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There are exactly two things in this world that you know yourself to be capable of handling beyond a shadow of a doubt: the Kineema and a crisis. So when you shoulder through the doors to the Whirling, head throbbing and vision still blurred full minutes after the blows from the butt of Kortenaer’s rifle, fumbling to keep Harry from slipping out of your arms, you are not panicking. It would, in fact, probably be accurate to say you are the calmest person in this cafeteria. Good. You can trust no stability but your own.
“Hoist him onto this table,” you say curtly, half to yourself and half to Cuno, the little fucking menace, though you don't think you're allowed to call him that in your head anymore given how fast he’d scurried into the courtyard in the shootout’s aftermath and demanded to help. Either way he’s the one holding up Harry’s legs now, a manic grin splitting his face. Been cackling like a hyena for God knows how long, but he's the only one except you who seems to give a shit that Harry’s been shot. So.
On your count, he drops Harry’s dead-fish body onto the flimsy plastic maybe a little too enthusiastically. Harry groans and thrashes his head sideways, and you have to catch his face in your palm to keep him from slamming his temple into the tabletop. The last thing this man needs is to add a concussion to his already encyclopedic list of physical damages.
“Careful,” you mutter. It’s more out of habit than any expectation of remorse or reparation.
“Cuno doesn’t fuckin’ care!” he sneers at you, tossing his head.
Predictable, but any recently-acquired goodwill you might've held for the kid evaporates on the spot regardless. You don't have Harry’s patience or tact with asshole children and, frankly, have no desire to learn it, but it's Cuno or the cafeteria manager shitting himself upstairs or one of the long-gone Union men or the balcony smoker or a random bystander in this cafeteria or you assisting you with acute wound care, and the last time you tried that—you end the thought there and force yourself to let out a long, slow breath.
Negotiating with the kid would just be another distraction. You can handle this new crisis, like so many others, alone.
What you really need is for your vision to clear.
So you don't humor him. You lift a weary eyebrow and hold eye contact through the haze, and after a couple seconds, Cuno’s mouth twists into unfamiliar solemnity.
He pats Harry’s knee awkwardly. “Sorry, pig.” He looks at you expectantly, then, after a pause, adds, “Sorry, other pig. For your pig friend.”
You weren't expecting that. You were expecting him to screech a slur at you and leave. You try not to let the surprise show on your face.
“Mmh. He'll be fine, Mr. de Ruyter. With our help.” After a moment of consideration, you pull off your gloves. Hardly sanitary, but you're out of latex, and these are your good driving gloves, and though they're already slick from putting pressure on the wound earlier, you'd prefer not to further stain them with blood and whatever other assorted detritus Harry’s accumulated on his person over the last couple days/weeks/months/years. You shrug off the bomber as well while you're at it. That makes you feel uncomfortably exposed, but your arms are free and it gives you brief direction, folding it up neat and setting it on the bench. Cuno follows suit with his own ratty jacket, which is unnecessary but, for your purposes, worth noting: he is capable of following instructions and nonverbal cues from authority under the correct circumstances. The correct circumstances seem to be these. Good, you think again.
Supposedly, the mark of real understanding of a given topic is the ability to teach the topic in question to a child. Today, you fucking guess, you are testing your understanding of First Aid.
“The first order of business is to get his trousers out of the way so we can see the wound,” you say, and in spite of yourself you shoot him a wary glance out of the corner of your eye—for a moment you're fifteen and in the locker room again, trying not to let your eyes linger anywhere too long—but Cuno is not your high school bullies. Sure, in any other circumstances he would've been tasteless about it, you don't doubt that, but right now his eyes are glittering with fascination, fixed on the blood dripping onto the tabletop. So in silence you reach over and undo Harry’s belt, steady-handed as ever. Your vision is coalescing again slowly, you note in the back of your head. Your glasses are smudged with blood. But there’s nothing you can do about that.
“I'm going to lift his hips up and you will—carefully—push the trousers down. Not all the way down for now. Just a few inches so they aren't trapped in place.” Maybe it isn't too bad having the kid around, if only because every word you speak aloud gives you direction, centers you further.
“So just down over his ass?” Cuno says, giving you an ugly grin. Never mind, you think, it is exactly that bad having the kid around. You jerk your chin in a nod, lips pressed together, and he cackles. “Just say that then, piggie.”
You clear your throat.
“Also, why can't we just cut them off,” he complains, still ignoring you, but he's already moving into place. His bony hands are trembling like he's had too much caffeine, though you know it isn’t coffee making him move like that. That should be fine, at least in the short term. It's not like you were planning on giving him any of the delicate work anyway.
