Braided Lives (2 page)

"Uh-huh, so just sit there and tip your head forward a little." Peter skimmed his fingers along Danny's temples.

***

The wash of energy from Peter's hands was a tingling warmth and the headache immediately began to recede.

Danny gazed at the floor between Peter's feet without really paying much attention. He hadn't realized just how much tension the pain in his head was creating in the rest of his muscles. It was tempting to roll his head and stretch out the back of his neck, but he figured that would disturb whatever Peter was doing.

A thought was all it took apparently, because a few seconds later, Peter's hands were tilting his head to one side and kneading the tight muscles at the base of his skull. God, that felt better. Danny mentally kicked himself a little, remembering that healing was not Peter's only Talent. The man was a telepath too. Peter turned Danny's head toward the other side and worked at the stiffness on that side too. A thought flitted through Danny's head. Getting a massage from this man could likely be an event close to heavenly. Damn, he hadn't really meant to even think that. He didn't want to offend the guy. Danny let his own empathic talents brush along Peter's shields. There was very little to read, no anger, no revulsion, just a hint of internal laughter.

"Okay, that should help, but I want to check you again in a few hours to make sure," said Peter.

***

Damn near all hell broke loose an hour later. A group of the Army soldiers clearing an area near the north end of the city got ambushed. A number of them were seriously wounded and Valentine, Rayden and Tabano immediately began to lend a hand getting them transported back to the field command. Peter dove in to help with the injured as soon as they were brought back.

Valentine fretted. Nightengale and Claydon were still out searching for Espeleta. Their last radio contact indicated that they were safe and not in direct danger.

Valentine still worried.

It was an hour past sundown when Nightengale and Claydon made it back. They had eliminated some areas that Espeleta might be in, and had encountered one hint that might lead them in the correct direction. Operations were suspended until first light. It had been a rough day and Danny didn't want his people in any greater risk than absolutely necessary. He saw Peter sitting on the floor by the wall in the triage area. The man looked absolutely wiped out. Danny grabbed a water bottle and a power bar from a stack of supplies and crossed to where the healer sat. He squatted down next to Peter and put the water bottle in Peter's hand.

"You okay?" Danny asked. Peter nodded and cracked open the bottle, chugging about half the contents. Danny noticed the fine tremor in the man's hands as he ate the power bar. He knew from personnel files that the healing Peter did came at a physical price, leaving exhaustion and plummeting blood glucose levels in its wake. "Which do you need worse, more food or sleep?"

"Sleep."

"Come on then, I staked us out a spot in the back corner of this place, some room that probably used to be an office." He gave Peter a hand up.

***

Rayden and Nightengale had already bedded down in the hallway outside the small room. The long space was lit by one battery powered lantern. Tabano and Claydon were unrolling their sleeping bags a little further down the corridor. Danny had another lantern dangling from his hand. Inside the office, there was a file cabinet and a beat-to-hell desk shoved in one corner. Danny had left their bedrolls and gear bags on the floor. Peter's movements were so shaky and uncoordinated that Danny immediately began to help him strip off his jacket and boots.

As Peter crawled into the sleeping bag, laid his head on his rolled up jacket, and closed his eyes, Danny wondered if there was anything else he should do for the man. The team needed to keep the valuable medic in good shape for healing, especially with the foreboding prediction by Reed Sawyer.

Danny shucked his own stuff and got into his sleeping bag, thumbing off the lantern and plunging the little room into darkness.

***

Danny woke to warmth. In the chilliness of night, the front of his body was significantly warmer than the back. He opened his eyes, which turned out to be a pretty useless gesture, since all he could see was deep shadows. Another person was pressed fairly tightly against him, body heat seeping through the fabric of the sleeping bag. Peter. The healer's head was tucked against Danny's chest, the relative ebb and flow of his breath warming Danny's shoulder.

There was something both funny and slightly arousing about the way Peter was lying on him. Danny wondered if Peter would be embarrassed if he woke to find himself there and then realized the man against his chest was only half-asleep.

