A/N: This took a lot of hand-holding and kicking and screaming to finish, not to mention extensive editing. Thank you to everyone who has shown support on this story. It's very much appreciated :) The ending of the story is pretty well fleshed out and in sight! THANK YOU to Bruschetta Bread for the ongoing help and support!
All feedback welcomed.
"Goddamn, that hurts."
"Quit fidgeting then, I can't see."
"Why did I think that you'd be better at this?"
Olivia smirks at that, even if her hands are shaking and covered in so much of Peter's blood that she looks like she's wearing gloves as she digs around in the pinkish muscle inside his back.
"I never claimed to be an expert at fishing for bullets with hunting knives," she says. "I must have missed that class at the academy." She's got a Bowie knife in one hand and is trying very carefully to find the small caliber bullet lodged in between the muscle of Peter's shoulder blades. Peter, for his part, is shouting smart-assed instructions over his shoulder as he tries not to drool on himself from the morphine Olivia juiced him up on before they started.
"That muscle there, you feel that?" Peter asks then curses when Olivia nudges the knife, spitting the second half through grit teeth "That's the trapezoid muscle. I like that muscle. Don't shred that muscle."
"No pressure though." He tacks on.
"No pressure. Right." Olivia steadies.
Thankfully, Olivia had been able to find some rubbing alcohol and sizable a first aid kit among the looted supplies lining the entrance of the lobby. Peter had taken the morphine injection well. The rubbing alcohol on the other hand had pulled a snarl from his throat so low that it reminded Olivia of a wild animal.
Pushing the tip of the blade into the open wound in an attempt to shovel out a bullet should have freaked her out a little, but she's saddled in disbelief that he made it through the destruction at all and she doesn't want to question the why. So she pushes and lets Peter cuss like a sailor in a few languages that Olivia recognizes and even more that she doesn't. There's a small sewing kit on the box, like the one you'd find at a fancy hotel, that she's very purposely ignoring because she knows she's not ready for that.
"Do you see it?" Peter voice is soggy wet sand in his throat, muffled into his chest as Olivia gently moves the blade of the knife further into his skin. She's propped behind him on the cot, Peter between her knees as she steadies the blade and tries not to destroy the muscle Peter's suddenly so attached to.
"No," she says and she feels Peter's back trembling under her hand from the exertion of remaining still. "But I think I'm closer," she tries to soothe, but Peter grumbles darkly under his breath.
"How's the pain?" she asks because she's not sure what else to say and they both need the distraction. "Is the morphine helping?"
Peter's ghost-white and almost translucent; wet wax paper under her fingers.
"It's helping me not care that you're being about as delicate as an elephant in a china shop," he bitches. Olivia regrets saying anything so she refocuses her concentration.
"'Delicate' is not exactly the word people describe me as." She retorts. Peter's mood lightens just a little.
"No, I suppose not."
"You ever taken morphine before?" she babbles. Peter feels fuzzy to her, harder to pick up on and she assumes that the morphine is finally working.
"It's not my inhibitor of choice." Peter stumbles over the stocky consonants in the words. "But when you're making shady deals with shady men in shady places, it comes in handy from time to time."
"Oh," Olivia manages, remembering the first time she met Peter: the cocky smugness that radiated from every fiber of his linen blazer and expensive sunglasses. With everything that had happened in the last year, she'd almost forgotten he was dangerous.
"I can't imagine you having a hard time making friends." Olivia's babbling continues and Peter huffs, the endorphins spiking from the morphine. "I didn't think anyone would actually go through the trouble of shooting you though."
"Not my first rodeo," Peter drawls slowly, enunciating carefully. "And I've never actually been shot myself. Beaten up, yes. Stabbed once, too. But first time being shot though. I gotta tell you, it sucks."
Olivia balks.
"I thought you knew what you were doing." Olivia's voice raises three octaves in pitch, her hands white-knuckling the hilt of the blade.
"I do know what I'm doing. Remember I lived outside the military Green Zone in Iraq before you found me. I've had loads of experience." Peter replies easily.
There's a heady sigh as Olivia tries to settle her shaky nerves. She works in silence.
"Non, rien de rien," Peter mumbles in a sing-song voice after a while, cut off at the end by a ragged breath as Olivia presses further into his skin, his voice is shattered glass.
"What's that?" she asks instead.
"Non, je ne regrette rien," Peter continues, eyes squeezed shut to focus on the words, tilting his head back drunkenly and Olivia has to pull the blade back from piercing through the muscle he was bitching about a minute ago. There's a strange inflection in his voice that she can't quite place, a new talent she hasn't witnessed before.
