Hello my lovelies! Here's a bright, shiny new chapter for you! :D
The minute the door closed, Harvey was across the room and on his knees next to Mike. The younger man was curled on his side, one leg pulled up to his chest and his hands clamped tightly over a bloody hole in his pants leg. Rivulets of blood were leaking through his fingers, streaming down the outsides of his hands and dripping onto the ugly grey carpet.
The sight of the blood stunned Harvey but instead of making his nauseous or panicky, it pissed him off. Mike had been standing literally three feet behind him...how the hell did he manage to get shot when he was standing three feet away? He couldn't dwell on that at the moment though, nor could he dwell on the fact that the bullet could have hit him in the chest on stomach or head for that matter. He needed to see how bad the wound was.
"Ah..." Mike gasped raggedly, his eyes squeezed shut in pain. "That hurt a lot more than I thought it would..."
"Of course it hurts you idiot. A bullet just ripped through your leg." Harvey muttered, prying Mike's hands away from the wound. The younger man tried to move his hands back to cover the bleeding hole but Harvey kept a tight grip on his wrists. "Let me see." he demanded but there was no heat in his voice.
The other tellers had crowded around them by this point, all curious and anxious to know about Mike's injury.
"How bad is it?" one of the women asked, her eyes wide and face white at the sight of all the blood.
"Did it hit an artery?" the only male teller asked, appearing near Mike's legs and practically nose-to-nose with Harvey.
Harvey shook his head cautiously. He didn't know much about first aid but he knew that if the bullet had struck an artery the blood would be spurting like something out of a horror movie. There was a lot of blood, much more than he was comfortable with, but it wasn't spurting; it was oozing rather heavily though and that was an issue that needed to be addressed quickly.
"Does anyone have something we could use as a bandage? A towel? Anything?" he looked around at the other tellers who were all crouched around Mike. One of the women pulled off a scarf she's been wearing around her neck and passed it to him. Harvey nodded in thanks to her and took the scarf, covering the wound with it and pressing down firmly.
Mike let out a strangled cry and tried to jerk away but the male teller braced his leg with his hands and allowed Harvey to keep pressure on the wound. The other tellers were trying to calm him, shushing him gently. The pregnant woman, the one he'd take a bullet for, was crouched above his head, her hands cupping either sides of his face. Her hair was long, just barely brushing the top of his forehead, and she looked about two seconds away from tears one again.
Mike grit his teeth, one hand clenching next to his side, his fingers slippery with his own blood. He tried to think about something else, anything else, but all he knew was the incredible pain in his leg. "God...getting shot sucks..."
There was a soft sniffle above him and he opened his eyes to see the woman hovering near his head. "I'm so sorry..." she whispered, her voice quivering as she spoke. "I'm so sorry...you got shot because of me..."
Mike shook his head slowly. "No...it wasn't your fault. I knew what I was getting into." It was a lie, he actually had no clue what he was doing when he turned on the gunman but what he did know was that he wanted to put himself between her and that gun. He didn't regret the decision, he would have done it again in a heartbeat, but it still hurt like hell. "Please don't cry."
That only seemed to make her more upset because the tears began to fall this time and she shook her head. "I'm sorry." she apologized again. "I'm trying not to..."
Mike smiled, his jaw clenched tightly to keep from gritting his teeth any harder. "Its okay." He needed something to take his mind off the pain. "What's your name?" he asked, catching the young woman's attention again.
She sniffled again before answering. "Allison."
Mike tried to give her a comforting smile. "Allison. That's a nice name." He winced when Harvey pressed down a bit harder on the wound. "Ah...when..." he took a shaky breath because the pain was beginning to make him dizzy.
"When is your baby due?"
Allison brushed a tear from her cheek, smiling shakily. "October. He's due October 18th..."
"October, huh? That's pretty soon." Allison nodded and smiled again, a bit bigger this time.
Harvey was watching the interaction between the two silently, juggling between still being pissed at Mike and being slightly impressed by the way he handled things. He'd been shot through the leg not five minutes ago and he was trying to comfort someone else. It seemed ludicrous and stupid and so completely Mike-like that he couldn't help be a bit taken aback by it. He wanted to be mad at him for jumping in front of a man with a gun but he knew it was just part of who the younger man was. He cared about people, enough to put his own life on the line, and Harvey admired the hell out of that even though he would never tell him to his face.
"You're such a Goddamn idiot." he muttered instead, frowning a bit when the blood soaked through the scarf and coated the insides of his hands like acrylic paint.
Mike let out a soft, breathy laugh and stared up at the ceiling. "You would have done the same thing."
"No, I would have made sure she was alright before I charged a man with a gun!" Harvey snapped and he hoped his irritation hid the shakiness in his voice. The last thing he needed was for Mike to know he was worried about him. Number 1) it wouldn't do anyone any good if Mike started to panic because Harvey was panicking and number 2) he had a reputation to uphold.
Mike said nothing to that, his face pinched in pain. He was a bit pale, a light sheen of sweat covering his forehead. Harvey figured most of that was coming from the pain but he couldn't let up on the pressure he was putting on Mike's leg. He had no idea how long they were going to be stuck in here and he certainly didn't need him bleeding to death just because they couldn't get to hospital any time soon. He tied the scarf around Mike's leg tightly, enough to staunch some of the bleeding but not enough to cut off circulation to the rest of his leg.
He looked at the male teller across from him. "Can you help me get him up?"
"I can walk Harvey."
"Shut up."
The male teller nodded and slipped an arm around Mike's shoulders while Harvey did the same on the other side. Together, they lifted him up and started to half-walk, mostly-drag Mike across the room to the opposite wall. Mike tried to help them, tried to walk on his own, but the minute he put weight on his injured leg he nearly collapsed, crying out pain and nearly bringing the other two men down with him.
"Dammit Mike!" Harvey growled, tightening his grip on the younger man's shoulders and straightening him up once more. "You're going to make it worse!" A fresh wave of blood had soaked the scarf and the leg of his pants and Harvey cursed softly under his breath. Leave it to Mike to make things complicated even when he was injured.
They reached the wall and Harvey maneuvered Mike so his back was pressed against it and helped him slide down to the floor. Mike was breathing hard, his eyes squeezed shut tightly, and he kind of looked like he was going to be sick.
"You okay?" Harvey asked, shattering his previous thought process of trying to prevent Mike from thinking he was worried.
The younger man nodded slowly after a second and opened his eyes. "Yeah...just a little dizzy."
Harvey shook his head. "Idiot." he mumbled again before taking a seat next to his associate and pressing his back into the wall. It looked like they were going to be here for a while so he figured he might as well make himself comfortable.
Aww I just love these two, they're so freaking cute! XD