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Trying not to be too annoyed, Eyra hurried down the hall toward emergency. She hadn’t been expecting the page so of course she’d been as far away as she could get. This night just couldn’t get any better. Why had she even agreed to take this shift? She knew better than to take the night shifts, knew how much she hated them, and yet here she was. On the night shift and trying to get to emergency.
The only beneficial thing to it right now was that the halls were empty enough that she had an easy time getting through the hospital.
The head nurse still gave her the stink eye when she managed to get there. “Where were you?” she asked before she held up a hand. “Never mind. They’re waiting.”
Keeping quiet as she got a file shoved at her was the hardest thing she’d done this week. This wasn’t her boss-which she was extremely thankful for-and she didn’t want to get in shit from her boss because she’d sassed someone off. Again. “Alright,” she said, turning on her heel without looking at the file.
“Don’t keep them waiting!”
Eyra made a face she prayed the other woman couldn’t see as she walked around a corner. God help her, she needed to not take night shifts anymore. No matter if she wanted the extra money or not. She didn’t want to deal with this shit. Opening the file once she was out of sight, she quickly scanned the front page before frowning.
Laceration to the face? Why had he been kept waiting at all? “Fucking hell,” she growled, looking one more time to find a name and room number.
Gladiolus Amicitia. Why did that name seem familiar? Eyra pushed it aside and hurried down the hallway again. Laceration to the face. Why the hell hadn’t he been treated already? Who the hell let someone get cut in the face and then just left them to-
She forced herself to stop again as she reached the room, taking a deep breath to calm herself. No point in stressing about it now. If he was pissed and she walked in there irritated, it wasn’t going to end well. Deep breaths. Treat him and then move on with her night. Treat him and move on with her night. Treat him-
Blinking as she stepped into the room, Eyra stared at the man sitting on the bed. Oh. Oh that was why the name sounded familiar. Gladio was already enough of a mouthful; it was no wonder he hadn’t given her his full name. “Hey, big guy,” she said, setting the file down on a counter. “Not exactly our usual spot.”
Gladio snorted, holding a bloody cloth to his face. “Not exactly the usual right now,” he said, seemingly unfazed at seeing her.
“You two know each other?”
Eyra turned at the voice and barely kept herself from jerking at the other young man in the room. Oh. Oh, she did not want to think about why he was in here right now. “In passing,” she said, taking more deep breaths and grabbing a pair of gloves.
“Literally,” Gladio agreed. “We run into each other on our jogs.”
Not that literally, she thought, pulling the gloves on and moving over to him. “Okay, what did you do to your face?” she asked, reaching for the cloth.
“I didn’t do anything.”
“You can say that again.”
Gladio let her take the cloth and looked over at the young man leaning against the wall. “I’m not gonna attack an unarmed Crown citizen.”
“Unarmed? I don’t know if you’ve looked at your face recently but he was pretty armed.”
“With a broken beer bottle, Noct,” Gladio said, frowning at her when she grabbed his chin and turned him back to her. “That doesn’t really count.”
“Counts enough to do damage,” Eyra said absently, frowning back at him as she looked over the cut. “Please tell me you did not just splash a potion on this.”
“That’s what they’re for ain’t it?” he asked.
“If you want scarring. You’re lucky your eye wasn’t damaged by the cut,” she growled, tipping his face up to get a better look at him. “If you’d thrown a potion on that, you might have ruined it.”
“What use are they then?” Gladio grumbled.
“Quick healing of minor injuries,” Eyra said tightly, turning him to the side away from the prince. “Something like this isn’t meant to be healed with a potion.”
“A hi-potion then.”
Her mouth flattened to keep herself from smiling or laughing or giving him any satisfaction in the dry way he’d said that. It got ten times harder to do when the prince snorted. “No,” she finally said.
“You’re a lot more fun when I run into you in the morning.”
“I’m working and your face is slashed to shit.”
“That your professional opinion on the matter?”
She laughed. She couldn’t help herself before she gave him a look. “Gladio, stop,” she said. “I’m supposed to be fixing your face and I can’t do that if you’re making me laugh.”
He gave her a half smile but she saw him wince as it pulled on the wound.
