King Tide: Kyle and Clarice - we are NOT fish

[x-wildchild.livejournal.com]

Kyle and Clarice get a pair of icky duties. The end up swimming down and to assess trapped survivors in a damaged barracks, remove two bodies and rescue a amphibious mutant.

With Special Guest Cameo, Art Centino, from the cable series "Longshot for Survival"!



How many times was he going to end up looking for an ex - or working with one - while soaked to the skin? Kyle couldn't help but wonder this as he ran towards the makeshift rescue center and shelters that had been setup after the wave hit. Doc Cece was busy, Doc Jean was busy - and not that he didn't trust Laurie's medical skills but she was only Doctor Ladypants in Training, and Clarice had actual no-shit on the job time doing medicine things.

Also frankly she was ~purple~ and so a fuck lot easier to find in a group than Laurie.

She also smelled about as tired as Kyle felt - tsunamis sucked (blew? He wasn't sure which applied) so hard, and he hadn't been porting people all over the goddamn globe, so she probably was more tired, and how in the hell she was managing to quickly and calmly finish up a set of stitches on a patient, he had no idea.

He made a low noise - it was not and never would be a bark, no matter what it sounded like - to get her attention. "You free, because I need EMT. Some of the old barracks got slammed hard, and I can hear people. More than one people."

"How about a PA then?" Clarice asked without turning. She was exhausted, they all were, but that was what happened in situations like this. There was no rest for anyone. "Because I leveled up a while back," she expertly tied the stitches and cut the thread without missing a beat, then finally turned to face the other X-Man. They dated a while back, but she didn't even bother to pretend to ogle him. There was no point and they were both too tired to go through the motions.

Standing with a groan, she stretched and stripped off her gloves before retying her ponytail. It wasn't much of an improvement from the mess it had been earlier, but whatever. "Lead the way, MacDuff," she added, grabbing her backpack of medical supplies. It was large and heavy, and looked it on her small frame, but she didn't so much as grunt lifting it. It was a common accessory for her now and she was used to it, the padded straps helped a lot. "Let's go save more citizens."

"Fewer letters is leveling up?" Kyle jogged besides Clarice - and how in the hell she could move even reasonably fast with that monster backpack, he just did not know. "How's that work? More responsibility, fewer consonents?"

"Medico's love acronyms and abbreviations," she agreed wryly, "We can have entire conversations with only letters. Makes texting easier too," she joked, "But I can do everything a doctor can, more or less. I just can't call myself 'doctor.'" Which was not important in these situations at all. "Any idea what we're looking at for the S&R?"

"Not totally sure. I can hear people - looking like at least three, and one's able to talk, says they're hurt but that's all I got." Going into a unsafe building with not a one-mutant job.

It didn't take them long to get to the damaged building. Some of the structure had caved in under the force of water - it hadn't been too stable to begin with, and the tsunami just finally did it in. Getting inside was easy - half the doors had come off, and even if they hadn't, there were gaping holes in the walls on the side where the wave had hit hardest. Kyle shouldered one set of already battered doors open all the way - easier to get people out if they were just open and propped that way and the ground there looked at least a little solid. "And dude, medicine stuff makes no sense. Ima just trust that you know what the fuck you're doing."

"I know what I'm doing," Clarice assured him, pushing her backpack ahead of her as they crawled through a narrow opening, She tried not to think of how dirty the tsunami waters were. Even if the ocean was mostly clean, floor waters always brought up sewage and allowed for bacteria to thrive. "It''s just like the song - the collar bone's connected to the knee bone and all that. We want to try to get the most critical person out first."

Once past the caved-in entrance, things had become tricky, and Kyle ignored the smell of salt water and rust and - other worse things he wasn't going to name for fear that he hadn't gotten there and back fast enough. Wading through knee-deep water wasn't awful - just kind of awful, but the debris and sand and mud and everything else in the water made it impossible to see, and they ran of stepping on, falling into or just plain tripping over anything underfoot.

From the outside, the old barracks looked caved in - from the inside, Kyle and Clarice could see the sky through crushed walls and shattered windows, and where a huge piece of concrete wall had been turned to rubble by rushing water. Kyle slowed well before the rubble, and cocked an ear. "Three, at least. One here, maybe two, and maybe one under us?" If the building had a basement it was almost certainly full of water. "Whatda we do first? Below?"

Pulling water-logged bodies out of the building would be a messy, horrible job and Clarice wished it on no one. Especially them. "Under? As in 'under water?'" she asked, trying not to think about the water and the grossness of it all. That was what showers and soap was for later. Lots and lots of soap. "Unless he has gills, underwater is not a place anyone alive is now."

"Shit." Kyle swiped wet hair off his face, and grunted. ".. So we check that first? Urgent need and all?" He didn't wait for more than a nod from Clarice, and waded into the flooded remains of a stairwell.

