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III fusses around the kitchen; there’s nothing really to do but be bored, and he’s already tidied his room and the shared areas. He even started a load of laundry, though he dreads having to fold it later.
The house is empty, save for him. Ves and II are in the city at a meeting with the record label, and he knows that will probably take a while.
The sharp trill of his phone interrupts his existential spiral by the sink.
“Hullo,” he says as he thumbs open the call.
“Can you come pick me up?”
III’s already moving, reaching for his jacket and keys. “Yeah, of course. Are you at your flat?”
He listens to empty air for a beat. Eventually, IV sighs and says, “I’ll share my location with you.”
“You alright?” III asks, brows furrowing at IV’s tone.
IV hums. III can hear him swallow. “Can you come straight here?”
“Planned on it,” III answers honestly. “You want me to stay on the line?”
He tucks the phone between his ear and his shoulder as he shoves his socked feet into his shoes. He locks the front door behind him, and heads for the car.
“No, it’s okay,” IV says. “I’ll see you when you get here.”
“If you’re sure,” III hesitantly agrees. “I don’t mind.”
IV sniffs hard, once, and tells him not to bother.
III stares at his phone after IV hangs up. A notification pops up with IV’s location and III opens it up on his GPS app.
III traces the route, surprised at the distance. He’ll have to drive through the city and past IV’s flat, which isn’t a problem, but coupled with the weird tone of IVs voice, something feels off. That he called instead of texting isn’t that weird; IV’s about as allergic to texting as III’s nan is.
The app directs him fifteen minutes past IV’s flat, in a direction seedier than III would expect to find him in. Not that there’s anything wrong with that side of town, but he knows his friend and the usual areas he haunts. This part of the city isn’t part of his routine.
He drives past rows of terraced houses until the directions peter out within ten feet of IV, who he sees sitting on the kerb. He has his hood pulled up around his head, which isn’t out of character, but one of his hands curls around the back of his neck. The other arm is braced against his knees, and his face is pressed against it.
III can feel the weight of IV’s gaze tracking him as he throws the car into park and exits the vehicle to walk the scant feet between it and IV.
He steps up to him until the tips of his boots brush the tips of IV’s sneakers.
“You okay, mate?” III asks.
He dips down to crouch in front of IV. IV exhales like he hasn’t taken a breath since he got off the phone with III and he shrugs noncommittedly.
III offers him his hands as IV unwraps himself from his protective curl. IV lets III help him to his feet and darts his eyes away when III realizes that a bruise is beginning to darken his eye socket and jaw.
IV pulls his hands back and crosses them over his chest. He flinches minutely.
III glances from IV to the house whose kerb he found IV sat in front of and then broadcasts his movements as he reaches out to touch the pads of his fingers against IV’s jaw.
IV watches him sharply but lets him fit his hand around his face so III can examine him.
III tilts his chin up so he can get a better look at his bruised skin. He smooths his thumb gently to feel out the swelling around IV’s cheekbone and eye and then evenly asks, “Who fucking hit you?”
“No one—” IV starts. He looks at the expression on III’s face and tries again, “No one important.”
III grimaces and asks, “Did this happen before or after you called me?”
“It doesn’t matter,” IV mutters. “Can we go now?”
III slides his grip from IV’s face to his shoulder. He stares past him at the front of the house, where he can see the curtains shifting in the windows. “It absolutely does matter, IV.”
IV steps closer to him and reaches out to grip the edge of his jacket. “III, please take me home.”
III tears his stare away from the house and looks at IV.
He takes in IV’s appearance: the slump to his shoulders, the downturn to his mouth, the awkward way he carefully carries himself.
“Okay, yeah,” III agrees, even though he doesn’t want to leave it alone.
He opens the car door for IV and IV nods gratefully at him as he slides into the passenger seat. III shuts the door gently and stares back toward the normal-looking house on a normal neighborhood street that he suddenly and urgently hates. When no one emerges from the house, he taps on the top of the car before he rounds it and gets in.
“Temperature okay?” He asks, mindful that IV’s ostensibly been sitting out on the kerb since he called III. The weather hasn’t turned incredibly cold yet, but the air is still chilly and IV’s only just wearing a hoodie as a jacket. “Want it warmer?”
IV nods and angles the vents on his side toward him. “Thanks.”
“Shut the fuck up,” III mutters, not unkindly. “You know I’m always going to come get you.”
IV rolls his head against the headrest as III pulls back onto the road and turns the car around to drive in the correct direction. He stares at the side of III’s head.
“I know,” he agrees. “That’s why I called you.”
“You planning on telling me what that was all about?” III asks sedately.
He won’t push the issue, probably, if IV decides against it, but he can’t help his curiosity. It’s not everyday that he’s called to pick up a battered IV from an unfamiliar location, and he can’t say that he particularly likes the experience.
IV slides his gaze from III to the windshield. He sighs heavily and then asks, “Can it wait until we get home?”
“Whatever you want,” III says.
“Yeah, okay then,” IV agrees.
III switches on the radio and turns the volume down low, and they share in the quiet of the car until III drives past the turn that would take them to IV’s flat.
III darts a look over at IV, whose eyes follow the turn as they leave it in the distance. He doesn’t say anything one way or the other, so III figures he’s fine.
He agreed to take IV home, but he didn’t specify whose home. Like hell he’s leaving IV alone at his flat after whatever the hell that was.
When they get back to the house, III parks at a slight diagonal that will have II side-eyeing him when he gets home.
IV doesn’t even rib him for his mediocre parking job like he usually would, even though IV doesn’t drive at all, which tells III that he was right to be worried about him.
III hustles IV inside the house through the front door.
IV kicks his shoes off into the pile of miscellaneous shoes inside the hall and pads his way toward the kitchen while III wrestles himself out of his leather jacket and boots.
III tosses his keys on the side table with a clatter.
He follows IV into the kitchen, where IV stands, looking a little lost.
III eyes him as he moves past him to the fridge to get him an ice pack. He wraps it in a towel and hands it over to him. IV takes it from him but doesn’t raise it to his face right away.
“Ivy,” III croons. “Dove, come sit on the couch.”
Instead of moving toward the living room, IV takes a couple steps toward III and buries his face against III’s shoulder. III encircles him in his arms immediately and hums against his hair.
“Sweetheart, you’re supposed to put your face on the ice pack,” he says.
“Thank you for coming to get me,” IV says instead, muffled by the fabric of III’s shirt.
III palms the back of his head and sways them back and forth.
Like there was any chance that he wouldn’t. Like there was any doubt at all.
He thinks back to this shifting curtain in the front window of the house he picked up IV from. He thinks about the swelling of IV’s face, and the type of person who would hit IV. IV, who calls any type of animal he sees on the side of the road a cow, who likes cheesy television shows about grannies masquerading as detectives in seaside villages, who twists his straw wrappers into flowers and then flicks them at whoever sits closest to him at restaurants.
He doesn’t know who lives in the house, and maybe it ultimately doesn’t matter, because he knows they don’t deserve to have a person like IV in their life.
“Come on,” III says, “let’s ice that cheek, pretty boy.”