Chapter Text
Even in the dark with his eyes shut tight, the room Blade stood in felt like the inside of a ship being thrown around in a storm. Every time it felt like it was safe to look, another wave crashed down on their side, reeling them back into mindless oblivion.
Or, in Blade's current case, mindless amounts of pain.
It was a long time coming. There hadn't been a migraine surge like this in years, nothing even close to it in the last six months. There was a literal fucking sledgehammer slamming into his helm from the inside out, and he could do nothing more now than wait it out.
That didn't mean Blade wanted to go quietly, however. All that morning, he was pushing himself, knowing the coming signs, aware of the aura creeping into the corners of his vision. He took the heavy stuff he wasn't supposed to be taking while on the clock, a med specifically catered to those category 5 hurricanes in his helm, but it still came barreling in like it hadn't even phased it. He still ended up trembling, sick in Maru's hangar, waiting for the mechanic to finish writing up a decent excuse for an emergency sick leave. He'd have gone and done it himself, if only he could function properly again.
He was sent off without a moment's hesitation from the seasoned mechanic, to which Blade begrudgingly went, holing himself up in his hangar for the day. He had barely gotten the blackout shades down before the next surge hit him, and it hit him hard.
The floor felt like it was being swept out from under him, and he stumbled back into his sleeping mat, landing gear tight and shaky under him as he tried to go down easy. He plopped down the rest of the way with an uncomfortable grunt; he didn't have the energy to adjust himself on the mat.
Without any other preparations made, Blade simply wished for it to come and pass, hoping if his eyes were shut tight enough, breathing were deep enough, and body were still enough, he would just fall asleep eventually.
Well damn, he'd been trying to do that for decades, even without a migraine, and that never worked.
Still, he tried to convey the illusion to himself that everything would be fine again, so long as he didn't look, didn't move, didn't remember he was battling the storm. It hardly took the edge off of the pinching tightness in his helm, or the painful stabbing in his tanks.
Time crawled; he felt like it had to be getting dark out by now, only to dare to peek at the clock and find it had been all of one hour. Fuck.
"Nnh.." A needle-fine pain shot through his tank, and he had to move - if only a smidge. That smidge was the difference, however, between tolerable stillness and ignited panic.
'No, don't..no I don't want to…' He tried to tell himself, though he couldn't very well argue with his own body, 'I don't want to..don't make me, just settle why don't you, just SETTLE dammit!' But once he moved, that was all the indication his near-empty tank needed to force up whatever acidic residue it had left.
Things were bad. It had been a long time since they were this bad, to be fair, but that didn't change the here and now. The air boss seemed to have forgotten how truly cursed he was with these migraine days, but at least he was doing the best he can.
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Four in the afternoon - so says the clock, anyways. Blade didn't feel like he had a concept of time anymore. Just a concept of suffering.
The hangar door clicked open, and the noise of it being rolled across its track echoed in the chief's head. Light spilled onto the floor, and he shut his eyes and looked away. He didn't even realize who had come in, until he felt a tire gently press against his side.
"Hey, how we doin'?" Dynamite asked, tone quiet and low, much to the helicopter's appreciation. Though, he feared he didn't show that gratitude well, only suppressing a groan in response,
"It's bad…"
"Were you already on the meds then?"
"Took 'em at...fuck…nine?"
"M, Okay...I'll ask Maru but it might need to be another hour before you can be allowed another dose."
Blade only nodded a slight response; he was at least glad Maru kept track of the math he didn't have the willpower to put together today.
"Anything I can do then?" Dynamite added.
"You know where that blanket’s at, in winter storage?"
"The blue?"
"With the patches."
"Yeah, I think it's up with the others, I'll go find it then. Back in a minute."
"Thank you.." Blade said, as the Smokejumpers captain left once more, sliding the door shut again and leaving him in somewhat silence once more. He shifted again as minutely as possible into his sleeping mat as a chill ran down his back, hanging onto the hope that this would all be manageable again by the end of the day.