Tws: Mentions of blood and injuries, I think that's about it but tell me if I missed anything
No ship, just team ZIT hurt/comfort.
Zedaph ignoring every existing lab safety rule, yet again.
It was a sunny, beautiful day, so naturally, Zedaph was cooped up inside doing science.
To his credit, he had been outside today. Impulse had been showing him and Tango around his factory when Zedaph suddenly got an idea for a new invention. He called out quick goodbyes to his two best friends and left immediately, rocketing through the air at breakneck speeds.
When he finally arrived at his laboratory, he started working, seeing if he could make a machine that slowly made a piston extend a little bit at a time instead of all at once.
After a couple of hours of brainstorming and building, he finally had something ready to test. He put the machine together carefully and pulled the lever.
Nothing seemed to happen.
Zedaph sighed and moved in front of the piston to see if anything was jamming it. The moment he stepped in front of it, though, the piston shot forwards and pinned him against the wall. He blacked out for a second and when he regained sight, the world was spinning around him. He felt a trickle of blood run down the back of his head. That couldn't be good.
The machine made a click, and the piston inched forwards a little.
The gravity of his situation finally hit him. He was stuck. Trapped between a piston and the hard concrete wall behind him. Zedaph shifted uncomfortably in a failed attempt to relieve the crushing pressure in his lungs. He heard a click and a couple of gears whirring, and braced himself the best he could for what would come.
The piston creaked a little as it slowly pressed him further against the white concrete. Zedaph let out a cry of pain, tears springing into the corners of his eyes. He felt liquid trickling down his hands and looked down to see that his nails had dug into the palms. He needed help, he needed to get something, someone.
His communicator.
He reached for it in his pocket, only to find nothing there. Zedaph looked around frantically and saw it laying a few feet away from him.
He struggled to get to it, reaching his arm out as far as he could, his fingers barely brushing against the small device. He let out a frustrated sigh and tried wiggling further towards the communicator. The piston pressed painfully against his ribs, but if he could just get to his communicator...
He cried out in pain as the piston moved forwards again. If he could only get to his communicator, he could ask for help.
The pain was starting to make Zedaph's head spin, or maybe that was the blood loss, he didn't know.
In a moment of unexpected clarity, Zedaph realized that he could reach his communicator if he pulled it closer with his foot first. He took the deepest breath he could with a piston smashed into his ribs, and stretched.
He screamed in pain and blacked out, but when he came to, he was holding his communicator. He smiled weakly, clutching it to his battered chest before opening it up and typing a message in the chat.
<Zedaph> helo
<Iskall85> Hallo to you too!
<ZombieCleo> o/
<Zedaph> no
<Zedaph> helpp
<Zedaph> hury
<Zedaph> t
<Zedaph> hhurt
<Xisumavoid> Oh no Zedaph where are you
<Tangotek> I think he went back to his base?
<ImpulseSV> Tango and I are on our way
<ImpulseSV> Zed, hang in there
<Zedaph> pkay
<Zedaph> pleas hurry
Zedaph sighed and waited for the next click of the piston, his comm now on the floor. When did it get there? Did he drop it? Why was it buzzing so much?
He heard a crash from upstairs and dazedly hoped nothing had been broken before he fully realized that somebody was there.
The piston made a faint click. Zedaph braced himself, digging his nails deeper into his bleeding palms in hopes of grounding himself.
"Zed? Zed where are you?" Someone was yelling his name. Zedaph recognized the voice, but his mind was too foggy to place who it was.
"Zed?!" A different voice this time, again familiar, and again, the name was just out of Zedaph's reach. He realized that he should probably let them know where he was. The piston shoved forwards even further, and Zedaph felt a scream tear from his throat before he passed out.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
<Zedaph> helo
<Iskall85> Hallo to you too!
<ZombieCleo> o/
Impulse smiled at his communicator. He was glad that Zed was interacting with more people, he had a bad habit of isolating himself and getting lonely.
Tango seemed to think this too, as they watched a movie in Impulse's starter base.
