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Leon does not want to fucking do this.
He reconsiders second-guessing his decision to dig through his own flesh with a knife when the new medic shows up to help. He does not fucking want anyone’s help. It will suck, but there is nothing physically stopping him from doing that to himself. He could have gone home, drank plenty of alcohol, and sat in his bathtub to contain the blood and gotten the rest of the glass shards out of his body. It is not as if he needs to be that careful. His healing factor is even better after Spain— that’s why he is in this situation in the first place; his skin closed up over glass shards and it fucking hurts.
At home, no one would know. He wouldn’t have Ingrid on the line, fretting over him, talking to him like he’s some fucking wild horse she is trying to calm—
The medic just nods and goes straight back out the door when Leon snaps at her to leave after she had been in the room for less than two minutes. She picks up her medical bag without a complaint, without trying to talk him down. Leon takes a breath, able to breathe easier without her in the room with him anymore. He grinds his teeth. Fuck him, this is such bullshit!
“Leon—” Ingrid starts.
“No, I’m not fucking doing this. It’ll be fine, I’ll be fine in a day or two.”
The silence before Ingrid answers says she thinks otherwise, but she does not push him. “Okay, if that’s what you want.”
He wants the pieces of the window he smashed through yesterday out of his arms. He wants Ingrid to not be fucking listening to him freak out over a singular person who is trying to offer help, he wants to not feel like his heart is crawling out of his throat and not feel the urge to hurt anyone who says they are here to help when they reach for him—
“I can deal with this myself,” Leon says.
“If you’re sure,” Ingrid says, way too understanding. It isn’t fair that she has to deal with this— that she feels obligated to help, after she saw—
“I just need a day or two.”
Ingrid is quiet, thinking. “Will you accept some medical supplies? I am sure I can get permission to have her give you whatever you need.”
“I don’t need anything fancy,” Leon snaps—
It isn’t fair, she is trying to help. But he cannot stop himself, he can’t calm his heart rate and he can’t get a handle on the fear that has made its home in his chest ever since he admitted to Ingrid that he is injured and it’s more complicated than something he can either ignore or stitch or glue together on his own—
“Can I ask her what she would do, see what things you need?”
“I don’t care what you do, Hunnigan!”
Leon growls at himself, swipes a hand through his hair, then hisses from the pain that causes him. She shouldn’t have to put up with him misdirecting his anger onto her. It’s not her fault he is like this.
He swallows hard, forces himself to exhale slowly out of his nose. “Sorry— I’m sorry, I’m— you should go.”
“Is that what you want?”
Why the fuck would he say that if that isn’t what he wants?! Leon snarls again, but when he takes a second to process why she is questioning him when she promised that she’d listen to him— he shudders. He doesn’t want to be left alone.
“No,” he says, miserable as the anger drains away.
“Okay.”
Her response is way too neutral for this; Leon has to focus on not having a knee-jerk reaction to that. Ingrid is trying to help. She’s being supportive— really fucking nice, too nice—
“I’m sorry I’m putting you in this position,” Leon says.
“I’m sorry you’ve been put in this position, too,” Ingrid says back without taking a moment.
Leon sighs. He cannot make himself sit down but he can lean against the window sill— against another window, the only other exit in this room. Fuck, if he wasn’t hiding away from the medic like a child he could have picked a better place to wait and not put himself in the position of having to jump out another window. It’d be funny if he wasn’t feeling trapped in a safe-house he agreed to meet at, agreed to let the medic in to help and he is incapable of reminding himself that despite this, he is more than capable of handling a single civilian if she becomes a credible threat—
He doesn’t remember much of the hospital, but Adam said he was so very thankful that Leon wasn’t in a room with windows because apparently, Leon was in such a state that Adam believes Leon would have jumped just to get away. Leon remembers the fear— that’s what he remembers the most, how he felt, not what happened— but he does not know if he believes that he would have done that, that he was in such a blind state of panic that he would have dove out of a window without checking if it was too dangerous. He only goes through first or second story windows. And he never goes through them without looking first to make sure isn’t going to land on a pile of rocks or something.
