Disclaimer: I don't own anything related to Law and Order: SVU or otherwise.
ooOoo
Damn, but it's slippery out tonight.
Dominick Carisi call-me-Sonny skids for the umpteenth time tonight and starts questioning why exactly he decided to walk home.
It couldn't have been that he's out of cash and doesn't own a car, could it.
He grunts when he falls, the air whooshing out of him. Thankfully no one he knows is around to laugh at him as he picks himself up.
Glad that he's more than halfway home, sad that he's got more ice to cross, and why-oh-why can't the city of New York buckle down and actually clean the damn sidewalks?
Sonny makes it another three blocks before he goes down spectacularly. Right down the steps into the subway.
His shoulder feels like it's dislocated and his chest hurts from where it slammed into the railing. Various bruises and bumps cry out, but nothing is as bad as his head. He must've hit it. The lights are too bright, there's too many people. All of them ignore him though. Gotta love New York.
He pokes at a particularly tender spot on his forehead, fingers coming away bloody.
Oh.
Concussion.
Well, other than the thing with the light, it doesn't feel too bad. And if he concentrates, he can actually squint through the haze of too-white light and too-much noise.
Slowly, painfully, Sonny pulls himself to his feet. His knee protests his weight and his head pounds as it moves closer to the lights.
At least he can limp, he thinks, grateful that he can move at all really.
The steps are daunting, but the crowd parts, and he manages to balance enough on his good leg and hobble up them until he emerges back into the chilly night.
He's still got seven blocks.
It won't kill him, he reasons, and starts limp-walking.
His luck holds, and he arrives at his apartment no more banged up than falling down a flight of stairs can do.
Inside, inside, and into the shower. Wash away the grime he feels sticking to him. The blood from his head wound is tacky and drying his knit cap to his head. What fun it'll be to peel off.
Lock the door—New York, New York—and stumble into the bathroom. The lights are too bright, so he leaves them off. He thinks about the damage done to his body and decides it can wait. Even now, he's not so sure he really wants that shower.
He's too tired. Too hurt.
He turns around and limp-limp-limps to his bedroom.
His towel from the morning (and isn't that a bitch?) snags his good leg and he goes down hard, crying out as his whole body smacks against the floor and all his injuries are jarred.
Blood drips down his face from where the head wound reopened, and he grabs the towel, wraps it around his head to help stem the flow.
One breath, easier than the other, and he slips right off to sleep.
He wakes up a moment later, stiffened, shivering and whimpering.
It's cold on the floor, and also he's still in his jacket so why is he cold?
He works the fingers on his dislocated shoulder—okay, maybe not so dislocated shoulder—into his pocket to draw out his phone. His fingers feel clumsy, thick and useless. His head throbs and his teeth chatter.
Definitely not a fun day.
Oh, shit. He doesn't have enough money for an ambulance.
Well, he could always ask his parents, but he's sure they'd say something like, "You wanted to be an adult, Sonny. You have to take the consequences, good and bad" like they have every year since the time he tried to run away when he was ten.
Okay, so no hospital. He hasn't felt nauseous yet, so his concussion is still mild. It just hurts like a bitch.
He swipes a thumb over his phone and recoils almost instantly, the light from the display slamming into his eyes and stabbing deep into his brain.
"Ah, fuck," he murmurs quietly, and even that's too loud. "Fuck," he says again, punching in the number from memory. While it's ringing, he drops his head down, lays his ear over the phone, and waits.
"Benson," chirps his Sergeant. She sounds too much awake for how late it should be. "Hello?"
"Hey, hello," he tries, keeps his eyes shut. "Sarge?"
"Carisi? What's wrong?"
"I fucked up my head. Can you help?"
"Shouldn't you be calling for an ambulance, not me?" She sounds annoyed but not angry, and Sonny'll take it.
"Yeah, but they charge an arm and a leg, and I don't have either of those right now." He blames his concussion. For everything. "Sorry, shouldn't have bothered you. Forget about it. I'll sort it." He lifts his head, moaning softly at the reignited pain. But it's up, and it'll stay up as long as he needs it to. He wriggles his fingers, trying to find the phone.
"No, Carisi," she says, tinny when it's not in his ear. He leans down to hear her better and smacks his forehead against the floor.
He's pretty sure he screamed and-slash-or knocked himself out, because when he's finally aware again, there's vomit on his floor, his eyes are cracked open despite the pain, and he can barely hear Benson shouting at him through his phone. Which is, hello, thank you, right under his hand where he'd left it.
"'m here," he says to the phone, leans down and says it again when she doesn't stop yelling.
"Oh. Where'd you go?"
"Nowhere. Jus' here." He's aware he's slurring. "'m sorry to bug you."
"No, you're not bugging me. Hey, I'm on my way to your apartment. Don't worry about the ambulance, it's covered. I just need you to keep talking to me."
"Whaddya wanna talk abou'?"
"Anything, Carisi, just talk."
"I tried to run away when I was ten," he says, and she hums softly, soothingly. "My hat's stuck to my head. So's my towel." he falls silent, listening to her breathing on the other end of the phone.
"Carisi," she reminds him gently, "keep talking. Why'd you run away when you were ten?"
"I broke my arm when I was seven."
"How'd you do that?"
"I...threw up. First time tonight."
"When?"
"Jus' before you asked me where I wen'."
"Keep talking."
"I wanna sleep."
"Don't."
He feels petulant, and not at all like an adult. But, "I fell down the stairs."
"Whose stairs?"
"The sky is green."
Silence.
"Can I have ice cream?"
More silence.
"Oh, I think I hear the am-mumbulance." He blinks steadily. Yes, that's a siren—he can't say the word right now, leave him alone—but why does he need a siren?
