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"Fuck!" Warren's whole body recoils from the disinfectant. The pain flames up from his hand and up to his shoulders and the pit of his stomach. He'd barely felt the scalpel going in, the adrenaline in his veins taking the edge off, but this, this – This is white hot, Warren can feel this in his toes.
"Sorry," Gordon offers, voice small and meek, before pushing a folded piece of dressing to the wound in Warren's palm and pressing down. It doesn't sting as bad as the fire that just singed off half of Warren's vascular system, but it isn't painless either. Warren keeps breathing through his nose, in, out, in, out, and manages to squint his eyes open.
The overhead lighting on the lower levels feels just as oppressive and violent as everything else that goes on down here and the observation room Gordon herded him into while everyone else got busy preparing the cryosuite is no different. It hurts Warren's eyes and makes Gordon look paler, washed out.
There's a tension in Gordon's jaw that makes him look somewhat constipated. His eyes, fixed on their hands, are shiny and red at the edges, like he's about to cry or something.
"What's the face for?" Warren asks. He feels jittery and irritated, the rush from his act of defiance gone as quick as it came.
Gordon startles, like he thought he'd been pulling off a completely normal, casual appearance. He makes a show of fumbling for the roll of gauze in the first aid kit to buy himself time, but only manages to make himself look worse. His chin's dimpling up, turning all wrinkly and bumpy, and his red eyes look a bit wild in a way Warren's not seen before, not even last night – last night, weeks ago, ha! – when Warren stole his car.
"Don't – " Gordon starts in a low voice as he fiddles with the end of the gauze. He sighs, hair falling to his face. "Don't do that again."
Warren bristles. "Got results, didn't it," he mutters, going for a scoff and failing.
"Not really," Gordon argues, wrapping the first layer of gauze around Warren's hand. He lowers his brittle voice to a whisper. "I – I mean, they're still going to put you back in."
"Got you a tortoise."
"I – I – " Gordon stutters. "Thank you for that," he sighs, the corners of his mouth twitching up to a thin smile for a second before twisting back down. "That was really nice of you. I just – " He struggles through a swallow. "You – You don't have to do this."
Warren chews on the inside of his cheek, but the pain doesn't ground him quite like he's used to. Of course he doesn't have to, he doesn't have to do bloody anything, does he – except keep waking up every bloody morning and feeding himself breakfast and showering and trimming his beard and clipping his nails and pissing and shitting and puking and bleeding and swallowing down lunch and bloody dinner every day, every day, every fucking ceaseless, perpetually repeating day, until he can finally – Finally – Until it finally ends.
"What's it matter to you?" Warren mutters, tasting blood, pushing his tongue against the torn flesh of his cheek. He just wants to – He wants to – He wants to go back to sleep.
Gordon whips his head up. His eyes really look wild now. "What – " he stutters, guffawing. "What's it – Warren, you're – We're – " Gordon just gapes his mouth open and shut for a moment. What he finally lands on is a weak, reedy "I care about you."
"Did I ask you to?"
The words come out harsher than Warren means and he regrets them instantly, the second he sees them hit Gordon like a punch in the diaphragm.
Gordon's dimpled chin trembles, his wide eyes shine. Then he takes a breath and sets his jaw, tucking the end of the gauze in. "No, don't suppose you did," he says in a small voice and pulls his hands off. They were warm. Warren didn't realise before they were gone and the cold air hit him.
The fight goes out of Warren quick as it came. That clearly cut deeper than Warren meant, and with that comes the realisation that he never wanted to hurt Gordon, that hurting Gordon just now might actually be the lowest thing he's done all week – month, months, whatever.
"Gordon, I – " he starts, reaching out with his injured hand.
"You're finished over here?" Grace appears in the doorway.
"In a minute," Warren tries, but Gordon's already standing up, not meeting his eyes. There are dark stains of Warren's blood on his knee. Warren looks down and it's dripped all over the floor too, bright red against the off white linoleum.
"Dr. Halbeck needs you over in – "
"A minute!"
Grace's wide eyes lock with Warren's, surprised from the outburst, and he gives a tense nod before taking a few steps back into the hallway.
Gordon tries to follow him, but Warren manages to stop him with a tug on his sleeve. Gordon stares ahead for a moment, before inhaling sharply and turning around to face him. A single wet track shines its way down his cheek from the corner of one eye. Warren thinks of his blood dripping onto Gordon's leg and kind of feels like he's about to puke out his own windpipe, turn it inside-out and choke on it.
Thing is, thing is – Warren's hand was warm and it's cold now. Gordon's jumper is scratchy and would probably give him a rash if he held on too long, but he realises he wouldn't mind, not really. He might even enjoy picking at it, feeling it tingle and burn. That's a kind of warmth too, isn't it? A reminder.
"Will you still – " Warren starts and he does kind of sound like he's choking. "When I wake up, will you still – "
Gordon sighs, wet eyes meeting Warren's for a second before flicking back down. "I'll be here."
"I – Thank you." It's not "I'm sorry." The words are stuck in his throat.
"Warren, we do need to get going – " Grace is back in the doorway.
Warren goes.