Leon remembers trying to fight off the doctors after Spain, not the ones from two months ago. He remembers wanting to get away, that he didn’t want hands on him but he has the distinct memory of not being able to— that’s what’s haunting him, being stuck, trapped on his back, not able to understand what was happening except that he was in pain and it wouldn’t stop—
“Leon?” Ingrid’s tone says she has been trying to get his attention.
“Hm?”
“Can I talk to the medic? You didn’t say—”
“Do whatever you want, christ,” Leon says. He almost says he isn’t made of glass, but actually right now that isn’t one hundred percent true. And he does feel wound too tight, one misstep away from being unable to stop himself from lashing out physically—
Adam told him that he hurt a few of the doctors pretty badly— resulting in one being in serious condition. Leon does not remember that, either, but that’s what got them to finally back off. If they would have stopped trying to make him stay he is sure he wouldn’t have gotten to that state. He does not feel one speck of guilt over it because he has made himself very fucking clear that he does not like any of them or the hospital or waiting out any kind of unnecessary observation if they’ve already patched him up to keep him from dying—
He makes himself take another breath. He paces across the room, feeling along the bumps in his arm where pockets of swelling are trying to protect his body from foreign objects. Leon presses on one. The pain is hot and sharp, worse than a knife, more like a fire-red poker digging into his arm. His confidence wavers. Surely he can tolerate someone dealing with this? It will be faster and better for a professional to do it— if it happens here and not at a hospital and he isn’t sedated and Ingrid stays to make sure that they don’t do anything that he doesn’t agree to—
“She can come back in.” Leon says before he can second-guess that decision, too, and take his words back.
Thankfully, Ingrid does not question him on that. The medic comes back up the creaky steps and knocks on the door, smiles at him like this is completely normal, that she makes house-calls to safe-houses halfway across the country and has to be briefed on why her potential patient is more inclined to flee than let her come near him with anything in that damn medical bag—
“What would you like to do?” She asks as if this is a conversation they need to have.
Leon’s tenuous hold on his temper was never good since he first made the call to Ingrid, but it slips further. “I want this fucking glass out of my fucking arm!”
To her credit, she does not react to him yelling at her. “Mrs. Hunnigan said you wanted to do it yourself. Do you want any guidance?”
“What guidance do you think I need?” Leon replies, growling. He isn’t fucking stupid; it’s not rocket science. He heals fast. He can afford to do whatever damage he needs to get the glass out. Or maybe he should just drink himself into a stupor and let his body push it out. He does not know for certain how long that will take because he has never had shrapnel caught inside him, but surely his plaga-boosted body can handle a little glass if it has a little more time.
“There is a portable x-ray machine downstairs. We can use that to find all the pieces,” she offers, keeping her tone casual and mild.
A portable x-ray machine downstairs. Not in a clinic, not in a hospital. That’s as easy as that can be, as convenient as possible for him. Ingrid’s doing, probably.
“What do I have to do for that? I don't need to be sedated, do I?” Leon looks away when he asks because he knows that he does not need to be sedated for an x-ray, but he needs to hear it other than just making the assumption—
“No, sir. You have to hold still for a few seconds for each image.”
Leon grits his teeth. He can do that. He can tolerate a few x-rays. He follows the medic downstairs and paces as she gets the machine set up. She sets up the thick board that serves as the backdrop on a chair and puts on a lead apron. Leon does not accept one for himself. He does not know if Ingrid warned the medic off from touching him or if she is just picking up on his tension, but instead of grabbing his arm to manipulate it for the different shots, she shows him using her own arm as a model to copy.
It happens pretty fast. She gets a few pictures of each arm and pulls them up on a tablet. With a stylus, she circles every piece of glass, then counts them up and hands the tablet to him so he can look. Leon swallows down a frustrated growl. That is a lot more glass than he thought was trapped inside him. It seems the biggest pieces are the ones that are causing the visible swelling, but there are over a dozen more smaller pieces scattered along his forearms.