"Glad that Zed's talking to other people." Tango said, popping another potato chip into his mouth.
"Yeah," Impulse agreed, stealing the popcorn from Tango. "I hope he doesn't get lonely again this season like what happened last time."
"And the time before that." Tango added. "Aaand the time before-"
"I get it, I get it." Impulse interrupted Tango before he could go on.
Impulse's communicator pinged with another message, presumably from Zedaph. Tango's buzzed a second later.
"Dude, you don't keep yours on silent?" Tango teased.
"Shut up..." Impulse got a little concerned, looking at the newest message.
<Zedaph> no
"What??" Tango asked confusedly.
Impulse opened his mouth to respond, but stopped the second he saw another message from Zedaph.
<Zedaph> helpp
"Help??" Tango jumped up and shouted. "Impy, he's probably hurt!"
"Tango, I doubt it's something that serious-"
Ping!
<Zedaph> hury
<Zedaph> t
<Zedaph> hhurt
<Xisumavoid> Oh no Zedaph where are you
Impulse exchanged a look with Tango, who quickly sent off a message in the chat, and Impulse took a second to respond to Zedaph.
<Tango> I think he went back to his base
<ImpulseSV> Tango and I are on our way
<ImpulseSV> Zed, hang in there.
<Zedaph> pkay
<Zedaph> pleas hurry
Impulse took off a second after Tango, firing his rockets pretty wastefully. It was fine, though. He could always get more. Right now, Zedaph needed him.
They finally landed in the lab on the mountain, Tango overestimated the distance and ended up crashing into a sheep on the wool wall. He got up and dusted himself off, gliding over to where Impulse was.
"Zed?" Tango called out, looking around and going downstairs. "Zed, where are you?"
"Zed?" Impulse called out, going the other way to cover more ground.
It was silent for a moment, then he heard a scream. He and Tango looked at each other, panicked.
"That came from downstairs!" Tango yelled and ran down the staircase, Impulse following close behind.
There they found a-
Well, actually Impulse had no idea what it was. Zedaph was stuck between an outstretched piston from the contraption and the wall. He was slumped over and didn't seem to be breathing, and the was blood on the back of his head and the palm of his hands where he had dug in his nails.
"Oh god, Zed!" Impulse breathed.
"We've gotta get him out of there" Tango moved to inspect the contraption.
"He's got a concussion, we need to keep him awake." Impulse tried to stay calm as he took stock of the situation. Zedaph was breathing after all, thank goodness, it was just very shallow breaths, probably from the fact that the piston was crushing his ribs. "I'll take care of him, youtry to shut that machine off."
"Yessir," Tango offered a mock salute before going to the machine.
"You came" Somebody mumbled. Impulse and Tango both looked over to see Zedaph, who was blinking his eyes open. He winced and offered a weak smile to Tango and Impulse.
"Of course we did, buddy" Impulse took his hand and started bandaging it.
"Did I do that?" Zedaph asked confusedly, looking at his bleeding hand with glazed eyes.
"Yeah," Impulse responded.
"Oh," Zedaph said. "I didn't realize that."
"I know,"
"Is Tango here?" Zedaph looked around. Impulse frowned. He had seen Tango before and it couldn't be a good sign that he had already forgotten. Tango poked his head out of the inner workings of the strange machine and waved to Zedaph, before going back to work on undoing whatever it was Zedaph had done. "What's he doing?"
"He's trying to get you out of here." Impulse finished up with one had and went to work on the other. Zedaph examined his bandaged hand with fascination.
"Couldn't you just break the piston?" Zedaph pointed out.
"No," Tango called out. "The circuitry in here is way too unstable for that, the whole thing could explode, or implode, or who knows what else"
"Ah," Zedaph muttered.
A small, almost inaudible click came from the machine, and Zedaph tensed up all of a sudden, grabbing Impulse's hand and looking at him, terrified.
"It's gonna go forward again" Zedaph whispered, his eyes filled with tears.
"Damnit," Impulse muttered to himself before turning back to Zedaph, "It's gonna be ok, we're going to get you out of here, don't worry."
