vanillajello | Room 324, Sunday Evening

Kate closed her eyes for just a moment centering herself and trying to remember what she'd learned in First Aid, just to focus on something.

Then she opened her eyes and kept going, using the antiseptic to clean the cuts, murmuring soothing things as she did, trying to take the edge off the stinging. Once that was done, she wrapped the foot up in bandages. Professor Pierce should've been proud.

And then it was on to the other foot and back to the tweezers. Unfortunately there was a tiny bit of rock there that was a little harder to get out. She was going to get it, but it took just a little more time.

"I'm so sorry."

"It's fine," he said though he sounded like it was anything but. His voice wavered and faltered though he was proud he'd kept still long enough for her to do this despite the unrelenting and awful pain.

Next time, shoes.

"You're doing fine," he breathed even if he was coiled as tight as a piano string. "You're doing fine."

She refrained from arguing with that, because she needed the reassurance, shaky as it was. Never done this before. It was amazing she was as calm as she was.

That pesky little rock came out eventually, and the few others followed far more easily. "Almost done," she muttered as she started with the antiseptic again. "Not much more."

"I'm all right, I'm all right." He wasn't but he wasn't going to say that anyway. He took a few quick breaths, valiantly fighting off the urge to just curl up and not let her finish.

Selfishly, he was glad he didn't have to look since that probably would have been too much for him. Feeling it was enough.

Looking at it... actually got pretty easy after she got started. She just focused on the details of what she was doing. Had she stopped and thought about what she was doing, or actually looked at the whole mess she was dealing with, she would've been doomed.

But she was surprisingly okay. The second time around the disinfecting and the bandages that followed almost felt like routine, and she was finished quicker than the first time.

"All done," she said, getting up to take the towel and the first aid supplies away.

"Thank you," he said quietly and didn't move. His feet still stung but it wasn't as bad and he knew she was the cause. Things were dulled physically but there was a roaring in his ears and he didn't know if he was going to be able to fight off the continued push of stress.

He felt better but he felt worse and he didn't know why. Later, he'd attribute it to his adrenaline finally wearing off. Right now, he just didn't know.

Kate busied herself with first unceremoniously dumping the little pieces of rock in the trash, then going to the bathroom to wash what little blood there had been off the towel. After hanging the towel to dry, she came into the room again and picked up his towel and the pudding box off the bed and put those away as well.

And then... And then nothing.

Needed to be doing something, but she'd ran out of things to do. So, she ended up kind of standing in the middle of the room, a little awkward.

It took a lot to actually get to Bod. A lot. The past few days had been a lot and it eventually just got too much for him to fight back. He felt the first few tears leaking out and wetting the arm still pressed against his eyes.

More came after that but he was trying to keep quiet so she wouldn't figure out what he was doing. He hoped that he could get it out and be done even if another part of him knew that was unrealistic. He rarely cried but he wasn't loud. He barely made a sound even if his arm was getting wetter and wetter and he couldn't seem to control himself.

Kate glanced at him, but it was a quick glance. She didn't realize he was crying, not yet.

Instead, she wandered over to her desk again, and picked up the knife as if to put it away. Then she realized she had nowhere to put it away to, so she set it down again.

Idly, numbly, she thought she might want to invest in a weapon of some sort. So next time she wouldn't have to grab the sharpest (not that sharp) and biggest (not that big) knife from a cabin kitchen area.

She knew there'd be a next time. She was sure.

And her surety was probably a sad indicator of things. She was being smart but it was still sad.

Bod, however, wasn't really seeing this. He was still crying quietly into his arm, trying to forget about the little girl who'd been on fire, the nurses with no faces, and the man with the apron made of skin. He wanted to forget it all but his desires were apparently coming out in quiet sobs that seemed to be getting a little harsher.

Quieting himself wasn't working all that well anymore so he tried to muffle it with his arm.

It wasn't enough to stop her ears from picking something up, not when everything was so quiet and she was so very aware of him, anyway.

She turned around, took some soft steps towards the bed, kept her voice quiet. "Bod?"

