Surgery

[Administrator]

The make shift surgery area for those that need bullets taken out, bones popped back into place and a variety of other fixing...

[Snoddy King]

Snoddy had spent a good deal of his adult life in the boxcar of a train. Ever since his mother died, he spent most of his time traveling from place to place. And in that time, he'd found himself hopping a train under some pretty stressful circumstances--there was the time he was chased out of South Dakota for starting an ill-fated relationship with the miller's son; the time he'd left Alabama damn near in tears because he'd gotten unexpectedly attached to a raccoon kit he'd rescued and raised and then had to release after it reached adulthood; the time in Oklahoma when he'd only just managed to leap into the boxcar before two men, both insisting that he was the same boy who'd come through town a few months earlier and gotten their sister knocked up, could grab him, throttle him and drag him to the altar.

Of all his experiences on trains, the short ride back into the city, cradling a near-dead Nike in his lap was by far the most stressful. Her condition had improved as they rode, and she even opened her eyes a couple times, though she wasn't responsive to his voice. Her shoulder wound wasn't leaking blood any longer, and both his head and nose had clotted as well, but the both of them were still caked in dried and drying blood--which at least earned him a peaceful ride, as none of the other hitchhikers in the boxcar wanted anything to do with them.

From the train station, he'd raced through New York clutching Nike to his chest, feeling more and more lightheaded with each passing block, before finally arriving at the safety of Irving Hall. Bursting through the doors leading into the makeshift infirmary, Snoddy immediately realized that he'd been the first to return with wounded, as the place was virtually silent, nothing more than nervous idle chitchat between the assembled medical professionals and volunteer assistants.

"I need a little help here!" he barked to the room. "She's been shot!" Moving to the nearest table, he carefully laid his bundle down before collapsing back onto his backside, dropping his head between his knees to allay the dizziness threatening to overtake him.

[lunayoung]

After she left the Manhattan Lodging House, Luna raced straight to Irving Hall to look for Snoddy. She had a strange feeling in the pit of her stomach, telling her something was wrong. Please let Snoddy be alright...

Luna burst through the doors to what would be used as the infirmary, frantically looking around. When her gaze fell on a body laying on a table and the volunteer medical staff rushing towards the body, her heart raced faster. She slowly stepped closer. One of the volunteers stepped to the side, and she caught sight of blond hair. Thank God! She exhaled the breath she was holding, and took her hat off letting her black curls fall to her shoulders.

Luna stepped out of the way of the volunteers bustling around, and caught sight of someone slumped on the floor. Immediately she recognized the head of hair and the clothes as those of Snoddy. "OH MY GOD! SNODDY!" She rushed over and knelt down on the floor next to him. She wanted to wrap her arms around him, but she wasn't sure how bad he may be injured and didn't want to hurt him any more than he may already be. She placed a hand on his back instead, "Snoddy... Are you okay?" Oh God, please let him be okay. I don't know what I'd do without him... She tried holding back the tears that were coming, but a single tear slowly slid down her cheek. They weren't tears of sadness but tears of relief that he was home and worry that he was hurt badly. He didn't look so good.

[Snoddy King]

After getting beaten with a rifle butt, all the running and shouting and bleeding was resulting in a powerful, throbbing headache setting in now. Hearing someone shriek in panic very near to him did nothing to help now.

"I'm fine, Luna," Snoddy murmured, keeping his head down but pawing out in her direction, patting reassuringly whatever part of her it was that he made contact with. "Please stop yelling."

After a moment, the last wave of dizziness subsided and he lifted his head, oblivious to the fact that he looked a fright. Swiping idly at his bloodied face with his sleeve, he carefully levered himself up again, wobbling on unsteady legs as he stepped back out of the way of the people who'd appeared to take care of Nike.

"She was one of the kids in the warehouse," he explained to them, though he didn't know if anyone was listening. "She's been shot, I think, and I found her outside. I don't know how long she was out there, but she was really cold when I found her, and I... I thought she was dead at first. It took me a while to find a heartbeat." Taking another step back to avoid being shoved by a hurried worker, he added, "Please help her. Her brother would go crazy without her!"

With nothing left to add, he took Luna's arm and led her away from the area, to a row of empty chairs set up, and flopped into one, his head dropping again. "Ugh," he moaned pitifully. "I need to go back... People still getting killed..."

