John pants into the darkness, waiting for the world to stop collapsing around him. There really isn't any good place to brace in a smooth featureless box, but he's done his best; squeezing into a corner, drawing his legs up and covering his head as best he can.
When everything has stilled, he lifts his head, breathing as shallowly as possible. The remains of steel floor supports have speared through the roof of the elevator and filled almost all the empty space – one rests right along his side. He could rest his head on it. It's nicked his arm in passing – the dim light isn't enough to see the colour properly, but there's only one thing that dark stain spreading across his shirtsleeve can be.
"Come on, respond John!" Scott is shouting. Unnecessary, considering he is right next to John's ear. Rude.
It takes a couple of tries of clearing his throat to get his acknowledgment out. There is a jagged piece of metal piercing right where he'd been sitting. He'd been about a foot and thirty seconds from becoming a kebab. This must be what it's like to be inside a pin cushion.
"Are you hurt? It sounded like – are you hurt?"
The edge of desperation in Scott's question snaps John's attention back.
"I - there's of debris in here. I -" John clenches his jaw and closes his eyes for a moment before he can go on. The small light from his watch casts weird geometric shadows through the forest of metal, disguising the limits of the elevator. If he was honest he wants out of there with no delay, but the years of training forces him mind onto a different track: assess and evaluate.
He shifts carefully, to get a better view of the obstructions between him and the door. Shouldn't have gone for the opposite corner really - a thought interrupted by a wave of heat and screeching nerves running across his chest and down his right arm, the one shoved up very hard against the elevator wall. Broken perhaps, dislocated maybe. The pain in his shoulder warns him not to move much.
"Broken bone most probably, not urgent," he admits, trying to estimate how much the stain on his short arm had grown. Not much, and now he starts to feel the slice so he can tell it's relatively small, so not worth mentioning.
There is silence from Scott, no doubt trying to assess if he was lying. They all had a dangerous habit of under estimating – and under reporting – their injuries. John usually made allowances for that and adjusted accordingly. A warm trickle of something ran down his back. He'd have to move to check if it was just sweat or blood, but he's more or less pinned into the corner by sharp wreckage.
John had thought his night was going badly before but this is something else completely.
Gordon's wait for Two's arrival is excruciating. Not only is he without his equipment and forced to resort to table cloths and lacy napkins for bandages, and has no distinctive blue and yellow suit to help him stand out from the crowd. He's had to explain at least a dozen times that he's first aid certified to get anyone to listen to a damn word he's saying. Triage is a lot easier with the authority of International Rescue behind him.
Triage is also much easier with John at the other end of an earpiece. Scott is trying, and he's not doing badly, but where Scott takes a moment to bring up some data or relay an updated ETA John would already have it. Gordon wouldn't even have to open his mouth to ask, and his brother's absence is weighing heavily on his mind.
"You sure he's alright?" Gordon asks again, even though Scott's already told him several times that John isn't in any immediate danger.
"I can patch you through if you want, talk to him yourself if you don't believe me."
"You're busy, and I don't want to take up a channel."
"Then stop asking!"
The fact is John is hurt, to one extent or the other, and Gordon is working under the hanging shadow that the last time he'd seen him, he'd said some awful hurtful things. Until Scott had relayed that John had picked up Gordon had been horribly afraid they were going to be the last last things he ever said.
And Gordon doesn't think he can go through that again.
Gordon is saved from dwelling on that thought further by the distinctive roar of the green angel herself, hovering somewhere above and plainly audible even through the ceiling. Her arrival brings a hopeful smile to more than one face, and Gordon finds himself joining the crowd, instinctively looking upwards.
"The cavalry has arrived."