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Grace had a PhD for crying out loud. He had taught kids not to do something this stupid. So why the heck did he think it was a good idea to hold a beaker above a Bunsen Burner before suddenly dunking it into cold water.
Well, he knew why he did it. He wanted to see if the Astrophage could handle the sudden change in temperatures. What he found out though was that the glass beaker could not in fact handle the sudden change in temperature.
“Crud!” Grace gripped his left bicep with his right hand as he let out the censored curse word. Grace spun in a circle for a moment, unsure of what to do. His blood dripped slowly onto the lab floor. He kept as tight of a grip as he could on his arm, trying to slow the bleeding, but it wasn’t really working.
Grace decided he should go find someone to actually deal with this. Someone who wasn’t as squeamish with blood as he was.
As his glove slowly turned from blue to dark red, Grace started feeling a little light-headed.
“Oh god.” He kept moving toward his bunk, ignoring the voices of the concerned who passed him. He wasn’t really looking where he was going as he was just focusing on the amount of blood all over his long sleeve shirt.
Carl was desperately trying to catch up. One of the ship’s staff members had informed him that Grace had just passed them bleeding.
“Grace!” The man was just ahead of him, clutching his bicep in a vice-like grip. Carl could see the blood dripping from where he was, but he could also see how white Grace had gone. “Grace!”
At the sound of Carl’s voice, Grace finally pulled his eyes away from his arm, which was a mistake. When Grace finally checked back in with reality, he realised just how dizzy he was. He tried to look at Carl, but Carl was spinning all over the place in front of him.
“Carl—?” Before Grace could ask him for help, Carl disappeared for a moment and so did the windows and floor? Carl’s face appeared in his line of sight again, but something was wrong. His lanyard was bumping into Grace’s glasses, like gravity had suddenly switched.
“Jesus, man, what happened?” Grace followed Carl’s eyes to his arm.
“Beaker go-” Grace blew a half-hearted raspberry. “I don’t like blood-” Carl sighed.
“I guessed as much.” Carl tried to pry Grace’s hand off the wound, but Grace fought him.
“No. I need to keep pressure on it.” Grace looked at it again and felt his stomach turn. “Less blood.” Carl sighed again, this was going to be tricky.
“I just need to look at it, okay? To see how bad it is.” Grace nodded and looked the other way as he released his arm. Carl could see that it was a deep wound, probably from the force of whatever had happened. He’d have to get that detail out of more lucid Grace. “Alright, keep the pressure on it for me. We need to get you to infirmary. Can you stand up?” Grace looked around himself for a moment, he realised he was laying on the floor. He let out a small “huh” before nodding at Carl.
Carl slowly sat him up right before helping him to his feet. Where Grace very quickly crumpled and was somehow looking more pale than when Carl had first found him.
“Okay, you know what—” Before Grace could answer, Carl picked Grace up, bridal style. Grace didn’t fight it though, he was too dizzy frankly. He just watched the ship go by as Carl walked him to the infirmary.
“He’s cut his arm, I think there’s still a shard of glass in there.” Grace laid on a bed, where another face appeared above him. The man had a mask over his face and scrubs on, he also tried to pry Grace’s hands from his wound.
“No. The blood. I don’t like—” Grace was exhausted and could feel his hand slipping away as Carl helped the doctor. Grace couldn’t really tell what happened after that. He was so dizzy and everything was underwater to his ears.
What he does remember however, is the sight of the doctor’s fingers in his bicep. He was digging for something and Grace was going to puke.
Thankfully, Carl appeared next to him with a bucket that he threw up into. Carl removed Grace’s glasses, in the hopes that if the man couldn’t see what the doctor was doing, it would mean he wouldn’t vomit again. Grace couldn’t deal with blood and Carl couldn’t deal with vomit. What a duo they made.
Carl watched as the doctor used some kind of tool to keep Grace’s flesh open as the nurse used suction to keep the blood out of it. Just as Carl was about to look away, the doctor saw what he was looking for. He grabbed a pair of large tweezers (Carl was sure they had a proper medical name, he just didn’t know it) and grabbed the large shard of glass from the wound.
“Good news, it came out in one piece so we should be able to patch Doctor Grace up and get him back to the lab.”
Once Grace could walk on his own (or close enough to it), Carl escorted him back to his lab. The doctor had said that despite the amount of blood that Grace had lost, it wasn’t a terribly bad wound and that he could go back to the lab.
Grace was ahead of Carl as he entered his lab. Carl saw what little colour had returned to Grace's face, drained completely.
“Oh god.” Carl stuck his head around the door to see what was wrong.
There was a lovely small puddle of blood on the floor of the lab and a small circle of it as well. Carl sighed.
“I’ll get a cleaner, wait out here.”