Fighting with Lev, or at least speaking to him in the tone I had really didn’t get me far, except ignored for a week. But it wasn’t even really that he ignored me, he just didn’t speak to me as much as he did before. He didn’t go out of his way to speak to me. I wanted to apologize, but he wasn’t here, like he hadn’t been the last two nights. He was here when I woke up, but not when I got back from working in the medic wing around one a.m. I figured he was either with Sasha or other friends and avoided me until he knew I would be sleeping.
It pissed me off. At least if he had a problem with me, he could have taken it up with me, not avoid me.
Taking my anger out on Caleb’s stuff, I was tossing it into a black garbage bag, not even looking to see what any of it was. I really didn’t care. I was too mad about Lev’s bullshit to care.
Working on the fourth garbage bag of Caleb’s shit, Lev came back. He looked confused to see me standing there, still in work clothing and awake. I ignored him standing there. He had a couple extra bowls in his hand the way they were packaged, telling me they were from Ryer and Sasha’s. I knew that’s where he had been, much to Ryer’s dislike.
I continued to stuff Caleb’s things into the garbage bag as he walked to the kitchen and put the bowls in the fridge. Tying up the bag, I set it beside the others and went to grab another one, but we were out of garbage bags.
Snatching my keys off the countertop, Lev suddenly spoke.
“Where are you going? It’s two in the morning.”
“To get into a fucking car crash.”
I didn’t even notice him move until I felt him yank the keys from my hand and he slammed me into the kitchen wall, knocking things down somewhere.
“Are you fucking kidding me, Alessio!” He yelled, not even masking his anger now. The anger was mixed with pain. He had clearly hurt himself by slamming me into the wall. I reached down, trying to look at his wound, but he applied more pressure with the arm he had across my chest. I looked back up at him. I was still angry.
“You could have reopened your wound. Let me look.”
“No, Not until we talk about whatever the fuck that just was! A car crash! Are you fucking kidding me?”
“I didn’t mean it.”
“I don’t care if you didn’t mean it. You said it and that’s enough.”
“I—”
“Quiet, and listen. I’ve had it. I’ve tried to give you fucking space this week to get some of your emotions under control, but I’m done. You clearly can keep a handle on your emotions.”
“You want to handle my emotions when my lover died? How the fuck am I supposed to do that? Just address them and suddenly everything will be better.” I screamed back at him.
“Hell, it’s better than what you’re doing now! You aren’t even allowing yourself to grieve, you are sweeping it all under the rug and ignoring it. When was the last time you did anything more than eat, sleep, work, or shower? You don’t know, do you? It’s been a week since you spoke to Creed, Alexi, and your dad.”
“Let me go. I don’t need this!”
I pushed my hand out and hit his shirt. It was wet. Moving my hand up, my fingers were red. He was bleeding again.
“Lev, you’re bleeding again. Please let me look.”
“I dont fucking care, Alessio. This is hardly—-”
“Let me look at your wound, for fuck’s sakes, you could bleed out!”
“I’m not.”
“You don’t know that!”
“It’s not the first time I’ve reopened the wound this week.”
“Why didn’t you come to me?”
“You have your own shit you’re dealing with.”
That was pretty sobering.
“Lev, please, let me look. I don’t care if you’re not bleeding out. I want to look, I need to look.”
“Fine. But tomorrow, You are going to see Doctor Martin, even if I have to take you there.”
“Are you serious?”
“Yes, very. Your dad was the one who suggested it might be the best option. I agreed that it was a wise idea.”
“You talked to my dad about this!”
“Who else is going to listen to me angrily vent about things? He is worried about you.”
“Lev. my dad has enough to worry about, he doesn’t need to be worrying about me.”
“He worries regardless.”
“Let me deal with your wound, and I’ll deal with the rest of this tomorrow.”
Lev wasn’t wrong, and I hated that. I needed help, even if it was only someone to listen to my current problem. I had regrets about all the words I said to Caleb before I left. Going to therapy wasn’t the worst thing I could do.
Lev pulled off his shirt. And it was bleeding more than I would have liked. He had popped a couple stitches and someone had replaced them.
“Who the hell put these in?” I snapped, annoyed.
“Your dad.”
“Excuse me?”
“Your dad, I popped them at his place.”
“I’m going to murder him, and then you. Keep pressure on that while I wash my hands and get the medical bag.”
Medical bag in hand, I went back to the living room. I was going to have to use medical glue thanks to the mess from the stitches popping and the medical glue would also be easier to apply if he popped it open again. He would also get another five or ten days out of it. I was going to give my father a giant piece of my mind, too. They should have brought him right to me. None of this home surgery bullshit.
