Chapter Text
About four weeks after Warren had moved in, things were finally settling into a sort of normalcy. He had lost much of the initial defensiveness he had when he first arrived, though she could tell he was still slightly skeptical of her intentions. She really couldn’t blame him. It’s not like he had any reason to believe she was different from the others he had been sold (or gifted) to. For her part, she had tried to give him space to adjust, but there was only so much space in one small loft. Especially when that loft was full of plants, books, and other random equipment making the space feel even smaller. In the end, the close proximity seemed to have worked in her favor. Without places to hide away from each other, the only option was really to be friendly, or it would have been maddening for both of them.
As she absently grabbed some materials for a solution she wanted to test, she glanced out on the balcony where Warren was watering plants and taking some notes for her. She still felt strange asking him to do her work, but he had eventually insisted he’d be bored to death otherwise, so she started giving him more tasks. He didn’t seem to mind. She kept reminding him if there was ever something he didn’t want to do, he didn’t have to do it. She would happily find a different task, or he could take time to relax or something. This was usually met with an eye roll and some comment about how that wasn’t something nobles were supposed to say.
She began to heat the solution over a flame as she ground up some bark from one of the plants she’d been studying. She had a theory that the two put together would emit some kind of energy, but she wasn’t sure how much. If it emitted enough, research could be done to turn it into an extremely low-cost energy solution. It would be cheap to produce, and it could come a long way to helping those in the Undercity have reliable energy. She just needed to find a way to convince the Council to agree to fund it.
She was getting ahead of herself.
She took one more glance out at Warren as the solution heated and smiled slightly. Even though he often grumbled about being a gardener, he really was quite good at it. And when he thought she wasn’t looking, he even appeared to enjoy himself. He took great care with her plants and actually seemed like he was becoming interested in the work she was doing, which was a nice change for her. Usually, when she would talk about her work, people’s eyes would glaze over a bit when they got disinterested. If they were a little less polite– like most people on the Council were– they would cut her off entirely and change the subject. It was nice to have someone listen to her and at least somewhat care.
When the solution was properly heated, she took a pipette full of the solution and on the other hand, grabbed the glass beaker with the powdered bark in it. She held the container away from her face (just in case) and squeezed out three drops of the heated solution. It was always best to start small. She felt the reaction happen almost instantaneously, the beaker heated up quickly and immediately began to crack. Before she had a chance to put it down or drop it, the whole thing exploded in her hand. She let out a yelp of surprise and pain as the glass shards sliced at her hand.
She cursed under her breath and went to the sink immediately to rinse the wounds out. Neither compound was particularly harmful if it came in contact with skin, but it probably wasn’t a great idea to have either it in contact with an open cut. She examined her hand and had a few superficial cuts and one large cut diagonally across her palm that looked pretty deep. She cursed again and grabbed a clean cloth to put pressure on the wound.
She heard the balcony door open and shut before Warren called out, “What the hell was that? It sounded like something broke”. He walked into view and stopped short when he saw her. She looked down and realized she had bled on the front of her dress and saw the white cloth she had grabbed had a red stain beginning to blossom on it.
“It looks worse than it is”. She said, smiling sheepishly. “The beaker exploded in my hand.”
He shook his head. “Why were you holding it if it was going to explode?”
“I didn’t expect it to explode!” She argued, “I may be absent-minded at times, but even I’m not that bad.”
He rolled his eyes and stepped closer to her, holding out his hand. “Let me see.”
She held out her hand and lifted the cloth just enough to show him the large cut on her palm. The bleeding was slowing, but definitely hadn’t stopped yet.
“Oh, shit. I thought you said it wasn’t that bad!” Warren exclaimed, covering the wound with a towel again.
“It’s not!” she insisted, “Hand wounds just bleed a lot!”
Warren sighed, exasperated, and guided her towards the couch. “Will you sit down? Where is your first aid kit? That’s gonna need stitches.”
“How do you know? I’m sure it's fine.” She said as she down.
“Gladiator. Remember? I’ve had to sew up plenty of injuries like that. And worse.” He stated before asking again, “First aid kit?”
“Oh right, sorry. On the shelf above my desk. Left-hand side.”
As he began walking towards her desk she called to him, “Watch your step. There’s still glass on the ground.”
He grunted in response and returned shortly holding the first aid kid in his hand. He sat next to her on the couch and opened the box, pulling out rubbing alcohol, bandages, and the suture equipment. He glanced up at her as he put the rubbing alcohol on a new clean cloth, “Just warning you this is probably gonna hurt like a bitch. Have you had stitches before?”
She nodded, “A few times. Mostly when I was younger, but I did give myself some last year when I sliced my thumb open.”
He snorted a laugh, “What experiment was that for?”
