Amnesty: The Cave-in Challenge, by aerye
Jan. 1st, 2007 10:20 am![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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china_shop and isiscolo for beta; I apologize to both of them for whatever got lost in the reconciliation.
Ray/Ray, pre-slash.
15 minutes after the rescue
"BP seventy over forty. Patient is conscious but unstable; there are severe multiple fractures to the right arm, legs, and ribs. Pulse is irregular—we've got him strapped to an LSB—"
The siren is so loud it almost drowns out the voice of the paramedic calling in heart rate and BP and pints of plasma going in. She's telling the hospital to have a crash cart standing by, just in case, and some part of Ray knows it's unfair but he hates the calm in her voice and her hair, blonde and neat in a knot at the back of her head. Nothing bloody, nothing out of place.
He's covered in dust and blood, his hands and his clothes, and he's shaking all over, but that doesn't stop him from holding Vecchio's hand. The paramedics aren't paying attention—it's probably not the first time they've seen two guys holding hands—and Vecchio's eyes are clouded and confused, but Ray holds on tight because he's afraid if he lets go anything could happen.
The siren cuts off as the ambulance swings into the emergency room driveway, and the doors bang open and it seems like there are dozens of people, all reaching for him and Vecchio. His hand is torn away from Vecchio's as the gurney is lifted down and rushed through the entrance, and the last he sees of Vecchio is as he's pushed through double doors on the way to surgery.
5 minutes before the cave-in
Vecchio looked around the abandoned warehouse floor, his nose wrinkling as he wiped the dust on his hands off on his handkerchief. "You sure you got this right, Kowalski? This place looks deserted to me."
"This is supposed to be the place," Ray said, shaking his head. He turned in a circle to look around. Vecchio was right; the warehouse did look deserted. There was evidence of a couple of squatters—some discarded food wrappers and a few empty bottles, and the ashes from a small fire. A pharmacy's worth of broken syringes. But even those had obviously been abandoned some time ago.
"Well, I hope you didn't pay too much for the tip," Vecchio said, pulling a flashlight from his overcoat pocket. He turned it on, darting the light around the darker corners of the room. He shook his head. "The last time this joint saw action, Reagan was in the White House. Let's get out of here."
Ray shivered. It was cold as hell, and the stiff breeze from off the lake blowing in through the broken windows didn't help any. "Eddie swore to me this was the place," he said irritably, as he followed Vecchio down the stairs. "He said he saw the deal go down." He kicked an empty bottle. It made a satisfying hollow rattle as it rolled across the floor.
"Eddie Sanchez?" Vecchio sounded surprised.
"Naw, Eddie Casino. That motherfucker." He crossed his arms over his chest. It didn't make him feel any warmer. "Well, fuck. Now what?"
Vecchio grinned and shrugged. "I say we rattle Mr. Casino's chain. Get ourselves a refund. C'mon—I'll flip you for bad cop."
Ray snorted and grinned reluctantly. He hated when Vecchio got all reasonable. "You need to get a life—" He stopped.
The sound was low and hollow, almost like the long drawn out moan of a man in pain. Deep and reverberating, it started soft and got gradually louder, and then subsided. Ray looked around and then glanced at Vecchio, who looked just as mystified. The noise came again, louder this time, moaning and creaking with the sound of metal abrading. They exchanged another glance, quick and nervous, and drew their guns, twisting so that they were back to back. Vecchio whispered, "What the hell—Shit!"
The walls came down around them.
30 minutes after the rescue
"Look up." The doctor's got one of those weird little flashlights and he keeps flashing it in and out of Ray's eyes, asking him to look up and down and sideways. He's in a room in the ER that isn't really a room, just a cubicle made out of curtains, and he can hear the other nurses in the little rooms on either side of him. One of them's taking a history, asking a bunch of questions about heart disease and stroke, and the other's trying to put in an IV, but he's having trouble finding a good vein.
They always have trouble, a woman is saying, and she sounds drunk, or maybe just old. I got bad veins.
They already got Ray hooked up with his own set of needles, saline and something—he forgets what the doctor said. Stuff. He's cold. They took his shirt and his pants when he got there—they were all ripped up and covered with things Ray didn't like to think about–and they haven't replaced them yet. The nurse gave him a blanket but it's not helping.
"Any pain when I do this?" The doctor's rotating his arm up and down and around.
He shakes his head. "What about my partner?" he asks, and the doctor looks at him kinda funny. How many times has he asked?
"Your partner's in surgery," the doctor says, in that just stay calm in front of the sick people voice. "They took him up immediately. I'm sure they're doing everything they can. How about this—does this hurt?" He's gently manipulating Ray's spine.
Ray shakes his head and shivers. Jesus, he's cold. It doesn't seem fair—they got him out and he's still cold.
5 minutes after the cave-in
Ray came to slowly, not entirely sure when he crossed the line from unconscious to conscious, it was so dark and quiet and still. He was curled in a ball with his arms over his head, covered in debris. The air was thick and gritty with dust; he tried to take a deep breath and got dirt instead, coughing as his lungs protested the invasion. A dozen places hurt as he shook. He was cold, and there was a nauseated, hollow feeling in his belly. Shock.
"Fuck." The sound of his voice was eerie in the silence. He lifted himself up onto his elbow and shook his head to clear it, stopping when a sudden pain shot through his temples. Christ, that hurt. He tried again, levering himself up on his hands and pushing himself upright. Loose mortar and chunks of brick slid off his shoulders. He slowly shifted into a sitting position, crossing his legs, stifling a groan as every cut and scrape made itself known. Moving hurt too, but the pain was manageable—like he'd been beat up by a couple of guys who really hated him but not enough to actually kill him. He tried out his arms and legs, and flexed his fingers. Everything seemed to work, if under protest. He didn't think anything was broken.
"Vecchio?" It was so quiet it felt as though his voice didn't carry at all. He looked around again, straining to see through the darkness. He couldn't see how bad things were, and the last thing he wanted to risk was upsetting something and starting another collapse. Still, he couldn't just sit here and hope for something good to happen. He felt around cautiously, fingers trying to decipher the mounds of concrete and brick and stray bits of metal. He couldn't find Vecchio's flashlight and he still couldn't hear a sound.
"Vecchio?"
He couldn't hear a sound.
