Chapter Text
Chee-Chee was still whimpering.
"I let you down, Doc," he said, his trembling hands covering most of his face. His voice cracked like a violin string pulled too tight.
Dolittle, still sprawled on the deck with seawater leaking from his ears and dignity, shifted slightly to look at him. His cough rattled like a rusty hinge, but his words came out clear.
"Look at me," he rasped. His voice wasn't loud, but it carried weight. "I'm fine. We're all fine."
Chee-Chee peeked through his fingers. "But I froze. I was supposed to hold on, and I—I just froze!" He hugged his knees, rocking himself like a child awaiting thunder.
Dolittle pushed himself upright, movements stiff but deliberate, and fixed Chee-Chee with a steady gaze.
"No, Chee-Chee. It's okay to be scared," he said. "Bravery is not about never freezing. It's about moving again after you do."
For a moment, the gorilla's chest hitched with another sob, but the words seemed to stick. They wrapped themselves around him like a lifeline.
And then Dolittle's attention shifted.
To you.
He blinked, once, twice—his eyes narrowing at the crimson streaks now mixing with seawater across his suit. His hand reached out, unsteady but certain, catching your wrist before you could hide it.
"You're bleeding," he said flatly.
You looked down as if surprised, though in truth you had been ignoring it. Your palm was split open where the stitches had torn, the wound angry and wet, dripping a red trail that had painted Dolittle's brass suit like war paint.
"It's nothing," you insisted, tugging slightly, though he didn't let go.
"Nothing?" he echoed, his brow furrowing. "You just dragged a full-grown man in forty pounds of brass out of the sea. Nothing doesn't bleed this much."
There was no scolding in his tone. No lecture, no sharp remark.
"You saved me."
The deck was still alive with chaos—Yoshi growling low as he braced against the rail, Dab-Dab flapping around in circles, Barry muttering about existential doom. And yet, in that pocket of sound, Dolittle's words seemed to carve a stillness around you.
"You saved me," he repeated, softer this time. His thumb brushed against the back of your wrist, almost absent-mindedly, as though grounding himself in the proof that you were there, solid, bleeding, but alive.
Barry cleared his throat. Loudly. The kind of deliberate throat-clear one only performs when desperate to interrupt a moment that has begun to look suspiciously tender.
"Yes, yes, the heroics, the bleeding, the almost drowning," he said, waving a wing like he was brushing away smoke. "But perhaps we could spread the applause a little more democratically, hm?"
Poly let out an indignant squawk. "Spread the applause? You've done nothing but complain and catastrophize since the day you joined this group!"
Barry puffed up, feathers ruffling like an offended matron. "Complaining is a form of vigilance. One day you'll thank me when you're alive precisely because I was imagining all the ways you might die."
Yoshi snorted, tail thumping the deck once. "If Barry imagines us dead enough times, it's bound to happen eventually. Manifestation, I think humans call it."
The ostrich gasped. "Don't you dare suggest I manifest doom! I simply prepare for it!"
While the argument swelled and clattered across the deck, Dolittle finally released your wrist. His eyes lingered on your hand, though, worry written in the sharp lines of his brow. He opened his mouth, perhaps to insist you sit, perhaps to order Dab-Dab to fetch bandages, perhaps even to say something else entirely—but he was cut off by a low groan that made the deck beneath you shudder.
The ship tilted slightly. Water, still pooling around Dolittle's boots, slid in a thin sheet toward the starboard side.
"Oh, splendid," Barry muttered darkly, peering over the rail. "The ocean is swallowing us by degrees. A most dignified end."
"Not dignified—avoidable," Dolittle snapped, climbing to his feet, though his voice still rasped. He swayed once, then steadied. "Poly, rig the sails. Yoshi, check the rudder. Dab-Dab, fetch the kit. And you—" His eyes cut back to you, sharp and commanding. "Sit. You're no good to anyone if you fall apart now."
You staggered toward the mast, obeying Dolittle's command more with instinct than choice. Poly was already scrambling up the rigging, wings flapping as she tied knots with beak and claw, her voice barking clipped orders in sailor's slang. Yoshi's bulk thudded down the deck as he braced against the rudder, straining with a growl deep in his chest. The whole vessel moaned like a living thing, threatening to split under the weight of the sea pressing at her ribs.
"Pull her, Yoshi, steady—steady—!" Dolittle barked. He had shed the limpness of moments ago; seawater still dripped from his coat, but his voice carried again, sharp and sure.
Dab-Dab returned in a flurry of wings, dragging the medical kit by its strap, her webbed feet slapping the boards. "It's sinking, it's sinking, I knew this would happen—!"
"It is not sinking," Dolittle snapped. "Lend a wing where you can!"
Chee-Chee, still sniffling but rallied by the urgency, darted forward and threw his weight against the capstan, helping Yoshi wrestle the rudder straight. The deck shuddered, tilted—and then, slowly, groaned back toward center. The sails cracked, filled, Poly's knots holding fast against the spray.
The ship leveled. She was limping, but she lived.
You let out a shaky breath, realizing you'd been holding it.
For a beat, no one spoke. Even Barry was quiet, feathers damp, eyes darting at the waterline as though unsure whether to begin a fresh eulogy or a victory speech.
