Chapter Text
‘If all she ever does is smile at you, run
What’da ya need these for?’
Taking this gig was supposed to be the easy part of her week.
Now of course, as was her general luck, Rumi found herself slamming out compressions someone’s life depended on. The heady creaking of bending cartilage wasn’t exactly the goal of this whole ‘easy gig’ thing.
All week it had been utter hell. First Josh, the glorious fucking idiot that her EMT, was had tripped and ate shit down the flight of stairs at Cook county which had been a fun and entertaining return to poor Robin’s ER. No one wanted to piss off the charge nurse and there Rumi stood half dragging a concussed 6’3 beanpole of a 21 year old right back into her hospital.
Following that entire fiasco the pile up on I90 with multiple badly injured patients, air flying in they were all desperately trying to clear space for and an EMT she was unfamiliar with (thanks to Josh eating shit down the stairs and Robin’s utter refusal to let him leave that night) had resulted in a frigid November afternoon spent boring IOs into too many people and trying not to think about those triaged as too far gone.
Didn’t help some idiot in a dodge charger slammed into another medic on the other side of the pile up. That didn’t slow down triage and life saving care at all. Speaking of which she really needed to call that station and see if the guy had pulled through.
Watching the cops rip the driver out of his car had been a plus at least. Rumi was the last medic to be on good terms with the boys in blue but sometimes justice was sweet and tinged with the sound of a taser going off when a dumbass tried to punch.
And on top of that one of her frequent fliers, a sweet but deeply confused 70 year old woman called Sheryl, had called them for an actual reason this time and had tried to die multiple times on the way to someone who could actually help her. Handing her off to cath lab had potentially been more frustrating than every single time they’d fed her cats and meandered her to psychiatric hold.
God she hoped Sheryl would be calling them next Tuesday like she always did.
So really this night, with her fire chief waving assignment papers in front of her nose, was supposed to be a break from all of this. A concert held in the stadium, more crews needed and Josh had been freed from his Robin induced neuro hold with a clean bill of health. They were supposed to be answering stupid questions, handing out bandaids and Rumi had more random key chains and clip-on flowers than she knew what to do with. It was supposed to be fun. It had been fun.
And then the two women on the stage who Rumi had been half listening to while informing a very drunk middle aged man that she in fact did not have anti nausea meds for him at beck and call started to shout. The bad sort of shouting. The sort of shouting that made paramedics sit up and react.
See half of Rumi’s charm for her fire chief and most of her station was the fact that her brain didn’t really stay in her skull with the speed at which she responded. The woman had a way about her that mostly involved dead sprinting with a triage bag strapped to her back that most civilians would struggle to lift.
Shout out to Josh and his back workouts, she supposed.
Needless to say Rumi had left her brain behind at some point as she went head long over a concrete barrier blocking her from the standing room only part of the event. Security teams in their stupid skin tight black jackets were yelling and she was resolutely ignoring them.
”Medic!” She barked, voice booming in the panicked disarray that was in her damn way. Security at least got the memo and suddenly people were being moved away from her path.
There he was, the lead act had called out that a man was struggling. Rumi could see him now, clutching desperately at his chest and wheezing as he went down.
Glorious.
Rumi was on him before he fully hit the ground, hands catching and lowering wedging the guy into a position that would make this as unweird as she feasibly could.
”Hey there, Sir! Horrible place for us to meet, my name’s Rumi I’m a medic with Cook County I’m here to help you, okay?” Scene safe, consent demanded, leads-
The man looked at her, pupils constricted in pain and nodded desperately. Consent given. Rumi had already ripped the black tactical bag off her back and dragged the leads out as fast as she could; fingers slamming down on primer buttons.
”This is gonna feel a little weird and I’m sorry about the cold.” It was the only warning she could give. After a time you started to get a feel for this sort of work. It didn’t take a genius to look at this guy and the sweat pouring off of him, the obvious pain and gasping to know that his heart was doing something wildly stupid.
Still, she did feel bad about the cold. It was barely 20 degrees and she was ripping this man’s shirt off and slapping cold sticky pads all over his torso. The high pitched whine of the EKG was barely going off, Rumi’s eyes locked to a read out she very much did not like the look of when the man suddenly gagged and dropped.
Just fucking fantastic.
She was on him before the readout even fully flatlined. No still a small wave. She could shock that, but if it was right sided and she moved a clot without Heprin? Oh she did not like the look of this.
