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Not many things could get Jeno willingly out of bed before sunrise.
The willing part, though up for debate, still had him punching the base of his bedside lamp, no trace of light outside. The doorbell only rang once, and with the time it took him to get to the door, he wondered if it’d just happened in his dreams, feet dragging across the corridor.
But the doorbell never rang twice, not in the middle of the night. Jeno knew it was supposed to be a kind gesture, some sort of suggestion, but one entire month had passed since he was last woken up by one, and his hesitation had more to do with being scared that it was just wishful thinking, than of who was on the other side. He took a deep breath.
“Hey,” was the only thing Donghyuck said when the door opened, voice hoarse.
There was a second of absolute silence, Jeno’s heart doing something painful inside his chest, a longing that punched the air right out of his lungs. One month since he’d last heard that velvety tone in person, so different from the static that enveloped the voicemails Jeno kept on replay. He needed more, needed Donghyuck to keep talking and—
“Why the fuck are you here?” Jeno breathed.
It was hard spotting it at first, with only the dim light from the corridor, but it didn’t take long for Jeno to notice the droplets gathering around Donghyuck’s worn out boots. It took even less to notice the lines running down Donghyuck’s forearm, disappearing under a torn off sleeve. One side of Donghyuck’s jaw a shade darker, and his hair looked too carefully arranged over his left eye to not be hiding something underneath.
That was precisely why Jeno said he never wanted to see Donghyuck again.
“I’m sorry,” Donghyuck struggled, a hand clenching around his middle. It could’ve fooled someone into thinking that was a dramatic display of emotional pain, if he wasn’t very clearly holding his ribs. “I didn’t know where else to go.”
Part of Jeno wanted to close the door. It wanted to have never gotten out of bed to begin with, or answered the damned doorbell. But the other part wanted to pull this tattered Donghyuck's close, tight enough to probably finish breaking his ribs, and stay like that until it was morning.
So Jeno settled for none.
“Bathroom,” he sighed. “And take your shoes off.”
Fighting the urge to touch Donghyuck the moment he stepped inside, using some ridiculous excuse like helping steady him as he toed the boots off, Jeno focused on finding every light fixture on his way back inside, running a bath with whatever remained of his hot water for the month.
He supposed it wasn’t only awkward to him, when Donghyuck stood by the bathroom threshold with his head slightly lowered, ears pink. He looked so much worse in good lighting.
“You gotta clean up first,” Jeno said without looking up either.
It wasn’t easy to peel Donghyuck’s jacket off, but the shirt was so much worse. Donghyuck grunted even as Jeno cut the pieces of fabric, pained hisses whenever the cold metal of the scissors accidentally grazed his skin, and when Jeno’s hands reached down to undo the pants, Donghyuck grabbed his wrists.
“I can do that by myself,” he grumbled, and Jeno allowed himself a half smile. There was still a little bit of the overly conceited but strangely prudish Donghyuck underneath it all.
“Nothing I haven’t seen already.”
Jeno could allow himself to tease again, if that meant he could see Donghyuck’s cheeks tinting pink and his mouth turning lopsided like that. His way of saying touché, Jeno remembered, because Donghyuck would never admit to being embarrassed.
“Doesn’t mean it’s free for looking,” he grumbled again, slowly lowering himself into the tub with both of Jeno’s hands on his elbows. “Pervert.”
“Turn your head this way,” Jeno chose to ignore him, lathering his hands with shampoo.
The water clouded quickly, a shade of pink from Donghyuck’s wounds, that covered up whatever he was suddenly too shy to show, but Jeno didn’t pry. He left Donghyuck to wash himself, slowly scrubbing all dried blood and dirt from his skin, hisses filling the room whenever he got close to the edges of a cut. Jeno kept focusing on Donghyuck’s hair instead, pointedly ignoring the irregularity of his own heartbeats, that he hoped Donghyuck couldn’t feel through his fingertips.
“I’m sorry,” Donghyuck muttered again, too loud over the draining water, too loud over the soft patting of the towel in Jeno’s hands. “I didn’t want to drag you into this. But it stung.”
Jeno’s hands paused over Donghyuck’s head. There were thin, rushed cuts on his calves, a bruised patch by his left eye and by his ribs, split skin on a shoulder, running all the way down his elbow. Barbed wire, someone with a rather mean punch, and probably a chef’s knife were Donghyuck’s clear company for the night, which meant he was probably trying to flee. There would’ve been a bullet wound somewhere otherwise.
He’d blame it on the ringing in his ears, one that sounded too much like his own doorbell, when he pulled Donghyuck’s head back, pressing an under-sided kiss to the corner of his mouth. A suggestion, too. But Donghyuck didn’t flinch, a hand coming up to hold Jeno in place by his nape, sighing into the kiss — the first sigh that hadn’t been of pain since he’d gotten there.
Jeno pulled back with a peck, and then two, nails softly scratching the skin under his ear as if there was never a time Donghyuck stopped doing that.
“We’re getting you to the clinic tomorrow.”
Donghyuck looked up quickly, a question stuck in his throat. We? his eyes seemed to ask, and Jeno hoped his nod was answer enough. Donghyuck pulled Jeno back down again, teeth clashing from his smile.
Jeno would just rather not hear the doorbell again.