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You're incapacitated. Which, by extension, means you're vulnerable — and in front of someone else, no less. Someone who happens to be your kismesis. It's humiliating, but by the look on his face, he doesn't think much of it. Murrit is often flippantly inconsiderate like this.
You had to be carried back to your hive, where he sat you down on one of the beanbag chairs you have in your room. It’d been a while since he last needed to do that. You’ve had time to regain your bearings and go over what happened in your mind, organize your thoughts. It's something.
As it is, Murrit's taken to leaning against the doorframe that leads into the kitchen, arms casually crossed over his chest. Just as you're about to ask if he’s going to move his ass out of here or not, he starts making his way toward you.
You would honestly get up and walk away if your leg wasn't fucking broken. He looks way too smug when he stops by your side and— stares. You make a point to stare right back, pushing any shame you may be feeling so deep into your core that it might just resurface eons later as a precious gemstone.
Murrit towers over you. Again — you hate being vulnerable. You tense up, shoulders hunched and mouth contorting into a grimace. Then, he kneels down, until his eyes are level with yours.
The two of you may be biting and harsh towards each other, but there are certain moments when you allow yourself to be... weaker than usual. You despise both of you for the time you spend within these short gaps, but at least they're always private. Trust is a coiled rope you bound your wrists together in, and the knots don’t come loose even then.
“'Ey, champ.” Oh, for fuck’s sake. He has the nerve to give you a thumbs up. “Ya did good out there.”
You breathe out through your nose and grit your teeth. “That's about the least appropriate comment you could be making right now." The dull throbbing of pain is impossible to tune out as you try to shift your weight off your injured leg.
You're not completely sure, but you think something softens in his expression. It's harder to read him when he has those dumb shades on. “Howzat not appropriate? Ya put up your best effort out there, chief, real good show.” He smirks, poking you on the cheek. You swat his hand away. “Still got them’s short end of the stick, though. Stick that happened to be the spiked tail-end of a large an' angry sunuvabitch.”
You roll your eyes. “Yeah, I fucking get it, man. Don't rub it in.”
He shoots you an impish grin — the one that you find infuriatingly charming, despite your better judgement — before looking down in order to investigate the bloody elephant in the room. You hear him click his tongue several times, muttering to himself. Not a good sign.
You venture a glance downward.
You hadn't exactly taken the time to inspect it yet, excluding the brief glimpses that slipped into your peripheral — but now that you see it, now that you really look at it, you’re kind of very worried. That pant leg is a goner, nearly shredded up to your thigh, drenched in blood and barely covering the torn up flesh underneath. It's ugly.
Yeah, there was a good fucking reason you weren’t looking at it earlier.
Murrit sucks in a breath through his teeth. “Yup, that's a nasty break right there, D-man, not gonna lie. Nastier than a—”
“I fucking dare you to finish that sentence.” You glare daggers into him, knowing full-well where he was going with that one. You do not feel like dealing with it today. Or pretty much ever, honestly.
He laughs. Bastard. “‘Least lemme patch it up. Ya know what they say, jet fuel don’t heal steel bones.”
You can’t help the exasperated groan that leaves your mouth. “What the fuck? Nobody says that.”
Murrit doesn't elaborate, in a predictable move that nonetheless manages to get under your skin. Instead, he gets up and leaves — to look for whatever shitty first aid supplies you might have lying around, you presume. You pass the time by slowly counting from one to ten, measuring your breathing, and trying not to think about how your entire left side feels like one giant raw nerve.
Eventually, he comes back. You watch as he resumes his previous position by your side, scattering the fruits of his search around him: several pieces of clean cloth, a pillow for padding, some hard cardboard you had lying around — even a pack of dry ice, for good measure. He briefly catches your eyes and you nod your agreement, begrudging gratitude spilling out of you as a mumbled thanks. You spot a wry smile before you duck your head, and he begins to treat your leg.
You're used to pain like this, after sweeps of less-than-ideal treatment from your custodian. Really, you are. On more than one occasion, you’ve had to haul your own ass out of the water and walk home limping, bleeding out or otherwise, with no assistance from anyone whatsoever. Too many times to count.
Having someone else be gentle with you — now, that's an entirely different story. One you’re still not used to. You can't stop flinching, accidentally jolting your leg up at the slightest touch, even as he’s being careful with his movements. It's embarrassing. At the very least, it's only him here with you, and he wouldn't take advantage of this particular kind of vulnerability.
He places a steadying hand on your knee after a particularly violent lurch, amusement evident on his features. “Easy there, tiger. Any jumpier and I woulda figured you’d already up ‘n gotten yourself all better.”
You cover your burning face and hear him chuckle. “Shut up.”
He finishes wrapping the wound, then sits down next to you, his side pressed flush against yours. You idly inspect his handiwork — Murrit is no doctor, but the two of you have had your fair share of scrapes in the past. It’s a decent enough job. You turn around to tell him just that, and your breath hitches.
Murrit is shooting you a look that asks for intimacy. A little tilt of the head, a gentle smile, raised brows. It’s... more familiar than it ought to be, probably. You’ve done this song and dance before — not often, far from it, but still enough times that it’s starting to make you anxious. A sudden wave of shame roils around in your stomach, stopping you dead in your tracks.
