Chapter Text
The small bathroom was quiet except for the occasional droplets of water from the leaky faucet. The Grim man sat on the closed toilet lid, tense, yet worn down from his nasty injuries.
Jack sat on a stool in front with a needle and thread in hand, his face taut with concentration as beads of sweat slid down his forehead, trying his best to sew the wound as cleanly as he could. He tried his best to ignore the man’s pupils bearing holes into his skull with how intensely he’s looking at him…
The Grim man's eyes stayed transfixed on the Toon’s hands and face, his gaze looking a bit scary from the way they were slightly bloodshot. He saw the way the Toon’s hands would pause mid-air, trying to steady them from shaking, before going back to sewing carefully. He saw the way the Toon’s face cringed or scrunched as he worked.
His brows furrowed at this. It was unclear whether it was out of displeasure or something else, his expression as unreadable as ever, even during this painful procedure.
In the midst of tense silence, the Grim man finally spoke up.
"What do you hope to gain from this?"
Jack blinked, looking up at the man's eyes with a startled look on his face. Then he furrows his brows, tilting his head slightly to the side. "Nothing..?" He answers, sounding just as questioning about his own decision as the other was. Then he sighed, pausing his task to think of a proper answer.
"To be honest, I... didn't want to bring you here at first." He angled his gaze downwards, feeling heavy with guilt at admitting to his real feelings and scared of how the other man might react. "I mean, you were scary and obviously not from around here.”
He fidgeted with the needle in his fingers as he recounted his terrifying encounter with the man. "I’d meant to just call the authorities on you or something' n' leave, but…"
Jack lifts his head up to look back at the other. Mixed within the nervousness in his eyes was genuine care. "You just looked like you needed help, so..."
The Grim man's gaze narrowed. Cold sweat continued to creep down the side of Jack's face as he swallowed his saliva, but he didn't look away, fearful that his true intentions may get deemed disingenuous by the other as he stared at him.
…
…..
After a while, the Grim man heaved a deep sigh and looked away, done with their brief conversation. Jack's tense frame relaxed the moment the man's eyes were off of him, inhaling in relief before quickly huffing the air back out in disgust as the smell of blood assaulted his nose. Right: the wound.
He went back into stitching, and the room was back to quiet after that.
Trying not to pay any mind to the silence, Jack's attention eventually began to zone in on the task at hand.
While working on the nasty wound, Jack internally thanked the stars he still remembered stuff taught to him years ago in school.
For a Genre with healing properties as ridiculous as theirs, all Toon citizens were required to have basic knowledge on medical care. Or at the very least, learn proper first aid if advance medical assistance is beyond them.
Jack's memory on this is vague by this point since it had been such a long time ago. Apparently, a lot of the practices they’ve created back then were cultivated mostly to care for the people outside of their own Genre, as they were more prone to injuries than they were.
He didn’t know what happened to the other man in order for him to end up in such a situation, - and he didn’t have enough courage to ask him to be honest - but the thought that this happened near the area he lived in made his heart brew with fear.
Was the man attacked? Did he do this to himself? What if he was the assailant?
It was an unending waterfall of thoughts, and the uncertainty of it all made him feel a tad bit too afraid. He didn’t want to think about it too much.
Jack did his best to finish it up as quickly as he could, though not hastily as his nerves might do more unnecessary damage to the injury, imagining how much in pain the man was probably in right now.
Snip.
The thread gets cut off with a small scissor. And with that, they were done.
"Phew." Jack stretches, popping a few joints that had become tense from having to keep them steady in the air for so long. He gives the newly stitched wound a hard look, examining it.
...Still red and angry, but no more bleeding. He's largely inexperienced, but hopefully this was good enough.
With that out of the way, he now had to deal with the man himself who had returned to staring at him a while ago. Their eyes met, and the side of Jack's mouth curved up into a smile without his control, looking more like a grimace at being observed so intently by such a scary individual.
"So! Uh..." His voice wobbled. He cleared his throat and stood up, walking to the sink and turning on the faulty faucet to wash off the stain in his hands, struggling to appear more casual.
"May I ask for your name, sir?" He asked, trying to start a conversation to lessen the tension that's been building between them since the man woke up.
The other's expression doesn't shift. After a beat of silence that stretched on for a bit too long, he spoke.
“No.”
'Yep, I figured.' He thought to himself. "Right," Jack chuckles, drained of the usual humour he carried.
