west_end_blues | (no subject)

(no subject)

Who: Gary Knight (Gaheris Rhade) | Dylan Hunt | Martha Jones
What: Dylan is wounded during a raid on a rival's business and Gary has to take him to Dr. Jones
When: After Alpha's return
Where: Martha's "clinic"
Warnings & Notes: Descriptions of violence and blood. More might be added.

This was a situation he'd never wanted to find himself in. As a child, Gary was in many fights; he was a sturdy young man and a good way for other sturdy young men to prove themselves, until they started losing. The fighting never stopped, and even when he was broken and bruised he still had the impression he had come out winning no matter his condition.

This was the first time that he felt like he was losing.

He would have to pick apart the decision later, but it was easy enough when he made it. He shouldn't have; he should have let him die, satisfy the FBI with two dead gangsters, or he should have taken Dylan to them and made him bargain for his health. Instead it was the dead of night, frosty and cold enough to see his breath, and he had a bleeding man in his arms that he shouldn't be worried about, and he was kicking at a door because he had no free hands to knock with.

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Dylan was fading in and out of consciousness. The gangster's bullet had ripped into his side, making each breath agonizing. He clung to Rhade's shirt with bloody hands.

"Where...?" Was all he was able to get out.

Somehow Rhade had carried him out of the mobster's den. He'd have to ask him how he pulled that off sometime, when he didn't feel like passing out or puking. But however Rhade did it, Dylan knew he was safe with him. He didn't know why, but something in his gut told him that he could trust the arrogant bastard. And this proved him right. It wasn't just anyone who'd drag him out of an enemy hideout at great risk to life and limb.

Martha Jones, doctor with a small d, was used to people banging on her door in the middle of the night. It was one of the perks and drawbacks of being who she was and taking on the clientele that she did.

That didn't stop her from opening it with a small pistol concealed in her apron pocket; she always had a just in case policy, especially on those sort of nights.

Seeing it was someone hurt, Martha nodded to them. "Go on through, straight to behind the screen." The room was not overly large, but when Martha turned the lights on, it was extremely well lit, the screen was white and of paper in order to afford both the patient and herself some privacy. Besides, it was good to give herself some distance when she needed to dig out bullets. On the other side of the screen, there was brighter lights, a table with restraints and a metal table set up with medical instruments and ether.

Just in case.

"Stay calm," though when he told Dylan to stay calm, he sounded a touch too forceful to be calm himself. When she opened the door he nodded to her and brought in Dylan, carefully hauling him in to the table. Not as cushy as the public ones, but Dylan would have to deal.

"We need to get you fixed up."

And assuming she was like every other doctor in the countryside, as soon as he had Dylan sat down he was emptying the contents of his wallet on the counter, setting aside the money to pay for the sudden treatment. "He bumped into a bullet. It took offense." We should have gone in firing, he repeated to himself.

Dylan had hoped so much that with a show of force and a bribe they would have been able to convince him to leave town. Turned out the other mobster didn't want to leave.

He groaned in pain as Rhade stretched him out on the tablet. But he was conscious enough to hear Rhade's explanation.

"The bullet won," he joked through gritted teeth.

"Bullets normally do mate." Martha said quickly, moving to wash her hands in the sink at the back of the room. Cleanliness was important, even if you were in a backroom rather than an operating theater. "But you're alright, I've got you."

Eyeing the money on the counter as she turned, Martha nodded. She had yet to turn away someone who didn't pay, but she wasn't about to set herself up as someone that good-hearted. Being that kind was only going to get you taken advantage of in this town and the last thing Martha Jones was was an idiot.

Adjusting the light, Martha reached out and touched the wound, looking for an exit wound.

"I tried to tell him that." He had to get at least one jab in, but he moved just out of the way of Martha's work, letting her do what was necessary. Said big, heartless and arrogant mobster didn't leave Dylan's proximity, though. He stayed close as he could, close enough to be on the unharmed side and wrap still bloody fingers around Dylan's hand.

"I was concerned I wouldn't find anyone tonight." He'd had to ask around to find a place- which was hard, when you had a potentially dying man on your hands, subordinates eager to take the place of their former boss trying to make their mark by shooting you on your way out, and then having to drive across burroughs in the cold just to find the one place that was open.

It had been a miracle, but then again it was a miracle also that he was admitting concern.

A touch, even the doctor's light one, was agonizing. Dylan clamped his mouth shut over what would otherwise have been a yell of pain. But he was strong, he'd get through this with the doctor and Gary's help. He gripped the hand in his tight.