“I know this is going to be difficult but I want you to stop talking for a bit while I work on you okay?”
“Doctor’s orders?”
“Hush,” she said, trying not to smile. “This is serious.”
“Uh huh.”
Eyra would have loved to smack him but that wouldn’t have been the best decision in the world with his face already torn up. And the prince standing right there. Which begged the question: what was the prince even doing here?
Not something she should think about right now if she wanted to patch Gladio up.
Gently probing his cheek, Eyra sucked on hers and tried not to be too mad about the whole using a potion. It had no doubt been a gut reaction that might have worked before. “He was cut with a broken bottle?” she asked quietly.
“Yeah,” Noct piped up. “Guy broke it and came at us before we even knew what was going on.”
“Did you clean it before you dumped a potion on yourself?” Okay, good job, Eerie, could you sound any cattier? Fuck.
Gladio gave her a mild look before a slight shake of his head.
“I’m gonna kick your ass if this gets infected,” she growled, stalking over to the counter and pulling drawers open.
“Your bedside manner is amazing,” Gladio said dryly.
Eyra stopped what she was doing and looked at him. “I can get someone else if you’d rather,” she said, keeping her voice even. He was right; she wasn’t exactly being the professional she was supposed to be right now. If he wanted someone else, she would get them.
“I don’t.”
Okay so she needed to stop talking. Just because they’d teased and flirted whenever they’d come across each other on their jogs over the last couple of months didn’t mean she got to act the same way when she met him outside of that. He was hurt and needed her medical help; not her flirting or scolding him. She needed her job and couldn’t afford to lose it because of an off-hand remark that might be taken the wrong way.
Gathering what she needed, she wheeled a cart over and tipped his chin down to her. “Please try to stay still,” she said, carefully cleaning the edges of the cut.
He didn’t move but something shifted in him. She was sure of it. The way he watched her was different now yet she couldn’t put her finger on exactly what had changed in him. He couldn’t have picked up on her different approach…could he?
She took longer than she probably needed to cleaning and dressing the cut but with the damage already partially done by the potion she wanted to make sure the scar that was left wasn’t going to seriously affect him. She knew it was going to scar, there was no getting around it, but if she could minimize the damage she was going to try.
“So,” Noctis said when she stepped back from Gladio, “he gonna live, Doc?”
“He should be fine,” she said, pulling off her gloves and not even bothering to correct the name. “It doesn’t look like it’s going to get infected but I’m not sure what might have gotten sealed inside the wound from the bottle and the potion. If nothing crops up over the next few days, you should be in the clear.”
“And if it does?” Gladio asked.
“It should be easy enough to treat,” Eyra admitted, “but none of this macho bullshit about it being nothing. The wound is over your eye and if it gets infected you run the risk of losing it.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She paused in picking up his paperwork to look at him again. He was clearly ready to leave, probably hadn’t wanted to be there in the first place, but he was still watching her oddly and she didn’t like it. “I will kick your ass if it gets infected,” she reminded him.
The corner of his mouth twitched. “How you gonna know?”
“You’re going to call me if it does so I can kick your ass.”
His mouth curled a little more. “I don’t have your number.”
Tearing off a part of one of the pages, she quickly wrote it down and held it out to him. “I’m serious about it getting infected,” Eyra warned him as he hopped off the bed and took her number. “Don’t make light of it. Please.”
“I won’t, Doc. Bunch of people that aren’t going to let me.”
She flicked a glance at the prince. “Uh huh. There’ll be some paperwork at the desk to fill out before you leave but you’re good to go. Just…don’t splash another potion on it, alright?”
He nodded at her but she could see him fighting a grin. “Don’t worry, Doc, I learned my lesson. Next time, hi-potion.”
She laughed sharply before clamping her mouth together and looking away from him. Son of a bitch, why was he so good at making her laugh?!
Gladio chuckled lowly as he pulled the door open. “See you around, Eyra.”
“See you, Gladio,” she said as the door closed behind them before pressing the file to her face and trying not to let out a loud noise. She had paperwork to fill out herself but gods help her all she could think about was giving him her number and how she had broken almost every rule this place had in the half an hour he’d been in here.
She really needed to not take night shifts anymore.