8. No Anaesthetic for sugar-fiend and Scott.

Characters: Scott, Virgil

Warnings: Fire, Blood, Wound treatment, Passing out

He was no stranger to field medicine. International Rescue and the very nature of their jobs meant that Virgil was frequently having to stabilise patients before moving them, and as the lead medic and fully-trained EMT on the team he certainly had the most experience. And the one who had needed to improvise the most.

Which was going to come in handy right now.

They had responded to a fire on a stud farm in Kentucky. The area had been suffering a harsh drought for several weeks, and there were wildfires in several places. The farm was in the process of evacuating when a fire had broken out, and with no immediate help the call had gone out to iR.

It had immediately become clear that this was not the best, or most conscientious place that had needed iR to rescue them. Buildings were run down and fire precautions non-existent.

That was a couple of hours ago. Now, now he was tired and hot and thirsty, but that was nothing compared to his eldest brother.

Scott was currently propped up in a corner of an old barn, hands clutching his leg. His bleeding leg. In the heat something in the barn had exploded and shrapnel had peppered both of them. Virgil had been lucky to escape with a couple of minor cuts, probably because his idiotic brother had jumped in front of him as usual. He didn't know what had caught Scott, but if he didn't stop the bleeding soon…

The barn had been converted into offices and a large open space, and as he rooted around Virgil realised they were in a small vet's outfit. It wasn't unheard of for larger farms, and he looked through the supplies. This wasn't a fully outfitted office, though, and the supplies were meagre.

He did manage to find a pair of tweezers, some iodine powder and a needle-and-thread pack. No anaesthetic though, and no pain relief either. They'd both used up their med kits and hadn't been able to return to Two to replenish when this had happened. Virgil shuddered. This was going to hurt.

Scott looked up as his brother returned and watched him lay the items he had found on the seat of a chair. He grimaced to himself. Iodine powder was going to hurt like hell, he'd been through this before. Their eyes met, and he could see the sympathy Virgil had for him.

'I've got to get that foreign object out of the cut and then sew you up, Scott. It's not going to be easy as I couldn't find anything to relieve the pain, and I know that this is going to hurt.'

Nodding in acknowledgement, Scott moved his hands so that they were clamped either side of the wound and allowed Virgil access, and he grit his teeth.

'Get it over with, please.'

The iodine burned like hell, causing him to gasp in pain. But it was soon joined by an even sharper pain as Virgil used the tweezers to locate and pull out what looked like a shard of metal. By the time the metal was dropped on the floor Scott was sweating and panting.

More iodine as a precaution and needle and thread at the ready, Virgil got down to the business of stitching up the jagged wound. Soon there was a neat row of black sutures, and he sat back to check on his brother.

Scott was trembling with the effort of keeping conscious enough to clamp the wound so Virgil could work, and as he watched his brother sit back on his heels, he finally realised he could let go and promptly passed out.

Virgil smiled gently. Scott had kept conscious long enough to be a help. Only Gordon could possibly have matched that strength of will, not that he wanted him to. He tightly bandaged Scott's leg and hoisted him up and over his shoulder, setting off for Two and some much-needed pain relief.

John had been informed and had coordinated accordingly, and hopefully it wouldn't be much longer before they could get home and see to Scott properly.