An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Summary: “I’m a damaged teenager,” Jim continues belligerently, smacking NotEnrique’s hands away from the tins of tea, “I need care and support and people to respect boundaries.”
A lot of things happen all at once, and Jim handles it. Sort of.
“It’s none of your business who!” Nomura hisses, and while one hand remains on the shallow wound in her side, the other goes to the handle of a curved blade. “Back off, Trollhunter. I’m giving you one chance to do so before I kick you off this ledge.”
When was the last time she called him Trollhunter with that intent? Angry and hateful, like when they were still enemies. Jim’s pointed ears are still flat against the sides of his head as he reluctantly backs up, pressing to the very edge of their outcropping. He doesn’t like Nomura acting like she hates him again, it almost- hurts, in a way. Feels… wrong.
And not just because she’s his friend, and he cares about her even if she says mean and scary things a lot of the time. No, it’s a different kind of wrongness, and another flavor of weird that’s infecting Jim.
He clenches his jaw. This is what he came up here to get away from, but now Nomura is here and hurt and not letting him help her, and discomfort Jim had wanted to escape is rising back up in him.
Slowly, Nomura lowers herself back down into a crouch- more of a curl around her side, now that Jim knows what to look for. And as he sees that tell, he notes an amount of disarray to her appearance that Nomura normally wouldn’t ever allow. A slight muss to her long inky hair, smudges of dirt in places they shouldn’t be, a bruise around her wrist that’s blooming steadily; all evidence of what’s been done. They sit for a few moments, silent in their own clouds of brooding, and Jim finds himself studying each and every detail of Nomura’s unadmitted fight with someone.
“…It’s not bad, is it?” Jim asks, after managing to shove down the hot anger of Nomura being hurt.
Nomura huffs. “Of course not. It’s barely more than a scratch.”
The way she phrases it… Jim is reminded strongly of their time in the Darklands, trapped in crystal cages together and never certain the other would come back alive, each time they were separated. And then the downplaying of injuries when they did come back, battered and bleeding, but still alive.
“Do you promise me you’ll be okay?” Jim says, looking hard at the glow of Trollmarket below, pushing away the sludgy feeling of those days spent on the fine edge between life and death, hope and despair.
Nomura is quiet for a moment, then says,
“Yes. You don’t have to worry, little Gynt. It won’t take more than a good day’s rest to put me to rights.”