Chapter Text
It had all started with an innocuous power cut.
It had reset your alarm clock in the middle of the night, leading to your alarm not going off and you arriving at work- five hours late! To make matters worse, head office was coming to inspect your department tomorrow and everything had to be absolutely perfect otherwise your ass was getting fired. So, you kept working long into the night, triple checking all emails and documents to make sure everything was above board. By the time you’d finished, it was leaving 1 am and any chance of a normal walk home was long gone.
You were a hyper paranoid individual by nature, so the fact that you could only afford an apartment on the edge of the Nest, was panic inducing on a normal day. You clutched the pepper spray in your pocket as you hastily snuck from one streetlight to another, scurrying around in the dark like a frightened mouse. You were so close, you just had a couple more corners to sneak around, and you would be home free. That was until you heard a raspy cough, and a half-hearted curse come from behind a nearby trash heap.
“…H-Hello?” you called out nervously in the direction of the sound. There was a sound of fabric shifting, before a dull thud, another curse and that had you wondering if the person had even heard you. If you were smarter, you would’ve already sprinted away from the creepy alleyway, but a part of you felt guilty that this person could need help. You slowly started tiptoeing in the direction of the noise, making a point of ducking below all the various junk and boxes to hide your approach, holding your trusty spray out in front of you.
You felt your foot slide on the damp concrete, but you managed to catch yourself, before glancing downwards at whatever had almost caused you to fall. Your (e/c) eyes widened when you saw droplets of crimson staining the fabric of your casual trainers. That… that was a lot of blood, wasn’t it? There seemed to be a trail of it leading to a partially blocked off area, and for some reason you found yourself determined to find out just what you had stumbled onto.
Upon getting closer, you started to hear the laboured panting, reminding you of an injured animal, and a horrible wet sounding cough. Whatever condition this person was in, it didn’t seem promising. You peeked your head out, seeing if you could get a quick glance of the person only to feel cold steel against your throat.
You yelped in alarm and without thinking, pressed down on your pepper spray without realising it was facing the wrong way, and sprayed yourself in the face. You had roughly thirty seconds to register the sight of a heavily wounded man with his long crimson sword shakily pointing at you. An indigo eye was almost black from adrenaline, fear or blood loss and he had an expression of confused horror on his face.
Then the pepper spray kicked in.
You howled and wailed, rolling around on the ground as your eyes and face burned with the heat of a thousand suns. You coughed and coughed, crying the ugliest tears in your life, as you struggled to not throw up from the pain you had inflicted on yourself. You heard the clink of the sword hitting the ground, the man dropping his guard completely in the face of your stupidity.
“…Tch,” he made an annoyed noise before a coughing fit overtook him. “Dunno… why I bothered… raising my sword… you’re more dangerous to yourself… ya daft bird…” He had a deep voice, but it was laboured with exhaustion. At some point when the pain dimmed, you realised you had some water in your backpack, and groped blindly around it, trying to find the zip.
“I-It’s your fault!” you shrieked, angry at everything that was currently happening to you. “You can’t just go around pointing swords at people!” Your prayers were answered, when your fingers felt the small metal loop and you yanked the bag open before proceeding to pour the whole bottle out on your face.
“Uh… yeah, I can.” The man growled, seemingly unhappy at being told off. “…It’s my fuckin’ job, mate.” You didn’t want to ask what kind of job leads a man to carry around a massive sword and be bleeding out in an alleyway at questionable hours. Those kinds of questions would just get you in trouble, so you said the first thing that came to mind.
“What? Threatening harmless women who come to help you? That’s a shit job.” You could feel your vision start to return to you, but everything was still blurry as fuck. This wasn’t good.
“Oy.” His dangerous tone was back but you honestly could care less considering how much of a shit show today had been. “Ye really wanna… piss off the man…. with the sword?” You glared at the black and red blob, completely unintimidated.
“You want to bleed out in a dodgy alleyway at two in the morning?” There was an ominous silence before you heard the man break out into a strange laughing/coughing fit.
“Ye got me…” You blinked in confusion at his sudden shift in demeanour, wondering if the man realised how bad a state he was in. You rubbed at your eyes fiercely until you were able to properly see again and was surprised at the sight before you. Bloodied bangs were covering his left eye, while the other eye had a healed scar carved vertically into his face. His tanned dark skin was completely covered in scars of various shapes and sizes, but the worrying part was the large crimson slash in his chest that was still oozing dark clumps of red.
“Fuck.” That was the most articulate thing that came out of your mouth upon seeing this attractive thug. You swore his arms must be the size of fucking tree trunks. Fuck, why the fuck were you eying him up like a piece of meat. What was wrong with you? Who could even mess up someone who looked like he’d eat most people alive for dinner?!
“…That bad, eh?” His resigned expression caught you off guard, the man looked like he was going to accept death. Like this moment was a long time in the coming. You tried your best to keep some kind of composure around the man.
