"Five things!" Rick shouted, loudly and abruptly enough that more than just Thomas looked towards him. He didn't care about the others. He waited until those dark, fever bright eyes tracked their way from whatever demons only Thomas could see to land on him. It wasn't necessarily awareness he was looking for, because from the looks of it, that wasn't even a possibility. "Five things," he repeated, holding his hand out, fingers splayed so Thomas could see them, and that his hand was empty.
Magnum blinked owlishly, and Rick could tell he was struggling to remember exactly what five things meant, and why it mattered just now. The hand with the scalpel didn't lower, but at least Magnum stopped waving it around.
"Five things," he echoed distantly, his brow furrowing in thought.
"Yeah buddy," Rick soothed. "Five things. Give me just five things." He considered adding that he didn't particularly care if they were five real things or five unreal things but thought better of it.
Magnum shook his head, whether to clear his vision or tell him no, Rick wasn't sure, until the man blurted out "Bed."
Rick smiled encouragingly, lowering one finger. "Good. That's one. Four more."
Thomas glanced around, dark eyes lingering in empty spaces for moments longer than Rick would've liked, but at least he was engaging in a search for reality.
"Window," he listed. "Chair. Light." He squinted at that last one, and Rick considered he probably still had a killer headache – especially from the way he kept his head tilted to one side even as he scanned the room. "Door."
"You're doing great pal, now four things you can touch," Rick coaxed.
He watched as Thomas flexed his bare feet, curling bruised and ragged toes against smooth linoleum. "Tile."
Magnum's fingers tightened on the scalpel. "Knife."
Rick tried not to flinch at that, mostly because he was still worried what Magnum would do to himself with it rather than anyone else. "Close enough," he said, forcing levity into his voice. "Halfway done, bud."
"Cold," Thomas said, and then immediately added: "Hot."
The air was a bit on the cool side, Rick agreed, but he wouldn't call it cold. Not compared to the POW camp. Or those nights in the rain. The heat was probably his own fever, if the scarlet flush up Magnum's neck and into his cheeks was anything to go by.
"You're doing great. Now three things you can hear. How 'bout that?"
Thomas flinched at that one, chewing on the inside of his lower lip, looking anywhere but at Rick and the nursing staff.
"Y-you," he managed, voice rough. "You. I can hear you." He hummed slightly, pressing chapped, bloodless lips together in a thin line. "Dogs."
Dogs? Rick felt his stomach clench. That was the first thing Thomas listed that Rick couldn't confirm. There wasn't even a TV on anywhere nearby he could blame for that one.
But it would explain why Thomas felt like he was trapped.
"One more," Rick said, plastering on a smile he didn't feel.
Thomas didn't answer immediately, fevered gaze sliding restlessly towards the window. "Rain." He stopped, transfixed by the rain against the window. It wasn't a deluge by any means. Just the gentle tick tick tick of water hitting the glass.
Magnum's stance wavered as he stared at the window. "The rain," he repeated distantly, before suddenly blurting out, sing-songy and slightly manic, "Drip, drip, drop, little April shower, what can compare to your beautiful sound."
Rick cursed the fact that Nuzo and TC were half a floor away, probably dead asleep like they all should be.
"Drip, drip, drop, when the sky is cloudy your pretty music will brighten the day," Magnum continued, so quietly Rick had to strain to hear the lyrics. But Thomas's gaze remained fixed and unblinking at the rain. "Beautiful sound, beautiful sound…"
"Thomas," Rick tried, because Thomas wasn't registering the rain the way he hoped he would. His hand remained stubbornly clenched around the scalpel, despite the blood running freely down his arm from the IV violently ripped away. "Thomas Sullivan Magnum, look at me."
Thomas winced, swinging his head lopsidedly back to meet Rick's gaze.
"Got a bit of a migraine going on, huh, buddy?" Rick asked. "Ditto. Can't hardly sleep with it. Doesn't mean I don't want to try. How 'bout you?"
Thomas didn't immediately answer. He cocked his head from one side to the other, like he was trying to gauge a distance. At least, how someone would gauge depth of field if they had limited vision.
"What the hell was his temperature last time you checked?" Rick hissed at the nurse.
"Holding steady at 104.1," she replied, looking none too happy about the situation. "It may have spiked, and the alarm is what woke him up, but I don't know – he was already out of bed and tore off half the monitors before I got here."
Rick tried to remember if that was the temperature delirium and seizures started, or if that was the threshold.
Shit.
"Look, I know you guys – but you gotta get him to at least drop the scalpel. I should've already called security by now, but…" she shrugged. There was a lot of weight behind that simple gesture, and Rick understood. She knew damn well she was risking official reprimand for breaking hospital protocol, and she still chose to give him half a chance of talking his friend down before armed security was called in to physically make Thomas stand down. The amount of trust she put in him to be a better alternative than that was honestly staggering – she didn't know him from Adam.
But all the same, he knew what she was leaving unsaid. Get Thomas back to bed, or at least disarmed, or personal feelings aside, she was going to call security. An armed, delirious SEAL too dangerous. The fact that Thomas hadn't tried to leave the room was the only thing saving him right now.