Multitasking time was at hand and her medications were in the rig not in her bag. Fisting her hands together locking her elbows and dropping that weight down hard just below the sternum; Rumi entered the mind numbing din of 40 on 2 breaths pause and redo.
Shoving her cheek into the radio at her shoulder was the best she could do. “Joshey boy I reeeeeally need some meds. And call Robin.”
The crackling of the radio was a blessing, really. Josh’s bemused voice a gospel.
”It’s always something, huh? Inbound with the gurney, Robin has been called and I’ve got the med bag.”
”This is why you are my favorite.” Rumi wheezed, shoulders working.
Somewhere in the back of her mind she felt it, the strange echoing feeling that always entered her muscles when it came to life or death. The odd sensation of spider webs whispering up her arms, her back, everything connected to saving this man’s life. No one wanted to die at a fucking K-pop concert.
On top of it all every single person in the standing room crowd were staring at her, along with the idols on stage. Everything had halted outside of her muttered counting, her breath as she dropped to force air into his lungs, the screeching of the machine. She really didn’t want to electrocute this man in front of this many people or force a clot into his lungs but things may be unfortunately moving in that direction.
In her periphery Rumi could see her skin glowing, the sharp flashes of orange cutting through the normal pearl where it was visible on her hands and face. Uniform covered most of it in the cold at least. Not that it mattered, according to her psych she was just insane and no one else had ever seen them beyond the white glint.
So she would just be crazy, ignore the orange rapidly cutting through with harsh maroon as her back strained with the effort to get those precious inches of refraction.
Josh was on his way, she could hear both him and security shouting. But worse! Because things could always get worse, she groused somewhere in the back of her mind where ‘don’t let distraction in people will die’ wasn’t screaming at the forefront, suddenly with a hard intake the man’s eyes snapped open.
Confusion and pain made direct eye contact and Rumi pulled back releasing her count. Okay. Okay so no shock she could-
He dropped back. Instantly.
Cursing at the top of her lungs Rumi dove back in, couldn’t do shit without the meds. Needed to bolus saline. Needed to push Heprin. And now she’d fucked ROSC’ed this guy and he’d crashed again which was never ever a good sign.
And then, like the miracle of an exhausted energy drink fueled angel that he was, Josh was there, trading places with her while he flung the tactical bag into her arms.
”Right sided ventricular failure. Probably a clot.” She called, digging and pulling needles without looking up. Please don’t let her have to drill an IO into this man in front of 20,000 people.
Thank fuck to whatever the hell was watching over Mr Dies at a K-pop Concert because she managed to get a 14 gauge into him with relative ease.
“Pushing saline, as much as I can. Heprin going in.”
Josh nodded, focused on his compressions while she did what she needed to do. There was nothing like having a partner who knew exactly how you did your insane field medicine. Josh was the absolute best and she really really needed to take him up on that drinking night. She liked his boyfriend. It wasn't a matter of not wanting to, it was more a matter of sheer utter exhaustion.
Meds administered and her hands squeezing the damn saline bag to push it as fast as she could, Rumi nodded hard towards her younger. Time to get going. She’d need to be in the box, Josh was a better defensive driver than her and if they needed to push more meds he couldn’t give them all.
Josh pulled back, snatching up the saline bag while the medic took over compressions. It took them less than thirty seconds to get the dying dude up onto the gurney, Rumi on top of him still pushing his chest to bursting, the EKG sat by his head chirping its furious little tune.
Time to bounce.
At least the read out was looking a little better. When they got ROSC again they could maybe let the guy just vibe for a second. Maybe he wouldn’t drop dead again for fun.
Either way Rumi was straddling a middle aged man, forcing his heart to function while she could just see the patterns on her hands flaring a loud angry maroon. The panic was gone, replaced entirely by determined frustration.
Josh was pushing them as fast as his midwestern corn body could go, they’d be in the rig and being yelled at at the ambulance bay of their favorite hospital in twelve minutes.
This week had already sucked, Rumi refused to lose anyone else.
This was the tail end of their shows in the absolute hellscape of freezing ass Northern America and to say Mira was ecstatic that they’d be in Southern California for the rest of their shows was a massive understatement.
The Great Lakes region had always been her absolute least favorite place to put on a show; the weather was such a shit show she still wasn’t entirely sure how people lived here year around. Yeah Korea could get cold but it was never so cold the air felt like it as freezing against your skin.
Meanwhile, Chicago.
