Bright eyes is so positively creepy I love it 💞
Thank you so much! I love it so much lololol. So glad you are enjoying it. This story has one more installment after this one here. (It's already complete on my Ao3 if you want to spoil it for yourself lol).
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3
Warnings: referenced captivity, referenced torture, referenced noncon, blood, blood loss, wounds, hospital, caretaker and whumpee
This was agony. Pure agony. Caretaker had tried to wake Whumpee. Tried to get them to open their eyes again. But it was to no avail. As the paramedics hurried into the room, Caretaker felt the first of an endless flood of tears slide down their face and drip onto Whumpee’s. But Caretaker did not stop keeping pressure on the wound. Wouldn’t stop keeping their Whumpee alive.
One medic slid their hands on top of Caretaker’s, reassuring them that they could take over. Their partner put a hand on Caretaker’s shoulder, asking for Whumpee’s medical history as they worked to get a line in Whumpee’s arm. Caretaker regurgitated everything they knew from over the years, eyes never leaving Whumpee’s still face.
“Are you coming with us?” The first medic asked as they and their partner carefully lifted Whumpee onto the gurney.
Caretaker nodded, not trusting their voice. They followed along closely, wanting nothing more than to take Whumpee into their arms, kiss them, and hold them close. Instead they had to settle for sitting in the corner of the ambulance, fingers brushing Whumpee’s.
“You can hold their hand,” the medic said kindly. They continued to swap out bandages, keep pressure, and monitor Whumpee’s heart rate.
Caretaker took Whumpee’s hand in both of theirs. They squeezed Whumpee’s cold, cold hand tightly. Fourteen days. Fourteen days and now this. Caretaker couldn’t lose Whumpee. They couldn’t be too late. They needed Whumpee. “Please,” they whispered to Whumpee as the ambulance came to a stop suddenly. “You never listen to me, but I need you to listen. Just this once. Stay. Please.”
The team of medics pulled the gurney out of the back of the ambulance and set off. Caretaker jogged to keep up with their pace. They could hear the lead medic quickly sharing all of Whumpee’s relevant medical history as well as their current status.
“They’re coding!” A young nurse said hurriedly as a swarm of doctors and nurses descended on Whumpee.
Caretaker’s heart stopped. The cluster of people around Whumpee moved in sync with each other as they continued to move them into the trauma bay. A hand on Caretaker’s shoulder had them flinching back. “Hey, you came in with them, yes?” A kind, young nurse had their hands up in a placating gesture.
Caretaker nodded, not trusting their voice. “Let me take you to the waiting area for families. My name is Nurse and I’ll look on you once we have him a little more stable.”
Caretaker followed along behind them wordlessly. They sat in the uncomfortable waiting room chair and stared down at their bloodied hands. Hands with drying flecks of Whumpee’s blood. Whumpee.
Caretaker wasn’t sure how the next several hours passed. All of a sudden they looked up, Teammate One and Two were there, and the daylight was fading in the window just beyond them.
“How long?” Caretaker croaked. Their voice was hoarse from all of their crying.
“Eight hours,” Teammate Two replied quietly.
Eight hours. Eight hours gone. And Caretaker still didn’t know anything. “Whumpee's mother?”
“Whumpee's sister took her to get some food about,” Teammate One looked at their watch, “an hour ago.”
Caretaker opened their mouth to reply, but shut it as a doctor in scrubs came in the waiting room. “Family of Whumpee?”
Caretaker stood and stepped forward after an encouraging nod from Teammate Two. “Me. I’m…I’m their…” Caretaker didn’t know how to answer.
“Are you Caretaker?” The doctor interrupted Caretaker’s thoughts.
“Yes, I am.”
“Whumpee has you listed as their next of kin.”
Caretaker’s breath caught. Not their sister. Not their mother. Caretaker. When had Whumpee changed that?
“Caretaker, I’m Dr. Doctor, Whumpee’s primary surgeon.”
“Are they…are they?” But once again, Caretaker found that they couldn’t speak.
“They’re alive.” Caretaker staggered as waves of relief flooded them. Whumpee was alive. Teammate One came up and put their arm around Caretaker’s shoulders. “But they’re not out of the woods yet. We were able to stop the bleeding. They coded twice while we were working on them. But we got them back. We’ll probably need to go back in and…”
But Caretaker had stopped listening. Coded twice. Whumpee’s heart had stopped three times today. Three times. All because Caretaker took fourteen days to find them.
“Let me take you back up to see them.” The doctor looked around the waiting room. “Normally, we only let one person back, but I’ll make an exception for the three of you. But you all get five minutes. Then, it’ll just be one of you I’m afraid.”
Teammate Two stepped up and took Caretaker’s hand with a squeeze. The three of them followed the doctor to Whumpee’s room. Caretaker froze at the door. Whumpee was covered in leads and tubes. The quiet hiss of the ventilator let them know that Whumpee was breathing. Just as the slow, but regular beep of the heart monitor let them know that Whumpee’s heart still beat. Which was good because Whumpee looked like a corpse. Their skin was so pale and they was so still that Caretaker was not sure that the monitors weren’t lying to them.
“Oh, kid,” Caretaler whispered as they stepped forward, tears once again flowing. They immediately sank into the chair by Whumpee’s bedside, taking their hand once more. This time it was a little warmer, but still not much.
Teammate One and Two did not stay long. Whumpee's mother and sister arrived before they had departed and Teammate One and Two caught Whumpee's mother and sister up to speed. Whumpee's, shakily, stepped into the room, hands immediately covering her mouth. She had dissolved into tears before she could say anything. Whumpee's managed to lead her away, telling Caretaker that there wasn’t much point in all three of them being there. Especially since Whumpee's was making such a scene.
This left Caretaker alone once more with their thoughts. With their guilt. And with Whumpee. They rubbed circles on Whumpee’s hand with their thumb. Endless, endless circles. “Kid,” they croaked after a few hours, “you can’t leave me. You can’t do this. Please. Stay. I need you.” A lone tear slipped down his cheek. “I love you.”
Only the whirring of machines and hiss of the ventilator answered Caretaker. Whumpee's peaceful, still face remained just as peaceful and still as when Caretaker had walked in. And they remained just as silent and unresponsive.
Caretaker sniffed. “And that’s why you aren’t allowed to die. Hear me? I love you.”
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