#seiah lanelle

[the-whumping-hour]

Day 1 - Helpless

@febuwhump day 1!!!

CW: Mean caretaker (who is caretaking against his will), said caretaker making whumpee cry, multiple mentions of drug abuse, one mention of broken glass, one mention of broken bones, little hints of classism and ableism, annoyance at whumpee's fidgeting. 

Notes: Top ten men who break the Hippocratic oath by being fucking losers. Happy Febuwhump Day 1!!!! As this challenge continues, I may link related stories together. For those who are new, welcome to the hellscape! 

***

They’re still awake. Of course they’re still awake.

And sure, Seiah may be a medic, clinically certified and all, but hell if it means he can’t be pissed off at Felic Fucking DiMaggio.

“You got percs?” That idiot, the little whiny rat quietly digging a hole into the sofa cushion, hadn’t talked in almost fifteen minutes, which Seiah had hoped meant they’d be falling back into half-sleep soon enough. No such luck.

“No,” he snaps, hazel eyes tinged with streaks of insomnia roll up at them over his laptop. “Forty minutes and you can have more meds. I’m trying to study.”

Back to silence. Or almost— he swear he can hear threads ripping with every quiet tap of Felic’s fingernails against the seam. Just because it’s an old couch doesn’t mean anything. Just because they’re a 'friend' doesn’t mean anything. 

“Do you need a stress ball or something?” He’s trying to be nice. He really is. 

“You got one?” They still sound seconds from crying, or maybe that’s just the city drawl, thick in the back of their nose like they’ll hack it up with a hairball. They sound sick, look sick, they always look sick. Sick when they’re tweaking in meetings and sick now, bits of glass and two fractures in their leg and still they’re acting like they’re using every little scheming wrinkle in their brain to act normal. Not normal; something worse. Someone competent, or well-off, or anything other than a leech tagging along with the Rift Guard to seem like a savior.

And they reek like burning plastic.

He digs through his desk drawer. “Best I’ve got is a box of paperclips.” It leaves his hand with a rattle, a tinny sound that makes Felic twitch their head with a grimace, as the box hits their leg and falls into the cushion divot. They seem to paw it like a cat. “I can check the bedroom, but I need Gabe to rest…” he trails off.

“Nah, ‘s fine, ‘s fine.” They’ve maneuvered into some other horribly contorted position, leg still dangling off the couch like something dead. He hopes they’re content. He swears, if they’re not… but no, now it’s back to his pediatrics assignment, back to… reading this same section, again, and...

Holy fucking shit.

They’re using the paperclips. To pick at the fucking couch.

“No. No, you know what? Screw this.” Maybe it’s that stupid ugly couch, or his own lack of sleep, or how disgustingly pitiful they look in an oversized hoodie and bandages down an entire pale, skinny leg. “Done studying. Not even gonna try. Is that what you wanted? You want my attention? Gonna keep me up another three fucking hours because your tummy hurts when I don’t let you take every pill in this city?”

Maybe he should’ve thought that through more. Maybe, but it’s too late. Sue him. If this bitch wakes up Gabe, if they disrupt the final second of peace anywhere in this world at all—

They’re crying. No, no, no.

Shit, they’re crying.

“Felic.” His whisper-yells get more frantic. “Felic. Felic. Felic, hey, no, Felic, I’m sorry, I didn’t, I’m just tired, we’re all tired, Felic please,” out of his chair and onto the ground in front of them, they’re shaking like a leaf, no sounds but little sob-hiccups as their hands twist and wring themselves in their sleeves. They really are some helpless little thing, a pigeon stuck in a storm drain. “Look at me, look, I’m not mad at you. I’m not mad at you. Calm down, calm down, just, I didn’t even do anything Felic, please just do this for me please…”

A knock at the door. Gabe.

“What’s going on?” His voice is rough with sleep, hair falling in curls over his eyes. And Seiah loves him, he loves him so much, but the look on his face when he sees Felic. As if they deserve it. As if the rat deserves any of this. “Did they have a nightmare?”

“They were never asleep at all, actually, which is—“

The glare Gabe gives him shuts him up quick.

“You need to give them space.” He motions Seiah away, impatient yet calm, locking eyes with the hairball having a breakdown on the couch. 

“No, listen, everything’s fine.”

“Clearly it’s not,” he retorts, still as calm as ever. “Go get some rest, Seiah, I’ve got this.” 

“We need to talk about this later.”