Backstage had been an absolute shit show all afternoon while the costume department had desperately changed things as much as humanely possible so they wouldn’t freeze to death on stage. Multiple refittings and the change in her ability to move had been a resounding hellscape of hands on skin and cramped knees.
At least Zoey seemed to be having the time of her life.
The rapper was all but bouncing in place, far far too happy to be in a city that had a foot of snow on the ground in November. Zoey had always loved the Chicago land area, something about the city called to her. Then again Zoey had always had horrible taste so it shouldn’t really be all that surprising.
So all together the slow trudge towards curtain call had been a practice in patience that Mira was slowly going insane under. But at least she wasn’t freezing stepping out onto that stage. Microphones stayed in their hands and didn’t shake apart. All together better than she expected, so of course it all went right back to hell as fast as it possibly could.
Barely three songs in, it was Zoey who’s sharp eyes spotted the problem before anyone else.
”Hey! Dude going down in the front!” Mira’s hand was already waving off the backtrack while Zoey shouted. There was indeed a man starting to collapse in the front, his hand firmly clutching at his chest like he was trying to crush it back in place.
Hot fear flashed up Mira’s spine.
Normally things like this happened elsewhere in the venue if they happened at all. Carefully taken care of. They did all their own life saving shit in the background where they never had to see this side of things. Medical care between the two of them? Fine. Some random stranger all but dropping to his knees in front of them? Terrifying.
Mira had barely opened her mouth to shout for security to find one of the fucking medics that were suppose to be wandering around when a flash of purple and navy caught her attention head swinging hard.
Speak of the devil and she shall appear, apparently.
A woman in a dark heavy uniform all but launched herself over the chest high barriers around the standing room ticket space and for a nanosecond the only thought that went through Mira’s head was ‘oh that was hot’. Which was in no way appropriate for the current situation.
Zoey wheezed out a sigh of relief at her left shoulder as the paramedic all but slid into place hands on the very much collapsing dude. Everything would be fine, the professionals were here and-
A high pitched alarm went off and that was the sole warning they got before this woman was moving. Even from the stage Mira could see the hard set to her face, the amber eye she could see on the side of the woman’s face facing her locked on the machine she’d attached to him.
Wait-
Amber?
It was Zoey catching her wrist that made Mira really look at this medic and-
Patterns.
She had patterns.
A demon? Here? As far as Mira was aware the veil was so strong around America that this was a very rare occurrence. The number of influences out here protected the country to a degree that the more repressed and difficult to please Korea simply hadn’t managed.
Shooting a fast glance towards Zoey to check that she saw what Mira was seeing confirmed it. Zoey looked back at her, eyebrows all but crawling off her face.
There was a demon here, performing active CPR, shouting into a radio on her shoulder like this was a daily occurrence for her. Which…. Yeah. It probably was.
But why?
What reason did a demon have to be trying to do life saving care on some random human that was clearly on his way off this mortal coil? Wouldn’t this have been the easiest time to soul snatch and act like you just failed your job or something equally nefarious and deranged? Demons were just like that, but apparently not this one.
This one was also glowing.
And not in the way they did sometimes when they were caught and trying to fake fear their way out of shit. Not the burning magenta of their god king. No, she was flashing like some sort of deep sea jelly fish from one of Zoey’s documentaries. Like the patterns were trying to communicate something.
A sharp tangy orange flickered like strobe lights through the otherwise pearly hard to see markings but it was rapidly being overcome and replaced by a deep maroon that looked almost bruise like coursing up the woman’s working hands and tight face.
More importantly and much to Mira’s absolute raw confusion she felt the telltale whisper of power. The honmoon hummed, very softly in her ears, and they both watched with rapidly palling expressions as the laylines wrapped lovingly up the demon’s(?) back and pooled down her arms. It looked almost like the woman was forcing the magic into her patient’s chest and by all fucking miracles it was working.
But how? Why? How was a demon even touching the honmoon? It didn’t even seem like she noticed it, or recognized what she was doing. Her eyes didn’t focus on the laylines, her hands never stopped moving. That medic had a job to do and she was seemingly single mindedly focused on it.
It felt like a breath but had to have been a full minute before another person in uniform exploded past security, shoving a yellow and black wheeled bed in front of him as fast as he could. The man slid in and the pair shifted places with such ease it was clear this was a long practiced behavior.
The man, at least, was clearly human. He also had his sleeves shoved up to his elbows which despite everything else going on made Mira want to drop dead. Who the fuck beyond some random white man would think this was the weather for exposed skin?
