I do not own Hawaii Five-0 or any characters. No copyright infringement intended.
NOTES: okay - I KNOW - the other was indeed short. But that other CHAPTER (it was more than a paragraph - seriously) was a necessary interlude to get HERE. ;-)
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Panit sat silently in the back of the SUV as it barreled down the dusty track. He was holding the third tank in his lap, his hands virtually welded to the glass as he bounced along, every rut which the SUV hit rolling directly into the small of his back. The pit viper was active and agitated as it was once again moved entirely by someone else's whimsey and not in a kind way at all. The snake didn't care that Panit was doing his very best to hold the tank steady. Angry and tired, the viper only wanted to be left alone. Panit innately knew this about the snake and he mentally promised it a long period of uninterrupted peace and quiet once they managed to escape.
Until that happened, he could only make all of these promises in silence while giving surreptitious glances towards the injured man in the passenger seat. Slouched down and unable to bite back the moans of pain as Louis Small seemed to purposefully aim the SUV towards every rock or hole, Frank Harrison might have been injured, but he was in a rage.
"We can ... get out this way?" Harrison slurred his question at Louis, who only managed a jerked nod as he kept his eyes on the unmaintained old road. "You'd ...better be ... right." He panted through another strong urge to vomit, the concussion which McGarrett had so nicely doled out with his very own weapon, a debilitating injury. The brightness of the sun and their hasty ride was also doing him no favors at all.
"You better be ... right, Louis." Swallowing convulsively as bile riddled his throat, Harrison fisted his shirt down by his stomach. He was light-headed and sick from the concussion and his jaw felt as if it might literally fall off the side of his face, but he'd need to worry about his injuries later. Turning dizzily towards Louis, he squinted though the pain to give the younger man yet another warning. "Damn ... damn well better."
"This'll work," Louis said adamantly. "I saw it before ... this road goes far back and leads out of here."
Panit had run into Harrison in the kitchen on his way out to meet Louis. With only a wall holding the man up as he struggled to get out of the house while carrying the heavy glass tank, Harrison had glared at the Asian before spouting orders. Now, Panit was charged with caring for the pit viper and Louis with getting them all down to the docks where Gibbons had graciously provided Frank Harrison with an alternate means of transportation.
"Watch it," Harrison growled as Louis managed to connect with a rather serious rut. "Calm ... the fuck down, Louis."
"Yeah, yeah. Sorry," Louis replied nervously, fingers tight around the wheel as he drove around the stables towards the gated exit. He never stopped when he saw the metal chain and small lock. He only slowed enough to ensure that he maintained control of the vehicle when he burst through the metal, skidding a bit on the pebbled ground as he accelerated.
"How far?" Harrison asked, slightly mollified as the dirt track eventually hit macadam and a real tertiary road. "How far to the highway?"
"Not sure ... but it has to, right? I mean, how else would deliveries have been made to the stables?" Louis explained his reasoning distractedly, his eyes roving up to the rear view mirror where he instantly found the tank and the slithering agitated viper. "Shit, why'd you have to bring that damned thing along, Frank?"
"Shut up ... and just get us out of here," Harrison ordered. He was in pain, sick and had vomited twice already. "Panit's ... got it. Shit." He moaned as his stomach twisted without warning, a sharp knife-like pain stabbing him again and hard enough to make him lean over to dry heave between his knees.
"You okay?" Louis asked worriedly as Harrison righted himself before slouching back down in the seat. He watched as Harrison used the back of his hand to gently wipe away reams of sweat from his forehead and barely nodded.
"Just ... drive," was the final order given as Harrison closed his eyes and tried to rest his aching head against the plush seat. Pushed by adrenalin and anxious about the cargo in the rear seat, Louis Small did just that.
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Mission accomplished, Steve allowed his eyes to close as alarmed shouts immediately increased in volume. Every second was critical. As footsteps thundered over head, he knew Kono would be first - after all, she'd been the one so many months ago brave enough to venture down into the active snake den to retrieve an entire refrigerator of antivenin product. Steve managed a weak smile, astonished that his lips were tingling and threatening to go numb. The Asian's first aid had been diligent and sound; Steve didn't doubt that the restrictive splint and the hand to shoulder bandage were key in keeping the krait's venom at bay. However, they were only delay tactics which could do only so much and, based on an unsettling array of new symptoms, Steve was soon going to lose their benefits.
He kept the tired smile though about Kono being the first to respond. And when it really happened and if he'd been able to breathe, he'd have laughed out loud when her dark head did appear in the doorway, her rifle trained directly at him until she quickly realized what she was doing.
"Boss!" Kono called out as she multitasked, taking the steps two at a time while shouting orders into her communications link. "Chin! I got them here downstairs ... come through the kitchen ... there's a door behind the pantry! Get the medics over here! Now people! Now!"
Kono fell to her knees by Steve's side, one hand on Danny's shoulder, switching her attention between the two and stunned by the condition of both of her friends. "Shit. We came as fast as we could and you already can't breathe? How bad - what else is wrong, Steve? And Danny? What's wrong with Danny?"
"Yeah," Steve whispered hoarsely, his lips as numb as his fingers now. He meant his chuffed sound for Danny's sake, but Kono was intently focused on him until he made his message clear. "D'nny. K'no ... "
"On it. They're coming, Boss. There's two guys in the main house ... Ray's dead," Kono said hurriedly, her normal desire to provide Steve with news a counterpoint to her fear.
