Work Text:
Day 1, Round 1, Prompt 1 – Bandages on a white background
CWs: Injury, blood, medical themes, mild language, female Runner 5, non-mute Runner 5
It was just before dinnertime in the Abel Township runner’s quarters, and it had been dismally dreary all day. Rachel and Rowan—known as Runners Five and Twenty-Two, to varying degrees, were lounging in comfortable silence on their respective beds. From her place on her top bunk, Five ignored the book on survival tips in front of her to watch the rain outside the window fall in a hazy sheet, coating everything it touched with fat beads of damp. On the bottom bunk across the room, Rowan carefully used a black marker to darken the large, angular 22 she had drawn on the back of a sleeveless purple shirt.
The atmosphere was one of expectant waiting. Just as Five was beginning to get restless, there was a familiar triple rap at the door before it opened to reveal the final resident of the tiny room.
“Hey, guys!” Cora—Runner Nine—said with a flash of bright teeth. “Sorry I took so long. All the volunteers at the clinic have been busy with this damp spell we’ve been having, all kinds of people catching colds and things…But Maxine gave me these!” Cora held up a small box and shook it triumphantly, the assorted bandages inside rattling against each other in a papery hiss.
“Oh, those will be handy,” Five said politely, not quite understanding the enthusiasm. “But why would she give them out? I thought band-aids were part of medical inventory?”
“Well, these are for the three of us, specifically,” Cora said, putting her hands on her hips in a mock scolding pose. “Or rather, you two. Maxine said, and I quote, ‘Since you’ve got both Five and Twenty-Two as roommates, you’d better just take these and save us all some time.’ Can’t imagine what she was referring to…” With a pointed look at Five, Cora dropped the box on top of the squat white dresser to the left of the door. Five sheepishly tugged one sleeve down further to hide the lengthy halfway-healed scratch down her forearm. Rowan bounded up from the bed to break Cora’s smirking gaze.
“Look, Cora, thanks, those’ll be great for blisters and everything,” Rowan said sincerely before shifting into an exaggerated whine. “But can we go get dinner now? I’m starving.”
Before long, the trio was chatting comfortably while they hurried through the drizzle towards the bright warmth of the cafeteria, their small prize at the back of their minds.
The box of bandages sat untouched on the dresser at first. None of the room’s three residents wanted to be the first to break into their meager supply of assorted adhesives. After about a week, however, Rowan returned from a miserable mission in yet another day of driving rain to find a blotch of blood had soaked through back heel of one of her socks. Wet cotton plus running in shoes that really needed replacing by now equaled a new blister for Rowan. With a wince, she scattered a handful of bandages across the top of the dresser, picking through them to find the right size to cover the raw spot.
It would have been such a normal, casual gesture in the Before Times, but as she carefully peeled off the paper backing and positioned the bandage, Rowan was struck by how long it had been since she’d had access to this small convenience. How many times had she peeled off a sock after a run and winced at a new bubble of soreness, knowing she’d be limping slightly until it healed over? If the Runners visited Dr. Meyers every time they had a minor running abrasion, she’d never get any work done. They all just toughed out the small stuff.
After this metaphorical (and literal) breaking of the seal, the pile of bandages on the white-painted wood dresser began to dwindle. As predicted, most of them went to Five and Rowan. Five managed to get a decently deep and painful cut across the palm of one hand from clambering over a ragged chain-link fence to avoid a pack of zombies. Rowan was gouged in the ankle by a snapped tree branch while sprinting back from a time-sensitive medical run.
Two bandages disappeared in one day after Molly had fallen and bumped her knee while playing around the rec yard—she didn’t actually have any injuries, but Cora couldn’t bear to see her bottom lip tremble, and it was well worth it to see Molly’s gleeful smile as the “magic stickers made all better. Five had taken to carrying one in her pocket and treasured the memory of Sam’s look of surprised gratitude when she had produced one after he nicked a wrist reaching through tangled electronics in the comms shack.
For a while, the roommates almost took the bandages for granted. They were still careful with their usage—ignoring the tree branch scrapes that all runners were so familiar with as long as they stopped bleeding by the time they got home—but it seemed like such a harmless luxury to indulge in. But when Cora dumped the rest of the box out before a run and only three fell out, the three women looked at each other uneasily. One left for each of them. Cora left the bandages where they lay, and Rowan tucked them protectively back into their box the next time she passed by the dresser.
Almost a month passed. The bandages had almost been forgotten, and any injuries small enough to be covered by three inches of fabric ignored as they had been before. Then, one day, Five was struggling to replace her sheets, balancing on a slat of the bunk and reaching over her head, when she heard a muffled thumping at the door like it had been kicked. She leaped backward off the bed to open the door to see Rowan supported by Cora, one leg held off the ground, a patch of crimson staining one side of her running leggings.
Her movements hastened by sudden concern, Five tugged the chair to the right of the door out to make it easier for Rowan to sit. As Cora helped Rowan get seated, Five looked around quickly for something to use as a footrest, settling for propping Rowan’s left leg up on a stack of clean towels.
“What happened?” Five asked, her voice high with worry. “Why aren’t you at the hospital?”
Rowan grimaced, but Cora jumped in first with the explanation, brow furrowed with deep concern. “We’ve already been, Dr. Meyers disinfected the wound and bandaged it as much as she could, but we’re so low on supplies right now we had to send someone to tear up another set of sheets. The hospital’s slammed, there’s a Runner in quarantine and another getting a broken arm being set now—”
“A building fell on us,” Rowan said flatly.
