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“Echo, stop squirming ,” Crosshair hissed. “Let me tie this kriffing tourniquet, damn it!”
“I’m trying to stay still,” Echo snapped back, “but you’ll have to forgive me for not having the best experience with these things!”
“That doesn’t fucking matter when you’re bleeding out!” the sniper shot back, pinning Echo down with his knees. “Look, I’m sorry, but I can’t let you die on us!” Crosshair tightened the knot as much as he dared, then tied it closed with a jerk, eliciting a yelp of pain from Echo. Breathing heavily, Crosshair hauled himself back to his feet, grabbed Tech’s advanced medkit, and plopped back down on the ground next to Echo, who was also winded. “You are one stubborn son of a bitch, Echo.”
His brother didn’t respond. His eyelids were fluttering a bit, and it was clear that he had been pretty close to passing out from blood loss. Crosshair grimaced. “Echo, can you hear me?”
“Mmgh. What?”
“Echo, I need you to let me take off your prosthetic arm so I can treat this gash. Stay still , okay?”
“Okay,” Echo mumbled, sitting up slowly, holding his hand to his head. “I feel dizzy.”
“Yeah, that’d be the blood loss,” Crosshair muttered, biting his lip as he opened up the medkit. His eyes darted around its contents for a few moments, wishing that he had familiarized himself with its contents a few weeks ago when Tech had asked him to. And of course Tech just had to be indisposed at the moment with piloting, while Hunter and Wrecker were discussing the details of their next mission with Cody.
Sighing, he leaned forward towards Echo, taking hold of the prosthesis and trying to find the release button that Tech had mentioned to him at some point. After a few moments of searching, his lithe fingers located the catch. As gently as he could, Crosshair pressed the release, then carefully pulled off the device.
“ Shit , that looks bad,” Crosshair swore. Now that the wound was more visible, he could see that the gash did indeed go deep enough that it had nicked Echo’s axillary artery. If the laceration had been even an inch deeper, Echo would have easily bled out by now. “You’re lucky you’re alive right now, Echo…”
“I don’t really feel alive,” Echo said slowly, his words slurring together a bit.
“Hang in there for a few minutes, vod. We’re headed towards a medical facility right now. They’ll get you a blood transfusion, and you’ll be feeling better soon.” As he spoke, Crosshair pulled a needle out of the medkit and quickly threaded it. “For now, though, I need to stitch closed this blasted wound.”
“Painkillers?” Echo asked in a pleading tone.
“We ran out,” Crosshair admitted as he finished readying the supplies he would need. “I’m sorry. This is gonna hurt a bit, but you can handle it.”
Echo groaned softly, but didn’t respond beyond that. He seemed to be drifting in and out of consciousness a bit.
Tentatively, Crosshair lifted Echo’s stump towards him to assess the damage. After a quick glance, he could tell that, though the wound was deep, it didn’t seem to have damaged any nerves. That was a relief, at least. Using a small pair of medical scissors, Crosshair cut off the sleeve of his brother’s blacks. Echo flinched when Crosshair pulled the fabric away, but didn’t react much past that.
With the wound now clearly exposed, Crosshair got to work quickly. The first order of business was to stitch up the artery. Fortunately, even in his dazed state, Echo managed to stay mostly still while Crosshair did that. Once the nerve-wracking process was complete, Crosshair cleaned the wound as gently as he could with a sterile disinfectant– which was of course met with a good deal of protest from Echo.
“Ow ow ow OW Cross that hurts stop stop it hurts–”
“Echo, I told you to stay still!” the sniper snapped, grabbing Echo’s shoulder and forcing him to stop writhing. “I know it hurts, but I have to clean it. I’m pretty karking sure you don’t want an infection here.”
Echo took a few quick, shallow breaths, steadying himself. “I know. Please, just get it done fast,” he hissed quietly.
