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It’s a slow Saturday when Medkit finds the time to crack open his whiskey cabinet and sip a few glasses on the dingy couch of his apartment. Said apartment… isn’t the best place to enjoy a bottle of liquor he spent half his paycheck on, not with its creaking, stained floorboards and the front door that never seems to lock, but he feels comfortable enough in these circumstances.
And then his perpetually broken door flies open with a thunderous crack, and Medkit, exhausted and tipsy and entirely unwilling to entertain whoever nearly destroyed his meager piece of property, let his low-lidded gaze slide to the entrance and settle on the familiar, towering demon. Said demon who of which is stomping inside like he owns the place, a plethora of grocery bags hanging from the hand shoved in concerningly tight ripped jeans. Jeans ripped to oblivion, Medkit would like to point out.
Banhammer heads straight to the conjoined kitchen with a single question on his tongue, “How the hell would someone get folded like a lawn chair?”
“Pardon?” Medkit deadpans, rubbing the bridge of his nose between two fingers before glancing over the couch. The first thing that catches his eye is the fact Banhammer’s former mane of hair is now a bundle of locs pulled into a low ponytail, decorated with the occasional golden band. It looks good on him. And then, Medkit’s attention drifts to the short, practically skintight grey shirt clinging to Banhammer’s torso, and he loses his train of thought.
“We’re seconds away from starting a match, right? That… that squirt, Shuriken; he starts screaming at me ‘bout how he’s going to fold me like a lawn chair when he wins. Which he didn’t win, of course, but still, how did he expect to… fold me?! Chump’s half my size!”
Ah, another one of these instances.
“I suppose folding someone is easy enough if they’re willing, regardless of size.” Medkit murmurs, picking at a stray thread from the couch while Banhammer tears open frozen meals and throws them in the microwave. It takes a few tries for the buttons to work. Banhammer gives it a hefty whack and clicks his teeth in annoyed satisfaction when the poor machine splutters and begins the familiar whirring sound, the meals spinning inside it.
“So, ‘yer saying ‘ya know how to fold someone?”
“I wouldn’t say… that, exactly. There’s a difference between knowing the motions and actually doing it, though besides that, what did you bring to eat? I’m out of food if you couldn’t tell.”
Banhammer scowls at him, leaning his hefty body against the feeble kitchen counters, “well, maybe if you actually ate real food and stopped starvin’ yourself, maybe ‘ya would live a little better. Pretty sure that carton of milk has been in there for at least a few months. Could make some damn cheese outta that.”
“You came here to mock my living circumstances?” Medkit takes up his cup and sips on it, leveling Banhammer with a flat stare as the other demon shrugs and pushes back the stray locs in front of his face.
“Maybe.”
A moment of silence persists, and then— “Bastard.”
“Boy kisser.”
“Shut up.”
“Can’t handle what you dish out?”
“Boy kisser is not the same as being called a bastard.”
“Ho, I guess I hurt that ego of ‘yers. Need me to apologize and rock ‘ya to sleep?”
The blatant mockery in Banhammer’s tone has Medkit sighing harshly through his nose and standing to his feet, ignoring the curious stare Banhammer levels him with as he sets the cup in the kitchen sink and knocks on the microwave when it sputters again.
This isn’t how he wanted his weekend to go. He was supposed to drink until he felt warm and fuzzy and then pass out on his couch because he couldn’t be bothered to move to his equally uncomfortable bed. Now, Medkit has a demon with a nasty temper and thick muscles stomping around his kitchen – who of which is currently pulling out a bag of lollipops from the last of the grocery bags and tossing it onto the counter.
Knowing well what those candies are for, Medkit deliberately ignores them and digs through his kitchen drawer, snapping open the box of cigarettes he finds.
“I know damn well you see those lollipops. And didn’t I take ‘yer last pack yesterday? When the hell did you find the time—”
The microwave shrieks out the completion of its duties, a pitiful replication for the beeping noise it should’ve had. Banhammer’s mouth shuts closed, and he goes to take the meals out.
Medkit takes the opportunity to slip a cigarette between his lips and light it with a barely functioning lighter, eye slipping closed as he inhales the intoxicating smoke and lets it relax his body before blowing it out in a thick cloud. He doesn’t smoke often – at least, not as much as he used to when he was still a part of Blackrock – but when the stress starts to get to him, a little nicotine makes him feel a bit more alive.
Not the best habit for a doctor to have, but he’s fully prepared to deal with the risks as they come.
Apparently Banhammer disagrees.
“I thought we agreed that ‘ya wouldn’t smoke up the place when I’m here! Deities above, that stinks!”
“That rule does not apply to my own house. You were the one who decided today was a good day to bother me.” Medkit mutters, taking another puff while Banhammer hisses at the piping hot microwave meals and tosses them onto the counter. “There’s always the option of paying me if you’re that opposed to it.”
With that offer, Banhammer decisively stays quiet, though he makes quite the racket by slamming the microwave door shut and mumbling colorful insults Medkit purposely ignores.
