#self surgery

Amethyst hummed, turning her eyes to face the ceiling. The motion instantly reminded her of God, which vaguely disgusted her for a reason she couldn't quantify. She turned her eyes back down.

Back to Amber. Back to her careful hands stitching the flesh of her abdomen together. Back to the towel covering her legs, because she'd had to strip off her jeans when they got covered in blood. The bleeding had been uncontrollable before Amber and Evan got home, so she had been the centre of a crisis for a few awful minutes. But it slowed down before long, and she insisted that she did not want to go to the hospital. So Amber, well-accustomed to impromptu stitches, took out a kit and with no more than a sigh, sat down to work.

Evan floated in and out, turning on the tap periodically in the bathroom. It had not looked pretty. Both of them had screamed when they saw it. Their panic had cut through even Amethyst's half-conscious state, miraculously.

She whimpered again, the uncomfortable sensation of metal slicing flesh adding to the tyranny on her senses. She was half-lying on the couch, at Amber's insistence. She would've preferred the floor, but Amber laid out a towel and refused to let Amethyst get down.

She would've done the stitches herself, except - it hurt too much. It was bleeding too much. She was shaking. She was exhausted. She'd already tried to do it herself, three times in the past two weeks. The damn thing just kept opening up. Amber had needed to take out her festering stitches before cleaning it up and starting afresh. Amethyst burned with embarrassment the whole time, but once the new stitches started to go in, that feeling shifted to a kind of raw vulnerability.

Amber was so gentle with her. She was clean and precise and methodical, closing the wound with all her years of experience. It was the kindest thing anyone had ever done to her body.

A shuddering breath escaped her. Fuck, it hurt. Her hands flexed, one down by her side, the other thrown up by her head. She was squeezing one of the throw pillows, but she didn't know when she'd started doing it. Embarrassed, she let go. Evan was watching.

He sighed, moving around the couch to sit by her. "Sorry," she whispered. For making a mess. For not coming to them earlier. For scaring them. For being so inconvenient. She'd said it all already, so she didn't say it again. Out of the two, Evan's concern came out a lot like anger. And she didn't mind, could hold her own, especially because she knew she was tougher than he was and could hold out a lot longer. But she just didn't like it when he was angry with her.

"It's nothing," he said quietly, dabbing at her forehead with a tissue and pushing aside some stray hair in the same motion. Blood and sweat had stuck some of it to her face, and she hadn't had a chance to clean up. "I'm just glad you stayed at home. And that you called."

She'd forgotten she did that. She'd been… really dizzy. The reassurances went over her head. He said things like that all the time. But then he gave her one of his soft smiles, and she believed him in the same instant. The relief knocked her off her feet, or it would've if she wasn't already lying down.

Instead, to Amethyst's absolute dismay, tears sprang to her eyes. She closed them, but it was too late - one trickled out of her eye and down her face.

"Oh, Ames, hey, hey. You're okay, I got you." He was holding her hand now, doing the squeezing so she wouldn't have to. Not that she wanted to. Except she absolutely did, and she was. She couldn't stop the tears coming now that they'd started and she could tell it was making Amber's job harder so she had a practical reason to stop, not just a prideful one, but her body seemed to refuse to listen to her recently.

"I'm fine," she insisted, but her voice wobbled. Traitorously. "Sorry, I just - is it - "

"Done." Amber pulled away, and Amethyst pulled the towel up to cover herself almost immediately. She was no stranger to being exposed, but she just wanted to hide now.

"Woah, woah, careful - oh, Amethyst."

The sobs were completely silent, but ripped from her body in a way that was almost painful. It was all painful now, she thought. What if this was it? What if she just had to live like this forever?

Well. She wouldn't be alone. If she had to pick a place to spend the rest of her life, it'd be here, with these people who refused to let her remember what loneliness was.

She ended up crying onto Evan's shoulder, draping herself over him as if she was afraid he'd leave. Or disintegrate. People did that to her. More often the first one, but… she was just terrified of losing the first good thing she'd ever had. The first real good thing.

