Nevermind. Sleep was for the weak anyway. Why would you sleep when you could just... not sleep? Right? Well... here you were, sat on the washroom floor, various medical kits spread around you like a children's jigsaw puzzle. Your hands were behind your back, blotting a "clean" cloth around the long back scratches you had received the day previous (when Lawrence fucked you over on the roof). Still, all this proved difficult in the dingy bathroom your upwards-facing flashlight feebly attempted to illuminate, seeing as it was nearly impossible to distinguish exactly what was going on across your back.
Your shirt was tossed off to the side and pants rolled up far enough to where you could access the cuts on your calf. Over to your left, old piles of bandages were balled up in a corner with other rubbish, waiting to be thrown away. As soon as you had removed the gauze covering your wounds, any form of scabbing was ripped off as well—reopening them for the world to see.
Soft hissing pushed through clenched teeth at the fabric rubbing around your wounds. You tensed, knowing the sooner you got this done, the faster this stinging pain would be over. You looked over your shoulder at the mirror, scanning up and down your crimson back to find that most of the blood had stopped and the skin around was as clean as you could get it. Now was time for phase two.
Tweezers...
You needed to pick out the bits of dirt and debris stuck inside the cuts. Letting out a sigh, you went to pluck the crumbs of dirt and fabric fuzz caught in your leg. Taking a deep breath, you got to work, cursing every color of the rainbow and seething at the stupid zombie that did this to you. Soon enough, your calf was done and bandaged up, leaving you to move onto your bare back by yourself.
Angles, baby! Your arms twisted behind you as you craned your neck over your shoulder to try and watch where the pointy metal tweezers poked and prodded. You were fine at the center of your back, but moving up proved difficult as you accidentally jabbed your open wound.
"Mother fucker!" You swore out loud, squinting your eyes in pain as your whole body tensed. "Son of a bitch."
A soft knock on the washroom door distracted you from the sharp stinging in your back.
"Yeah? Come in." You responded, watching as the wooden door creaked open. To your surprise, silent Ethan slipped into the room with you, eyes scanning over your twisted form, hunched over in pain. "How's it going? Did I wake you up?"
He shook his head no, a silent answer to your open question. He analyzed the rips in your back, turquoise eyes scanning down to see the tweezers in your limp hand.
"Let me help." He offered, reaching for the tiny tongs in your hand. You clutched the utensil and brought it close to your body out of instinct. Turquoise met the distrust swirling in (e/c). Ethan backed up, retracting his hand slowly from your space. "I know my way around an injury, used to play baseball."
You looked up at him, a glimmer of mischief in your eye. "Who the hell tore you up like this in baseball?" A coy grin tugged at the corner of your lips as you watched Ethan kneel next to you.
His eyes trailed down your sun-kissed skin. It was nearly impossible to avoid getting a tan during the apocalypse because of the constant scavenging for whatever materials and resources you could lay your hands on. Seeing you this up close and personal, he could see the dark circles under your dull eyes, chapped and anxiety-bitten lips, and moles that sat plainly on your face. A few healed knicks and scrapes also littered the vast expanse of your skin, no rhyme, or reason despite the obvious struggle you've faced.
Your hand connecting with his own drew Ethan out of the trance he was in. He felt the tweezers you left behind in his palm, and the ghost of your callused hand left his. His eyes returned to your face as you read his visible confusion.
"Get to work, baseball. I think we both want some sleep tonight."
Ethan's eyes turned back to your newfound cuts, searching and plucking out the pieces of fabric, dirt, and little fuzzies that were caught in both the dried and fresh blood. He was attentive to everything you did. How your back tensed when the cold metal tweezers made contact, the soft hisses, and hushed yelps that escaped your lips at every stinging pain. He listened to it all and adapted to how your body reacted, making sure to pull the tweezers away entirely when the pain became too much for you.
His eyes locked on a piece of glass buried deep in one of your larger cuts. He hummed out to himself in thought of how to get it out as quickly as possible to avoid causing an excessive amount of pain.
"What's wrong now?" You inquired, dreading the worst.
"Big chunk of glass in this," He poked gently at your largest and subsequently deepest scratch. "right back here... If we don't get this out it'll be absorbed by your body which is another problem altogether."
You let out a groan of annoyance, throwing your head back in protest. With a final sigh of defeat, you slumped over. "Go ahead..."
Ethan's cold fingers pried at the edges of your cuts, pulling the wound open for better access.
"Motherfucker!" You hissed, clutching your knees to your chest. If everything else stung before, this was a whole hive of angry wasps. "Hurry the fuck up. Please."
Ethan took a breath and steadied his hand, tweezers an extension of his hand. The bloodied tool slipped past the angry layers of dermis and prodded around for the glass.
"Fuck. Shit. Ass. Cunt. Bitch. God. Fucking. Fuck!" A string of color was pulled from your lips as Ethan dug out the shard. "Come on! Ethan! Fuck!" Your hands turned white as you dug whatever was left of your nails into your leg to try and distract yourself from the unbearable fire that burned your back.
