Work Text:
Mr Hayashi takes a sick day
by Solo & Jo
The strike hits like fire, like a bullet but everywhere, spreading and spreading and not stopping, licks of flame as far as his fingertips.
Bem's on the ground. His knees gave, it's alien and alarming and it won't stop. Green blood trickles into his eyes but he hardly feels the burn under the throbbing from his forehead, like something shook his brain loose.
Something clatters to the ground, the iron bar, green blood there too, and Natsume is shouting, running...
When his skin stretches from the turn, it gets worse, and the world gets fuzzy.
"Bem." Natsume, beside him. When Bem opens his eyes, there's a pink line next to him. "Bem, are you hurt? My god, I'm so sorry, what— you never..."
"My..." He wants to lift his arm for his forehead, but everything is unsteady. "It hurts."
"Let's get you home," Natsume says, his voice high. "Can you walk?"
With help, he can. But he can't think, he's slipping and sliding, his skin rough but weak, the green then the pale. Natsume must feel it in his grip.
They're going to Natsume's apartment. Bem recognises the street and finally tries to concentrate, it's dark but there can still be people. But Natsume throws his coat over Bem and doesn't stop long enough for concentration, just pulls him on.
*~*~*
He's sitting on the sofa, the throbbing easing enough that he can see properly, when he notices how quiet it is, how little Natsume has said. It's a little strange.
Bem collects his breath, and asks, "Are you all right, Natsume-san?"
Natsume's by the kitchen sink, doing things with his hands but entirely looking at Bem. "That's never happened before," he says.
No, Bem thinks, no. He doesn't remember pain like this, there, ever.
"It was unlucky," he tries. "I'll pay more attention next time."
Natsume just looks at him, saying nothing when he always has something to say. Bem doesn't want Natsume looking like this, so frozen over something that won't ultimately matter.
"I am all right," he says. "It just... hurts. There." The skin is healing right now, though even that carries a sting. "But it's fine now."
"It looked dangerous," Natsume says; just that.
Bem reaches for his forehead to wipe the blood away. The pressure sears him, but he feels the stains thinning under his fingers.
Suddenly Natsume jumps into action, all limbs at once. "Stop that! Don't touch it!"
Bem obeys and lets his hands sink again.
"I," Natsume says scratchily, "I just think... you can't even see what you're doing."
Bem doubts that is a problem. He hurts, he heals, no matter what he does in the end. Except he never hurts so badly as a monster, at least not on the outside. Maybe something else is weird.
"Is something wrong?" he asks Natsume carefully.
"What... a guy hit you on the horns with an iron pipe and you were writhing on the ground and now you're bloody all over and you're asking me..." Natsume stops waving his hands around, buries them in his bushy brown hair instead. "Okay, wait. Just don't move. Don't move, okay?"
Bem doesn't move.
Natsume does something with running water and then he tears through one of his cupboards, and then another one, until he finds what he's looking for and ends up crouching before Bem with a bowl of water and a fluffy kitchen cloth.
"Just tell me if it hurts, okay?" he says, and gives Bem one of his more serious stares. "Like for serious, not the Bem all brave not hurting, okay?" He's worrying his lip, wetting the cloth, and Bem nods, lets Natsume tilt his head forward by his chin.
The touch is warm and impossibly light, too light to be a real burn.
"With Yui-chan I always used antiseptic, she fell a lot when she was little, you know. But who knows what else that might do." Natsume dabs the cloth around Bem's horns, steering clear of the tips. "I've never seen you go down like that. Usually it's me flopping around. I'm not used to this. Not that I particularly want to get used to it."
Bem closes his eyes. It scared him, too, to feel so helpless. It's not like him. He can always take anything.
Natsume washes the cloth out. Then the warm softness is back, chasing down the rest of the blood. "Your skin looks okay," Natsume mumbles, which Bem already knows. "So will they just stay sore? Do you know?"
Bem shakes his head. This hasn't happened before. But...
"It is already less bad than it was. I am no longer dizzy." And he can talk in full sentences. All very reassuring.
Then Natsume's hand is on his face, cupping the whole side of it. Bem breathes out and leans into it, blind. He'll never stop wanting Natsume to touch him.
"With Yui-chan..." Natsume's voice is soft as the cloth and even warmer. "I'd also try to kiss it better."
Natsume's hand smells of soap and skin and Natsume, and feels so good. "Does that work?" Bem says.
Natsume kneels up a little higher, and Bem is still slow because he only understands when it happens; there, that's even softer, and warmer, mixing a tingle through the hurt. "Does it?" Natsume asks quietly.
"Yes," Bem says. "It does." Bem holds very still, and Natsume does it again, until the tingle is more and the pain so much less. He finds himself clutching at Natsume's arms but Natsume's mouth is always slow and careful.
"I feel much better now," Bem says when he feels guilty for taking up more time than is strictly necessarily.
"A little much better?" Natsume asks, with a small lick around there that's just as careful. "Or a lot much better?"
Bem shivers; smiles too because the pain is distant now and he just feels Natsume instead.
"A lot," he says, and Natsume pulls him off the couch and into an embrace. He gives Bem a kiss on the mouth, and his arms around Bem aren't very careful at all. "I'll stop freaking out in a minute," Natsume whispers.
Bem puts his mouth on Natsume's forehead then. There are no horns, but as he holds on, it seems to make it better too.
End