Mira’s eyes were locked on the events in front of her, shoulder bumping Zoey’s as they both focused on the medical emergency in front of them, so it wasn’t really her fault when she jumped half a foot in the air when her earpiece crackled to life.
”Girls? Taking a break, come backstage.” Bobby’s voice was half frantic, but he sounded like he was talking to multiple people at once so that wasn’t a huge surprise.
Mira half shifted back, about to respond but Zoey stopped her with a small shake of her head. They needed to see this out. On one hand the fans would see them commanding the crowd back, helping someone in a bad state out at their concert. Stopping everything to make sure he was okay. It would earn them huge brownie points, and frankly Mira was deeply worried for that man.
On the other hand they needed to make sure this demon kept doing the bizarre act of saving a human’s life.
After the other emergency medical person had shown up things went very quickly. By the time Mira had shifted another step back on the stage, sharing a fast glance with Zoey, they needed to call Celine ASAP, the two had methodically gotten the downed fan onto the bed and swapped roles again just as cleanly as they had the first time.
That woman, patterned hands and face now fully maroon climbed straight up onto the unconscious man’s stomach and immediately resumed CPR without so much as glancing up beyond a fast look at the machine they perched next to his head. And just like that they were gone, the man pushing the other two as fast as his long legs could take them, presumably back to an ambulance.
Thank the honmoon for Zoey who took over before Mira could think about their transition backstage to deal with whatever shit show was arising from this entire situation. The smaller woman stepped forward towards the edge of the stage raising one puffer jacket covered arm with her mic close to her face in the other hand.
”Let’s hear it for Chicago’s finest!” Her voice was loud, booming through the speakers and in Mira’s earpiece but the fans were louder. Finally broken out of their shocked spell the crowd roared back to Zoey’s prompting. There was nothing people loved more than a celebrity giving the first responders their just dues. They’d all watched what just happened, there were probably already fancams on every major social media outlet available.
”We’re taking a quick break but we’ll be right back!” And the roar got louder, seemingly pleased with their decisions to not just skip past a man half dead on the floor at one of their largest American tour concerts. Mira reached out, taking Zoey by the elbow so they could both bow before half dragging the smaller woman off stage even as they both reached up to remove their mics and ear pieces.
”We need to call Celine.”
”Yeah, like right now. You saw that right? The colors?” Zoey looked up at her, eyes wide and hands wringing together. They’d never seen anything like that. “And why was a demon trying to help someone?”
”I don’t know” Mira exhaled, hard. “Go talk to Bobby, I’m calling Celine.”
Keeping track of time on a 24 on 24 off shift schedule was someone else’s business, not hers.
Rumi was wandering through the station kitchen, side eyeing whatever was under the tin foil someone had left out overnight when she heard the sharp ping of their doorbell. Of course, she’d been abandoned here alone in case exactly this happened.
Josh had gone with the big rig group to get groceries, someone was probably out cold in the back room but nothing bellow tones dropping would wake them up. She knew from experience. One learned very quickly to sleep in any position possible in this sort of work.
Which left Rumi to go answer the door. Really it was her own fault for waking up from her nap in the first place.
While she utterly refused to say the ‘q’ word out loud it had been disturbingly quiet all day. There was maybe an hour left on her shift and the calls had been fast and far separated. A shocking series of events, really.
So she braced herself, dragging a heavy jacket over her bare arms as she meandered towards the heavy auto locking door. Hopefully it was another lady asking them to move a dead raccoon, or better yet just someone asking for needles. That was easy enough to dole out, especially when the local rehab therapy group had started supplying them with extra cases for that exact purpose. Fast. Simple.
Putting on her ‘talking to the public in a normal non-life saving way’ smile Rumi shouldered the heavy steel door open with the small chime humming in her ears.
“Morning, how can I help?”
The words left her mouth before she’d even really processed them; it was a long standing script that they all used. Stay friendly, don’t be weird. Especially, as Josh would say, Ms face tattoos. They weren’t tattoos, she’d argue every single time but the EMT just cackled and shrugged.
A middle aged woman was standing there, much taller than her, with a severe look on her face. Great. Hopefully no one was dead-
“Ryu Rumi?” Her voice was just as severe as the strip of seemingly carefully maintained grey down the side of her part.
But-
No one had called her ‘Ryu’ in years. Her adoptive father had her name legally changed when she was closer to her teen years, when he stopped caring about ‘respecting her ancestors’ and turned towards his march towards militaristic control.
