Who: Bebe Don & Crew
When: Long ago and far away, a month before Don's work crew even ends up in Bay 7.
What: A boy earns his name.
"Hush! I cannot hear!" Don snapped bopping Mad Dog's nose to get him to stop whining. Yes they'd had a long work shift, yes they'd missed lunch, but today was a good day IF THEY COULD HEAR!. "No, still nothing yet, Ratchet?"
"I'm working boss!" Ratchet promised, already wrist deep in the back of the old radio set they'd found while digging through the scrap a few months back. It was an old design, and it needed new tubes and a double handful of new wires, but on clear days sometimes they could still get a signal in the little clear lot they'd claimed as 'theirs' when they weren't working or back at the orphanage.
Young men needed a place to relax after all.
Anyway. "Ah, yes, yes...it is coming in..." Don's ear twitched as he sensed a change in the static tone, it warbled, then screeched in a manner that made him terribly sad he'd declared only he could tune the machine from the front, but after a moment...
'...when last we left our daring hero he was trapped, back against the wall and catastrophe closing in! Is this the end for our daring air ace? Will his flag fly no more?! Say it isn't so!'
Ah, yes, he smiled and carefully turned the volume knob. They'd learned that turning any knob too fast could make them lose their station, and Air Pirate Ace was too good to risk with carelessness! "With the shutting up now!" he called, immediately getting a reverent hush from the other boys.
He didn't know what the other boys got from the show, but him? Oh he got so many ideas. How to be a pirate, free of the world's laws and time tables. How to hold to a code of honor only real pirates understood, yes, and women would swoon at his feet surely if he but knew how to fly and had a pirate ship! Who wouldn't want to be a pirate? They were such noble and adventurous beings! Air Ace Don didn't have quite the same ring to it though, no. He tried, with every show they caught, to come up with something better. Maybe he could be Dangerous Don? Did that put the wrong light on things?
Hmm, he'd have to think. Later, when he wasn't distracted by the clever way Ace was escaping a legion of frogs on a mountain. Ha, who would have thought to do that even?!
He didn't even hear trouble coming. Some captain he'd make huh? It was Thom who heard it, a rumble that hadn't come from the radio or from the excited boys stomping their feet and cheering their hero on. Thom the oddball.
Yes, it was true, the boy was half again as tall as any of the rest of them. He'd hit his growth early and was a hulking giant of a boy, but for all that he was quiet. Solid, steady, supportive. Don appreciated the solid backup when one of the young kids in the other houses got stubborn or when some of the boys got distracted. Thom was quite simply put a good boy. In Don's rather esteemed opinion? Thom, out of all of them would make a good man some day. Maybe a foreman.
For now, well, the boy was well enough.
The first he'd realized something was wrong was when Thom went berserk. He had no other word for it! The boy scooped up the nearest friend and tossed him forward in to another! Tossing boys like dolls! "What what?!" he managed before Thom's big fist was snagging him (him! Him personally!) by the shirt front and tossing him over the radio set. "GO GO GO RUN!"
The boy was insane, yes. "You have ruined the radio!" Don noted, picking himself up and trying to flick the dust from his tail. It was easier than looking at the sad, broken remains of the device he'd been thrown over. No one would want to see him cry, because if he cried the other boys would cry and yes they'd all be heartbroken.
Best to be annoyed, yes, even if they'd never get a chance to hear about Air Pirate Ace's adventures again. "This is a not nice thing and..."
...
...and the concrete wall behind Thom was shivering. They had chosen this little open plot of land because it was surrounded by buildings, blocking them off from the world. A secret club as you would. Now? Now something was destroying that secret it seemed. "THOM YOU ARE TO BE RUNNING NOW!" The idiot! He'd...spent his time tossing the other boys instead of getting clear! That was very brave, but also very stupid.
Thom never had a chance. The large boy was just putting his first foot down, starting to run, and the brick collapsed ahead of a careening dump truck. Perhaps the brakes had gone out, perhaps the driver was drunk, who were any of them to know? The important thing being a wave of stonework took Thom in the back of the knees and when the truck tipped a chunk of metal fell on the boy with a final, and sickening, sounding thunk.
Don had never felt a shiver that went all the way to the tip of his tail before; the shiver he got from that sound though? Oh yes, that hit the very tip of his tail and started back up before he realized he was moving. "All of you! ALL OF YOU MOVE NOW YES MOVE THAT STONE!" There was blood on the stones and bricks he moved, he couldn't think about that though.
Not now.
Not yet.
The important thing was they had to get Thom out from under the pile! It was no place for a good boy to be in a town like this right? No, certainly not!
"Kinder to leave him boy," the driver noted, finally getting out of the truck that was idling on it's side in the middle of the disaster. "Brakes went out, but it's just one boy, so that's luck."
"LUCK?! THIS IS NOT LUCK!" he found himself growling, "THIS IS BAD AND YOU WILL HELP NOW OR GET OUT OF THE WAY!" He'd never attempted to order an adult around before but he didn't need some grown up deciding that it was OKAY his friend was buried. Worse he didn't need the man to stop the other kids from helping! They needed all the hands they could get!
"HE AIN'T MOVING!"
