Sugar And Spice // Ratched

Psychosurgery

"Huck?" Amora asked out in a whisper, delicately yet diligently organizing the medical tools on the several trays around her.

"Amora." he whispered back, his eyes going to her own as he followed her lead. He found himself standing on the opposite side of the small sterile table beside the place where the gurney was supposed to be as they worked to carefully place each tool in alphabetical order.

"Are you as nervous as I am for this surgery?" she asked as another nurse walked in after scrubbing in and joining the anesthesiologist a few feet away.

Huck paused for a moment, taking his time to talk when the people behind them did. "Extremely." he stated simply, sighing as the tools were exactly as they were promised to be. He hurried past Amora to grab for the stack of rags that were to be placed on a separate table, but close enough to grab in case any bleeding occurred. "Don't stress about this though." he whispered as he whipped past her. "We'll all do our best, and Noel is a strong kid. He's not gonna give up without a fight." he encouraged Amora with a softened expression in his eyes, as the surgical mask was covering the other half of his face.

She tried to smile through her worry but failed. Huck wanted to speak words of serenity but there was not enough time between schedules, Dr. Hanover was making his way inside with a sedated patient coming in simultaneously through the other door.

"It's showtime." Amora stated, getting into a space between Nurse Buckett and another orderly. Huck was stood directly across from her as the patient's small framed body was rolled between the two lines of peoples, ready to start working on curing the innocent eight year old of schizophrenia.

***

Amora ran out of the OR, taking the emergency exit outside behind the building. She ripped her cap off and angrily slipped her hands free of the bloody surgical gloves still on her hands. She inhaled deeply, restraining the urge to scream through the icy ache in her breaking heart.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck- no. Fuck." she whispered frantically, pacing the length of a few yards as she stripped of her gown and began to panic. All the blood, the way his small body spasmed on the table, the shock, the last thing he said. It no longer mattered.

"I let him down...."

She fell to the ground as the heartache set in. It was like the more she tried to breathe, the smaller her ribcage got, constricting her air, squeezing her insides until there was no room left to go, her nerves felt bundled and knotted, her heart threatened to shatter as a croak left her lips. Her head fell between her shaking knees and the tears shared their being with the dirt beneath her feet.

Amora gasped, jumping at the sound of a door being opened in a hurry. "Amora!" someone called out. She couldn't inhale anymore, her eyes were tightly shut as she fought the pain. She didn't dare look up, she didn't need to, she already knew who it was.

"I let him-" she finally was able to inhale a stuttering breath of grimy air as she peeled her eyes open and met a glossy brown and white pair. "he's fucking gone. He was only eight... this could- this could- could have been... avoided." she gasped, inhaling once more before her chest held on tight to the stench of urine and garbage.

"Breathe. Stop talking." Huck insisted. "You need to stop talking. I need you to think about something else."

"No," she moaned. His hands had suddenly made their way to her elbows. He had knelt down across from her and held her steady, the feeling of his smooth fingers resting on her skin alarmed her in a way that felt both sensitive and irritable. "It doesn't matter."

"Stop, just stop talking for a second." he hushed her, pulling her up and embracing her in a consuming embrace. His arms refused to go limp as he held her stiff body. She couldn't focus on the comforting feeling Huck brought her, but the pain her chest, the emptiness in his stomach, the loss of an innocent boy who could have had his whole life ahead of him; but because of her, he was gone, stripped of his chance over a simple trial surgery.

She shouldn't have let him go through with it.

"Fuck...." she screamed into his chest, the feeling of anger and hurt Huck felt in the sound broke him, he coiled in and held her tighter, tears welling in his eyes.

He hushed her gently, his head delicately being placed on the top of her head as her hands clutched onto the fistfuls of cloth at his back. "Do you feel that?" he waited a moment before asking. She yelped at the overwhelming pain of that boys existence being taken away, as she tried to pull herself together enough to ask "What?"

"Do you feel my breathing? In," he took a deep breath and held it there a moment. "and out." he exhaled, his chest rising and falling against her body.

She clutched onto him like a mother protecting her child and listened to his voice through muffled ears. The rumble in his chest soothed her nerves as he continued to narrate his breathing. She found her own pattern and matched it to his. The pain in his voice caused her so much guilt, but she knew how much he cared about her, how much he needed this. So she obliged, trying her best to push past her own grievances; for him.

She continued to cry into his chest, getting to her knees and pulling him in close, pressing the side of her face the his shoulder. "It's gonna be alright, everything's going to be okay." he whispered softly, his hand going to the back of her head and rubbing a soft thumb over the sensitive skin on her neck.

"I want it to be," she sobbed. "I want everything to be okay, Huckle." her chest felt heavy, the pain of having to watch such an intelligent child die at her own hands, at which were buried in clotting blood before his heart had stopped.

"Breathe." Huck repeated gently. She inhaled. The soft sunsetting breeze taking all the negative into their palms and calmly running away with it, it took the weight in loads until Amora was knelt there feeling stable, strong even.

"How did you know that would work?" she asked, not pulling away from him as she asked, her eyes remaining in the bars of the fence around the backside of the hospital.

"When I came back from war," Huck smiled lightly, though Amora could not see it, he was warm at the thought of her getting to know him better. "I would sit in the dark for days suffering from panic attacks and manic episodes. That was a really dark time in my life." he explained thoughtfully.

"How did you get ahold of it?" she wondered, peeling herself from his body like roadkill to the pavement of the road, tears staining his button-up.

"My brother," she watched as his lips turned into a sideways smile. She softened at that expression, a seemingly innocent and touched man recalling a signal of self-pride. "he was stationed at an unknown location before being sent home after his accident."

"What happened to him?"

"He got blown up." Huck sighed, fighting to urge to speak with sorrow. "His hands were all messed up, but it was enough to send him home. Can't hold a rifle with one hand." he chuckled half-heartedly.

Amora frowned and engulfed him in a desperate hug of emotions. Huck huffed out what sounded like a laugh but it was the sound of his walls falling down. His heart ached for what could have been for both his family and that little boy who just gave his life up for a chance at a better one. Despite his failed attempt, he'd be aiding to many more with his disorder. He and his family knew he was being put on trial drugs that weren't working, that the surgery was going to be experimental, and that boy still wanted it done.

He'd said "If I can't save myself, I'll be saving others like me."

Amora and Huck were replaying those words in their minds, but they couldn't let it be a despondent goodbye, they needed it to be an inspirational awakening.

"He was struggling, more than I had." Huck explained solemnly. "I knew I needed to help him but I couldn't do that when I was in the mindset that I was. So when I noticed the signs that he was about to have a severe and violent attack I tried to distract him from the outside world. But focusing on your flaws and the PTSD, it doesn't help. So, I told him to do what I was doing." he pulled away and sighed.

"Breathe."

I want these chapters to be structured kind of like this. I'll probably revise this later, but for now, I hope you enjoy!