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#a bunch of these whumptober entries are out of chronological order
riflewounds · 2 years
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Whumptober, day 26 | No One Left Behind ("Why did you save me?")
He'd been left alone here. No food or water for a second day in a row and the pain gnawing at his legs and twisting his gut only grew with each passing hour. The ground was cold, too, but he was thankful he wasn't forced to keep sitting on that god-awful chair.
He barely slept at night. Shallow and short stays in the warm darkness, only about two hours at a time. He woke up - repeatedly - at boots passing by the door. 
Rabid hounds of war, doing what their masters wanted of them, to rip and tear and torture.
Soft thumps down the hall. Muffled screams. Gunshots. Durant perked up, as much as his broken body would allow.
Many boots racing down the hall, hushed words speaking of an intruder, some lanky man with a gun.
Wait, is it--
"Left side, left side," came a muffled yell from the hall.
Durant counted two shots right after. Followed by a nice little burst from the two men close by the door. Three more shots. From further away. At least one hit because there was a piercing scream just outside the door. Followed by more panicked words he couldn't quite make out through the haze of pain.
Another shot, quick retaliation of several three-round bursts, and two more single shots from a different gun.
A rifle clattered to the ground. Faint gurgles just in the hallway.
Deathly silence. No barks of gunfire, just the buzzing in his head and some disgusting sinking feeling.
Could it be his boss? Maybe, but this didn't sound like him Precise, yes, maybe a little too much for the man himself. Did he hire someone? To soften up those contractor fuckers, so he can then sweep in and claim all the glory? 
He would've laughed if not for the piercing pain in his ribs. Fuchs had the resources, he had people, it wouldn't be unlike him to hire some extra help for the job.
He could afford the extra bodies.
And he could afford to find a different loyal gun, puppy.
Different gunman to fill his place. Take over his role of the loyal bodyguard willing to sacrifice limb and life. 
Even if the guy was a dick.
Durant couldn't hear a single sound aside from his quick ragged breaths. He'd grown a little accustomed to the pain, but his legs felt full of red-hot knives slicing away at his flesh. 
He stilled once he heard those footsteps in the hallway. Light, so vastly different from the steel-toed boots that ran through the hall only minutes ago. No, these were loafers, a light blend of leather and vulcanized rubber. Tap, tap, tap, the sound was closing in, until the door handle moved and Durant stilled completely.
Either it's Fuchs, or someone else. 
He blinked as the door swung open. Silver glint of a Beretta. Muzzle trained right at him, before it wavered and pointed towards the ground as the man's hands fell. 
"Durant?" 
He... came back for him...
"H-Hey," he rasped, breaking into a little cough at the sudden motion. Too deep of an exhale. His ribs still ached, stabbing pain clawing at his lung with every cough.
Broken ribs had nothing on two shattered femurs...
Fuchs slipped his gun away for the moment, taking long, hasty strides towards his gunman. "We don't have much time before the rest of those jack-booted fucks come down here."
Durant estimated they had ten minutes at most. Realistically, it's less. A lot less.
More like five minutes. 
Fuchs kneeled beside him, took a pair of wire cutters to the zip ties binding the gunman's wrists. "Let's get out of here."
Two snips, and the pressure at his wrist was gone. Durant flexed his hands, splayed his palm, curled his fingers into a tight fist before he loosened them. But just as quickly as the pressure was relieved, Fuchs was already hooking his arm around the gunman, about to lift him up.
"No no no, wait, wa--"
Then the bones in his leg shifted and he screamed loud enough to wake the dead. That piercing, blood-curdling wail--
"Shut up!" 
--he screamed until his lungs seized with lack of air.
"For fuck's sake just shut up!" 
Followed by desperate lungfuls of that precious, precious air, cut shallow by his broken battered ribs, fingers curling against the floor and nails scratching away at whatever was under his hands.
Please god make it stop, make it stop, make it stop--
"Oh shit--" 
Darkness blotted out his sight, drowned out every sound, his body was sagging into that painless warm void, but he was plucked out of those deep dark waters only moments later. Sweaty. Back against the bumpy ground, his entire body ached and throbbed and his guts were twisting into tight knots under the strain.
"Fuchs..."
Moist eyes, dry throat. He could only croak as he twisted on the ground. 
His boss fell quiet, just looking at his gunman, unsure what to do next. Barely touching him, just lightly resting two fingers on Durant's shoulder.
"I took a couple guys with me, they're waiting outside." Fuchs spoke, considerably more gentle than only minutes ago, "I need you to stay quiet."
Quiet, huh? Durant wasn't sure it was even possible. "Then gimme drugs. Or knock me out. Please."
Desperate words, quiet urgency. This would go a lot smoother if he wasn't screaming with every little movement. Even now, even when he was lying completely still, Durant was only hairs away from screaming his lungs out. Words didn't come to him as easily as they usually did either, they came mangled and incoherent through the haze of pain. "My legs are fucked. Broken. Fuckers broke my legs."
"Yeah, I figured."
Then he could've-- he could've stopped sooner!
"And since you can't stand up, I'm gonna have to drag you."
Fine, fucking fine, "Just get on with it," Durant grumbled. Impatient, frustrated, anxious. Conflicting feelings mixing into some horrible painful mess. "You gonna give me something, or we goin' raw?" 
"Raw."
God-- he swallowed. Every little bit of motion of his legs plunged him into throes of agony so intense he could no longer keep conscious.
Fuchs produced a single tie, he folded it in half twice, and brought it down to the gunman's chin. "Here, bite this."
And he did. Fuchs positioned it between Durant's teeth, and he bit down on it. It'd help, even if just a little. 
"Alright."
White and orange hues of pain. It felt as if legs were being torn apart, pulled off his body like he was some insect. 
Paralyzed. Eyes blown wide open, he was stiff as a board and his body tried to screech, yet breath halted in his throat, it wouldn't budge, nerves overloaded with this unspeakable agony. 
He couldn't take it. Couldn't do it. As if rigor mortis had set in while he was still alive.
Durant could hear a word, quiet and mangled in the haze, a single "Finally" as the gunman slipped under.
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