Work Text:
“Sit.”
I sat while Astra donned a pair of medical gloves. She collected blood from the gash on my arm and fed it into the field test kit. It whirred for a few seconds, stopped, then beeped, displaying a green light. Negligible ether corruption. She let out a sigh of relief and set down the test kit.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
She started washing my wounds with a saline spray.
“Why?” she asked.
“For making you worry.”
She gave me a sad smile. “We live in a dangerous world, and you have a very dangerous job.”
I turned my arm so she could have better access to one of my cuts. She saw it and sucked in a little air. It must’ve been bad. She grabbed a pair of tweezers from the kit and told me to brace myself. I braced, and she pulled a long metal shard from my arm.
Ow.
The shrapnel and tweezers fell into a metal tray. Blood ran from the cut. Astra applied pressure. She looked like she was about to cry. I felt like the worst girlfriend in all of New Eridu.
“I’m sorry,” I said again.
She shook her head and didn’t say anything back.
Over the next thirty minutes, she tended to every wound, cut, scrape, and scratch she could find on me. I wanted to tell her I was fine, to leave the minor stuff alone, but she needed me to be okay, so I let her work.
Finally, I got dressed. Astra made to clean up the used supplies but I insisted I take care of it. She acquiesced and left to wash my blood off of her. I sat there, stewing in my soreness and guilt.
“I love you,” she told me as she toweled her hands dry. She’d said those words to me a thousand times before, but the way she said it tonight, her voice dry and cracked with worry, hit me in the chest. She crossed the room, dropping the towel along the way. “I really need you to start taking better care of yourself.”
I lowered my gaze. I didn’t deserve to look at her after all the worry I caused, but she disagreed, and lifted my chin until our stares connected. I lost myself in the rubies of her eyes, and she brushed my lips with her thumb.
“I love you,” she said again, this time barely a whisper. “You are the most precious person in the world to me, and I know I’m precious to you. You treat me like I’m made of glass sometimes. Honestly, it’s a little annoying.” She giggled softly to herself. “But, I wish you’d treat yourself with even a tenth of the gentleness you give to me.”
She took her thumb away and kissed me, her lips impossibly soft. I kissed her back, and for a perfect moment in time I forgot all my aches and pains and guilt. All that existed was Astra Yao and the love I felt for her.