Leon squeezes his fist to fight the urge to break something but he has to give up because it makes his entire arm throb with pain. Fuck, he needs to deal with this. His leg is shaking, bouncing. The medic— Leon didn’t catch her name— just waits, looking off at the room as if a bland wooden cabin kitchen in Northern Arkansas is as fascinating as she is pretending it is. It’s better than looking at him; even feeling eyes on him might be too much and ruin Leon’s unsteady, flimsy ability to try to do this right now.
Leon makes the effort to put the tablet down on the table next to him without slamming it or breaking it. The more emotional he is, the more the plaga’s effects boost his strength. It should give him some security but it doesn’t because it’s yet another thing that is fucking wrong with him—
He lets out a sharp exhale. He still doesn’t look at her. “How’re you planning on removing all this?”
“Numb you up, make some incisions, pull everything out, then stitch you back up,” she replies immediately. Practical, no fluff, no trying to make things seem like it’ll be nicer or sweeter than it is.
Leon works his jaw. “You’re not numbing me.”
She hesitates, but that’s all the fuss she makes to disagree with him. “Okay, no numbing.”
“And you’re not stitching me back up.”
She takes that in stride. “Okay. We can do it right here at the table, I just got to get set up.”
She does not move until Leon jerks his head in an approximation of agreement. He cannot stand still, much less sit, so he paces. Back and forth. Back, forth. He squeezes his left elbow, feeling a milder twinge of pain if he focuses on the area and ignores the constant pulsing of the larger shards of glass he already knew about. Yeah, that needs to go, too. Fucking shit.
He growls under his breath.
“How are you doing, Leon?” Ingrid asks.
“Bad. The answer is bad and is going to stay like that until I’m home,” Leon is unable to stop himself from being short with her, bristling. For a wild, dark, irrational second he wishes he had teeth or hackles or claws so that his anger could be obvious to anyone who looked so there is no excuse for not knowing how he feels about anything ever again—
The easy way to do that would be to draw a weapon but that’s a line he won’t cross unless absolutely necessary. He might be on the edge but he hasn’t lost his mind, he isn’t going to attack anyone who does not deserve it— did the doctor he put in the hospital really deserve it?
“Whenever you’re ready,” the medic says.
Leon looks over. A blue-green surgical sheet is covering half of the table. On top of it are two trays, some bandages, and supplies like a scalpel and tweezers. She put on a mask and a cap to cover her hair—
Leon balks. He doesn’t remember— and he doesn’t, not really— but seeing nothing but eyes, hiding any possibility of connecting, of pleading with the cold faces above him— that triggers a syrupy mess of a memory that fills his lungs with ice.
He staggers back, heart relocating to his throat, choking him. “Take that off— take all of that off!”
Brown eyes scan over him. “I’m keeping the gloves—”
“No—”
Leon finds himself halfway up the stairs, heaving for air, back to the wall, crouched on the landing without knowing how long it has been or what exactly happened between then and now.
“Breathe, Leon,” Ingrid’s voice, always calm for him no matter what is happening on his end of the call. Soft for him, doing something that she shouldn’t need to do— he’s making her do this because he can’t handle someone fucking helping him—
His gasping is quiet in his ears, drowned out by the pounding of his heart. He doesn’t realize he is trying to talk, half-blind with terror, frozen stiff and coiled, not sure if he’s about to launch out the door or at the next thing that appears—
“I can’t—”
“You don’t have to,” Ingrid says immediately— and that helps. She isn’t going to make him.
He doesn’t have to do this, it’s not as if he really needs medical care.
“I’m not. I can’t— I’m sorry—”
“It’s okay, Leon,” Ingrid says as if it’s totally fine, this is an apology that people accept all the time, that it’s normal for him to catch a glimpse of someone wearing normal surgical gear and have a panic attack—
“I’m not doing— she’s not—”
“It’s your choice, Leon,” she interrupts with endless patience and way too gently. “You can go home right now.”
Leon nods. Remembers she cannot see him. “Yes, please— I’m done. I’m not— I’m ready.”
