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“Hey, boo. Back already?” Red swiveled in her desk chair to face her roommate, back almost twenty minutes early from Sword and Shield practice. She took Chloe in with her eyes, frowning at the ice pack still held in her hand. “What’s that for?”
“This?” Chloe lifted the tool faintly. She seemed a touch pale, her hand quivering as she shut the door behind her. “I jammed my finger.”
“You jammed your finger,” Red repeated blandly, tilting her head as Chloe lifted her hand. Indeed, her right middle finger was already beginning to bruise. “Ouch. Are you…you know…good?”
“Mhm, just a bit tired. It was freestyle today and everybody was in a pretty bad mood.” Chloe smiled and laughed, though it hardly reached her normally mischievous eyes. In fact, their depths seemed uncommonly black. A feeling tugged at Red—a bad feeling—and her lips pulled into a frown, but she remained where she was. After all, Chloe would usually tell her if something was wrong…right?
“Do you want me to get anything?”
“No, I’m fine. I just need to shower and sleep it off.”
Red moved to stand. “I’ll join you,”
Her suspicion grew as Chloe held up her hand and shook her head. “Um…no, love. No. T—this is like a shower shower? I need to not be sweaty.”
Red pursed her lips, rolling her nails against the desk. Chloe loved showering together; even if one of them always ended up a little chilly. Still, she didn’t exactly want to push her girlfriend if space is what she wanted.
“Ok. Just let me know if you need anything.”
“I will.” Chloe gave her another smile, not even bothering to kick off her shoes as she vanished into the bathroom. Red let her be in there for a minute before her instincts wouldn’t let her sit still anymore. It hadn’t happened often, but Chloe had a tendency to lie about things. Especially when she was hurt or sick. Red didn’t really know why she brushed her own health under the rug, but it drove her nuts. They’d talked about it in depth before and Chloe promised to speak up if she needed something, but Red didn’t really believe her.
She absolutely had her fingers crossed behind her back the entire conversation.
Creeping to the bathroom door, Red slowly turned the knob, her eyes widening when she found it to be locked. Chloe didn’t lock her out. Placing an ear against the wood, she could hear the shower running, but there was no other sound from inside. No humming, no shuffling. Then, sickeningly, there was a hollow thump as something heavy dropped. It could’ve easily just been a shampoo bottle or something, but Red’s heart seized in panic.
“Chloe?” She pounded on the door with a flat palm, hoping to god for an annoyed and naked blunette to open the door for her. But there was nothing, just horrible, sick silence as the water continued to run. “Shit.” Reaching into her bun, Red whipped a pin from the crimson hairs. Headmistress Uma wouldn’t appreciate her kicking down doors—especially if she could just as easily pick the lock. Scurrying around for a moment with her fingers, the mechanism couldn’t unlock fast enough. Red grappled the knob and forced her way inside.
Her intuition was completely right.
“Chlo!” Running to the edge of the bathtub, Chloe was completely pale and completely out cold, water pounding against her naked skin. She was covered head to toe and bruises from Sword and Shield; not entirely uncommon, seeing as it was a physical sport. But as Red gently moved Chloe’s limp arm aside, her throat caught and her breath got stuck.
The deep purple bruise was the size of a continent, spreading in a horrific, formless blotch from Chloe’s waist down towards her hip.
That was definitely a broken rib; maybe even two.
Not bothering to turn off the water, Red grabbed Chloe’s face, checking around her head for blood. Thankfully there didn’t seem to be any, just a decent sized goose egg on the back of her scalp from hitting the porcelain.
“Chlo? Baby, wake up.” Gently slapping the girls cheeks, Red sighed in relief as dark lashes twitched, struggling to open. Confident that Chloe was just dazed—possibly passed out from the pain—Red turned off the faucet, grabbing a towel from the rack. “Babe, hey. Hey, it’s me.”
“…f—fine…” Chloe blinked slowly, hissing the minute she tried to move.
“You’re obviously not fine,” the redhead complained, using the towel to gently rub water off her girlfriend’s pale cheeks. She’d lost her warmth, the usual rosiness to her skin vanished. Pain. She was in pain. Her girlfriend was in pain. “Who did this to you?” Red felt the familiar tug of madness in her gut, beginning to slither and writhe around like a serpent. It burned like pepper-flakes had just been poured into her stomach. Around the edges of the towel, her fingers curled.
But that anger quickly dissolved as Chloe whimpered in discomfort, turning her face to rest her forehead against the bottom of the tub. Seeing her so…small…twisted around her own bare limbs as she struggled to find a breath, it made something chilly explode in Red’s chest. The cold extinguished the fire. She didn’t have time for madness right now. She could be furious later.
“It…hurts…” Chloe ground the words past her teeth, squeezing her eyes shut.
“What happened?” Red questioned, taking in the severity of the injury. It looked bad, but ribs could be tricky. She’d broken one before after crashing the ATV into a tree; and yeah, it really fucking hurt. Her body looked much the same as Chloe’s did now.
“I got kicked,” Chloe rasped, causing Red’s brows to furrow.
“By what, a horse?”