Talking was going to give himself away, not talking was going to give himself away. It was lose lose either way with keeping his crying hidden. In the end, he decided not to try.

"What?" If she hadn't known before what he was doing, she'd know now. His voice was watery and wavering, interrupted by sobs and harshly pulled breaths in an attempt to calm himself down.

The sound of his voice made something in her own chest tighten, and she didn't immediately say anything.

Instead, she climbed on the bed too, awkwardly stretching out in the space beside him so she could get an arm around him, get herself close to him.

"I'm sorry, I don't mean to cry," he said but didn't stop himself from crying. In all honesty, he probably couldn't have stopped it even if he'd tried. He'd built it up and up and now it was all coming out.

"It was just bad there," he stuttered out, shaking a bit. "It was bad."

"Shh, it's okay," she replied quietly, almost surprised by how steady her voice was. She brushed her fingers back and forth against his side, trying to soothe, even if just a little bit. "You're here now. It's okay."

"I know I know," he said, nodding because he did. He knew. "It was hard not to give up. I didn't think I'd see you again. Or anyone. I thought I'd die there. I did."

And then he couldn't have seen her or gone home or anything. Bod hitched a breath and took his arm away from his face, finally showing off redder eyes and his wet cheeks.

She raised her hand to his face, wiping some of the wetness from his cheek, as useless as it was. It was getting harder to hold back her own tears, now. If he was crumbling, he was taking her with her, whether he wanted to or not.

It wasn't as if she hadn't spent time wondering whether she was going to see him again. Or any of her friends. And how long it would be before the voids around the manor would swallow the building too, casting her fuck knows where.

She wanted to say something, but she had nothing, and she was biting hard on her lower lip.

"It was bad and I was helpless and useless and I wanted you there with me but I knew that was selfish because it would have been awful for you," he said, choking it out and trying to stop the stream of words from pouring out.

He managed for a moment, just sobbing and shaking some now, letting the overwhelming feelings drown him. "I'm sorry I'm sorry. Please forgive me for not staying, for not helping. I'm sorry."

"It was awful for you too," she replied, weakly, clinging to him as he shook. Her voice was thick now, and she hated the sound of it. "Don't be sorry. Don't. It's not your fault."

Ignoring any protests of pain, Bod rolled to his side, trying to press himself against her as best he could with being as bandage and shaky as he was. He did manage to tuck his face against her neck so she'd end up feeling tears on her skin.

"I didn't want to die," he mumbled carelessly, shaking his head, "and I thought I was going to, I really did. I don't want to die. I don't. There was so much pain there. It hurt."

She moved her arm around him again, torn between desperate clinging and trying to have some concern on all his cuts and bruises. "You're alive," she said. "You didn't die, you're not going to die, you're here, you--"

And now her voice was cracking. Fabulous.

"I missed you. I missed you," he said and that just brought on a fresh batch of tears. He was going to soak her shirt and or her neck or whatever and he didn't care. He couldn't care.

"It hurt badly," he admitted through his tears, "and I didn't want that to happen to you. I - I - I- "

Bod couldn't quite get the rest out but he figured he'd be forgiven. He was having a little breakdown, after all, and was just surprised he was talking at all.

Okay, so now the tears were coming, and Kate was stupidly glad he couldn't see them. Nevermind that he could probably feel them through his shirt and against his skin, and hear their effects in her voice.

"I know, I know," she replied, trying not to sob too much. "I missed you too. I missed you so much."

Bod breathed roughly against her neck, trying to get his breath back. He ended up just crying again, wondering if he'd ever stop or where all this was even coming from. A dam had burst though and he couldn't barricade things back up.

"I don't want to die," he said again, shaking with the force of the words. "No one deserves what I saw and I don't want to end up like that. It was so bad. It was so bad. I don't want to die."

"We're not there," she replied, trying to soothe even if she was shaken and shaking too. Trying so hard to hold on to being the one who could fix things. "We're not. You're not. You're safe."

That felt like a lie, but a necessary one.

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