Chapter Text
Rudo was in a haze… The last thing he remembered was intense anger… then a voice telling to calm down. Like Regto… but not him…
Now there were muffled voices and gentle hands touching him. He flinched away into a wall and they stopped.
The muffled voices came back after a moment, the wall he ran into rumbled next to him in time with the voices… wall?
Trying to open his eyes was tiring but he was met with a blurry scene of fading light and someone in front of him.
“Rudo.” They called softy, “Rudo, can you hear me?”
The voice was soft… sorta familiar… Chiwa? No… they have lighter hair… Eishia…?
“Rudo.” Her hands were cold and soft on his face as she tilted his head to look at her, making him flinch again. “Hey…?”
Rudo wanted to answer her, for once feeling something other than his anger but when he tried to move his mouth he was met with pain.
“No, no, no!” She started worrying, “Don’t- Don’t try to talk… or- or move your mouth please!”
He could do that… but… how would he answer her?
“It’s okay.” She tells him, “Just… squeeze my hand if the answer is yes! Ok?”
Something touched his hand and the world whites out on him, the hand being the only thing he could feel… that’s right… everything hurts…
“Hey!” A shout brought him back to focus. “Rudo!”
Blinking, or at least he thinks he did… Rudo was looking up at a grey ceiling, blue, pink, and yellow looking down at him. They looked concerned but relieved to see him looking at him.
“Hey, kid, sorry about waking you… we needed to check something.” Enjin looked tired, and his voice was weird, “You’re okay, we got you, you can rest if you want, but try to keep your eyes open… yeah?.”
“Mmmmmh…”
The groan was all he could muster before his eyes felt too heavy again.
“How’s Rudo?”
“I think you went overboard…” Gris said as he returned to the car, Rudo still in his arms as Eishia fluttered about, “It’s not good.”
“Then they got exactly what they deserve.”
They thankfully didn’t bring up the completely destroyed building behind them. Enjin couldn’t particularly care if they lived or not, Enjin valued life… just not those of traffickers.
“Bro, you got August’s bike?”
“Yep!”
“Great we’ll see you back there.” Enjin says, climbing into the back of the car were the others had dropped all the seats flat and were checking on Rudo. “Tomme, we’re good to go.”
“Got it.”
“He woke up for a moment but when I touched his hand he…”
“Got it…”
“It… bad… and I can’t give him anything.” Eisha stammered. “Who… who could do something like this…”
“Why can’t you give him anything?”
“Look at his neck.” Eishia carefully moved the cloak, “I… I don’t know what they gave him… or what it does…”
“Do you want me to lay him down?” Gris asks calmly, Rudo still in his arms, “Or…”
“No, keep holding him…You’ll help prevent the bumpiness from causing pain…” she says “When we get to actual roads you can lay him down.”
“Got it.” Gris shifts slightly to be more comfortable, “What else?”
“Enjin… Try to get him aware again.” She instructs, “I don’t want him sleeping until I check for a concussion, in the meantime… I’ll be making sure the injuries I can access are clean, get him ready for healing…”
“What about his mouth?”
“I… I’ll take care of it after we can lay him down…” she mumbles, “I don’t want to bring something sharp near his face while we’re moving around too much.”
“Hey, Rudo!”
The kid flinched in Gris’ hold but his eyes did slowly blink open again.
“Hey, kid.” Enjin’s voice felt tight as he spoke, “Sorry about waking you. We need to check something.”
Rudo just stared blankly at him, looking as tired as he felt.
“You’re okay, We got you…” His voice cracked a bit as he resisted the urge to ruffle his hair, “You can rest but try to keep your eyes open, yeah?”
All he got was a hoarse groan before his eye fell shut again.
“Okay, okay.” Eishia shook herself back into focus. “We’ll try to wake him again in a bit, Enjin, can you help me clean him.”
“Of course.”
They started with his legs. One looked absolutely horrible as they cut away the legs of his pants. Deep irregular puncture wounds were oozing red and yellow and smell absolutely like death.
“Hmm…” Eishia didn’t look too happy about it. “We’ll need to watch that… but for now rub this into the wounds and wrap it tightly.
“Yes, Ma’am.”
They worked slowly until they got to smoother ground and then worked more quickly after being able to lay him down.
“Gris, put pressure here.” She instructed for a wound on Rudo’s side, “I’m… going to deal with his mouth now.”
It was a cruel thing those bastards did… They had decided that Rudo was either too loud, too mouthy, or too wild and had sewn his mouth closed. The boy could barely get his lips open before the string started cutting into the skin… but thanks to a few quick and careful snips… they were freed.
“I’m going to start a line…”
“I thought you couldn’t give him anything.”
“I can’t but he’s dehydrated, I can do just water.” Eishia explains, grabbing what she needs, “But his arms… I’ll have to do his shoulder or leg… which I’ll have to be back at base.”
Eishia refocuses, putting the stuff back.
“What did they even do to his arms?” Gris asked , carefully picking one up, looking at the cracked and bleeding darkened skin with a frown, “I’ve never seen something like this before…”
“Those aren’t from them.” Eishia told him, biting her lip, “I don’t know where Rudo got these… but these are old… very old… injuries.”
“What!?”
“Yeah…” Enjin agrees, helping by wrapping the other hand. “Rudo always had bandages on under his gloves since I met him, probably to cover these up.”
“…”
Gris went quiet, helping to clean and wrap the arm he was holding. Knowing him, Enjin could guess he was feeling bad about his doing his usual, hand crushing greeting on the kid.
“Gris, is there a matching wound on his back for this one?” Eishia frowns, at the wound he was putting pressure on earlier. “This looks like a gunshot wound…”
“Uhhh…” Gris carefully lifts Rudo up a bit, “No…”
Eishia kept biting her lip as she pressed on Rudo’s other side where a big ugly bruise took up almost his whole side. Concern filling her eyes and her hands flits around.
“Tomme… can you go faster… I think Rudo might need surgery…”
“On it!”
“What’s wrong?” Enjin asks and she has Gris sit Rudo up again to deal with the various lacerations they found in his back, “Is it bad?”
“It could be…” Eishia admits, looking less and less sure of herself, “… We might need Grandma’s help… I think… there’s an internal bleed and the bullet might still be in him.”
“And we got to get it out.” Enjin finished with a heavy sigh, “Do you think he can hold out till we reach HQ?”
“…Yes, as long as he doesn’t lose too much more blood he should be fine.” Eishia answers, returning to a more focused mindset, “It shouldn’t be that bad given it’s been five days… Okay… I can do this…”
Eishia has Enjin try to wake Rudo up again. The best he got was barely open eyelids before they fell close again… but hey, better than nothing.
“Hold on!” Tomme calls from the driver seat, “We’re almost back.”
The next moment the car swerves to the side in a way that made Enjin impressed right before they drifted to a stop.
It was a blur after that, with Enjin carrying Rudo in behind their healer, Gris running off somewhere and the nothing. Enjin could only watch as he was pushed out of the room but Eishia, leaving Rudo behind looking small on the cot…