He gingerly held on to her wrist and guided the injured hand to where he could see it better. He removed the towel she was holding to it and tossed it off to the side. The bleeding had almost entirely stopped by now. He ran his thumb alongside one of the more shallow cuts, inspecting it to make sure it didn’t need stitches as well. His hands were rough, but he was surprisingly gentle with her. She shook away that thought and answered, “Not an experiment actually. Just cooking dinner. I was trying to chop a particularly difficult carrot.”
He openly laughed at that, “Well, good thing you have me here then. No more kitchen injuries.” He held the cloth with the rubbing alcohol on it and had it positioned over her hand before glancing up at her again, “Ready?”
She nodded and he touched the cloth to the wound. He had been right. This did hurt like a bitch. She winced and let out a quiet hiss of air. He apologized quietly as he cleaned the area gently. Thankfully he moved as quickly as possible, and it was over soon. She let out a slow breath she had been holding.
Warren began preparing the suture needle and smirked, “I’m impressed Cupcake. You handled that better than some gladiators do.”
She let out a small huff of laughter, “Thanks.” They sat in silence for a moment as he concentrated before she added, “You know, you don’t have to do this. It’s not my dominant hand that’s injured. I could do it myself.”
He rolled his eyes, “Stop complaining and let me do this. I have more experience than you and it’ll probably go faster if I do it.”
She smiled slightly, “I’m not complaining, I just don’t want you to feel obligated.”
He shook his head, exasperated before taking her hand once again, the needle ready. He looked at her to make sure she was ready, and when she nodded, he held the needle to her hand and began applying pressure. She bit the inside of her lip to distract herself from the pain, and looked over at Warren. His dark hair was hanging in his eyes a bit, and his brow was furrowed in concentration. She studied the scar that ran across the side of his right cheek and felt a twinge of sadness. He didn’t talk about his time in the Gladiator Pits much, but she knew it was awful. He didn’t deserve what they had done to him. None of the slaves in Steelegate did.
As if feeling her eyes on him, Warren glanced up at her and she quickly averted her gaze, heat rising in her cheeks. She hadn’t meant to stare. Out of the corner of her eyes, she saw the corners of his mouth raise ever so slightly in a smile.
When he finally finished stitching her hand up, he stood up and said, “The worst part is over. I’m going to get some soapy water to rinse your hand off again, bandage you up, and then we’re done.”
She smiled gratefully at him, “Thank you. Really. I appreciate it.”
He nodded and headed off to the kitchen with the blood-soaked towels from earlier, throwing them in the bin. There was no use trying to clean them. She looked down at her hand and admired his handiwork. He had done way better than she ever would have, and even better than some doctors she knew. He returned a few moments later with a basin of warm water and a new washcloth. He rinsed off her hand and gently patted it dry before unrolling some gauze and a bandage.
They sat in silence as he started bandaging her hand before he cleared his throat a little, “I didn’t feel obligated.”
“What?” She asked, confused.
He didn’t meet her eyes, just continued to wrap up her hand, “Earlier. You said you didn’t want me to feel obligated. I didn’t. If any of my previous masters had needed stitches I wouldn’t even have considered doing it.”
“Oh.” She said, blushing slightly at his admission. “Um, thank you.”
“Don’t mention it.”
He taped off the bandage and finally looked up at her, “All set. Don’t go holding any more exploding beakers for a while.”
She laughed a moment before a sudden thought came crashing into her. She grabbed his arm excitedly and exclaimed, “It exploded!”
“Uh… yeah? That’s what you said.” Warren said warily.
“No, you don’t get it. It exploded!” she grinned and rushed over to her desk – avoiding the broken glass still on the floor– and rustled through her stack of notebooks looking for the right one, “I only used three drops of that solution on the ground bark and it exploded.”
“Okay…?” Warren asked, confused. “And that means….?”
“That means it expels a LOT of energy using a very minimal amount of materials.” She flipped open her journal hastily on the table until she got to the page she needed and began scrawling notes. Without looking up she continued talking, “Which means this is potentially the energy source I was hoping it would be! Now I just have to figure out how to harness it without more explosions and we could potentially use it to provide energy to hundreds, maybe even thousands of people!”
She looked back up at Warren, beaming with excitement, and saw him smiling softly at her. It was an expression she hadn’t seen on him before, much less directed at her, and she didn’t really know what to make of it. She felt herself go bright red and looked back down at her notebook. “Sorry, I know it’s kind of boring.”
“No, it’s not. That’s really cool.” Warren insisted. "Tell me more."
He walked over to her and looked over her shoulder at her notes as she talked about what she planned to do next. She could feel the heat radiating off of him from this close and took a deep breath to settle herself down. Before he arrived, she would never have thought of herself as one to get flustered around anyone, no matter how attractive they were, but something about Warren had gotten her flustered from the start.
If she was being honest with herself, she didn’t mind at all.