Fic: Inside Out and Upside Down

[noxnoctisanima]

Title: Inside Out and Upside Down
Author: Nox
Fandom: Sea Patrol
Pairing/character: Swain/Cheffo (Toby)
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Not mine. No offence or liability intended
Summary: When Toby's heart stops beating Swain's world shatters.
Notes/Warnings: Swain's POV during the cardiac arrest scene in "Irrikanji".

When Toby’s heart stops beating Swain’s world shatters and the world becomes so very very sharp and also so very slow.

 

It’s all blurs of colours and the rush of indecipherable noise as the Captain puts the mask over his face and starts to breathe for him. Swain’s movements are automatic (he watches a little dazed as his hands link and he begins to count off the compressions) and his voice sounds far to measured as he orders the adrenaline.  

 

The compressions seem to drag on into infinity as he feels Toby’s chest give under his hands, ribs creaking and cartilage popping, and it’s going to hurt like hell when Toby wakes up (when, when, when, when, when, his mind chants).

 

He has to clench his hands at his side before he can take the syringe from Nav, trying to clear the shakes from his latex clad hands.

 

The syringe slides in easy, leaving Toby with the pinprick of blood and bruise to go with the others he has already acquired, his elbow taking on a junkie’s colour.

 

His eyes scan frantic across the Captain’s face needing, waiting, praying for the flare of hope and finding none.

 

There is numbness now, numbness within the shards, and his own voice is dull in his ears as he restarts the compressions. It sounds on the edge of frantic and his hands clench together against Toby’s unresponsive chest.

 

His hands stutter when the Captain calls out that he has a pulse and then they are there, bossy and demanding on Toby’s neck, pushing the Captain’s out of the way as they search for a pulse. And there it is, thumping beneath his fingers as Toby finally gasps for air and that’s the most amazing sound Swain’s ever heard.  

 

Swain finally lets his hands shake as he drops them onto Toby’s chest, fingers splayed across his heart, feeling the beats through his skin and into the beats of his own heart and the world returns to reality.