“I still don’t understand how someone’s supposed ‘ta get folded.” Banhammer mutters after a few minutes of silence.
Well isn’t he interested? Medkit narrows his eye at the other demon, eyebrows sardonically raised and gaze unimpressed as he says, “Are you insinuating that I show you?”
The moment of contemplation on Banhammer’s part gives Medkit enough reason to decide that yes, he was in fact insinuating such a thing.
“Am I?” Banhammer replies boldly as if he hadn’t seriously considered it, and Medkit has to repress the urge to call him out on it if not just to hear whatever reasoning he comes up with next. “If we think about this logically, a lawn chair folds inwards, don’t it? If we replace the legs and arms with limbs, how’s that gonna work? Are we bending limbs backwards or forwards? How flexible do we gotta be? And how is Shuriken supposed to do that to me?”
Medkit sucks in a long, heavy stream of smoke and eases himself from leaning on the counter while exhaling, and Banhammer watches him through the blindfold with no small amount of disdain, still stirring the meals so they supposedly cool faster.
The blindfold is beginning to get on his nerves. “Take that off.”
“I think the hell not.” Banhammer immediately shoots back, and Medkit sighs.
“You are indoors. There’s no reason to disable yourself further. Unless weakening yourself is a guilty hobby of yours then—”
“Why don’t ‘ya take off that eyepatch then, huh?”
A pause, and then, “you know that’s not the same thing.”
“Might as well be.”
Medkit’s gaze shifts into a mild glare. Perhaps now was the time to change tactics. “So the mechanics of a demon getting folded in a method akin to a lawn chair, right?”
“What about it?” Banhammer asks with a light furrow of his brows and an irritated purse of his lips.
For a moment his mouth opens, and then Medkit shuts it closed. He runs a hand through the loose hairs of his ponytail and, after a brief moment, stamps out some of the ashes on his cigarette. “Nothing. Come here.”
An amusing thing happens. Banhammer stares at him as if he’d rather be dead than follow while putting aside the plastic spoon and taking the two steps closer, covered eyes burning into Medkit. Rather obedient for someone cursing him out without words. Medkit has to fight against the laugh clawing up his throat.
Instead, he curiously loops a finger underneath Banhammer’s skimpy shirt and raises it the single inch to see bare skin and a tensing abdomen, only for a large hand to immediately shoot out and grip his wrist.
“I didn’t come here to get harassed.”
Medkit levels him with a deadpan expression, “Try a longer shirt next time, then.”
“This is an extra-large!”
“Mm. Interesting. Come.”
Despite the hand on his wrist, Medkit turns and makes his way to the bedroom. Then, without saying a word, he bodily moves Banhammer to stand in front of his tiny, six-foot bed using a hold on his waist and wrangles him down, barely dodging the reach for his shoulder that might’ve knocked his cigarette from his lips.
“Easy now.”
“What are ‘ya doing?” Banhammer immediately snaps back, stiff as a board as Medkit slinks onto the bed as well and squeezes himself between well-built thighs before Banhammer can snap them close.
Gripping the back of those strong thighs as they threaten to crack his ribs from how hard they squeeze his waist, Medkit readies himself and shoves them forward, ignoring the way Banhammer splutters in favor raising to his feet and properly folding the much larger demon with one swift heave.
“That,” Medkit starts in a low drawl, reaching to snag the blindfold on a finger and tug it off to reveal four wide, frantic eyes and Banhammer’s baffled expression. “…is how you fold someone.”
Underneath him, Banhammer’s knees nearly brush the sides of his face, body trembling and straining against the fact his lower back is lifted off the mattresses and his curled shoulders are taking on all his weight. His hands, arms pin straight between his thighs, hold onto Medkit’s midsection in an attempt to stop him from coming any closer.
He looks unusually flustered. Medkit enjoys the look more than he reasonably should, especially when said look is coming from the warden of a prison who of which could probably throw him off the bed and out the apartment window if he put his mind to it.
How far can he take this?
Medkit shifts the weight of Banhammer’s legs onto his shoulders so he can take a proper drag of his cigarette. Then, with a thoughtful glance at the wriggling demon under him, Medkit leans forward the blows the smoke in his face.
Immediately, Banhammer coughs, his face scrunched up with visible distaste as he goes to say something, most likely curse out Medkit’s family line or hiss bloody murder, and then he pauses. Incredulous eyes stare up at Medkit, revelation slowly blooming in them until Banhammer sucks in a startled breath.
“Oh hell no—"
(He doesn’t get thrown out the window, but Medkit now has a rather affectionate bruise from where Banhammer had kneed him in the jaw in his attempt to escape. His bitterness towards the ache only soothes itself with the remembrance of how Banhammer himself had tumbled out the side of the bed and knocked the back of his head on the dresser. Amusing, if Medkit is to be frank.
What isn’t amusing is the hole his fallen cigarette burned into the bedsheets and the fact Banhammer doesn't stay once they finish their meal. They didn’t even spend that much time together. Perhaps visiting the other demon tomorrow isn’t such a bad idea.)