Cut and Run 7 - Touch and Geaux

the corner of the bed to come to his side, and Zane crawled over to put a hand on his shoulder.
    His entire body was trembling, but he was taking deep breaths, trying to fight through the obvious pain.
    “Do we need to call an ambulance?” Kelly asked. He was finally fully awake, though he looked almost as rough as Ty did.
    “You’re the corpsman,” Nick grunted.
    “Well, as a trained professional, I advise we call an ambulance.”
    “No,” Ty gasped. “Fuck the shirt, just get me to the ER.” He let the bag go, leaving it on the bed.
    Zane tugged his jeans on and grabbed the first shirt his fingers touched, one of Ty’s T-shirts. He pulled it on as Nick tried to help Ty into a button-up flannel. Zane grabbed his wallet and Ty’s, then the felt bag, and nodded to Nick. “Time to go.”
    “I’ll help you get him into a cab,” Nick said. Ty threw an arm over his shoulders. “Then I’ll get the boys and we’ll meet you there.”
    “Feels like my insides are being torn apart,” Ty groaned.
    When they hit the lobby, it was relatively empty, but two of the young bellhops soon took notice of them.
    “Does he need help?” one of them asked Zane as they came toward them.
    “We’re going to the hospital,” Zane said, taking a lot of Ty’s weight onto himself as Ty bent in pain. “We need a cab or the hotel shuttle.”
    One of them turned to jog for the entryway and hail a cab.
    “Too many hurricanes?” the younger man asked with a knowing smile.
    “Bad gris-gris,” Ty muttered to him. The man hopped away from him as if he’d said he had the plague.
    “It’s just food poisoning,” Zane insisted.
    Ty growled, pulling away from Zane and Nick to stand on his own and pace several steps. He held to his side. He couldn’t seem to stay still. He would stalk back and forth and then curl as pain overtook him, then start the whole thing again.
    In a matter of minutes, the hotel’s courtesy shuttle was pulling up outside and they were on their way to the hospital. Ty rocked in the backseat, fumbling with the little red bag he’d snatched from Zane’s hand as he tried to get it open.
    “Give me that,” Zane said, taking it out of Ty’s hand and putting it in his pocket. “Let’s not scare the locals any more than we have to until we find out what’s wrong.” When the van pulled up to the emergency entrance, he climbed out of the van and reached back in to help Ty out.
    Ty gripped his hand hard and practically fell out of the van. Someone called to them, asking if he needed a wheelchair. Ty nodded wordlessly. It seemed he wasn’t going another step.
    “I know what it is, Zane,” he gasped. He looked up at Zane, and Zane could have sworn that he was smiling. “Fucking kidney stone.”
    Zane groaned and covered his face with his hands for a moment, ashamed to be relieved by Ty’s self-diagnosis. “And you know this from experience, I take it?”
    Ty practically fell into the wheelchair that was brought to him, and he leaned over and began the incessant rocking again. “Last time was like the most pain I’ve ever been in . . . in my life,” he told Zane haltingly. His eyes were watering; he was very nearly in tears. He was smiling, though.
    Zane leaned over and put one hand on each of the arms of the wheelchair so he could look Ty in the eyes. “Considering I know what sort of injuries you’ve had, that doesn’t make me feel better. At all.” He stood up and gestured for the orderly to push Ty inside.
    “At least it won’t kill me,” Ty replied as he was pushed away.

    Ty stared at the ceiling tile and the block of light above him. The nurse had put something he couldn’t pronounce into the IV in his arm about two minutes ago, and the space-time continuum had opened up shortly thereafter. His ears buzzed, his eyes wouldn’t blink, he couldn’t feel his extremities, and there was a low sound in the distance that might have been his own breathing.
    But he no longer hurt.
    The lady who’d taken his insurance information had promised to go retrieve Zane, and Ty was simply reminding himself to continue breathing until he got there.
    “Hey, how are you doing?” It was Zane, finally. Nick and Digger were with him, looking more bemused than worried.
    Ty turned his head slowly, his eyes focusing on Zane with what he could only consider utter contentment. “Better,” he managed to answer. “Kidney stone.”
    “Yeah, somebody’s stoned,” Digger said with a laugh.
    Zane stopped at