“I’ll do what I can.” Crosshair continued cleaning the wound and, luckily, Echo seemed conscious enough to follow instructions. He still flinched at times, but it wasn’t unmanageable.
Once the wound was clean, Crosshair threaded a fresh needle, this time with a thicker thread. The only thing left was to close up the wound itself. This was, in all honesty, the least difficult part. Crosshair stitched the laceration closed as quickly as he could whilst trying to work around the copious scar tissue in the area. It took him a good few minutes, but he finally managed to tie off the thread and knot the end. Finally, he wrapped a gauze bandage around the wound.
Tentatively, he loosened the tourniquet a bit. When the wound showed no response, he untied it completely, and Echo audibly sighed in relief.
“This is going to leave a nasty scar,” Crosshair admitted. “I’m not the best with stitches.”
Echo smiled softly, looking a little more stable, yet still off-kilter. “I already lost the arm. There’s not much worse you can do to it.”
Crosshair huffed a breathy laugh in spite of himself. “Fair enough. That’s gonna take a while to close up, though. You’ll need to keep pressure off it for at least a few days if you want it to heal properly.”
Echo looked down at the bandage, cautiously moving his stump to test the muscles in the area. “Eh. I dunno. I think it’ll be fine.”
“See, this is what I mean by ‘stubborn.’ If you don’t let the gash heal, it’s just going to cause pain. You know your limits. Don’t push them, Echo.”
Echo’s eyes darted up to meet Crosshair’s gaze. “I’m more capable than you think I am,” he snapped. “You underestimate me too much.”
The sniper huffed, standing up and surveying the blood smeared all over the floor. Before he’d been able to tie the tourniquet, the flow had been… concerning, to say the least. “I’m not underestimating you. I’m trying to keep you from hurting yourself.”
“I can handle it, Crosshair,” he insisted, picking up his prosthesis from where it lay on the floor. It was, of course, also splattered with blood. “You don’t need to baby me,” he added, pointing the tip of the detached metal arm at his brother as if to make a point.
Before Crosshair could bite back, he noticed that Tech was standing next to him. “Tech, you have to stop sneaking up on people like that,” Crosshair grumbled. “How long have you been standing there?”
Tech ignored the question. “Echo, Crosshair is correct. You need to allow your body some time to rest and recover. Wounds won’t heal overnight.”
“Come on, Tech, it’s not even that bad,” Echo argued.
“The blood all over the place says otherwise,” Tech responded coolly. He walked over to Echo and sat down on the floor next to him, not caring about the inevitable bloodstains it would leave on his pants. “Allow yourself some time to rest, ori’vod. If it were one of us in your place, you would be the one telling us to take a break.”
“It’s not even that much blood,” he said weakly. “Could have been way worse.”
Tech huffed. “Echo, you don’t have as much blood in your body to begin with. With the amputation of your limbs considered, you have less than 90% of the amount of blood someone else of your stature would have. Thus, you are at a significantly higher risk of bleeding out. In fact, if Crosshair had put that tourniquet on any later than he did, you’d be a goner. You could easily bleed out in three minutes flat.”
Echo averted his gaze with a sigh. “Okay, I get it. I’m lucky to be alive. What else is new?”
“Enough pity partying,” Tech insisted, draping Echo’s arm over his shoulder. “You need to get some proper rest now.”
“I am resting.”
“You’re on the floor in a pool of your own blood , Echo.”
The cyborg made a disgruntled noise. “Alright, fine. But I can get to my cot by myself.”
Tech glared at him. “Absolutely not,” he insisted as he hauled Echo to his feet. “You have just lost a massive amount of blood. I’m going to help you whether you like it or not.”
Crosshair, who was sitting in his own bed by now, smirked. “You’d better listen to Tech. You know how he is when he’s grumpy.”
Echo, though frustrated, complied wordlessly as Tech helped him walk to his sleeping area. He was a little surprised by the shakiness of his steps as he walked, and by how much of his weight he had to lean on Tech in order to stay upright. Slowly, they made their way over until Tech gently lowered Echo into a seated position on the bed.