1 hour after the rescue
They bring him another blanket and it helps a little, although his hands are still cold. He's lucky, they say—he doesn't even need stitches, just a good cleaning up and a tetanus booster, and some ibuprofen.
"Who did the tip come from?" Welsh asks. He showed up a few minutes ago and he's squeezed between the curtain and Ray's bed, looking out of place. The nurse is there, cleaning Ray's cuts and bruises, and she's a short little Asian woman who keeps darting around Welsh for gauze and antiseptic. Ray can tell she makes the Lieu nervous.
"Eddie Casino," he repeats. He already told Welsh once. He rubs his fingers over his head; he has a son of a bitch of a headache. "Eddie said Bresnikov was using the warehouse as a drop. Boats'd come in and leave the stuff there, and then his guys would come clear it out later. He said they were moving major product through there." He shrugs. "Vecchio and I went to check it out."
"Hmm." Welsh twitches when the nurse comes close again, wielding tweezers. "What are those for?" he asks suspiciously.
"He has splinters," the nurse answers, pursing her lips as she peers closely at Ray's forearm. She begins to pluck slivers of metal from his skin. It doesn't really hurt—it's just a weird sort of tug followed by a tiny sting. Welsh frowns, looking fascinated and disgusted at the same time.
Welsh asks a couple more questions about what happened, about the tip and whether Ray thought the collapse of the building had anything to do with Eddie. Ray tells him there wasn't an explosion or anything. As far as he knows, it was just bad luck—wrong location, and the ceiling just decided to come down while he and Vecchio were standing under it.
Welsh can't seem to take his eyes off of the tweezers and the bits of metal coming out of Ray's arm, and Ray's glad when he says he's leaving. He asks Ray if there's anything he needs and he looks at Ray kinda funny when Ray asks if he's knows anything about Vecchio. Welsh says nothing more than he did two minutes ago and Ray starts to think maybe he's talking about Vecchio too much. He doesn't how Vecchio's gonna feel about that—he doesn't know how he feels about it—so he shuts up.
When Welsh leaves, Ray closes his eyes and the nurse finishes up, cleans the rest of his cuts and scrapes, and gives him another couple of shots. After that she goes but she keeps coming by every few minutes or so to ask him the same list of questions—his name, the date. Does he know who the president is? Does he know where he is?
He answers the questions. He knows his name and the date, and who the president is and exactly where he is.
But they're the wrong questions.
25 minutes after the cave-in
He found the flashlight after a few minutes of searching. The casing was cracked and the light flickered when he held it wrong but at least it was something.
"Vecchio?"
He'd been calling Vecchio's name for a while now without any answer, and he didn't like the way the probabilities were adding up here. It was still hard to see anything in the dim beam cast by the flashlight, and a couple of times Ray thought he'd found Vecchio, only to realize it was a trick of the flickering shadows. The more he looked, the more he realized how bad the situation was—there was no way of knowing how many floors of the building had collapsed, how many layers of rubble they were buried under, how much air might be left. The dark and the dust and his own disorientation had him all turned around—for all he knew he was searching in the wrong place and Vecchio was bleeding out someplace while Ray wasted his time poking at the wrong piles of concrete.
"Vecchio!" Goddamn it, goddamn it—"Vecchio, answer me, you motherfucker! If you're dead—"
"I'm not dead." The voice came from behind him. Vecchio coughed, then made a sound strangely like a laugh. "Not yet, anyway."
The relief that flooded him made Ray lightheaded. He stumbled as he made his way over the debris toward the voice, and he flashed the light around, trying to see, but he moved too fast, and the light went out again.
"Shit! Shit, shit, shit—Vecchio! Vec—" And then the light came on again and he saw him.
It was bad. It was worse than bad. Vecchio's right arm and leg were trapped and he had a deep gash across his forehead. Ray covered the rest of the distance and fell to his knees next to him.
He felt around, trying to be gentle. There was no way of telling how bad the damage was to Vecchio's trapped arm and leg, but there seemed to be a lot of blood everywhere else.
"Getting kinda fresh, aren't you, Kowalski?" Vecchio's voice was weak. Ray directed the flashlight toward his face and it was hard to know if it was the bad light or the conditions, but Vecchio's skin was pale, an unhealthy color even under the grey of the dust and dirt. Still, he managed to grin at Kowalski before he winced and caught his breath.
Ray took off his jacket. "Yeah, well, I'm just that kinda guy, Vecchio. Thought you'd've heard all the rumors by now." He pulled off his shirt. Stop the bleeding. That was the first thing. If Vecchio kept losing blood like this, he was gonna be dead within the hour. Ray shivered and concentrated fiercely on wadding up his shirt to serve as a dressing.
"I'm not going to try to move you," he said, surprised at how even his voice sounded. "But you've got some holes in your side here—we gotta try to stop the bleeding."
"My hero," Vecchio said, but his voice caught and he gritted his teeth as Ray began to move his clothing aside. It was worse than Ray thought—a couple of Vecchio's ribs were broken, one jagged bit of bone poking through the torn flesh.
"Bad?" Vecchio's voice was as neutral as his. Like they were discussing the weather.
He looked up, met Vecchio's eyes. "It's not good."
Vecchio held his eyes, and then looked away. "Yeah. Okay. Do what you gotta do."
Ray leaned over him. He hesitated. "This is gonna hurt."
Vecchio winced as he snorted and looked at Ray again, raising an eyebrow. "Jeez, you think, Kowalski?"
Ray laid the makeshift bandage over the wound and pressed down. He could feel the grind of broken bone against bone as he increased the pressure, and he tasted acid as his gut churned. Vecchio swore, and then, thank God, his eyes rolled up into his head and he lost consciousness.
Ray took a deep breath, turning his face into his arm and swallowing hard as he kept up the pressure. "Don't you die on me, you motherfucker," he whispered. "Don't you fucking dare die on me."
3 hours after the rescue
"Ray?" He turns. Frannie is peeking through the folds of the curtain and she blushes when she sees he's in the middle of pulling on some surgical pants one of the nurses found for him to wear. He cares less about the fact that she's got a front row view of his ass than the fact that she's got her arms wrapped across her chest, her eyes red from crying. He sucks in a breath. "Your brother—?"
