A/N: Warning: Graphic depiction of Injury and Injury Care. Nothing Life Threatening. Just.

Gross AF.

Rock the Boat

0123

Sasha was not looking forward to this next part. They had finally gotten the abscess almost completely emptied, and now it was time to dig around inside it and pull out the sac, and flood it with saline and antiseptics…

Basically just watered-down rubbing alcohol.

"Blue, you are not going to like this," she called seriously from where she was awkwardly perched in his mouth, holding the pail of mixed liquids in one hand and the medical tongs in the other. "This is going to sting. It may even feel like it's burning. But, this medicine will keep the infection from coming back, okay" Blue grumbled unhappily in agreement, the sound sending her very bones to rattling as she winces, ears hurting. "Before I pour this in, however, I have to pull something out of it as well, and it may hurt too, okay? But if we leave it in, then even with the medicine, the abscess could come back, alright?" A huff of hot, rank air was her only response and, carefully, Sasha took the medical tongs and slipped them into the top of the abscess, grimacing and she had to wiggle her fucking hand into the fleshy space.

"You're doing great, sweetie!" Doctor Bree called; Sasha couldn't help but snort at the unintentional reference, a brief grin crossing her face even as she winced at the heat inside the injury. It was already hot from infection, enough to feel the difference through the skin, but inside? She was forced to pull her arm out after barely a minute, hissing as her arm fucking steamed, god but that was wiggy. "Oh, Commodore!" She heard the good Doc greet cheerfully. "And, ah, heh, A-Admiral! Welcome!" Sasha decided her hand had cooled enough and quickly plunged it back into the wound, hissing as she felt Blue twitch and grumble, the slick, slimy flesh blisteringly hot around her hand as she quickly poked around, pinching and tearing the rubbery-textured membrane of the abscess sac, knowing that she wouldn't be able to pull most of it out, especially with the heat that she was forced to retreat from again with another curse.

"God fucking damn that's hot, fucking ow," she snarled, bouncing a little in her awkward seat in Blue's gums, grimacing as she used her not cooked hand—again, fucking ow—to make sure she wouldn't slide in the hot saliva that was pooling around her still-gross legs, the bucket of medicine-mix sloshing as she bumped it into Blue's teeth. God, it was soaking into her pants, fuck she'd need to strip and burn everything before she even got close to the Guppy, like hell was she bringing this cesspool of infection onto her poor Boat…

"One more time, Blue, then we'll start adding the medicine, okay?" She called, eyeing the sunburned-looking skin of her arm, grimacing at it. That was going to fucking sting, that's for sure… Blue grumbled at her, ending in a plaintive-sounding whine that made her cringe, ears aching. Yeah, being in the Sea King's mouth when he made a sound…

Much Ouch.

She distantly noted that the visiting Marines had officially joined the Peanut Gallery, a swarm of white-and-blue uniforms now catching the edge of her peripherals as she carefully slid a little closer to the injury, avoiding the still shell-and-tooth embedded gumline as best as she could. One of the Marines, she absently noted, was a tall, angry-looking man in a fancy coat, big arms crossed as he watched her, so she guessed he had to be the 'Admiral' Doc had mentioned.

…To be honest, she had no knowledge of how the Marine pecking order went, like, was an Admiral higher than a Commodore? What about a Captain? Commander? Gunner? Were there even Gunner's in the Marines? What the fuck did she know, she sure as fuck was never in any sort of Military group, she vaguely remembered getting into, like, two fist-fights as a teenager, maybe, and both fights she clearly remembered getting broken up before a winner was found, and that was literally the extent of her personal knowledge.

…Wow, she really had some weird memory gaps, now that she actually thought about it…

Fucking brain-damage.

Deciding to ignore her weird thoughts, y'know, like usual, she instead focused on the task at hand—Ha, pun, 'cause, y'know. Burning hand. She was fucking hilarious—Focus! Shaking her head a bit and making herself focus, she took a careful, deep breath and once more plunged her scalded arm into the wound, letting herself lean over Blue's lip and sinking almost up to her shoulder, gritting her teeth as she gripped as much of the slimy membrane as she could. Blue whined as her upper arm stretched the relatively small opening she was in, and Sasha could only make shushing noises, voice strained as she finally succeeded in gripping the slippery shit and quickly, but carefully, sat up, pulling her steaming, pain-shaken arm out after her, the medical-tongs tightly gripping an off-white, mucus-like object as she pulled them out. Quickly, she pulled the membrane out as far as she could on the first go, before letting it go and grabbing more until she had successfully pulled out the slimy, torn-up remains, almost enough to make a hammock with.

