By the time Midnighter texts Marcus is working again. He's spent two days so far trying to earn the trust of the local parish priest, and it's not working. He'll give it a another 48 hours and then he's going to have to resort to breaking and entering to get a look at the suspected-possessed. That's doable, but it's such a headache.
It's distraction enough that he's not been too anxious. Midnighter can more than take care of himself: he doesn't have to fret about that. Every day he wakes up and there are no new texts feels a little like a punch to the gut, but that's just — that's different. When he's working and on the go and actually thinking, it's all fine.
All the same, when his phone chirps, he immediately cuts short his half-hearted attempts to chat up the parish assistant and excuses himself. This time, he's careful to open the message only when he's alone, outside the drafty parish office behind the church.
Midnighter switches the text from group to one on one, because he doesn't want an earful from Tony if this gets weird. And it's probably going to get weird. That's what he loves about Marcus; it's always a little bit weird.
if u want little gory righ tnow nothing i cant handle just u knwo not prety
Midnighter doesn't have the energy to manage this conversation, open a portal, and keep this metal from hitting his heart. He opens the portal without replying.
It will take Marcus directly to Midnighter's bathroom, which is not covered in blood, but lightly smudged, at the very least. He's shirtless, but still wearing the heavy stomping boots, knee guards, belt of pouches and kevlar weave pants of his work uniform. He's covered liberally with cuts and bruises and the occasional burn, all fairly light; no, the main source of the blood is the twisted length of metal jutting out of his shoulder at an angle just a little too close to his heart. He looks over as he gives the thing another pull, and it moves a little more out of his chest.
"Hey, babe." He sounds a little groggy. It's the blood loss.
Marcus has seen a lot of bodies do things that bodies shouldn't do, and so it only takes him a moment of swallowing to get rid of the immediate urge to gag. All the same, he flinches hard, and there's no disguising the look of upset on his face. It's not the blood, it's the placement of that metal bar and the fact it's sticking out of Midnighter.
Who can heal from a lot, but Marcus doesn't know how much.
"Sweetheart," he says, quiet and distressed, ignoring how blood skids beneath his boots as he hurries to Midnighter's side. "Fuck's sake — " What happened? No, not the time. Instead, he focuses, says, "Tell me how I help."
Midnighter looks up with a smile to see Marcus. It's not a surprise; he sent the portal, after all. It's just nice. "Nothing big. Just some... shit. Explain later. Fucking complicated."
He pulls again, and makes no sound or evidence of pain. It moves an inch. "Fucking pain in my ass to get the fuck out, healing around it's just... tight fucking squeeze." He goes on a short rant to distract himself while he pulls out a few more half-inches. "Fucking- whoever makes accelerated healers' a fucking idiot. Scars dulls pain, slower healing l-lets the body recover, shock is... probably has some fucking benefit. Can you grab a towel?"
The ones strewn on the floor are bloody. Midnighter remembers that belatedly. "Uh, clean ones- there." He nods his head in the direction of a linens closet, filled with fresh, fluffy, slightly warm white towels, four unopened jars of peanut butter, and seven books shoved into a cranny haphazard.
Okay. That doesn't sound like Midnighter's on the verge of dying, and the direction to the linen cupboard gives Marcus a moment to turn away and let his expression slip further into dismay.
Once he's facing Midnighter again, he's grinning, concerned but wry all the same. His smile shakes a bit at one corner. "Here. Glad you were being so careful. Or else God only knows what might've happened to you."
"Yeah," Midnighter says, grinning. His voice is more gruff than usual, and blood flecks out of his mouth as he speaks. "I haven't figured out if my head grows back yet."
He wants to lean in and kiss him, but who wants a bloody kiss? Literally bloody, not Marcus' version of bloody.
He sways a little. "Okay, final push. You wanna be my fucking hero and press some towel into the hole its gonna leave? Because it's... gonna."
"Don't," Marcus says, and swipes blood off Midnighter's lower lip with his thumb, businesslike and unsqueamish. There's a bit of real snappishness in his tone, concern coming out as annoyance, but most of what's in his eyes is worry and fondness.
He nods, though he grimaces. "Yeah. Anything to impress you, huh? When you're ready. I'm guessing infection ain't a thing you have to worry about."
