Before Beasts, There was Time-- Book 10

A Friend in Need

When Kai finally managed to get the tread back on, find his way back to Anadyr, and then find Anadyr's closest thing to a hospital, the van's occupants were deathly quiet. Tyson had woken up after being loaded in to the van and did his own fair bit of chewing out Eiden, even if the light denizen was out cold, before passing out again himself. Max and Ray took turns informing Kai that they couldn't get his hand to stop bleeding, even with Ayah's attempts to help. She could, after all, only fix minor things below the skin's surface, where the vibrations of the body intermingled.

Once he pulled into the lot, a sad, patchy thing as all asphalt in the communist ravaged regions were, he threw open the door, still in his coat, and demanded Tyson. They readily loaded the awkwardly bundled dragon into his arms. Not caring to see who was stupid enough to follow, he stomped inside, where a bony nurse glanced up with bored expectation. On seeing them, she jumped to her feet.

"I'll get a stretcher," she said, then did a double take at the long, scaly tail and lizard like feet sticking out. "What is he—"

"Stretcher," grunted Kai, and the strain in his voice must have been enough push, for she ran.

Tyson stirred a bit as Kai dropped him gracelessly onto the stretcher.

"Wha...hey, what's going on?"

Kai ignored him, helping the lone nurse push the stretcher deeper into the worn hospital in need of dire updating. Bits of white and gray flecked linoleum had chipped away to reveal the off black tarp beneath, and the panels in the ceiling had spots, not to mention tall-tale signs of age, and possibly asbestos. He told the nurse that Tyson had cut his hand badly and they couldn't get it to stop bleeding, and she just nodded, not asking anything, even when the end of Tyson's tail thunked against the doorframe when they turned into what Kai guessed to be basic emergency room, or at least, that's what he hoped it was. It still had a white, metal frame bed from the fifties, and the monitor machine for heart rate and all that good stuff was bulky and yellow.

For some reason, that calmed him. After all, sewing up a hand wasn't rocket science, and the less high end equipment to bring out even more how different Tyson was from the average patient, the better.

"Did I just seriously pass out again?" Tyson said, though his voice was weak and wispy. "Man, I'm weaksauce."

"People kill themselves by slitting their wrists," said Kai dryly. "What String Cheese did to your hand was a step beyond that."

Tyson let out a breathy laugh. "String Cheese. I can't get over that."

The nurse had paled and was frowning, even as her eyes kept jumping to the big clawed dragon feet and tail. "You two aren't from around here."

"He's from Japan," said Kai, being particularly careful with his Russian. "I'm from Moscow. Doctor?"

She flinched and ran off.

Kai looked back to find Tyson out cold once more.

A long two hours followed, in which an equally skinny doctor came in, took a look at Tyson's hand, and proceeded to go to work without asking Kai to leave. In fact, he barely looked at Kai, even when he asked flat questions about what had happened and what they had to pay for it. Thankfully, they still had some left over from buying the van, though the doctor had already begun sewing before hearing of any cash. That raised the Kai's opinion of him considerably, despite wearing very undoctorish jeans and plaid button up shirt.

The doctor had been doing a fair enough job of ignoring the dragon legs and tail until Ray came trudging in with a floppy-winged Eiden on his back, a rather mentally punch drunk looking nurse leading the way.