“You’re an idiot,” Anwyll accused, a frown on his face as he eyed the wound at the back of Orion’s arm. It was a clean cut and not very long, but it was deep. It wasn’t bleeding as much as it had when Orion had come through the door swearing and muttering threats under his breath.

“Accurate. Otherwise I wouldn’t be asking an amateur to do my stitc- Ow!” Anwyll blinked at Orion innocently when the sentence cut off to a pained yelp. Orion glared back at him, which only intensified when Anwyll smiled at him sweetly, lowering the bottle of disinfectant he had poured on the wound.

“Then how about you don’t get hurt again?” Anwyll suggested. Orion scoffed.

“What, you think I jumped in front of the knife or something?” he asked.

“Yes,” Anwyll stated and Orion grimaced. Anwyll ignored him in order to turn to light up the candle on the nightstand. The gesture forced him to briefly turn his back to Orion and allowed him to hide the nervousness he was sure was showing on his face. He had tried to tell Orion he had never stitched wounds. The most experience he had of treating injuries was putting a plaster on a paper cut or doodling on Cadell’s cast when  he had broken his arm.

Anwyll had thought it gross and cool at the same time. It had been just a minor break from an accident when skiing, Cadell had told him. He had treated his injury like a medal. It had always made their dad smile and shake his head, making his scolding about safety much less effective.

Aside from plasters and doodling, most care Anwyll had done was to clean the scratch marks and bruises on his skin and to hide them.

The candle lit up to a bright flame and Anwyll stalled for few more seconds by making sure the match cooled down, before putting it down beside the candle. Orion had a knowing look in his eyes when Anwyll turned around again.

“Mind getting that bottle of whiskey from the closet before we start?” he asked then. Anwyll frowned at him, glancing towards the closet, before turning back to Orion.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea? I told you-” he cut himself off when Orion waved his hand in a dismissive manner.

“You’ve never done this before, yes yes. That is exactly why we need it,” he stated. Anwyll sighed, pushing himself off the bed and fetching the bottle from the closet. It was a cheap brand that burned enough to make Anwyll’s eyes water when it went down.

When Orion had first told Anwyll to take a sip, he’d laughed at Anwyll’s grimace and winked at him, telling him that was how you knew it was doing its job.

Anwyll didn’t know what Orion had against drinks that tasted better than fuel oil, but when in Rome…

Orion refused to take the bottle from Anwyll immediately, instead gesturing for Anwyll to take the first sip. Glancing at the needle and thread waiting at the night stand, he didn’t need to be told twice. The whiskey tasted just as bad as it had last time, but Anwyll had gotten better at controlling his reaction, limiting it to a small flinch.

Orion was grinning either way when Anwyll handed the bottle to him, taking a large sip, before setting it down on the floor beside the bed.

“Alright, let’s do this,” he cheered then, turning to reveal the cut to Anwyll again and removing the cloth he’d kept there to stem the blood flow. Anwyll nodded, picking up the needle and thread, slipping it through the eye of the needle and placing the sharp end of the needle in the candle flame. He wanted to stall for as long as he could, but with Orion shifting restlessly every few seconds and casting impatient glances his way, he knew it was a matter of seconds until he’d snap at Anwyll.

Taking a deep breath, he shuffled closer to Orion, grabbing a hold of his arm and holding it still.

“That’s a firm grip there. You get a lot of practise?” Orion asked, turning to smirk at Anwyll and Anwyll bit his lip to hide his reaction. And to keep the nervous laughter bubbling just beneath the surface from escaping.

Was he really supposed to sew the wound shut? He was bad at sewing. His seams always looked like a corvid had gotten loose on the fabric.

“I’m holding a needle at you, are you sure you want to do that now?” he asked, trying to cover up for the way his voice wavered nervously.

“I mean, I just survived a stab wound, not sure how much damage you’d manage with a needle,” Orion noted, amused, “but fine. Hand me the whiskey and I’ll be quiet as a grave.” Anwyll wrinkled his nose slightly at the comparison, but did pick up the bottle and hand it to Orion. He glanced to the side where he could feel his permanent companion eyeing the events unfolding with amused curiosity.