"Sorry, I just wanted to touch someone who wasn't on the verge of dying," mumbled Peter. His voice was thick and Danny could sense the blend of exhaustion and raw emotion. Peter moved as if to pull away.

"It's okay," whispered Danny. He snaked his arm out and wrapped it around Peter's body, holding the healer in place. If another psi needed a little human comfort, he could do that. The fact that he both liked and respected Peter made it that much easier. The gentle weight of Peter's leg on his groin however, initiated some urges that he tried very hard to squash. Danny doubted that the man would take very well to the idea that he might be the cause of those ideas.

Danny jerked a little as warm lips pressed against his own. Peter was kissing him. It was soft and needy and so raw that Danny felt tears burning in his eyes.

"Thank you," Peter whispered against his mouth, and there was essentially nothing more. Peter nestled a little more into the crook of Danny's shoulder and was still.

Danny could feel the healer's body relaxing into the limp heaviness of sleep. He wasn't sure what the kiss actually meant, if it meant anything. Danny had finally acknowledged a few years ago that he was as likely to be attracted to a man as to a woman. It had been a revelation of mixed blessings. Working for Division P

made the acceptance of that idea an easier event. P had the official stance that all adult consensual relationships were acceptable, potentially even beneficial, regardless of gender. Psi in general were often loners, finding single life easier to cope with than trying to explain their unique problems.

***

Squinting in the almost darkness at the dial of his watch, Peter saw that it was close to dawn. He could hear some people up and about, moving through the ramshackle building. Danny's arm was still loosely draped around him as the man slept. Much as Peter would like to continue to lie against the solid presence of his colleague, it would probably be better for both of them if he went ahead and got up.

Peter eased gently away and unzipped his sleeping bag. Putting on his boots and jacket, he thought about the kiss. He hadn't really intended to do that. It had been half relief, half reflex. Earlier in the day, Peter had picked up on Danny's very less than straight heterosexual thought when Peter was working on his concussion and accompanying muscle tension. Peter had been curious and amused. He didn't really know Danny well enough to have the "which way do you swing"

discussion. After the stressful evening of having a number of badly injured soldiers flowing under his hands as he used a mix of traditional first aid along with his psychic talent, Peter had felt desperate to touch someone who was at least pretty close to healthy. It seemed Danny had been a good choice. Maybe when they got out of this hell-hole the two of them should have a beer and talk.

***

"I need a medic!" Claydon screamed.

Danny looked up to see the man carrying Nightengale's limp body slung over his shoulder as he almost staggered into the field command building.

Danny launched to his feet at the same time as Peter raced toward the pair. Together they eased Nightengale down onto a makeshift exam table, laying him on his side. Blood was seeping from a thoroughly soaked field dressing applied to one side of his lower abdomen. The one on his back above the hip was equally soaked.

"Get me plasma, saline and oxygen!" Peter shouted across the room to another corpsman. "Fuck, the wound goes all the way through. What the hell did this?"

Danny grabbed Claydon by the shoulders. "Take a deep breath. Tell me what happened."

"Jonas went into one of the buildings in our assigned area and I hung around outside for a moment 'cause I thought I might have seen some movement. I heard this crashing noise and went in looking for him. A whole bunch of the roof had collapsed. Jesus God, when I started trying to pull stuff off him… I guess he'd fallen on this piece of rebar. It went all the way through him and it was still part of the floor. God. Oh God, I had to pull him up off it, 'cause we thought the building was going to collapse. I spent a couple minutes trying to stop the bleeding, then I figured I needed to get him back here. Fucking hell, is he going to make it?"

Danny glanced back at Peter who was bent over Nightengale, obviously doing his best to stabilize his patient.

"I don't know," said Danny honestly. "Go grab something to drink and try to calm down."

***

The energy gushed from Peter's hands with the flow of a fire hose. Nightengale's vitals were crashing hard.

Constrict the damaged blood vessels. Grab a hemostat, clamp the nicked artery. Boost the blood pressure.

Peter could feel the sweat trickling down his spine.

This was the event predicted by Reed. Here they were, in the field with limited surgical resources, and one of their people was critically injured. It would take some serious surgery to put Nightengale back together. In the meantime, Peter knew he was the next best thing to a walking miracle.