“Stand up, Keep pressure on that. We are going down to the medical wing and I’m going to remove all the stitches and glue it closed.”
“It’s two in the morning!”
“I don’t care. I need to fix this.”
“Can’t you just stop the bleeding? We can deal with this later.”
“No. Not at all. I am dealing with this right so that you and my father don’t do any more kitchen doctor jobs!’
“It was the bathroom actually, Lukas didn’t want blood in the kitchen.”
“Lev, that’s even worse! Now I’m going to scrub that down with an antiseptic and give antibiotics for good measure.”
“That’s more than a little extreme.”
“Maybe now you will learn to come see me when you’re injured.”
Lev and I made the trip down the stairs and to the medic wing. He was in a lot of discomfort, but I was going to give him some numbing, but also, some pain medication to make him a little more comfortable. I was honestly going to scrub and clean his wound, and he would not like it in the slightest.
He sat laid on the bed, and I was all too aware of him and his spicy scent as I cleaned his wound. He was probably grateful for the numbing and pain medication. Grabbing sterile scissors, I cut the stitches and pulled them out with tweezers. He was watching me pull them out, and I heard him gag suddenly.
“Are you ok Lev?”
“Thats fucking nasty. How do you do that?”
“You’re a trained killer and you find pulling out stitches nasty?”
“Yes, it’s gross.”
“Right.”
“You’re judging me.”
“Yes, very much so.”
He shook his head, laying back down all the way. I scrubbed the wound again now that all the stitches were removed. He bled again, and I applied pressure. We stayed that way for a few moments until the wound was clotted again.
I applied the glue after I removed the gauze pad and made sure it was going to be enough to keep the wound shut. I watched as it dried. This would be a better option now. At least I might save him from a scar. He didn’t need anymore to match the ones he already had littering his skin.
“This should be dry now and save you from some more scaring.”
“Oh yes, because I’m worried about having another scar.” He laughed.
I covered the area with another waterproof bandage just for the night. The side of the bandage was peeling up slightly, and I pushed it back down a little harder than I meant to and Lev grunted.
“You could be a little gentler, you know.”
“It was an accident. I didn’t mean to push that hard. My bad.”
“Give me a hand up.”
“You know I can’t.”
“Just try.”
So I did. I got him upright. It was shocking, and I was way more excited about it than I, as a grown man, should have been.
“Calm down, big man. I helped too.” Lev said, chuckling.
“I know that.”
“Just making sure, don’t want to pump up that Mihail ego of yours.”
“Let’s go. I would like to get a few hours of sleep today.”
Lev stood up, and I cleaned up the mess I made. I double and triple checked it before heading back to Caleb’s–my wing. Lev was walking a little slow, but that was fine.
Getting inside the wing, I sighed. I was honestly so damn ready for bed. The problem was, I needed to have a fucking shower.
“I’m grabbing a quick shower, then going to bed.”
“Sounds like a good plan.”
Grabbing a pair of boxers out of the drawer, I went to the bathroom and closed the door, peeling off all my clothes from work. I was honestly going to stop wearing normal clothing to work and just switch to scrubs full time. At least then they were more comfortable.
Turning on the water, I waited a moment before stepping under the spray. The warm water felt like heaven pelting my back. I could stay here forever, but I couldn’t. The hot water would run out and then it would be like icy little drops from above, ruining everything.
Going through all the normal cleaning that happens in the shower, I did it as quickly as possible and flicked the shower off. Only quickly drying off enough to pull my boxers on before flicking the light off and running out of the bathroom and sliding into the bed.
Beside Lev.
“Alessio. You are still soaked.”
“I toweled off a bit.”
“I doubt that. I just got a second hand shower from the amount of water still on you.”
“I was tired, and this is the best you’re getting.”
He grumbled something that wasn’t English under his voice as he got out of the bed and went to the bathroom. He came back with a towel in his hand and a look on his face that made me wonder if he was going to choke me with the damn thing.
“Sit the hell up so I can at the very least dry off your fucking hair.”
“No. I don’t want to.”
“Alessio. Don’t be a damned brat.”
I sat up, annoyed that he called me a brat, but also amused by it. He sat on the edge of the bed and dried my hair, and he was very gentle and nice about it. So much so that I was relaxed and pretty close to falling asleep.
When he finally stood up to take the towel back to the bathroom, I fell flat on my back against the bed.
“Wait. come back. That was so relaxing.” I groaned.
“Go to bed. You have to be up in a few hours.”
Lev was right. I did.
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