[lunayoung]

When Snoddy patted her upper leg, Luna's breath caught. She knew it was just a friendly, innocent touch but it felt like her leg was on fire. "Please stop yelling." She pressed her lips together before replying in a whisper, "Sorry, Snoddy. You had me worried..."

Snoddy lifted his head and when he removed his arm away from his face, Luna chin dropped and her heart began to race. "Oh my God, Snoddy! What happened to you?! Is all that blood yours?! Are you okay? Lemme get you a doctor." But before she could persuade one of the doctors to tend to him, Snoddy acted like he didn't even hear her and he stood up unsteadily so she had to wrap an arm around his waist to steady him. And then he began to ramble on about the Nike. Who cares about her?! Okay, yeah. Her brother. Let him worry about her, not you! She used the time to try to collect herself before she lost it completely...

"I need to go back... People still getting killed..."

"WHAT?! NO! Snoddy, you can't go back there! You're hurt and you can barely stand on your own, let alone fight!! You're covered in blood. We need to get you some help!" Luna yelled, her brows furrowed and fists clenched. Remembering his request for her not to yell, she took a deep breath to calm herself down and placed her hand on his back, more for her benefit than his because he had a way of calming her down. In a softer tone of voice she added, "Snoddy... You can barely stand. You could pass out in the middle of a fight and then that could be it. What if you don't come back? Think about Half Pint... He can't loose you." I can't loose you

[Snoddy King]

"WHAT?! NO! Snoddy, you can't go back there! You're hurt and you can barely stand on your own, let alone fight!! You're covered in blood. We need to get you some help!"

Snoddy winced as her voice shot up in volume again, her words ricocheting through his throbbing skull, and he brought up his fists against the side of his head, discreetly trying to muffle her voice with his wrists against his ears. He was grateful when she apparently remembered his aural sensitivity right now and dropped her voice again.

"Snoddy... You can barely stand. You could pass out in the middle of a fight and then that could be it. What if you don't come back? Think about Half Pint... He can't lose you."

"Luna, I'm fine," he started to protest, attempting to overlap her argument. "I gotta--" Shit. Half Pint. She was right. He'd promised the kid he would be coming home again, and Half Pint had already lost too many people he should have looked up to in his life. He couldn't let him down like that, not again.

"Aw, hell... Okay," he said after a moment, nodding slowly. Sitting in his chair, he felt like the floor was tipping to one side, and he tipped with it until the room suddenly righted itself again, and he had to snap upright to keep from tipping right onto the floor. Then sudden motion made his head throb even harder, and he lifted a hand to his brow, pushing the heel of his hand into the middle of his forehead, wincing in pain. "I'll stay," he agreed. She was right, of course, and he honestly did doubt he could've made it to the corner before passing out right on the sidewalk and knocking himself unconscious, but he'd been ready to put forth a valiant effort.

"Someone... someone oughta stay here with Nike," he said, scrabbling for a reason to stay that didn't involve him being too much of a pansy to take a rifle butt to the head and keep fighting. "Until Styx gets back. He's gonna wanna know everything that happened, and he'll fly off the handle if no one's here to tell him."

Casting his eyes, heavy-lidded and not quite focused properly, in his friend's direction, he nodded and placed a blood-streaked hand against her arm. "Thanks, Loo."

[lunayoung]

"Aw, hell... Okay,"

Luna felt relieved at Snoddy's concession to stay. She knew he had a rather big soft spot for Half Pint, so she could remind him of the kid's dependence on him to get him to listen to her about not returning to the fight. "Good, because you know how persistent I can be and I think in your current situation you don't want to deal with that right now..." She raised an eyebrow and smirked.

"Thanks, Loo."

Luna smiled weakly at Snoddy, her arm burning under his touch. She placed her hand over his, and gave it a little squeeze. Then, she stood up and walked over to a nearby table where earlier the volunteer medical professionals had placed a basin of water with a clean cloth draped over the side, in preparation for the oncoming chaos they were expecting. She picked up the basin and brought it over to where Snoddy remained sitting, slumped over. She set it down on the floor and knelt down in front of him. She dipped the cloth in the water and began to tenderly wiped the dried blood off Snoddy's hands and arms and then moved to wipe the blood from his head, carefully wiping the blood from the cut on his head and taking great care not to cause him any further pain. Her face mere inches from his as she was leaning in towards him, trying to clean his face up, caused her heartbeat to pick up its pace.

