A Taste of Your Own Medicine, Part 1

[waldos_writings]

Title: A Taste of Your Own Medicine, Part 1
Words: 5014
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: John/Carson
Spoilers: very, very minor one for Sateda
Summary:: "His right arm is completely fucked up,” John said, heedless of his audience. “I don’t think the shoulder is dislocated, but it’s not in good shape. The elbow has to be dislocated or something, because, really it shouldn’t bend like it did and I think a bone or several may be broken. "
Author's Notes: Written for zortified for the beckettsheppard Thing-a-Thon '06.



John jammed on the controls, raising and locking the jumper hatch. He didn’t even wait to make sure everyone had found a seat before throwing up the shield and taking off for the safety of space.

When they’d broken through the atmosphere, he leaned back and took a breath. “Everyone alright?” he asked turning around, casually looking over his companions, expecting murmers of “we’re fine” and “okays” from three of the four and a long litany of minor complaints from McKay.

Surprisingly, even Rodney seemed to agree with the general consensus that despite Kolya’s best efforts, they’d outrun the Genii gang that had ambushed them less than twenty feet from the jumper. There had been a brief scuffle, wherein John had cold cocked one of them with his P-90 and Ronon had stunned at least half a dozen of them. At one point, while John had been grappling with a guy who had no business trying to pass himself off as Military, he’d even seen Carson get in a few good licks on the guy who’d try to cull him out of the group, apparently thinking that the doctor was easy pickings.

“Alright,” John said, finally relaxing, “Twenty minutes to the gate.”

They’d found another puzzle that had them chasing a ZPM around the galaxy. This one that had indicated that the ZPM was in the given solar system, but not on the planet the gate orbited. They’d found an empty ark, where a ZPM clearly had been, but no longer was.

Now John was wondering if the whole thing had been some elaborate fabrication designed by Kolya to try and lure John off-world yet again. He growled into his hands. He really needed to kill that bastard sometime soon.

They were a good ten minutes away from the gate yet when John heard someone fumbling around rather frantically, apparently trying to get into the rather miniscule bathroom in the back of the jumper. He heard the door bang shut and then bounce open, followed by the unmistakable sounds of someone retching. He turned around to see what was going on. Rodney was next to him, Teyla behind him, Ronon in the seat across from Teyla. “Ah hell, Rodney!” he called as he lept up.

“What do you want me to do? He’s the doctor!” McKay complained.

“Fly the fucking ship!” John called from where he and Teyla were colliding into each other in their efforts to get back to Carson.

“Oh,” Rodney said quietly. “Yeah, I can do that,” he said as he slid into the pilot’s seat and checked to make sure they were on course. They had a straight shot from the orbit John had achieved to the gate, but it never hurt to be cautious. And it kept him from tuning in too closely to the sounds in the back since he knew that that would inevitably lead to a chain reaction nobody wanted to contemplate too carefully.

John squeezed past Teyla and up to the doorway of what could almost be called a closet of a bathroom and seized Carson’s shoulders as he started to bend over the toilet again.

He wasn’t prepared for the way Carson screamed and wrenched himself out of his grasp, hugging his right arm to his chest and trying to fold around it in the small space.

“Shit, Carson, what happened?”

“Sorry, Sorry…” Carson was still breathing through his teeth and clutching his arm tight.

“You done puking?” John asked as he carefully steered Carson backwards out of the bathroom by the hips. “Come on, we need to get you into a chair. What happened?” He held his peace about why Carson hadn’t mentioned being hurt when he’d asked. That could be an argument had in private later.

Carson let John push him onto the back bench, but refused to let go of his injured arm to let John get his jacket off and see the damage. Each time John jostled him his vision swam and his head spun wildly. There was no way he was moving that arm. No way in hell.

When he glanced up again, Teyla had the field medical kit open on the floor in front of them. “Carson, tell me what we need to do,” she told him firmly.

“Just get back home,” he told her, rocking himself with the pain.

“In the mean time, Carson. What do we do for the next ten minutes or so it’s going to take to get to the gate?” John asked kneeling in front of Carson and trying to draw out a little eye contact.