“…I’ve seen worse.” That was a lie. A complete lie. Judging from the incredulous look on his face, he didn’t buy your words in the slightest.
“…Funny, ye look more like… a pencil pusher than a doctor…” You scowled at the insult and the injured man just grinned at you when he realised that he was right about your occupation.
“Hey, those pencils don’t push themselves!” You really had to think before opening your mouth to stop yourself from saying the dumbest shit. Still, you saw his one visible eye crinkle up in amusement.
“Haha… I’m screwed, ain’t I? Just admit it…” You shook your head fiercely, trying to think of the best course of action, refusing to accept the fact that this man might die.
“N-No… I, er, live nearby… I have some strong alcohol; I could disinfect the wound…? Could use a sewing kit for stitches… drop by the pharmacy in the morning and get some general antibiotics…” You were more speaking to yourself aloud than the man, but you saw a surprised look on his face at your willingness to offer makeshift aid.
“…You’d help me…?” The slight hope in his question made your heart ache even as you nodded. “…Ye fuckin’ daft bint…” You saw him plant his feet on the ground, as he pushed against the wall behind him to leverage himself up to his feet shakily. You made a surprised squeak when you realised the man was much taller than you were, before hastily getting a grip of yourself and aligning yourself under his shoulder to take some of his body weight.
Instantly, you felt like a lead weight had been dropped on you, but your wobbly legs managed to keep you both upright. You knew he was going to be heavy, but for fucks sake, was the man just literally made out of muscles? The worst part was you could tell he was trying to take as much strain as he could in his condition, and you were still struggling. His shoulder feeling clammy and cool against your heated skin made you realise just how little time was on his side. Keeping your gripes to yourself, you pulled on whatever reserves of strength you had from your sporadic gym attendance and slowly made your way towards your apartment.
~*~
The second you crossed the threshold was around the time your legs decided to give up on you causing you both to topple into the floor with a loud thud. You were expecting the man to chew you out for the mishap, but when you disentangled yourself from him, you realised he was out cold. Panicking, you started running around your house gathering the necessary items, and then dragging him a little out of the doorway so you could close your door, before rolling him around onto his back.
You had prepared a dish of warm water, some old sheets that you’d torn up as makeshift bandages, a half bottle of tequila, scissors, and your sewing kit as you started thinking about every medical tv show you’d ever watched. He was a mess though, covered in dirt, blood and who knows what else. It’d be a miracle if he didn’t die to infection. You hesitantly grabbed the scissors and started cutting away the remains of his vest to get a good look at the wound. More tanned, muscled, and scarred skin was revealed along with the large crimson gash that had been carved from the middle of his chest outwards. It seems like it had started clotting, but any movement was causing the wound to tear anew.
Wasting no more time, you dipped a clean rag in the water before you wiped down his chest trying to get rid of the worst of any muck. Next, you opened the bottle of tequila and wet another rag with it before dabbing it onto the wound. There was no reaction at all from the unconscious male, so you placed an ear on his chest to double check that he was still alive. His heartbeat was still there, but it was faint. Next, came the stitching, you tried your best to squeeze the wound closed as you worked to try and seal it with your haphazard attempt at stitches. It was probably going to end up as an ugly scar… but based on his current appearance, you figured he probably wouldn’t care all that much.
Satisfied with the fact you were hopefully improving his condition, you started wiping the blood off his face and got a better look at the man you were trying to save. His neutral expression paired with the fact he wasn’t glaring anymore; made you realise just how handsome he was underneath his rough exterior. Your cheeks flushed before you could stop them, yet you forced those feelings aside to focus on the cut he had on his forehead. It looked shallow, after all the blood was cleaned away, so you figured it was okay to leave it.
Now, it was the hard part… getting him onto a bed or couch without you breaking your back. You stood up, looping your arms around his strong shoulders before you slowly started dragging him towards your living room. Your body was dripping with sweat- this was the most physical exertion you’d done in a long time. Not to mention, your brain was properly fried from working so late. If you hadn’t been concerned about the man dying, you’d have probably just passed out on the couch before even making it to bed. Still, you weren’t going to go back on your word. You lost track of the time, and amount of strange body positions you had to contort into to manoeuvre the stranger onto your couch, but he was finally there. You were so done with everything, that you grabbed your spare blanket from the nearby closet and just chucked it on the man haphazardly.
The asshole better be grateful when he wakes up, you thought, before realising that it was only a might. You didn’t like the idea that you could potentially wake up to a corpse in the morning. Shaking your head to rid yourself of your morbid thoughts, you kicked off your shoes and clothes, leaving you clad in your underwear, before you wormed your way into the covers, intent on sleeping forever.
Fuck PJs, fuck doing your teeth, the day had sucked, and tomorrow was hopefully going to be better.