnelling into his body from both sides.

“Who the fuck shot him, Neil?” Dan whispers furiously.

Neil doesn’t look away from Andrew. “Nobody that matters.”

A nurse squeezes at the bag of O-negative, but Neil can tell that everyone’s slowing down, cleaning up, giving the only operating doctor room to work. He looks up and gestures at Neil with the scissors in his hand.

“He’s stable, it’s okay,” he says. Neil’s legs give out. Dan and Matt lunge for him but he slips straight to his hands and knees. The green floor tiles spin. He’s submerged in relief so pungent it burns his eyes. “We’re going to finish stitching him up and get him to ICU. He lost a lot of blood—“

“I watched it happen,” Neil says to the floor. He can feel Dan’s hand carding through his hair.

“--but he’s lucky,” the doctor continues. He snips a thread and puts his hand out expectantly for an instrument from the nurse. “If you want to come hold his hand, you can.”

Neil rocks back onto his feet, letting Matt help him all the way up. He crosses silently to Andrew’s side, feeling years older than he was yesterday.

“Where did you put his—“

“Knives?” A nurse asks pointedly. “With his personal effects. We figured an IV would be more helpful than an armful of weapons.”

He nods blankly, watching Andrew closely for movement. “Thank you,” he tells him quietly, tracing a vein in Andrew’s arm, comforted by the pulse of it. “For surviving.”

_____

They’re ready to haul Matt and Neil off, when the security guard comes to. They talk their way out of it with laughable ease, promising tickets for semifinals. Neil is unresponsive through the whole exchange, busily posted at the door of the ICU. They tell him there’s restricted access and point him towards the waiting room, but he’s back in minutes, watching Andrew pink up through the glass wall.

Matt and Dan chat at his back, quiet and comforting. He can’t stomach the way hospitals test them, charge them, restrain them and won’t let go. It doesn’t feel like a real place, public niceties wrestling with grief and worry until something’s dead.

It’s a long time before he sees Andrew stirring, perfect and lethargic. He sprints inside past the sparse staff before Andrew’s even opened his eyes all the way. He kicks back into consciousness, abrupt as always. He smiles when Andrew’s eyes snag on him, and his hand darts out to steady himself on the bed frame. Andrew closes his eyes again, swallowing with his face broken up by pain.

Security gathers behind him like mist, and he knows there are hands pulling him back without really feeling them.

“D’you piss off some authority figures without me?” Andrew asks hoarsely, possibly loopy, and Neil laughs, so light that he’s surprised anyone can get a grip on him.

“Constantly. You have a good nap?”

“Only good sleep I’ve had since I met you,” Andrew says, and Neil lets himself be dragged, watching the way Andrew looks at him with every ounce of his attention, ignoring his pain and the doctors talking around them and Matt tapping at the glass.

“You can’t die while I’m gone,” Neil calls, and Andrew closes his eyes, leans back, and nods, just for him.

[veneataur]

I’m not terribly happy with how this one turned out, but here’s story 6 for Whumptober.

Prompt: Broken bone

Fandom: BBC’s The Musketeers

Title: “I’m fine, really”

Porthos is busy preparing lunch when he hears an awful clatter followed by a disturbing silence from the workshop. He pauses in what he’s doing and looks outside. Aramis has been working in the workshop this morning.

“Did you hear that,” Athos asks, poking his head in the kitchen, his concern clear.

“Yeah.” Porthos nods.

“Do you think?”

“I hope not, but probably.”

“I know. He’s been having a terrible week.”

“Let’s go then,” Porthos says. The two of them make their way, quickly, to the workshop. Because of the noise of Aramis’ tools, they had it placed near the back of the backyard. Aramis enjoyed the view as well because it looked out on the forest.

They pick up their pace when there’s still no noise or sign of Aramis after what has to be a minute after all of that noise.  Entering the workshop, they find the air filled with sawdust and a shelving unit, one of the large wood ones Aramis built himself, fallen over, tools and all.

Underneath everything, Athos sees a bit of Aramis’ blue flannel shirt.

