#midazolam

Fao wasn’t sure how he’d ended up playing hide and seek with his brother, but he was having fun and he wasn’t going to complain. He’d been shit at hiding, so Finn had protested that he had to do the seeking, and he’d do the hiding. Fao didn’t mind, Finn wasn’t usually that hard to find, and he gave him the time before he went in search of him. 

Finn had found Fao almost immediately, his brother basically just standing behind a tree. Of course, Finn complained, so Fao let him hide, which he loved. It was more fun to hide, anyway.

He'd ran off as soon as Fao started counting; he'd seen a tree he was sure he could climb - and he would be higher than Fao, so he definitely wouldn't find him. It was a bit of a struggle to get up, but he'd managed with minimal injury. Out of breath and trying not to giggle, he missed the first warning. 

Fao regretted letting Finn hide, his brother seemingly having disappeared. Of course, that was the aim of the game, but that wasn’t the point. He scoured the area they’d set out to play in, though he wasn’t convinced Finn hadn’t gone outside of it. 

As Fao passed him, Finn covered his hand with his mouth, trying his best to not giggle. He managed it, somehow, and Fao continued on. His excitement and laughter quickly stopped as his stomach flipped and lights flashed across his vision. The nausea was almost unbearable, and realisation dawned. He knew he needed to get down, but everything was slow, his limbs barely under his control. The panic was overwhelming, the game forgotten, and he called out to his brother. 

"Fao!"

At Finn calling his name, Fao whipped around, the fear clear in his brother’s voice. He couldn’t see him for a minute, eyes flicking around the clearing. Then he spotted him up the tree, and rushed over. 

“Finn? What’s wrong?”

He'd managed to get some of the way down, too far to jump without getting hurt, but he didn't have much of a choice. Fao's voice was distant, muffled behind the rush of blood in his ears. He couldn't see anymore and just had to hope that Fao would find him. 

Fao rushed forwards, just in time to see Finn fall, having got halfway down the tree he’d obviously been hiding in. He was just too far away, as Fao tried to cover the ground, and his brother hit the floor with a thud. 

“Finn!” He fell to his knees next to him, hands shaking, taken back to watching Finn fall the first time, finding him at the bottom of the stairs in his own blood. 

Finn had landed awkwardly, seizing as he hit the ground. Blood seeped from a cut across his forehead, and the spit that collected at his lips was mainly blood. 

Fao scrabbled for his phone, starting the timer as quickly as he could. He didn’t have his bag with him, didn’t have anything. The midaz was back at the tent. He should’ve brought it with him but he’d thought for five minutes they’d be okay. 

Of course, though, they weren't. Five minutes ticked closer and closer, and Finn’s seizure showed no signs of stopping. Cyanosis was clear on his lips, each breath a desperate struggle against contracting muscles. Blood dripped down his face and into his eye, but there was nothing he could do. 

The awkward way Finn had fallen had Fao worried about his cspine, but the way he was breathing (or not) meant that Fao didn’t have much of a choice but to get him on his side. He muttered his apologies, shoving him onto his side in the dirt. 

Glancing at his phone, he found he had one precious bar of service, and quickly called Sheila. He was in the middle of nowhere, and as much as he needed an ambulance, he needed her to get them to him. He was quick as he explained, leaving out the fact Finn had literally fallen out of a tree. 

He couldn’t stay on the phone with her long, quickly dialling for an ambulance. He was as calm as he could be, clinical with them, and explained exactly what he was dealing with. He didn’t know the area, didn’t know the hospitals, which was nerve wracking enough, not to mention Finn very definitely unwell, in an awkward place in the middle of nowhere. 

Sheila had a rough idea where they were, but Fred had explored more of the campsite and had a pretty good inkling he knew where they were. He told Sheila to wait for the ambulance, to direct them to the woods and he'd be back to meet them. He grabbed Finn’s midaz from the tent and ran off, worry and adrenaline seeing him sprint through the site to find his sons. 

Fao spoke soothingly to Finn as he continued to seize, hoping and praying the ambulance came quickly. He hated not being able to do anything, and listening to Finn’s erratic breathing was like torture. He heard footsteps and looked up, expecting paramedics but seeing Fred.

“Dad!”

Fred was more than a little out of breath, but dropped to his knees by the pair. "I've got his midaz. Been longer than five, yeah?"

Fao nodded quickly. “Yeah, yeah, give it.” 