Life beyond the grave must be very boring, Anwyll mused to himself. If he finds this entertaining.

Orion twitched slightly and hissed when Anwyll pierced his skin with the needle and the reaction almost made Anwyll jump and pull back.

“Fuck, that stings more than when I do it myself,” Orion groaned. Anwyll frowned, biting his lip harder, but didn’t take his eyes off of the wound.

“Didn’t you say you’d be ‘as quiet as the grave’?” Although it was very accurate when directed at Anwyll, he supposed. In his experiences, people only got noisier after they died.

Orion made a motion as if zipping his mouth shut with his free hand. Anwyll pulled the thread taut and felt Orion tensing under his hand. He didn’t make a sound nor move again though and relaxed soon after Anwyll pulled the needle from his skin.

Anwyll had to pause to steady himself for the second stitch, wondering again why Orion wouldn’t just go have a professional do it. 

The only reason he could think of was Orion's employer, but he knew better than to voice those suspicions. It would only lead to a conversation he wasn't ready to have yet.

It took three more stitches after which Anwyll felt nauseous enough to reach to grab the bottle of whiskey from Orion’s hands rather than to wait for him to offer it.

“You done?” Orion asked when the bottle was slipped from his hands and Anwyll nodded, grimacing as he lowered the bottle from his lips.

“Could you not get stabbed again,” he whined, “I don’t particularly care to get better at this.” Orion sneered, waiting for Anwyll to take another sip before reaching for the bottle again.

“I’ll make sure I will only get stabbed to places I can stitch myself from now on, how about that?” he asked playfully. He rolled his shoulders and started to reach for his shirt, only to pull back with a pained hiss.

“What the fuck?” he asked, turning to look over his shoulder. His eyes trailed over the wound and up the thread to the needle Anwyll was still holding in his fingers.

“You could have told me you didn’t cut it yet, you fuck,” he hissed and Anwyll followed his gaze to the needle and thread.

“Oh. Right,” he blinked, reaching for the scissors at the nightstand, cutting the thread. Orion scoffed, shaking his head.

“Maybe that is a sign of no more whiskey for you,” he mused and laughed out loud at Anwyll’s disappointed expression.

“I have been through a terrible ordeal, would you really be that cruel?” he whined, slumping against Orion’s back, before jumping back up when Orion yelped in pain.

“Sorry,” he apologized in a rushed manner, leaning closer to check if he’d made the wound worse. Before he could get a proper look, Orion pulled back, turning around to pull on his shirt.

Anwyll thought he could not be blamed if his eyes lingered a bit on Orion's chest and abdomen. It was just the whiskey.

“It’s fine,” Orion assured him, “now, I just got paid today and I don’t feel like cooking, so how about we order some take-out to finish this bottle with? To help you cope with the pain and trauma of me being stabbed.” Anwyll made a face at him, before pulling out his phone.

“As long as we don’t order from that terrible place you call a pizza restaurant,” he told him, finding the listing of nearby restaurants.

“Hey, it’s cheap and it’s food,” Orion defended, lifting the bottle to his chest in a mockingly prideful gesture. Anwyll shook his head at him.

“It’s soggy enough to count as cheese soup,” he stated honestly.

“Alright then, your majesty. You pick the place then?” Anwyll didn’t respond aside from showing the listing and the place he’d picked to Orion. Orion squinted at the screen before shaking his head with a smile.

“For a runaway, you are so fancy when it comes to food,” Orion noted, but took the phone from Anwyll anyway. Anwyll would have quipped something back, but a faint laughter caught his attention. Following the sound to the source, he saw his ghostly companion smirking at him in amusement and flushed slightly in embarrassment.

Koresh had called him spoiled on many occasions as well.

Orion’s triumphant call demanded Anwyll’s attention again as he stated the order would be arriving in thirty minutes. The rest of the evening was a hazy memory to Anwyll, filled with the warmth brought by the alcohol in his veins, giddy happiness from the company and light feeling.

He remembered eventually falling asleep but in place of the nausea and dizziness he knew should have followed, there was heat. Burning hot through him, but comforting. Familiar.

Slowly, the feeling passed and Anwyll allowed the warmth and familiarity to guide him back to deep sleep.