Unfortunately, water was one of the worst things to mix with a dead body. Between the natural human bacteria, the bacteria in the water and the abundance of food in human form...well. 'Not pretty' was perhaps the understatement of the century. The longer it was in the water, the more it would well...fall apart. Getting it out now meant a better chance for the person to be identified and the family to get closure. It was still messy. "Need help?" she asked, looking around for a place she could store the backpack for a moment.

Kyle nodded, and then turned his head back the way they'd come. "Sounds like we've got company too.." He could hear someone talking, reassuring one of the other people he'd heard that they'd be fine, that they were lucky to be found so fast. He shrugged it off, and then took a deep breath before going under the water.

It was murky - well, murky was an understatement. The water was filthy, and even with his mouth shut so tightly that his lips hurt, he could smell it - even holding his breath. Even with little handheld flashlights - Kyle had taped his to his wrist - he could see maybe five feet ahead.

Waiting for Kyle to check things out wasn't really any better than being submerged in the water. Either way, it was disgusting and smelled awful. Turning as something shifted, Clarice's eyes narrowed as a figure approached that she didn't recognize. "Don't come closer!" she called, "We're rescue and medical!"

"You're doing awesome! Good work!" The voice from the hall way encouraging and clearly enunciated -- like that of a radio dj -- while what little light there was revealed a blonde male. He may have been giving them a thumbs up, but he had stopped. However, a gravelly creaking came from the hallway that was definitely not the stranger.

Kyle barely heard the voice as he was swimming back up from the deep water, and only heard the creaking as he was swiping water from his face. "Who the ... you know what, no, don't care, 'rice, there's two bodies down there, and a maybe not dead dude. Gills." He was -pretty- sure sharks wouldn't be involved, not in a flooded barracks basement. "Looks like we're on corpse duty. Gross." At least someone was taking care of the not-dead injured people he'd heard too.

"Ewww," Clarice wrinkled her nose and began digging through her bag, "I only have one body bag. Can we fit them both in?" She also pulled out gloves, not that they would make any sort of significant difference given it all. "Is the gills-guy okay? Other than traumatized and generally unhappy at the state of the water?"

Kyle shrugged damply. "Probably injured since he's not coming out of the water." He turned towards the water, and then glanced back towards the hallway, where the creaking continued. "That -better- be not be collapsing building noises. Lets do this fast. If we gotta, we'll stuff 'em both in the bag." He didn't wait for Clarice to hit the water - he went in, and under and was swimming towards the worst part of the water first - if there was anything worse than dead bodies and a injured fish-man, then he was better off encountering it first.

Gear safely stowed, Clarice didn't waste any time following Kyle into the water, making a mental note to book herself one hell of a spa day when they returned home, the body bag clutched in one hand. Better to get the dead first, then tend to the living if he was okay for the moment. The longer the people were in the water, the worse it would be. Thankfully, she was a strong swimmer, even if she was smaller and slower than Kyle.

The light from the little flashlight turned black water into dim shadowy grey water, and Kyle and Clarice still had to feel their way around more than seeing. One of their flashlights caught the bodies Kyle had seen earlier - two men, one with a crushed chest and one who looked fine - until Kyle started pulling the corpse towards Clarice and they could see that the back of his head was caved in.

He got the body half into the bag before Kyle had to pop up into an air pocket to breathe, and it took him a second to control the urge to retch - the smells of blood and shit had gotten into his sinuses even while he wasn't breathing.

For her part, mostly holding the bag open and steady in the water for Kyle, Clarice ignored the stench and gruesome image with professional disinterest, at least for now. "If you're gonna spew, wait until outside," she informed Kyle, noting his face. She might join him, too, but that was one of the first rules she'd learned as a teenage EMT. No throwing up on the deceased. Period.

"I wont throw up." Kyle said, and ducked under the water again. And popped right back up to add. "Unless you start singing stuff from Rent, because dude, no." And to swipe hair from his mouth - his ponytail holder had sprung loose (which was the worst luck, he'd just bought that bag of them too, how did a new ponytail holder break that fast?) and his hair was floating freely in the water and getting everywhere.
Body number two was easier - maybe because he'd acclimated to the smells, maybe because while the guy was super dead, his head didn't look wrong, and there weren't bits of brains leaking out of him. The thought of which made Kyle had to swallow bile or else risk the spewing that Clarice had said not to do. He wasn't going to barf in this water, that would mean opening his mouth, which would make it worse.

There was a time and place to sing Rent. This was neither, even Clarice knew that. If she had to pick theme music, it would possibly be from Saliva or maybe Drowning Pool. Something shouty. Singing also required a random use of energy that was not in over-abundance and to open her mouth in this grossness. All in all, hell no. "I'll take the bag and get it out of the way, then be back," she suggested, thinking she could pull it up by the debris so it wouldn't go anywhere. "Then we see about the other guy down there."