(Yay, my muse is back. at least for now...)

[Snoddy King]

Snoddy held still as Luna tenderly cleaned the blood from his hands and arms, and tried not to wince as she did the same to his face, keeping his eyes trained on the floor. Judging by the way he could actually taste the iron as he breathed through his mouth, he was sure he must look like an escapee from a slaughterhouse. The middle of his face was throbbing dully, and he couldn't manage to breathe through his nose; he felt almost certain it was broken. Giving his eyebrows a testing wiggle, he could feel one side of his forehead was swollen, and he thought maybe he could feel some swelling in his sinuses where the lump was already starting to drain. His lips were cracked with drying blood and the very edge of his vision in his left eye was tinged just the slightest shade of red.

And he'd only been in the fight for a few minutes... He dreaded the carnage that would come through the door into the great room as the others returned, the ones who'd lasted the full duration of the fight.

Looking up, he caught Luna's worried, frightened gaze. His mind had been miles away, still with his friends battling for control of the hillside, and here she was, one of his closest friends, worried out of her mind for his safety. As she tended his wounds, her face drawn close to his, Snoddy shifted just slightly--paying for it immediately by a bolt of pain through his skull--and kissed her cheek lightly.

"Thank you, Loo," he said softly, letting his eyelids droop again, cutting out the light and giving him just the slightest respite from the throbbing pain. "I'm sorry I made you worry about me. I'm gonna be fine, I promise."

[lunayoung]

Luna breath came up short when Snoddy pressed his lips to her cheek. Her face flushed and became heated. It wasn't that they had never kissed each other on the cheek, on top of the head, or the forehead-- because they had. But they were only ever between friends. She hadn't felt for him like she did now. She swallowed nervously, trying to push the thought to the back of her mind, as she finished cleaning him up. She glanced up at his lips, noticing the dried blood there. She dipped the cloth in the basin of water, wrung it out, and carefully wiped the blood away.

"I'm sorry I made you worry about me. I'm gonna be fine, I promise."

"I know you'll be fine, but you know me... You're my best friend so I have to worry about you. What would I do without you?" She smiled at him as she replaced the cloth in the basin and stood up. She carried the basin over to a table to be dumped and new water put in later, and found some ice. She wrapped it in a cloth and carried it back over to Snoddy. She placed a soft, gentle kiss on his swelling forehead (lingering longer than she should have), placed the ice on his forehead, and sat back down cross legged on the floor in front of him -- recalling how lifting his head seemed to pain him so it would be easier to talk to him from the floor.

Luna folded her hands in her lap and stared down at them. She bit her lower lip, trying to sort out her feelings for Snoddy in her head. God, what is wrong with you Luna? He's your best friend. She glanced up at his face, taking in all the cuts and what would soon be bruises, and the beauty and kindness about his face she's always admired. Then her gaze drifted to his lips, but quickly returned to her lap feeling ashamed about how badly she wanted to kiss him there. God, I don't know if I can take this much longer... Her head fell into her hands and her black curls fell into her face. She sighed out of frustration.

[dutchy]

"Miss, please, if you're going to be here, lend a hand at least. We don't have quiet enough," Doctor Walter House practically barked at her, as he lead a tall ginger haired boy over to the next bed. "Gently, Cornelius, careful with his head. Peter, don't crowd! Go sit on the next bed. Miss," House turned his attention back to Luna, "Grab another rag and help Peter staunch his wound."

Dutchy did as he was told, going to the next empty bed, his left arm clamped tightly on his right hand, wrapped around his side. Blood soaked the side of his shirt, though there was a towel under his hand. His glasses were gone and he had never been so scared in his life, following Cornelius to the train. He couldn't recognize anyone without his glasses unless they were three feet away from him. But he had continued to fight until Baby Barnaby pulled him out of the fray for striking against another Yonkers boy that Don't Ask had brought with him with his iron poker.

Besides, Cornelius needed help over at the kiln, though Barnaby hadn't said why. Dutchy wondered why he'd need help if Don't Ask was there. There hadn't been time for catching up on stories, and as Dutchy had started blindly toward the back of the fight, a man punched him in the face and backed him against the wall, stabbing him in his right hand. The man fell and Dutchy was grabbed by who ever had saved him from further abuse, shoving him towards Cornelius, who was carrying Don't Ask in his arms.