The doctor's words caught his attention, though. Or not the words, really, but the voice. A woman's voice. He cracked open his eyes.

"A colored woman doctor. Now there's something you don't see every day." He looked to Gary, his gaze unfocused from pain and blood loss. "You found a damned marvel, Rhade. Thank you."

"You're both lucky that I've gotten here then." There was a quick brush of a smile over at the man called Rhade, and then she looked to the man who was her patient when he mentioned her being a colored woman doctor. Most people wouldn't have called her a marvel, which had been one of the reasons that she was having such a hard time getting patients.

"Don't forget English too," she added, trying to keep the tone light, but with her eyes on his color, she knew that she needed to get some morphine into him, and when she found no exit wound, it meant that she was going to go digging for a bullet.

"Are you allergic to morphine, mate? I'm going to need to go in and take the bullet out and get you stitched up. Can't do it if you're flopping around like a fish out of water." Martha had learned to make painkillers about her needs rather than the man's pain. Then there was less need to look like the person was manly in front of his friends.

He almost told Dylan not to call him that. It was a name he didn't go by anymore, not since he was a boy in the Empire. He didn't remember much about it, just that after they came here his family abandoned their name and insisted on not going back. One drunken conversation led to a bit too much talking. A delirious one apparently has led to someone else hearing it.

Maybe he could make himself forgettable, and Dylan was hurt to badly to chide him for it. He just let him squeeze unforgivingly at his fingers.

"Give it to him. He can blame me later."

She had a similar accent to Miss Persson. Gary had long since lost most of his (you had to have a keen ear to tell), but these women were relatively new to the states, weren't they? He chose not to mention that, either.

"Won't blame you." He was clammy and breathless, but still talkative. "You saved me. You and the pretty English doctor."

He winked at the woman whose name he didn't even know. It might have come off better if he weren't white as a sheet and on the edge of unconsciousness.

Edited (wrong icon) 2012-12-29 07:27 (UTC)

Martha smiled at her patient in return for the wink, and then she turned away and got a large amount of morphine in a needle, filling it with a grin before she turned and injected it into his arm after finding a vein. "This should help, mate."

Putting the needle down, Martha then turned back to the bullet that was in his side and she put her professional face on. "Alright, can't keep calling you mate since my fingers are going inside of you. What's your name?"

Keeping her voice calm and warm, Martha looked to the other man and met his eyes, trying to indicate that she wanted the patient to answer, because she thought it would be a good indicator of the drugs effectiveness.

The injected morphine hit almost immediately. He smiled, still pale but the tension on his face eased.

"'m Dylan." He nodded to Gary. "He's Knight." He was cognizant enough to think that he shouldn't give a stranger their full names, but not enough to be consistent about it.

He nodded, letting Dylan answer for him as his hand was squeezed and generally waited to see if there was any reaction there, too. He was still hoping that they were forgettable enough, but the better idea was to be quiet about it, it seemed.

"Anybody you want me to talk to when we get back or anything you want me to do? Better tell me now 'cause I don't know how much you'll want to talk later."

Dylan thought about it for a moment.

"Make sure the roof doesn't fall in." Translation: you're in charge until he was fit to make decisions again. And since there might be a retaliation coming, there'd be a lot of decisions that'd need making fast.

Then he nodded to the doctor. He was ready.

"Alright, Dylan, I'm going to be starting now. I'd rather not use the ether unless you really need it." It was expensive and hard to get for her. It was something she would use only if it was really needed. Right now she had Mr. Knight to help if she needed too, but hopefully that would be enough.

Moving to the metal table, Martha drew it closer to the table with her patient on it. Taking a deep breath, Martha held the tweezers and she started to move her finger in the wound once more, thankful for the fact that there was no smell that meant that he'd been hit in the intestines. That was nearly always fatal, thanks to infection and the like. "Here we go." Three words, and Martha moved her instrument inside as gently as possible, looking for the bullet that was causing the problem. Hopefully the tearing inside hadn't been so great as to require her to cut in and sew up things inside.

Ha, wouldn't that be ironic? Through the decision to save this man's life for reasons he couldn't quite put together in any sensible order he may have put himself in charge of one of West End's larger gangs. The secret agent with the FBI, the covert operative put in charge.

And he was actually torn about informing his superiors.

"You should get better quickly, then. I don't believe I can inspire the same loyalty." He knew he couldn't. He was sneaky and snide and obviously condescending, and some of the other men under Dylan had trouble living up to his demanding nature. He just squeezed his hand, holding it tight and looking down at their clasped fingers rather than what Martha's were doing. The blood was on both hands now.