"It hurts, Impy." Zedaph whimpered, clutching Impulse's hand like it was the only thing in the world.
"I know," Impulse said gently. "I know it does, buddy. You gotta get through this, though. We're gonna get you out of here."
"Ok,"
The gears on the contraption started turning, and Zedaph cried out in pain when the piston moved forwards again, tears running down his face.
"Please," Zedaph whimpered. "Please make it stop"
"We're doing the best we can, buddy." Tango soothed.
"Hey, Zed." Impulse gave his hands a reassuring squeeze. "Look at me, pay attention to my voice."
Zedaph looked up at him, his eyes unfocusing and glazed over.
"Yeah, just like that, just pay attention to me and try to stay awake, ok?"
"Why do I need to stay awake?" Zedaph asked weakly.
"You have concussion, Z"
"Oh," Zedaph winced in pain as the word left his mouth.
"Hey, don't talk, save your breath," Impulse shushed him. Zedaph nodded meekly, then winced again. Impulse felt tears prick the corners of his eyes. Tango, please hurry.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Tango studied the inner workings of the contraption in confusion. What on earth had Zedaph been thinking when he built this??? His friend had such a convoluted thought process that Tango didn't even know where to begin disassembling the machine.
"What the heck, Zed?" He muttered to himself. He examined the wires again.
This one led to that one, which let to the hopper clock, which let to the observer, which led to the-
Wait a minute.
If he disabled the hopper clock, the piston would stop moving forward. Wouldn't it?
He heard Zedaph whimper in pain, Impulse whispering words of encouragement to him, and Tango decided, screw it, it couldn't really get much worse than it already was. He opened up the hopper and dug through it, taking out all of the items and dumping them haphazardly on the floor behind him.
When the last item was removed, the machine made a horrible grinding noise. Tango froze, scared that he had done something wrong, but nothing happened. Everybody seemed to be holding in a breath, waiting for something to go wrong, and after nothing did for a minute, they all let out a collective breath.
"I think I stopped the piston," Tango got out of the machine and went over to Zedaph. "It's not gonna crush him anymore, all we need to do now is actually get him out."
"That's gonna be a problem." Impulse said. "He's smushed into the wall pretty good, and if we broke the wall behind him, he'd fall down the mountain."
"Dang it, Zed, why'd you have to live on a mountain?" Tango muttered
"Adventure," Zedaph managed to get out between shuddering breaths, cracking a weak smile and trying to lighten the mood.
"Well, you've had plenty of that," Impulse remarked. Tango chuckled.
"We could try to crank the piston back manually enough to get him out," Tango suggested.
"It'd be a squeeze," Impulse said hesitantly, glancing at Zedaph, who winced, as though the mere thought of doing anything caused him physical pain. "What do you think, Zed?"
Zedaph thought for a moment, then gave a weak thumbs-up.
Tango nodded, then turned to the piston, attaching a lever to it as best he could.
"3," Tango started, Impulse joining him at the lever.
"2" They both put their hands on the lever and positioned themselves to get the most traction off the smooth concrete floor as possible.
"1" Tango and Impulse exchanged a glance before pulling on the piston as hard as they could, grunting with the effort.
Once they had pulled it back as far as they could, they looked over at Zedaph, who gripped the piston with both hands and wriggled out of it as far as he could.
Once out, Zedaph collapsed on the floor, panting. Tango and Impulse let go of the lever, ignoring how the piston snapped back into place almost immediately to run over to their injured friend. Impulse grabbed Zedaph's bandaged hands, and Tango helped the hurt man sit up a little.
"Zed!" Tango cried. "Are you ok?"
"'M tired," Zedaph managed between gulps of air. He crumpled into Tango's arms, still clutching Impulse's hands like it was the end of the world "I think 'm gonna take a nap"
"Ok buddy," Tango whispered, running his fingers through Zedaph's fluffy hair. "We're here for you."
"We'll be here when you wake up," Impulse smiled, joining in on the hug.
