-
Jan 22nd, 2010, 02:39:04 AM
#1
41 Shots (And We'll Take That Ride)
If there was one constancy in the field of medicine it was this: that at the tail end of a twelve hour shift, when muscles were aching and the brain was struggling just to keep up with monosyllabic conversation, when all that stood between one and a stiff drink in a hot bath were chart updates and signing out, a new intake never failed to show up and it was almost always messy.
Chaz de Coventina pressed at her eyelids with a trembling hand as she keyed up a file from the personnel database, one Carston Antares, a tech who'd gone into anaphylactic shock after ingesting the shellfish special for dinner. He was fine--passed out and covered in hives but breathing, at least--and as she keyed in the procedural rundown into his chart, she couldn't help but let out a beleaguered sigh. She was exhausted, bone-weary in a way that made her skin crawl, residual adrenaline tingling in her extremities.
She was barely aware of the voice addressing her until a rising insistence in inflection cut through the building fuzziness that cluttered her mind. "Dr. de Coventina?"
"Sorry. What, Magda?" Chaz frowned and looked askance at the infirmary assistant, a small girl with silver-coloured skin that looked luminescent even under the dull clinic lighting. Magda grinned.
"I just wanted to know if you wanted some caf?"
"No. My shift's done in twenty, I'll be fine."
"Oh. Okay," Magda nodded and turned to go, then paused and squinted at the screen. "You gave him H4b?"
No, of course she hadn't. It was an antiquated sedative and hardly the ideal choice, sending patients into a deep hole that they had to claw out of; mostly they stocked it because it was easy to obtain and, in an emergency, better than nothing.
"Yes," Chaz answered, resolutely inputing data. "Antares has an infirmary phobia, and an unfortunate allergy to the local. It made things easier on everyone."
Magda accepted that with a sympathetic smile and turned to leave. Chaz glanced over her shoulder. "Magda?"
"Mm?"
"Unless it's an emergency, I'm not here anymore. Let's be generous and leave Dr. Henning something to do."
Last edited by Chaz de Coventina; Jan 23rd, 2010 at 09:30:03 PM.
-
Jan 22nd, 2010, 02:49:02 AM
#2
-
Jan 22nd, 2010, 03:10:30 AM
#3
"Um," Magda's mouth twisted uncertainly as she stared at the Cizerack and his flailing rucksack. While the view wasn't a bad one by any means, it didn't afford her the opportunity to look at the injured areas and assess whether or not it could wait. "I... don't know."
She smiled apologetically and disappeared down a corridor, head poking around the corner. "Just a sec'," Magda chirped, teeth glinting as she graciously waved toward a curtained-off area. "You can set him down, if you like."
The tiny girl vanished again and moments later, hushed voices echoed from somewhere down the hall, one apologetic yet insistently countering the clearly irritated cadence of the other. When Magda returned she was followed by a thin-lipped Chaz, arms up as she retied her auburn hair back. It took all her self-control not to roll her eyes upon catching sight of what the cat had, literally, dragged in. The equally long-suffering expression on the felinoid's face stopped her; familiarity bred empathy in this case, and she managed to dredge up enough energy to shoot Cirr a wry smile as she arched a brow at his companion.
"Right, let me guess," Chaz breezed, planting her hands on her hips. "The other guy had it coming?"
-
Jan 22nd, 2010, 08:13:14 PM
#4
-
Jan 22nd, 2010, 09:43:18 PM
#5
"I see," Chaz nodded, leaning over the limp form and tugging back on his shirt collar to get a better view of the bruises blooming there. "You're a good friend." Probably better than this ruffian deserves.
There was nothing gentle about the way she prodded at Sanis's ribs, slender fingers jabbing insistently at the thin skin. "Hello," Chaz said, voice rising as she watched the man's face for any signs of his having heard her. She poked him again, "Can you tell me your name?"
-
Jan 22nd, 2010, 10:01:53 PM
#6
-
Jan 22nd, 2010, 11:42:14 PM
#7
"Well, it's not everyday we get celebrities in here, Mr. Skywalker," Chaz countered dryly as she placed a restraining hand on the idiot's chest. Magda slipped in quietly with a coldpac, slipping it beneath his neck and handing Chaz a scanner. "I must say, death's been very kind to you."
As she held the scanner up and ran it down his face, watching the screen intently as the palely glowing outline of his bones, her hand began to shake, fine tremors that radiated up her arm. The woman switched grip and shook the offending appendage slightly, face undisturbed.
It was a clean break over the bridge, something the knitter would fix in no time. Magda was no doubt preparing it this very minute.
Chaz patted his stubbled cheek and pulled back his eyelids, shining her penlight at each pupil. Their reaction was slight but there; minor concussion, probably the least of his worries and not an unfamiliar injury by the sounds of things. Smiling cheerily, Chaz braced her fingers on either side of his face.
"Luke," She said, twisting her hands sharply. There was an audible pop. "Can you tell me where you are?"
