"People who provide first aid don't necessarily have to give the person rescue breaths: Unless you feel confident that you can do it."

That's what Lupin's professors told him and he had managed to remember it by chance.

"We will give chest compressions with mouth-to-mouth resuscitation – at a ratio of "30 to 2": After doing 30 chest compressions, you give the two rescue breaths, followed by 30 chest compressions, and so on." He told Denis.

"You're gonna give him mouth-to-mouth?"
"Yes, we need to make him breathe again. You change the towel and ensure he doesn't lose more blood."
"Mouth-to-mouth with a guy..."

"What is it?" Lupin wore another pair of sterilised rubber gloves.
"That's gay."

Lupin gently tilted Jimmy's head back. He used one hand to hold his chin and lift it up, then he used his thumb to keep his mouth open. He placed his other hand on his forehead and pinched his nose with his index finger and thumb, "Well, if me being gay ends up saving someone's life, I'd happily be gay,"

He took a normal breath, covered and sealed his open mouth with his, and blowed into his mouth for about one second. Jimmy's chest rose visibly when he breathed into his mouth, and sank again as soon as he moved away. Then, he turned to chest compressions and back to mouth-to-mouth. He did it for about five minutes and suddenly, Jimmy coughed.

Daniel laughed with excitement as the ECG gave faint beats again.
"It worked!"
"Yeah but what now?" Lupin looked worried, "I don't know what to do."

"Should I help?" Ben stood at the door.
"Who are you?"
"Just somebody." He too wore the rubber gloves and a mask, "Step aside." Ben commanded Lupin.

"But--"
"Can you save him? Because I know I can." Lupin looked at his pink eyes and got away from the table. Ben looked at Denis, "Is this your first time?"
"Y-Yes."

"Could you please switch that alarm off? It's a bit distracting."
"Oh! Yes sure," Denis switched off the alarms. Ben took the towel from him and kept it aside, the blood entered inside the cavity.

"What are you doing?" Lupin asked.
"What are your names?" Ben asked while worked on Jimmy's injury.
"I'm Denis."
"Lupin."

"Hello boys. I'm Ben."
"Are you a doctor?" Denis asked.
"I'm more of a researcher by profession. But I know a bit about surgeries. Do you guys have any experience in this feild?"

"No, but I have studied it." Lupin said
"I'm interested. Though, I have no knowledge or experience. I just thought I'd help, haha." Denis laughed.

Jimmy's vitals slowly went up and were back to normal. The pulse was normal too and there was no blood leaking into his brain anymore.

"What did you do?!" Lupin looked at him.
"Gentlemen, we'd be doing a craniobiopsy." Ben said.
"There's nothing like that," Lupin said and Ben smiled,
"Not in the past atleast,"

"Give anesthesia," Denis did that while Lupin passed him all the surgical tools. Jimmy was normal throughout the surgery. Ben's pink eyes shone as he looked through the layers of tissue. Lupin looked at his eyes.

His fingers were fast and he seemed to know what he was doing. He wasn't sweating at all either.
"What interests you about medicine?" Ben asked.
"Nothing. I just did it because my parents asked me to." Lupin said.

"I like medicine! I too want to be a researcher."
"Why?"
"So, that I can create a medicine that would cure every illness."
"We don't have anything like that even in the future. Those are some big dreams you have."

"Dream big!"
"Yep. What about you, Lupin? Don't you have a dream?"
"I... want to go into technology field and be a hacker in the army."
"Quite the patriotism there, haha. There, we are done."

"Done?"
"Let's stitch him back now, shall we?"
Lupin looked at the vitals. They were all normal--"How did you do it? It was almost impossible to save him..."
Ben smiled, "Denis, we don't need the anesthesia anymore."

"Oh, okay." Denis moved away and so did Lupin. Ben was done with the stitches by then.
"I should go wash up now," Ben removed his mask and gloves.

"Thank you, Ben."
"The pleasure is mine," Ben laughed.

. . . 

Jimmy slowly opened his eyes and looked at the ceiling above him. His head was covered with bandages and Lupin sat beside him.

"Does it hurt?" He asked.
"Lupin, you can talk?"
"I can't believe it either. I don't know how I did it."
"You've got a pretty sensual voice though,"
"Yeah, that's pretty gay." Lupin laughed.

"It feels so weirdly good to see you talk and laugh like any other person."
"I'll take that as a compliment."
Jimmy smiled, "So, it's all over? Did we win?"
"No, we lost. And now we're in this home like prison. Of course we won, idiot."

"Let me guess, Lucifer did it?"
"All of us did it. Lucifer, Asselyum, MiK, Norman, Valorie, Giles, Slaine, Axel, Riley, Frank, Denis, you, me, Ben."
"Didn't Valorie betray us?"
"He was undercover."
"Wait--You met Ben?"

"Yep."
"How is he?"
"All I can say is--Eyes! He might have the world's prettiest eyes."
"What did he look like?"

Lupin laughed, "You're acting as if he's gone!"
"He's here?!"
"He's right above us. On the terrace, with Slaine and himself."

"Himself?"
"Evelyn is Ben."
"Kaboom!"
"Same. He helped me with your injuries too. Thanks to him, you made it out alive."
"Let's go meet him!" Jimmy got up,
"No, you're resting!"

"But--"
"Meet him tomorrow. Just lay on bed today. You cracked your head open a week ago,"
"It's been a week?!"
"Yes."
"Is this what waking up from coma feel like? Hey, do I have a beard yet?"
"It's been seven days, not seven years."

"You must have shaved my beard during my sleep."
"You're living in an illusion, aren't you?"
"How was my head from inside, by the way?"
"It was empty."

"What? No, you mean my mind is empty? My skull can't be empty!"
"Your mind, huh? What should I say..." Lupin smiled, "It's a nice place be in."
"I just melted. Like ion wanna say its gay...But it is though."
"It's okay, I kissed you so we even,"
"What? Bro, kissed me on my lips, you mean?"

"Yeah, quite intensely too," Lupin chuckled. 
"Yo, that's...Kinda gay, homie"
"Kinda, yeah,"

. . .

Ben, Slaine and Evelyn stood at the terrace. Evelyn was drinking fruit juice while Ben took a sip of a beer can.

"Dad, what was that injection? It killed a 5th oblivion!" Ben asked.
"Well, remember how Gotham never ate flesh?"
"Yeah,"
"And whoever she bit didn't get affected."

"That was because of the anti venom I gave her to neutralise the poison in her."

"Exactly! That anti venom didn't just neutralise the poison, it made the blood human like and created an immunity against Antex."
"Yeah, I know that."

"So, when I mixed an X-DROID's blood inside that anti venom, it created a poison in itself. The anti venom created immune cells and blood activated them to kill themselves within a fraction of seconds. And they die. This was a pothole I found but I never thought it would work. It was a mere guess."

Ben kept his empty can aside and smiled,
"You might be smarter than me."

-To be continued

MiK and Norman
5500 Rebellion