Mike woke up with a start, needing a moment to gather his bearings and remember where he was.
Sprawled out on a filthy carpet covering a cold concrete floor below, the pungent smell of sweat and urine burnt his nose. Trying to curl up to evade the sensation was punished by the stabbing pain in his shoulder blade from a couple rogue shotgun pellets he took during their shootout. It didn't take long for Mike to notice that his hands were cuffed at chest level. A small 12-inch chain connecting the metal cheek plates was fed through a thick O-ring welded to the floor, allowing for some movement but not much.
His head was bedded on what appeared to be an old grain bag filled with wood pellets. The rough burlap material irritated the skin on his face relentlessly.
Finishing his self-evaluation and cursing himself once again for overlooking whoever snuck up on him during the shooting, Mike let his eyes drift over the darkened basement that was his current prison.
A wooden stairwell a couple dozen feet away seemed to lead to the main level, judging by the small amount of daylight coming in through cracks in the door frame up above. Several boxes of materials were neatly stacked on the floor, ready to be used when needed. Another door off to the right lead to a brightly illuminated room and Mike had a pretty good hunch that this was the operating room they'd been looking for.
He felt his heart ache when his eyes stopped on a shadow right next to him, tied up in the very same manner and lying perfectly still; so still that Mike hadn't noticed his presence until his brain completely snapped awake again.
"Steve!"
Surprised how hoarse his voice had become in the little time he'd spent in the less than comfortable accommodations, Mike grew worried, when he didn't receive a response.
"Steve!"
Disregarding the pain shooting through the injured shoulder he was lying on, Mike inched closer to his partner, who was chained down with his back toward the Lieutenant. Just like himself, he'd been stripped out of his suit jacket; their thin dress shirts barely helping to ward off the humid and bone chilling temperatures down here.
"Steve!"
Using his left leg, he carefully kicked at his partner's feet but received no response either. Hoping to move closer, Mike shifted his hands enough to utilize the length of the chain between the cuffs. With his right hand pushed against the O-Ring in the ground, he managed to move his left hand close enough over to reach the side of his partner's neck.
"Steve!", he begged one more time, before searching the cold skin above the young inspector's shirt collar for the carotid artery.
Relieved, when his index and middle finger detected a steady pulse, Mike grasped his partner's shoulder, shaking him slightly in hopes of getting him to regain consciousness.
"Steve!"
When he still wouldn't come to, Mike resigned to running a hand through his partner's wavy hair, hoping to calm his own senses, before resuming his observation.
While he was quite certain that he hadn't been out for too long after getting coldcocked in the kitchen, the blocked windows and lack of light except for a solitary dim bulb hanging over the stairwell, made him quickly lose track of time.
Bending forward to see if he could check the time on his wristwatch, Mike let out a frustrated grunt when he noticed that it got broken during their firefight.
His brooding ended abruptly, when the upstairs door opened with a faint creak and two sets of legs made their way down the wooden steps. Blinking against the additional light, Mike saw a tall and skinny young man holding his left arm, followed by a surprisingly short individual in surgical scrubs. Judging by the skin tone, his facial features and what little bits and pieces of accent he'd picked up in the few words said from a distance, Mike figured their rogue surgeon to be Korean.
When they reached the bottom of the stairs, the Caucasian male glanced over at them briefly, surprising the Lieutenant by the fair amount of guilt he saw in his eyes, and then moved his attention back to the other man. Pointing at the presumed gunshot wound likely caused by Steve during his foolish return, he hissed in pain when the surgeon pulled his jacket aside to get a look at the damage, before saying something Mike couldn't understand.
For a few moments, the Korean man dug for some supplies in the boxes stored by the stairwell, and then ushered his patient toward the brightly lit room ahead.
In the fraction of a second before the door behind them closed, Mike noticed a newly constructed white tile floor and several stainless-steel trays sitting at the ready. Large overhead lights left barely any area in the shadows and in the back corner; he could make out a gurney waiting in preparation.
Just a few minutes after they'd entered, he could hear the younger man scream in agony at the procedure taking place behind the door. It made him wonder if they were truly dealing with a surgeon, or a butcher.
Knowing that removing the bullet and sewing up the wound would take quite a bit of time, Mike lowered his head back down onto the grain bag, but couldn't stop a shudder running down his back from laying on the cold floor.
Clenching his jaws to keep his teeth from chattering, Mike pulled his hands to his chest, before carefully rolling over the O-Ring and onto his opposite side. Swallowing the bile when the pain from his injured shoulder rose to new levels, he pushed his back against Steve's, hoping they could share body heat until help got here.
As the screams from the other room turned into moans of pain, Mike settled his head back down onto the grain bag. Closing his eyes for a moment when he felt the warmth of his partner's body and his even breaths against his back, the Lieutenant swallowed hard before folding his hands together, doing something he hadn't done in a quite a while.