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Wide eyes and darting irises are par for the course with Tasha on weekends. She likes her indulgences and neither James nor Steve are into conflict enough to challenge it. Which means that the drugged-out stupor on Saturday is met with blankets draped over her as she dozes and the occasional bottle of Gatorade shoved into her hand when she’s conscious. Sunday’s somnolence edges toward the concerning end of things, but she’s willing to down the fluids James offers and smiles a frankly childlike grin when asked if she’s okay.
“M’good,” she trills. “M’happy. Happy good.”
James pats her like a puppy for that one, tucks the blanket around her, and makes note to brace for impact when the hangover from this shit comes knocking.
“Any idea what’s up with Tasha?” he asks Steve over breakfast on Monday. His sister is still one with the couch. There had been a couple hours of near coherence around midnight, during which they watched an Oscar nominated but utterly forgettable film and Tasha dodged his attempts at figuring out just what she was avoiding.
She had finally retreated to her room for bed, a move James interpreted as at least sober enough to be behind a closed door. They don’t have a lot of rules. Don’t lock the door if you’re fucked up is definitely one of them. Hence Tasha’s propensity for being high as hell in the main living space. His attempt at greeting her this morning earned him a nod and a mumble that might have been hello and might have been a language known only to dwarves in dark caves.
“That’s more your area than mine,” Steve offers back, only barely looking up from the textbook spread out on the table. The class has been kicking Steve’s tail for most of the semester. The spiral bound monstrosity has become a fixture at the table and there’ve been more than a few offers to take care of the thing using various combinations of explosives and incendiaries from James when Steve’s glaring holes into it. There have also been multiple suggestions out of Tasha on how exactly to celebrate after the disposal.
“Point,” James admits. Steve makes no secret of his distaste for Tasha’s habits. There’s something under the surface there, but no one’s willing to dig for it and Steve loves James (and Tasha by extension) enough to put up with her.
The thud from the living room ends the discussion.
“Tash?”
No answer has James sticking his head around the corner to check on matters. She’s on the floor next to the couch. Seizing.
He’s on his knees and shoving a pillow between her head and the carpet in short order. Skinny arms and legs are tightening into a ball and thrashing outward in an ominous pattern. Breaths are shallow and come with a gurgling grunting sound he’ll be well pleased to not ever hear from her again. The seizure itself isn’t his highest concern. The sudden mottling of her skin definitely is.
Her arms are blotches of bright red and ghost white verging on grey. The discoloration is visible on her neck and thighs as well. When her back arches enough to pull her shirt upward, James gets a solid view of the same mottled mess. It’s not new to him. It’s definitely new on Tasha. Last time he saw it was in the barracks.
Steve has his phone in hand when James realizes what he’s about to do.
“No squad,” he tells him.
Steve glares daggers and looks fully prepared to launch into one hell of a lecture. James holds up his hand.
“She’s still in care. Ambulance ride is an automatic call to her worker.”
“Shit.”
James nods his agreement, placing two fingers at the pulse point and verifying what the visibly bounding heartrate already told him. He wasn’t technically trained as a medic. He was trained as an operator. They were expected not to have noncombatants in tow. They were expected to never feel the effects of the things they did. So they didn’t – by whatever means necessary. Some of them stopped feeling anything at all as a result.
“We need to bring her temp down, she’s boiling.” It’s probably an understatement, and when he can manage it he wants a solid read on just how high she’s gone.
Steve scurries off and returns with a couple gallon bags of what look to be the entire contents of the ice maker. James shoves them hurriedly under Tasha’s arms which have gone blessedly still while instructing Steve to go wet down some towels to wrap her up in. He props her on one side with a knee, bringing her chin upward to open her airway as she continues gurgling. A couple sound thumps to her back result in a dribble of saliva and mucus and much clearing breathing.
“Good girl,” he tells her absently.
She’s twitching, her shoulders hitching upward every few seconds. It’s not a seizure exactly. But it’s definitely not normal. Rigors, some largely dormant part of his training reminds him. The body’s attempt to cope with high temp after a spike. She goes utterly stiff, then vibrates while James counts seconds. Steve returns just as her body slackens.
“She’s pretty bad,” he comments.
“Mhmm,” James give him. Calling a squad isn’t an option unless she’s definitely dying. And James has seen enough of that to know that they’re not there yet. He tells Tasha’s he’s sorry before tugging her shirt over her head. The barely there pajama shorts won’t interfere with cooling her, a fact he’s immensely grateful for. She’s too far gone to care, but he very much does.
Once Tasha’s swaddled in wet towels and ice bags, James nearly laughs when Steve produces a thermometer from her back pocket. The thing beeps once before he kneels and slips it into Tasha’s mouth. Steve’s voice is gentle, the parental tone James associates with waking from nightmares and that one hellish bout of flu.
Bright red numbers flash over the screen. “Hot damn, that’s up there,” Steve comments, and James has to agree. It’s not brain damage worthy. But it’s not okay.
That’s when Tasha’s stomach chooses to pull inward tightly enough to show off every rib she has before James finds himself in the path of a completely unreasonable volume of stomach acid and sludge.
There’s nothing for it but to shuck off the jeans that probably ought to now be burned before tugging her mouth open enough for the last of the vomit to ooze out the side. She’s whimpering, and the sound is painful to hear. She’s definitely not coherent enough to know what’s happening, but she’s also just aware enough to not like it.
