Emergency

A/N: since this can be read as a sequel to "Keen", if you like connecting things in your head, and since people have been putting this story on alerts (for some reason?) I figured I might as well upload it as a chapter even though it doesn't continue the plot line of "Keen". Uh, enjoy?

The wound was, at first glance, just a glistening spot of shredded black fabric on an otherwise unremarkable black shirt. There had been a white vest in the equation earlier, but as is too often the case with white clothing, it had come abruptly to the end of its useful lifespan. No amount of bleach was going to get the memory of tonight out of it.

Worth snapped on a pair of somewhat suspect latex gloves. Even veritably hissing and clutching at his stomach, Conrad managed to indicate that he'd be better off having his abdomen ripped open by a medically certified spider intent on using him as a nest rather than let those gloves anywhere near him, which was patently unfair. The gloves had only been used once before. Maybe twice.

Well used to dealing with unhappy patients—what would have been off-putting was having a happy patient, to be honest—Worth managed to uncurl the vampire from around his oozing stomach long enough to slap some restraints on him. Medieval? Maybe. Effective? Hell yes.

On closer inspection, the wound was a hot mess. Whatever substance was keeping it from healing was congealing around the layers of split skin and muscle like a brackish slime. Worth was pretty sure if he peeled back that loose flap there he'd be able to look at a squiggle of intestine, and while that was sure enough a medically interesting proposition, he also had this feeling that Conrad was only staying inside the restraints because at the moment he figured he ought to. One wrong step, and his body would forget that it was supposed to be submissive to the laws of mundane human musculature. Pop go the buckles.

Worth sucked on his cigarette thoughtfully, and then dropped it still glowing into the ashtray by the table. Submissive. Good choice of terms.

He settled a gloved hand at the edge of the wound. "Whaddaya think," he said, "mebbe now's a good time ter do a little excavation? First doc on the market with a vampire anatomy chart. Gotta bring in a fair heap 'o cash."

Conrad wriggled angrily, attempting with little success to make himself into a smaller target. "Don't you fucking dare you horrible bastard you're not sticking anything in there especially your goddamn hand."

"Well!" Worth pretended to look taken aback. "If that ain't the least grateful thing I ever heard. An' here I was about ter perform a complicated medical procedure pro bono on your botched Caesarian there. I've half a mind ter just turn ya loose here, I have."

"Fine," Conrad snarled, "I'll take care of it myself! Great! Perfect! Maybe we could have had this enlightening conversation before you strapped me to a table?"

But the doctor was already gathering up bottles and bags from around the operating room, dingy corners of his coat fluttering behind him. There was a bottle of rubbing alcohol, and here was a length of gauze, and at the top of the black leather bag a bottle of Nightshade peeked over the clasps.

"Wha'd they getcha with?" the doctor asked, in the same tone you might use to ask someone the time of day. "Hunters, right?"

"Hunter," Conrad replied, darkly. "I don't know, it smells like flowers. Kinda."

"Hm. Rosewater."

"What? How do you know?"

The doctor shrugged vaguely as he dropped his supplies on the bizarrely out of place bedside table that was apparently serving as his tools station for tonight. "Ey, Hanna trots in a couple a dead customers every other night for a month an' you espect me not ter do a little research? I'm hurt, really."

This apparently confused Conrad long enough for a moment of useful silence. Worth regarded the project before him. Pretty simple stuff, with the right tools. Hell, if a guy can walk around with his stomach ripped open for half an hour then there's not much worse a couple minutes on the operating table can do to him. Worth grinned. Don't even need a heart monitor.

"Awright," he said, at last, "this ain't gonna feel like a four star massage but I reckon it won't kill ya either. Try ter keep still or ye'll fuck me up."

He selected a length of gauze, dumped a glug of the Nightshade onto it, and went to work washing the black slime off the edges of the wound. A faint steam slithered up from particularly difficult globs.

Conrad bit his lip hard enough to knock a pinprick hole in one side of it. "What're you—" he started, and then broke off as a flake of skin split from his stomach. "—ffshhhit, what're you doing?"

"Rosewater," Worth said, as if that explained everything. Conrad made a deeply irritated noise, and the doctor begrudgingly went on, "fucks up yer healin' process. Usedter put roses in dead vamps far as I could figure. Stops 'em from comin' back. See how it's makin' goo round the edges? Gotta get that out so the skin can close up."

"Oh," said Conrad.

There was moment of wet silence.

"I forgot you're actually a doctor," Conrad said, with the faint voice of someone who is very tired and has suddenly realized they might not need to fight anybody else after all. "Not, like, a licensed doctor, obviously, but you do have… actual patients…"

Doc Worth shrugged again. "Don't matter ter me what ya remember."

"Of course," Conrad muttered, "why would it."

Doc Worth worked inward with his damp gauze, leaving swatches of pale grey flesh drying against the air. Further in, the tissue grew purplish and lukewarm, and Worth would have ventured to guess that this was probably normal. He tried to get a better look at the clean areas without dislodging anything else, which was a tricky business right enough.

Conrad made a sound. It wasn't exactly a pained sound, but it was enough to make the doctor pause in his work and glance up again, to where Conrad 's face was pinched in a look of dismay.

"Are you just poking things to see what'll happen?" he demanded, glaring pointedly at the doctor's free hand, which was pressing down one spot for a better view.

"More 'r less," Worth said.

Conrad grumbled. "I'm still waiting, you know."

Worth squinted. "Fer wot?"

"Fer—for the innuendo."

Worth gave him an impatient look. Conrad scowled.

"The one, you know, it's obvious, the inside you joke. I know it's coming."

"Ah, ain't even occurred ter me," the doctor lied. He adjusted his collar with slime streaked hands. "I am a professional, yanno."

"Sure."

Worth went back to work. "Ya gotta watch that mind a yers, Fagula. Keep trippin' inter gutters like that and ye'll catch yerself a cold."

At that point Conrad gave up trying to keep his head above conversational waters, and drifted vaguely into an irritated doze. Time passed, as it usually does, and in the dingy light of a back alley operating room, lavender swathes of skin began to knit together again.

Gradually, the tightness around Conrad's lips began to ease.