Work Text:
When the Foxes had a match, Abby expected to have to treat some injuries. But today they hadn't had one, it was only the winter banquet, where by all reasonable expectations everyone should have remained uninjured, and Abby wouldn't have to open her medical bag.
The Foxes hadn't been injured, admittedly, yet Abby still found herself elbow deep in her supplies, trying to treat worse injuries than the Foxes had ever gotten on court.
David had called her to his room, urgently. Abby had not expected to find Kevin Day there, bruised and bleeding and cradling a badly broken hand to his chest.
She'd looked at David, half-demanding an explanation, but he didn't provide one in the short time she allowed herself before treating her newest patient. Abby could guess that something significant had happened, though. The Kevin Day in front of her bore little resemblance to the one she'd seen on TV, a charming, sometimes cocky, young man.
"Stay still."
"Right, I..." Kevin buried his head in his good arm, visibly shaking. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry..."
Abby had seen people in a bad state, before. No one was at their best when injured. But it didn't get easier, and her heart ached at the almost tangible fear radiating from him.
There were bruises running up Kevin's arms, and some around his face. She worried about a possible head injury, but he withdrew whenever she tried to touch his head, pressing himself further into the wall. Same story whenever she tried to check his ribs. The only part of him she could get more than a visual look at was his left hand.
Not that she needed to, to know he needed a hospital.
She said as much almost as soon as she arrived at the room, but Kevin fervently rejected the idea, looking ready to bolt, and David looked tired in a way that suggested they'd already had this argument, so she begrudingly let it rest. Still, Abby would have felt much better letting specialists look at a break like this.
Or perhaps breaks was the right word. She held Kevin's hand in her own, as gently as she could manage, and she could feel bone shifting. Kevin's breathing was shaky already, but it hitched whenever she applied pressure anywhere on his hand, tensing in what was clearly agony.
Abby couldn't be sure without an x-ray, but she'd guess that the metacarpal bones were broken. His fingers, too, and his thumb was dislocated. The bones weren't in their correct positions, and if there was any hope of this healing, even just enough for minimal function, she needed to do something about that.
"I'm going to have to reposition some things," Abby explained. "Its going to hurt, but I need you to keep still, okay?"
"Yes... I can do that..."
Kevin had a high pain tolerance, especially for someone his age. Abby could tell that from how he was still awake and talking. But he was clearly exhausted, eyes hollow, and he was sweating and shivering, to say nothing of the not-ruled-out concussion.
Abby laid his hand on the seat of a chair, for the stable workspace, and pincered the first finger.
Kevin flinched, just barely remaining where he was. Abby was trying to be gentle, but there was only so much she could do. She shifted the first bone back into place, trying to ignore Kevin's increasingly wet sounding breathing.
Abby's kit was well equipped with bandages and splints of various sizes, which she used to hold her work in place. It was slow going, and by the time one finger was mostly where it should be Kevin was clearly reaching his limit. She had to grip his wrist to stop him pulling away at a bad time, and he had his other hand clamped over his mouth, trying to suppress his sobs.
In any other circumstance, Abby wouldn't ask someone to let her do this without painkillers, especially not after someone had obviously brutally broken it not long ago. But she didn't have Kevin's medical records, and the painkillers she had to hand would barely scratch the surface anyway.
"I really do need you to keep still." Abby felt like a gigantic asshole saying it.
"I know, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry-"
She could quite happily never hear anyone apologise like that again, broken-sounding and far too practiced.
Kevin was nigh-on gasping for breath at this point, eyes glazed over, and honestly, Abby didn't think he could keep still, not in the state he was in. She looked over to David, unhappily.
"I need your help."
"What do I need to do?"
Abby glanced back at Kevin, who was barely paying attention to anything else in the room. "...I need you to hold him still."
David hesitated. "I... I don't know if that's a good-"
"I know!" Abby's own breath caught, and the only reason her hands didn't shake was her training. "I wouldn't ask, but I can't take him to a hospital, and if I don't do this he'll never use this hand again, and I-"
She cut herself off, trying to calm herself down. David crouched between her and Kevin, looking as stressed as her.
"I'm sorry. I know this is a lot to ask of you." He glanced at Kevin. "Day, I'm going to have to hold you still, alright? Abby can't work if you keep moving."
Kevin didn't say anything, just nodding slowly. His eyes tracked David closely as he moved around the back of him, locking one arm around his torso, and grabbing his left arm with his other hand.
Abby resumed her work, and whilst she no longer had to worry about Kevin pulling his hand away, her new problem wasn't any better.
With his movement restricted, Kevin's already limited self-conrtrol crumbled. His breathing picked up so much it bordered on hyperventilation. He shoved back against David, instinctively, and when there was no give he spiralled further, choking on his panic.
"Its okay, I'm not going to hurt you." David said, but nothing seemed to get through to Kevin. Abby wasn't sure he was fully mentally present anymore, but then again, he'd been halfway somewhere else the whole time she'd been here.
Abby pushed through, trying to ignore the struggling out of the corner of her eye. Kevin was the one that didn't want a hospital, she reminded herself, but it didn't help.
She splinted and bandaged and reinforced it, and eventually she'd done all she could do. David released Kevin, taking several strides across the room, and Kevin snatched his hand to his chest, jittery and exhausted as he curled into a ball, looking smaller than someone his height should.
"All done." Abby said, flatly. "I'll want to check your other injuries in a while. But... Just rest."
She tidied up her medical bag and sat on David's bed, praying she never had to do anything like that ever again.