"The other guy ... he's hurt but in custody. And Chin dispatched four HPD units to go after an SUV we saw leaving the property. I guess Ray's handler is on the run ... he won't get far," Kono added succinctly when she saw the extent of Steve's splinted wrap. Her eyes were saucer-like in her face when she realized she'd said something wrong but that he really couldn't speak enough to provide anything useful.
Other guy? Steve blinked almost stupidly into her face. Two? There had been three or really four ... Ray, his two henchmen plus the handler. One had been infatuated with the snakes, and the other in love with the concept of nearly tasing him to death. But now, Steve's face creased as if in pain because there even might have been four men in total not including the handler. As he dimly recalled seeing a younger man greatly displeased by the goings on in the basement, Steve just couldn't be sure anymore.
"Shit, Steve," Kono murmured softly, disrupting his already jumbled thoughts. She grimaced because she was just able to feel a much too faint pulse beat in Danny's neck. "This is messed up." The detective was barely breathing and she glanced up the staircase urgently as the medics were shepherded down the flight, Chin taking up the rear.
"Hurry up!" She demanded. "Neither one of them can breathe!"
"H... hann'lr," Steve slurred lazily, knowing that Kono didn't quite understand the slaughtered word. He meant Panit, the Asian snake handler, when he sensed that she had found the box of antivenin. He tried to offer an explanation for its appearance, but she readily accepted its existence without question, validated when she moved aside for the medics, handing the small box over to the one who hunkered down by Steve first.
"Can you use this now?" She asked while pointing to Steve. "He's the snake bite victim. And I guess its the same kind of snake as on the box ... can you use it now? He can't breathe! And ... Danny ... God, Steve, was he bitten, too?"
'Nnnn ...' Steve's distressed hum of sound clearly indicated a resounding no about Danny having a venomous bite. He'd told Chin originally about what he'd find and what they'd need to get immediate help, but for some reason he couldn't remember if he'd mentioned the antivenin. Regardless, he could understand Kono's need to confirm what had happened based on what she was literally seeing for the first time.
"Not ... sure," one medic noted about Danny after a rapid assessment. He frowned as he checked under the bandage on Danny's bicep and saw the fang marks, yet heard Steve's adamant sound to the contrary. His mouth opened and then closed in confusion as he glanced questioningly first towards his partner and then again to the Five-0 Commander.
"He might have been, but it's not what could kill him now," the second medic interrupted, stethoscope hanging from his neck. "He's been badly beaten ... he's got no breath sounds on the left. Broken ribs. Punctured lung ... I need to get in there."
Incapable of expressing his approval, Steve tried to voice an order out of habit. He tried to explain that Danny's lung had indeed been punctured and failed. Anxious, he wanted to demand that they help faster but he hadn't realized he'd closed his eyes in exhaustion until he peeled them back open.
Their tight location was already virtually over run with competent help and he'd lost a serious block of time. Kono had moved off to the side, closer to Danny now and Chin was there, crouched lightly on the balls of his feet, staring intently into Steve's face. Usually calm and unflappable, Chin was practically vibrating with anxiety and worry.
"We lost you," Chin hastily explained when their eyes met. His expression was fraught with anger, apology and a healthy dose of concern, "Damned exchange ... our plans were shit, Steve. We totally lost you ... and Gibbons ... we did lose him. They played us good."
Steve managed a barely perceptible shake of his head. He wasn't sure it was entirely over just yet. What had happened up until that point though wasn't anyone's fault and it sure has hell wasn't Chin's to burden. Unable to properly argue that case though, Steve was forced to table any more on this particular point until later. Gibbons. Frankln Ray. They'd all been bested no matter how prepared they thought they'd been.
And now they had much higher priorities to contend with anyway. Eyes partly lidded, Steve turned his fading attention towards Danny. Two medics had efficiently moved his friend from where he'd been resting against his thigh. Tattered shirt now completely removed, one medic was virtually on his elbows as he made an incision between Danny's ribs to insert a chest tube.
He'd zoned out a few times in the last few minutes, but they knew ... they knew more than enough to help his partner and Steve almost relaxed, but too much still had to happen and nothing was yet in their favor.
Steve stared helplessly past the hands who were affixing an oxygen mask to his face. He was oblivious to the blood pressure cuff wrapped around his arm or to the catheter being inserted into the crook of his arm. He was deaf to the incessant chatter between medics and hospital as they were directed what to manage in the field.
Everyone had other priorities.
Trying to understand if Danny was still breathing for himself as his friend was intubated and gently transferred to a stretcher with Kono by his side, Steve was deaf and mute to the myriad of frightening reports about his own condition. He was barely aware of his vitals being assessed or of the blood pressure cuff fastened around his bicep, along with the multitude of monitoring leads and equipment he'd been hooked up to.
Focused on the medical team who surrounded his partner, Steve didn't hear or see anything beyond the small entourage double-timing it up the stairs to the first of the two helicopters for emergency airlift. He didn't come back to himself until his own medical team had transferred him to a stretcher and he was suddenly lying flat, his heavily bandaged arm secured to his side and the first drops of properly diluted antivenin dripping steadily through the intravenous line.
Only then, too, did Steve realize and appreciate that Chin had stayed with him.
~ to be continued ~