[Synopsis: MrCheese ends up getting his hand caught in one of the ship's automatic doors. As you can probably imagine, that's pretty bad...Fortunately, TheGentleman knows a thing or two about how to deal with situations like these. More GentleCheese fluff! (Why not? It's in high demand, isn't it?)]

[Location: The Skeld]

____________________________________________________________

Hissss...

"Oh, blast it all..." TheGentleman muttered, his brow furrowing. "Whoever the Impostors are this round, they certainly are fond of shutting the doors left and right."

He'd just accepted the power to Security, and was just about to leave the room when the doors slammed shut in his face. That'd been happening a LOT this round. If the Impostors(or at least one of them) intended to annoy the crew as much as prevent them from completing their tasks in a timely fashion, then they were succeeding.

Shkss!

When they finally opened back up, TheGentleman hurried out of the room and went into the Upper Engine...Only for the doors in said room to shut on him there, too, just before he could make it to the next hallway.

"Ugh...At least I have most of my tasks done already."

He didn't know how he'd managed to do it, but despite the constant blocking off of rooms that was going on, he was able to get his tasks done faster than most of the other crewmembers, and he considered himself pretty lucky. He only had one thing left to do: finish inspecting the sample in Medbay. And once that was done, he had plans to camp in Admin to see if he spotted anything fishy on the map.

"When and if I find out who's doing all of this, I'll not only have them promptly ejected, but also give them a piece of my mind on the matter..."

"AaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAAHAAAHAAAAOWIEEE!!!"

"Huh!?"

The sudden scream coming from the opposite end of the door was quick to grab his attention. Initially, he was too startled by the call to recognize the person who made it, but once TheGentleman gathered his thoughts again, he realized who it was.

"MrCheese? MrCheese, is that you!?"

"HELP! TheGentleman, help me...!"

His cry for help quickly turned into actual crying.

"What's going on out there!?"

As if they themselves knew how concerned TheGentleman was, the doors slid open, and the black crewmate dashed out of the engine room as soon as he had the chance. He spied MrCheese by the Medbay doors, but nobody else was around; therefore, an Impostor was likely not the cause of his anguish.

He rushed over to where his distressed work associate was standing and skidded to a halt beside him, assessing the situation as quickly as he could.

"MrCheese, what-Oh my heavens!"

He quickly found the problem, but it only heightened his concern even more. The entire top half of MrCheese's right hand was caught in between the two sliding doors.

"How did you manage to do this!?" he spat, just as confused as he was worried...MrCheese failed to make much sense through his crying though; the only phrases TheGentleman could make out were "scan," "about to go in," and "in the doorway." He came to the conclusion that MrCheese must have just been about to enter the room when the doors shut on him, and his hand was, as luck would have it, in the doorway when they closed.

After what felt like forever, the Medbay doors whooshed back open, and the orange crewmate drew his hand back towards himself and held onto it with his other, recoiling up against the hallway wall and sinking to the ground as he continued to bawl. He looked about as helpless as a child.

"Oh dear me..." TheGentleman said to himself as he approached him. "MrCheese, we'd better get you into Medbay so we can see whether or not anything is broken, alright?"

He not no clear response...His associate had to have been really bad off if he couldn't even muster an answer for him.

"...May I see your good hand, MrCheese?"

He didn't say anything(at least, TheGentleman couldn't detect any words through his crying,) but he at least gave him eye contact this time, and reached his left hand out for him to take...It was shaking as badly as the rest of him was.

Once they locked hands, TheGentleman pulled MrCheese back onto his feet...The orange crewmate seemed barely able to stand on his own, so he supported his weight against his side as he brought him into Medbay and lead him onto the scanner before booting it up for him and stepping back for a moment.

"Just try to stand up straight, MrCheese. It won't take long, I promise."

TheGentleman watched him like a hawk the entire time, standing only a few inches away from the scanner and with his hands spread out in case MrCheese couldn't keep his balance.

Scan Complete in 3...2...1...

Scan Complete

Finally the scan went through, and the injured crewmate stumbled off of it and landed in his work associate's grasp.