"You're so good to me," she said once she'd calmed down. She had made no attempt to extricate herself however, and could still feel his heartbeat against her chest. "How do you do it?"

He smoothed down her hair. "Sometimes I ask myself the same question."

She laughed. That was why she liked him: he told the truth.

"But… I don't know how. I just do. It feels like the right thing to do. And I like you, Amethyst. I care about you. Maybe that's how."

"What does that feel like?"

He pulled back a little to look at her, expression quizzical. "Caring about you? It's… crazy. It's the feeling I got every time I wanted to quit med school. When everything seemed hopeless, I just thought… if I can help one person. If one person in the world lives, or has a better life, because of me, then it's worth it. Maybe you're that person."

"And all the patients you see every day are just extra?"

God, it was sometimes physically overwhelming to see Evan lovesick. "Yeah, maybe."

Amethyst gave a wry smile. "That's sweet. I need to shower."

"And nap," he added, letting her lean on him to stand up.

"I hate those. I don't need to sleep."

"I know. And I know. I'm telling you to nap. Your body needs to rest."

"My body -" Amethyst didn't have a way to finish the retort. She didn't know what her body needed. And she really couldn't argue with the doctor. She was outnumbered in that regard. Amber would be on his side, she had a feeling.

"Fine."

"Need me to help you shower?"

She shot him a look. "Creep." And then she asked Amber.

"You know she's older!" He wasn't really protesting, and she wasn't actually disturbed. Her comfort came from the fact that she could bleed half her blood volume out onto the bathroom floor and demand to be stitched up on the sofa then cry harder than she'd ever cried in recent history, and they could still make stupid jokes with each other. Nothing changed.

—

She did take a nap. She hadn't been sleeping well, but the sleep after Amber helped her to shower and washed her hair was the deepest and calmest she'd ever had. Amethyst didn't often dream, and if she did, they made her wake up sweating and panicked. She never remembered them, and this one was no different. But it was different, in every way.

She was healed. Not unblemished, but the wound had scarred over. And she had her wings. Four off-white downy things, two smaller ones wrapping around her torso and two larger ones spread out behind her. She was on top of a cloud. In it? No. She was pretty sure she was on top of it. Cirrus, but it was iridescent. Amethyst reached out and touched it, and where the rainbow met her skin, ice shards stuck to it like jewellery. She shone. It was bright, but she had the feeling that she was shining.

She wasn't alone.

"This is nice," she said without much feeling. "Can I go home now?"

She felt, as if music was being played with the muscle of her heart, the answer. And the laugh.

Of course. This is always here for you.

Amethyst hummed, spinning lightly in the air. The wings felt nice. But the ice was cold against her hand, and the smell of ozone was so different to Evan's eucalyptus and Amber's peony.

"Thanks. I'll - be in touch."

---

In went the razor blade. Whumpee grit their teeth around the washcloth in their mouth, holding back every sound as they sliced open the back of their scalp, right above the neck. Not a peep, Whumper had told them, time and time again. Her training was good for something after all.

They dropped the bloody blade into the sink, bringing their (clean, clean, gotta be clean by now) fingers back and digging into the wound. Whumpee couldn’t make the incision where the chip actually was. Too visible. They had to do it high up, so it could hide in their hair, and reach. Their teeth hurt even through the washcloth, their jaw locked all the way up with how hard they bit. Still, not a peep.

The eyes weren’t doing anything. Whumpee closed them, trying to focus on the feeling in their fingers instead of the agony of their split skin. It was the hardest thing they’d ever done, impossible. Every cell in their body screamed at them to stop, just stop, the way they wanted to scream at Whumper.

They didn’t. They felt around, bile working its way into their mouth and then back down, until they were sure they’d gotten it. A hard little box that certainly didn’t feel like a body part. The terrible thing that let Whumper flood their whole nervous system with pain at the touch of a button.

Whumpee yanked.