She comes further into his room and shrugs, and he lets out some air. Vecchio's still alive, whatever she's about to say.
"He's still in surgery. He's got a lot of stuff broken."
He remembers the sharp edge of bone and warm, slick feeling of blood on his hands. He pulls on the matching tunic they gave him—it's too small and it feels tight over his chest.
"Ray lost—" She takes a deep breath, steadies her voice. "He lost a lot of blood. Maria and I gave some," she holds up her arm and he can see the tape in the crook of her elbow, "and Ma called in some of the cousins." She gives him a lopsided grin. "Between the cousins we probably have enough to fill him up three times over."
"Frannie—"
Her smile fades and she changes the subject abruptly, looking around. "So they letting you out? Welsh said you should call when they let you go and he'll send a car to take you home."
He pulls back the hand he reached out to her and nods. There's a plastic bag that holds his wallet and keys and glasses, the spare change he had on him when they admitted him. He picks it up. His clothes are still there, piled up in a corner, but they're all ruined, nothing worth keeping, and he leaves them where they are.
"Ray?" Frannie points and he sees his leather jacket, hanging off a hook on the wall. He takes it down. It feels wrong in his hands; the lining is dark and stiff with nearly dried blood. Vecchio's blood.
"Ray? You want me to call Welsh for you?"
He tosses the jacket on top of the rest of the ruined clothing and shakes his head. He picks up one of the blankets and wraps it around his shoulders. "I'm coming with you."
3 hours after the cave-in
"Hey." Ray turned off the flashlight when he got back to Vecchio, trying to conserve the batteries. He'd found a place where he thought he could feel air coming in and he’d been trying to dig them out, but it was slow going and Vecchio was in bad shape; he didn't like leaving him alone for long. "Vecchio?"
"You expecting someone else?" Vecchio asked, his breathing labored, and Ray when turned on the light again, he could see blood staining his mouth.
Ray crouched down next to him and tried to cushion his head without moving him too much. He tucked his leather jacket closer around Vecchio's shoulders, covering the awkward bandage on his chest, made from scraps of Vecchio's overcoat. "A guy can hope, can't he?"
"Yeah." Vecchio answered with difficulty. They were both thirsty but Vecchio was drier, getting dangerously dehydrated. "You should take back your jacket," he said. "You're going to freeze to death."
Ray sat back and turned off the flashlight again. "The digging keeps me warm," he lied.
"How's that going?"
"It's going."
"Tough guy." Vecchio sounded even more tired in the dark. "Always such a tough guy." After a moment, he asked, "You think they're looking for us?"
Ray shrugged and then realized Vecchio probably couldn't see him. "Maybe. Someone in one of the buildings close by must have seen something. It must have raised a hell of a cloud of dust. Not to mention the noise. Anyone comes to look, they'll find your car."
"Yeah. Unless it's buried under a pile of rocks. My cars aren't safe around you, Kowalski." Ray wished he carried a lighter. Even in the dark he could tell Vecchio was shivering too, and if he had something maybe he could start a fire. "Did you tell Dispatch where we were going?"
Ray figured it was good Vecchio couldn't see his face—there couldn't be any humor in his smile. He lifted his leg and rested an elbow on it. Propped his head up with his hand. "No."
Vecchio was silent for a moment. "Yeah, me either."
10 hours after the rescue
The waiting area outside of surgery is filled with Vecchios—Frannie and Ma and Maria and Tony, and at least half a dozen of Vecchio's cousins, all with matching tape on the insides of their elbows. Ma is reading the Bible in Italian; Maria is knitting. Frannie is pretending to read Cosmo. It's dawn and they've all been up all night, and the trashcans are overflowing with empty Styrofoam coffee cups.
Ray is sitting slightly apart from the rest. His eyes feel as though they're still full of grit, and his muscles are cramping up something awful. He should have filled the prescription the doctor gave him while the pharmacy was still open. He shifts in his chair, trying to get more comfortable.
Ma Vecchio looks up. "You should go home," she says to him. "You were hurt, too—you should get some rest."
Ray shakes his head.
6 hours after the cave-in
Vecchio had a fever and was fading in and out. He was lucid for long periods of time but then his temperature would spike, and he'd get confused and disoriented, and start talking like he was Langoustini. Ray stopped digging; it wasn't like he was making a lot of progress anyway.
When Vecchio was lucid, he asked Ray to talk to him. So Ray talked. About everything he could think of. Stupid stuff and important stuff. The flashlight finally gave up the ghost so they talked in the dark, and the dark made it easier. Ray told Vecchio about how he became a cop, and why, and how his dad didn't like it, and how they hadn't talked for almost fifteen years after that. Vecchio told him about his dad, who sounded like a real son of a bitch. Guess neither of them had won the lottery in that department.
Ray's throat got as dry as it could get and his voice came out barely a whisper, but he kept on talking. He lay next to Vecchio and tried to keep him warm, and talked about whatever came into his head.
"Hey," Vecchio interrupted him in the middle of a story about his first boxing match, his voice low, so quiet Ray wouldn't have been able to hear if he hadn't been lying so close.
"Yeah?"
"I want you to promise me something." Vecchio tried to take a deep breath. There was a wet sound to it that meant fluid in his lungs. Ray closed his eyes.
"Yeah?"
"I want you to—" Another breath. "I want you to promise to take care of Ma. Ma and Frannie—they don't have anyone else looking out for them."
Ray started to pull away. "Stop it. You're not going to—" His voice cracked.
Vecchio's hand held onto his, but there was no strength in it.
16 hours after the rescue
They move Vecchio into recovery. He's awake, but hospital rules only allow one visitor at a time, and Ray politely, if impatiently, waits for all of the Vecchios to pay their respects first. When he finally gets to go inside, the lights are dim. It's a relief after the bright fluorescents in the waiting room.
Vecchio's eyes are open and they follow him across the room. Ray feels like he's made of glass, transparent and fragile, like Vecchio can see right inside him. Like he could shatter if Vecchio says the wrong thing. It's stupid—after waiting for hours to find out if Vecchio was gonna be okay, he doesn't know where to start now, or what to say. There's too much inside him fighting to get out and he doesn't know if it's anything that can live outside of a caved-in building. He's afraid he's going to say the wrong thing, do the wrong thing. Fuck up.