"Easy now, MrCheese..."

He gently brought him to one of the beds and sat him down on it. MrCheese was still crying, but he could speak a bit more coherently now.

"H-hurts..." he sobbed. "...Hurts really bad..."

"I can imagine...Let me go see what the scan turned up."

He headed over to the screen displaying the results of the scan and took a look at the results...In the X-ray above the description, MrCheese's injured hand came up in red.

____________________________________________________________

N: MrCheese
ID: ORAP3:  HT: 5'4"  WT: 121lb
C: Orange
BT: A-
TEMP: 98.8° F
BP: 121/82
HR: 97.3 bpm

COMPLICATIONS:

Sites: Hand(RIGHT)

Acute Inflammation
Fractures(3 located)
  -Third Metacarpal
  -Fourth Metacarpal
  -Second Proximal Phalynx

____________________________________________________________

...Not good.

"Well, I..." TheGentleman told his associate. "I don't mean to alarm you, MrCheese, but it looks like your hand is broken in a few spots."

"Wh-what are w-we g-gonna do...!?" he managed to ask, on the verge of bawling again. "I-I don't know if-f anyone h-here knows h-how t-to fix this...!"

"Well, MrCheese...Believe it or not, I actually know a thing or two about how to treat an injury like this. I took an extra course on medical emergencies in crewmate college, and I might remember how to treat a broken hand."

"Y-you do?"

"I should!" he smiled, trying to lift MrCheese's spirits. "Now, can you lift your hand up for me to look at?"

He nodded, then slowly raised his unsteady hand for TheGentleman to inspect...It was red and swollen, and there was a noticeable break in the skin where the door had landed that was bleeding.

"Tsk tsk tsk...Yes, that does look bad. The good news it that they're all clean breaks, according to the X-ray, so they should be able to be manipulated back into place without surgical intervention."

"W-will it hurt...?" MrCheese sniveled.

"Not if we administer regional anesthesia," he answered him as he opened up the medical cabinets and searched for something of the sort. "I do hope we have some here..."

"Wh-what does that do, Th-theGentleman?"

"It will just numb your hand up so you don't feel the bones being put back into place and your hand being immobilized. Without it, you would likely scream out in agony as I fixed you up...Ah, here's some!"

He grabbed a container and syringe from one of the cabinets and prepared the needle.

"...MrCheese?"

"Yeah...?"

"I know how much you hate needles, but...In order to do what must be done, I'm going to have to use one."

"What...!?"

He made some incomprehensible protest as his crying started getting louder again.

"Take it easy, MrCheese!"

He approached him again, trying his best to conceal the needle from view as not to further upset him.

"Listen, MrCheese...If you just close your eyes and turn away, then it'll be over before you even know it happened, alright?"

The orange crewmate nearly choked on his own sobs as he tried to calm them enough to muster a clear response.

"O-ok-kay..."

"You best do that now."

He turned his head away and squeezed his visor shut in fearful anticipation. A needle going into his broken hand? What kind of torture would that be? The thought of it alone made him tense up. He wasn't ready. He never would be. He would have rather had to suffer a horrible fate at the hands of the Impostors than have to...

"Done!"

His visor popped open, and the tears that'd been bubbling up underneath them finally escaped and ran down his face.

"Wh...what? Y-you're f-finished already?"

"It only took about a second," TheGentleman explained. "Now once your hand goes numb, I can begin working to reposition the bones."

"And...I-it's not g-gonna hurt?"

"It shouldn't; all you should feel is a tad bit of pressure now and then. And furthermore, the anesthesia should take away most of the already present pain as well, once it starts to do its job."

"Wh-when's it gonna s-start w-working?"

"Any second, now."

As if on queue, MrCheese felt the searing pain in his hand begin to subside. And with the pain went the rest of the feeling in his hand.

He sniffled again, and used his good hand to wipe his face dry of some of the tears streaming down it, though they still continued to fall.

"I...I think it's working now," he told him.

"You can't feel a thing?"

"No...N-not really."

"Alright. Then I shall do my part."

