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“You look like shit.” He doesn’t chuckle like he normally would. The painkillers have dulled his crisp, bright eyes to a cloudy mess. The nurse pushing the wheelchair that everyone who gets discharged in offers him an arm to grip when Eric has to stand up. He takes it, making my eyebrow raise.
“Please tell me the other guy looks worse,” I try again. If I’m making shitty jokes and Eric isn’t laughing at them, he must really be hurting.
“Dunno. How do you measure up between a busted rib cage and a collapsed bridge?”
The nurse passes him off to me and we make the slow journey across the sidewalk to the car that I’ve strong-armed Max into lending to me. Richards had offered to come to the pick up, but it seemed smarter to avoid the armored truck. They were still bringing back pieces from the swamp. Rollovers are nasty business, but every part that can be retrieved means one less that needs to be requisitioned from Hell.
I’m hyper aware of every bump in the pavement, firstly because I can count on two hands the number of times that I’ve ever driven before today and secondly because Eric’s face is going from pale and tired to green and ghastly minute by minute. I hadn’t been able to spend much time at the hospital when he was getting patched up. I’m grateful that he’s looking out the window so much and not noticing how much I’m staring at him in the rear view mirror.
The white shirt and grey jogging pants he’s got on are so starkly different from his militant, Dauntless attire. He’s still got his boots at least, but even those are only laced halfway. Mottled purple and green skin peeks out from the edges of the white tee and crawls along most of his arms. It was a miracle that only his ribs got cracked. I try to picture Eric with a cast on his arm like Benny B from Lower Levels, and the concept is just too surreal. I can’t imagine Leadership going around signing the white plaster - but, wait. Yes. Yes I can.
Smirking, I share my mental image with Eric as we get to the garage. He laughs, but it’s clear that he’s forcing it. We park and I loop my arm through his elbow like this is just something that couples do rather than the truth. After a few steps his grimace is dug in like a canyon on his face. “Do you want me to let go?” I offer.
He shakes his head because he needs the support to keep standing, but clearly it’s painful how I’m holding on. When we get to the stairwell I have him grab my elbow instead and that helps. Two half flights take a whole five minutes of sweating and grumbling. Then we can get to the hall that leads to the elevator bank and eventually to the apartment.
Closing the door behind us gives Eric the sanctity he needs to relax the steel in his spine and lean heavily against me. Instantly he’s off again, pain evident. “Sorry,” I murmur. It’s too soon for another dose according to the discharge nurse.
“S’okay,” he says. Between the two of us he makes it to the bed where I promptly have to force him to believe me that, honestly, truly, it isn’t a problem for him to take all the pillows. He pats the open space next to him, inviting me to stay.
“I’ve got a meeting in thirty,” I say as a preemptive apology. With him this beat up all I want is to be there for him, but the faction doesn’t stop just because Eric Coulter gets in an accident in an APC.
He tries to get me to use his chest as a pillow like we usually do, but as soon as I’ve even put a hand on him he’s flinching. More apologies. More compromising. “I wish something had broken for all this trouble,” Eric growls as though the three hairline fractures don’t quite count. Hell, this is Dauntless. They kind of don’t.
We have to settle for second best. His hand is warm wrapped around mine and I don’t really have a good spot for my head, but at least we’re together for a handful of minutes again. “I missed you, you purple and blue idiot,” I murmur. I press a kiss to his shoulder, feather light where I’m fairly certain there might not be a bruise.
“Missed you, too, Tris,” he replies hazily. It takes longer than the half hour that I have, but I wait until he’s fallen asleep properly before I tug my hand out of his.