Thank god, Vecchio doesn't seem to have that problem. He gives Ray a half smile and starts talking before Ray even makes it to the bed.
"So I guess you're stuck with me after all."
5 minutes before the rescue
"Kowalski—" Vecchio's voice was almost gone.
"No. No." Ray shook his head. Fuck Vecchio for the way he kept trying to have this conversation.
"Kowalski, you need to listen to me—"
"No, I don't. I don't need to listen to any of this. They're digging, you hear me? They're going to find us, and we're going to be fine, except for I'm going to have to put up with that motherfucker Swenson as a partner while you're on medical leave."
Vecchio's breathing was strained and shallow. "Listen to me. I want you to tell Ma what happened before the department notifies her. Welsh'll hold them off until you can get to her and it'll be better coming from you. Tell Frannie first—she can help you handle Ma. And tell Ma everything's going to be okay. I've got some money socked away—tell her to look in the safety deposit box—that'll tide her over until the death benefits come through—"
"Shut up, Vecchio." He wanted to shake the teeth out of Vecchio's head.
"And Fraser." Vecchio swallowed around a swollen tongue and pushed on. "I know it'll be hard for you but you tell Fraser what happened. Don't let him hear it from just anybody, okay?"
"You are not gonna die, Vecchio. You're too much of a pain in the ass to die."
Vecchio laughed weakly. "Despite all evidence to the contrary, right? Jeez, Kowalski, sometimes you remind me so much of Fraser. You think if you decide something that's it—no more discussion."
"You are not gonna die," he repeated heatedly. "I'm not gonna let you die, Vecchio, do you hear me?"
There's a sudden catch in Vecchio's breathing. "You're a tough guy, Kowalski, but I don't think you got much influence over this."
"Don't you make a joke about this!" Ray hissed, wishing he could see Vecchio's face. "You don't joke about this!" He ran a grimy hand over his forehead, trying to think straight. "So—what? So you're just going to give up? You're just gonna lie there and die without putting up a fight?"
"Is that what you think?" The confused anger in Vecchio's whisper made it sound stronger than it was. "You really think I don't wanna live—"
"I think you're giving up." Ray's fear and frustration turned into anger. "I think maybe you've decided living's too tough and you're taking the easy way out—"
"What do you know? What the hell do you know, Kowalski?" The hand Vecchio fisted in Ray's shirt was surprisingly strong. "You think I don't wanna stay alive? You think I don't want—Jesus, you dumb son of a bitch—don’t you know anything—?" he whispered, struggling to get the words out. But the effort was too much—he passed out before he could finish.
"Vecchio?" No. No, no, no— "Vecchio!"
This is the Chicago P.D.
Ray closed his eyes. There were voices, faint but real, coming through from the outside.
We are working to get you out. Please respond if you are able—
"We're here!" he yelled. He took Vecchio's limp hand and gripped it. "We're here and we need help! We need a goddamn ambulance. Now!"
2 days after the rescue
Visiting hours are over when he gets there but he exercises one of the privileges of having a badge and flashes it to the on-duty nurse as he walks by. Vecchio's asleep. They got him in a bed that's about three feet off the ground and looks like something out of a science fiction movie, what with all the levers and pulleys. His arm and his leg are in traction—they'll probably be that way for weeks—and the doctor says there's a good chance he'll always have a limp. He's covered in bruises, bright yellow and green, and there are stitches in his forehead and flanks that he complains are driving him crazy with the itching. Tubes in his chest are draining blood and fluid from his injured ribs into bags hanging off the sides of the bed.
There are about a million chairs in the room—evidence that the Vecchio clan was here earlier in the day—and he pulls one up to the side of the bed, the left side, the side with Vecchio's good hand. The lights in the room are out and the one above the bed is on low, but it's enough to read by and he pulls out the sports page, turning to the box scores.
"Hey, tough guy." Ray looks up to see Vecchio blinking down at him. His voice is soft, blurred with sleep and drugs.
Ray smiles. "Hey." He stands up and leans over the bed so that Vecchio can see him better. "I didn't mean to wake you. I just wanted to drop by."
"It doesn't matter." Vecchio's smile is just a little bit goofy. "With what they're giving me, I'll be out again in about two seconds."
"Yeah?" Ray slides his hand into Vecchio's and he feels his fingers tighten around his. "How you doing today?"
"My leg itches," Vecchio complains, but it gets lost in a yawn. "Everything itches." He looks at Ray through drooping eyes. "God, I'm stoned. You gonna stay for awhile?"
Ray smiles and sits back down in the chair. "Yeah." He doesn't pick up the newspaper again, just sits there and watches Vecchio until his eyes close and his breathing evens out again. "Yeah, I'm gonna stay awhile."
china_shop and isiscolo for beta; I apologize to both of them for whatever got lost in the reconciliation.Ray/Ray, pre-slash.
When the Walls Come Down
15 minutes after the rescue
"BP seventy over forty. Patient is conscious but unstable; there are severe multiple fractures to the right arm, legs, and ribs. Pulse is irregular—we've got him strapped to an LSB—"
The siren is so loud it almost drowns out the voice of the paramedic calling in heart rate and BP and pints of plasma going in. She's telling the hospital to have a crash cart standing by, just in case, and some part of Ray knows it's unfair but he hates the calm in her voice and her hair, blonde and neat in a knot at the back of her head. Nothing bloody, nothing out of place.
He's covered in dust and blood, his hands and his clothes, and he's shaking all over, but that doesn't stop him from holding Vecchio's hand. The paramedics aren't paying attention—it's probably not the first time they've seen two guys holding hands—and Vecchio's eyes are clouded and confused, but Ray holds on tight because he's afraid if he lets go anything could happen.
The siren cuts off as the ambulance swings into the emergency room driveway, and the doors bang open and it seems like there are dozens of people, all reaching for him and Vecchio. His hand is torn away from Vecchio's as the gurney is lifted down and rushed through the entrance, and the last he sees of Vecchio is as he's pushed through double doors on the way to surgery.
5 minutes before the cave-in
Vecchio looked around the abandoned warehouse floor, his nose wrinkling as he wiped the dust on his hands off on his handkerchief. "You sure you got this right, Kowalski? This place looks deserted to me."