Dolittle broke the silence first. He exhaled, a long, rattled sound, then turned to you.
"Sit," he said again, gentler this time. He crouched down in front of you, boots squelching, and opened the medical kit Dab-Dab had dropped. His fingers, though trembling faintly, moved with the precision of long practice as he tore a strip of clean linen.
You wanted to protest—you always did—but the words caught when you saw his eyes. They were focused, yes, but beneath the steadiness there was something else: a kind of quiet insistence, not unlike the tone he had used with Chee-Chee.
"Hold still," he murmured, catching your injured palm and turning it upward. The gash looked worse under his scrutiny, a wicked line of torn flesh where the saltwater had seeped in. His brow furrowed, and for once, he didn't try to hide it.
"It'll sting," he warned, dabbing with alcohol-soaked cloth.
You hissed as it burned, but his hand didn't let you flinch away. His thumb pressed against your wrist, grounding you.
"You dragged me out of the sea," he said, low, almost to himself. "Stubborn thing like that deserves to keep both hands in working order."
This is the part no one ever truly enjoys—the aftermath. The storm has passed, the ship hasn't sunk (though Barry would still very much like you to think it might), and now we arrive at the wholly unglamorous business of patching up human flesh.
Dolittle leaned in, intent on your hand. Not your eyes, not your expression—just the torn mess of skin and saltwater. Very clinical. Very professional. Except, of course, for the way his jaw set just a little too tight, as though your blood offended him personally.
"Keep still," he said again, unnecessarily. He had your wrist in a firm grip, steady as a vice, which, as you may have noticed, is the opposite of stillness. Your body was shaking—whether from the sea, the cold, the pain, or perhaps the indignity of it all—he didn't care. Dolittle's world, at this moment, was precisely one palm wide.
He poured more alcohol over the wound.
It stung. Sharp and white-hot, racing up your arm like lightning, dragging every nerve screaming with it. And of course, you winced, your shoulders tensed, your whole body attempting the universal, time-honored reflex of pulling away from pain.
Dolittle's thumb tightened against your wrist. "Don't move."
It wasn't cruel. Simply factual. The kind of factual one usually reserves for sentences like 'Fire is hot' or 'Sharks have teeth'.
"I am," you hissed through your teeth, because what else can one say while biting back the urge to scream? "Very much not moving."
And I might note here that this was, in fact, a lie. You were moving. Your muscles were trembling, your arm trying its best to wrench away from him. But Dolittle, stubborn, impossible Dolittle, simply anchored you in place with the calm weight of someone who has stitched wounds a hundred times and has grown immune to all protest.
"There," he muttered, dabbing away the diluted blood. His brow furrowed deeper, eyes scanning as though memorizing each line of torn skin. "Saltwater's made a mess of it. I'll have to stitch it again."
And of course, you would like to think this was the moment you protested. That you told him no, that you could manage without, that the thought of a needle pulling through your flesh was simply too much.
But no. You only swallowed, jaw tight, and muttered, "Brilliant."
You had done this before, after all.
He reached into the kit, fingers selecting the thread and needle with the precision of a man who had done this far too often for it to be considered normal. His voice softened, though, when he spoke again.
"You shouldn't have ignored it."
"I was a little busy," you snapped back, sharper than intended. Pain often does that.
He glanced up at you then, just for a flicker of a moment. His eyes—reddened from seawater, shadowed from exhaustion—held yours. And, oh, how infuriating: there was no judgment there. Just... concern. The quiet kind, the heavy kind, the kind that makes you want to look anywhere but at him.
"I know," he said simply, before threading the needle.
Ah, and here we arrive at the dramatic highlight: the stitching. For those of you blessed enough never to have endured such a procedure, allow me to enlighten you. It is not, despite the misleading comparisons, like sewing fabric. It is more like pulling a splinter through your own skin repeatedly while someone insists this is, in fact, for your own good.
The first prick made you jolt, a hiss tearing from your lungs.
Dolittle's grip on your wrist didn't waver. "Breathe," he instructed, voice clipped. "In. Out. Slowly."
And how marvelous that he thought such a simple directive would help. Still, you tried—dragging air in through clenched teeth, letting it rattle out in uneven gusts.
"You're doing fine," he muttered as the thread tugged through. The words slipped out unguarded, softer than the man usually allowed himself. "Nearly there."
And perhaps you should be angry at him for downplaying it, for speaking as though this were nothing more than a scraped knee and not a jagged wound being forcibly closed. But you couldn't summon anger—not when his hands were steady despite their tremor, not when his voice wove itself between the sharp stings like a rhythm, a tether.
"Why do you always do that?" you asked between clenched breaths.
Dolittle didn't look up. "Do what?"
"Throw yourself in first. Ignore yourself after."
A pause. Only the creak of the ship and the pull of the thread. Then, dryly, "Occupational hazard."
You almost laughed. Almost.
He tied off the stitch, finally releasing your wrist. His hands, still damp from the sea, left warmth behind on your skin. He wrapped the linen snugly, his touch gentler now, as though the crisis had passed.
"There," he said, sitting back on his heels. His eyes lingered a moment longer than necessary, then flicked away. "You'll keep the hand. Assuming you stop trying to destroy it."
Was that a joke? From him? Unlikely. But then again... perhaps.