"No, I wear condoms for fun," he says, eyeroll interrupted by a slight grimace as he pulls and-- with a squishy twist-- tears the thing free of his body. Again, there's no sign of external pain, but his breath is short and shoulders heave.
He drops the twisted length of rebar on the floor, and leans forward, momentarily off balance. He finds it again pretty quick, his hand on the (bloody) counter, groping for a bottle of something nondescript, green, and vaguely medicinal scented. Snapping open the cap, he pours it directly into the hole in his chest. It leaks out along with the blood, further soaking the towels with increasingly unusual stains as the blood discolors.
"What — " Marcus blinks, face going slack for a moment. A couple of things: first, if this wound can get infected, then why is he doing this in a bathroom, neither of them wearing gloves, and second, shit, why didn't Marcus think about that before this, actually?
The slight moment of confusion knocks him off balance, makes him a fraction of a second late with the towel, but then he's clamping it tight to the hole left and scowling, complaining, "Jesus Christ, love — "
No, he shouldn't get pissed off with Midnighter for pulling what looks like part of a traintrack or maybe some construction debris out of his shoulder too quickly. That's not fair. Still, he's prickling, has to exhale through his teeth. Then, softer, he murmurs, "Right. Alright. You're gonna be okay, yeah?" He eyes the bottle, guessing it's not a bog-standard antiseptic. Or maybe it is, maybe that's all the headstart Midnighter's augmented biology needs.
"Oh, I've had worse," Midnighter murmurs, ignoring the sting of the Gardener's special blend of ooze running through a hole in his chest, the memories that brings up. It's been years, decades, even; he has it under control. "Way worse. This is shit nothing, compared to..." He laughs, a quiet little thing pulling up more flecks of blood (and greenish brown mystery gel), and shakes his head.
"Mind getting me some gauze, babe? It's under the sink in a little box."
Under the sink, Marcus will find more towels (all still pleasantly warm), more unopened jars of peanut butter, and a first-aid kit as designed by morbid minimalists: all sleek rounded edges and a button instead of a latch. There is gauze inside, though.
The peanut butter is starting to get weird. Marcus blinks at it and files it away for a later question: he can focus, now, on getting the first aid kit out and fetching gauze.
"Worse, huh? So am I allowed to nag you about looking after yourself better? Or do I have to wait 'til there are no holes in you."
Midnighter huffs out another wet breath of laughter. "You're not nagging me now?"
He grabs handfuls of the gauze and smacks them haphazardly onto his chest; they immediately begin to mold to his skin, sticking in place and stoppering the bleeding.
"You ain't seen nagging," Marcus says, and finally relaxes a little once he sees: okay, that's not just gauze, is it? He takes a handful and comes behind Midnighter to help patch up his back, quick and deft.
"Don't laugh, I can hear your lungs. Bloody fool." He sighs, but he sounds tired more than angry, and leans in briefly to pop a kiss atop Midnighter's head from behind. "That gonna hold?"
The 'gauze' feels and acts like gauze until it touches Midnighter's skin, where it immediately adheres to his wounds, tightly closing the punctures. If it's painful, Midnighter doesn't let it show.
The kiss is what makes it all worth it. He's lean back into it, but Marcus is gone a moment later, and Midnighter... would probably crush him anyway. Skinny bastard.
"You're lucky you can't see 'em. Show you something pretty," He stares at his reflection in the mirror, not entirely pleased by what he's let Marcus see, but, hey, he asked, right? And he doesn't seem to mind. Huh.
"It'll hold. Polyfiber auto-adhesive, self-cleaning... synced to my DNA signature... blah blah blah, whatever, it's high quality shit. Hey, this is... this isn't too much for you, right?" Midnighter leans forward, knuckles on the countertop, while the gauze forms around him. He pulls some bandages out of the box and begins looping them over his shoulder.
The question isn't welcome: Marcus has blocked out the way the blood drying on the tiles feels tacky under his boots, the fact that the rebar is still just sitting there. Midnighter asking brings it all too much into focus. His mouth tightens into a crooked line.
But: "Lemme do that, here," he mutters, taking the bandages. He's got a better angle. It's better to have something to focus on.
"It's alright," he says after a moment. "Blood, guts, that's fine, seen enough of that. Just worried me for a moment." Longer than a moment. A week. Hell, a month and a bit...nearly two months. Nearly two months since they've been in the same room.
Not the time. They're both busy.
"All fine. Get to watch you sleep for a change, huh?"