"There we go, Blue, there we go, buddy," she crooned clearly as she dumped the membrane out of his mouth, hearing the gross splat as it splashed into the aptly named Infection Pit. She immediately stood up out of the drool-filled trench that was Blue's lower lip, shuddering at the feeling of the thick liquid sliding down her legs, and instead took an awkward seat on the nearest, flattest tooth. "I'll give you a moment, but the sooner we pour this medicine in and the wound stitched up, the sooner we can start working on pulling the sharp bits out of your jaw, okay, sweetie?" she called, leaning down to pat his gum as he hummed lowly in unhappy understanding. "We're almost done, honey, I promise. An hour, tops, for all the cleaning and stitching, okay? And that's only if we have to pause for you, okay? You're doing so great, Blue."

"Do you need me to treat your arm, Sasha?" Doctor Bree called, sounding worried, and Sasha blinked, looking over at the good Doctor, absentmindedly wiping sweat from her brow and shoving her spit-and-sweat-moist hair out of her face. Fuck but Blue's mouth was hot, humid, and just all around moist, and she was now soaked with blood, spit, and infection-juice.

She needed, like, eighty-million showers, to be honest.

"Eh?" She called, blinking at him, and the Doctor awkwardly gestured at her, making Sasha suddenly remember that, oh, yeah. "Ow," she announced, curiously peering at her arm, wrinkling her nose at the sight and smell. Her forearm and most of her upper arm, the parts of her that weren't covered in glove and shirt, were lobster-red from being scalded in Blue's mouth, but it didn't quite hurt anymore. It was sort of like, once you got past the stinging pain of the sunburn and your body was just, y'know, burned, the sunburn only hurt where you moved it or put pressure on it. Eying it critically as she cautiously rolled her arm around, wincing a bit at the sharp sting, she finally shrugged and waved it at Doctor Bree with a grin.

"It's all good, Doc!" She called cheerfully. "It's only First Degree! Won't even scar!" The Doctor winced slightly, waving his own hands in a distinctly awkward fashion.

"That… Wasn't what I was asking?" He managed, and Sasha laughed at his awkwardness, cheerfully ignoring the burning ache of her arm. "I'll just, prep some aloe for you later, then," he sighed and Sasha saluted him cheerfully before Blue rolled his jaw a bit, obviously uncomfortable, and nearly sent her flying off the tooth she was perched on, earning a startled yelp as she scrambled to make sure that the medicine-bucket didn't spill.

"Alright, alright!" She coaxed, huffing slightly from the sudden adrenaline, scalded hand resting on her heart for a moment. "Let's get this over with, right?" She asked; Blue grunted in agreement, huffing more hot, wet air over her. Carefully, she stood up, grimacing at the hot spit drowning her feet as she stood. Carefully, she knelt in the dip between gum and lip, gripping the bucket of medicine in her right hand and determinedly wrapping her still-secure rope around the other, gripping it tightly, just in case.

"Remember, this will hurt," she called warning; Blue made another impatient huff, and Sasha grimaced, taking a deep breath and leaning forward. Using her rope-wrapped hand to carefully pull open the lightly-bleeding wound of the abscess, she hesitated briefly before carefully positioning the bucket.

"Count of three, buddy," she called warningly. "One… Two!" She poured the entirety of the bucket straight into the abscess without further warning, not even bothering to pretend she would have counted to three. Better to rip the band-aid off, right?

Well, she ripped it off, alright. Blue's reaction was immediate and violent, and Sasha didn't care where exactly the bucket was flung as she turned her focus to gripping her rope as the Sea King flung his head around with a violent roar that left her brain rattling. Gritting her teeth as she was evicted from his mouth, swinging violently through the air, clinging to the rope as Blue launched his head into the air, Sasha could only focus on holding on as tight as she could. It was probably a bad time to remember that she wasn't the greatest fan of heights, either, now that she distantly noted as Blue lifted her damn near sixty feet into the air as he continued to swing his head about, sending her swinging violently as well.

