Out in the Black Ch. 16

Best thing about whatever they were giving me - well, other than mostly getting rid of the feeling that a guy with a sledgehammer was taking out his frustrations on my rib cage - was that my sleep on them was dreamless. I wasn't so concerned about the dreams I'd been having before, but I was pretty sure I'd be seeing Cap get blown up over and over again for a number of cycles I didn't even want to think about. As long as they were pumping me full of shit, though, I was good. So it was from a nice, peaceful nap I gently woke to find my bed a bit crowded. Since the other body in it was the captain's, I was more than okay with the lack of space.

Moving as little as possible, I looked down at him. Even sleeping, there was a crease between his brows and his jaw was tense. I guessed he wasn't as lucky as me with the whole no dreams thing. He looked worn out. His hair was just kind of limp and it smelled like antifreeze for some reason. He managed to seem pale, his skin sort of ashy instead of its usual warm brown, and there were dark circles around his eyes. As I watched, he grimaced a bit and made a small noise. I rubbed my hand on his back, hoping to soothe him, and stopped when I felt something rigid under the cloth.

I froze, trying to think. The fuzziness the drugs brought had mostly faded but the pain wasn't back to full strength yet, so my head was feeling about as clear as it had since the attack. Yesterday? Fuck me, I couldn't even remember how long I'd been in the damn hospital. I shoved that into the growing pile of worries to be addressed later and focused on what I was trying to recall in the first place. Had anybody said whether Matt was hurt? Since I was the one in a hospital bed and he was roaming around, I'd assumed using myself as a human shield had been successful. And sure, he wasn't dead, but I couldn't remember nobody saying he was 100%, either. Shit.

"Rusty?" My name came out as sort of a croak and I realized I'd been squeezing the captain a bit. I let go and watched his face as he pushed himself up, almost positive I saw some wincing going on. "Are you - " He cleared his throat. "Are you okay? Do you need more pain medicine?"

"I'm good. But what about you?" A flash of guilt and then he wouldn't meet my eyes as he poured a drink of water, offering it to me before refilling it for himself. "Matt."

The captain heaved a sigh, and I noticed the bit of a catch in it. He saw me notice and his shoulders slumped, accepting defeat. "I'm okay, Rusty. Really. Just a bruise or two. Nothing to worry about." I might have believed him if he hadn't gone on so long trying to reassure me.

"Let's see it, then."

Another sigh, though he caught himself and kept this one smaller. Now that I was paying attention, I could tell how stiffly he was moving as he tugged his shirt up to display the plexicast that covered his torso. Even through the semi-translucent material, the bruises over his ribs were a deep purple, starting to go a bit green at the edges. I glanced at the time and forced my face to stay neutral as I realized how bad the bruising must have been to still look like that nearly a full day later.

"Don't," Matt rasped, pulling his shirt back down and tucking it into the bottom half of his jumpsuit. "You saved my life, Rusty. Do not even think about feeling bad I got a bit banged up in the process."

Shit. Guess I hadn't kept my thoughts off my face as much as I wanted. "I am sorry, though. Maybe if I would have seen him sooner - "

"You saw him. Nobody else did." He came over and took both my hands, squeezing a bit harder than I thought was strictly necessary. "I'm alive because of you. You're alive because, well, honestly I'm not sure, but I'm not complaining."

"You know me, Cap," I said with a smirk, trying for a lighter tone. "I'm too damn stubborn to die." It wasn't really that funny, but the captain laughed anyway, letting go of my hands and running one of his back through his hair, which was actually kind of a mess. "Good to know you won't be complaining about it anymore."

"Hey, I never said that," he returned, allowing the joke to continue. There was a bit of an awkward silence, neither of us knowing what to talk about that wasn't our damn injuries. Before it could get too weighty, though, Cap gave me this crooked grin. "You should have seen Alix's face."

I knew from experience how protective the XO was of the captain, so I could imagine she hadn't reacted well to him getting hurt. That she had yelled at him and then marched him shirtless to the med bay wasn't surprising. Matt's impression of the doc's "creeping crickets" shout was enough to make me laugh until I was gasping with pain.

"Then she yelled at Alix about how she'd said I wasn't injured," he continued, "so Alix turned it back around on me, insisting I told her I wasn't. Neither of them cared to hear that I hadn't realized it myself, being a bit distracted and all."

"Gotta love it. You almost get blown up and they're mad at you for having bruises." My voice was uneven. I had to keep hauling my thoughts up from where they wanted to dwell on the could-have-beens, but Cap was trying to keep things easy between us, and I wasn't about to make him carry that alone.

"Yeah." Matt gave a half-hearted chuckle. "She stuck me in the damn DOTS to check my head and ribs. No concussion - "

"Hard-headed," I put in and got a pretty satisfying scowl in response. "I'm guessing your rib cage wasn't as lucky?" I nodded at the cast hidden under his shirt.

"Some bruises, a couple of cracked ribs on one side. Nothing too major." He rubbed a hand over his chest. "Getting this damn thing put on hurt worse than anything else, honestly." I could believe that. The Diagnostic and Operative Treatment System - what we called DOTS - was a hell of a machine. I ain't a doctor, but I'd bet a lot of credits that there were all kinds of people who owed the fact they still had all their limbs to that thing. Didn't mean it was the most comfortable process, getting treated.

As with most everything else, those of us on the Marzi were some of the lucky ones: we had an actual doctor to go along with our robot doctor so we were in good hands all around. Anyone with a bit of training can run a DOTS scan and let the thing go on autopilot to try to fix whatever's wrong, but having been on the receiving end of getting stitched up by a half-literate merc and by Doc Walsh, I can say there is a difference. Kind of a metaphor for the contrast between serving on the Parakeets and the Marzi overall, now that I think of it.

"The setting part was uncomfortable," Matt explained, "when she had me hold that bar thing that split and tugged my arms around, but the worst part was the plexicast itself. That shit is cold!" I had to take his word for it. My shipside injuries had been more of the broken skin than broken bone variety.

"Let me guess: Doc said it might be a bit chilly."

"Pretty much," he agreed with a grimace.

"I can warm you up," I offered with an exaggerated leer. Matt rolled his eyes but accepted the suggestion and came back to bed. We talked a bit more about the doc and the XO and eventually the conversation worked its way around to why he'd left the hospital in the first place. He asked how Kells had gotten here so quick and I told him about how she was actually out this way, evaluating a potential job, when news of the explosion hit the air. I tried again to get him to let me see her note, but nothing doing. And he thinks I'm stubborn.