Chapter Text
This is, by no means, a “normal” day, no matter how you put it. You wake up to your dog barking at the back door of the apartment. Looking out the curtains, you see the research facility a couple blocks away explode in a bright light. Temporarily blinded by the light, and a ringing in your ears, you accidentally stumble into some broken glass, cutting your palm. You realize the windows must have shattered from the shockwave. Gretta, your dog, is cowering on the floor with her paws over her ears. You try to comfort her and call into your work.
It turns out that the blast radius is much larger than you thought, and most of the city is shut down to clean up all the broken glass. You silently curse, because your hand is still bleeding and it stings. You thank your boss for letting you have the day off, and hang up.
With a sigh, you attempt to pick the glass out of your hand. You find some gauze in the bathroom, and wrap the wound the best you can. You gently pet Gretta between the ears, calming her down. Sighing, you pour yourself a cup of coffee, groaning at the amount of broken glass on the floor. Grabbing a broom, you sweep up the worst of it. You thank your deity, for the miracle that is laminate flooring. You cringe, imagining the pain it would be if you hadn’t gotten the carpet replaced last spring. Your phone starts ringing in your back pocket, causing you to nearly jump out of your skin. With a trembling hand, you pick it up.
“He-Hello? Oh! Hey Gwen, how are you? I'm fine, but I cut my hand a little on the glass from my windows. Yeah. Where are you? One sec, somebody's at the door.”
You put your phone down and answer the door to see Gwen’s smiling face beaming down on you. She is a tall woman with short, blue hair. She is wearing a form-fitting black tank top with capris and sneakers.
“Gwen! When you said you were close, I didn't think you were literally on my doorstep. Come in! Sorry for the mess, I was just cleaning.”
“Don't sweat it. I came to see if you were ok!” She removes her black runners and steps inside. “Also, the city is a total mess! Pretty much every breakable item in town is busted!” She gingerly grabs your palm and looks at it. “No, this is all wrong. Do you have more gauze? I’ll rewrap it for you.”
You give her a weak smile and lead her to where you left out the first aid kit. She sits you down at the table and properly dresses your palm. You wince a little when she cleans the wound, but other than that Gwen wraps it much better than you had.
“I guess going to medical school is really paying off, huh?” You look down at your hand, now newly bandaged. It feels a lot better, now that it's wrapped properly.
“It's hard, but yeah. It's really paying off. I'm so glad I decided to go into the medical field, especially so I can be around to patch up your clumsy ass, eh?” She lets out a hearty laugh. You laugh back, the two of you hugging each other and laughing. This goes on for a few minutes, until Gwen smacks you on the back, winding you. “Let's get this mess cleaned up, shall we? Do you have any spare garbage bags? We need to cover your windows.”
You grab some garbage bags from under the sink, and you dig through your desk to find the packing tape you bought last Christmas to wrap presents. You chuckle to yourself at the memory of Gwen needing a knife to open the box. Heading back out into the living room, you chuck the roll of tape at your friend. “Do you think we should use clear bags or garbage bags? I have both, and I'd rather have light in my house.”
Gwen nods, thinking for a moment. “You have a point, let's use the clear ones. I hope you have enough though, you have a lot of windows.” You get to work putting the clear recycling bags over your windows, and when you finish you step back and admire your handiwork. An alarm goes off loudly on your phone, causing you to jump and cling to Gwen before turning it off.
Both of you stand there silently, staring at the phone in your hand. After a couple moments of intense silence, you both burst out laughing. “Leave it to you to set your alarm so loud that you scare yourself, eh?” Gwen gently punches you in the shoulder, teasing you for being so jumpy.
“Hey, I can't help it if I leave my phone in odd places and can't hear my sounds otherwise! It's a bad habit I picked up long ago.” You rub your shoulder. “Excuse me for a minute, I need to do what that alarm is set to remind me to do.” You walk into the bathroom and open the cabinet behind the mirror. Looking at yourself, you realize you look like crap. Your hair is disheveled and messy, and your shirt is wrinkled and stained. Upon further investigation of your body, you spot minor cuts and bruises all over your legs from cleaning up the glass.
Among the new cuts are some long healed scars you want to forget about. Lumpy, parallel lines run across the front of your thighs, and you suddenly panic at the notion that you are wearing shorts.
You hope Gwen didn't notice, as you hadn't come clean about your past yet. You don't want her to worry about you more than she already does, and you don't think you're ready to admit to everything you'd done to yourself just yet. Reminding yourself why you are in the bathroom, you pull out a box with the days of the week labelled on the segments. You open the one for today, and swallow the 3 small pills inside. The cup of water you keep beside the sink helps you wash down the horrible tasting medication.