"Thomas, buddy, look, I just want to talk to you, but you gotta put down the knife. This isn't the Korengal. This isn't the cage. This is a hospital. In Hawai'i. You're hundreds of miles away from it, buddy. Okay? Look around again."
Thomas didn't. He stared out the window at the rain. "Drip, drip, drop, little April shower, beating a tune as you fall all around," he whispered, cautiously holding out his palm to the cool glass. For a moment, he simply held it there, staring out at the rain just beyond his reach.
Beyond his reach…
Shit.
"Thomas, don't –" Rick shouted, seconds too late as Thomas swung his arm back and slammed his fist into the window, splintering the glass.
Rick didn't care about the scalpel. He didn't hear the corpsman call for back up, he didn't even register that she dove into the room right behind him.
Thomas slammed his hand into the broken glass, unaware or uncaring as the small pieces of glass tore at his knuckles, the spider-webbing fracturing further.
Rick grabbed his arm just as he was hauling back for a third time, wrenching Thomas's arm down and to the side, using Thomas's own momentum to spin him so that his back was braced against Rick's chest, Thomas's now freely bleeding hand clenched in Rick's and pinned across his torso. Thomas wasn't about to go down without a fight, but pinned as he was, options were limited. He lashed out with his foot, catching the nurse high in the chest and shoving off – knocking her back and slamming the two of them into the wall behind them. Rick's head bounced painfully off the brick and he saw stars, but he didn't release his grip on Magnum.
"Estâd shaw!" Thomas shrieked, twisting violently. Rick could feel the heat radiating off him in waves – the back of his scrubs was soaked through, but his skin felt papery thin and dry under his hands. "Estâd shaw!"
Rick completely forgot about the fact that Thomas was holding a scalpel in one hand.
Until Thomas stabbed him in the leg with it.
"Goddammit, Thomas!" he yelped. Comparably to everything else, it didn't actually hurt that bad – the blade was sharp instead of dull, and Thomas had barely any strength behind it due to the awkward angle he was trying to swing at. Well, at least he was already in a hospital, right? He didn't let up on his grip, and the two of them slid sideways, gracelessly hitting the floor in a mildly controlled fall that sent a lance of white hot pain up his leg.
Someone had finally called security. Three other medical staff, all with the Navy corpsman insignia on their collars, loomed over them and for one blindingly panicky moment, Rick forgot they were in the hospital, and he braced his feet against the floor and shoved both him and Thomas back into the corner, away from the medical staff.
It was chaos. People were yelling, barking orders at one another – hell, maybe even at him – but the voices just ran together, lost in the cacophony of sound and light and –
"Estâd shaw," Thomas shouted as he thrashed in Rick's arms. He wasn't fighting – at least, not really. It was desperate and scared, panicked and pleading, and Rick hated himself for keeping him pinned because now he was having trouble reminding himself they're helping, they're helping, they're not the enemy because goddammit, no, you cannot have him. Magnum wasn't even trying to kick the corpsman holding onto his legs, he was desperately trying to yank them free of their grip without kicking them. "Lotfan! Estâd shaw!"
"They're doctors, Thomas, they're friends," he found himself pleading with his best friend. "You're sick and they're here to help-"
Which did nothing to convince Thomas because one of the corpsman chose that moment to pull a syringe and stab it into his hip with practiced precision.
The effects weren't immediate. Rick knew that well enough from personal experience. He was dimly aware of the fact that one of the corpsmen, the one who was still holding onto one of Magnum's bare feet – mostly to keep him from hitting the broken glass on the floor – was trying to talk to him.
"You got him?"
No, no, he didn't. Rick was barely holding on himself. He cinched his grip tighter on his friend. "Yeah," he lied.
Because fuck all if he was letting someone else take him.
Thomas's breathing was shallow and ragged. They were jammed awkwardly into the corner, the edge of the monitor stand digging painfully into Rick's shoulder. His leg ached from the stab wound, especially with Thomas's weight shoved on top of it. Magnum's hand still bled freely, the warmth of blood pooling under his palm as he kept a bruising grip until he could feel the muscles finally begin to loosen as whatever they gave him took hold.
"You're okay, you're okay, you're okay…" he soothed, pressing his forehead to the side of Magnum's. "You're outta there, you're not going back…"
Minutes passed like hours.
He didn't know how long they sat like that. He didn't know what the hell nonsense he told Thomas. He didn't care about the corpsman waiting just beyond his limited line of sight.
The only thing he cared about was the pulse beneath his fingertips, and the slowly evening breath.
"…Rick?"
The whisper-quiet question was the best thing he'd heard in days. He couldn't quite stop the near hysterical laugh, but he managed to smother it against Thomas's hair. "Yeah. Yeah, buddy, it's me."
Thomas was fading fast, but he wasn't quite out just yet. The man was a survivor in survivor mode. He'd fight to the end. His free hand that once held the scalpel came up, disjointed and broken as he fumbled, rubbing at his cheek before he dropped it in his lap.
"It's raining, Rick."
"Yeah, buddy. It's raining."
Rick didn't have the heart to tell him it was tears instead of raindrops.