Terrified but determined, Sasha shifted her weight, focusing on swinging her weight like a pendulum, as if she was swinging on a rope swing instead of a deadly rope ride on a massive Sea Serpent, and how the fuck was this her life that she could even say that?! She extended and pulled in her legs in as steady a rhythm as she could, but, well. All good things must come to an end, right?

And her end came in the reminder that her gloved hands were wet.

The moment a particularly violent head thrash sent her jack-knifing into the open air, a terror so strong it left her choked silent took hold as her spit-and-blood-coated gloves slipped right off the fucking rope. And then, she was flying through the air.

The wind whistled past her ears, and time seemed to slow, as she flew through the air at breakneck speed. And wasn't that a conundrum? She was moving too fast, deadly landing incoming fast, but everything seemed to slow down…

She managed to turn herself in the air, shifting and using the momentum of that last swing so that she could at least aim herself away from the Peanut Gallery, because at this speed, she'd likely kill whomever she hit, and instead curled her body as carefully as she could, mind already grimly muttering facts about gravity-related injuries and deaths and trying to come up with a way that would cause the least amount of injury with the highest percentage of survival-rate.

And then, suddenly, the world sped up again.

And she slammed straight into a human chest, huge arms snapping around her and keeping her body from whipping about and injuring her further, something cracking in her chest as the wind was forced from her lungs in a ragged wheeze. The one who caught her skidded backward, bleeding away her momentum and leaving a cloud of sand to erupt around them as she caught his shirt in her hands and clenched on tight, struggling to get her breath back and wide-eyed with shock. After a moment, she managed to suck in a breath, promptly coughing it back out, as the one holding her straightened up from his forced semi-crouch, and Sasha looked up with wide eyes.

It was the Admiral, who had a truly magnificent Resting Bitch Face she now saw as she blinked up at him, wide-eyed. Dark eyes, dark hair, square-jawed and grim…

…Is he wearing a pink-flowered shirt under his uniform? Was, funnily enough, the first thought that came to her stunned mind as she blinked up at him again with another wheeze. …Nice. It looks comfortable. And kinda smells like flowers, too? Huh.

"Sasha!" Marius's voice broke through, and carefully, awkwardly, Sasha turned her head, still trying to catch her breath. The Ex-Commodore, Doctor Bree, Marlow, basically all of her friends who were there had come running, and she blinked as she realized exactly how long a trench the Admiral had dug into the beach with his catch…

"Holy shit you're tall," she wheezed out as she realized how high off the ground she still was, curled into a fetal position as she was, hands still clenched in the Admiral's shirt as she blinked owlishly.

"Are you alright?!" Doctor Bree demanded, and, holy shit, she thought the man was a little taller than average, sure, he was like six-foot-five, but the Admiral towered over him? And the others like? What the fuck?

"Think I cracked a rib," she managed to wheeze, blinking slowly down at the Doctor. Then she turned her head back around to peer up at the Admiral again and, well. Her filter still wasn't a thing that existed in the best cases. "Nice catch there, Tiger," she told him and offered a bright if shaky, grin. "Also, you smell like flowers and it's very nice," she told him hoarsely, honestly; the Resting Bitch Face somehow got bitchier, holy shit what an Icon, and the Admiral dropped her—Carefully! Which was nice—Into Marius's arms. Immediately, the Ex-Marine grunted and quickly set her on her feet, holding her up as she swayed shakily, and then Doctor Bree was all up in her business, skittering his fingers under her shirt and pressing against her ribs worriedly, making her hiss.

"That was fucking horrifying," Marlow informed her bluntly; Sasha sent the blond a cheerful grin, wincing as the Doc found her cracked rib and rubbed along it carefully to make sure it wasn't broken or detached.

"I'm not done yet, either," she told him easily; Doctor Bree's head shot up from where he was half-crouched to better get at her ribs, a sharp, disapproving look on the usually chipper man's face. "Don't even try, Doc," she told him sharply, firmly. "Never leave a job half-finished."

"You literally just almost died," Marius gritted out, glaring down at her even as his hands held, gentle but firm, on her upper arms.

"Eh, what's a little flirt with death, huh?" Sasha asked, flopping her head back to knock it against his chest with a grin. "Keeps life interesting!"