There's a loud bang in the kitchen, and after your heart restarts, you rush in to see Gwen guiltily picking up pots and pans. “What the heck are you doing? You look like a kid caught with their hand in the cookie jar.” You let out a sigh of relief that she didn't hurt herself. She is the one with medical experience, not you.
Sheepishly, she finishes putting them away and puts a pot in the sink to fill with water. “I wanted to make some food, seeing as I figured you hadn't eaten yet. I tried to get a pot out, but you booby trapped the cupboard! You need to learn how to stack these things better.” You blush, muttering about how you can navigate your cupboards just fine, and lean against the doorframe in a way that conceals your legs.
“Thank you, for helping me out so much. I don't know what I'd do without you. Also, what are you making?” You walk behind her and fill a measuring cup with some kibble to feed Gretta. You dump it in the bowl with some leftover meat from the night before, and place it on the mat next to her water bowl. You realize that Gretta had seemed to understand that you and Gwen were working, and had stayed quiet and out of the way.
“Don't sweat it, I do this because I care about you. I'm making spaghetti, by the way. I figured I'll make enough so you have leftovers for the next few days, cause I know your cooking habits and how lazy you can be.” She gestures at you intimidatingly with a spatula, stirring some spices into a sauce and cooking the ground meat in the process. “I feel like you don't eat right, so I can't help taking care of you. Besides. Spaghetti is good for the soul! You look like you could use some soul food.”
You laugh quietly, avoiding responding to her comment. You call your dog over, and pet her gently when she comes over. She is a beautiful Samoyed-Husky mix, with the Husky genes being more prominent. You love how soft her fur was, but not how much she sheds. Everything you own is covered in little grey hairs. It's a miracle that you keep your floor from creating a dog fur rug, but once again it is due to the miracle of laminate flooring.
“Hey Gwen, I'm gonna go change into pants. My legs are getting a little cold, and I'm in the mood for something comfy.” She nods, and you head to your room to change out your gym shorts for sweatpants. You zip up your favorite blue hoodie, and shuffle into the living room.
Plopping down in your reading chair, you groan slightly. You accidentally bump a particularly bad bruise and swear under your breath. Gwen pokes her head out of the kitchen, a concerned look on her face. “Hey, is everything alright?”
You nod, waving your hand in her general direction. “I'm fine, it just feels good to sit down.” She raises an eyebrow at you, clearly not convinced. She shrugs it off after a moment, and then flexes her arms in what seem to be a power pose. “Whatever you say, nerd. Food's done, I put most of it in the fridge.” She returns to the kitchen, and grabs two plates. You stretch out sideways in the chair, laying your head on the armrest.
“Say, did you see the news yesterday? There was that story about the peace conference at City Hall.” She places a plate down on the end table, with delicious-looking spaghetti. Damn, that woman can cook.
“Actually, yeah I did. That was the Monster conference, wasn’t it? I seem to remember something about the opening of the new villa specially equipped for monsters. Wasn’t their King talking to reporters about it?” You sit up, taking a bite of the pasta. It is like a miniature explosion of flavour, each bite better than the last.
“I'm just glad that it's going as well as it is for them. The monsters seem like they've been through a lot. You know, have you ever thought about visiting one of the monster settlements?” Gwen gestures her fork in your direction. “I wonder if it's any different than human neighborhoods. Either way-” she shrugs, putting her own plate down, “I'm just glad they can finally expand.”
You nod. Between bites, you wonder how she can care so much for people so different, without really knowing them. You suppose that's why she got into medicine. Personally, you don't have an opinion on the monster situation, but it still makes you curious. “How long has it been now? Since the monsters emerged from Ebott. I've been so busy I guess I didn't notice….” You grab the remote, flopping sideways in the oversized recliner.
“I think it's almost been a year? I'm not sure, I think I was out of town when it happened.” You both finish eating while a reporter talks about the damage done throughout the city, and how the repair crews should have most of the glass replaced by the end of the week. The reporter talks to one of the workers who says that with the help of monster magic, the work is going much faster than they anticipated. After a while, Gwen looks at her phone and realizes she has to go.
You see her out the door, both of you petting your dog before she leaves. Shutting the door behind her, you sigh. You stretch, walking down the hallway to your closet. You cry at the sight of your floor-length mirror, still somehow intact. That thing was the only thing left of your Father, and it was expensive.
You undress and get into the shower, letting the water wash over your tired body. The hot water helps you clear your head, and you remember your discarded coffee sitting on the kitchen counter. You grimace at the thought of drinking it now. After you get out of the shower, you put your pants and hoodie back on. You put the dishes in the dishwasher and turn it on. Sitting down in your reading chair, you drink a fresh cup of coffee. Setting the mug down on the coffee table, you settle down under a blanket. With the sun’s heat warming you, you fall asleep.