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Joel has the alcohol and gauze and needle and thread already laid out on the table when you enter back into the run-down kitchen, the small room strewn with garbage and overrun by foliage. It’s the best home you have now. The caved-in roof provides protection, no matter how wet you get when it rains or how the wind cuts cold through broken windows.
He turns to you with a heaving sigh, an exasperated wave of his arm. “What the hell were you thinking, going up against a guy like that?”
You offer a shrug, scrubbing a damp rag over the bloody stain on the collar of your shirt. “That I could take him.”
“You’re giving me a damn migraine.” An unoccupied chair scrapes across broken tile, and he pats its cushion. Dust rises, catches in a ray of sunlight. “Now sit your ass down.”
You obey, too keen on the prospect of him caring for you, despite his clipped tone and hardened stare. But he doesn’t mean it, not in any long-lasting capacity. “Honestly, Joel, it’s not that bad.”
“Son of a bitch took off half your eyebrow.”
“Think it’ll grow back?”
He soaks a square of gauze in amber-colored whiskey before swiping it over your forehead, a warm palm curled around the nape of your neck. “I hope it doesn’t. Maybe you’ll learn your lesson.”
You wince, attempt to pull away from the sharp burn, but his grip tightens. The pressure of the gauze lessens to a ghosting touch, and you’re grateful. You think he forgets his own strength sometimes.
“Would you still love me if I only had one and a half eyebrows?”
“Shut up.” Still, he pauses. Something warm swirls in his eyes, beneath the facade of irritation. “You know I would. That’s a dumb question.”
A coiling knot settles in your chest, rises sickly sweet on your tongue, and the starshine that blossoms in his gaze—he sometimes looks at you like this, and it always takes your breath away—causes your mouth to widen with a smile.
“I still had to ask. Though, with all these scars, I guess you’re not with me for my looks anyway.”
He scoffs, tossing the now-bloodied gauze aside to reach for the needle and thread. Pulls a pack of matches from the pocket of his backpack. “You’re about to get another.”
Emboldened by his reaction, you further the teasing. Maybe he’ll kiss you when this is over. Maybe you’ll lie and say it helps with the pain.
“Is this gonna be one too many?”
“Never.”
“What would it take, then?”
“For what?”
“For you to not love me anymore.”
“You’d have to kill me.”
Again, he looks at you all tender and soft, holding the needle over a lit match. The metal burns red from the heat, and the orange flame bleeds gold into his eyes. Such a juxtaposition, yet wholly encompasses the nature of your relationship and you can’t help but huff out a laugh.
“ That unconditional, Joel?”
“What can I say, I don’t know how to be alone.”
“Oh, you fuckin’—“ Your hand darts out to slap at his thigh, and he intercepts you with a forearm and a rumbling laugh.
“I wouldn’t touch the man who’s about to stick a needle through your face.”
“Don’t forget the fire.”
He holds the flame a little ways from your mouth, a glow of sunset orange softening his features. His lazy smile. “Wanna do the honors? Blow it out?”
“I’ll blow whatever you want me to.” At the suggestive raise of your brows, a sharp pain shoots just behind your eye, and your hand rises to cradle it. “Ow.”
“You kinda deserved that.”
“How cruel of you.” He proceeds to blow out the flame. “… What the fuck.”
“It was burning my fingers.”
The shocked look on his face, the spread of his arms, the way he fans the needle to cool it off—it all makes you laugh deep from your chest. Brings a relieving soreness to your gut after the day you’ve had… disregarding your own role that led to this in the first place.
“Does that even work?”
“Hell if I know. Haven’t died yet, if that counts for anything.”
“Better than nothing, I guess.”
He rids the needle of residue before inserting the thread.
“Am I getting a kiss for this?”
“It’s your fault.”
“And?”
He levels a skeptical look at you, eyes crinkling with a barely-suppressed smile. The needle penetrates the skin, and your hand fists into the fabric of his knees to keep from pulling away. It hurts, always , of course it does, but his presence soothes the sting like a balm.
“Was this your plan all along?”
He works gently, carefully, scoots his chair closer to yours until your knees meet and bump together.
“Possibly.” A good plan, all things considered. Sans feeling like you’ve been hit by a truck. “Maybe.”
“You can just ask, ya know.”
“Yeah, but where’s the fun in that?”
“This is fun for you?”
A bead of blood curls over your brow, over your closed eyelid, and catches in the roots of your lashes.
“Not this part. I just like spending time with you.”
He hums. You fail to see the look on his face, but you would bet money that your words have finally cracked that hard, grumpy exoskeleton of his.
“There’s other ways to do that. You don’t gotta go and get yourself hurt.”
“It’s a foolproof method.”
Your hands have taken to rubbing over each of his jean-clad knees, an absentminded movement crafted from the need to fidget. The need for a distraction.
“You regretting it now?” he asks, and you blink around sticky coagulation to look up at him.
“A little bit.”
He leans forward to kiss you on the cheek, beard coarse and lips chapped against your skin. “I’m almost done.”
Then he pulls away, and you mourn the warmth of his skin. The smell of forest and outside air and sweat and dust— his smell. Not a particularly good one sometimes, but you don't exactly smell of roses, either. It’s the comfort that you love, knowing he’s near and safe and alive enough to still care about you.
One final pierce, one last tug, and he cuts away the leftover thread. Your chest expands with a relieved breath.
“I could use that kiss now,” you mutter, fingers rising to press around the fresh stitches.
He huffs, the corners of his mouth twitching in amusement, before grabbing your wrist and pressing warm lips to your own.
You sigh through your nose, fit a hand around the thickness of his neck in an attempt to pull him closer. To absorb his presence, his calming energy. His thumb ghosts over your jaw, a back and forth that lulls you, distracts you from the throbbing pain. Your fault, sure, technically, but nobody said you can’t still complain about it.
It’s not like you’d comply, anyway.
“Don’t ever do that again,” he says, nose bumping against yours with such tender affection that your eyes almost begin to water.
“No promises, Joel.”