Chapter 42
Oh no.
No no no no no.
Fuck.
I’m fucked.
The one single day that I got forcefully taken out of bed, with no time to pack or prepare, where I didn’t even have my star-forsaken boob tape, NATURALLY had to be the day my ovaries decide to throw a fucking party.
Because of course they did. Why would my hormones offer a predictable and consistent routine when they could pick the worst and most inconvenient time to ruin everything?
Human menstrual cycles were proof that intelligent design was a myth created by fucking men who have never had to ask why their internal organs shed their lining externally in a messy and bloody display of misery.
Even my own body punished me for not wanting to procreate. Existence is the true dystopia.
“Where are you hurt?” Elio went straight into concern mode, and I had no clue how I was supposed to explain this. How about ‘nowhere. Bleeding without wounds is completely normal. You just haven’t experienced it because your body makes cum instead of miracles like mine does.’
I should say it just like that. Imagine his reaction. That always smug, sharp featured face, slack with shock and horror—oh, that would be satisfying. That was probably the face he made after I beat him in VR, and I never got to witness it. Here was my chance.
“I’m fine,” is what I said instead, which did absolutely nothing to discourage him from grabbing me by the arm to look for the wound. Thank the stars they got me black pants instead of my grey ones.
“You’re not fine.” He sounded genuinely worried. That was cute. Comical really. He actually beat me up badly enough to make me bleed before, and he was the one who was panicking over a little period blood on the sheets? Sir.
Maybe this was one of those white knight, possessive things, but the white knight had red hair and was completely unhinged. Like ‘no one is allowed to make you bleed but me!’
Romantic.
It was a true wonder that I never dated.
“It’s fine. I must have just got cut by some glass during the fight last night, and I didn’t notice because we were drinking.
If I had a gaping wound, I would know.” I attempted next, trying to squirm away from his touch before he could inspect my body for damage any more closely.
But no, this annoyingly powerful man wasn’t one to let go.
“It’s still bright red, so I’m going to go out on a limb and say it’s not old, dried out blood from last night,” he said with an annoyed furrow to his brow.
Of course the guy whose favorite pastime is punching people knows the color timetables of blood stains.
“If you got gashed by a broken bottle, then you at least need to disinfect it. You should know that as a medic.” And look at him paying attention in First Aid 101.
There’s hope for him yet. Somebody clap.
“Quit being stubborn, and let me help you.” Elio insisted, because the other evidence I had to dispute intelligent design was in the way the entire male half of our species was incapable of picking up on hints and nuance and body language and basic communication that everyone else understood without having to be beat over the head with it.
In any other circumstance, his distress might have been endearing. But not this one. I needed him to go back to hating me immediately, or I was going to have to explain some things I wasn’t ready to admit.
“I’ll go take care of it in the bathroom.
I’ve had worse injuries, I promise.” I pulled away and took a single step to get some distance.
It was in that moment that the cruel force of gravity came out to play, and I could just feel it as my soul left my body and glooped in my boxers.
It had been something like four and a half months since my last dance with the red devil, and now I was going to pay for all of them at once, right in front of the completely wrong person.
I had nothing at all to stop this from becoming a bigger problem.
I must have shown my horror on my face, because Elio stepped forward and grabbed me again to forcefully drag me to the bathroom, and oh my god all this movement had coagulated fluids running down my leg.
Please, stars. This can’t be how it all ends.
“I’ll help.”
No you won’t. Nothing is going to help me now.
“Seriously, it’s fine. I don’t need you to—” He shoved me into the bathroom, unnecessarily rough considering I was allegedly an injured person. I suppose expecting softness from Elio was a drastic leap, no matter how warm and comfortable he’d been last night.
Because I’d been cuddling with him, and now he was trying to save my life.
‘Don’t feed the strays,’ they said. ‘You’ll never get rid of them,’ they said.
All of this listening and asking questions had accidentally gotten us closer, and now I had all of the regret.
When people said I didn’t belong in the military, I might say they were right purely because of these accidental flare ups of unwanted empathy.
