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Lenny’s day had been exhausting to say the least. He was still recovering from the mimic attack, but with him being who he was, he didn’t want to be ‘sick’ for too long – especially since he blamed himself for the attack. So he had gotten back to work last Monday. It was Tuesday now and things were already too much for him. Most of his coworkers didn’t seem to notice, or didn’t have the energy to seriously ask him. He got quite a few “how are you”s, but a short and semi-cheerful “much better!” was enough to keep them at bay. Singh probably knew Lenny was really pushing it, but with the man being a martyr of his job himself, he hadn’t said anything about it. They had exchanged a friendly nod and Singh’s tone was different than that of the others when asking how he was. “Good enough”, he had answered, which seemed to satisfy his boss.
There was one coworker, one friend, who wasn’t happy with such a short answer though. Someone knocked on the door of the nurse’s office when Lenny was having his dinner there, mainly to avoid all the stimuli from either the dining hall or the teachers’ lounge. He had been in his office most of the day and it wasn’t perfect, but going to his own room didn’t feel right and he just really didn’t want to see other people now.
“Come in,” Lenny sighed, hoping that, whoever it was, they had something that was easy to heal and no time for chit chat. Instead, it was someone who had nothing to heal and probably all of the time for chit chatt. Steward of Respect Elliot Kelly.
“Hi Lenny, I just wanted to check on you, is that okay?” he asked, poking his head around the door. “Or would you rather be alone?”
“Both,” Lenny said. “Come in.”
“Want to just exist together?” Elliot asked and Lenny nodded. He didn’t necessarily want to be alone – in fact, being together was probably better, because his mind hadn’t been kind to him lately.
Elliot had brought his own plate of soup and sat down next to Lenny on the counter. They ate in silence for a while. Elliot had a great intuition for what other people needed, which was nice. For example, he apparently sensed that Lenny craved some kind of friendly touch. He had been touching people as part of his job, of course, but that was vastly different from the way Elliot now put his hand on Lenny’s knee and looked at him as to ask for permission. Lenny put his own hand on top and intertwined their fingers. Eating soup with the hand that was also holding the bowl was a little hard, but Lenny managed to take a few sips by tipping the bowl against his lips like a cup.
“You look tired,” Elliot said without any judgement in his voice.
“I am,” Lenny admitted. He could say a lot of other things, like how he went back to work too soon. How healing people was scary to him since the incident. How each time he used his curse felt like a risk he was taking… But Elliot simply stroked his knee and fingers and he decided to leave it at those two words. He was sure Elliot could fill in the blanks.
“Do you…” Elliot seemed to think about his words for a moment, “…want me to massage your shoulders?”
Instinctively, Lenny fixed his posture and felt a sting of pain run down from the nape of his neck to his shoulder blades.
“If you’re offering,” he said.
“I am offering.”
“Then yes, that sounds perfect right now.”
“Let’s go up to my room then,” Elliot suggested. “I have more comfortable seats and you can take off your top without the fear of a student walking in.”
“What if someone needs me, though?” Lenny asked, already getting up from the counter. It was a silly question.
“They’ll ping you,” Elliot said, which was exactly what Lenny had already been thinking anyway. The office doorbell was connected to his sending stone, because obviously, he couldn’t be there 24/7.
He followed Elliot through the school, who was making nonsense conversation with him so he wouldn’t have to talk to someone else. After all, he was already in an important discussion with the Steward of Respect.
When they entered Elliot’s living room, Elliot put down a low pouf in front of a chair and gestured for Lenny to sit down. Lenny took off his shirt and took a seat on the pouf, with Elliot settling in behind him. Elliot warmed up his hands a little by rubbing them together and then pressed his thumbs into Lenny's muscles. It was a little painful, but Lenny immediately noticed that this was gonna be worth it later. God, he was even more tense than he thought he was. He tried to relax under Elliot’s touch, even though that was hard. He groaned.
“Here, right?” Elliot asked, pressing on a particularly painful spot.
“Ugh, yes.” Lenny closed his eyes and tried to think of nice things as Elliot pushed his thumbs into it. He was being sweet about it, though. He was always sweet about everything.
“Are you okay?” Elliot asked when the ordeal was over and he went back to Lenny’s full shoulders.
“Yeah, you’re doing great,” Lenny answered. “I haven’t gotten a good massage in ages.” He snickered. “My ex liked to offer to massage me, but then after a minute or two, she’d be like ‘oh my god, your muscles are so big and strong, they hurt my thumbs…’ and would then want to switch, so I’d end up massaging her instead. But, you know, she’d be topless, so it was a win-win in my books.”
“Was she pretty?” He could hear the smile in Elliot’s voice.
“I’m sure she still is,” Lenny laughed. “But we ended up not having much in common, so it didn’t work out.”
“Other than being pretty,” Elliot said.
“Hm?”
“Well, you’re more handsome than pretty, but I still think seeing you topless is a win.”
Lenny raised his eyebrows. He never thought of himself as handsome, really. He was just a guy. A somewhat athletic tall guy, sure, but still, nothing special. Then again, this was Elliot, who, if he had to believe his stories, would fall in love with every second person he met, so maybe the bar was just kind of low.
“Thanks,” he said. “You’re a sweetheart.”
“You too.”
“Not so sure about that one,” Lenny mumbled. Was he really a sweetheart if he had nearly murdered the entire school?
“You work so hard to help people,” Elliot said, still kneading Lenny’s shoulders. “I can’t believe you’re back to work so quickly after, well-”
“Endangering everyone?” Lenny filled in with a sigh.
“I think you were the main victim of the whole incident,” Elliot said. “The beast literally absorbed you.”
