SEVEN #2
But then the antiseptic hits next, and I feel like I’ve just been licked by a hot poker. My fingers curl without my say-so, and Stranger stops moving instantly, pausing while I fight back a groan of sheer agony.
I have to actively force my hands open again, slowly spreading each finger against the worn blanket under me. Stranger doesn’t move again until I’m still, waiting patiently before continuing to clean the gash on my side.
That becomes the pattern for the next hellish handful of minutes. Pain, react, restraint. Stranger’s eyes track every move, watching my hands open before they can ask, their breath growing quieter the longer I prove I’m not going to make another grab at them.
Thankfully, Stranger works fast. Not gently, exactly, but carefully, which I learn are distinctly different.
Gentle belongs to soft words and unnecessary reassurance.
Careful, however, is knowing where the line is and refusing to cross it, even when the world has made crossing lines the easiest way to survive.
Stranger? Stranger is careful. With my wound, with their own body, with the very clear distance between us.
They thread the needle with steady hands, and I look at those hands, because looking at anything else right now seems a little too dangerous to risk.
It’s how I notice how small their hands are.
Not quite delicate, because I’m convinced there isn’t a single delicate thing about the grip they keep on the thread, the smear of blood that stains their knuckles, or the faint scars sprinkled over their fingers.
Their nails are painted black, a little chipped at the tips, although one thumbnail looks freshly touched up.
A weird little detail to notice in the middle of a wrecked bedroom in a dilapidated house while Biters wander below and a stranger stitches me up with nothing more than a sewing kit that looks like it was snatched right out of a grandmother’s purse.
I notice it, nonetheless.
I also notice the pale patches across their skin, vitiligo trailing over an olive-toned complexion, only visible when their sleeves ride up.
The marks look almost silver in the low light, scattered across the back of their hand, vanishing under the cuff they keep pulling down when they realize it’s shifted.
Hiding everything, even if it’s beautiful.
Just as that thought filters through my brain, Stranger fucks me up with the first stitch without a single damned warning. My vision flashes white, burning pain igniting all through my side, and I’m forced to breathe through it and keep my calm while I internally lose my shit to the agony.
Stranger leans close enough that their scent slips through the blockers again, more vivid now thanks to the proximity and their exhaustion.
I can smell the usual blood, mud, and chemicals.
But under it all is that sweetness again, a luring scent that my Alpha wants to lean closer to but doesn’t dare.
The needle pulls through my flesh again, and the thread follows a split second later.
Another stitch, another sharp flare of pain.
Stranger’s knee stays pressed on the mattress beside my hip, but they never touch, only keeping close enough that I can feel the slight dip of their weight.
And every few seconds, I catch them glancing at my hands, and each time they find them open with my palms facing the ceiling.
By the fourth stitch, sweat literally coats my body, beading at my temple.
By the fifth stitch, Stranger’s breathing has evened out again.
It’s very clear they’re still not relaxed, if they ever were before my stupid fucking blunder, but it’s less sharp.
On the very last stitch, Stranger’s finger brushes my side.
It’s just barely, and very clearly an accident.
The contact isn’t any more than a slight brush of a knuckle against my rib, but my whole body turns rigid with the effort it takes not to react.
Stranger notices anyway, and their hand lifts instantly, hovering over the bandage.
Always expecting the worst from every single movement.
For the first time since we met, I finally understand that their fear of closeness isn’t abstract. It’s not dislike. It’s a weapon pointed inward, ready to fire the second their body forgets that survival comes first.
Stranger ties off the thread a moment later, before they cover the wound with gauze and tape. They’re efficient, if not a little aggressive and firm, and it’s only when they’re done that they finally look at my face again.
“All done,” they whisper.
Swallowing hard, I nod and rasp back, “Thank you.”
Their shoulders suddenly tense, so I stop there, bottling anything else that might have slipped out of my mouth. No more words, no asking why they even helped, no telling them they didn’t need to or have to, and definitely not making them sit awkwardly in my gratitude as if it’s another cage.