“Porthos, he’s under here.” Athos starts lifting up the shelving unit. Porthos nods and helps Athos. When they have it lifted about a foot, Aramis starts moving and making noise. The activity knocks some of the tools off of him and they clatter to the floor loudly, some hitting his rescuers’ feet. They give cries of pain and shock but keep moving, their focus on getting Aramis to safety. When the shelf is back upright, they return to finish clearing Aramis of the things that fell on him

“Hey, Aramis,” Porthos says. “How’re you feeling?”

“Hmm?” Aramis blinks a few times and looks up at Porthos.

“How’re you feeling?”

“The shelf fell on me.”

“I know. Don’t move too much. You probably broke a few bones at the very least.”

“Not to mention possible internal bleeding, bruising, and a concussion,” Athos adds with a glance at Porthos.

“The ambulance will be here shortly,” d’Artagnan says, jogging lightly into the workshop, phone in hand.

“Ambulance?” Aramis coughs from the dust and winces slightly.

“Where does it hurt,” Athos asks, moving to feel for injuries.

“I’m fine. Most I’ve done is gained some bruises and hurt my hand.” Aramis sighs at their protectiveness and tries to move.

“What did I say about not moving,” Porthos says with a well-practiced irritated sigh. He grabs one of Aramis’ hands, the one right next to him and examines it. Aramis snaps it out of his grasp and holds it close.

“Stop touching it. I’ve either dislocated or broken a couple of the fingers and your meddling is making it worse.” Aramis tries not to snap. He knows they’re trying to help but they’re bordering on being a nuisance.

“How does the other one look.” Porthos looks to Athos, who’s examining Aramis’ other hand.

“Nothing apparent. Maybe a hairline fracture?��

“Is that your expert opinion, Dr. Athos?” Aramis fixes him with a glare and snags his hand back. “I’m fine you three nutcases. Someone call the ambulance and tell them I don’t need it.”

It’s too late, however, as they hear the sirens coming down the street before turning silent. d’Artagnan runs out to flag them back to the workshop. Aramis uses the distraction as a chance to sit up. His back is stiff with the movement and his head has a slight ache, but he’s surprisingly alert.

“Stop moving, you fool,” Porthos admonishes.

“I’m a fool? What idiots called for an ambulance without even seeing if it was necessary. You three are dealing with it because I’m not,” Aramis says.

“Where’s our patient,” one of the paramedics says. Aramis groans as he recognizes the voices. It’s Becky and Adam, who are frequently on call when they’re dispatched to this house for emergencies, most of which seem to involve him.

“He had a wooden shelving unit fall on him. He’s been coughing and seems confused,” Porthos explains.

“Alright,” Becky says. “Let’s take a look.”

“I coughed because there’s dust in the air and I’m not confused,” Aramis says, but it’s too late. Becky and Adam are making short work of checking him out. He’s moved onto the gurney, his shirt torn open, with no regard for the buttons, lines for a heart monitor in place and soon hooked up. Then an oxygen mask put over his head, despite his protests of being fine. Next, there’s an IV with a saline drip going and a BP cuff inflating around his arm. It’s when the pulse-ox clip goes on one of his injured fingers that he screams, the action shifting the finger as it was done with little care.

Angry at not being listened to by any of the five people invading his workshop, he tears off the medical paraphernalia and gets off the gurney.

“You’re hurt, Aramis. What are you doing,” Porthos says.

“I’m fine save for some crazy friends and a few injured fingers.”

“You can’t be,” Athos says.

“Actually, he is. The readings we got says that everything’s fine. And if he’s moving around like this, he’s not severely injured,” Becky said.

“I recommend a trip to the ER but not by ambulance,” Adam adds.

“Sounds like a plan,” Aramis says, fixing his three friends with a look of annoyance. “Now you three can deal with Becky and Adam here. I’m going to call Constance to get her to take me to the ER.”

“Wait, why Constance,” d’Artagnan asks.

“Because she’s not a lunatic,” Aramis calls back as he walks out of the workshop muttering about mother hens and paramedics ruining favorite flannel shirts.