"This is supposed to be the place," Ray said, shaking his head. He turned in a circle to look around. Vecchio was right; the warehouse did look deserted. There was evidence of a couple of squatters—some discarded food wrappers and a few empty bottles, and the ashes from a small fire. A pharmacy's worth of broken syringes. But even those had obviously been abandoned some time ago.
"Well, I hope you didn't pay too much for the tip," Vecchio said, pulling a flashlight from his overcoat pocket. He turned it on, darting the light around the darker corners of the room. He shook his head. "The last time this joint saw action, Reagan was in the White House. Let's get out of here."
Ray shivered. It was cold as hell, and the stiff breeze from off the lake blowing in through the broken windows didn't help any. "Eddie swore to me this was the place," he said irritably, as he followed Vecchio down the stairs. "He said he saw the deal go down." He kicked an empty bottle. It made a satisfying hollow rattle as it rolled across the floor.
"Eddie Sanchez?" Vecchio sounded surprised.
"Naw, Eddie Casino. That motherfucker." He crossed his arms over his chest. It didn't make him feel any warmer. "Well, fuck. Now what?"
Vecchio grinned and shrugged. "I say we rattle Mr. Casino's chain. Get ourselves a refund. C'mon—I'll flip you for bad cop."
Ray snorted and grinned reluctantly. He hated when Vecchio got all reasonable. "You need to get a life—" He stopped.
The sound was low and hollow, almost like the long drawn out moan of a man in pain. Deep and reverberating, it started soft and got gradually louder, and then subsided. Ray looked around and then glanced at Vecchio, who looked just as mystified. The noise came again, louder this time, moaning and creaking with the sound of metal abrading. They exchanged another glance, quick and nervous, and drew their guns, twisting so that they were back to back. Vecchio whispered, "What the hell—Shit!"
The walls came down around them.
30 minutes after the rescue
"Look up." The doctor's got one of those weird little flashlights and he keeps flashing it in and out of Ray's eyes, asking him to look up and down and sideways. He's in a room in the ER that isn't really a room, just a cubicle made out of curtains, and he can hear the other nurses in the little rooms on either side of him. One of them's taking a history, asking a bunch of questions about heart disease and stroke, and the other's trying to put in an IV, but he's having trouble finding a good vein.
They always have trouble, a woman is saying, and she sounds drunk, or maybe just old. I got bad veins.
They already got Ray hooked up with his own set of needles, saline and something—he forgets what the doctor said. Stuff. He's cold. They took his shirt and his pants when he got there—they were all ripped up and covered with things Ray didn't like to think about–and they haven't replaced them yet. The nurse gave him a blanket but it's not helping.
"Any pain when I do this?" The doctor's rotating his arm up and down and around.
He shakes his head. "What about my partner?" he asks, and the doctor looks at him kinda funny. How many times has he asked?
"Your partner's in surgery," the doctor says, in that just stay calm in front of the sick people voice. "They took him up immediately. I'm sure they're doing everything they can. How about this—does this hurt?" He's gently manipulating Ray's spine.
Ray shakes his head and shivers. Jesus, he's cold. It doesn't seem fair—they got him out and he's still cold.
5 minutes after the cave-in
Ray came to slowly, not entirely sure when he crossed the line from unconscious to conscious, it was so dark and quiet and still. He was curled in a ball with his arms over his head, covered in debris. The air was thick and gritty with dust; he tried to take a deep breath and got dirt instead, coughing as his lungs protested the invasion. A dozen places hurt as he shook. He was cold, and there was a nauseated, hollow feeling in his belly. Shock.
"Fuck." The sound of his voice was eerie in the silence. He lifted himself up onto his elbow and shook his head to clear it, stopping when a sudden pain shot through his temples. Christ, that hurt. He tried again, levering himself up on his hands and pushing himself upright. Loose mortar and chunks of brick slid off his shoulders. He slowly shifted into a sitting position, crossing his legs, stifling a groan as every cut and scrape made itself known. Moving hurt too, but the pain was manageable—like he'd been beat up by a couple of guys who really hated him but not enough to actually kill him. He tried out his arms and legs, and flexed his fingers. Everything seemed to work, if under protest. He didn't think anything was broken.
"Vecchio?" It was so quiet it felt as though his voice didn't carry at all. He looked around again, straining to see through the darkness. He couldn't see how bad things were, and the last thing he wanted to risk was upsetting something and starting another collapse. Still, he couldn't just sit here and hope for something good to happen. He felt around cautiously, fingers trying to decipher the mounds of concrete and brick and stray bits of metal. He couldn't find Vecchio's flashlight and he still couldn't hear a sound.
"Vecchio?"
He couldn't hear a sound.
1 hour after the rescue
They bring him another blanket and it helps a little, although his hands are still cold. He's lucky, they say—he doesn't even need stitches, just a good cleaning up and a tetanus booster, and some ibuprofen.
"Who did the tip come from?" Welsh asks. He showed up a few minutes ago and he's squeezed between the curtain and Ray's bed, looking out of place. The nurse is there, cleaning Ray's cuts and bruises, and she's a short little Asian woman who keeps darting around Welsh for gauze and antiseptic. Ray can tell she makes the Lieu nervous.
"Eddie Casino," he repeats. He already told Welsh once. He rubs his fingers over his head; he has a son of a bitch of a headache. "Eddie said Bresnikov was using the warehouse as a drop. Boats'd come in and leave the stuff there, and then his guys would come clear it out later. He said they were moving major product through there." He shrugs. "Vecchio and I went to check it out."
"Hmm." Welsh twitches when the nurse comes close again, wielding tweezers. "What are those for?" he asks suspiciously.
"He has splinters," the nurse answers, pursing her lips as she peers closely at Ray's forearm. She begins to pluck slivers of metal from his skin. It doesn't really hurt—it's just a weird sort of tug followed by a tiny sting. Welsh frowns, looking fascinated and disgusted at the same time.
Welsh asks a couple more questions about what happened, about the tip and whether Ray thought the collapse of the building had anything to do with Eddie. Ray tells him there wasn't an explosion or anything. As far as he knows, it was just bad luck—wrong location, and the ceiling just decided to come down while he and Vecchio were standing under it.