Carson took several deep breaths. “I need a sling and something for the pain.”

Teyla quickly found and unrolled a triangular bandage and passed it up to John who carefully threaded it between Carson’s injured arm and his body. He could see that it took a great deal of willpower for Carson to move his arm even the fraction of an inch away from his chest as John worked. John hugged him carefully, briefly, as Carson leaned against his shoulder while John tied the sling.

Teyla was sorting through the different painkillers and looking very confused when John looked back at her. “There are many different drugs here.”

“Morphine,” Carson said. “There should be some pre-loaded syringes in the top tray.”

John gently brushed his thumb along Carson’s chin as Teyla found the syringe and ripped it out of it’s packaging. “Hey, you’re going to bite through that lip. I could give you a bullet if you think it’d help,” John said glibly as he accepted the capped needle from Teyla. He held it up into Carson’s line of sight. “Where do I put this?”

Carson just raised his eyebrows in a “where do you think?” expression.

“Hey Teyla, give us a minute, okay?” John asked reaching for Carson’s button and fly and hoping to hell that no one would think he did such a thing regularly.

Teyla gave him a questioning look, but upon seeing John undoing Carson’s pants she got the hint. “Of course,” she said and went back to sit next to Ronon.

John pulled Carson against his shoulder, careful not to put any pressure on Carson’s arm where it was carefully sandwiched between them. He pulled back Carson’s pants and shorts just enough and said, “Ready?”

Carson nodded against him, still biting his lip.

“Ah! Bloody hell!” Carson said as John gave him the shot as carefully as he could from their awkward position. His lip was bleeding when John carefully pushed him back and recapped the needle. He set it aside and fixed Carson’s clothes. “Teyla, you want to dispose of this please?” he asked putting the used syringe next to the wrapper from the sling and the blister package from the needle.

She moved back and collected the detritus and put it into one of the small garbage bags. When she looked up again she saw John waiting for her. “Here, help me lay him back on the bench.”

Getting Carson to not help was more work than getting his feet up on the bench and his head down on the other end, pillowed on John’s jacket.

“Sending the IDC!” Rodney called from the front. “They have a medical team standing by,” he added as the gate swelled in the viewscreen.

“Oh bloody wonderful,” Carson moaned as he realized that he was about to be put in the tender hands of his very own staff.

There was a little jolt as Rodney set the jumper down in the bay, but not nearly as bad as it could have been. Especially for Rodney McKay in a panic. John made a mental note to commend Rodney on some decent flying in an emergency. Later. Right now he had his hands full.

He helped Carson stand and he managed the few steps to the gurney where John and the marine medic who’d come down with the medical crew lifted him up and laid him carefully on his back.

“His right arm is completely fucked up,” John said, heedless of his audience. “I don’t think the shoulder is dislocated, but it’s not in good shape. The elbow has to be dislocated or something, because, really it shouldn’t bend like it did and I think a bone or several may be broken. He had some morphine – the one in the prepackaged thing – the big one with the blue cap, not the little one with the white cap. Oh, and he was puking. I think that was from the pain though – it’s not like we were there long enough to eat anything,” John reported as quickly as he could.

“Okay, Colonel, thank you. We’ve got him now.” Doctor Biro took the brakes off the gurney as she and the marine ran him off to the infirmary.

John, Carson, Ronon and Teyla practically tripped over each other trying to follow, but Elizabeth stepped in front of them. “What happened?”

“Fuck if I know,” John said pushing around her and following the medical team to the infirmary. Teyla hung back to explain about the ambush and the Genii and the close quarters fighting.

Nurses were cutting away Carson’s jacket and t-shirt when John and his team burst in to see how he was doing. Leslie, one of the more strong-willed nurses saw them coming and pointed sternly to the waiting area and told them to stay out of the way in a tone that brooked no argument.

Once Biro had done an initial exam they trundled Carson off for the scanner. Before anyone came back in to tell them what they’d found in the scan John overheard Leslie yelling for someone to call Dr. Kim.

John sank into his seat. Kim was a surgeon.

They all looked at each other, hoping someone else could think of a reason Biro would have had Kim called down.