“By Sebastian,” Chloe muttered, causing Red’s lip to twitch.
“Sebastian did this to you?”
“It was co-ed freestyle,” Chloe murmured again, resting her cheek on her arm as her body trembled with ache. “I didn’t…block…fast enough.”
“That asshole,” Red spit. She didn’t have anytning good to say about Sebastian. He was an ugly, buck-toothed meathead with barely half a brain-cell to his name. And he’d made it very clear Chloe was beneath him. He was one of Red’s least favorite people, and he’d now moved to the ‘punch on sight’ area of the list.
Blinking out of her thoughts, Red glanced down as Chloe sniffled. Startled by the sight of tears, she awkwardly moved to straddle the edge of the bathtub. “Shh, shh, songbird, it’s alright. I’m here.”
“I’m not…weak,” Chloe’s lip wobbled past her arm as Red scrunched her face.
“I never said you were,” she insisted. “You’re the strongest person I know.”
“Seb c—called me…a…” Chloe couldn’t even get the word out, her whole body trembling as she hissed in pain. “He doesn’t like that we’re together.”
Huh? Red felt her fingers squeeze the porcelain of the bathtub. Sebastian called Chloe weak? Made fun of her for having a girlfriend? Her teeth clenched and her jaw flexed. If she had a nose ring like Chloe did, it would’ve huffed with her bull-snorting.
“Sebastian’s a fucking moron,” Red snapped out, pushing her madness down as it once again reignited. “Don’t listen to a thing that idiot says.”
“But he’s right.” Chloe’s voice sounded so small, so uncommonly weak that it made Red recoil.
“Like bloody hell he is,” she argued, pushing a few wet strands of hair from Chloe’s face. “You pointed a sword at me the day we first met. That’s not something a weak person does, Princess.”
“I have an inhaler,” Chloe rasped out. “It’s in my desk drawer, next to my glasses.”
“Ok? And?” Red frowned, racking her brain to remember what an inhaler did again. Something to do with the lungs. “So you wheeze a little; that doesn’t mean anything. That boy will be wheezing through his teeth after I punch him in the face.”
“Aren’t you tired of it?”
“Of what? Stupid boys? Yes. I wish they’d all choke.”
“No. Of…of me, being like this?”
“Chloe, now you’re being an idiot,” Red sighed, rolling her eyes a little. “Don’t let that asshole get into your head. I love you. I love all of you, even if you do drive me crazy sometimes.” Reaching out to ghost her fingers against Chloe’s waist, she seized in pain, scrunching her eyes. “Baby, this is bad. You broke something. Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Because I’m not weak,” Chloe hissed, curling her fist and slamming it against the bottom of the tub. “I’ve worked…every single day…to be strong. And yet I get so far, only for something like this to happen.”
Red blinked at her girlfriends words, noticing how they came out in a frustrated and angry snarl. Clearly, this wasn’t just about Sebastian.
“Chloe. Chloe, hey, look at me.” Touching Chloe’s face, dark eyes finally found Red. “You’re not weak, ok? You just play contact sports and have a slight tendency to take the fast way down stairs. It’s not that big of a deal.”
“You hardly ever get hurt,” Chloe muttered, frowning.
“Babe, I got hurt plenty growing up. Just ask my mom, she’ll tell you exactly how much.”
“I hate it,” Chloe sighed. “I hate being soft.”
“No. No, no, I love that the most about you. So you’re a little danger prone, that’s ok. And it doesn’t make you weak.” Caressing Chloe’s wet cheek, Red caught a tear that escaped from her eye. “Don’t listen to a thing anyone else says. Just listen to me, cause I know you better than anyone.”
“You don’t mind the bumps and bruises?” Chloe wondered, whistling through her teeth as she inhaled just a little too deeply.
“No. Though I wish you’d stop making me worry so much. Also this?” Red made a motion around the bruise. “This is a continent.”
“I didn’t realize it was this bad,” Chloe admitted.
“Probably why you actually passed out,” Red complained. “You can tell me when you’re hurt, Chlo. That doesn’t make you weak. Sebastian’s just got a broom handle stuck up his…”
“Red.” Chloe cut her off, arching a brow.
“You know what I mean,” Red growled, shaking her head. “Now…this probably isn’t going to be pleasant but we need to get you out of this tub.”
“Hmm. Can I wear one of your sweatshirts?”
Red pursed her lips. She was running out of sweatshirts, what with how many Chloe stole.
“Not the red one.”
Chloe pouted. “But I love that one.”
“Ugh,” Red rolled her eyes, very gently grabbing her girlfriend by the arms. “If you don’t pass out again, yes, you can wear the red one.”
“Deal.”
Safe to say Red was a bleeding liar. Chloe did pass out again, though it did make it a bit easier to get her out of the tub. It took a lot of effort but she was eventually in Red’s favorite sweatshirt—one she wasn’t ever going to get back—dozing in an armchair. She was still wet and a touch pale, leading to Red calling a very specific number on her phone. When the line picked up, she heard a very long sigh on the other end.
“Red,” Queen Ella greeted, sounding already exhausted with her. “What did Chloe break now?”