“Yes. Later. Shh,” he motions, and now he’s back to Felic, and it’s like Seiah isn’t here at all. Is this what his fucking job at the Rift Guard is? Keeping the rats on a leash?

Well, there’s no reason to stay here anyways. Seiah rises to his feet, computer abandoned, boyfriend preoccupied with a little bitch. 

Whatever. It’s not even a nice couch anyways.

He shuts the door. 

[the-whumping-hour]

Day 3 - "Bite down on this"

@febuwhump DAY 3!

CW: Field surgery without anesthesia, moderate blood and guts descriptions, mild emeto, shock from near-fatal gunshot wound, mention of medication allergy

Notes: Some of this may be bullshit but this is whump not science class. I am not a doctor, and technically none of the characters in this scene are either, lmfao! Enjoy!!!

***

The world goes still as the bullet makes impact. For a moment, nothing but a punch and a stagger, and then comes the heat. And the heat is relentless.

“Jayla, they’re on the roof! They’re on the…” Marcelo’s eyes lock with Gabriel’s, which are already beginning to be swallowed up by stunned pain. He can feel the blood soaking into his sweatshirt, hot and hungry, but the shout of panic out of Marcy is still enough to jolt him as his hand finds the wound.

A second later, he hits the ground.

“Gabriel!” Someone’s voice, someone’s hands, and the noise of recognition that starts to leave Gabe’s mouth turns to a gurgle of pain as Marcy’s hands find his gut. It burns, so bad, and the burning gets worse every second that Marcy shifts his weight and yells words that echo and warble and ring like the sounds of gunfire still drilling into Gabriel’s head. More hands find him, pick him up gently, larger and steadier than those of the man still pressing into him as the world starts to spin with movement. “Get him to the van, get him to the van, this is not gonna be good—” and then Marcy’s voice leaves completely, and it’s just Gabriel in the arms of who he’s figured now is Dominic Grace. The sound of a door slamming open, then darkness, broken only by the terrified eyes of Seiah suddenly appearing over him as fabric begins to tear. The sinking guilt in his stomach is more than just copper at this point.

Words filter in and out of his ears, muffled by a numb depersonalization that he realizes, somewhere, definitely isn’t ideal. Every nerve buzzes as his skin is exposed to cold air, soothed only by the rising tide of blood down his side. 

If death is so cold, why is it welcomed in so warmly?

“...the anesthetic makes him seize, I am not...”

“So what, you’re…”

“...Jayla gets back, she’ll drive us fast, but…”

“...stomach acid…”

“...fatal…”

“GABE!” Blond hair and blue eyes and fear. Gabriel’s eyes loll open slowly to the sight of a scalpel hovering over his skin. “Gabe, Gabey, this is gonna hurt. Please just hold on. Please.” The van’s moving, when did the van start moving? When did he get in the van? “Bite down on this, if you can, okay? It’ll be okay. It’ll be okay, Gabey.”

A folded belt finds its way between his teeth. It reminds him of dried fruit, of snacks scavenged from the back of the pantries after school, lonely nights doing homework in the���

It all explodes into darkness.

By the time the fire clears, the blue of Seiah’s gloves is entirely coated in red. By the time the fire clears, his body is open, something pulsing and everything torn with Dominic holding everything sharp in his hands and Teana humming a lullaby over a handful of gauze and towels.

He gags.

“Nonono, shh, you’re okay. You’re okay.” It’s Teana talking, now; Seiah seems too lost in a mess of organs to register Gabriel’s movement at all. Everything’s lonely now, distant, cold. Stabbing like ice. “Don’t look. Don’t look at any of it. We’re almost at the clinic, they’ll have something to help you, okay? They’ll have something that works.”

Something pinches, squeezes, aches. He swears he can see his muscles flex as he jerks from the pain. Next to him, on the van floor, is a tupperware container with bullet shards and viscera. He wonders if he’ll ever forget it.

“Grace, hold that closed for me.”

His hands find Gabriel’s guts, and something lurches. This is beyond nausea, beyond disgust. He feels like a vessel, like a dying nest, like something damp and splattering on a cave floor.

His organs seem to nod in agreement.

“This should be the last piece? Make sure I don’t open that again when I do. Just…”

God, he thinks he’s dying. 

It burns.

“Gabe? Gabe, Gabe, you’re okay, you’re okay…”

More blood.

“Just keep— fuck, just keep breathing—”

More heat.

“Almost there, almost there, just—”

Relief. Closure. Pain coming to a head.

He blacks out again.