Ingrid has everything sorted for him already. There is a private airfield a twenty minute drive away with a pilot on call waiting for him. She was prepped with a driver, but Leon can drive. He can suffer twenty minutes in a car so he can be by himself and certainly not in the same vehicle as the fucking medic—
The flight home is only three hours. Private plane, as usual. No chatter from the pilot. Ingrid does not talk, either, but she is not muted. Leon listens to her type on her keyboard and take a deep breath every so often. It helps. He sits in the back of the plane to watch everything in front of him, keeps his hands in his lap because he has the urge to solve his problem right now. While he has a flimsy grasp on himself and his impulses, he knows that if he cuts into his arms the pilot is going to think he is trying to kill himself and that’s not anything anyone needs to see.
Leon dreads exiting the plane because he half-believes it is Adam who is going to be there waiting, alerted that Leon had yet another fucking panic attack. Adam, who is going to look at him with sad eyes while trying to appear his usual level of unbothered and unconcerned as he tries to be tactful as he hovers and tries to both respect how Leon is feeling while also trying to convince Leon to go get looked at because that’s the normal, appropriate thing to do—
But it is some random agent who stays perfectly silent the entire drive from the airport to Leon’s apartment. Ingrid must be giving them such strict instructions that these people leave Leon alone. She can be scary when she feels the need to be and if there is one thing Leon remembers clearly from the hospital, it was her pure fury when she swooped him to save him from everything as soon as he asked her to—
Leon makes it to his apartment without another breakdown. Ingrid is still on the line.
“I can stay on,” she offers when Leon musters up the words to bid her goodnight. The sun has barely started to set but that’s close enough.
“No.” He wants to be left alone.
“Let me know if you need anything, okay?”
Of course she is worried. Leon was the one who admitted that he needed medical attention. Now he has refused it and is planning on dealing with it himself. He has not inspired any confidence in either his condition or his judgement.
“I’ll text you,” Leon says. “Tomorrow, probably.”
“Okay.” Ingrid sounds sad.
If he was less of a selfish person, he would take a moment to reassure her that he will be fine, this is hardly the worst thing he has survived— but he is in the middle of preparing himself for what he is going to have to do so he can get some fucking sleep tonight.
“Thanks,” is what he settles on. So he at least acknowledges everything she has done for him today— it’s not enough, he’ll have to think of something better, but right now he is staring at the medical kit under his sink like it’s a snake that’ll strike if he makes a single move.
He hangs up because Ingrid won’t; it’s a funny little habit of hers, probably due to the nature of her job. Leon sets his phone on the sink counter, pulls out the medical kit and flips it open— right. It’s not going to have anything sharp in it, it’s not meant to have anything so people can cut into themselves and cause even more harm—
Leon almost grabs a kitchen knife before he also thinks better about that. He has plenty of knives that aren’t intended to touch food— knives meant for cutting into people, into flesh. He picks one by mostly random but small enough that it is comfortable to manage with just one hand, with only one edge so he can choke up on the tip and not slice his fingers open.
He snags the open bottle of vodka out of his freezer, the cheap stuff bought specifically for these times when he’d like to get drunk and quickly. When it does not matter how unpleasant the alcohol is because he’s not going to even pretend that taste is important to him. His medicine cabinet still has a bottle of some kind of painkiller leftover; if there is one thing doctors are good for, it is the easy access to high-quality painkillers. His body chews through medication even more easily since Spain, but even before then, he needed stronger stuff. Thank christ he gets injuries serious enough that doctors don’t blink when writing these scripts for him. They don’t always knock him on his ass like he wants them to— that’s what the vodka is for.
Maybe he should help himself to some of his field kit next time he is given medical supplies just in case he has to repeat this process again. What they provide in the field is way more effective; it is meant to get him to make it to the finish line by any means necessary. He washes down two pills with a good amount of alcohol, then sets both bottles next to his bathtub. He strips, puts all his clothes into his laundry hamper and picks out clothes that serve as sleepwear to hang over the towel rack. Back in the medical kit, he stacks all the bandages on the closed toilet seat after opening the sterile packages. Nothing else to do but wait until he feels comfortable with the level of dullness blunting the edges of his discomfort. He should get some better stuff; it does not take nearly this long for medicine to affect him in the field.
