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It’s the first text Jesse sees when he gets his phone back out of detention. It’s from Joy Kwon, of all fucking people. He rolls his eyes. She must have stolen his phone during a shift and put her own phone number in.
“If this is a fucking nude…” he mutters to himself as he opens the text.
hey, hope you’re not in prison when you get this. baby nurse got attacked by a patient like a minute after you got taken. she’s okay, but thought you’d want to know
“Jesse, oh my gosh, are you okay—”
“Shut up.” Kicks her apartment door closed behind him. “I’m here for you.”
He gets Emma down on her stupid fucking overstuffed couch. She’s letting him move her, gazing up at him while he arranges her like a ragdoll.
“Tell me, baby,” he says, rough. Fuck bedside manner. He lifts her braids away from her neck. “Fuck.”
Her skin is mottled. But blurred somehow. Did she put fucking makeup to cover it? He licks his thumb, swipes it gently over the skin. She fucking did. Brave fucking sweetheart. It’s hard to see past red. His brain is boiling.
“He was disoriented,” he hears her say from a hellish distance, over bleached bones. “He didn’t understand why I was touching him.”
Jesse scrubs the back of his neck. “Can I kill him? Joy once told me that I could get away with fucking murder. This is a good fucking use of that talent, I think.”
“Jesse.” The whites of her eyes are shining. “Can you—can you sit? Please?”
Fuck. He’s scaring her. He sits as best as he can on this glorified bean bag. He’s buying her a new couch as soon as he functions well enough to use his phone again. “I’m not being serious,” he forces out, figuring that’s what he ought to say.
“I think you are, though,” Emma says quietly.
“Yeah, fuck it. I am.” He’s not good at lying to her. “I’m killing that ICE bitch too. I should have fucking been there.”
“Jesse.” She reaches out her tiny hand.
“Fucking—” He takes it between his palms. She tries to pull it away, but he’s already seen. “Hematoma?”
“I tried to get out of his grip—I’m fine!” she says desperately as he bolts upright again. “I just bruise easily—”
“Yeah, I know,” he says. He’s left fingerprints on her hips and ass before. He drags his hand over his face. He’s overdue for a shave. “Fuck.”
She gets to her feet. Places a tentative hand on his arm. “Can we just—I want to take a nap. Can you hold me while I take a nap?”
He gets it. She knows he hasn’t slept. She’s too fucking good for this world. He could burn it down, then. Easy. He carries a lighter around in his pocket. Build a new one up for her with what remained. One that deserved her. He’s done construction work before. He could fucking do it, for her. She can crochet a blanket for that new world and they’d nap under that.
Jesse follows her to her pink bed like a dog. She tugs at his scrubs—fuck, he forgot he’s still wearing the scrubs he was tackled in—and gets them off so he’s down to his boxers. She reaches for her own shirt.
“What are you doing, kid?” he says, almost wary.
“I want you to hold me, Jesse.”
“I’m not fucking you like this.”
“That’s not what I said.”
She unhooks her bra. She’s wearing little pajama bottoms, she keeps those on at least. “I want to be comfortable,” she says as she crawls under her covers, her ass in the air.
“Fine.”
He settles behind her after she curls up. She utters a little sigh, like she was taking a goddamn cat nap in a sunbeam. He wraps his arms around her and pushes his face into her shoulder, taking care to avoid her bruising.
Holy hell, she was a smart fucking girl to get them skin to skin. Soft scent, brain stem change. He relaxes against her back. Brushes her hair away to press gentle kisses to her like he should have done from minute one. Soothing licks. Emma. Baby. I’m here now.
His hand strokes her hair for a long while. Long enough where he thinks she might have dozed off, but then she whispers, “Can I ask if you’re okay now?”
“I’m fine, kid.”
“What’d they even say to you?”
“I got interrogated, if you can even call it that. Baby, I guarantee those cunts pluralize ‘baby’ with an apostrophe. Fucking idiots. They brought up the fact that I used to live in Sinaloa like they fucking got me.” Jesse huffs a laugh, shaking his head. “Holy hell, I’ll kill them all.”
“Can you do me a favor and not?”
He frowns into her shoulder. “Can I do something else for you instead?”
She squeezes his wrist. “No, that’s what I want right now, Jesse.”
“Fuck. Fine.”