I Hate Hospitals (private)

OOC: This is in the perspective of Dean Basilone talking about a past event.

IC: It's a stupid fear I have, a very backwards fear. A very irrational fear. I don't know when I picked it up, but I feel that it started with either my first tetanus shot or my first blood work session. Or maybe it was the x-rays for my broken arm back in third grade, or possibly the whole experience of riding in an ambulance at seven years old after my mom's car got hit. Rear quarter panel was hit, and the car spun like a damn top. Crazy time that was, the accident. But at the end of the day, I've got the irrational phobia of hospitals wired into my brain.

I try to avoid them when I can. I've only been to the infirmary five times on my own time since arriving at Camp Jupiter, and that's because I've only been ordered five physicals by my superiors since arriving. I've kept away by learning some basic first aid, and by keeping a ziplock of ambrosia and a small flask of nectar on hand all the time. There's some neosporin and band aids at my bunk, and a roll of guaze and some bandage pads for the more serious stuff. But a few months ago, no amount of antibiotic cream and bandages could've kept me out of the hands of the cohort's medical staff - which was just as bad as a hospital trip.

I was in the middle of a wargames session, at the front of the Third Cohort's formation. Normally I wouldn't be in a spot like that - rather I'd be two or three rows back due to my power - but I guess the centurions decided to shake it up for once. So we were moving on the First and Second - they were holed up in a fort, since we were doing a siege thing that time around - in the testudo, making sure that they weren't able to stop us with arrows and ballista fire. We then start getting close, and then, for some reason, the C.O. at that time called for us to drop the testudo and continue on unprotected. Now, being the good Roman I was (and still am) I quickly got out of formation, and then found myself on the ground seconds later. Screaming in pain, which was a bad thing - pain makes me pissed, not scream.

When I managed to take a look at where the pain was coming from, I'm pretty sure I nearly passed out from shock. There, stuck in my leg, was a f*cking spear, the tip just poking out of the other side of my leg. Or maybe that was bone. I dunno, I was f*cking impaled and immobilized, crying out for a - and I quote - "F*CKING MEDIC!" to come and help "GET THIS F*CKING PAIN TO STOP! PLEA-EA-EASE...!"

Screaming. That was normal enough for Wargames, where there was a brilliant cacophony of noise from all over. It wasn't enough to drown out the very specific screaming for a medic. Leandra's eyes darted around until they fell on the demigod that was screaming. Her mind clinically assessed the situation.

He was still in the line of fire. He had a spear sticking through his leg. He was screaming and cursing. This was going to be fun.

The diminutive Roman squared her shoulders, checked her bag, grabbing one item, then ran for the downed soldier. A ballistae came flying for her and she dropped, skidding the last few feet to her target, shield up. "Put your shield up, before you get hurt!"

It felt like a century or two before help came, which means it was probably about a minute or two after my leg became a shish kabob that the ever petite Leandra slid into my life. Immediately after she got to me, I was ordered by her to put my shield up, which was something I didn't really think about doing - the bloody leg of mine overrode the surrounding chaos in terms of my focus - but did without much debate.

I never really have much trouble lifting the scutum I normally use, but there was a bit of a struggle this time around, taking a few seconds longer than usual to get it up over my torso. "Alright, shield's up!"

Leandra kept her scutum up as she looked at the injury. The spear was sticking into the ground below the wound. That sucked. "This is going to hurt. Here, bite this." She said, handing over a bar of ambrosia. The girl didn't wait for him to acknowledge her, time was of the essence while in the line of fire.

Leandra popped her head and torso out from under her shield and grabbed the spear and Dean's leg, pulling both of them up to release the spear from the ground. "Roll to the left, I'm going to put my shield under you, then roll back. I need it under you to pull you out of the line of fire if you don't want your leg permanently damaged."

Leandra handed over some ambrosia, offering it as a sort of anesthetic on the same grounds as a towel or bullet to bite on. From that point on, she proceeded to pull out my leg and the spear from the ground, which hurt like hell. On a one to ten scale, I'd say it was a...twenty? Maybe, at best.

And that was just moving the leg. The damn spear was still in there!

"Roll to the left, I'm going to put my shield under you, then roll back. I need it under you to pull you out of the line of fire if you don't want your leg permanently damaged." And that's exactly what I did; I rolled onto her scutum and let out a sort of groaning-scream-yell...thing. It wasn't a pretty sound. "Can you please just get this f*cking thing out of me?! Please?!"

Leandra ignored the screams for a few moments as she crouched and grabbed the scutum, then dragged the larger demigod several meters back and to the right, putting them behind a hill. She paused for a couple of seconds to catch her breath and let Dean stop screaming, then looked at the spear again.

Most spears it would do as much damage as good to remove it the opposite way that it came, but this one was a straight tipped spear. It wouldn't hurt the leg any more. She crouched next to it, her dark eyes fixed on it, weighing the possibilities. Then with a nod to herself, she grabbed the spear with one hand, Dean's knee with another and pulled the spear up and out at the same angle it had gone in.

"Sorry." She said, throwing the spear away as she pulled out a bottle of unicorn draught from her bag. She unstoppered the bottle and poured the clear fluid liberally over the wound. "Alright now, breathe for me, there you go. Deep breaths."

The moment Leandra ripped the spear out, I let out the most bloodcurdling scream I have ever screamed in my life. For a second there was some bleeding, and I was starting to hyperventilate and felt kinda cold, but that started to change once the unicorn draught was applied; I slowed my breathing and was able to focus on the situation at hand.

Leandra pulled her backpack around and propped his leg up, then pulled a bulky guaze wrap out, as well as a few ABD pads. She stuck the ABD pads on top of the open wound, both sides, then wrapped tightly with the bulky kerlix dressing. "Well, you shouldn't have permanent damage, but you aren't going back into the War Games tonight. Or I'll cut your leg off for you."

Once Leandra finished wrapping my leg up, she broke the news that I expected to hear: no more War Games tonight. While that but of news was a downer, I wasn't going to argue. After all, whe the alternative is permanent damage to my leg, was there any room to argue? I just nodded my head and replied "Ok; so what do I do now?"

"Ah, well, the best thing would be to get off the field. Without dying. I'm going to have to hurt you if I used unicorn draught and wasted my time on a pretty bandage and you get yourself killed before anyone can appreciate my handiwork." Leandra said, pushing herself to stand. "Come on." She said, offering a hand.

"I'd be pretty hard to hurt me if dead, but I get what you mean" I quipped while taking the smaller demigod's hand. At least we were on the same page here.

OOC: Sorry for the short reply, but I'm exactly sure what Leandra is going to do. I'm 99% sure she's gonna pull Dean up, but I'm not about to use partial-certainty to essentially control your character.