Nucleated mass of protoplasm

Hyrule enjoyed biking around the city, but he wasn't a fan of being in crowds. He often got around this by biking to the park and finding a tree to climb, where he could people watch without necessarily being involved in anything.

It was nice. He wasn't much for sitting still, but it was a fun pastime when he was too tired to really do much. Sometimes he'd do it after a shift to see people first thing in the morning. Usually it was a blend of elderly couples and young mothers, as well as a few outliers and dog walkers. Not many really had time to walk the park before work, after all.

Hyrule figured his little lookout post was hidden well enough, but when someone called up to him, he looked around curiously. He saw a young woman watching him, waving a little when they made eye contact.

"Hello," she greeted. "I'm sorry to bother you, but have we met before? You look very familiar."

Hyrule stared, dumbfounded. He wasn't the worst with recognizing people, but he often couldn't keep track of them. He just saw so many on any given basis.

But... now that he looked at her... she did seem...

Oh. Oh.

"I... I think we've met, yeah," Hyrule answered hesitantly. This was awkward.

"When?" she asked, insistent for some bizarre reason.

It seemed such a strange thing, to be so pushy about such a thing. Was there something she needed? "Well... I, uh... have you been to the hospital recently?"

The woman looked bemused. "Yes, just the other day, actually."

"Yeah, uh... that was me," Hyrule explained, hand moving to scrape across the back of his neck. "I'm the medic who took you."

There was a pause, the woman clearly not thinking that was the context of their previous meeting, and Hyrule wanted to disappear into the leaves.

This was so awkward.

"I'm glad you're doing better," he said quickly with a sheepish laugh.

"Yes, I'm feeling better," she agreed.

Before she could continue, Hyrule slid off the tree branch he'd perched on and quickly moved to his bike. "Well, it was good to see you're doing well, have a good day!"

"You too," she called back before he fled the scene.

Four glanced between his sedated patient and his friend. “Yeah. We’re not sure if it’s his liver or not.”

”How can you be sure?”

”Checking his LFTs is a start.”

”His what?”

Four sighed, taking the pumps. “Liver Function Tests. If the LFTs are elevated, that’s usually a sign of liver damage.”

”His aren’t elevated, though,” a voice beside Wild noted, and both young men jumped. Time crossed his arms, unbothered by startling them, deep in thought. “His liver doesn’t seem to have much injury to it.”

”He’s jaundiced as hell,” Four noted, motioning. “Even Wild can see it.”

”Hey, what do you mean even I can see it, I’m not dumb—“

“Jaundice is a sign of a buildup of bilirubin in the body. It’s most common cause is liver failure or injury, but other things can be the issue here. It could be his pancreas, it could be his gallbladder…”

”There’s no way his liver wasn’t jacked up in that crash,” Four shook his head. “Not based on what Hyrule said.”

”Nevertheless, his LFTs aren’t terribly elevated, and abdominal ultrasound didn’t show blood.”

”Obstruction, then?”

Wild backed away as Four and Time started deliberating the matter, shaking his head. It was fun watching them problem solve, but he had to go deliver more supplies to other units. When he arrived in the emergency department, he saw Legend, Warriors, and several of their coworkers huddled around a computer.

”Uh, who needed seizure pads?” Wild asked the group.

Legend glanced back and then motioned to Warriors. “Him. Just throw them at him.”

”Seriously, though, have you ever seen a sacral ulcer that bad?”

”Dude, that’s disgusting. Are there any more pictures?”

Wild hastily moved away from the group, actually tossing the seizure pads at Warriors just to avoid any gruesome pictures that they were looking at. His friend yelped as he attempted to catch the pads, and Legend laughed, earning him a bap in the face from one of the padded items.

The art itself:

Mo: We haven’t run any actual calls. I wanna run with lights and sirens, Link. I wanna wee woo. Later, after running a sick patient* Hyrule: We’ve wee’d our last woo, Mo.

Legend, scrunching his nose: What’s that smell? Warriors: It’s my new cologne, Eau de Piss, complements of my patient who is absolutely soaked in his own urine. Legend: Gosh, have some consideration, Wars. We all know you’re the one who pissed yourself. Stop blaming the patients.

Hyrule, helping a patient stand: Okay, we’re gonna help you walk to the hospital. Mo: You mean the ambulance? Hyrule: YES THE AMBULANCE NOT THE HOSPITAL.

Twilight: I need someone to hit me with an ambulance. Wild: Good grief, what’s eating you? Two: I was being silly and told a patient not to run away while I stepped out to grab something. Twi: They were a bilateral lower extremity amputee. Wild, wheezing: Maybe throw yourself off the helipad, buddy.

Do you ever wonder they spend hours wondering what’s wrong with their spell, and turns out it’s just they forgot a small line of something silly

Wars finds out he’s been drinking with college kids,

I’m thankful I have a roof to live under!

Hyrule felt like he was going to be sick as he watched the blood pressure cuff cycle again. The patient's vitals were deteriorating, and he knew he couldn't fix this problem. They were a trauma patient, no amount of crystalloid fluids was going to fix this.

They needed blood. And his ambulance didn't carry that.

He wished he could fly the patient, but it was storming. The helicopters were all grounded.

Sky would fly in it anyway, he thought fleetingly, almost smiling, but then he saw the patient's blood pressure.

70/30. Down from 82/44.

They were going to code.

Drive faster, Hyrule begged as he mixed a norepinephrine drip. It was a pointless venture - making the patient's blood vessels squeeze to try to increase their BP didn't do anything if the blood vessels didn't have fluid in them. And if he kept dumping saline into his patient all he'd do is dilute any attempt their body had to clot and stop the internal bleeding.

This was a pointless venture. What they definitively needed was surgery, and blood was all that could hold them over until then. But he had to try anyway.

The ambulance jerked abruptly, and Hyrule gasped, grabbing one of the rails as the truck slammed the brakes. Mo cussed as he nearly barreled his partner over.

"Firefighter drivers, I swear," Mo grumbled, about to yell at the front where a firefighter had been assigned to drive them so they could both be in the back.

Hyrule let his partner exchange words with the driver, barely listening to how the reason they'd almost toppled over was because people on the road wouldn't move. He grabbed the norepinephrine vials and started to inject them into the bag of saline so he could create a drip, and then he noticed something abruptly.

"Shit," he muttered. "Mo, he's not breathing."

Mo turned sharply back at the patient to see they had gotten three shades paler and were only having agonal respirations.

He's going to code, we need to get to the hospital.

Mo grabbed a bag valve mask and started to breathe for the patient while Hyrule grabbed defibrillator pads in preparation. If this was a hypovolemic cause for the code, the patient's heart was probably going to go into a shockable rhythm.

The ambulance stopped, and Hyrule and Mo glanced at each other. Were they there?

The doors to the back opened before Hyrule had a chance to look out the windows, and their driver was there, sweating but ready to help. "What can I grab?"

We're here, thank heaven. "Just go in there and tell them he needs blood and is about to code. We'll grab the stuff."

The firefighter ran inside as Hyrule threw the monitor on the stretcher. Mo jumped out to pull the stretcher out of the truck while Hyrule bagged. When they got inside, the room was full of people, and he spotted Warriors and Time waiting.

He finally felt like he could breathe as he handed off care. Whatever happened next, he did everything he could, at least.

@aliensunscreen this is for you twin

Jorg the Soft for @boguscheesecake ( + alt helmet and icy versions)

feral twi this, feral wild that, what about the war criminal