"Dude, what'd you do? His blood pressure's leveling out a little," said the corpsman standing on the opposite side of Jonas's body.

"It's classified. Hand me another hemostat. Get a second line going. How soon can we get an evac?"

"I think the CO's already on the horn trying to get a chopper headed in our direction."

"Good." Peter steadied his patient's heart rate, and managed to repair one of the minor vessels. Anything to slow the blood loss. Peter jerked as a hand touched his shoulder. He glanced sideways at Danny.

"Rayden just radioed me. He and Tabano found Espeleta," said Danny.

"Uh, is he alive?"

"Yeah, banged up, dehydrated, kind of worse for wear, but capable of walking and talking."

"Good. I'm not sure I could handle another patient right now," admitted Peter.

"You take care of Jonas. Go with him when the chopper arrives. I'll wait on the rest of our people, and get us out as soon as we can. Any idea where they're likely to airlift Nightengale to?" The question was directed at the corpsman as much as Peter.

"Urosevac has the closest actual hospital. It might take thirty to forty minutes to get him there," replied the corpsman.

"Anything I can do for you?" Danny asked Peter.

"Yeah, actually there is. Go look in my field kit for a tube labeled glucose tablets. Can you feed me a few? I don't want to take my hands off Jonas."

"Okay." Danny found the tablets and fed several to Peter, and held a water bottle for him to drink. "You're sweating big time. Is that okay?"

"Yeah, it's kind of a side effect. If the helicopter takes longer than fifteen more minutes, I'm gonna need some more of those," said Peter.

"Energy takes energy."

"Yeah, there's only so many laws of physics I'm allowed to bend," said Peter grimly. He let himself have a little mental debate. How much additional help could he get from Danny? "If you stand behind me and make sure I don't fall on my ass, I can focus close to a hundred percent on trying to slow the bleeding." He noticed the corpsman gave him a really strange look. Peter didn't care.

"I can do that." Danny stepped up behind him and placed both hands on his shoulders.

Feeling the solid presence at his back was incredibly helpful. Peter unleashed his talent full throttle, absolutely sure he was going to pay for it in a big way later. He managed to constrict the iliac artery and clot a whole slew of capillaries that were oozing blood around the entrance wound. Or was that the exit? What the hell, the one in the front of Jonas's abdomen. Back near the kidney, he let his fingers and his mind explore the damage there. There were several more torn blood vessels and a laceration to the capsule and outer cortex of the kidney; luckily that wasn't too bad. One of the bigger nerves was traumatized but not severed. Peter soothed the erratic conduction of the nerve. Better assessment and repair there would have to wait.

Peter felt Danny's arms wrap around his torso and returned a fraction of his awareness to his own body. He realized he was sagging backward against Danny.

"Vithoulkas? Hey Peter, are you gonna pass out on me?" Danny demanded.

"No… no… need more glucose. I'm just running out of steam." His voice sounded thick and distant. He could feel Danny hold him a little tighter with one arm, while the opposite fed him the tablets. Geez, the overly sweet taste was getting revolting. Danny's thigh was pressed against his butt, making sure his legs didn't completely buckle.

Peter crunched the glucose and choked them down.

He needed all the energy he could get; his body was burning through it at a furious speed. The heavy thup-thup sound of a helicopter drew his attention.

"They're here," said the corpsman, still eyeing Peter strangely.

Jonas Nightengale was put into a Stokes basket and carried to the waiting helicopter. As he was being loaded in, Peter looked back at Danny standing several steps away.

Danny was yelling at the corpsman over the rotor sound of the helicopter, "Here, make sure Vithoulkas eats these. He's got blood sugar issues and I don't want him crashing out." He shoved a water bottle and another tube of glucose tablets in the guy's hand.

"I'll catch up to you in a few hours at the hospital,"

shouted Valentine in Peter's direction. "Take care of Nightengale."

Peter nodded. His patient was just barely stable, and the helicopter flight was not going to be short. He gave Danny a thumbs up and hopped in next to Nightengale.