MrCheese turned his head away again as TheGentleman took his hand and started aligning the broken bones; he preferred not to look at something like that going on...Every so often, he felt a bit of a tingly sensation in his numb hand, but nothing he would have considered painful. And even though he wasn't keen on looking at what his associate was doing, he did look him in the eye once in a while, and every time, he got a reassuring nod from him.

It seemed like it was taking him a while to realign the bones. But after several minutes, TheGentleman carefully set MrCheese's hand down on the bed and headed back over to the medical cabinet.

"Keep that hand as still as possible, MrCheese. No fidgeting. I'll be right back."

He complied without any protest; the last thing he wanted was to mess up TheGentleman's progress after how much time he spent properly aligning the bones in his hand...Besides, he wasn't really able to feel it anyways, so fidgeting would be difficult.

"Alright..." the black crewmate murmured as he approached the bed again, carrying a roll of cloth bandages and a sturdy hand brace along with him. "Now all I need to do is immobilize your hand, MrCheese, and you'll be good to go."

"Okay..." he squeaked in return, another tear streaming down from his visor.

"Are you sure you're not in any pain, MrCheese? You are still very obviously upset..."

"I-I'm sure. I'm just s-still a little sh-shaken up...It all h-happened so quickly, a-and it just hurt so much...I'm so sorry you have to do all this..."

He sniffled again, hiding his visor in the back of his good hand to try and hide away the tears trying to spill from it; he knew he'd made enough of a spectacle of himself, especially in front of TheGentleman, and he just wished he could calm down as easily as he wanted to.

"Hush now, MrCheese..." the black crewmate consoled as he wrapped his broken hand up in the bandages. "This isn't your fault. It's the fault of whoever is closing all of the doors...And I don't mind treating your injured hand for you, you know."

"Y-you don't...?"

"No. I am not only glad to help, but also pleased that I get to exercise some of what I learned in crewmate college; keeps it all fresh in the mind, you know? Really, this incident likely kept me from forgetting some important know-how."

"Really...?" he sniffed.

"Yes, really," TheGentleman smiled as he opened the hand cast up, fitted it over the thick layer of dressing that was wrapped around MrCheese's hand and strapped it shut.

"There we go...I think that just about does it."

"I-it does?"

"Yes, yes, I think it should be just fine. Within a few weeks to a month, it should be right as rain and we can take the cast off," he confirmed as he pressed the button to finish inspecting the sample. "...I assume you're not in horrible pain anymore?"

"No...I-I'm doing better...I think that's the stuff you put in my hand..."

"Yes, true. But even when it wears off, I do believe your hand will still be feeling better than it did before..."

"O-okay...That's good..."

"Would you like a tissue to dry your face with, dear friend?"

MrCheese gave him a light nod in response, and the black crewmate fetched a box of them from the left side of the medical cabinet and brought it to where he sat...His patient pulled one from the box and practically squished it up against his face, crumpling it as it soaked up the tears left on his face.

"MrCheese, if you're still shaken up over the whole ordeal, then why don't you rest in here for a while and finish your tasks when you're up to it?"

"Well...M-medbay scan was the last thing I had on my list, so..."

"Was it?" TheGentleman asked. "What a coincidence; my last task was in here too. Ha! I just finished the sample inspection."

"TheGentleman?"

"Yes, MrCheese?"

"Could...C-can you stay with me?"

The black crewmate turned to face his associate again, looking a bit thoughtful on the matter.

"Well...I suppose," he decided, sitting on the bed beside MrCheese. "I haven't got anything better to do."

MrCheese grabbed another tissue, this time dabbing along the tear tracks streaking his face more delicately. He wasn't nearly as distraught as he was before, but his eyes were still watery, and his small, bean-shaped form still shook a bit from the stress.

"...Can I have hug, pwease?"

TheGentleman held back a chuckle; his associate's inability to produce a proper "r" or "l" sound was quaintly amusing, and he couldn't turn down a request like that.

"Of course you may," he chirped softly, scooching closer and letting MrCheese lean against him as he wrapped him into an embrace. "...You likely need one after all of that."