Welsh can't seem to take his eyes off of the tweezers and the bits of metal coming out of Ray's arm, and Ray's glad when he says he's leaving. He asks Ray if there's anything he needs and he looks at Ray kinda funny when Ray asks if he's knows anything about Vecchio. Welsh says nothing more than he did two minutes ago and Ray starts to think maybe he's talking about Vecchio too much. He doesn't how Vecchio's gonna feel about that—he doesn't know how he feels about it—so he shuts up.
When Welsh leaves, Ray closes his eyes and the nurse finishes up, cleans the rest of his cuts and scrapes, and gives him another couple of shots. After that she goes but she keeps coming by every few minutes or so to ask him the same list of questions—his name, the date. Does he know who the president is? Does he know where he is?
He answers the questions. He knows his name and the date, and who the president is and exactly where he is.
But they're the wrong questions.
25 minutes after the cave-in
He found the flashlight after a few minutes of searching. The casing was cracked and the light flickered when he held it wrong but at least it was something.
"Vecchio?"
He'd been calling Vecchio's name for a while now without any answer, and he didn't like the way the probabilities were adding up here. It was still hard to see anything in the dim beam cast by the flashlight, and a couple of times Ray thought he'd found Vecchio, only to realize it was a trick of the flickering shadows. The more he looked, the more he realized how bad the situation was—there was no way of knowing how many floors of the building had collapsed, how many layers of rubble they were buried under, how much air might be left. The dark and the dust and his own disorientation had him all turned around—for all he knew he was searching in the wrong place and Vecchio was bleeding out someplace while Ray wasted his time poking at the wrong piles of concrete.
"Vecchio!" Goddamn it, goddamn it—"Vecchio, answer me, you motherfucker! If you're dead—"
"I'm not dead." The voice came from behind him. Vecchio coughed, then made a sound strangely like a laugh. "Not yet, anyway."
The relief that flooded him made Ray lightheaded. He stumbled as he made his way over the debris toward the voice, and he flashed the light around, trying to see, but he moved too fast, and the light went out again.
"Shit! Shit, shit, shit—Vecchio! Vec—" And then the light came on again and he saw him.
It was bad. It was worse than bad. Vecchio's right arm and leg were trapped and he had a deep gash across his forehead. Ray covered the rest of the distance and fell to his knees next to him.
He felt around, trying to be gentle. There was no way of telling how bad the damage was to Vecchio's trapped arm and leg, but there seemed to be a lot of blood everywhere else.
"Getting kinda fresh, aren't you, Kowalski?" Vecchio's voice was weak. Ray directed the flashlight toward his face and it was hard to know if it was the bad light or the conditions, but Vecchio's skin was pale, an unhealthy color even under the grey of the dust and dirt. Still, he managed to grin at Kowalski before he winced and caught his breath.
Ray took off his jacket. "Yeah, well, I'm just that kinda guy, Vecchio. Thought you'd've heard all the rumors by now." He pulled off his shirt. Stop the bleeding. That was the first thing. If Vecchio kept losing blood like this, he was gonna be dead within the hour. Ray shivered and concentrated fiercely on wadding up his shirt to serve as a dressing.
"I'm not going to try to move you," he said, surprised at how even his voice sounded. "But you've got some holes in your side here—we gotta try to stop the bleeding."
"My hero," Vecchio said, but his voice caught and he gritted his teeth as Ray began to move his clothing aside. It was worse than Ray thought—a couple of Vecchio's ribs were broken, one jagged bit of bone poking through the torn flesh.
"Bad?" Vecchio's voice was as neutral as his. Like they were discussing the weather.
He looked up, met Vecchio's eyes. "It's not good."
Vecchio held his eyes, and then looked away. "Yeah. Okay. Do what you gotta do."
Ray leaned over him. He hesitated. "This is gonna hurt."
Vecchio winced as he snorted and looked at Ray again, raising an eyebrow. "Jeez, you think, Kowalski?"
Ray laid the makeshift bandage over the wound and pressed down. He could feel the grind of broken bone against bone as he increased the pressure, and he tasted acid as his gut churned. Vecchio swore, and then, thank God, his eyes rolled up into his head and he lost consciousness.
Ray took a deep breath, turning his face into his arm and swallowing hard as he kept up the pressure. "Don't you die on me, you motherfucker," he whispered. "Don't you fucking dare die on me."
3 hours after the rescue
"Ray?" He turns. Frannie is peeking through the folds of the curtain and she blushes when she sees he's in the middle of pulling on some surgical pants one of the nurses found for him to wear. He cares less about the fact that she's got a front row view of his ass than the fact that she's got her arms wrapped across her chest, her eyes red from crying. He sucks in a breath. "Your brother—?"
She comes further into his room and shrugs, and he lets out some air. Vecchio's still alive, whatever she's about to say.
"He's still in surgery. He's got a lot of stuff broken."
He remembers the sharp edge of bone and warm, slick feeling of blood on his hands. He pulls on the matching tunic they gave him—it's too small and it feels tight over his chest.
"Ray lost—" She takes a deep breath, steadies her voice. "He lost a lot of blood. Maria and I gave some," she holds up her arm and he can see the tape in the crook of her elbow, "and Ma called in some of the cousins." She gives him a lopsided grin. "Between the cousins we probably have enough to fill him up three times over."
"Frannie—"
Her smile fades and she changes the subject abruptly, looking around. "So they letting you out? Welsh said you should call when they let you go and he'll send a car to take you home."
He pulls back the hand he reached out to her and nods. There's a plastic bag that holds his wallet and keys and glasses, the spare change he had on him when they admitted him. He picks it up. His clothes are still there, piled up in a corner, but they're all ruined, nothing worth keeping, and he leaves them where they are.
"Ray?" Frannie points and he sees his leather jacket, hanging off a hook on the wall. He takes it down. It feels wrong in his hands; the lining is dark and stiff with nearly dried blood. Vecchio's blood.
"Ray? You want me to call Welsh for you?"
He tosses the jacket on top of the rest of the ruined clothing and shakes his head. He picks up one of the blankets and wraps it around his shoulders. "I'm coming with you."
3 hours after the cave-in
"Hey." Ray turned off the flashlight when he got back to Vecchio, trying to conserve the batteries. He'd found a place where he thought he could feel air coming in and he’d been trying to dig them out, but it was slow going and Vecchio was in bad shape; he didn't like leaving him alone for long. "Vecchio?"