“Well, at least the pathologist isn’t doing the surgery,” Rodney offered. “I’m sure she’d be splendid at getting out whatever needs getting out, but I’m not sure how good she’d be at putting it all back in again.”

Elizabeth gave a wry chuckle, but no one else said anything.

Twenty minutes later Carolyn Biro came out, pulling a paper cap off her head. “Well I’ll say one thing for Ancient medical tech – it makes the work go much faster.” She smiled at the assembled group as she sat in one of the empty seats and leaned her elbows on her knees. “Carson’s going to be fine,” she said clearly. “He had a complete dislocation of the elbow. That was the biggest problem and why we chose to do an open reduction. He also has a broken radius.”

“Which one is that?” John asked. He knew he could tell the bones of the arm apart at some point in his education, but at the moment it eluded him.

Carolyn extended her arm and traced along the top between the elbow and the wrist. “This one. It’s thinner than the ulna and it’s curved. He broke it right at the top of the curve. That’s going to take some time to heal, but we didn’t see any blood vessel damage or muscle injury.”

John rubbed his hands over his face. How was it that every last one of his team had walked away with no more than a bump or a bruise at the worst, and Carson had been hurt this bad? And how had no one noticed until the pain made him vomit in the jumper head?

“His shoulder seemed… out of place?” Teyla tried to explain, her knowledge of medical terminology more limited than the others. “Was it injured as well?”

“He had what we call a sublaxation – a partial dislocation of his shoulder. We popped that back in before he went into surgery. The thing about dislocated shoulders is that they stop hurting – mostly stop hurting – as soon as the joint is put back in place. He’s going to need to wear an immobilizer for a while, but seeing as he’s broken a bone and will need to wear a splint for a while, he’d be in a sling anyway.” Biro’s voice was bright and she didn’t seem to feel the need to lay out any worst-case-scenarios or start talking about the chances of permanent injury or worse.

Everyone let out a collective sigh.

Biro nodded at someone she saw passing by the door way and John looked up to see Doctor Kim walking by.

“Well, I guess he’s done then. Some of the Ancient tech we’ve been using lately has helped decrease both the time a patient spends on the table and the recovery time drastically. For example, we could have tried knocking Carson out and doing a closed reduction of his elbow, but that has a number of risks of its own. With the new skin repair device, we can open skin almost bloodlessly, do what we need to and then seal it up like a Ziplock bag.”

Rodney made a face. “You can reopen it and close it again?”

“It’d be like installing a zipper in your skin,” John concurred, also making a face.

“We could leave it like that if we thought we’d need to get in there again, but in this case it’s a permanent closure with no sutures, staples or glue. Not only does that help with the discomfort issue of itching stitches, it’s more sanitary. And he’ll be able to soak those sore muscles, because they’re still pretty fucked up.” Biro glanced up again.

“He should be in recovery by now. You should be able to see him in an hour or so. The other cool thing we’ve found is a neuro-suppressor that works just like anesthesia only without drugs. We gave him more morphine before we reduced his shoulder which knocked him out but good, so we’ll let that wear off before we let any visitors in.”

Ronon leaned back against the wall, his long legs stretched out in front of him. John knew he’d never get Ronon to admit it, but he was worried. Not that Carson wasn’t just a likable person anyway, but Ronon still felt like he owed Carson for removing his tracking device. It wouldn’t have gone over well if Ronon had failed to protect him, resulting in a much graver injury.

Leslie appeared in the doorway. “Colonel Sheppard? Doctor Beckett’s awake and he’s asking for you.”

John hopped up and practically jumped over Ronon’s feet as he moved to the door to the recovery room. He could hear Biro asking if anyone had any questions before he slipped past the door.

Carson was the only patient in the four-person surgical recovery ward. He was propped up a few degrees, his face almost as white as the sheets he lay on. His arm was in an immobilizer, holding it to his side, his lower arm in a large black brace, a pillow tucked between his body and his abused arm.

John sat gingerly on the side of his bed, away from the injured arm. He gently squeezed Carson’s good hand. “Hey there.”