To be honest, he was exhausted. He could really use a quick nap right now… Jack hoped the man would at least be nice enough to not murder him in his sleep. He saved his life for crying out loud.
Turning off the stream of water, he flicked the water off his hands and turned to leave. "Well, feel free to help yourself here. I'll go and get you something clean to wear."
Jack exited the bathroom, and he was relieved to feel the man’s line of sight leaving him.
Pushing aside how he probably wasn’t following a lot of medical regulations taught to him, - and to be honest he kind of forgot - with all the scars on that guy, he assumed that it was probably fine to just leave him be for now, right?
Surely a violence-prone-looking man like that would already know how to take care of himself when he's hurt, right? He sure hoped so. He didn't wanna come back to a dead body.
With that thought, Jack went off to retrieve the clothes he had left for him by the nightstand.
Gavriel sat in silence in the bathroom, the soft hum of the distant city and the ambience of the Toon’s neighbors filtering through the walls. He was left on his own, leaving him to reflect on the situation.
Shifting slightly, he grimaced as pain flared through his side and throughout the rest of his body. The stitches pulled, a stark reminder that he wasn’t in any shape to defend himself if something went wrong. Not that it mattered. If the Toon wanted him dead, he’d already had the chance to let Gavriel bleed out.
Why hadn’t he?
That thought didn’t bring comfort to him, only deepening his unease. The Toon’s actions were naively kind, something which he understood yet hesitated to accept.
So far, the other hadn’t given him any suspicious answers. Every question Gavriel asked had been met with genuine - albeit bumbling - honesty. The nervous man stuttered more often than not, but he hadn’t hesitated, nor had he tried to deflect or go off topic.The only weird thing happening right now was the fact that the Toon was helping him.
This behavior didn’t seem to come from a place of deception and ulterior motives. Or perhaps it did, and Gavriel just couldn’t see it yet.
In the bathroom, Gavriel could hear the other’s voice phasing through the thin apartment walls. Though his words were muffled, he sounded mournful with phrases like, "I spent money on that..." and "Tsk, tsk. What a waste." followed by a heavy sigh.
Gavriel pressed his lips into a thin line. Despite himself, the lament struck a chord.
Money and food. Those were two of the main things a person must never waste in their life.
Gavriel hears the gentle pitter patter of the Toon’s feet. He appeared a moment after, quietly stepping into the bathroom with clothes at hand. He glanced at Gavriel, who was still seated on the toilet, and carefully placed the clothes on the dry part of the sink’s edge, not having much space to put them anywhere else. His movements were quick but not rushed, clearly trying to avoid intruding too much on the other man’s space.
"Here," the Toon said softly. "The clothes I left for you. I can get you something else if these aren’t... comfortable,” he offers, looking at how much smaller the size of his own t-shirt was compared to Gavriel’s body.
He glances at Gavriel briefly before looking down at the floor, the tension in the room thick, but Jack manages a kind, almost awkward smile.
"I’ll… leave you to it then." Without waiting for a response, the Toon does a polite little head bow before turning on his heel and leaving the bathroom, even making sure to gently close the door behind him, leaving Gavriel to change in peace.
Gavriel turned his attention to the clothes Jack had left neatly folded on the edge of the sink. Standing up, he walks over to inspect the clothes given to him. They looked cheap and would probably be a bit too tight for him to wear but it was better than staying cold and bare.
He glanced back toward the door, his brows furrowing. The Toon hadn’t lingered, hadn’t said anything besides the brief statement that the clothes were for him, nor were there any lectures, insistence, or attempts to force a conversation. Just a quiet exit. Probably to clean up the mess Gavriel had left in the other room, he guessed.
Gavriel shifted uncomfortably. He wasn’t used to people like that Toon. People who gave generously without any strings attached or wanting something back, people who respected him, not like the wariness of his enemies or the reverence of his underlings, but simply out of basic human decency - albeit with reasonable fear. The Toon… Jack Desmond was painfully normal, perhaps a touch too kind for his own good.
His mind wandered to Desmond’s face earlier. The nervous and awkward glances, the apologetic grimaces when the needle went through his flesh, and the reluctance to meet his eyes, yet his determination to keep helping despite the tension. It had been... odd. Gavriel couldn’t pinpoint what irritated him more. Desmond’s clumsy kindness or the fact that it seemed genuine.
Gavriel sighed, his breath heavy with the weight of his thoughts. His fingers tightened around the clothes.