Fred had already opened the syringe and reached to wipe the bloody spit from Finn's mouth before giving the midaz. He apologised to his son under his breath, making sure the midaz was in the right place. 

"What happened?"

“We were playing hide and seek, and then he called for me, just before he went. He, uh, might’ve been in the tree?”

Fred looked at Fao, face paling. "You're kidding me. Please tell me you're joking."

“I wish I was joking. He got halfway down before he fell, but…”

"Explains the blood." Fred felt sick. "How did he land?"

“Hard?” Fao winced. 

"On his head?"

“Sort of.” Fao mumbled. “I didn’t get to him quick enough, I tried…”

Fred's mind reeled. "It's okay. It's not your fault. You did your best."

He’d said that last time, and Finn had still nearly died. Fao sighed. “Yeah.”

Fred reached a hand to squeeze Fao's shoulder. "Thank you for being here for him."

He made a noise. “He’s my little brother.”

"I know, I know. I'm gonna have to go meet the ambulance, okay? I'll be right back."

“Yeah, go. I’ll be with him.”

"Thank you." He squeezed his youngest's arm. "Just hold on, Finn. Please, just hold on."

Fao watched his dad go, praying things didn’t take much longer, that Finn stopped seizing, that something got better. 

The midaz seemed to help, his breathing starting to even out, the seizure starting to slow. It still hadn't fully resolved by the time the ambulance arrived, his eyes still fixed, muscles still contracting. 

Fao looked up as the paramedics arrived, relieved to finally see them as his brother began to stop seizing, though he could still feel the flicker of muscle contraction against him. 

"Hi, Finn and Fao, yeah?" The one in front gave them a tense smile. "I'm Mia, this is Tom. How's Finn doing now? Your dad caught us up a bit."

“Hi, yeah. As you can see he’s started to resolve, he’s had his midaz about a minute ago now, but he’s not fully come out of it yet, I can still feel him. He was in the tree, and he was just coming down as he went, I tried to catch him but I wasn’t able to. He hit his head, I was worried about his cspine but I was more worried about his airway so I had to roll him.”

"Okay. How long has he been seizing for? And how far did he fall?"

“Um, however long is on my phone? 8 minutes? He fell from about half way down, maybe a metre, he was trying to climb down but I guess he’d already started.”

"Alright. I'm gonna get some more people to come give us a hand." She murmured as Tom connected Finn to the oxygen. "I'll see if I can get a cannula in, too, just in case that midaz doesn't help."

“He’s usually decent to cannulate.” Fao murmured. “Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help you guys.”

"Just keep doing what you're doing, you're doing a great job."

He nodded, staying put and murmuring to his brother. “Got some help now, Finn. Gonna get you sorted.”

Sure enough, Finn was easy enough to cannulate, even with his occasional jerks. His airway was cleared, his oxygen starting to climb back into acceptable territory. As the minutes crawled by, their assessment continued to be worrying. His gaze was still fixed, as were his pupils, his head injury all too obvious. Of course, they were worried about it being a distracting injury, especially with the possibility of a spinal injury all too likely. 

Fao could tell things weren’t good, the paramedics sounding increasingly concerned as they worked. That was the problem with his medical brain, he could get the gist of what they were saying, what their worries were, and he bit his lip. Finn definitely wasn’t right, still tolerating the oxygen and all too unresponsive. 

"I'm going to give him more diaz. He's not out of it yet." Mia murmured. "Can you grab that and the BVM? Just in case."

Her crewmate did so, passing her the meds and sorting the BVM, making sure it was in reach if they needed it. “Here.”

"Right, that's given. Can you mark it? Great." She rubbed Finn's arm. "C'mon, kid."

“Come on, Finn.” Fao murmured. “Don’t do this.”

The seconds dragged on into minutes, and Finn’s seizure finally seemed to stop. His body slowly relaxed into the dirt, the ambulance crew carefully adjusting him onto his back and taking control of his head. His airway was secured and observations rechecked.  

"Pupils are a bit more reactive now, but they're still very sluggish. He's got good air entry, no obvious problem there. Abdo is nice and soft, nothing on the long bones, but I'm not sure if he's broken that arm." Mia ran through, though glanced up as the monitor beeped at them. "Finn? Come on, don't do this."

Tom looked up at her, catching the urgency in her tone. He reached to rub at Finn’s chest, knuckles on bare skin. "Finn, come on, take a breath. You can do it."

"He's not going to, is he?" She murmured.