“WHAT?” Five yelled. When Rowan smirked instead of immediately responding, Five scowled. “Rowan, explain! What happened?!”
“Okay, fine,” Rowan chuckled weakly, pausing to grimace as Cora carefully folded up the bottom of her running shorts to inspect the bandaged area just above her knee on the outside of the thigh. “You know that row of apartment buildings that half-collapsed near one of the pharmacies we use a lot? Well, we were bringing back some more stuff from the electronics store there, thought we’d do a sweep through the rubble—”
“And whose idea was that?” Cora interrupted with a dark look.
“Not mine!” Rowan protested.
“Whose, then?!” Five demanded. Her expression had clouded over with anger and her hands at her sides balled into small fists. “Whoever the hell thought up such a stupid idea, put you all in danger, they should—”
“Chill out, Five! What are you gonna do, fight ‘em?” Rowan snarked. Five opened her mouth to protest but settled for crossing her arms over her chest instead. “Anyway…” Rowan continued with a shrug. “One of the walls that was half-standing is now not at all standing. We all had to dive out of the way, I must’ve found some sort of glass or spike or something when I landed. And now,” she batted away Cora’s hand, which had been putting light pressure on the bandage over the wound to check for seepage. “Everyone’s fussing over a scratch that’s like, two inches long!”
“That’s because it’s a puncture wound, Ro, don’t be stupid!” Cora exclaimed, playing up her irritation to mask her worry. “It’s at least as deep—and you probably nicked the artery, that amount of blood! Just because it’s small doesn’t mean it’s not dangerous, it could get infected or contaminated—”
“I made it back, didn’t I?” Rowan cut in, blanching a little at all the medical talk.
“And nearly passed out as soon as you did!” Cora snapped. “Honestly, whether it was the sight of blood or the amount doesn’t matter, but you need to take it seriously!”
The roommates fell into a brief silence that hummed with opposing waves of concern and defensiveness. Rowan had mentioned offhandedly she disliked hospitals before, and now Five suspected she had been seriously downplaying it. Maybe that was why she’d been sent back to her room with a hospital aide to check the bandages. Cora was carefully unwrapping the fabric now, looking to see if anything had changed with the wound during the movement between the hospital tent and their room. Five had no idea if that was necessary, but at least it was something to do. Rowan looked queasy and made a point not to look at what Cora was doing, glaring vaguely at the door instead.
Five began to fidget nervously, looking for something she could do to help. She didn’t know more about first aid than Cora, and Rowan was always loath to accept help or “pity.” Five kept walking a few steps in one direction, then the other, changing her mind each time. She shoved Rowan’s half-full water bottle into her hands then stepped away again, wondering distractedly if any of the Runners had electrolyte supplements. Finally, Five’s eyes fell on the small box of bandages on the dresser.
Her back still turned to Rowan and Cora, Five reached for the box and asked, “You said it was only a couple inches long, right?”
“Yeah, but…kinda deep, I guess.” Rowan’s voice was a little more subdued now, knowing she couldn’t stop her roommates from fussing.
“Here,” Five said, spinning around to hold the box out to Rowan. “Once the fabric bandages need to be changed, you can use these, right?” Five looked at Cora, who nodded.
“It’ll be fine, guys, it’ll heal up like all the rest, save them for something serious,” Rowan said, looking nervous. “Besides we can leave these on for a couple days or so, probably—Will you stop, Cora?!”
Rowan broke off in a yelp. Cora was getting fed up, and had rewrapped the fabric bandage a little more quickly than necessary, which must have put pressure on the sensitive flesh.
“You will not,” Cora said. “Like I said, infections the biggest danger here, it is imperative you change the dressings often.”
“Janine here is right,” Five echoed. “Take the band-aids, Rowan. They’re perfect, and you know it. You can swap one out each day once you don’t need the linens, you can even do it yourself, since you seem so against us helping you.”
Rowan blanched, glancing nervously at the spot where her wound was. She reached out for the box Five was offering her, but Five pulled it back suddenly.
“Or…you can let us do it for you,” Five said softly. “That way, you don’t have to look at it again.”
Five had finally figured it out and wondered why it had taken her so long. She could see now why looking at a gaping hole in her own leg might hit Rowan a little differently than a run-of-the-mill blister. After all the things they’d all seen, after what deeply punctured flesh had come to mean these days…
Rowan paused and took a swig from her canteen as a distraction. “If I let you guys stick the dumb bandages on me, will you shut up about it?”
“Yes!” Five chirped smugly, tossing the box from one hand to the other and flouncing back to the dresser. She was so glad they had a few left. Five resolved to never ignore the small bandages in favor of the large fabric rolls again.
Cora laughed aloud, and the tense mood was finally broken. Cora and Five kept fussing over Rowan and her bandages barring her from even practicing during her Dr. Meyers-mandating healing period.
And when Rowan came back from her next run a week later with zombie gore splattered down the left side of her body, each of the roommates breathed a heavy sigh of relief when the puncture wound was miraculously clean, thanks to a small scrap of fabric and adhesive that sealed on all sides.
Word got around and before long, the hospital was so well-stocked with tiny bandages in all sizes and colors that every room in the Runner’s quarters had a small box of them on display, just in case it was needed.