A/N: My heart wanted a story for the two year anniversary. My head said “Oh you want to suffer? Can do!” So here we are...at least this isn’t the Canon-Compliant AU?
Word Count: 1233
Rating: T - references to major injury, plot points of Bad Samaritan; anxiety; illness/traumatic brain injury recovery (I did my best with research but...there’s only so far you can get with that); general themes of sick fic and hurt/comfort
It was a bad day.
Ryne knew it the minute she walked through the locked front door.
The apartment was dark, and swelteringly hot, and deafeningly quiet. A thin slice of dusk cut into the center of the room, seeming more like bright midday in comparison, from where one of the heavy-duty curtains had shifted. Shedding as many layers as she could while she moved, Ryne navigated by feel, grateful that they'd been in the new place long enough that she knew where the furniture corners and uneven floorboards were, more or less. She turned on the quietest of the fans in the apartment, hoping that even though the air circulating instead of sitting stagnant wouldn't fix anything, it could at least keep matters from getting worse.
She didn't turn on the light as she ran a glass of cool water from the kitchen tap, or set the kettle on to boil. She didn’t turn on the lights while she set out a mug and tea bag and waited, hoping that Derek would be as soothed by the gentle mint smell wafting from the warm drink. She didn’t turn on the lights when she opened the bathroom’s small window to let out some of the air, or when she eased open the door to the only room it was possible her boyfriend might be.
Derek was sprawled on the bed, blankets tangled around his legs and skin slicked with sweat. Menace curled against the back of his neck, purring loudly and licking his hair, as if he was trying to groom away the pain.
“Derek?” she whispered, kneeling beside the bed, “Sweetie? Can you talk to me?”
He groaned, opening eyes that even in the dark she could tell were puffy and irritated. She raised a hand to his forehead, feeling that it was cool and clammy. He was shivering, despite the warmth of the apartment, bundled into what appeared to be every blanket that they owned between them. His lips moved slightly, like he was trying to form words but didn’t have enough control of his face to do it.
She shook her head in answer, sighing as softly as she could. Lacing her fingers through his, she decided on another route, one that had worked wonders when he was still in the hospital.
“You remember how this goes, yeah?” she asked. “Think you can answer?”
He squeezed her hand once for yes, and though it wasn’t nearly as strong as she hoped, it was enough.
“Has this been going on all day?”
Two squeezes this time.
“It’s nearly six, do you know when it started to get bad?” He squeezed her hand twice again, and then after a pause a third time, trying to count and remember how long he had been laid out.
“Did you take anything?” Two squeezes, that was good.
“Do you think you can sit up and drink something?” Two squeezes.
“If I help you?” He hesitated before squeezing once. She couldn’t read his expression clearly in the gloom that had settled back over the apartment as the sun went down, but she knew him well enough to know that, if he was, or would be if he could be, scowling, hating the feeling of being helpless.
“I made tea, or we can start with just water.” He squeezed once and she smiled. “Okay, I’ll be right back.”
After banishing the cat from the room in order to thwart his inconvenient attempts to play nursemaid of his own, she helped Derek to settle against the headboard and gently held the mug to his lips. He drank in slow, unsteady sips, and she kept her free hand on his, in case he needed to tell her something else.
“Mint working its magic like our moms always promised?” Ryne asked when it was half drunk, trying to keep her voice light despite the worry gnawing at her gut.
She always worried when she came home to find him struggling. No matter how much the doctors assured them that bad days were to be expected, and that every step forward was likely to come with just as many back. at least for a while, she knew him. Bad days physically were usually followed by bad weeks in terms of his mental health, berating himself for his “weakness” and for being a burden or maybe even worse, sitting in the bitter numbness of depression and it was all she could do to reach for him before he drowned. And on the really bad days, some fear inside her - the kind she didn’t dare voice out loud to anyone, even herself - whispered viciously that the doctors had lied and sent him home simply to get rid of him, and that she was going to blink and lose him, still. She was terrified of the fact that today was one of those really bad days.
She jumped, startled out of her thoughts when he squeezed her hand, answering the question she guiltily realized she had forgotten she asked.
She set the mug aside and Derek smiled weakly at her.
“Think you feel up to try walking with me? You’ll feel a lot better if we can clean some of the sweat off you, and that’s easier in the bathroom…”
~
Later, both at least sponge-cleaned and dressed in fresh sweats, Ryne settled into the bed beside her boyfriend. His arms circled tightly around her middle, crushing her to him in a way that, thankfully, felt rather intentional. The combination of warm tea, warmer water, and time were starting to relax his muscles. Still, she couldn’t help trying to speed the process even more, and soothe herself in the process, with the gentle massaging of her hands across the back of his head and down his neck.
“Ryne…” Derek sighed, slightly slurred and soft enough that she thought she might be imagining it.
She paused the lullaby she had been unconsciously humming, waiting to see if he continued.
“Thank you.”
“Oh Derek,” she sighed, nestling a little closer to him, pressing their noses together so that he had no choice but to meet her eye. “There is nothing to thank me for, okay. I love you, and I’m in this for the long haul, whatever that means. Even on the worst days.”
The corner of his mouth twitched in a grin.
“I just…wish you’d call me. As soon as you get the warning signs. I’ll drop everything if you need me, and we can try to fight off some of the worst together. If you let me.”
He stayed quiet for a long time, and she bit her lip, worried that in trying to remind him that she was there, she had accidentally pushed him away.
“I…” he words seemed to catch in his throat and he paused to start again. “I…forget. I was always alone. I forget I’m not.” The words came out forced and slow, soldiers marshaled and marched through gritted teeth and muscles that still occasionally spasmed patternlessly.
She sighed, closing her eyes against the tears that threatened at the reminder of how unfair life had been to them. “I know,” she murmured, her voice trembling too. “I know. We’ll get there. Together.”
The conversation ended, each following silent, wrapped up in each other and in their own thoughts, their breathing slowly syncing, slowly giving way to exhausted, healing sleep.