"That's what? French?" she asks, steadying his head forward on his neck, waiting a good ten seconds before pushing the tip of the blade back in past his shoulder. He grunts: holding his breath and then releasing it.
"Agent Dunham, you speak the language of love?" he trills, voice rough and glassy-eyed. Olivia has to stop herself from rolling her eyes, steadying her shaking wrist from worrying too much about the blood he's losing. And he's losing a lot. The sun's low against the boarded window sills, peeking through the slats to sneak in, and every minute that passes is a minute of light for Olivia to find the bullet.
"Haven't had the pleasure," Olivia grates, feeling the drop in her stomach when the knife pushes against something solid a good three inches deep. Peter's fingers dig into her knees, hard enough to bruise and she winces along with him when the he internalizes the scream he doesn't release. There are a few moments of thankful silence as she investigates her findings, and she's starting to think Peter's blacked out sitting straight up.
"Edith Piaf," he mumbles, startling her. "Walter always played her record in the lab. Remember?" he's slurring openly now, his voice betraying the sentiment he's trying so hard to not feel. Olivia tilts the blade into the resistance, straining her eyes and focusing the flashlight to see the glint of copper at the end.
"Found it," she says. She looks up to find Peter's head bobbled forward into his chest and she has to give him a good squeeze with her knees to nudge him back.
"Now what?" she asks, her pulse quickening at the sight of the butt of the small caliber bullet lodged in his back. The blood oozing from the wound has reached the edge of his jeans despite trying her best to keep it contained with the towel, but she doesn't have enough hands; the coppery iron smell is stronger than the dust and charred flesh that's been lingering in their clothing since they made it inside.
"Now what, what?" he mimics like an ill-trained parrot.
"Now the tweezers?" she asks him severely, growing tired of this morphine-induced version of Peter.
"Did you ever play that game Operation as a kid? Remove funny bone. Don't touch the sides or bzzzzzz." He makes a noise like electricity and then snickers.
"Ni le bien qu'on m'a fait," he continues in perfect French. Olivia wonders how many languages he can actually speak. There are so many things she doesn't know about him. He's becoming less and less helpful the longer this goes on, so she tries a new tactic to focus him. Drawing inspiration on the times she witnessed Peter do it with Walter.
"What does it mean? The French song?" she asks as she pushes the knife to separate enough muscle to insert a slender set of tweezers from the first aid kit. The disinfectant smell of the rubbing alcohol is in stark contrast to the earthy smell of Peter's skin, too bleached and abraded to be familiar. She catches herself on him faintly, and that brings up burgeoning feelings she doesn't really have time to deal with.
"It means," Peter says absent-mindedly rubbing his palms across the fabric of her legs, the friction shocking her skin through the denim. "It means I have no regrets." He says, and he sounds wistful.
"I miss Walter's records." He says. It's the first time he's mentioned Walter aside from the cure or without them screaming at one another. The mention of his name makes the insides of her stomach ache. She pushes the tweezers further in the path the blade made, trying to avoid the sides of the ragged skin. There's a choking sound as Peter grates through the pain.
"I miss them too," she soothes, trying to push the feeling of comfort she's faking into him somehow. "Never thought I'd say that." She almost laughs at the idea of missing Walter's scratchy records, the homey smell of the lab, the warmth it offered that's now gone. It was their home.
Peter's head bobbles up, looking into the darkness creeping into the room, coming close enough to touch the toes of his shoes against the dusty floorboards. He scoots his battered shoes away.
"Almost there." She shushes.
"How are those busted ribs of yours?" he asks, and Olivia is reminded of the steady thud of pain against her chest.
"What?"
"I notice things too, you know. You took a pretty bad tumble from that land mine." He slurs. "You going to be able to make it the rest of the way?"
"I wasn't the one who was shot, so I think I can manage myself, thanks." Olivia snarls, the vibration in her ribs becoming more staggering the more he talks about it.
"You sure that's a good idea?"
"I know that we need to keep moving if we're going to make it to New York in the next two days." She says and Peter nods his agreement.
Olivia stops moving behind him, and from the feeling she's got the length of her entire arm buried deep in his back. And it's covered in acid. Olivia gives one last pull and after a disgusting sucking noise, the glint of the bullet is freed.
"You know," she says excitedly, "if you were so worried about my ribs then you should have thought of that before getting shot." She marvels at the copper crushed slug under the beam of the flashlight.
"You think I had a choice in that matter?" He snorts.
"I think," she says as she gingerly touches the skin outside the wound, inspecting. "You try to be the hero." She runs her thumb too close to the curled edge of skin and Peter lets out a bark like he's laughing.