When Leon leans over to grab the vodka, his vision dips. Ah, nevermind, that’s good enough. He takes a deep breath, carefully puts the bottle back down, and sits forward. He already decided to focus on the smaller pieces first because once he makes big cuts in his arm he is going to have a harder time feeling the distinction between glass still stuck in him and his self-inflicted wounds— although he guesses that this is all technically self-inflicted.
He breathes out, slow and steady, as he cuts into the first spot near his elbow. Blood wells up and drips between his legs onto the porcelain under him. The bone is right under the skin, which means the sliver is not deep, either. Leon turns on the bathtub faucet to a trickle so he can wash his fingers clean. He puts down the knife, picks up the tweezers. It is maybe not normal that feeling metal scrape along one of his bones does not make him nearly as bothered as the medic did—
First tiny piece removed. He reaches up and puts it on the counter when he realizes he didn’t plan anywhere to put the glass shards. Hopefully he remembers not to put his hand down on that spot, that’d be fantastic. Embed all the glass into his palm after spending all this effort removing it from his arms. Leon squeezes his arm, identifies the next place he needs to cut, and repeats the process. He tries to be careful about cutting along the muscle fibers and not across to not sever anything, but once he gets to areas with more muscle, he realizes just how fucking stupid he is—
How the fuck is he supposed to find glass in his arm when he is bleeding everywhere? Glass is transparent, dumbass. And he’s at an awkward angle, trying to twist his neck and moving his arm to get a better look while not rotating his wrist or elbow to keep from stressing muscles he is cutting to ribbons—
It is a messier, more nausea-inducing version of what he did shortly after he jumped out of the window; using his fingers to pull the glass out. Except his time he isn’t wearing gloves, he needs to be able to feel for glass since he can’t fucking see the difference of blood-covered glass and bloody everything. He sure as fuck can feel it when the tips of his fingers get sliced by sharp edges—
“Fuck me,” Leon hisses, jerking his fingers back out from where he had it carefully tucked under his own skin, probing the center of the painful swelling. Now he has to find it again, damn it.
The pain is bad, but he can handle some pain. It’s the abscesses that are starting to form, the pus that makes his stomach clench and roll because that’s the first step to rot, rotting away—
Leon puts the knife down, closes his eyes and looks away, and goes by feel. He grits his teeth against the sound building in his throat, not wanting to prompt his neighbors to call the police on him again. They’ll most certainly whisk him away into a psych ward if they see him sitting in his bathtub naked, cutting open his arms like he’s trying to kill himself with blood gathering into enough drops to form a decent puddle under him, staining skin—
He tries to go quick but careful enough that he isn’t doing so much unnecessary damage that he is going to pass out from blood loss before he finishes. Because he hasn’t already made enough bad decisions— what’s one more?— Leon drinks more vodka as an excuse to catch his breath after getting rid of the biggest piece in his arm. It probably just his imagination, there is no way his blood smells sour— what’s inside him is completely inert, as lifeless as any other man-made building material— it’s not alive, it’s not a parasite, it is most certainly not moving—
Fucking hell, he should have asked for those x-ray images to be sent to him. Then he would at least have some sense of what he is doing, something to back up the impulsive decisions he makes other than an animalistic instinct to claw and bite at the pain in his arm that he wants out—
Leon gives in to the urge. The conflicting haze of pain and painkillers battling it out is making him drowsy and sick and that makes it easy to mentally step away from the entire mess of a situation he created for himself. The knife splits his skin from wrist to elbow in a dragging, awkward slit, slicing through the smaller gashes he left when he was trying to be careful. Blood splatters onto his shaking thigh, his heaving stomach. Pain grows, jumps, pushes the edge of the painkiller’s effectiveness and starts to seep under like floodwater.
