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“Fuck,” Susie muttered under her breath. “Shit. Dammit.”
She’d never seen Kris’ face so pale, before. Or maybe that was a trick of their dark world palette. The red blood trickling from their mouth, stark against their blue skin, definitely wasn’t a trick of color or light, though; nor was the blood smearing Susie’s hands as she pressed them flat against the wound on Kris’ chest. Kris’ damaged cuirass, straps torn in her rush to remove it, laid forgotten beside their supine body.
“C’mon, Ralsei,” Susie hissed, as if she could summon him to her side by calling his name. If only. That’d be too easy, wouldn’t it? “Where the hell are you?”
Underneath her hands, Kris writhed, brows furrowing and teeth clenching. A small, pitiful whine squeaked out from their lips.
“Hang on, Kris. I’m not letting you get off this easily.” Susie did her best to speak carelessly and defiantly, if only to counteract the racing of her own heart, the cold sweat she could feel gathering under her hair and clothes. If only to head off Kris panicking, wasting energy they needed for clinging onto life.
Dark blue lashes fluttered as Kris opened their eyes a crack. Their bleary red irises fixed onto her. “Susie,” they rasped, “you can…still go to my house for food, if you want…”
“What the hell are you even—” Susie snapped her mouth shut. Nobody hurts my meal ticket and gets away with it! Yeah. That’d been a thing she’d shouted, in her fury, as she’d driven their attackers off. “Forget it, man,” she muttered. “There’s no point in going to your place if you’re not gonna be there.”
Kris’ bloody lips quirked upward. Susie tried not to think about how stupidly attractive they looked, smiling despite the pain. “Mom’ll…be there, y’know…she’d enjoy the company—”
“Stop talking already, dumbass!” Susie all but roared at them, to little effect; Kris, as always, barely twitched. “You need to save your energy ‘til Ralsei gets here, okay?!”
Kris kept staring up at her with glassy eyes, like they were lovestruck rather than almost passed out. Susie focused on her hands, pushing her palms against the wound with all her strength, even if that meant she risked crushing Kris’ ribs. At least, the dark fabric of Kris’ bodysuit meant Susie couldn’t easily see how big the bloodstain was. Come to think of it, that was probably a bad thing, too; she didn’t know how much blood they’d already lost. Well, if she tilted her head so, she could see the damp sheen reaching down to their stomach and—
The light, cool metal of Kris’ gauntlet brushed her cheek, almost ticklish. Susie, her effort poured into staunching Kris’ wound, froze up at their touch. Her breath caught in her throat.
“Anyone ever tell you,” Kris whispered thickly, “you’ve got really pretty eyes?”
What.
Susie could only stare at them blankly. No, nobody had ever told her that before. She hadn’t hallucinated that, had she? She opened and closed her mouth, but she couldn’t form sensible words. Despite herself, excess heat stirred in her cheeks, and she chose to concentrate on that rather than Kris’ trembling hand smearing something wet across her scales.
“They’re so yellow,” Kris mumbled, still gazing at Susie. Okay, no—they were definitely lovestruck, now. “Yellow like buttercups…”
“Sh-shut the fuck up, dude!” Susie stammered. “This isn’t the time to wax poetry about my eyes! The blood loss’ making you delirious!”
Kris smirked at her—her face flushed even hotter at that; seriously, what the fuck—and then, mercifully, they lowered their hand to rest it atop both of Susie’s. Or maybe it wasn’t mercy, it was them losing consciousness, because their eyelids were sliding shut, too, and then Susie was panicking, shaking them with one hand as she maintained pressure on the wound with the other, telling them to hold on, Ralsei was almost here so hang in there a little longer, you can talk as much stupid poetic crap about me as you want just don’t you fucking dare die on me—
She had never been so relieved in her life to hear the sound of bare paws slapping towards her, Ralsei’s desperate voice carrying high and shrill as he yelled both their names.
When Kris sat up again, wound healed and color returned to their face, Susie wrapped them up in a tight hug that threatened to send them back to the grave. Later, she’d steal all their favorite snacks and humiliate them as payback for scaring the hell out of her. Right now, all she wanted was to feel them, warm and alive, in her arms, their heart beating steadily inside them; the tickling of their breath across her scales as they laughed quietly and wrapped their arms around her neck, while Ralsei smiled wearily at the two of them.