That isn't what Midnighter meant, but he's far from coherent or particularly perceptive. He lets his head hang from his shoulders, eyes fluttering. He can actually feel the fatigue, a rarity he never appreciates in the moment.
"If- if you want," he says, looking at Marcus in the mirror. He's lovely, as usual, even slightly smeared with blood and too thin as always. "I'll try not to go full coma so you don't get stranded in fucking Oakland."
"Is that where we are?" Marcus says, and the surprise actually makes him laugh: for some reason he wasn't expecting that. His hands on the bandages stutter, and then he fixes them in place, and relaxes a little into Midnighter's side, careful not to put too much weight on him.
"You just sleep," he says quietly. "I've got — I need to go in the morning. But I can stay here tonight, alright?" He rubs his hand over Midnighter's back, careful to avoid the worst of the damage. "Should wash off some of this blood before you crash. Clean out the other cuts. Sit down and let me?"
"You wanna?" He looks up a little slow, and there's dull surprise on his face. But something about gift horses and mouths; he shakes his head, smiling faintly. "I mean- sure, sure."
He sits down on the closed toilet, similarly sleek and minimalist, like everything in the apartment. Midnighter leans forward, somehow managing to loom despite being in a sitting position, his elbows on his knees. His head hangs from his shoulders, and his eyes are weary, but that little smile is still there.
"You can wake me up in the morning, but do it with a fucking broom handle or something. Computer's set to be a bastard when I'm below 73% efficiency, can't always override when I'm waking up with some missing ribs."
For a few moments, Marcus isn't sure what he means: he's running the hot tap and soaking part of another clean towel before he realises Midnighter's warning him.
"Wake you up from a distance?" He squeezes out the towel and comes over to start wiping off some of the blood and the run-off from whatever the green stuff was. "Yeah. I can do that. Jesus..."
Softer, a little stressed, as he takes pains not to press on anywhere that might be tender: "Course I want to stay. Near enough two months that I don't see you, and when I do you're impaled on...what is that, huh?"
Pressing or no, it makes no difference; Midnighter doesn't react to pain. He looks at Marcus with dull, almost hesitant curiosity. "I, uh." Is he allowed to say this? It feels like imposing. "Yeah. Missed you, too."
But onto other things-- "It's the stuff they put in concrete walls. Tends to come loose when you get thrown through one."
Missed you. Marcus blinks, and ducks his head, and smiles. Yeah. He hadn't realised that was what he meant.
Regardless of the lack of reaction, he's almost reverently gentle as he mops off blood. He leans over to the sink again to rinse out the now bloodied towel. "And so you were gonna...pull it out of you and then just go to bed?" He'd have been able to handle it, of course. Marcus knows he's not doing anything essential; he's just cleaning up, trying to make this go easier. Still, he doesn't like the idea of Midnighter doing this alone.
"No, I'm not that-" he's not sure what adjective comes here. Maybe stupid, but he doesn't want to accuse Marcus of calling him that. "I usually just pull everything out, shower, patch up and sleep. You're making it a lot faster. Easier."
It's what Andrew used to do. It's what Matt never did-- he hid this from Matt. Maybe if he hadn't... that doesn't fucking matter. He watches Marcus wash away blood like Midnighter's a person who understands normal, human pain, and he sighs.
"You asked if I wanted somebody to come home to," he says. "This kinda shit's... why. Not because I'm, y'know, because I need a nurse. But- this is nice, right?" He reaches limply for Marcus' head, trying to caress his jaw, to put their foreheads together. His voice has a twinge of despiration. He's not the only one who feels this, right?
"Nice," Marcus says, incredulous: no, it's not nice, he's got Midnighter's blood staining his shirt, but — Midnighter's reaching for him, and so he catches his hand, leans his cheek into his palm. He knows what Midnighter means, even if his way of saying it throws him. So he softens and sighs.
"I dunno how you did this stuff alone," he mutters. Then he thinks about it: smaller scale, but he's being a hypocrite. He grimaces. "No, actually. Worse. I know exactly how you did this stuff alone." Gentle, he strokes the back of his knuckles across Midnighter's jaw. "To hell with that, right?"
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It's distraction enough that he's not been too anxious. Midnighter can more than take care of himself: he doesn't have to fret about that. Every day he wakes up and there are no new texts feels a little like a punch to the gut, but that's just — that's different. When he's working and on the go and actually thinking, it's all fine.