"You expecting someone else?" Vecchio asked, his breathing labored, and Ray when turned on the light again, he could see blood staining his mouth.
Ray crouched down next to him and tried to cushion his head without moving him too much. He tucked his leather jacket closer around Vecchio's shoulders, covering the awkward bandage on his chest, made from scraps of Vecchio's overcoat. "A guy can hope, can't he?"
"Yeah." Vecchio answered with difficulty. They were both thirsty but Vecchio was drier, getting dangerously dehydrated. "You should take back your jacket," he said. "You're going to freeze to death."
Ray sat back and turned off the flashlight again. "The digging keeps me warm," he lied.
"How's that going?"
"It's going."
"Tough guy." Vecchio sounded even more tired in the dark. "Always such a tough guy." After a moment, he asked, "You think they're looking for us?"
Ray shrugged and then realized Vecchio probably couldn't see him. "Maybe. Someone in one of the buildings close by must have seen something. It must have raised a hell of a cloud of dust. Not to mention the noise. Anyone comes to look, they'll find your car."
"Yeah. Unless it's buried under a pile of rocks. My cars aren't safe around you, Kowalski." Ray wished he carried a lighter. Even in the dark he could tell Vecchio was shivering too, and if he had something maybe he could start a fire. "Did you tell Dispatch where we were going?"
Ray figured it was good Vecchio couldn't see his face—there couldn't be any humor in his smile. He lifted his leg and rested an elbow on it. Propped his head up with his hand. "No."
Vecchio was silent for a moment. "Yeah, me either."
10 hours after the rescue
The waiting area outside of surgery is filled with Vecchios—Frannie and Ma and Maria and Tony, and at least half a dozen of Vecchio's cousins, all with matching tape on the insides of their elbows. Ma is reading the Bible in Italian; Maria is knitting. Frannie is pretending to read Cosmo. It's dawn and they've all been up all night, and the trashcans are overflowing with empty Styrofoam coffee cups.
Ray is sitting slightly apart from the rest. His eyes feel as though they're still full of grit, and his muscles are cramping up something awful. He should have filled the prescription the doctor gave him while the pharmacy was still open. He shifts in his chair, trying to get more comfortable.
Ma Vecchio looks up. "You should go home," she says to him. "You were hurt, too—you should get some rest."
Ray shakes his head.
6 hours after the cave-in
Vecchio had a fever and was fading in and out. He was lucid for long periods of time but then his temperature would spike, and he'd get confused and disoriented, and start talking like he was Langoustini. Ray stopped digging; it wasn't like he was making a lot of progress anyway.
When Vecchio was lucid, he asked Ray to talk to him. So Ray talked. About everything he could think of. Stupid stuff and important stuff. The flashlight finally gave up the ghost so they talked in the dark, and the dark made it easier. Ray told Vecchio about how he became a cop, and why, and how his dad didn't like it, and how they hadn't talked for almost fifteen years after that. Vecchio told him about his dad, who sounded like a real son of a bitch. Guess neither of them had won the lottery in that department.
Ray's throat got as dry as it could get and his voice came out barely a whisper, but he kept on talking. He lay next to Vecchio and tried to keep him warm, and talked about whatever came into his head.
"Hey," Vecchio interrupted him in the middle of a story about his first boxing match, his voice low, so quiet Ray wouldn't have been able to hear if he hadn't been lying so close.
"Yeah?"
"I want you to promise me something." Vecchio tried to take a deep breath. There was a wet sound to it that meant fluid in his lungs. Ray closed his eyes.
"Yeah?"
"I want you to—" Another breath. "I want you to promise to take care of Ma. Ma and Frannie—they don't have anyone else looking out for them."
Ray started to pull away. "Stop it. You're not going to—" His voice cracked.
Vecchio's hand held onto his, but there was no strength in it.
16 hours after the rescue
They move Vecchio into recovery. He's awake, but hospital rules only allow one visitor at a time, and Ray politely, if impatiently, waits for all of the Vecchios to pay their respects first. When he finally gets to go inside, the lights are dim. It's a relief after the bright fluorescents in the waiting room.
Vecchio's eyes are open and they follow him across the room. Ray feels like he's made of glass, transparent and fragile, like Vecchio can see right inside him. Like he could shatter if Vecchio says the wrong thing. It's stupid—after waiting for hours to find out if Vecchio was gonna be okay, he doesn't know where to start now, or what to say. There's too much inside him fighting to get out and he doesn't know if it's anything that can live outside of a caved-in building. He's afraid he's going to say the wrong thing, do the wrong thing. Fuck up.
Thank god, Vecchio doesn't seem to have that problem. He gives Ray a half smile and starts talking before Ray even makes it to the bed.
"So I guess you're stuck with me after all."
5 minutes before the rescue
"Kowalski—" Vecchio's voice was almost gone.
"No. No." Ray shook his head. Fuck Vecchio for the way he kept trying to have this conversation.
"Kowalski, you need to listen to me—"
"No, I don't. I don't need to listen to any of this. They're digging, you hear me? They're going to find us, and we're going to be fine, except for I'm going to have to put up with that motherfucker Swenson as a partner while you're on medical leave."
Vecchio's breathing was strained and shallow. "Listen to me. I want you to tell Ma what happened before the department notifies her. Welsh'll hold them off until you can get to her and it'll be better coming from you. Tell Frannie first—she can help you handle Ma. And tell Ma everything's going to be okay. I've got some money socked away—tell her to look in the safety deposit box—that'll tide her over until the death benefits come through—"
"Shut up, Vecchio." He wanted to shake the teeth out of Vecchio's head.
"And Fraser." Vecchio swallowed around a swollen tongue and pushed on. "I know it'll be hard for you but you tell Fraser what happened. Don't let him hear it from just anybody, okay?"
"You are not gonna die, Vecchio. You're too much of a pain in the ass to die."
Vecchio laughed weakly. "Despite all evidence to the contrary, right? Jeez, Kowalski, sometimes you remind me so much of Fraser. You think if you decide something that's it—no more discussion."
"You are not gonna die," he repeated heatedly. "I'm not gonna let you die, Vecchio, do you hear me?"
