Hi everyone!
Sorry for the wait. Busy, with the end of the school year and all that. Anyway, we're back to Viva's point of view. How does everyone feel about that?
Personally, it's nice to be back on familiar ground, but I realllllly liked writing in his POV. It was awesome. And I love him. But, I also love Viva, and it hasn't been her view for over two chapters.
So, here you go!
Song's Kissing In Cars by Pierce the Veil. Have I done this song in a chapter before...?
Eh. It's good anyway.
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Viva's POV (As promised :))
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My fucking stomach.
Honestly, I'm starting to wish they had just forked my eye out or something.
The gunshot wound was killing me big time. Sitting in the warm water of the bathtub, I looked around, looking for something to use so I could pull myself up and out of the tub.
I glanced down at my stomach. It had a constant throbbing pain, which I can deal with. But I can't use my stomach muscles at all without it hurting like hell. Standing up in this tub would require stomach muscle tensing.
I sighed, and looked at the door. The door leading to the rest of the hotel room was half open, to put River at ease. Who, by the way, I could hear walking around in the bedroom.
I could just call River in to help me out of the tub, but, honestly, I didn't much want to.
One: he's done enough already. I take pride on being able to take care of myself, and it seemed like I haven't for this whole trip. I didn't want to bother River unless I absolutely had to.
Two: I was naked.
Alright Viva, toughen up. You got shot yesterday, you can handle standing up.
Bracing my hands on the sides of the tub, I forced myself into a stand. Pain ripped through my stomach and I groaned, bending over slightly.
Hissing through my teeth, I managed to step over the side of the tub. Right as I wrapped a warm white towel around my body, the door creaked open and River's worried face appeared.
We made eye contact and my insides fluttered. I could tell he was tired by how especially dark his blue eyes were.
The image of his expression when I kissed him appeared in my mind, and my stomach did a full flip. His gaze had been dazed, heated, careful...
I actually had an affect on him. Me.
This is incredibly dorky. River will never know this; I'll take this to the grave. I'll lie to the Priest if I have to.
But.... I really think a lot of River. As in, he's basically got a halo and a crown in my eyes. The guy is really something else.
Who would've thought? In some ways, I'm pretty sheltered. Didn't ever go to a public school, no real friends. Although, I know how to disassemble and reassemble a gun in minutes, and every pressure point in the human body, and how to kill someone without using anything more than one hand- but that's not the point. I'm sheltered from the world of regular people who have legal jobs and families. So many people I see on a regular basis- my "co-workers" -are just selfish scum. I can't be much better than them, though. I mean, I was supposed to kill River.
And River. I could have killed him. I would have, too, if I got a hold of him in the alley all that time ago. Now, looking at his handsome, worried face peering at me from the doorway, that's one of my worst fears. Losing the most amazing, important person in my life. It's kind of pathetic, actually, ha. I really don't have anyone else. River's everything.
"Viva, what was that? Are you alright?" River snapped me out of my weird River-dream-world. If only he knew what I was thinking.
I blinked at him, looked down at my damp, barely covered body, and looked back up at him again. "You're lucky I just put a towel on before you walked in." I warned him.
He smirked. "Ha. Now, are you okay?"
I gave him a thumbs up. "I was just getting out. Don't worry, no emergencies."
To my right, I saw my reflection in the mirror. Picture a hungover crackhead that got stuck in the rain. Yeah, that's what I looked like.
"Viva, you're bleeding!"
Startled, I switched my attention from the mirror to him. River rushed over, eyes on my middle, and laid his hands on my shoulders to keep me still.
"What the hell-" I looked down. A dark red stain had appeared on the towel, right where the gun wound was. When I got out of the bath, I must have moved too much and started the bleeding again.
"Here, you need bandages." River, focused on the wound, fumbled to snatch paper towels from the sink and started to tug the towel away.
I gripped it to myself. "Wait, River!" I shrieked. "I'm naked!"
He looked up at me, eyes wide with realization and embarrassment. "Oh. Shit. Um," he frantically looked around, then grabbed a hand towel from a bar on the wall. He handed it to me. "Here. Cover up your chest with this, and drop the towel to your waist."