"Holy cabooses, kiddo!" The Wanderer had exclaimed and eventually they made their way to the train.

And then here. Cornelius worked with Doctor House, tending to Don't Ask's wound. Cornelius had said "shot in the head" before, but attempted to convince Dutchy it was nothing. Shot in the head. How much worse did it get?

Dutchy gave a small forced smile towards Luna, able to recognize her better by her dark skin and checkered hat. A sharp pain swelled in Dutchy's hand and he gave a pained gasp, moving his hand from his side. Blood turning brown at his cuffs, already drying, more on his pants and shirt. Was all of it his? His nose had been bleeding from the blow the man had given him before butchering his hand. Another cut at the bridge of his nose and under his left eye from someone else punching him in the eye and breaking his glasses. He had gotten lucky with that one, he suspected. His left eye was turning a dark purple, blood in the whites of his eye. Those wounds weren't bleeding anymore, and hadn't been attended to yet, as they weren't as worse off as some of the others here. House had given his eye a quick check, astounded that no glass had gotten stuck in it. But Dutchy had insisted he was fine for now. Don't Ask was the one with the gunshot wound.

((Sorry, it's a bit all over the place, but people won't leave me alone to write! Also Cornelius the Wanderer and Baby Barnaby are random Yonkers boys that Ali grabbed from the cleverness of her mind for extra characters in a fight purposes.))

[lunayoung]

"Miss, please, if you're going to be here, lend a hand at least. We don't have quiet enough,"

Luna lifted her head up and looked around. Oh, he must mean me. She stood up giving Snoddy's hand a reassuring squeeze to let him know she'll be right back. "You just sit back and keep that ice on your forehead, Snoody. I'm gonna go see how I can help." She gave him a quick kiss on the top of his head, set her hat on the chair next to him, and headed over to the doctor who had talked to her.

"Grab another rag and help Peter staunch his wound."

Luna rushed over to a table nearby and grabbed another bowl of fresh water and a couple clean rags, and made her way over to the bed where Dutchy sat. She sat down beside him on the bed and gently took his hand. She took the towel away from his hand and dropped it on the floor. "Mon Dieu, Dutchy. What happened to you? You're covered in blood. Is all that blood on your shirt from your hand, or do you have more wounds?" Not waiting for his response, Luna quickly cleaned the dried blood off his hand so she could see where exactly it had all come from. Finding the deep knife wound, she threw the dirty cloth she had used to clean his hand onto the floor and placed a clean one on the wound and applied pressure to 'staunch' the wound as the Doc had asked.

Most girls would probably faint at the site of such wounds but not Luna. Growing up in Jamaica on her grandfather's land and on her father's ships, she had to learn to treat wounds and illnesses because they were a common occurrence among her grandfather's workers and her father's shipmates. And, both men didn't want her to grow up to be another 'spoiled, selfish twit to add to the population'.

As Luna kept pressure on Dutchy's hand with one hand, she used her other hand to take another clean rag and gently clean the blood and dirt from his face. "Let's see if I can clean up this face of yours, okay handsome?" she said, flashing him a small flirty smile. "How could a person hit someone wearing glasses?" she muttered to herself, scowling. If Snoddy, dutchy, Nike, and the kid everyone called DA were just a prequel to the injuries to come, she was afraid to think of how bad everyone else might be...

[dutchy]

"I'm not a kid, Luna," Dutchy took a surprisingly defensive tone, taking the rag from her and cleaning his own face, dabbing the cut under his eye. He glanced to her and felt a strong headache coming on. "I was swingin' just as hard as anyone else..." He let his voice soften a bit, not wanting to sound angry with her. She was only trying to help, honestly.

He looked past her, able to tell that someone was in the bed past Don't Ask's but couldn't even tell if it was a boy or girl. "Who's in the other bed?"

Dutchy didn't want to talk about his own injures, or how quickly he had been over taken after getting punched in the eye. He had barely been out in the fray for more than three minutes before Barnaby was hauling him away. Dutchy hadn't even wanted to fight, but now he felt overwhelmingly guilty. Don't Ask very well could die and Dutchy hadn't the since just to stick with him.