Slowly pulling away from Echo, Tech teased, “I told you that you would need help.”
“Yeah, well, maybe I don’t like to admit it,” Echo grumbled, folding his arm across his lap.
“I’ve never met a clone that did,” Crosshair said with a chuckle. “We’re quite prideful.”
Echo turned his head to glare at the sniper. “Yeah, you’d know something about pride, wouldn’t you?”
Crosshair’s smile turned into a scowl, and Tech cleared his throat to divert their attention from each other. “Crosshair, I need to get back to the cockpit. We’re about to exit hyperspace, and I don’t trust Hunter or Wrecker to execute a landing properly.”
“I can do it,” Echo offered.
Tech frowned. “How many times do I have to tell you to rest before you get it through that thick skull of yours?”
Echo sighed as Tech turned around to head back to the cockpit. “I just want to be useful to the squad.”
As Tech walked off, he called back, “You don’t have to be ‘useful’ every hour in every rotation. Besides, I’d say shoving Crosshair out of the way of an explosion is pretty useful.”
The cockpit door opened and then closed again, leaving Echo and Crosshair looking at each other, the former somewhat blankly.
Crosshair broke the silence. “…Thank you,” he managed to say, looking as though the words physically hurt while coming out of his throat, “for saving my life.”
Echo smiled ever so slightly, turning to look at the bandage again. “Of course. Like I said, I want to be helpful to you all.”
The taller man sighed, getting to his feet and walking over to Echo’s cot. He leaned against the wall next to it, looking down at his brother out of the corner of his eye. “Looks like someone needs a hug,” he offered hesitantly.
Echo snorted. “I’m not five years old.”
“I’ve seen Tech give you one before. It seemed to comfort you.”
“You… saw that.” A statement, not a question.
“I mean, you get pretty loud when you have a nightmare,” Crosshair pointed out.
The cyborg leaned forward slightly. “Right. Sorry about that.”
Crosshair shrugged. “It’s alright. You’re not the only one of us who has them.” He paused. “So… about that hug?…” he offered one more time, surprising even himself.
Echo blinked a few times. “You know what? Sure. Why not?”
The sniper didn't wait for permission, sitting down next to Echo on the cot and awkwardly wrapping his arms around the other man’s shoulders. At first, he’d stiffened, but then his shoulders relaxed as he reciprocated. This was somehow even more surprising to Crosshair than the fact that he’d been the one to offer an embrace. Echo’s small frame— he was still pretty thin— shook slightly as he wrapped his one arm around Crosshair.
Maybe he wasn’t used to contact like this?
He sat there, holding Echo in his arms, feeling like he might cry. Stars, it had been one hell of a day, and he really thought for a minute there that they would lose Echo.
“I’m glad you’re here with us.”
“What’d you say?” Echo mumbled, allowing his body to relax a bit. “I didn’t quite hear.”
The corners of Crosshair’s mouth quirked up. “You need to get some rest, Echo.”
Echo yawned, blinking. “Yeah. I guess so.” He didn’t make a move, though, until Crosshair gently pulled back, careful not to jostle the bandage on Echo’s stump. Then, he let out another yawn, sluggishly moving to lay his head back on the pillow.
Crosshair got to his feet as carefully as he could, trying not to rock the cot. “Sweet dreams,” he teased quietly.
“I can read lips, Crosshair,” Echo muttered, fighting to keep his eyes open.
“Get some rest,” the sniper instructed. “Before too long, we’ll be to the medic and get you that blood transfusion. Then you’ll be good as new.”
Echo laughed quietly. “If only,” he sighed, finally closing his eyes. “I think I’m a bit past that.”
Crosshair smiled softly as he stepped over to the cockpit. “Maybe not. But you’re more than good enough for us.”