“You’re okay,” James lies to her, smoothing her hair away from her sweaty face. Skin that ought to be pale is bright red. He’s marginally relieved that she’s not gone grey on him, but the flushing combined with the mottled rest of her doesn’t do his adrenaline levels any favors.
Her eyes are mostly open but staring off into nothing. She groans, her throat working a few times before more sludge drips from her lips.
“I’ve got you,” he tells her, taking the paper towel Steve offers him to wipe the mess from her face.
She’s still twitching intermittently, and James is just about to tell Steve something not exactly comedic about at least she’s not seizing again when she goes rigid, head arching back hard and every limb ramrod straight. He can hear Steve muttering the seconds under his breath as they wait for her to stop. She doesn’t.
“Three minutes same as you?” Steve asks him as they round the corner of the second block of sixty long seconds.
“She’ll kill me if we call a squad.”
“She’ll kill her if we don’t.”
James is ready to admit that he might be right when Tasha finally takes a proper breath and goes still. “There you are,” he coos at her as though she’s an infant. She stares blankly in his general direction.
James continues stroking her hair, petting her cheek, running fingertips over her shoulder. Steve pulls the now warm towels from her skin, hauls them to the bathroom, and returns with them rinsed out and cool.
“What the hell did you take, you fucking nightmare?” James asks Tasha while they smooth the damp material over her torso and around her thighs.
“I’m going with anything that wasn’t nailed down,” Steve grumbles. The irritation in his voice isn’t a good match for the gentle touch of his hands on her still mottled skin, though. He gathers the hand towel from under her face, switching it out for a clean one and wiping a bit of stray saliva from her cheek. Then he puts one big hand on James’s shoulder.
“Does she fuck around with benzos?” he asks him.
“This isn’t benzos.”
“Good.”
James isn’t up for asking where that line of questioning came from. He doesn’t really have time to think about it before Tasha’s shoulders are jerking up to her ears and she’s retching hard enough to bring up a stream of frothy bile.
“Shhh, shhh, it’s okay love. Breathe,” he tells her when she makes a guttural sound he tries hard not to think of as pain. He’s lying. It’s not okay. Not even close. Her temp is still unholy, her body is twitching in fits and starts, and the couple of times she’s opened her eyes are evidence that there is absolutely nobody home.
“I can put her in the bed,” Steve offers.
James nods his agreement. The floor is carpeted, but Tasha is skinny. She’s going to be sore as hell from all the muscle jerks as it stands. Adding bruises to the mix won’t do her any favors. He sits back on his heels as Steve gathers her into his arms, towels and all. A mostly melted bag of ice falls to the floor and James takes it to the kitchen to dump in the sink. When he joins them in his and Steve’s bedroom, Tasha’s in the middle of the bed atop what looks to be a stack of spread out towels. He doesn’t ask how Steve knows what to do here. He’s just glad he does.
Tasha’s still totally out of it, but James can’t stand the idea of not being close enough to touch her. He scoots across the mattress until his leg is against her body, her head against his thigh. Even blitzed, she grips the hem of his hastily donned shorts. Some part of her knows enough to be aware that she’s got an anchor.
“I’ve got you,” he tells her again. It’s a lie. If he had her, she wouldn’t be a hair away from needing a fucking trauma bay.
“This is an overdose, right?” Steve asks.
“Most likely.”
“Anything else we should be doing?”
“Fluids if she’ll drink em, but I’m not sure that’s an option. Not holding her airway well enough to risk it, really. Keep her temp down. Hope like hell she doesn’t keep seizing. Wait until she comes around enough for me to yell at her.”
Steve nods his agreement on all accounts, then disappears through the door into the hall. He comes back with a soda he tosses at James and a Red Bull he pops open for himself. “Gonna be a long day. Might as well caffeinate for it.”
He’s not wrong. Tasha’s still twitching, vomiting up air and bile every time James starts to think she has to be empty. Her eyelids flutter and she whines, babbles in what are probably meant to be words but fall desperately short of being language. She keeps a grip on his shorts, the material wadded tightly in her fist. Steve does the work of switching out towels as they warm, bringing ice and a basin James tries to keep largely wedged between Tasha and the bed. She’s too weak to get up much distance anymore, so it’s less a matter of catching projectile funk and more a matter of collecting what oozes out of her mouth after the retching fits.
James has nearly reached a point of being able to doze off beside her when she goes rigid. It doesn’t last long, 30 seconds, but another comes on its heels, and then a third. The fourth hits and Steve’s there, reaching past James with a plastic tube of buccal versed in hand.
“Open up, love, that’s a good girl,” he coaxes, hooking a thumb between Tasha’s molars. The gel is inserted far back on both sides of her mouth, and it occurs to James that the dose is meant for him and not his barely hundred-pound sister. He sputters as much to Steve, who holds out the applicator and shows him that he’s given her a bit more than half.
For her park, Tasha switches from seizing to retching with every breath. James is more than familiar with the bitter aftertaste of the rescue meds. He’s barfed up his stomach lining plenty of times after needing it. Watching it do the same for Tasha is painful. She’s pale, skin still blotchy, shivering from both fever and cold towels. He pets her hair, wipes her dry lips, rubs lip balm across them to try to stop the cracking. She bleeds anyway.
Ten minutes pass without another seizure. Then ten minutes more. The intermittent twitching continues, but it’s not turning into anything more and James is willing to take it. After thirty seizure free minutes, he tugs Tasha against his chest, propping the pair of them up on pillows and settles in to hold her until she sleeps whatever caused this off.
“I love you,” he whispers in her ear. “I fucking love you.”