-
Jan 23rd, 2010, 12:00:57 AM
#8
-
Jan 23rd, 2010, 12:28:11 AM
#9
"Very good - you're not completely out of it, bravo," Quickly grabbing some sterile pads from the drawer to her immediate left, Chaz mopped up the fresh stream of blood that had poured from Luke's nose and then rolled a pair of fresh strips to gingerly insert into his nostrils.
"We're going to need to get you out of this so I can take a look at you," She gestured at his shirt, damp with blood and sweat and bar grease and who-knew-what-else. Of course he wasn't in any condition to sit up just yet, not without a severe case of vertigo, at least. Right then. There was more than one way to skin a scallywag.
The surgery shears in the deep pocket of her clinic jacket hadn't gone through a wash since that morning but it wasn't a concern here, with just the thin material of his shirt to cut through. Chaz grasped them, fingers folding around the familiar shape, and grabbed the hem of his shirt and brought it to the gleaming blades. She made to move the first cut but stopped when her hand trembled again, enough to caution her to bring the sharp tool back. The last thing 'Mr. Skywalker' needed was a hole in his abdomen.
Pressing the heel of one hand to her right eye, Chaz glanced at Cirr. She motioned vaguely to his paws and then to the offending garment. "Would you mind? It's been a long day."
-
Jan 23rd, 2010, 12:40:14 AM
#10
-
Jan 23rd, 2010, 01:26:41 AM
#11
With the shirt out of the way, Chaz was afforded a good look at the mess of discoloured skin that was masquerading as the man's chest and abdomen. She winced - some things were just instinctual and the phantom pain that blossomed across her own ribs was one of them.
The scanner didn't show any fractures, much less breaks, but it was no doubt uncomfortable. He was going to be sporting some magnificent black and blue marks for awhile. "Must've been a hell of a fight," Chaz muttered, prodding roughly at the sinews of the man's unmarked shoulder when she saw his eyes closed. "Hey, Champ, look alive. If I have to stay up, so do you."
Eying Cirr's less-than-thrilled countenance with something resembling sympathy, Chaz nodded at him. "Listen, you look like you could use a break - I bet every now and then his cherished presence gets old and it's my opinion that he ought to stay here for a few hours anyway, just in case. You can come collect him later or I can send him staggering back. Either way."
-
Jan 23rd, 2010, 01:35:29 AM
#12
-
Jan 23rd, 2010, 01:42:19 AM
#13
Yes, she would most definitely call him Cirr because the rest of that had sounded like a bunch of rolling syllables all whipped up in a blender. Chaz placed her own, much smaller, hand in his and shook it firmly. "Chaz de Coventina. Cirr, you're a much better friend than I am."
"Mr. Prent, I'm disappointed. Do you know how much a post-mortem autograph from the Luke Skywalker would have fetched me on the black market?" Chaz clucked and shook her head before giving him an appraising stare. "You still with us? Know what year it is and all of that complicated stuff?"
-
Jan 23rd, 2010, 01:52:07 AM
#14
-
Jan 23rd, 2010, 01:55:02 AM
#15
Chaz grinned. "That's very convincing. You might take up acting when bar brawling gets stale."
"How many?" She waved four fingers in front of his eyes. "You get it right, I might even fix that nose of yours up, keep that pretty profile in mint condition."
-
Jan 23rd, 2010, 01:59:54 AM
#16
-
Jan 23rd, 2010, 02:19:05 AM
#17
"It's very strange to meet a female physician in a medbay," Chaz agreed, sliding one of the sleek cabinet doors open and withdrawing a palm-sized bottle of plasto-cast out. "Stick around long enough and you might meet a tech down at the docking bay. Shocking."
A glance at the wall chrono showed she was twenty minutes over her shift but Dr. Henning hadn't shown up yet, or else was occupied already. It didn't matter, really, they didn't have the luxury of strict schedules in an operation like this but she could feel the throb of need swelling in her bones, making it harder to concentrate through the anxious buzz humming at her temples. The fact that she was worn out was a blessing, providing an honest camouflage for the bastard trying to rip out of her skin.
Chaz winked at Sanis as she lifted herself to perch on the edge of his bed, spritzing a bit of plasto-cast onto the bridge of his nose. She worked at the slick liquid as gently as she could, firming it gradually and molding it into a thin strip that would adjust itself as the swelling went down. "So what was the fight about? A girl? Someone insult your mother?"
-
Jan 23rd, 2010, 11:54:56 AM
#18
-
Jan 23rd, 2010, 03:01:29 PM
#19
"A couple of days," Chaz murmured, tongue creeping out between her teeth as she concentrated on evening out the flexible webbing of the nose brace. "Magda will run the knitter over it before you leave. It's a clean break; there shouldn't be any problems but it'll need a bit of support. And at the very least," She pulled back and arched an elegant brow at him. "It might dissuade others from clocking you in the face for the next little while."
Or encourage them, if they were assholes. Chaz glanced at the mottled bruises littering his torso and shook her head. "I'd offer you something for the pain but I'm not very charitable and I don't want to offend your masculinity."
-
Jan 23rd, 2010, 08:02:36 PM
#20
Posting Permissions
- You may not post new threads
- You may not post replies
- You may not post attachments
- You may not edit your posts
-
Forum Rules
Bookmarks