"YURA! NO!" As quickly as Otabek jumped to his feet, he was pushed back down again.
"Let us do our job if you want him to live." Ilia removed his hands from Otabek's shoulders, but held his tear-filled gaze for just a moment before whirling back around and working quickly with Nikita.
Nikita had already jumped on top of the stretcher, kneeling directly over Yurio, marking the center of his chest. Ilia made quick work of finding some sort of plastic mask and pressing it over Yurio's mouth and nose. He counted the number of compressions as Nikita ponded the heels of his hands into Yurio's sternum, giving two breaths through the mask for every thirty compressions.
Otabek just stared at Yurio, horrified. He heard the ribs cracking under the pressure of the compressions, terrified of the lack of response to the horrible sound. He looked so fragile, as if a single, gentle touch would shatter him like a martini glass under a sledgehammer. Otabek so badly wanted to look away, but couldn't shift his gaze from the lifeless form than was his Yura. The boy he loved. The only person he'd ever really cared about. His soldier.
The breath was stolen from Otabek's lungs as he watched Yuri, such a beautiful force of nature, flopping around on the stretcher like a dead fish under the hands of the man who was trying to save his life.
He was dead. Really and truly dead. He'd died with Otabek holding his hand. This wasn't supposed to happen. How could this have happened? This wasn't supposed to happen!
Otabek's lungs couldn't figure out how to take in air. Was this how Yurio had felt? Had he been battling this feeling on the ground in the park? No wonder all he'd wanted to do was close his eyes and pass out.
Otabek didn't even turn away when Yurio threw up all over himself, Ilia, the stretcher, and the floor of the ambulance. Nikita simply turned him on his side while Ilia ripped the mask away, grabbing a new one while Yurio continued to the contents of his stomach. Once finished, Yurio was rolled back over, Nikita clearing out his mouth with gloved fingers before beginning compressions again.
"Come on, Yura." Otabek whispered to himself, wishing more than anything that he could trade places with his soulmate on the stretcher. If Yurio were to die… well… If he were to stay dead… NO! He couldn't think like that. Positive thoughts, positive outcome. That's something people say, right? Think positive if you want something good to happen? Right. Something like that.
"Hold." Nikita instructed after five rounds of compressions and breaths, leaning down to listen for breathing and feel for a pulse. "Nothing."
Otabek felt as if he could sense the Earth turning, everything was tipping and swaying as he felt the burning in his lungs. In his own head, he screamed for himself to breathe, for Yurio to breathe, for the pain that had been dropped on everyone to be lifted. He just wanted everything to stop. "Come on, Yura!"
Five more rounds and Ilia checked for signs of life. "Still nothing!"
"Come on, Yuri!" Nikita huffed, picking up compressions again. "Fight for it!"
Just before the next five rounds of CPR were finished, Yurio gasped and his body jerked.
"Yura?" Otabek was hesitant allow himself to hope too much after the eternity of pain he'd just experienced, but the smiled of relief that graced Ilia's face when he leaned down to listen gave Otabek the confirmation he needed.
"He's stabilizing." Ilia sighed, the obnoxious beeping of the heart monitor becoming music to everybody's ears. "Breath is extremely labored. Tracheal intubation required."
"Go for it." Nikita sighed, climbing off of the stretcher, panting and sweating. "I'm sorry you had to watch that." He plopped down next to Otabek, who had finally remembered how to breathe, running a shaky hand through his hair. "He should be stable enough to get to the hospital once the breathing tube is in place."
Otabek just stared at Yurio as Ilia forcefully shoved a plastic tube down his throat, then attached a balloon-esque contraption to the end. He periodically squeezed and released, in time with his own breathing, keeping Yurio's chest rising and falling at a steady rate.
"Let me take a look at your arm now that he's taken care of." Nikita offered, having seen the bloody mess as soon as they'd arrived.
"It's fine." Otabek muttered, holding his arm close to his body. The adrenaline had worn down, and now that Yurio was stable, he could feel the pain setting in. He found it difficult to even attempt to twitch his fingers, he didn't want to move his entire extremity.
"It's really not." Nikita shook his head. "Your hand is broken and the cut on your wrist and a few on your knuckles need stitches. The rest of your arm needs to be cleaned soon or you'll get one hell of an infection."
Otabek contemplated his words for a moment before submitting with a sigh. "Fine." He slowly, painfully, brought his arm away from his blood-soaked shirt displaying the carnage to Nikita.
"You beat that guy's face in, huh?" Nikita chuckled at the fractures he'd seen so many times from unconscious gang fight victims. Wailing on one another for far too long with more strength than they knew they possessed until their bones gave out.
"He deserved it." Otabek practically snarled as Nikita carefully picked stones and glass out of his arm.
"I don't doubt it."