[Don't Ask]

The next thing Don't Ask was aware of was the crushing sensation of several people crowding him. Instinctively, he winced and tried to squirm away, hating that feeling with a passion, but he found his limbs were too heavy to move now, and there was a steady throbbing in his head.

"Gerroff," he mumbled weakly, and tried to raise his heavy eyelids. At the first sliver of light that hit his pupils, a stab of searing white-hot pain shot through his skull and he moaned.

"'Ey! 'Ey!" he heard someone exclaiming nearby. He knew that voice... Wait, he'd remember who it was in a minute... "She's comin' around!"

Right. Cornelius the Wanderer, from Yonkers. Riiight.

Don't Ask attempted to ask Cornelius to be quiet, to explain that his head was aching, but all he managed was a feeble "Shh..."

Slowly coming to his senses, Don't Ask realized that he was lying on his back, and there was a bright light in his eyes. And it certainly wasn't helping that there was someone standing near his head, pressing something repeatedly against the side of his head that caused sparks to fizzle behind his eyes with each touch.

"Gerroff," he repeated, summoning the strength to lift and hand and swat away whoever was doing whatever to his head. "Gerroff... off'a me. I--I'm okay, I'm good. Le'me alone."

Turning his head this way and that, trying unlock the tight muscles in his neck, Don't Ask struggled to remember what had happened. He remembered setting up the kiln and heating up his irons. And he remembered Dutchy and Styx and his friend with the Australian accent. And those boys from Yonkers who answered his plea for assistance. And then a lot of noise and fighting and--

Shit! All at once everything came rushing back. The fight for their missing friends, the fight for their lives. They'd had a good core together when a charging guard had split their group down the middle and sent half of them scattering into the fray unprotected--including Dutchy. And before Don't Ask could herd everyone together again, a sharp pain lanced down the side of his head, immediately followed by a dull explosion at the base of his skull, and he went down for the count.

Panic overriding his pain now, Don't Ask swiped frantically at the forms hovering over him, striking solid bodies without notice, and forced himself up on his elbows.

"Dutchy!" he cried, shoving Cornelius away as he attempted to push Don't Ask back down. "Waar is Dutchy? Wat aan Dutchy gebeurde?!"




((Dutch lesson for the day: "Waar is Dutchy? Wat ann Dutchy gebeurde?!" is "Where is Dutchy? What happened to Dutchy?!" Bedankt and goedenacht.))

[lunayoung]

"I'm not a kid, Luna,"

Luna scowled at Dutchy, "No, you're not. But, you're obviously an idiot if you won't let someone who knows what they're doing help you." She roughly set the bowl of water on the bed next to Dutchy--spilling a bit as she did so, and crossed her arms in front of her chest. Softening her scowl a bit, she added, "I know you're plenty capable of taking care of yourself... I'm just worried about my friends, and pissed off at the people who hurt them..." She uncrossed her arms and rested her hands in her lap, "I'm just trying to help."

"Who's in the other bed?"

Luna turned around towards the direction Dutchy was looking. "Oh, that's Nike. I don't really know what happened to her but she's hurt really bad. Snoddy brought her in. He's over there sitting." She pointed in Snoddy's direction, and turned back to face Dutchy. She stared down at her hands, recalling the way Snoddy looked when she first saw him on the floor. "He's messed up pretty bad too."

"Dutchy!"

The sudden shouting of Dutchy's friend brought Luna's attention back to the present. She turned to look in the direction of the shouting. "Dutch, you better let him know you're okay so he'll calm down and the doctors can fix him up. He's gonna hurt himself more, thrashing around hysterically like that."

[dutchy]

Dutchy did little more than ignore Luna, sulking as she stopped helping. He wanted her to. Just for her to hold his hand at least. She didn't have to go bathing his face like he was some messy eating four year old. Dutchy turned his hand over on his leg, pressing the rag to his palm as she spoke. His entire hand throbbed like someone beating a big bass drum.

"Dutchy!"

Before Luna even finished Dutchy nearly knocked her to the side and made his way to Don't Ask, "Hey. I'm fine. Just a few cuts. But I'm okay. Calm down."

Not wanting to be in the way, Dutchy rested his good hand, hisleft, on Don't Ask's knee, pressing the rag to his hip bone with his right hand.