She grimaces and snakes her hands away, almost dropping the bloody shell, and that would be a shame after all the work she went through. She drops it soundlessly into the box, watching it roll to a stop in the center, leaving a smear of blood in its wake like a snail.
"Hero," he scoffs, but never finishes his thought.
"How'd we end up here?" Peter asks suddenly, apparently oblivious to the fact that Olivia's finished.
"Well, you got shot and then I dug a bullet out of your sorry ass." She answers, pointing to the box. He doesn't notice. "And don't thank me yet, I haven't opened the sewing kit yet."
"No, not here. Out there." Peter says, pointing his finger in the direction of the window leading to the outside. Little streams of muted lavender light filters through the nailed two-by-fours separating them from the outside. Olivia pours the rest of the alcohol liberally around the wound, the growling tearing deep from the caverns of Peter's chest as it bubbles through the ends of torn flesh. He knows she's done it on purpose, but he's a runaway train of incoherent thought. She pushes the towel square over the wound, pressing hard to stifle the bleeding. It hasn't let up and she's starting to get worried when she looks beside them at all the bloodied scraps of Peter's clothes.
"I remember you," Peter's voice is lighter, like he's moved onto delirium.
"Oh, yeah?" she answers, digging the palm of her hand into his back. She has enough experience to know that they have to slow the bleeding enough for her to stitch up his back.
"I remember the rifle…" Peter floats delicately around the image and Olivia feels his mood shift. He's starting to shiver from the chill.
"You're going into shock; I need to stop the bleeding." She says to shut him up, trying to ground him to the fact that he's slowly bleeding out. She leans forward, reaching for another rag to push into his skin but Peter's fingers are digging hard into her thighs to stop her from doing anything but listen.
"You were going to die. I was going to die. I felt the gun, right here." He lets go of one of her legs to tap two fingers against his temple. He twists awkwardly to face her, and Olivia has to slide her arm over his shoulder to keep the towel in place, since Peter's either forgotten or doesn't care about the fact that he's got a giant gaping hole in his back. His eyes are heavy but he looks oddly focused, and Olivia sees Walter's unburdened face staring back at her.
"You had a gun, too. Right there." He taps two more fingers against her cheek, still sore and now she recognizes the throbbing from the pressure of the gun from earlier. She refuses to react, to show that it still hurts. He looks at her like he hasn't recognized her until now, and it's starting to unnerve her.
"I remember," she says brusquely. "I also remember you getting shot in the back."
"But you survived," he says tonelessly, cutting her off. "You lived. We lived."
Her arm around his neck is starting to cramp.
"Yes." She mumbles.
"I was going to die. I felt it. I was…ready." He works through his thoughts like a particularly difficult formula; an equation that's evaded him before.
"I saw you. Saw the rifle. I heard…the hammer to the gun. I was going to have my head blown off…and I was ready. And that wasn't something I ever thought I'd be." He shrugs. Olivia doesn't like to hear him talk so trivially about himself. "The only chance I had to save you was to let them shoot me. To be okay with that. I wasn't trying to be heroic, I just didn't want you to die."
"Peter," she warns.
"And then I woke up and I thought I was dead. And you were there. I thought that you were dead too. And I remember that I was so pissed off, because after the one good thing I've ever done you still ended up dying too."
The direction he's taking this conversation is bothering her.
"Peter. You have to listen to me," she says very seriously, trying to force his blasted irises to focus. "We will talk about what happened, but not now. Now I need you to sit still and let me help you."
Peter nods, swaying a bit but twisting forward to give her access to his back.
"We're not dead," Olivia says soothingly. "But you're losing blood."
Peter's features are gaunt in the pale light, his elbows too bony when he reaches up to cover the towels with his hand. His breathing is coming out in short, shallow wisps as Olivia pulls away to wipe her hands off on a clean part of his shirt, pouring more alcohol over her hands, stinging the cuts that refuse to heal. She reaches for the sewing kit, carefully removing the largest needle and fingering through the array of colors of thread.
"You gotta color preference?" she asks, wrapping her head around what needs to come next.
Peter doesn't respond, his hand slackening on his back.
"Hey," she says as she shakes a shoulder. Nothing. She touches his forehead. He's warm. Really warm. She's got the needle threaded, the black string curling long like a mouse tail down her leg. It's hard to tell which is more nerve-wracking: Peter talking or Peter not talking.
She almost freaks out, resolving to count to ten with her fingers pressed against the steady thud of his heartbeat in his neck before she breathes again. He doesn't seem to be in immediate danger, she decides, hoping the pain and the morphine finally put him out.
"Okay, here we go," she says out loud for no one's benefit but her own as she pushes the sharp edge of the needle into his skin and hopes he'll be out for a while.