Bah, he didn't have time for the driver. "Of course not he is weighed down, if you see part of him KEEP CLEARING!" It took...far to long to unearth their friend. And when they did...
"Don? He ain't breathing."
"Of course he is!" Don snapped, crouching by the nearly pulped face of his friend to hold a hand in front of the slack, blood dribbling mouth. "He is breathing and will be fine yes yes! All of you find a stretcher! Or something like it! We will take him home!" Because his boys worked better with a task at hand, it helped against fear.
He didn't have anything to help against his though. He kept his fingers down, feeling the slow, moist flow of air as Thom kept breathing...barely...and tried to keep himself from whimpering. "This was not a good thing for you to do Thom! Not at all, it is very bad for a captain to be out-heroed by his crew! Shame on you!" He was babbling, he knew he was babbling, but he couldn't help it. Thom, strong, solid Thom was...broken. In so many ways. He could tell just by looking at the damaged limbs, and his eyes kept shying away from the real problem. Heads were...important. They weren't suppose to be that damaged.
It was impossible to get the boy into the litter without causing pain. They all had a brief moment of terror when Thom went utterly limp, but that was...normal right? "He is not dead he is unconscious! THIS IS GOOD IT IS HIS BODY TRYING TO HEAL NOW LIFT!" It was as comforting a lie as he could come up with right now. He was just grateful the larger boy was out cold now, it meant the trip might hurt less. "Mad Dog? You are scrawny! You go get that box of whiskey we keep to bribe the Orphanage momma and you go get a doctor with it! Do not let him drink any until after he sees Thom! Yes, ALL of it. The harridan we can deal with some other way!" And Thom NEEDED a doctor.
This wasn't something that could get better on it's own. No. "EVERYONE ELSE LIFT! Left foot NOW...RIGHT LEFT..." Yelling kept everyone moving, and it kept people from panicking. He hoped. He knew HE was panicking just a little inside but it was important the boys not see that yes yes. Oh God his brain felt like it was a running little mouse. BRAINS WERE NOT SUPPOSE TO FEEL LIKE THAT!
The cleanest place in the whole orphanage was the kitchen, they all scrubbed that clean every day, and he yelled smaller pups out of their way as they toted the large boy in through the delivery door and carefully set the stretcher on a long chopping table. Dinner could wait! "WHERE IS THE DOCTOR?!"
"Comin' boss!" Mad Dog yelled from the front of the dormitories, carefully shepherding one of the newer doctors at the plant ahead of him. "Told him te' hurry and it's a kid but a big kid, Thom's useful at the manufactory..."
"I'd have seen him anyway," The Doctor assured, nimble, ferret fingers rising to carefully feel along the boy's broken limbs. "I'm not someone who ignores injuries if they don't happen to adults." Who could do that?
Don eyed the thin doctor a moment then nodded, "Good job Mad Dog! Now all of you, shoo. Showers, now, I will stay with the doctor and Thom!" His crew did...not need to see this. He was pretty sure at least Ratchet would lose his breakfast, and that would set the others off and yes, best they be away.
The doctor lifted a mild gaze and gestured to the hallway, "bring me a sheet boy. We'll need to wrap him tight to make sure he doesn't jar those limbs while we see to that skull. And you better have a strong stomach, we'll have to lift the bone and make sure he doesn't bleed to heavily inside."
Ah...
...
...HE WOULD NOT LOSE HIS OWN BREAKFAST NO. "Yes sir!" What followed was certainly a nightmare, if anyone could call bleeding and shaking and trying not to move bone pieces while you shook anything else he'd like to hear that word yes. They...did the best they could. Best wasn't necessarily good though, when Don finally sat on the bench by the table and looked his friend over the boy was a mummy of bandages and stained sheet. The best that could be said was that Thom never woke up.
But that was terrifying as well.
"Here, boy," the doctor passed a familiar box full of bottles to him. "Get at least a little in yourself, and if your friend wakes up this will be the best painkiller you have on hand alright? It's also purer than the water here so sterilize his skin with it. I'll come back, every day if I can...but if you're religious boy...you best pray."
Don wrapped his hand numbly around the box and peeled a dry tongue off the roof of his mouth, "but what will we pay you?"
"Vigilance, boy. Pay me in watching this boy and giving him the best chance he has," the doctor gruffed, ruffling the young fox's ears.
"...yes. Yes we will do this thing." Don swore. And yes, they did it. Don himself stayed home from work for days, watching Thom breathe. Counting the seconds, making sure the breathes were...normal...breathes. What did it matter if their pay was docked slightly? With Thom ill there was less food needed anyway!
It was a week later when the boy blinked his eyes open and actually saw anything, "what...?"
"You were hit by a dumptruck, Thom. We got you." Don assured.
"Oh." And that was it. That same question, day after day, then every hour as the boy stayed awake longer and longer.
Eventually, though, Don lost his temper. Worry didn't lend itself to patience after all, "DUMPTRUCK! It was a Dumptruck! And that will be your name yes? So we never forget you saved us and you never forget what you did! DUMPTRUCK!"
"...okay boss," Dumptruck sighed happily, an odd smile on his face that Thom had never worn.
"Yes, yes, your boss says now rest!"