“Hey,” Carson croaked out.

John wasn’t sure what to say next. He wanted to make a joke, he wanted to ask how Carson was feeling – although it was apparent that the answer was ‘not that great’, he wanted to give him a big hug – but he knew that would just be stupid as hell.

“Remind me not to be such a bastard the next time one of you comes in with a broken bone or dislocated joint. They really do hurt like hell,” Carson said quietly.

John laughed. The fact that Carson wasn’t full of the dregs of anesthesia made him more alert than he’d expected him to be. “I’ll be the first to remind you,” John said and then thought. “Me or Rodney. I think it’s a toss up for who has the most frequent flyer miles around here.”

Carson smiled as John threaded his fingers between the ones of his good hand.

“Carson, how the hell did this happen?” John finally asked.

Carson smiled and rolled his head against his pillow before answering. “I went to reach for my gun, and he grabbed my wrist to keep me from getting it. I have lousy accuracy with my left hand, so I went to kick him in the testicles to get him to let go.”

John’s eyes widened. Carson had certainly taken to heart the “nothing’s off limits if it works” lectures in the civilian hand-to-hand classes.

“Only he didn’t let go. I connected; I know I did. Only instead of letting me go and jumping back, he held on and jumped back. I expected him to let go and jumped back the other way. When he still didn’t let go I twisted…” He scrunched up his face, thinking. “I guess he didn’t let go and we fell. I remember hearing something snap – I thought it must have been a twig or a branch or something on the ground… maybe he landed on me?”

John shook his head. “Well, it wasn’t a twig or a branch or something. It was your damn radius.”

Carson looked down at the removable cast. “So they tell me.”

John checked behind him, noticing that the attending nurse had left her station. He leaned down, pressing his forehead against Carson’s. “You scared the shit out of me on the jumper.”

Carson’s eyes fell. “Sorry.”

John pushed Carson’s hair back off his forehead as he sat up. “Just tell someone you’re hurt next time. Or better yet, let’s not have a next time.”

Carson reached up touch John’s face with his good hand. “Now you just sound like me.”

“No, then I’d have to say it like this,” John said sitting up straight, “Jus’ tell someone you’re hur’ next time. O’ be’er ye’, let’s no’ have a next time,” he repeated in his best imitation of Carson’s accent.

Carson laughed. “That’s bloody awful!”

John laughed too. Then he heard Rodney laugh. “Are you going to let him get away with that?” he asked Carson as he came in and claimed the only chair in the area.

John and Carson just exchanged a look and then started laughing again.

“Well, I guess you’re feeling okay,” Rodney opined, somewhat perplexed.

Carson held up his good arm, showing Rodney the I.V. in his elbow. “Morphine. A drug with which you are intimately acquainted,” Carson told him.

Rodney hid behind his fingers. “Oh god, don’t remind me.”

Carson glanced up to see Ronon, Teyla and Elizabeth bunched up in the doorway. “Getting a bit crowded, isn’t it?” he asked John.

“Want me to run them out?” John took Carson’s hand again.

“Maybe in a bit. I’m really sleepy.” Carson settled back against the pillow, letting his eyes drift shut.

When John looked up at Elizabeth he noticed that she was looking at their joined hands. He shrugged at her inquiring look. She just smiled. He figured it was a discussion they could have later, but she didn’t look pissed or worried or anything so he figured the worst he would be in for was “Why didn’t you tell me, I wouldn’t have wasted my time trying to get you to go out with that Athosian woman last week.” He gave her a small smile in return.

Carson was giving Ronon, Teyla and Rodney the upshot on his medical condition when there was a loud racket in the hall. Carson tried to struggle to sit up and see what it was. “What’s going on out there?”

Rodney got up to look, but John gently pushed Carson against the bed. “Whatever it is, it’s not any business of yours right now.”

Carson frowned at him; his eyes kept darting between John and the door where he could still hear Carolyn shouting orders and the footsteps of several people hurrying about. Rodney came back in and flopped back in his chair. “Looks like Carstairs fell overboard and tried to drink half the ocean.”