All the same, when his phone chirps, he immediately cuts short his half-hearted attempts to chat up the parish assistant and excuses himself. This time, he's careful to open the message only when he's alone, outside the drafty parish office behind the church.
"Shit," he says aloud.
are you alright
let me come see you?
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if u want
little gory righ tnow
nothing i cant handle just u knwo
not prety
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That’s panicky fake-cheer talking, obvious as anything. He huffs and gives up on pretending he’s not worried:
church of the immaculate conception of our lady, hartford CT
uh also warning for gore but ive watched ur exorcist show so i hope this is ok???
It will take Marcus directly to Midnighter's bathroom, which is not covered in blood, but lightly smudged, at the very least. He's shirtless, but still wearing the heavy stomping boots, knee guards, belt of pouches and kevlar weave pants of his work uniform. He's covered liberally with cuts and bruises and the occasional burn, all fairly light; no, the main source of the blood is the twisted length of metal jutting out of his shoulder at an angle just a little too close to his heart. He looks over as he gives the thing another pull, and it moves a little more out of his chest.
"Hey, babe." He sounds a little groggy. It's the blood loss.
ahaha YEAH it's all good I love a body horror
Marcus has seen a lot of bodies do things that bodies shouldn't do, and so it only takes him a moment of swallowing to get rid of the immediate urge to gag. All the same, he flinches hard, and there's no disguising the look of upset on his face. It's not the blood, it's the placement of that metal bar and the fact it's sticking out of Midnighter.
Who can heal from a lot, but Marcus doesn't know how much.
"Sweetheart," he says, quiet and distressed, ignoring how blood skids beneath his boots as he hurries to Midnighter's side. "Fuck's sake — " What happened? No, not the time. Instead, he focuses, says, "Tell me how I help."
laughs ok ur in good company.
He pulls again, and makes no sound or evidence of pain. It moves an inch. "Fucking pain in my ass to get the fuck out, healing around it's just... tight fucking squeeze." He goes on a short rant to distract himself while he pulls out a few more half-inches. "Fucking- whoever makes accelerated healers' a fucking idiot. Scars dulls pain, slower healing l-lets the body recover, shock is... probably has some fucking benefit. Can you grab a towel?"
The ones strewn on the floor are bloody. Midnighter remembers that belatedly. "Uh, clean ones- there." He nods his head in the direction of a linens closet, filled with fresh, fluffy, slightly warm white towels, four unopened jars of peanut butter, and seven books shoved into a cranny haphazard.
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Once he's facing Midnighter again, he's grinning, concerned but wry all the same. His smile shakes a bit at one corner. "Here. Glad you were being so careful. Or else God only knows what might've happened to you."
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He wants to lean in and kiss him, but who wants a bloody kiss? Literally bloody, not Marcus' version of bloody.
He sways a little. "Okay, final push. You wanna be my fucking hero and press some towel into the hole its gonna leave? Because it's... gonna."
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He nods, though he grimaces. "Yeah. Anything to impress you, huh? When you're ready. I'm guessing infection ain't a thing you have to worry about."
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He drops the twisted length of rebar on the floor, and leans forward, momentarily off balance. He finds it again pretty quick, his hand on the (bloody) counter, groping for a bottle of something nondescript, green, and vaguely medicinal scented. Snapping open the cap, he pours it directly into the hole in his chest. It leaks out along with the blood, further soaking the towels with increasingly unusual stains as the blood discolors.
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The slight moment of confusion knocks him off balance, makes him a fraction of a second late with the towel, but then he's clamping it tight to the hole left and scowling, complaining, "Jesus Christ, love — "
No, he shouldn't get pissed off with Midnighter for pulling what looks like part of a traintrack or maybe some construction debris out of his shoulder too quickly. That's not fair. Still, he's prickling, has to exhale through his teeth. Then, softer, he murmurs, "Right. Alright. You're gonna be okay, yeah?" He eyes the bottle, guessing it's not a bog-standard antiseptic. Or maybe it is, maybe that's all the headstart Midnighter's augmented biology needs.
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"Mind getting me some gauze, babe? It's under the sink in a little box."
Under the sink, Marcus will find more towels (all still pleasantly warm), more unopened jars of peanut butter, and a first-aid kit as designed by morbid minimalists: all sleek rounded edges and a button instead of a latch. There is gauze inside, though.