"Almost..." Ethan explained, a lackluster form of reassurance. But hell, it was good enough for you.
"Ahhh..." Your groan quickly turned into a hiss as the tweezers stabbed the very back of your wound.
"Almost..."
You cursed again as the tool scrapped your already painful wound. It was unbearable. At this point, you were pretty sure your fingers were drawing blood as you dug them deeper into your calf.
"There." The tweezers were pulled from your cut and Ethan set the large piece of glass alongside the other bits of debris you had pulled from your body.
Labored breaths calmed your body as the adrenaline left. "Fucking hell, Ethan... That just about made me want to quit roofing. Too painful."
"Really? Looks like you've been through worse..." His callused fingers trailed down a long and deep scar that trailed from your right shoulder down to your left hip. It was purple, a sharp contrast to your (s/c) complexion. It stood out on the bloody and marked canvas that was your back, beckoning Ethan to admire whatever struggle you had gone through to get where you are now. Beyond that were the imprints of old bandages left behind from old and new wounds.
You knew the one he was tracing. A nasty slice that required days of bedrest and hours of careful cleaning and maintenance. Constant bandaging, ointments, pain killers, you name it. "Yeah... it's hard to ride this bull on your own." You muttered. Your legs drew up to your chest as you wrapped your arms around the thinning muscle. Doing this had always seemed to have brought you comfort when you were alone, easy to imagine someone or something else there to help console you. It had been a while since you were with other people.
"And the bandage marks are from a reaction to medical adhesive—because of course that's the one thing I'm allergic to."
"How'd you get it, if you don't mind me asking?" His oceanic eyes watching as you glanced to the side.
"The scar? It's nothing too fancy..." You trailed off, remembering the sharp sting of pain, blood soaking your back. "I just wasn't careful enough. I started with my family and was used to having them help protect me when things got rough. But I was alone. There were too many. I really thought I was going to die." You were overwhelmed with your feelings, distracting you from the actual story. "Anyways, I was looting for supplies at whatever store it was this time, crouched down to get... hell, I don't even remember. Regardless, he came out of nowhere and launched himself on me. It was terrifying. I couldn't get up. I wrestled the fucker off as best I could and pinned it by the neck so I wouldn't get bit. Hit 'em with my bat and was ready to get the hell out of there. But apparently, one wack wasn't enough. The asshole got up and swiped his nails down my back. It was still warm so I only had a t-shirt on. Cut me like warm butter. I spun and beat him till I was sure he couldn't get up again... That's when I learned Zombies have an impeccable smell for blood. Well, human blood at least. It felt like any zombie from a hundred-meter radius was on its way to get me. I got way more than that bigass cut. Learned my lesson for damn sure."
Before silence could take over, Ethan's hand was on your unscared shoulder, pushing himself to sit next to you. "I know this doesn't mean shit to you, but thank you."
"You know what. You're welcome. I don't feel like I've been thanked enough for my grudgeful hospitality."
"Maybe it's the hostility-"
"Don't ruin this for us."
He shut his mouth, a ghost of a smile dancing on his lips.
"Thanks for playing operation on my back. If it were the actual game you most definitely would've lost."
"It was really-"
"No excuses, take my thank you and the L."
He turned to look at you staring at his face, a thin smile on your lips. Ethan enjoyed watching your face as you talked, thought, planned. You were very expressive, he realized, the more he saw you. Pulling faces at the littlest thing and nuances. The only time he noticed you wouldn't was when you were pissed or... numb? You weren't one to get the sappy type of emotional right out of the box unless you were steamed.
You slowly rose from the ground, cursing to whatever fucker lied in the clouds above this hell-hole. Hobbling over to the left side of the door where laid all your bandages on display for you to be rewrapped.
"Ethan, care to give me a hand?" You inquired, pointing down to the supplies. His eyes trailed from your face, down your arm, and to the floor. He nodded, walking silently—a comfortable type—before gathering exactly what he would need. You stood with your back to Ethan as he stood up. His gentle hands lathered ointments, gauze, and bandages galore over your backside until everything was covered. A lot less painful than the extraction, but still, just as long. Everything was done meticulously with the mysterious boy, and you were a mummy in no time.
The two of you cleaned up all messes made and headed back down the hall to get a shitty night's worth of sleep. You dropped Ethan off at his door, giving him a pained hug of gratitude along with another Thank You, before leaving to your own room.
Leo swirled himself around your ankles as soon as you walked in to sleep and followed into the bed as you lay down on your chest.
Good-fucking-night.
*Holy shit I've gone MIA. Thank you all for staying on this long-ass ride as we are nowhere close to the end. Senior year has been kicking my ass, but Biden won so it's tolerable now. Thank you so much for your support! I'll try and be more active in my writing, but school is hard this year smh. I love you all!!*