“Well, I made it.”
“No you didn’t! That’s like saying, eh… that if you find, like, a flintstone, and leave it in the teacher's lounge, and then Frank picks it up and makes it part of some kind of gun, that you made a gun. You just… you accidentally provided the material for a beast, you didn’t actively make a beast.”
“I know, I know…” Lenny sighed. He had had this conversation with Elliot before and Elliot was probably right that he wasn’t a bad person, because he didn’t do it on purpose… but then he was just an idiot who did it accidentally, which didn’t make him feel much better. And it was nice that even Matthew had said he wouldn’t have been able to predict this would happen, with Matthew being more or less the expert on this shit, but still.
Elliot wrapped his arms around Lenny’s shoulders and hugged him, turning his head towards Lenny’s neck so he didn’t accidentally poke him with his horns.
“I love you, okay?” Elliot mumbled at Lenny’s neck.
“Okay,” Lenny answered, leaning into the hug. “It’s a dirty job, but somebody’s gotta do it,” he added cynically.
Elliot squeezed Lenny’s shoulders tightly, pressing a kiss in the corner where his neck and shoulders met, before letting go and going back to his shoulder massage.
“I can do the rest of your back as well, if you want,” he suggested after a while, running his knuckles along Lenny’s spine, who recoiled at the touch.
“Shit, that’s sensitive,” Lenny exclaimed.
“Maybe a good idea to give it some attention then…”
“If you-”
“Yes,” Elliot said, before even waiting for Lenny to finish his sentence. “Yes, I’m fine, you just relax. I like helping my friends.”
“You’re too good for this earth,” Lenny said while getting up from the pouf and following Elliot to lay down on his bed.
“That’s why they locked me in this pocket dimension,” Elliot joked.
“Imagine that,” Lenny laughed. “Sorry Kelly, can’t let you graduate, we don’t want to lose ya.”
“Was that supposed to be Kerry?”
“Yes… that makes no sense, timeline-wise, but whatever. Oh fuck!” Lenny hissed as Elliot touched a sensitive spot on his back again. “I- aaahw – I’ve definitely been too tense lately.”
“You need to come hang out more, and I say this as your therapist. I prescribe you snacks and hot tea, or beer if you want.”
“Well, if it’s therapist’s orders- ah Jesus!”
“I’m being as gentle as I can,” Elliot said, now just lightly brushing his fingers over Lenny’s spine.
“I know, I know, I just need to take better care of my body-y-y-haaa….”
“Try to breathe through it,” Elliot advised, which was easier said than done. Though as his back warmed up a little, Lenny started to tolerate Elliot’s touch more and more. He even managed to relax enough to Elliot to put some actual pressure on the muscles of his back. Lenny felt his eyelids get heavy and gave in to it, letting himself fall half asleep on Elliot’s bed. It had been a while… it had been since the mimic attack that he had felt drowsy, instead of just exhausted and adrenaline-fueled at the same time.
He wasn’t sure how much later it was when he woke up again, covered with a blanket that had a bird pattern. Most of the light he had came in from the other room, so Lenny assumed it was quite late in the evening. He was still tired, but felt like he couldn’t just fall back asleep on Elliot’s bed, so he got up instead and shuffled over to the living room, where Elliot was sitting at his dinner table, apparently doing some work.
“Morning,” Lenny groaned.
“Oh, you’re awake!” Elliot said.
“Yeah, more or less…”
“Go brush your teeth. I’m sure I have an extra toothbrush somewhere in the-” Elliot got up from his chair and walked to his bathroom to rummage through the drawers he had there. “Here!” He held out a new toothbrush to Lenny, who accepted it without question. Apparently he was sleeping over now, which meant he didn’t have to move his body all the way to his own room, so that was good. He brushed his teeth and trudged back to the bedroom, where Elliot was clumsily trying to take his hoodie off, which had gotten stuck on both of his horns.
“I was trying to do it too fast…” Elliot complained from inside the garment. “Can you help get my left horn through the neck hole?”
With a bit of wiggling, Lenny and Elliot managed to get the hoodie off of the goat man. The T-shirt underneath had a wide cut neck, which Elliot pointed out he had done on purpose, to prevent stuff like what just happened.
“I only do that to T-shirts I wear underneath my sweaters,” he said, “and then for summer I look for shirts that are just stretchy or have a deep V-neck or something.” Lenny nodded, yawning. “Anyway,” Elliot continued, “let’s sleep.”
He went to his living room to blow out the candles and then crawled into bed wearing just his boxers. Lenny followed his example. He was still wearing the trousers of his scrubs, but not for much longer. They weren’t exactly pyjama pants anyway. He got into bed as well and in the bit of moonlight that came in through the curtains, he saw Elliot turn towards him.
“Do you want to cuddle?” Elliot asked.
“Yes please,” Lenny answered, moving himself closer to Elliot until he could wrap his arms around him. He leaned his head on Elliot’s chest and curled up his long legs so his toes wouldn’t stick out of the other side of the bed. They laid like that for a while and Lenny could’ve easily fallen asleep were it not for the nagging voice in his head warning him that he’d cut off blood flow to Elliot’s arm and how problematic that could be. So instead, he pushed himself up with his arms and brought his face close to Elliot’s.
“Kiss good night?” he asked.
Elliot hummed approvingly, letting his hand travel from Lenny’s shoulder to his neck and then his jaw.
“Found you,” he chuckled, before pulling Lenny into a soft kiss. “Sweet dreams.”
“Sleep well,” Lenny answered. He rolled back onto the other pillow and within minutes, he was asleep.