"You'll do fi--" And then the doctor was digging into his abdomen to find the bullet and his sentence was cut off as he gritted his teeth and groaned. His hand clenched down on Gary's, practically grinding the fingerbones together.

He almost passed out again. Almost hoped he would. Gary would probably even be nice enough (or maybe just enjoy having a secret enough) to tell everyone that he didn't pass out during surgery, so his reputation as the toughest of the tough would remain secure.

Martha Jones was very good at this, and her hands didn't even have the slightest tremor. Her eyes were kept forward on her work, and her finger moved lightly and easily like a surgeons before she removed the bullet with a little smile and dropped it onto the specimen cup on the table.

That done, she reached for the sewing needle and the thread that would provide the stitches. Leaning in and looking closely, Martha slowly put in a neat, even line of stitches, delicate and small, the sort that would at least attempt to minimize a scar.

He let him squeeze his hand, and he honestly didn't mind that it hurt. It kept him from looking down at what she was doing, he didn't want to see what she was doing, and that made him realize how badly he'd not wanted to see Dylan hurt. Here he was with Dylan's entire organization in his hands and he couldn't even do his job.

What was his job anymore?

Still, he drew his gaze up Dylan's face when he heard the plink of the bullet. "I hope you don't intend to do something like that again anytime soon." It didn't exactly sound like mock scolding, either.

Dylan tried to smile through gritted teeth. It looked more like a grimace.

"Nah, next time I'll let someone else bump into the bullet. Me an' bullets don't get along that well. I think I want to avoid close association from now on."

He was babbling a bit. Morphine did that to him.

While the two men talked, Martha stitched, and for all the world it looked like she wasn't paying attention to anything but the skin that she was pulling closed. But that wasn't true; it always a good thing to know what people were talking about, especially in her business. Just in case she needed to be prepared for what was to come.

After snipping off the thread, Martha added some antiseptic to the wound, and then bandaged it up.

He didn't say much more than that. Somewhere there was a dead man, and there were people looking for them. Martha was one of the few places people could go to that were open that late, but she was also not the first choice of many for base and simplistic reasons.

"How long should he stay still? I know I'll have to move him soon." At least get him to a safe house. This was a little ridiculous, the effort he was going through to save this man.

"I should give you your hand back," he said to his very drugged "superior".

"No," he said to Gary. "I like it." And he gripped his hand harder again, as if afraid Gary might try to snatch it away from him. He smiled at Gary then, a bright but tired smile.

Then turned that same smile to the doctor. "You're a real doll. Want to have dinner sometime?" It was a bad idea to invite someone out to dinner who'd probably patched up his rivals as readily as she'd fixed him. Not to mention that it was probably the least romantic setting for an invitation, with him flat on his back and drugged and her recently having her hands in his abdomen.

"Ask me again sometime when I know you're not tipsy from the meds, Dylan." A gentle letting down, but a letting down nonetheless. As sweet as this man may be now, what it came down to was the fact that he was drugged and he was here because a bullet was in his side.

With a grin she added, "can't let everyone thing I drugged ya up to get a date, can we?" A pause, and then she was quite serious again. "Get him home and in bed. If you get me, I'll come 'round and check on him in the morning."

"See? And now she told me to take you home. You have to let go of my hand." He squeezed the other's first before extracting his own, but even with Dylan drugged he had the spare time to actually be gentle in picking him up in this case.

He smiled kindly to Martha. "He likes pretty women." He was used to it. He picked up Dylan, more careful than before now that he was sewn up and Dylan wouldn't know how hurt he was if he did get hurt, and started for the door with him.

"I'll be back when 'm sober," he called out to Martha.

He grunted slightly when Rhade lifted him, but the pain wasn't as bad as earlier when he was still bleeding out. He suspected that the drugs contributed to that, and he'd have to be careful to make sure he didn't accidentally pull his stitches while his pain was blunted.

The absurdity of the picture of Gary carrying him over the threshold in his arms popped into his mind, and he jokingly hummed the Bridal March song.

"He's going to be in a fair amount of pain tomorrow, if he starts running a fever, come and find me, yeah? I'll be here." Martha gestured around the room, but she made no mention of pain medicine. She knew by now from experience that the pharmacy wouldn't fill her prescriptions, and that her own stores were such that they weren't going to be able to send him on his way with things.

But that was the price when you paid when you saw her rather than went to the other doctor.

"I'll look forward to it!" The words were called to Dylan with a chuckle, but she didn't have any illusions; he probably wouldn't be back.

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