They buckled to their knees, only the luck of the breath being stolen from their lungs keeping them from succumbing to a giveaway shout. They hit the tile hard, seizing, more and more blood spilling from the wound each time their head hit the floor.

“Whumpee? Everything alright in there?” came Whumper’s muffled voice.

They couldn’t answer. They had to answer. Just as they heard Whumper start to turn the knob, they managed to choke out an, “I’m f-fine, I’m fine! Just fell!”

“I’ll need to check you over when you’re out,” she called back. “No more than five minutes. You’ve been in there long enough.”

“Sure!” The seizing was subsiding–only lasted a minute, probably the luckiest they’d ever get–and Whumpee pushed themself to their unsteady feet.

The chip laid on the tile floor in a scattered puddle of blood. They were still bleeding profusely out of the back of their head. They couldn’t see out of one eye. In fact, they couldn’t feel that whole side of their face. The bloody razor laid in the sink. They still hadn’t showered–the thing they’d been ostensibly doing the whole time they were in here.

Whumpee took a deep breath and got to work.

-

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Geonosis isn’t at all going well, Waxer thinks, because they have been deployed for less than a day and he is already surprised that he hasn’t died yet.

Between hauling their General out of a crashed gunship and holding a more or less open position until reinforcements arrive, he and Boil had thankfully made it out alive.

It is only once the burning bright sun of Geonosis has set when Bacta slowly limps over to where he and Crys are sitting and talking quietly. Boil is already asleep on the bedroll next to Waxer.

Crys jumps up and immediately approaches Bacta, offering his arm for support. Bacta accepts it. Now if that isn’t suspicious, Waxer doesn’t know what is.

“I need your help,” Bacta says to Crys before turning to Waxer, pointing at him. “Yours too.”

Crys helps Bacta sit down a little away from the sleeping group, behind one of the tanks where he has set up a small surgical side. Everyone who was gravely injured in the assault seems to be accounted for, most of them should be asleep by now.

Bacta sits down with a painful hiss and stretches his left leg out in a way that makes Waxer realize something is wrong, no medical training required.

Waxer crouches down by Bacta’s side, carefully avoiding the medical pack that is already laid out next to them.

“I caught a shrapnel during the attack,” Bacta starts once he has settled to sit against one of the supply crates.

“What?” Crys questions. “Where?”

“Thigh. My armour took a hit during the LAAT/i crash, it cracked the plastoid.” Bacta starts to remove the armour parts of his left thigh and once the white plastoid is moved to the side, Waxer can clearly see the rip in his blacks, the blood that has seeped into them and then dried into a large stain.

 “You should put something on that,” Waxer notes and immediately realizes how stupid he is because this the Senior Medic of their company and he knows absolutely knows very well how to treat injuries.

“I am aware, Lieutenant. Before that, however, I need your help removing the shrapnel.”

Waxer brows scrunch with dread and  glances at Crys before he turns back to Bacta.

“Seriously?”

“Seriously,” the medic replies.

“You are aware that we are not trained for that?” Crys inquires.

“Painfully so, Sergeant. I would rather have Helix and Patches perform this procedure but accounting for the fact that both of them are currently preoccupied, your skills will have to suffice,” Bacta grits out.

Waxer just thinks that handing Patches off to Nova Corps was a bad idea. As much as they needed a Senior Medic among all the shinies that are currently making up their medical team.

“Are you sure this can’t want until medical extraction?” Waxer notes.

Bacta shakes his head. “No. Ghost Company needs me up and going, especially since General Skywalker is already planning the next assault. Moving around with a shrapnel in my leg will lead to nerve damage, sooner than later.”

Waxer only notices now that the 501st arrived without a medic at their location.

“Well…” Crys seems to be equally as confident as Waxer, but they share another glance and know what has to be done.

Bacta is their Senior Medic. He is usually responsible and most of the time not careless with his own well-being.

“Maybe explain first, what you want us to do,” Waxer says.

Bacta nods and swallows heavily. Waxer can already see the sweat appearing on his forehead.

“First I will apply a tourniquet to the top of my leg. I need one of you to close it tightly.”