You hesitate, for a few long seconds, before wrapping an arm around his torso and letting him take you in his arms. You've earned this, it's fine. This is not anything too out of the ordinary for the two of you.
It's fine.
You let yourself breathe, huddled up close to his chest. You still hurt like hell, but it's easy enough to relax with the sound of soft chitters and chirps — what the fuck. He's never done that before.
Okay. You don't think you're exactly... complaining. It's just — this is not how these stolen moments between you usually go.
And there’s always the nagging little voice inside your head that comes back to haunt you, just like it's doing right now. What quadrant is this supposed to fit into? Is this normal, is this acceptable ? Are you just lying to yourself?
As Murrit rests his chin on your head, you’re struck by the thought that your relationship sometimes feels like a car crash in slow motion. You're gripping at the steering wheel, and you can see it happening in your mind's eye, but there's nothing you can do to sway the vehicle from its set course. Thinking about it, even for a second, is about as stressful as having your femur broken into multiple pieces and then handled by someone with no proper medical qualifications to speak of. More stressful than that, actually.
So you don't. You close your eyes, and you grip harder, and you aggressively tune out that frantic voice.
Or you try to, anyway.
You love him. You hate him, you tell yourself, and there's nothing wrong with a little closeness when you need it. You hold on to that thought like a lifeline as one of his hands draws soothing circles by the base of your left horn, and you let your eyes close.
He doesn't do that very often — that's usually more Jentha's thing. But he can tell when your stress is too much, when you’re close to bursting at the seams, and you’d be lying if you said it didn’t consistently help take the edge off. You want to stay like this for another hour, maybe more. Maybe forever? Yeah, forever sounds good.
...This isn't right.
God. This is very wrong.
Your heart starts racing and you feel sick to your stomach, like you just swallowed a lump of lead.
“Okay. Okay! Stop.”
Murrit lets go instantly, as if your skin just burned him. You look up and meet his eyes, frenzied. “What’s — what the fuck is going on, Murrit?”
His face is a little more violet than usual as he hesitates on an answer, opening his mouth, closing it, then opening it again. “Y'know how it is.”
“How it is. No, I don’t know how it is.”
He rolls his eyes, settling his gaze on the wall behind you — the corkboard by your desk, you assume. He also starts bouncing his right leg up and down, repeatedly, almost erratically. It’s a nervous habit you know well. “Jus’ thought you'd wanna wind down a bit, that's all.”
You don't really have an answer to that.
So he runs his mouth again. “But whateva. I know you gots this all handled. You been through worse! Way, way, way worse, my mans.”
You scowl. “You do realize that doesn't make this,” you gesture to your mess of assorted injuries, particularly the big gash on your left thigh, “any less painful? Asshole.”
Murrit suddenly jolts up, letting out that raspy, harsh chuckle that makes you think of... worse times. “C'mon, babe, it'll be gone in half a lickety-split. Less than that, even. You got self heal, don’tcha? Time ta’ activate it, chop chop.”
He conveniently forgets every single time that no, self healing is not a magical painkiller, and no, you can’t just “activate it, chop chop.” Either that, or he does remember and is just trying to get under your skin again. Guess which one is more likely.
“Fuck off!”
The worst part is that it's working.
Your comment hardly deters him — not that you really expected it to. He turns his head around, shooting you an infuriating grin over his shoulder. “You love me.”
You swallow dryly. “I do not.”
Murrit bends down at the waist, getting closer again and caging you in with his arms. “Yeah ya do, tri-slice.”
In what feels like a split second, he pulls you forward for a kiss, rough and bordering on violent. You are suddenly right back in your comfort zone, blood boiling and seeing red, as pitch as can be. Same as always.
Then, a sharp pain shoots up from your mauled leg and directly into your spine, like an ice pick forming thick fractals over a lake. Your eyes water and you see stars, and it’s like your entire left side is on fire for a solid five seconds before it hits him — both the realization that he caused you more harm than intended, and your fist. You bite down on his lower lip until you taste blood, for good measure. He stumbles backwards with a pained grunt.
You are absolutely fuming. “Watch what you're leaning on!”
You hate how your voice cracks at the end. Tears blur your vision as latent pain pulses through your leg, and — part of you wants him to just fucking apologize, but the rest is fully aware that he won't.
He doesn't.
“Cool it, shortstack.” By the time you look up, he’s already gone back to where you keep your medical supplies, and you hear soft rustling as he rummages through the cabinet. Murrit comes back a few moments later with a pill bottle that's mostly empty — actual pain medication, unlike the “natural” kind he likes to pretend you have.
You begrudgingly accept it. The word sorry never actually leaves his mouth, but there's something vaguely apologetic in the way he watches over you as you dry swallow a few pills.
That’s good enough, you tell yourself as he sits back down next to you, just a little further apart than before.
The rest of the night is hazy at best. Exhaustion gets the better of you after an hour or so of rewatching a few of his shitty tapes and quietly bickering, and you wake up the next day alone. It's a silent but clear request to discreetly sweep certain details from the past night under the carpet. Forgive and forget. You’re used to this.
And even as the idea leaves a much more bitter taste in your mouth than usual, in the end, it's still less scary that way.
It's safe.
And it's going to be a lot harder to get up today.