Nevertheless, you sigh. “I'd prefer not to damage his clothing any more than it already has been if we don't have to. On my count again, please.” You slide your hands under the small of Harry’s back. He's warm. Solid. Sweaty enough that even his jacket is damp. To your surprise, the texture doesn't even make you pull a face. “Okay. One, two, three—” You exhale and lever your palms upward as hard as you can. Even then, you end up having to put your back into it, and it's still a struggle to lift him the requisite inches off the table for Cuno to wrest the pants down his hips, brow furrowed in concentration. “Good job,” you say offhandedly as you let Harry rest back down against the table.
You're shocked when, in response, Cuno beams up at you. It makes him look simultaneously much younger and much older. Smiling, he looks like the child that he is instead of the too-small manic husk, but just for a flash you can also see the man he’ll become. Still gangling and worryingly lean but with a boxy jaw and faint crow’s feet and a disarming, gap-toothed smile. If he makes it that long.
“Kim?” Harry rasps then, and against all logic you freeze in your tracks and look at him. Instinctive. “Why're you taking off my pants?”
You bite the inside of your cheek to keep yourself from, absurdly, smiling. “You were shot in the pelvis, detective. Or high in your left quadriceps, to be more specific.”
“Ouch.”
“Yes.” It takes effort to stop yourself there, but you don't have any time or emotion to spare even him. And you know that if you continue, you will not be able to trust your voice to stay level.
(He won't remember this anyway—you can tell by the feverish glaze in his eyes—but still.)
“Want me to give him some painkillers?” Cuno asks excitedly, already digging through his pockets, and the slip into first person is not lost on you. “I got drouamine in here somewhere, stole a pack from the Frittte a week ago—”
You have a pack too, tucked in at the top of your First Aid kit because it’s not a blood-thinning painkiller like most, but you decide to indulge Cuno on this. “Yes, please. But first we need to elevate his leg. Can you find me a box in one of the backrooms around here?”
“Elevate?” he asks, then, when you open your mouth to answer, snaps, “Cuno knows what it means, Cuno isn't fucking stupid , but why?”
“Blood flows from the heart, right?” you say, and Cuno nods impatiently. “If we lift his leg up so it's no longer level with his heart, it will be more difficult for his heart to pump blood there, which will slow the bleeding. Which is good,” you add unnecessarily.
“No shit,” Cuno sneers, but he scurries off anyway.
You turn your attention back to Harry, who’s squinting up at you with what might be affection. “You're not actually that terrible with him, you know,” he says.
You snort. “If you call me ‘juvie,’ detective, I will let you bleed out.”
“Right in the middle of Garte’s cafeteria? He’ll never forgive you.”
“Oh, no. Let's be realistic here. He’ll never forgive you.”
“Why’s it gotta be my fault?” he whines. “I got shot. And you're the one who dragged me here.”
“Haven’t you heard? It's always your fault,” you murmur, half-smiling, then shake your head to clear it and rest your fingertips on the waistband of Harry's pants. “Stop distracting me.”
“‘Course, sorry. ‘ll let you get back to taking my pants off.” He then tries to lift his head, making a face at you that is likely supposed to be a suggestive, devil-may-care grin.
You sigh heavily. “Put your head back down, you're going to make yourself pass out.”
“Fine, fine.” He does. You get to the painstaking work of pulling his pants off without hurting him too much or, worse, making it weird. Apart from some sharp intakes of breath, hisses of pain—you refuse to even once look at his face during all this—it seems fine. Some agonizing number of seconds later, you finally manage to tug the horrifically tight pants over his feet, fold them, and drop them on the bench. Then look at the gunshot wound.
The gunshot wound is—a gunshot wound. You look at it for only a moment before rushing to pull out some squares of gauze and press them to the bullet hole. Harry jerks and curses at the sharp, sudden pressure, but you ignore him, mind racing. It looks bad but not the worst you've seen. No exit wound, but also no major arteries hit. The healing process will be painful and patching him up will be difficult, but when isn't it? Almost certainly, Harry will live. The knot in your chest unties itself without much fanfare, the tension wrapped around your spinal cord uncoiling a little with it. You could cry. You won't, but you could.
“How's it lookin’, doc?” he grins, craning his neck to try and catch your gaze. You don't let him, instead turning to open your First Aid kit so you can pick out the other necessary supplies with your free hand, set them in a neat line on the bench next to the side edge of your jacket. “Pretty bad?” he needles. “Awesome? Disco? Actually, ‘s it possible for a gunshot wound to be disco? I guess if ‘nyone could manage it it'd be m—”
“You're fine, Harry,” you mutter absently, running your thumb along the edge of a gauze square.
The grin widens, and he tilts his head. “‘Harry’?” It's not the first time you've let it slip out, but it's the first time he's commented on it and therefore the first time it's had to mean something.