Just silence that stretches between us while their eyes search mine for whatever they think I might do next. Which is absolutely nothing. I don’t move an inch, keeping perfectly still despite the yearning need to curl in on myself and maybe cry a little, because that shit fucking hurt.
After a moment, Stranger gathers the ruined bandage, wipes, needle, and thread.
Everything goes back in their backpack with quiet efficiency.
Then they slide off the mattress and return to the corner, taking their gun and knife with them, and apparently stealing all the warmth with them.
The bed feels colder as soon as they leave it, and it’s not a thought I particularly like having.
Stranger sits down exactly where they were before, back against the wall, gun loose in their hand as they rest their arm on their raised knee while the other clutches their knife tightly as they rest their hand on their thigh.
For a long while, neither of us utters a word.
The downpour fills the silence while the house settles, and I do my best to relax my body now that the pain in my side has morphed from a raging inferno to more of a controlled burn.
Eventually, their voice quietly floats through the room, startling me a second time tonight. “Go to sleep.”
It’s not a request, and so I close my eyes.
This time, I don’t pretend as quickly. Instead, I wait until their breathing shifts.
I wait until their fingers finally settle again, until the scent of fear finally fades enough that I can scent the sweeter notes that somehow manage to hide under the grime, gore, and blood.
Only then do I let my breaths even out, but I don’t sleep.
Not really. Instead, I study the person in the corner through the narrow slit of my lashes.
They’re quiet in ways that feel practiced, not at all natural.
Some people are quiet because their minds are filled with peace.
Some are quiet because they’ve learned that sound invites nothing but trouble with teeth.
Stranger is very much the second kind of quiet, and every movement they make is measured first against the risk it could bring.
When they check the window, they do it without turning their whole head.
When the creak of a floorboard sounds from downstairs, their fingers shift around the knife before the sound even finishes.
And when I breathe too deeply, their eyes cut to me immediately.
Stranger reacts to literally everything, but they reveal next to nothing, and that funny little contradiction keeps tugging at me in ways I don’t even understand.
They’re dryly funny when irritated, but not because they want to charm anyone.
Because sarcasm seems to be the only thing allowed out when everything else has been shut down tightly.
It slips through their control like steam through a cracked pipe.
A comment about gravity. A threat about upholstery.
A mutter about men being a species-shaped headache no one should have to deal with.
The humor comes quick and sharp, and it’s gone before it can ever become anything soft and vulnerable.
Stranger doesn't laugh easily. They almost do, but that almost might actually make it worse.
Their age bothers me a whole lot, too. I can’t pin it down, not in the dark, under the cap and bandana, or swallowed by oversized clothes.
They could easily pass for a small Beta male anywhere between late teens and mid-twenties.
But their eyes feel younger when they forget to harden them.
Their exhaustion is somehow as young as their stubbornness.
But their restraint? Hell, that shit is ancient.
It belongs to someone who has learned much too early in life that wanting things is lethal.
That it costs you more than anything is ever worth.
Stranger shifts in the corner, a quiet rustle of fabric against the carpeted floor as they stretch their injured leg out only a little before tucking it securely back under control.
The hand holding the knife releases it for only a moment, briefly pressing their fingers against their arm where the fabric is torn, and I catch another flash of pale skin under the sleeve.
They hide it just as quickly, and so I start another list in my head.
Size: questionable with the baggy clothing.
Voice: deliberately altered to a lower tone that seems forced.
Hands: too small, too careful, nails painted black. That’s a detail that certainly doesn’t match the disguise, but it definitely feels like it’s worth noting.
Scent: completely wrong on all accounts.
Tension: a constant companion.
Fear: directed at me, but not because of anything I’ve done tonight.
Proximity: incredibly dangerous to them. Not physically. Or, at least, not only physically.