Strange that putting his own fingers into his own flesh isn’t the problem. Neither is the heat or muscles sliding under his touch as his arm twitches— because he just compromised his ability to fight, to protect himself, it’s something he did with his own hand— any inability to use his left hand is his fault, his decision—
He picks out more pieces, tosses them towards the drain without looking where they land. That’s a good amount of blood running down the sloped bathtub floor. Not too much yet— there has to be a threshold where his body will give out before it can heal him but this won’t be it, it is hardly anything at all—
He opens his eyes, looks. A second, sloppier gash runs an inch along the first. His knife is coated in blood between his feet. Okay, that’s probably enough. Maybe just opening up his skin again is what his body needs to push out the glass quicker. Keep it from closing around infection or whatever. He can afford to take the harm. It’s survivable— it will be nothing but scars in a week, and then that, too, will be gone in a few months.
Leon barely manages the coordination and strength it takes to haul himself towards the faucet. The cold water bites harder than the glass ever did. The water pressure beats against tissue that never should be exposed to air, much less the agonizing gush blasting blood down the drain as soon as it leaks out of severed blood vessels. He bears it for what he hopes is long enough to dislodge any fragments left. His body shakes when he reaches for the bandages on top of the toilet seat. His knee slips on his blood. He looks down at himself. He is covered in blood, some of it tacky, some of it fresh.
If Adam stops by, he is going to lose his shit if he sees Leon like this. Panting, Leon drags himself back to the faucet and turns on the shower so he can wash some of this away. He keeps his arm against his stomach, the sting of the water nothing compared to what it was. With his other hand— weak, trembling— he rubs off the blood painting his lap, his legs, the intact skin on his inner arm. He disturbs the blood trying to coagulate under him, mixing it up with water so that the blood thins out from dark red to translucent red-orange with a yellow tinge of plasma as it swirls down the drain.
Leon tests moving his fingers on his left hand. His thumb and first two are operational. Last two do not flex that well. Extending them is still possible. Holding his knife is still possible. But when he positions the knife along his right arm, it falls out of his fingers when he tries to apply pressure to cut flesh. A groan leaves his chest, low, guttural. He does not want to pick it up and start all over again on his right—
“You did this to yourself,” Leon says. “Solve your own problem.”
His voice is slurred to his ears. It does not fucking matter. He bargains with himself, says he can take something more only after he works on his other arm. It is hard to stay disciplined enough to not give up— but this was his choice. He jumped through the window, he made Ingrid waste her and the medic’s time and god knows who else was on standby willing to help if he needed it— he is the one who panicked in the hospital and became such a threat to others that they had to restrain him and sedate him and he still couldn’t be controlled—
Fuck! He totally severed more than a few tendons or muscles— the knife jerked sideways, skipping off bone instead of following it as a rough guide to keep him from going too deep or going crosswise— blood does not spray out, so not an artery, but it’s a fucking lot, way more than he is comfortable ignoring.
He has enough sense to put the knife down, grab a fistful of bandages. Folds them, presses them to his wrist— fuck him, he was worried about Adam stumbling upon him and thinking the worst before he could explain himself. This does not like anything but a suicide attempt now; the blade got all the way to the base of his thumb before his sluggish reflexes could stop himself.
Damn it, damn him—
Leon piles more bandages on top when the blood soaks through, squeezes his wrist between his thighs because his arm isn’t strong enough, not when he’s—
Fuck, this is a shitshow.
He leans over, puts his forehead on his knees, and groans. He couldn’t tolerate letting a single woman pick out glass out of his arms, no— he had to freak out and do it himself. Had to push himself to get it all done at once, wield the knife in his non-dominant hand after slicing that arm up, too—
He’s such a fucking idiot. He could have called Ingrid, backed out— he could have let the medic do his right arm for him there, then he could have been healing already and maybe could have done his left on his own. No. There was hardly any thought put into this—
He caved to irrational, pathetic fear, too weak to suck it up and do things the right way instead of like a complete fucking failure—
Mixing opiates and alcohol was not the move, either— he might have been able to do it if he didn’t drink, if he was disciplined enough to wait until after—
Stupid. Weak. Selfish.
He should apply fresh bandages. He should pick up the phone and tell Ingrid— someone— that he fucked up, he needs someone to help—
But on top of being useless, he is too proud to swallow down his shame and admit that he was wrong. He curls up in the bathtub, naked, drenched in blood, cold, dizzy, and closes his eyes.