This is ridiculous. I took the small towel and pressed it over my chest, and let the bigger towel slide down so that it was right below my belly button, like a big cottony skirt, so that he had access to the gash but I was still covered somewhat.
The thing with River is that he's way more mature than I am when the time comes to be serious. He didn't even look twice at my hardly covered breasts, and instead got onto his knees, gently pressing the paper towels to the bleeding wound.
See? He was focused on my well being, even while I was naked. Seriously. Even in the worst situations, I would still stop to check out his six pack if he was shirtless.
"Eeep!" The towel wrapped around my waist started to slip, and I reached one hand down to grab it, one hand still holding the small one over my chest.
"Stop moving, Vi!" River ordered, reaching behind him for gauze.
One hand wasn't enough to keep the bigger towel around my waist, because it continued to slip. Without thinking, I grabbed it with both hands, tightening it around my waist again.
Me and River both froze for a moment when the smaller towel fell from my chest and onto his head.
"Oh, shit." We both said.
We both started flailing around at once. Blinded by the towel over his eyes, he lost his balance and fell back onto his butt, and I grabbed for the towel on his head, trying to cover my breasts with one arm. I stepped forward, trying to reach him to get the smaller towel, but the bigger one, draped over my waist and feet, tripped me and I fell forward, right onto River, making him fall onto his back. My fall was cushioned, since I landed on his body.
With completely exposed boobs.
It didn't matter quite yet though, because the stupid towel was still draped over his face. He grabbed it and snatched it away from his face. Now I was straddling him, topless, and his eyes weren't covered. I screeched, "Don't look!" Right as he yells, "Careful, watch your gash!"
I pushed myself away from him so that I was sitting on the cold tile floor, yanking the big towel up over my body. Finally covered, I sat back.
River, sitting across from me, stared at me, bewildered. His hair was messed up from the towel, and his shirt was damp from when I had fallen on him.
For a moment, we stared at each other. His expression was laughable; he looked like he had no idea what just happened.
I covered my face with a hand, cringing. For christ's sake.
"River." I said, still covering my face.
"Yup?"
"....How much did you just see?" I asked him. When he had gotten the towel away from his face, I still hadn't covered myself.
He cleared his throat. I expected him to give reassurance, like, oh, don't worry, I didn't see anything, or you were covered the whole time. But of course, instead, he comes up with simply, "Everything you wouldn't want me to see."
I groaned, dropping my hand. Someone just kill me now please.
Then I heard him snort. The snort turned into a chuckle, then a full blown laugh.
I glared at him, cheeks heating. He was leaning back on his hands, cracking up.
"It is not funny!" I yell, throwing the hand towel at him.
In between gasping breaths, he said, "You....the look on your face.....oh my god...."
"Shut up." I told him, but had to fight back a smile growing on my face.
Giggling, I shook my head. "You suck, you know that?"
"You're the one who freaked out! You could have calmly adjusted the towel without losing your shit and falling on me!" He laughed again.
Grinning, I laughed with him. "It was falling off, I had to get it. But then the other one fell on your head..."
We both dissolved into laughter again, on the bathroom floor.
After a while, we collected ourselves. Still smirking, he stood, and then bent down to help me get up.
He tsked once we were both standing, then sat me back down on the edge of the tub. "Don't move. Now you're really bleeding, after that fall. Here," he left the room for a second, then came back with my backpack. He set it down in front of me.
"Get some pants on, but keep your shirt lifted off of your stomach so that you don't get blood on it. That's already happened." He pointed to the dirty clothes pile that he and I gathered up, on the bathroom floor corner. I could see his shirt from yesterday, splattered with blood, probably from both me and him. My shorts and tank top from yesterday were there too. The white top was almost completely covered in dirt and blood, but the shorts had a chance of being saved with a good wash.
He went for the door, to give me privacy. "Hurry, dress. And carefully!" he demanded, then disappeared.
I looked at the bag at my feet. There was only a clean set of a bra and panties, and my stretchy black skinny jeans. We were going to use the hotel's laundry room for our dirty clothes, but until then, Id have to find a shirt.
Quickly slipping on the clothes I had, I got a paper towel and dabbed at my wound, keeping the towel pressed on it. Then I stuck my head out of the doorway.