Carson leaned back and closed his eyes. His instinct to rush to the scene of any medical emergency was warring with the drugs in his system and making his stomach roll. John noticed that he was looking even paler and spoke up. “Hey guys, why don’t we let him sleep. Rodney, you may want to go check on Carstairs, apparently.” He squeezed Carson’s hand and promised to come right back. Carson heard Rodney wandering out muttering, “Who ever heard of a marine biologist that can’t swim?”

~~~***~~~***~~~***~~~

John caught Doctor Biro outside of her office. “Hey Doc, got a minute?”

“Of course, come on in.” She waved him at the extra chair as she sat behind her desk.

“So now what happens with Carson?” John tried not to look either anxious or nosey.

Biro hung her labcoat on the back of her chair. “He gets some rest and in a week or so he starts P.T. on his elbow. He won’t be able to do much in terms of lifting weights with that broken radius, but he should start range of motion soon. In a few more hours we’ll take him off the I.V. and move him into the main ward. If the pain is managed tomorrow, we’ll send him home.”

“He’s all freaked out about stuff going on in here and him not being able to help,” John told her.

“Out to prove that doctors make the worst patients, is he?” she asked lightly.

“No, not like that, I just think his instincts are to get up and help when someone’s hurt. I don’t see him sleeping real well tonight if he has to stay here,” John hoped she’d see where this was going.

“He certainly can’t go back to his quarters alone. Besides being on a lot of meds right now, I’m not sure he’s going to be able to feed himself - let alone do more complicated things like dress himself. It’s his right arm that he’s busted up,” she reminded him.

“Who said anything about going back alone? But seriously, he’s not going to sleep here, you have to know that.” John gave her an earnest look, but didn’t smile. He didn’t want her to think he was taking Carson’s condition lightly.

“Colonel, he’s had a rather rough day, capped off by minor surgery,” Carolyn replied, ever the doctor.

“Exactly!” John responded. “Where do you think he’s going to rest better? You tell me his meds schedule, we dump him in a wheelchair and he sleeps in his own quarters. And actually gets some sleep.”

Carolyn leaned back in her chair studying him. John held his breath, not wanting to tip the balance the wrong way.

“You’d have to be sure someone’s with him for at least the first twenty-four hours. If you get called to the gateroom-“

“I’m sure Teyla or Ronon or Rodney would be happy to sit with him,” John countered.

“And if anything seems wrong, if he isn’t breathing right –“

“You guys are right down the hall. I’ll call immediately. I won’t let him b.s. me into thinking he’s okay if he doesn’t look so good,” John answered and held his breath again.

Finally, slowly, Carolyn nodded. “In a few hours. We need to get him off the I.V. meds and onto the oral ones. And we need to make sure that his fingers are still perfusing and everything else. He did just have surgery.”

John nodded. “Yeah, that brainwave thingy is pretty cool. He was amazing lucid in there. Tired, but completely lucid.”

“Yeah, it’s pretty cool,” Biro echoed. “I wouldn’t want to depend on it during open heart surgery, but for something minor like this, it’s a hell of a lot better than doping him up even more. Between the morphine in the field and what we gave him for the shoulder reduction, he was drugged enough. It was nice to not have to worry about that during the surgery.”

~~~***~~~***~~~

Carson squinted at the papercup he was being handed. “Vicodin?” he asked. “I’m not staying on the I.V. overnight?”

Carolyn passed him a squarish plastic cup of pre-packaged apple juice. “A compelling argument has been made for bouncing your ass out of here if we can get your pain managed on oral meds.”

Carson looked up to where John was bouncing on the balls of his feet near the door.

“Oh really?” He wanted out, to be sure, but he couldn’t imagine what kind of yarn John had spun to get Carolyn to actually agree to release him.

“I’m told you tried to get up and work on Carstairs?” Carolyn said sitting on the edge of the bed, taking Carson’s bandaged hand carefully and checking the circulation in his fingers.

“I didn’t actually try to get up, I just wanted to know what had happened.” Carson flinched as she tried to straighten his fingers, which seemed perfectly happy to stay wrapped around the heavy brace.

