Pico struggled to get out of the hospital bed. Having not walked for weeks, it was a struggle.
"I'm fine, I can do this." He tried to get Nene to let him go.
She had come to pick him up by herself, because "Keith is unfit to be in public with his current physical state and infection." Pico thought it was bullshit, but he'd see him soon anyways.
"No, you can't. You're going to fall over and hurt yourself."
"I'm not going to hurt myself, I'm half numb and I know what I'm doing."
"Wrong." She put his arm around her shoulder carefully, and brought him out of the room. The checked out quickly, and left.
They entered the house, after much struggling from Nene, trying to find the right key, and the overwhelming scent of lavender hit Pico like a rock to the face.
"How much air freshener did you use?" Pico coughed. "Holy shit, I just got off my deathbed."
"Blame Darnell, he spilt my perfume." Nene closed the door behind her. "Think you can walk?"
"Yeah, sure. I'll be good."
Nene let go of him, and he stumbled for a moment. He made his way to the living room, collapsing on the couch.
It had been nearly two months since he had sat on this couch. It was really soft compared to the hospital bed.
"Just so it's not a suprise, Cassandra's coming over soon. Her parents are demons, so she knows some stuff about that sort of thing. Since scientific medicine won't to shit for that weird thing you and Keith have going on."
"Great." Pico sighed.
"And I'm going to be keeping an eye on you. I've changed some things in your room, so we don't have another... incident."
"Understandable." Pico got up, getting steady before moving around any. He made his way towards the stairs carefully. He used to think it was dumb to have railings everywhere, back when he was a kid. He was an idiot child.
He pulled himself upstairs. His door was open, a little bit of sunlight flowing out.
There were a few obvious changes. The closet door was missing, the ceiling fan was gone, replaced with a rotating fan on the other side of the room. The curtains held up with what appeared to be magnets.
His closet was pretty much empty. His two pairs of lace-up shoes were replaced with velcro ones, and the supply box and folding chairs were no longer there.
He went to his bed and looked under the pillow. The knife was gone. Of course it was. Nene wouldn't leave him a weapon. She wasn't dumb.
It's not like he could hurt himself anyways. His arms were numb, and if he did it anywhere else, someone would find out eventually.
Nene really overestimated him.
The doorbell buzzed loudly.
A minute later, Nene yelled up the stairway. "PICO! KEITH!" She had a surprisingly loud voice when she wanted too.
He made his way towards the stairs.
He sat down and slid down them. It was easier, even if it made him feel like a kid. Sometimes it was nice to act like a child. He pulled himself up on the banister as Keith came down the stairs.
"Nice to see you back." His voice started off in a mutter before it went back to normal.
"Nice to be back."
"Do you need help?"
"I'm fine, I just need to get used to my legs again."
"I can hold you, if you need it."
Pico knew what he meant, but couldn't help but hope he meant something else. He couldn't look him in the eyes. He couldn't be honest with him. "I'm good, thanks though."
Keith's fingers brushed against his for a moment, before pulling away. Or maybe he imagined it. Wishful thinking. "You sure?"
Pico sighed. "Nope."
Keith pulled his arm over his shoulder and helped him to the kitchen. Pico leaned onto the counter, trying to put his weight there instead of his legs.
"Was it so hard to accept help?" Keith joked.
"Absolutely."
Keith scoffed and rolled his eyes before smiling at him. That beautiful fucking smile.
He couldn't help but smile back. It was contagious.
Pico realized he was staring and looked away, embarrased.
He's over you. He's just your friend. You guys are just friends. That's fine. Why can't you get over him, you're so clingy. Clingy asshat. He doesn't like you that way. He might not even like you as a friend. He ignored you for so long, and when you hurt yourself, you guilt tripped him like a selfish brat. If you hadn't done anything, he wouldn't care about you. Get over him. Just. Get. Over. Him. Pico!
He felt someone blow in his ear and he jumped.
"Finally, a reaction. Thought you'd died on- I mean- never mind, forget I said that." Nene walked to the other side of the counter with the red-haired girl, Cassandra. "These two have the 'problem', or whatever it is."
"If it's something to do with demons, it'll be easy enough to tell." She placed a book on the counter. The cover was a glassy black with a bright yellow pentagram on the front. There was no author name or title. "If you'll show the the problem area, we should be able to get this done in the hour."