The orange crewmate huddled up closer to him and hugged his knees to himself. Another stray tear escaped from his visor, and TheGentleman reached out to brush it away with one hand while he used the other to pat the back of his head.

"Just calm down, MrCheese. There's no need to weep anymore..."

He curled up further into a ball and pressed himself against the black crewmate a tad more.

"J-just keep hugging me and tell me everything's going to be okay..."

"Everything is going to be okay, MrCheese..." he promised. "You're all patched up now, and there's nothing to worry about."

Slowly but surely, MrCheese's heartrate slowed, and his breathing evened out...After no more than a few minutes, it was hard for TheGentleman to remember just how upset he'd been before, because now he looked about ready to fall asleep on him.

"...Tired?"

"Hmm...Yeah...A little..."

"Why don't you get under the bed sheets and lie down for a bit?" TheGentleman suggested. "That ought to calm your nerves."

"...I don't think I have the time."

"Why not?"

"Take a look at the task bar."

The black crewmate took a peek at the bar; just as he did, the last bit of space between the end and the progress meter closed, and the room faded to black around them.

Victory

The two of them, along with the rest of the crew, spawned back in, and everyone but the two of them hopped off of their seats.

"Oh, come on!" Player exclaimed, having apparently been one of the two Impostors. "I couldn't get ONE good opening! Why!?"

"Pfffrrrrrt," his accomplice responded flatly.

"That better not translate to 'because you suck,' PoopyFarts."

"No, he said that it was because multiple people did visual tasks and we ended up herding together," Captain assured him. "Sorry you weren't on our side this round."

He sighed disappointedly.

"Just my luck..."

"Heyo, TheGentleman," Veteran addressed the black-suited crewmember as he appeared next to him, taking note of his associate's cast. "What's up with MrCheese's hand? Don't remember him spawning in with that."

"Oh, hello, Veteran. I'm afraid he had a rather nasty accident back by Medbay, and it required a bit of medical intervention. But he's doing quite alright now."

"Looks to me like he's about to conk out."

"Yes, well...He was is such a great deal of distress that he ended up exhausting himself."

"Oh...Dang. Must've been bad."

"It was indeed, good sir."

At that point, MrCheese had given into the urge to sleep, so TheGentleman carefully propped his head up off of him as he stood up from the dropship seat and then carefully lowered it back down...He seemed very much at ease.

"...But I'm happy to say that it's all behind us now."

The tender glimmer in his visor was quick to fade, however; as soon as he turned around to face the rest of the crew, his gaze hardened, and he approached Player and PoopyFarts.

"As for YOU TWO," he addressed them sternly. "Would either of you care to tell me which of you was CONSTANTLY closing the doors? MrCheese would have never broken his hand if it hadn't been for that!"

Without missing a beat, the brown Impostor from last round pointed an accusatory finger at his accomplice...Player deflated; PoopyFarts wasn't lying.

"Yeah...That was me," he confessed. "...I'm sorry."

TheGentleman emitted a frustrated huff.

"I know you did not intend for something like that to happen, Mr. Player. But next time you get the role of the Impostor, would you focus less on trapping people and more on killing them?"

"Guess so..."

"Good. Thank you...Now if you'll excuse me, I think it would be best if MrCheese and I left the lobby and headed home; he's in need of a nice long nap, I do believe. Good day to you all."

He grabbed MrCheese by the hand and tipped his top hats to the rest of the crew just before the two of them disappeared.

TheGentleman left the game.

MrCheese left the game.

They reappeared in TheGentleman's living room, and the black crewmate lead his dozing associate to the sofa and set him down on it.

That's that, then, he said to himself as he draped one of the fleece throws over him to use as a blanket. Glad you turned out alright, MrCheese...Sleep well.

____________________________________________________________

I'm no doctor, so I wouldn't really know how this kind of thing would be done unless I went to medical school myself, so I probably made TheGentleman do a few things wrong when he treated MrCheese's hand, lmao.

For any of you wondering where this idea spawned from, it's actually based off of something similar that I went through a while ago. Not as bad as MrCheese's case(not by a long shot) but it still hurt like a butt cheek on a stick. XD