It didn't take long for Clarice to return - at least, not by Kyle's reckoning. Even so, once she was back, he was treading water in another air pocket, with a frustrated look on his face. "I got down there once before I needed air. Gill dude is kinda going in and out of consciousness - he's breathing... or.. whatever fish do, and pulse is steady mostly, but I dunno if the guy can even breathe air, or how we're gonna get him out." He swiped water from his face, and frowned. "Big ass rebar and concrete slab on his leg, and he's all scraped up. Not a lot of blood in the water near him though.." And of -course- all their super strong people were busy doing their own rescue stuff. Of -course- Namor was busy doing his own rescue stuff. They were having the worst damn luck.

The lack of blood wasn't a great thing given that it could mean that he was bleeding internally. "Can you get him free, do you think?" Clarice asked, pretty sure she knew that answer. She could teleport him out, but then....to where? "If I transport him somewhere, we need prep for a tank in case he can't handle oxygen out of water...." that would take some coordination, but was doable. And with clean water, they could do a lot more to help him.

Kyle shook his head. "Not on my own, I tried to move the slab and it's not going anywhere on it's own." He screwed up his face. "Dude, can you like, port holes in the concrete? I mean... is that a thing you can even so? Like, port things off things? If it's smaller, or broken up we might both be able to move it."

Clarice nodded, "I can," she began slowly, "but it's dangerous. I'm limited by weight, remember? And concrete is heavy," ridiculously so. On the other hand, it was something worth trying. "Let me see," she offered, refitting her goggles over her eyes and then diving under the water to check the slab out on her own.

Emerging a minute or so later, she nodded, "I think I can do it in pieces. Not the whole thing, but maybe enough?" Hopefully enough.

"It'a gonna have to be, because I mean, maybe you could port the guy but like you said, you'd have to get a tank if he's not a air breather and I dunno how heavy he is." Kyle replied.

Making a face, Clarice couldn't think of a better option, not without risking slicing the guy to pieces on accident. Trying to teleport underwater was not something she had much experience with, though she could do it. This was definitely a situation to practice in for the future though. "Yeah, gonna have to be," she agreed. "Alright. I'm going to 'port the pieces over there," she pointed to the far side of the room where there was already rubble. This was going to take a long minute or so.

Kyle blew out the air in his lungs and took a deep breath, telling himself this could be so worse. It could be Arctic water and he could be all CPR-guy on Nate again. Ice crystals in his damn lungs was actually worse then probably having to get enormous horse pill antibiotics from one of the docs - healing factor or not, this water was shit nasty. Literally.

He swam down with Clarice, because if he could budge the slab while she was porting off pieces of it, he wanted to do it as fast as possible. Gills and fins dude wasn't looking great - the faster they got him out, the better.

It took Clarice a few tries teleporting things away, swimming back up to the surface and going back down again to get enough of the concrete off him to help get the man free. "His pulse is thready," Clarice gasped, trying to breathe again on the surface and take care of the newly freed patient and not doing very well at either. She didn't even want to think about all the antibiotics and shots she would get for this one, but patients came first.

"Lets get him up and we can see if he'll breathe air." Kyle said - probably unnecessarily. He and Clarice were pretty much on the same page here - but she'd just ported god only knew how much concrete, even if it was in little pieces, and had to be dragass worn out.

Getting the man out safely was tricky - they couldn't exactly secure his spine under water easily, even with Clarice's nifty folding lightweight backboard thing. Kyle was starting to think her backpack of medical supplies was bigger on the inside. They got him strapped down before having to come back up for air, and then went under one more time to get him out.

Normally, with Clarice able to blink things to and from where she wanted, it was possible to make her bag larger on the inside. This was not one of those times unfortunately. "Uh huh," she agreed with a nod, unable to do more than that and swim. She was so napping asap. And eating all the energy bars she could get her grubby hands on. And they were past grubby and downright filthy.

Bringing him up, Clarice unconsciously held her breath to see if the man would breathe air or not. "Oh thank God," she sighed when he did, a weight she hadn't noticed falling from her shoulders, "Okay. Okay. This is good. Let's get him out of here," she said, relieved.

"Thank fucking god, we needed one thing to go right." Seeing their unconscious rescuee's chest rising and falling seemed to give Kyle a little surge of energy - enough to get them out and up the half-ruined stairwell. They paused in the doorway for the barest moment - the barracks, which before had been damaged, were now clearly ruined - the other half of the building had started to cave in. "Okay, you know, I think we just send someone else to get the body bag. Someone fast. Or who can fly. Or both." He suggested. "Cause dude, this building is kaput. Also five bucks says we get back and Doc Jean or Doc Cece tries to jam both of us in the ass with a needle full of antibiotics."

"I'll jam us both myself if they don't!" Clarice promised. She wasn't a fan of shots, but damn if she wasn't craving stuff to kill whatever else she encountered in that water! "And I'm burning these clothes."

"Gross ass t-shirt bonfire tonight." Kyle agreed, with a firm nod. "I'll grill burg."