Inception

Chapter 47: Rescue and Calves

He must have passed out for a bit, because the next thing he knew he had a loud diesel engine roaring above him and a light shining into his face.

Rough fingers pulled at his eyelids. "You with me, Soshiro?"

Soshiro went to swat the offending hands away, but his weak arms could only manage to flap about before dropping like dead pieces of meat.

"I'll take that as a yes." The flashlight finally left.

"Right side," Soshiro mumbled, blinking madly to get his eyes to adjust to the dark. "Got hit."

"Yeah, I remembered. I got the adrenaline like you asked, but I still don't advise it."

A man, as short as Soshiro but twice as broad, leaned over him. He was looking at the pile of open mech beside them, though.

"What the hell is that?"

"The reason for the adrenaline. Can't leave it out here. Also," he smiled weakly. "Hi Unkie-poo."

"Don't give me that crap. You're the one hasn't visited in almost a year and still called me at two in the morning."

"I text." Where was his freaking adrenaline already?

"I text," mocked the broadest man, even as he pulled out syringe from seemingly nowhere. He undid Soshiro's suit with practiced ease, then jammed the needle into his bare shoulder.

Soshiro was too far gone to even flinch.

The hormone did it's trick. Soshiro could instantly feel his heart picking up and his vision clearing.

"Alright," his uncle leaned back on his heels to give Soshiro room to sit up. "Where do I start?"

Soshiro gestured to Ichikawa, his blood buzzing. Damn, he hurt. "He, ack...he has heat exhaustion and dehydration, at least. Her case might be more pressing. Hypothermia and acute hypoglycemia." Just a flesh wound, just a flesh wound, distance yourself from the pain. Come on now.

"Huh, both sides of the spectrum."

"I'll take care of the suit."

"Is that what that is?"

"Yeah." And just because he was feeling sadistic from his eye-popping stress (it was taking stupid long to get up even with adrenaline). "It's nuclear powered."

"Holy sh--haaaaaa..." His uncle shook his head, as though to shake off a fly. "You know what? No."

And he just went to work extracting Lena from her brother's arms and into the back seat of the truck, which had already been set up so the back was more of a bed with buckles, complete with an IV drip hanging from the handle on the ceiling.

Soshiro went to work heaving the monstrosity which was the Russian tech. His suit squealed the entire while about overheating and that he was wounded, but he ignored it. If he broke himself beyond being able to work a suit, all the better. Lena might feel sorry for him and date him out of pity. Hey, it was messed up, but at this point he'd take what he could get. At least it helped distract him from the veiling that his organs were squeezing out of his side.

"Shit, you weren't kidding about that low blood sugar."

Soshiro's heart clenched from where he stood in the truck bed, strapping down the mech suit. He wanted to ask, but didn't. He knew he wouldn't like what he would hear. As long as she was alive. As long as she was alive. Alive.

When he finished strapping it in, his uncle had already pulled Leno onto the other side of the truck. Soshiro came round and stopped at where Lena's feet poke out just a tad from the end of back seat. They were bare, dirty, but untouched by so much as a scratch.

He kept his eyes to those pale little feet. He wanted to take off his suit, but at the moment it was keeping him from bleeding out. He had anticipated the utter exhaustion that would hit him once the small dose of adrenaline wore out, but even he couldn't stop the way his knees buckled. He just caught himself from face-planting into the dirty ground.

Screw it if he'd let himself stay there, though.

His uncle found him half-slumped over Lena's feet.

"Uh, am I going to have to carry you?"

"Shove off, old man," Soshiro mumbled, his face as close to buried under Lena's calf as he could get.

When Soshiro still didn't move, his uncle asked, "Is this a new fetish, or...?"

"Sure." He flopped his arms over her knees.

His uncle sighed again. "Welp, you're in luck. I put the other guy in the driver's seat and I happen to be a stinking good driver."

Without warning, his uncle came up from behind and hefted him into the back. Soshiro yelped and just managed not to trample over Lena's IV.

"Uncle!"

"Keep her warm, yeah?"

Then he slammed the door behind Soshiro and climbed into the driver's seat.

"So," his uncle said as he buckled up and moved the truck into gear. "You gonna tell me anything or pass out? Mind you drink some of that water back there before you do."

Soshiro could only grunt. Passing out was definitely going to happen, but he couldn't be squishing Lena. Ugh, the struggle. Damn bastard couldn't have thrown him in better. At least his uncle had put a blanket and some warming packs around her. He wanted to curse the man up and down for endangering her like that, but now Soshiro was close to her, could smell her, could hold her in his arms without several layers of suit tech between them.

He meant to reach over her for one of the water bottles in the pocket behind the seats. He really did.

But the moment he heard her heartbeat, soft but steady against his cheek, he was out like a light.

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I don't want to make lunch. Please don't make me, mortality, motherhood, the lack of funds in my wallet for pizza--wait...there's $80 in cash in my wallet...

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