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"Worse, huh? So am I allowed to nag you about looking after yourself better? Or do I have to wait 'til there are no holes in you."
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He grabs handfuls of the gauze and smacks them haphazardly onto his chest; they immediately begin to mold to his skin, sticking in place and stoppering the bleeding.
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"Don't laugh, I can hear your lungs. Bloody fool." He sighs, but he sounds tired more than angry, and leans in briefly to pop a kiss atop Midnighter's head from behind. "That gonna hold?"
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The kiss is what makes it all worth it. He's lean back into it, but Marcus is gone a moment later, and Midnighter... would probably crush him anyway. Skinny bastard.
"You're lucky you can't see 'em. Show you something pretty," He stares at his reflection in the mirror, not entirely pleased by what he's let Marcus see, but, hey, he asked, right? And he doesn't seem to mind. Huh.
"It'll hold. Polyfiber auto-adhesive, self-cleaning... synced to my DNA signature... blah blah blah, whatever, it's high quality shit. Hey, this is... this isn't too much for you, right?" Midnighter leans forward, knuckles on the countertop, while the gauze forms around him. He pulls some bandages out of the box and begins looping them over his shoulder.
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But: "Lemme do that, here," he mutters, taking the bandages. He's got a better angle. It's better to have something to focus on.
"It's alright," he says after a moment. "Blood, guts, that's fine, seen enough of that. Just worried me for a moment." Longer than a moment. A week. Hell, a month and a bit...nearly two months. Nearly two months since they've been in the same room.
Not the time. They're both busy.
"All fine. Get to watch you sleep for a change, huh?"
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"If- if you want," he says, looking at Marcus in the mirror. He's lovely, as usual, even slightly smeared with blood and too thin as always. "I'll try not to go full coma so you don't get stranded in fucking Oakland."
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"You just sleep," he says quietly. "I've got — I need to go in the morning. But I can stay here tonight, alright?" He rubs his hand over Midnighter's back, careful to avoid the worst of the damage. "Should wash off some of this blood before you crash. Clean out the other cuts. Sit down and let me?"
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He sits down on the closed toilet, similarly sleek and minimalist, like everything in the apartment. Midnighter leans forward, somehow managing to loom despite being in a sitting position, his elbows on his knees. His head hangs from his shoulders, and his eyes are weary, but that little smile is still there.
"You can wake me up in the morning, but do it with a fucking broom handle or something. Computer's set to be a bastard when I'm below 73% efficiency, can't always override when I'm waking up with some missing ribs."
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"Wake you up from a distance?" He squeezes out the towel and comes over to start wiping off some of the blood and the run-off from whatever the green stuff was. "Yeah. I can do that. Jesus..."
Softer, a little stressed, as he takes pains not to press on anywhere that might be tender: "Course I want to stay. Near enough two months that I don't see you, and when I do you're impaled on...what is that, huh?"
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But onto other things-- "It's the stuff they put in concrete walls. Tends to come loose when you get thrown through one."
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Regardless of the lack of reaction, he's almost reverently gentle as he mops off blood. He leans over to the sink again to rinse out the now bloodied towel. "And so you were gonna...pull it out of you and then just go to bed?" He'd have been able to handle it, of course. Marcus knows he's not doing anything essential; he's just cleaning up, trying to make this go easier. Still, he doesn't like the idea of Midnighter doing this alone.
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It's what Andrew used to do. It's what Matt never did-- he hid this from Matt. Maybe if he hadn't... that doesn't fucking matter. He watches Marcus wash away blood like Midnighter's a person who understands normal, human pain, and he sighs.
"You asked if I wanted somebody to come home to," he says. "This kinda shit's... why. Not because I'm, y'know, because I need a nurse. But- this is nice, right?" He reaches limply for Marcus' head, trying to caress his jaw, to put their foreheads together. His voice has a twinge of despiration. He's not the only one who feels this, right?
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"I dunno how you did this stuff alone," he mutters. Then he thinks about it: smaller scale, but he's being a hypocrite. He grimaces. "No, actually. Worse. I know exactly how you did this stuff alone." Gentle, he strokes the back of his knuckles across Midnighter's jaw. "To hell with that, right?"
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQo1HIcSVtg
thx for that earworm.
its always playing in my head
Re: its always playing in my head
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