"If you break this rib," Doctor Bree told her seriously, face tight as he poked it for emphasis and made her flinch with a hiss. "It is in the right position to puncture your lung." Sasha peered at him, but another snarling roar from Blue had her head lifting, watching her friend thrash in pain as the medicine remained trapped in the abscess pocket.

"…Thanks, Doc," she told him, eyes locked on her friend. "I'll keep an eye out for it, okay?" With that, she carefully patted at Marius's hands until he let her go, shot the worried menfolk and Admiral RBF a cheeky grin, and then started carefully jogging back down the beach towards the vigorously shaking Blue. He occasionally dropped his head to pant and snarl, the rope sliding just a few feet off the sand, and she knew she'd have to time it carefully, as the Sea King tended to snap his jaws in the air at the same time, drool starting to foam from his distress.

Lips pursed, with adrenaline, shock, and determination fueling her, Sasha darted forward as fast as she could as soon as she got close, and, with a leap, managed to grab a hold of the rope. Immediately, she wrapped it around her left hand, making sure she wouldn't be flung off nearly as easily this time. And then, the realization that she hadn't, you know, planned on what to do next hit. She'd just kinda, y'know… Hyper-focused on getting back to the rope and helping Blue.

I am a motherfuck, she thought as she was once again sent swinging around like a demented yo-yo.

Desperately, she clung to the rope, teeth bared and gritted as her cracked rib ached, she threw her mind into solving the problem. She needed to get up to the abscess, to put pressure on it so that the burning medicine was forced through. Her gloves were too wet to climb, and the rope had no knots to grip in it… Damnit it, she couldn't fucking think, with all the movement and the I-almost-DIED-holy-shit trauma! She just needed to figure out how to stop being flung around like a child's idea of a trapeze artist, and she could…!

Wait.

Trapeze.

There was, there was something, a vague memory, fuck this bullshit amnesia shit…

Women and kids on long ribbons, okay, she could picture it, think, damn you I know it's not your fucking strong suit but damn it, remember!

…Ribbons…

They weren't… They didn't use their hands to pull them up, not fully…

Determinedly, carefully, Sasha used her wrapped hand to pull her body upwards in an awkward pull-up, until the rope-wrapped appendage was at her waist, and she could grip more of the rope with her right hand. Then she let herself hang sideways, muscles and rib screaming, breath wheezing.

They didn't use their hands to pull themselves up their ribbons, in her memories. They used their legs, their hips and momentum. And, with a quick, deep breath, determinedly ignoring her screaming rib, Sasha awkwardly jack-knifed her legs, sending her body spinning up the rope, feeling it bite into her waist, left hand trapped but right hand steady. And she did it again and again and again, until her next kick touched Blue's jaw.

Then, she did something that even she knew was absolutely stupid and reckless, but, well. Legs are longer than arms and will almost always win in the case of reach.

So, with her next kick, Sasha flipped herself upside-down, and clinging to the rope around her waist like the literally fucking lifeline it was, you absolute madlad, Sasha used her much higher legs to reach the abscess and press her heels into the medicine-filled flesh.

Immediately, rubbing-alcohol-scented, puss-mixed medicine shot out of the swollen opening at the bottom of the abscess, splashing down, spattering her back and the open air alike. Blue shuttered, hard, making her bones rattle with it, before he slowly, shakily, started to lower himself once more, moaning loudly in relief as another press of her heels sent more of the burning medicine out. By the time she was getting genuinely light-headed from, y'know, being upside-down, Blue was finally back on the beach, whining unhappily and shivering still. Sasha let out a shaky breath as the Peanut Gallery erupted into cheers, and carefully began to unwind herself from the rope, left hand aching from both being tied up and clenching so tight to the rope.

Unfortunately, she was so relieved to get down, she didn't consider how fast she would spin out of the rope, with gravity actively helping her, and, well…

Sasha splashed directly into the Infection Pit the moment the rope left her waist, plunging her fully into the still-hot, chunky soup of nastiness.

She wondered if you could break a cracked rib from vomiting as hard as she did, the moment she sat up in her pool of awful.

Sure as fuck felt like you could.

Day Fifteen: Survived…?

A/N: Before you ask, yes, Admiral Resting Bitch Face is Akainu. Does Sasha know whomst've the fuck he is or has done? Nope. But she likes his shirt and his fabric softener, so there's that. Also, did y'all know that fucker is ten-foot-two? Like, damn. He Tall by Normal People Standards