Skye Life - The Patch Job

Serena had only just started to suture one of the uglier-looking wounds when she heard someone call out. “Home.”

Mathats stepped in yawning as he kicked off his shoes, he was ready to crash when he felt something wet soak his sock. Something sticky and blue had left a trail on the floor. “God dammit Serena this is how you get rats.” thinking the substance was some sort of sweet treat she had left a trail of through the house. Mindlessly Mathias grumbled grabbing the sponge mop to clean up the mess.

“Mathias!” Serena called from the bathroom, panic still in her voice. On one hand, she was glad it was Mathias, not Cyd. Mathias tended to be more on her side with most things. “I can’t stop the bleeding even with the stitches and the nanomites aren’t working fast enough!”

Mathias's brow instantly furrowed. Putting the mop to the side. “Serena?” He said walking to the bathroom. “What is god name are you talking abo-oooly crap what the fuck is going on!” Mathias balked his reaction more knee-jerk than anything as soak in the situation.

“I need help!” She said.

“Oh you need way more help than I can give!” Mathis said tartly, shrugging off his coat and tossing it to the side. “Did you give him anything?” He said flipping straight to crisis mode.

“Yes!” She said, handing over the vial. “So I could stitch ‘em up, like you did Isaac when he fell off his skateboard, that’s what you gave ‘em. But I’m stitching him up and it won’t stop bleeding,” she cried.

“Alright all right … I got it, get the bucket, distilled water, salt, and hydrogen peroxide.” He said to turn off the water to drain the tub. “Towles all of them!” He added. “GO!” He said rifling through the sample size pharmacy for the righty meds.

Serena ran and got all of the towels, and even some clothes that hopefully no one would need, hugging them tightly to herself as she brought them into Mathias. “The nanomites are tryin’ but they can’t patch him up fast enough,” she said in a panic stricken voice. “We gotta help him! He saved my life!”

“Less talking, more working. Dump it all in the bucket.” He said, sticking another needle into Vas’s arm. Before taking a scissor to the Hellhound, and stripping him down, boots were taken off and tossed to the side, torn cloth, and ripped pants where each cut off so he could better assess the full scope of the damage. “Mix it up faster.” He demanded setting up sutras.

Serena did exactly as he said, her stomach in knots, tears streaming down her cheeks. “C’mon Vas, please please please please,” she said, speaking to both him and his nanomites.

Mathias’s fingers moved with deft expertise. Check the wound first before stitching the worst of the deep cut. “Aright is all mixed? Move … move, move, move. “He said impatiently checking to see if the salt dissolved.

He barely waited for Serena to be clear as he thrust his arm into the elbow and started to swirl the water quickly. Mathias let out a long breath as the outside of the bucket started to frost over, the mixture thickening, he made a face swirling faster as it turned to slush and then small chunks of ice. “Close enough he said and grunted lifting the bucket and dumping the ice strategically around the random stranger Serena had brought in. “Find the gauze.” He said trying to keep Serena busy and out of the way. “And the medical tape I know we got some somewhere.”

Serena ran into her and Cyd’s room for the gauze, and then to the kitchen for the tape. She opened drawers and cabinets, knocking aside glasses and bowls until she found it. “Here!” She told Mathias, handing it over. “This is it, right? What you need?”

“Put it over there.” Mathias said not stopping as he stitched, put on some kind of power, packed the wound and guarded it with towns so none of it would get wet from the ice. It was the poorest of ERs at the moment. Mathias made a face looking at some of the wounds. “Gunshot, get running alcohol … Do we still have that scalpel or anything crazy-ass sharp? And forceps … or the super long tweezers! This is just goddamn unsanitary.” Mathias grumbled, taking a shard of glass out of the stranger's arm and wrapping the wounds. He was convinced that if this kid didn't bleed out the inevitable infection would. They just didn't have those kinds of antibiotics on hand at the moment he was going to need his lab to pull that off.

Serena looked for alcohol, but all she could find was Cyd’s vodka. Scouring the kitchen, she brought back what she could. “We don’t have another kinda alcohol!” she practically wailed. “An’ the sharpest knife I have is the one he gave me, or a box cutter, and Cyd uses the tweezers to pluck her eyebrows!”

“Knife is good enough, vodka is fine. The tweezers need to be longer, those are going to be too short to find the toolbox, the computer repair kit should have the extra long ones.” Mathias rattled off taking a swig. He sure as shit needed it right now.

Serena looked around her and Cyd’s room, but there was no kit, not in the kitchen either. Cabinets were left open, drawers hastily emptied, she finally found it tucked inside the closet Isaac slept in. In her haste to open it, she ended up dropping every tool that was inside, and quickly started to scoop them back up.

“Serena!” Mathias said sharply from the bathroom. He was cheating a lot given the situation he hoped it was forgivable worse he had already come home exhausted. He swirl the vodka in a cup distilling further right now that was going to be the fastest way to clean everything. Admittedly the smell was horrendous.

“I’m trying!” she cried. Serena rushed everything to the bathroom, looking for the long, bent-nosed forceps used to repair the laptop from time to time. “These?” She asked, holding them out.

“Close enough.” Mathias said taking them to the whole bathroom reeking of rubbing alcohol. “Pressure on the gunshot wound while I finish prep.” He said geting up to clean, sterilize and … straighten the bent part of the computer repair tool. The pressure was on as he trotted to the kitchen wiping the tools down, checking the knife, cleaning and honing the edge. He nudged the bent part of the forceps strait, so far that was the easiest part of this whole ordeal. “Talk to me how’s he doing? Still breathing?” He asked loudly.

“He’s still breathing she said, putting pressure on the wound. “He’s made of some pretty stern stuff. You’ll be all right, it’s okay, it’s okay,” she cooed. “Work faster!”

The sound of the machine paid Serena little mind. They were too few at the moment and right now they were mainly concerned with keeping the most basic functions working.