Rivr was wandering the bedroom area, pacing from the window to the bed, around and back. I guessed he was probably avoiding the bed because he didn't want to fall asleep.
"River?" I called out.
He looked over. "Yeah, sweetie?" he answered.
I rolled my eyes at the pet name, and he smirked. The damn guy only says those names because he knows what my reaction will be.
"Do you have a clean shirt I can borrow? I'm all out."
He smiled. "You want to borrow a shirt?"
I nodded. "Yup."
He crouched down, opening his backpack, and pulled out a light blue shirt, tossing it at me. I stepped out of sight, pulled it on, and walked out into the bedroom.
He sat on the bed while I looked into a full length mirror on the wall. "I think I pull this shirt off better than you do." I joked.
The shirt undoubtedly fit him perfectly, but on me it was obviously loose, covering most of my butt.
"Oh, I totally agree. It fits you like a glove." He nodded, playing along. Then he stood up, and retrieved bandages, and a bottle of what I'm guessing cleans wounds.
"Shirt up, sit down." River told me, and I complied, sitting on the edge of the bed and lifting my shirt up to expose the gunshot wound.
He crouched in front of me, and I eyed the bottle. "Is that going to sting?"
River shrugged. "I'm guessing it will. You were shot, Viva. Treating it is going to be a pain in the ass."
I sighed, and he dabbed at the gash, clearing the blood. Then he poured some of the liquid from the bottle onto a wad of paper towels, and gently pressed it against my stomach.
I winced slightly. Yes, it definitely stung. Dealing with it, I let him finish cleaning it. Instead of using a crappy bandage made from tape and tissues, he had stopped at the store early in the morning and bought actual medical supplies. As he carefully wrapped gauze around my waist and stomach, to cover the wound, he spoke."You know, you've got a pretty high pain tolerance."
I shrugged. "Comes with the training."
He looked up at me, face unsure. "How does one exactly train to get high pain tolerance? Did they torture you at your Agency or something?"
I quickly shook my head. "No. Things like hitting our pressure points, shocks, just mild things. They built up my tolerance. It sucked, but it's convenient now."
River sighed, running a hand along my arm. "I really don't think the so called good guys treated you much better than the gang is treated."
I just nodded. "I know."
He stood, and I smoothed my shirt down. "We have to go soon. We'll do our laundry, then hit the road.
"Okay," I answered. "You don't think they'll come after us? We've been here a while."
He shook his head. "No way. I know how they work. They've already been here, they probably figure we're gone. We're safe for the rest of today, but I still want to leave so we get more distance from them."
"Alright. I'll make breakfast, you can go to the laundry room." I told him, heading towards the kitchen.
Right before he left, I called him. "Wait, wait, River."
"Yeah?" He stopped, half out the door, to look at me.
I gave him a smile. "Thank you for the shirt." And for taking care of me.
He smiled back. "Like you said, it looks better on you."
As the door closed behind him, my mind went back to our last kiss. So, let's think about this. The feelings I've gotten when he kissed me... were they just physical?
Psh. Don't kid yourself. Of course not, they were way more.
Okay.... so then, what does that mean? Does the affect he has on me mean I have...feelings for him? I've never had feelings for someone, so how am I supposed to know?
Then, if I do, which is only a possibility, then what about the affect I have on him? Is the affect he has on me the same as the affect I have on him? And would that mean that IF I maybe possibly might have any feelings for him, that he might too?
No. What am I even talking about? River is just trying to survive. And he has a heart, which is why he's been taking care of me. It's not because he has feelings for me.
But what about the kisses?
Physical. Just physical. I'm being stupid. We're two criminals on the run, not high school sweeties. This isn't romance. And it's River, for crying out loud. River wouldn't fall for someone like me, or anyone. Love isn't in either of our lives, and that's the cold truth.
But....just think about that for a minute. Imagine that happening, between me and him. Real, affectionate, incredible love. Being together.
My heart started pounding, and I quickly shook the thought away. As much as I'd ever want that to happen, I mean, if I did, it wouldn't. Ridiculous.
But what if....?
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sigh...........if only she knew.
Sorry about the wait, once again. But I hope the chapter was good! Cute? Boring? Anything? Comment! :)