Your movements stutter for half a second but you do not give yourself more than that before amending, “I meant to say lieutenant. My apologies.” It's alright, you remind yourself. He won't remember this. You aren’t sure whether this disappoints or relieves you.
“No, no, ‘s okay. ‘ve been calling you Kim th’ whole time—”
“You're slurring your words, lieutenant,” you tell him as crisply as you can to drive the point home. “Don't strain yourself. Maybe it would help if you closed your eyes and stayed quiet for once in your life.”
“Talking makes it hurt less,” he insists mulishly.
His face remains caught in a smile that you still find too charming for your own good. That’s the problem, isn't it, the fact that you can't perform that essential alchemy if he's talking, can't make him stop being Harry in your mind long enough to treat him. For this to work you must transmute him from your partner to a bloodied slab of flesh and meat. Because if you look at him and keep seeing the man who's barely left your side through the horrors of the last few days, the man with the perpetual hangdog smile curling his lips and the truly disgusting fashion sense and the snort-laugh and barely any memories that don't include your face, you are going to be afraid of losing him which means you are going to fuck this up. You cannot fuck this up.
“In that case, you’d better hope you pass out from pain sooner rather than later,” you say instead of any of all that. “Shut up.”
Harry looks like he's about to retort, but, miracle of miracles, this is when Cuno reappears from the kitchen at a dead run with what looks like an old cardboard shipping box held above his head. It is perhaps the first time you've ever been grateful to see the kid.
“Good work, Cuno. I’ll take that. Can you give him a drouamine, please?” You grab the box from Cuno as he skids past and wedge it under Harry’s knee. Harry groans again.
“Stop fuckin’ whining and take the pill,” Cuno grouses, waving it threateningly over Harry’s head like he’s contemplating just jamming it down his throat. “What, d’you need water or some shit? Can’t dry-swallow?”
“We can’t give him water anyway,” you say, more brusque than you meant to. “Gunshot victims can’t eat or drink anything. Hurry this up, please. I need to get started or he will bleed out.”
“No, ‘m fine,” Harry rasps, eyes half-closed. “Keep mocking me about my fuckin’, uh… pill-swallowing abilities. This ‘s awesome.”
“Take the drouamine, officer.”
“Yessir.”
You wait for him to do so, then sigh for what may be the thousandth time in the last four days and grab the tourniquet. “Cuno, I’ll need more of your help for this part. Hold his leg steady.”
Cuno circles the table and grabs Harry’s leg hard (Harry winces). “What’s it for?”
“You apply it five to seven centimeters above the wound, and it exsanguinates the limb,” you explain, wrapping the device as far up his leg as you can, given the circumstances. Probably not the full five to seven centimeters, if you're being entirely honest with yourself, but you know a tourniquet is easily your best shot at stopping the bleeding fast. You’re just glad you thought to ask the 57th’s medic for a spare last time you saw him. “Helps to stop the bleeding more quickly. Elevating the legs works fine in most cases, and, if the victim is in shock, which is more likely than not, it helps blood flow to the brain, but be careful not to do that with someone who was shot in the spine or thorax or the blood will pool in the chest cavity.” You exhale hard and convince yourself to inhale again, then tighten the straps of the tourniquet until Harry makes another noise, twitching uselessly, before you relax and leave it be. “We should only leave this on for half an hour or the exsanguination damage may be worse than the blood loss might have been for him, but that should be enough time to do what we need to do.”
“Are we gonna try and pull out the bullet?” Cuno asks, eyes lighting up.
“Yes, though in a perfect world this would be left to an actual doctor. I have nothing to cauterize it with, and digging around in a gunshot wound has consequences we are not prepared for.” You catch yourself sighing yet again. “But, well. We have a case to solve, and we can’t afford the delay. Not to mention the medical bill. And luckily, unless I have wildly misjudged or the lieutenant-yefreitor is a true physiological freak of nature, the bullet should not be near any arteries.”
That, and you want the bullet out of him. It is a desire that borders on pathological. It's inexplicable, but you cannot leave this untouched.
You hold out your hand, closing your eyes briefly to steady yourself. “So. The tweezers, please.”
He slaps them into your open palm, the same demented grin as ever on his face.
You open your eyes and look back down at Harry, settling a hand on his knee. “Lieutenant?” you say quietly, kicking yourself all the while. It's stupid. Overly sentimental.
Worse still that, despite everything, he manages another open-mouthed, dazed smile as his eyes crack open to meet yours. “Wha’s up, Kim?”
“I’m sorry. This is going to hurt.” And you force yourself to look away from him. Without any further hesitation, you lift the layers of gauze off the wound, take a deep breath, and probe into the gaping, bloody bullet hole.