Bacta shows them the medical supplies.

“I will do the main part of the show alone, you are just here to back me up in case I lose consciousness while still operating,” he explains.

“And what do we do, if that happens?” Crys asks, emphasizing the if hopefully.

Bacta shows them a spread of hypos.

“If I appear to be lethargic or you think I will pass out, you use these. To the neck. Not really anything you can do wrong.”

To the neck and not really anything you can do wrong does not piece together well in Waxer’s head. He is inclined to believe Bacta but still he remains a tad bit doubtful.

“Three of them max,” Bacta notes, catches eye contact with both of them to emphasize the seriousness.

“It is unlikely to happen but if three stims are not enough, I want you to pour bacta into the wound, wrap it up and remove the tourniquet after a total of 30 minutes of it staying in place. You got that?”

“Got it,” Waxer answers. Crys nods, his eyes filling with worry, but he remains seated next to Bacta steadily, not seeming to back out.

Bacta sighs deeply, seemingly wishing for another medic one last time before he rips open his blacks until the wound is sufficiently exposed. After that, he pulls on surgical gloves and drenches the wound in disinfectant.  

Waxer jumps to help him and together they slide the tourniquet around his top of his thigh.

“Turn this part. I’ll tell you when to stop,” Bacta directs, already picking up another hypo.

It is no brain surgery Waxer is performing, which he is thankful for, but he still feels a little insecure when he follows the medic’s direction and tightens the black tourniquet around his thigh.

“Keep going… more… alright, stop, that’s enough,” the medic says, resting his hand on top of Waxer’s. He lets out a painful hiss but stays focused on the hypo.

“Alright?” Crys inquires.

Bacta nods and pushes the hypo into the skin next to the wound. He sighs in relief a moment later so Waxer guesses that the medication probably was some sort of local anesthetic.

Bacta doesn’t hesitate, instead he picks up a scalpel and… digs in.

Both Crys and Waxer redirect their gazes for a moment. How do medics do this osik all the time. Waxer has seen a lot, but this picture was nothing he needed in his head.

Instead of watching Bacta cut open his leg, he focuses on the medics concentrated expression. He is sweating profusely now, tilting his head back every now and then to gather himself before he continues with gritted teeth.

“How large exactly is that shrapnel,” Cry asks after a few minutes, already twisting the hypo in his hands.

Waxer didn’t dare to ask because Bacta, rightfully, looks one wrong word away from snapping but he is wondering the same. The cuts the medic is making across his thigh are both wide and look deep.

“It’s a bad angle,” Bacta mutters, Waxer frowns at the slur. He sits on his heels and grips the medic’s neck, massaging it vigorously.

“Bacta, come on,” he says, loudly.

“Stim,” Bacta requests but Crys is already by his side, pressing the hypo to his neck.

The medication seems to shoot straight through the medic’s neck because already, a little colour returns to his face. He opens his eyes and lets out a few shaky breathes before he returns his gaze to the surgery site.

“Forceps?” He requests.

Waxer hands them to him, careful not to touch the part that is supposed to go into the wound.

Bacta takes it and reaches into the wound, pulling the shrapnel free with one hard tug that forces Waxer to close his eyes again to make the black spots disappear.

The shrapnel fits into Waxer’s palm but has odd, sharp angles that he imagines insanely painful when walking around with it in his leg. How the hell Bacta managed to hold up until now is a riddle to him.

Crys helps Bacta press a gauze to the wound. Waxer supportively grips Bacta’s ankle.

“Oh, good. I can still feel that,” the medic comments before he lazily reaches for the bacta bandages.

“What do you mean ‘oh, good’?” Crys exclaims.

“As I said, nerve damage was a real possibility.”

“Bacta?” Waxer exclaims.

“Don’t shout. Got a headache,” Bacta comments, switching out the gauze for a bacta-soaked one.

“Me too. It walks on hopefully still two intact legs and next time we get a batch of shinies, he will pick one he likes and train him to be medic too. No arguments.”