Not even Elio could beat the compassion out of me, and the stars know he tried.
Elio shut the door behind us, before digging a first aid kit out from the storage pod beneath the sink.
“Take off your shirt,” He demanded, and my face lit up, my cheeks as red as my misguided vagina.
While I still had my A2 and visibly, I’d be fine, I had no bandages that would prevent him from feeling everything if he so much as accidentally brushed by my chest area.
I didn’t need his skin anywhere near my nipples.
That thought hit me like a meteor, and it was so vivid and vibrant in my mind that I could practically feel it.
The way he might bump into my chest with his arm, then in his confusion, he’d have to explore.
His palm would fit against my breasts, his warm hands cupping me gently and fully, and his rough, calloused thumb would stroke along my skin, writing my body into his memory.
He’d be surprised for a moment, then he’d let his curiosity take over, inspecting me carefully, sliding his hands down to my waist, leaning in, and using his pierced tongue to…
By the stars, stop, stop, stop. FUCK my fucking hormones.
Where did that even come from? That mental image shouldn’t exist anywhere in my headspace, and I was now going to blame my excess of testosterone, because testosterone was always the source of all the universe’s problems.
Instead of fantasizing and day dreaming while in the middle of a literal crisis, I should be thinking about the fact that he would find no cuts or scrapes or anything resembling an injury as he…
ahem… explored my upper body—it sure would be nice if pulling so much blood into my face would curb the flow from the other direction, but fuck me, right?
— and that would only lead this investigation to an even more dangerous area.
“You’re freaking out over nothing.” I was trying not to reflect my straight-panic or the desperate pleading in my voice, but it was surely there. “It’s probably just a scratch. I’ll bandage it up real quick, and then we can get back to Astaroth. I’m trained for this. Trust me.”
Those words seemed to strike something in him, and he winced like I’d dealt him a physical blow.
If the idea of trusting me hurt him that much, he really couldn’t know I’d been lying to everyone about everything all this time.
“Why are you being so difficult?” Elio shook it off with a furrow to his brow. “If it was just a scratch, you wouldn’t have bled enough to stain the sheets hours after we left the bar.” He moved in close and started unbuttoning my shirt for me, starting with the button at my neck, then moving down…
I froze. Full on, solid as stone, froze.
Elio pulled away as soon as he sensed my muscles tense under his touch.
A frown painted his lips. “Are you seriously still this afraid of me?”
He looked genuinely hurt by that revelation, and that hurt me by proxy. Which was disturbing, quite frankly. He deserved a little anguish for everything he put me through. I thought I was better at holding grudges than this, so why did I so desperately want to say I didn’t hate him anymore?
The only thing I was scared of now was that, if he knew my secret, things might change between us, and no matter how much physical pain and torment he put me through, at least he wasn’t hiding behind some fake mask of civility and infantilizing me.
Right now, I knew Elio. Not just the face he’d let a girl see.
And yet…
“Can you blame me?” I shook my head, knowing this was my only possible lifeline right now. It gutted me to say it, but it shouldn’t have. I was very much afraid of Elio for many reasons, some I would admit and some… I was still trying to understand myself.
I hated that, in this moment, I realized I couldn’t trust him to keep my secret, even if he’d trusted me with his.
Fuck, that’s so unfair.
“Not really.” He sighed. “But I wish you’d let me try and fix that.
” He rubbed the back of his neck and looked at the floor, with a sense of shame I’d never have thought him capable of.
His tattoos still shone on his skin, no longer hidden by his A2, and that vulnerable display only made me feel worse about having to do this.
“I’m sorry for being so rough with you in the past,” he said.
“I want to make it up to you.” Everything about his tone, his body language, and that expression on his face felt like a real and heartfelt apology.
Why did I want to accept it? When did it become so hard to hate him?
One night didn’t erase everything else, but could I honestly say it was just one night that was now living in my head?
It had been months of “just one moments” both good and bad, until I found myself sleeping through the night, the first time in years that I didn’t wake up with nightmares, because…
he was there. That was what was shaking me so hard.