"Hang on, Carisi, we're right here."
He stares stupidly at his phone. It's talking to him and it knows his name.
"Sleep." Sleep will make everything make more sense.
He sets his head down, carefully, and closes his eyes. The sour smell of vomit and the iron tint of blood make it hard to slip away, so he opens his eyes, finding a worried Sergeant Benson leaning over him.
"Hey," she says softly, hand hovering over his head. "How do you feel?"
He opens his mouth to answer but something touches his knee and he screams instead. Benson recoils. She recovers quickly, dropping onto the floor next to him and grabbing his shoulder as he begins twisting, trying to escape the growing pain. Except she grabs his almost-but-not-really dislocated shoulder and he cries out again.
"Does anywhere not hurt?" she asks, drawing back. He shakes his head and then throws up.
"Okay, don't move. You're okay." She strokes his back gently, and okay, yeah, that's one place that doesn't hurt so much.
"Doesn't hurt," he says to her, and she looked puzzled. "When you touch there. Everywhere else hurts."
"Sergeant," someone else says, and Sonny tries to turn to see who it is, but Benson presses on his back pinning him. Oh, that hurts. He'd forgotten about his chest. "We need to get him to the hospital now. Can you keep him calm while I get the C-Collar on?"
"Sure." Benson moves her hand steadily, rubbing at the center of Sonny's back, between his shoulder blades. "Hey, Sonny, the EMA is going to put something around your neck. I want you to hold still." She picks up his other hand and folds her fingers around it. "Just let me know if it gets too much, okay?"
"'kay."
Sonny freaks out as soon as the EMA closes the C-Collar on him. "I can't breathe," he complains, and Benson strokes his back which so does not help. "Get it off me!"
Benson shushes him while the EMA and her partner roll Sonny onto a gurney. When he's settled and strapped on, the male EMA undoes the C-Collar.
"Medical evidence dictates it may do more harm than good in a head trauma patient," he explains to Benson as all four of them make their way out of Sonny's apartment. "We wanted to keep his head as still as possible when we were moving him, being as movement seemed to trigger his nausea, but really, he doesn't need it."
That's a relief to hear, Sonny thinks. Benson's hand slides into his again—his almost-but-not-quite dislocated shoulder protests weakly but it feels nice to just curl his fingers around her hand and squeeze when the steps jar him.
"Okay, up and in," the female EMA says, and it's not enough of a warning. Sonny whimpers as the lights from the ambulance—hey he can say that word now!—spin and he closes his eyes, letting the waves of vertigo carry him into the back. He listens to the clicking and rustling as the gurney is locked in and Benson settles next to his head. He feels it when the ambulance—can still say that word—accelerates, the siren wailing.
"Sonny?" Benson whispers, and he manages to crack his eyes to give her a blurry once-over. Her face is still pinched with worry, but she doesn't look half bad.
"'m sleepy," he says, and she laughs.
"I know. Listen, Kayla, here is going to try to remove your hat so she can assess the damage to your head. Can you tell me what happened?"
"I slipped on the ice, fell down the subway."
Warmth covers the wound on his forehead. He closes his eyes at the spark of pain it reignites.
"When did you fall?"
"Sorry, don't know that. I was only a few blocks from home when I fell."
An insistent probing on his knee has him opening his eyes again and trying to glance down his body.
The female EMA, Kayla, is holding his knee with one hand while she digs in a cabinet set on the bench beside her. She comes up with a chemical ice pack and activates it, pressing it to his knee. He hisses in response.
"Sonny," Kayla says, her gloved fingers wavering in front of his eyes, "I need to check your reaction to light. I know you're a little sensitive right now, so I need you to tell me as soon as it's not all right. Can you do that for me?"
Stupidly, Sonny nods. He bleats in alarm as the ceiling slides sideways, and suddenly he's looking at Benson. "Sarge," he whispers, and Benson leans closer. "'m gonna puke," he warns.
He doesn't though, and he's ridiculously proud of himself for it.
Kayla manages to peel the hat off his forehead, and that doesn't hurt as much as he'd thought it would despite her serious face and almost angry look.
His knee feels better, too. Even his almost-but-not-even-slightly dislocated shoulder feels okay. The only thing still aching is his chest.
"I feel much better, now, thank you," he says, and oh, that sounds wrong. Every word is slurred so badly Sonny's not even sure what he said. Kayla gives him a worried look that he doesn't like, so he turns his head to see Benson giving him the same look.
The back doors open, and Sonny smells the exhaust and the chill of the night. "We're here," the male EMA says, and he and Kayla unlock the gurney.
"Going down," Kayla warns, and that feels just like flying. Except, when the wheels bump onto the ground the pain that had lifted slams back into Sonny, and he yells at the shock of it.
Next he's aware of, they're inside the ER and Kayla rattles off his maladies in a matter-of-fact voice that is almost soothing. Benson keeps holding his hand, except okay, yeah, he's really squishing her hand.
"Sorry," he mumbles and Benson sighs.
"You're fine. I'm going to have to stay out here while they evaluate you. You'll be fine."
"'m sorry for bugging you."
"Sonny, you're not bugging me. I'll be here when they're done examining you. I'm not going to leave you here alone. Okay?"
"Okay. I believe you."
"Good, 'cause it's true." A nurse takes over pushing the gurney, and Benson's fingers slip from his. "Remember, I'll be here waiting."
And after all, she is, with an ice cream cone and a piece of paper that says, "By the way, the sky is blue."
Sonny laughs.
~ The End ~
ooOoo
Notes: not a medical professional so here be mistakes. Read at your own risk.
Scaredbeingsinthedark aka WalkingDictionary