There's a sudden catch in Vecchio's breathing. "You're a tough guy, Kowalski, but I don't think you got much influence over this."
"Don't you make a joke about this!" Ray hissed, wishing he could see Vecchio's face. "You don't joke about this!" He ran a grimy hand over his forehead, trying to think straight. "So—what? So you're just going to give up? You're just gonna lie there and die without putting up a fight?"
"Is that what you think?" The confused anger in Vecchio's whisper made it sound stronger than it was. "You really think I don't wanna live—"
"I think you're giving up." Ray's fear and frustration turned into anger. "I think maybe you've decided living's too tough and you're taking the easy way out—"
"What do you know? What the hell do you know, Kowalski?" The hand Vecchio fisted in Ray's shirt was surprisingly strong. "You think I don't wanna stay alive? You think I don't want—Jesus, you dumb son of a bitch—don’t you know anything—?" he whispered, struggling to get the words out. But the effort was too much—he passed out before he could finish.
"Vecchio?" No. No, no, no— "Vecchio!"
This is the Chicago P.D.
Ray closed his eyes. There were voices, faint but real, coming through from the outside.
We are working to get you out. Please respond if you are able—
"We're here!" he yelled. He took Vecchio's limp hand and gripped it. "We're here and we need help! We need a goddamn ambulance. Now!"
2 days after the rescue
Visiting hours are over when he gets there but he exercises one of the privileges of having a badge and flashes it to the on-duty nurse as he walks by. Vecchio's asleep. They got him in a bed that's about three feet off the ground and looks like something out of a science fiction movie, what with all the levers and pulleys. His arm and his leg are in traction—they'll probably be that way for weeks—and the doctor says there's a good chance he'll always have a limp. He's covered in bruises, bright yellow and green, and there are stitches in his forehead and flanks that he complains are driving him crazy with the itching. Tubes in his chest are draining blood and fluid from his injured ribs into bags hanging off the sides of the bed.
There are about a million chairs in the room—evidence that the Vecchio clan was here earlier in the day—and he pulls one up to the side of the bed, the left side, the side with Vecchio's good hand. The lights in the room are out and the one above the bed is on low, but it's enough to read by and he pulls out the sports page, turning to the box scores.
"Hey, tough guy." Ray looks up to see Vecchio blinking down at him. His voice is soft, blurred with sleep and drugs.
Ray smiles. "Hey." He stands up and leans over the bed so that Vecchio can see him better. "I didn't mean to wake you. I just wanted to drop by."
"It doesn't matter." Vecchio's smile is just a little bit goofy. "With what they're giving me, I'll be out again in about two seconds."
"Yeah?" Ray slides his hand into Vecchio's and he feels his fingers tighten around his. "How you doing today?"
"My leg itches," Vecchio complains, but it gets lost in a yawn. "Everything itches." He looks at Ray through drooping eyes. "God, I'm stoned. You gonna stay for awhile?"
Ray smiles and sits back down in the chair. "Yeah." He doesn't pick up the newspaper again, just sits there and watches Vecchio until his eyes close and his breathing evens out again. "Yeah, I'm gonna stay awhile."
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Date: 2007-01-01 03:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-01 03:46 pm (UTC)I love the ordering of this, the chronology, how you built up the intensity, how brave RayK was, how snarky but still friendly their relationship was- the tossing for who was going to be bad cop was brilliant, and oh wow, the cave in bit managed to be tense even though I knew they get rescued. And oh, such a lovely quiet ending! *fangirls*
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Date: 2007-01-01 07:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-01 07:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-01 08:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-01 08:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-02 02:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-02 06:16 am (UTC)Oh, perfect!
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Date: 2007-01-02 06:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-03 05:21 am (UTC)(I sat here looking at the comment box for a few minutes, trying to gather my thoughts, but nothing coherent comes out of my fingers.)
Masterful! Compelling! Vivid! Am achy inside, and in need of hugs.
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Date: 2007-01-04 04:29 pm (UTC)And thank you specifically for your RayV comment--I always find him just a bit tricky and am always happy to hear folks think it works!
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Date: 2007-01-04 04:33 pm (UTC)Thank you! I was aiming for a quiet, intense piece and struggling so much with timeline issues and too much/not enough emotion issues--and, and, and! I'm so glad the end product worked!
Thanks!
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Date: 2007-01-04 04:37 pm (UTC)Love these guys together so much!
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Date: 2007-01-04 04:58 pm (UTC)Thanks!
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Date: 2007-01-04 04:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-04 05:02 pm (UTC)Thank you!
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Date: 2007-01-04 05:06 pm (UTC)Thank you! I will preen because I worked very hard (and then my betas made me work even harder!) on that timeline!
::g:: And tough guy. Isn't it perfect for Vecchio to call Kowalski? I cannot take credit--Hth was the first to attach the endearment--but it seemed to work so well here, where Kowalski was trying very hard to keep up that tough, brave front.
Thank you so much!
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Date: 2007-01-04 05:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-04 05:11 pm (UTC)Thank you so much!
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Date: 2007-01-04 05:11 pm (UTC)Thank you! It's hard to imagine better feedback!
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Date: 2007-01-05 09:04 pm (UTC)There are about a million chairs in the room—evidence that the Vecchio clan was here earlier in the day—and he pulls one up to the side of the bed, the left side, the side with Vecchio's good hand.
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Date: 2007-01-06 07:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-04-10 02:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-04-10 04:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-04-13 12:48 am (UTC)Thanks!
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Date: 2007-04-13 12:52 am (UTC)And thank you! What wonderful, marvelous feedback! It was so much fun to write, and I love that with Vecchio and Kowalski so much of what they feel is left unsaid, and I kind of wanted to explore that. ::g::
I just--man, I love them together so much. I love that their feelings often get expressed as exasperation and anger, and I wanted it come across as very tense and desperate--so thank you for saying all of that worked!
Thanks!
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Date: 2007-05-03 06:24 pm (UTC)I love the way you wrote Kowalski in this, and while the ending killed me dead, for some reason my favorite moment was when this one, right before the cave in:
They exchanged another glance, quick and nervous, and drew their guns, twisting so that they were back to back.
Because they're being cops together and they have each others backs and... *flail* Love this.
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Date: 2007-05-06 02:59 pm (UTC)And I love your icon! So cool!