They sat there for a few minutes, until Zedaph's breathing evened out as much as it could with his damaged lungs.
"We should probably take him to Gem's place," Impulse mentioned quietly. "She should have medical supplies to help him."
"Good idea," Tango said, picking up the smaller man bridal style and getting up.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
When Zedaph woke up, he was confused. This wasn't his bed, and this definitely wasn't his room. Where in the name of Jeb was he? He tried to sit up, but the second he did, pain blossomed in his ribs and he fell back down.
"Oh! You're awake!" Zedaph looked up to see Gemini standing in the doorway, some bread and water bottles in hand. He decided that now would be a good time to actually look around the room for the first time, and saw that he was in Gemini's starter base in the spare guest room. His shirt was off and his ribs were bandaged and it took him a second to remember what had happened. He reached up and confirmed that there were also bandages on his head and his hands. Tango and Impulse were asleep in a couple of chairs next to his bed, Tango's head on Impulse's shoulder. It was really very sweet, actually.
"Yeah," Zedaph replied to the dryad as she set down the food and drink on his bedside table, wincing at how raspy his voice sounded. "I just woke up."
"Well you should try to eat something, you've been out for a while now." She handed him a water bottle.
"How long?" Zedaph took a sip of the water. The cold liquid felt soothing on his raw throat.
"3 days," Gemini said.
"Oh." Zedaph didn't know what to say. That was a pretty long time.
"Do you want to wake up those two?" She gestured to the sleeping forms of his friends.
"Not yet, no." Zedaph said around a mouthful of bread. "Knowing them, they've been awake for way too long worrying about me."
"Spot on," Gemini winked at him. "This is the first time they've gotten any sleep, they passed out only about half an hour ago."
"Yeah, definitely let them sleep then."
"They're gonna be mad about that."
"I'll survive, I'm sure."
They sat in silence for a while as Zedaph ate and Gemini sketched out some plans for her megabuild. Eventually, she excused herself from the room to work more on the build. Tango mumbled something in his sleep and shifted. Impulse, being a light sleeper, started to blink awake at the sudden movement against his shoulder.
"Zed?" He asked sleepily.
"Yeah, I'm awake." Zedaph replied.
"Shoulda woken me up before," Impulse said.
"You needed sleep, you're bad enough about that as it is." Zedaph reminded him.
"Whasgoinon?" Tango asked, also waking up.
"Zed's awake." At that, Tango shot up, blinking the sleep out of his eyes.
"Zed!" He cried happily, going over the hug Zedaph as gently as he could. Zedaph leaned into the embrace, closing his eyes. Impulse got up and sat down next to him, putting an arm around his shoulders. "How are you feeling?"
"Better than before," His words came out muffled from having his face buried in Tango's shoulder. "But that's not really saying much, is it?" They all chuckled a little at that.
"What exactly... happened?" Impulse asked hesitantly. Zedaph sighed, letting go of the clingy Netherborn to face Impulse before explaining everything that had happened.
"So you stood in front of an untested, potentially dangerous device, and got hurt because of it." Impulse asked incredulously. "That's a bad decision, even by our standards."
"Well, sort of?" Zedaph felt his face heat up at that. He really had been pretty stupid, hadn't he? "In my defence, I thought I had turned it off."
"You thought." Tango said.
"Yes, I thought" Zedaph confirmed. "Listen, can we not lecture me about lab safety and common sense and whatnot just now? I kind of just got out of a death trap and am still recovering from it. Not to mention the fact that I woke up after sleeping for three days."
"Fine," Impulse said, getting comfortable against the two blonds. "Cuddles now, lectures later."
Tango nodded, already half asleep in Zedaph's arms. "Goodnight"
"Tango it's 12:30 in the afternoon." Impulse pointed out.
"Yeah, yeah, whatever." The Netherborn mumbled sleepily. "'M goin to sleep now."
"Alright," Zedaph yawned, then closed his eyes. He drifted off, his last thought being that he was safe and warm in the arms of his best friends.
Have a stellar day,
All you beautiful people
~Jay