Secondarily it was said not in the Americanized way she was used to; the format of the words was distinctly Korean. It made Rumi’s back straighten, shoulders pulling back, falling into carefully dictated structure. Her adoptive mother’s words coursing down her spine like cold water. ‘Respect’. Good fucking lord.
”Uh, Yoon.” She corrected, blinking. “Rumi Yoon.”
Something in the woman’s face twitched, her brow tightening for a second and Rumi zeroed in on it, her paranoia starting to creep up. Why, exactly, was she here?
”My apologies”
The woman didn’t have much of an accent, her English spoken in a clipped sharp way, but it was barely there, vibrating behind the vowels. Korean? If not Korean maybe Northern China but the dialect wasn’t overtly close. Most Koreans would beat her with a stick if she even hummed about them potentially being from China so she’d just keep her mouth shut instead of letting those particular curiosities out in the open.
”I was not informed of the name change, but we need to have a conversation.”
A conversation? About what, exactly?
Curiosity killed the cat, but it was one of Rumi’s absolute greatest weaknesses. There was a lure dangling in front of her nose and for the life of her she wasn’t seeing any downside to grabbing it. What exactly was this greying asian woman even capable of doing to her? And the dropping of her bio family’s surname had lit a small fire in Rumi’s blood.
Who exactly was this woman, and why had she shown up, today of all days?
Rumi stared at her for a long second, unblinking, waiting for another shoe to drop but the woman stared back at her just as hard. Both of them, it seemed, had too much to say and too many corridors down which to say it. With a small glance of weakness the medic finally forced the air out of her lungs in a large huff.
”Okay” And Rumi held that vowel for a long breath, head tipping slightly as her practiced smile fell away to an awkward grimace. “I’ve got an hour left on shift… if nothing explodes.”
At least that seemed to catch this uptight lady off guard, eyes narrowing slightly in amusement or maybe distaste. Rumi had never been great at reading people.
With an abruptness Rumi probably should have expected at this point a hand came up and outstretched. It took her an embarrassingly long second to realize what was happening before Rumi snapped her own up to shake the woman’s hand; her grip firm.
”Kang Celine. I’ll come to collect you in an hour.” A pause. “Unless something explodes, I suppose.”
Oh so she did have a sense of humor. There was that at least, as stupid as it was to just go wandering off with some random woman. It wasn’t like it was the first time Rumi had done that though this situation seemed a lot less fun than those previous forays.
It was the bite of curiosity, long unsealed wounds reopening in a single breath of a surname that she wasn’t even allowed to have anymore, that caught her on that lure. The hook was deep, too.
”Alright.” And not one to forget her manners, Rumi took a small step back using her foot to stopper the door so she could offer the older woman a respectful bow once their hands had dropped. She didn’t miss the small smile that earned her. “I’ll meet you in an hour.”
And by golly nothing exploded.
It was the biggest shock, a quiet shift that ended quiet? Miracles were real.
So waving goodbye to Josh and begrudgingly accepting the way Scott grabbed her to haul her half off the ground in his typical exaggerated goodbye (leave it to firefighters) it was on a bit of a high that Rumi finally made her way towards the parking lot.
Maybe she would get answers today. Something, anything. A key to a chest of secrets she knew nothing about. Maybe this strange woman, Celine, would be able to give her more of an idea of who she would have been if another woman far far away from here had wanted her enough to keep her.
The thought sent a shudder up Rumi’s spine.
Not that she’d ever been good at being wanted. For fucks sake the people who had paid thousands to ship her across the ocean like a fucking dog didn’t even want her anymore.
Pushing the thought far from the front of her mind, she did her best to keep her face neutral. Because there she was, Kang Celine, leaning against a running black suv. Even while waiting that woman looked like she was prepared for someone to draw a weapon. Braced in a way that Rumi wasn’t used to seeing on civilians. The thought made her shoulder ache, old injuries reminding her that she probably should be just as worried.
Celine’s eyes caught her the second her boots hit the blacktop of their, barely plowed, parking lot. The woman straightened up, uncrossing her arms and shifted off the vehicle. Not that she needed to gain more height, that is if that’s what she was trying to do, she had to have five inches on Rumi.
”Get in. We’ll discuss further with the girls.”
And why, exactly, did this suddenly sound like a trafficking situation?
Still, Rumi had 24 hours before she had to be back at work so really she climbed into the opened door for the entertainment value of it all. What did she have to lose, anyway? And maybe, just maybe, she had a lot to gain here.