It is terrible. Everything about it is terrible. Cuno hunched over your shoulder like a voyeuristic rook. The blood spurting out in uneven pulses, rushing sticky and warm over your fingers. The sharp breaths Harry’s taking through his teeth like he’s trying not to make any agonized noises for your benefit. The wet squelch of flesh. The relentless, suffocating feeling that you’ve somehow fucked it all up, that he’s going to bleed out here anyway and it’ll all be for nothing. Every second that the tweezers don’t collide with the bullet or its shrapnel is hell. Hell goes on for a while.
It’s honestly a little better once Harry does finally pass out from pain or shock or a combination of the two—just in case it’s shock, you get Cuno to go find some blankets from your room, sending up a mental apology to Mr. Garte—but not by much. You spare yourself a second then to collect yourself, to think. Your composure does not break. It wouldn’t matter if it had; you’re alone in the cafeteria by now anyway, but it’s the principle of the thing. And the fact that you’re not sure you know how to break composure anymore without breaking entirely, and you have no interest in that.
You turn back to the gunshot wound. It’s a horrible kind of intimacy, you reflect, to touch him like this. But intimacy nonetheless. Certainly others have treated his wounds, but nobody who knows him like you. Nobody who has borne witness to the entirety of him as he exists now.
You can’t help but breathe out a laugh. What an insane thing to have a superiority complex about.
Yet you have one nonetheless, whispers a voice in your head.
You brush the thought aside and reach back into him with the tweezers, brow furrowed. This time, straining your ears, it’s only a few seconds until you hear a faint metallic clink. You squeeze your eyes shut again, relief melting through you all at once, before adjusting your grip on the tweezers (which are now slick with a mixture of your sweat and Harry’s blood) and probing deeper, ascertaining the edges of the bullet by touch alone. Most of the shrapnel is a lost cause—you knew going in that trying to fish out every tiny piece of fractured metal would only worsen the bleeding and eventual scarring—but you can at least guarantee the removal of this single mass. Cuno returns with blankets just in time for you to drop the mangled chunk of lead on the bench and step back, breathing out hard and letting your head drop back and suppressing the instinct to press the heels of your bloodstained palms against your skull.
The kid prods the bullet with a bare finger. You’re too tired to even reprimand him.
“The next step,” you say heavily, “is antiseptic. After that, all we have left is to apply a compression bandage. And then we’re done.”
“D’you need my help with any of that?” he asks eagerly.
You shake your head. “No.”
Cuno deflates. “Can I at least stay and watch?”
“If you’d like.”
He clambers up onto the table to perch, squatting over Harry’s feet. Exhaustedly you watch him settle into place, elbows resting on his knees. Sure. Why not.
Once Cuno seems to be done moving, you pick up the mercurochrome bottle and apply the antiseptic in a haze. You find yourself thinking ahead to the days to come with a kind of dull resignation: it will likely be a few days before Harry comes to again in any real capacity. In the meantime, you will have to move him upstairs and launder his bloodied clothes and change his bandages and make sure he isn’t dying of sepsis or bacterial infection and, in general, monitor him far more than is comfortable for either of you, because who else will make sure he doesn’t die in his sleep? You will have to contact the 41st to what you’re sure will be minimal results, as his precinct seems to have left him to the metaphorical wolves. You will have to contact the 57th while you’re at it to update them on this fucking disaster of a murder case or they’ll assume you’ve died in the field. You will have to help Garte clean Harry’s room so it can be slightly less of a health hazard. And you will do all of this with what is likely a developing moderate-to-severe concussion.
“Good,” you mumble aloud drily. “This is good.”
Blessedly, Cuno chooses not to comment on the fact that now both pigs are crazy bitches who talk to themselves.
You recap the bottle of mercurochrome, press the gauze to the wound a few more times to daub up more excess blood, then finally, finally place a compression bandage over the wound. Sealed. It won’t be long before the wound bleeds enough that you have to change it, especially once you remove the tourniquet and even more so once you move him upstairs. But for now, things are stable. He’s stable. As safe as he can be. You are distantly aware of Cuno leaving, oddly subdued, as you repack the First Aid kit. Tuck the blankets closer around Harry. The chill of shock is vicious. He’s unconscious but he still doesn’t look anywhere near peaceful. You half-collapse on the bench at his side and drop your forehead against his shoulder, allowing yourself this one small, momentary weakness.
Even with your eyes closed, all you can see his face. Awful facial hair, tense jaw, closed eyes, furrowed brow, frown lines showing more than his crow’s feet.
You want to run your thumb over the wrinkles in his forehead, smooth them flat. You know you never will. In some ways, the certainty is almost a comfort.