“As much as I hate to admit it,” she glanced up at John, “someone has a point about you not sleeping in here. I don’t think I could either,” she admitted. “So on the following conditions, I’ll sign you out to Colonel Sheppard’s care.” She raised a hand and began ticking off the points on her fingers, “One. You don’t go anywhere until your pain is managed by the oral vicodin.”

Carson quickly swallowed the pill and chased it down with apple juice that had started to take on the flavor of the aluminum cover.

“Two,” Biro continued, “You don’t go anywhere alone for twenty-four hours. If you feel like getting up and getting something to eat in the mess tomorrow, that shouldn’t be a problem, but you might want to just crash in bed for the day and let the pain pills have their wicked way with you. Either way, someone stays with you.”

Carson looked over to John who nodded, so Carson did the same. Normally he’d balk at having a baby-sitter - he was a doctor after all, he’d know when he was in trouble - but it was John so he really didn’t mind. He’d save his bitching for something he really didn’t want to contend with.

“Three, you go down to your quarters in a wheelchair and you get straight into bed and stay there. You do not want to be jostling those joints.” Carolyn got up and slowed the rate of his I.V., letting the Vicodin take over for the drip.

Carson grimaced, but didn’t argue. He wasn’t sure he could make it home under his own power anyway.

“Understood?” she asked brusquely.

“Yes ma’am,” Carson answered going for the mock salute but realizing he really didn’t have an arm to do it with.

“We’re going to leave you here for now. It’s quieter than the ward. I’m going to have Leslie bring you a tray. I’m told you were vomiting in the field, but that was probably pain and adrenaline. You need to eat something and keep it down before you leave.” Carolyn made a few notes on his chart and hung it back on the end of his bed before leaving.

Once they were alone again, John sat back on the bed. “You get to come home tonight.”

“Aye,” Carson said sounding suitably awed. “You must have told her quite the tale to pull that off. Not that I don’t appreciate it.”

John pulled the privacy curtain around them and leaned down to gently kiss Carson on the lips. “Just told her the truth – you can’t sleep here. You’ll want to get up and check on people.”

Carson nodded. “Aye. It’s a little odd to be laying here.”

“Tell you what, I’m going to run to the mess, lay in a few provisions, find out what kind of meds you need and go to the dispensary. Anything else you’ll need me to do?” He took Carson’s good hand in his again.

“You don’t need to do all that, John. I’m fine. It’s going to be a right pain in the arse only having one hand for a while, but I’ll get on.” Carson squeezed John’s hand.

“You just had surgery because both your shoulder and your elbow came apart into pieces,” John reminded him.

“Actually my shoulder only partially separated,” Carson corrected.

“Whatever. You’re hurt, and you aren’t supposed to get hurt,” John said just a bit more sharply than he’d intended.

“Oh, you’re going to tell me that’s your job?” Carson asked, matching his tone.

John stretched and took his hand back to scrub it through his hair. “Fuck this, that’s Kolya’s job. Him and his little henchmen.”

Carson nodded against his pillow. “I think we can agree on that.”

“Alright,” John said kissing him again. “I’m going to go get your meds and stuff. Oh, and some pajamas? There’s no point changing you into a uniform shirt just to change you out of it again, is there?”

Carson pursed his lips. He didn’t look forward to going down the hall in his pajamas in a wheelchair like some kind of geriatric patient. But John had a point. He really didn’t want to think about pulling a t-shirt on and then off again. He mentally inventoried his closet, bemoaning the fact that he only had two or three button-down shirts with him here in the Pegasus Galaxy. Those were going to get a lot of wear in the next few weeks.

“Carson?” John prompted.

“I suppose there’s not,” he sighed. “But…” he thought again, “I don’t know if I have any button down pajama tops. I usually just sleep in a t-shirt and shorts or flannel pants.”

John leaned down and whispered suggestively, “When you bother with pajamas at all.”

Carson glared at him. “I’d swat you if I had any belief at all that it would hurt you more than me.”

John gave him a cocky grin. “I’ll come up with something.” He kissed him again. “Be back in a bit.”



A Taste of Your Own Medicine, Part 2