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He’d been anxiously waiting for him to return from a mission when the door slammed open at 11:38PM and in stumbled a bloody brunette into their shared apartment.
Kyle instantly got up from his seat on the couch, the canned laughter emitting from the late night Adult Swim show fading into the background. “What the fuck happened to you?” the redhead exclaimed as soon as he set wide, surprised eyes on the other. Then his emerald-green gaze narrowed and he approached the Frenchman briskly, hands already reaching out.
Christophe had the gall to chuckle in his pathetic, beaten-up state. “Trust me, mon cher. I do not look as bad as ze ozzers.”
“I would fucking hope not,” Kyle snapped—he’d had been sent to do a hit, after all. Despite his harsh tone, when he touched Christophe, his hands were gentle as he helped him peel off his bags and shovel, letting them fall heavily just by the doorway. He turned his head and shouted “Gregory!” before he began guiding the injured brunette further into the apartment. Dirt from his boots and droplets of blood from his open wounds stained the floor in his wake; Kyle had just cleaned those floors a couple of days ago and he made a mental note to bitch about it later. “What happened?” he asked again, lips thin. “You were due back home hours ago.”
Christophe begrudgingly allowed the other to tug him along, trying to ignore the aches and pains of his own body. “Eet iz not that bad, Broflovski,” he grunted, already sounding tired. He’d hoped that his partners were already in bed by the time he managed to drag his ass back home, so he could slip in silently and take care of his wounds without a particular redhead fretting over him. He realised at once that he’d just been deluding himself—of course Kyle had been waiting for him. He always did.
“What happened?” Kyle asked again, casting an impatient glare at the other. He gave absolutely zero fucks about Christophe’s attempt to remain aloof and badass. He turned on the lights to their bathroom and pulled him inside, making him sit down on a small, metal stool they kept in there; the odd piece of furniture had multiple purposes, really, and it being used as a seat for an injured idiot was not a new one.
The brunette let out a world-weary sigh, watching Kyle with bored-looking eyes as he rummaged through the medical cabinets. “Eez Gregory awake?” he asked in lieu of an actual answer. At Kyle’s sharply unamused look, the mercenary quirked his lips and gave a half-shrug. “I would razza he be here so I do not need to repeat myself.”
“I’m here.” They both simultaneously glanced at the blonde leaning casually against the bathroom doorway. His pristine, white dress shirt was slightly crinkled with the top few buttons loose and his sleeves rolled up; he’d just been in their study, going over work. He had his arms crossed, a slim eyebrow quirked as he took in the scene with the harsh, white light of their bathroom. “My, my,” Gregory said dryly, hazel eyes settling on dark brown. “How have you managed to mess this up, Christophe?”
The feather-light mocking tone caused Christophe to bare his teeth in a half-hearted sneer. “I did not ‘mess up,’ Gregory—the fucker is dead,” he growled, just as Kyle crouched in front of him with the necessary medical supplies. “I waz just… caught by surprise.”
“That’s rather dangerous, in our line of work,” the blonde countered smoothly, his face impassive. “What went wrong? Was our intel not correct?”
“Non…” It was then that Christophe looked mildly uncomfortable. “Ze beetch’s bodyguards were just… more troublesome zan what I was expecting.”
“I fucking knew one of us should’ve come with you,” Kyle scowled. With a pair of scissors, he carefully cut up Chrostophe’s already torn and bloodied shirt, slowly peeling it off his moist skin. Kyle was unable to stop the hiss that escaped through his teeth at the wounds that were completely exposed to him as he tossed the rags to the side. “Fuck. What the hell did they do to you.” It was more of a statement rather than a question, since he could clearly see with his own eyes the damage.
“Bastards were using serrated knives,” the other responded idly. “But again, do not worry. None of zem are deep.” Then he reached into his pants pocket, searching for something. Kyle looked on curiously, a little suspicious, and when he saw the tell-tale box being pulled out, his face twisted into a scowl. He snatched the box of Marlboros from the Frenchman’s hands before he could react, tossing them distastefully to the corner of the bathroom as if the object itself was an offence to him.
The brunette was not happy with that move—although really, what was he expecting?—and cursed, “Ze fuck! Am I not allowed to practice my freedom?”
“Nope,” Kyle returned simply, dismissive. He pulled the prepared bucket of water closer to him and dipped a clean cloth into it, beginning to clean up the blood on the other’s chest and sides. “You’re fucking lucky, ‘Tophe,” he stated as he went over the wounds, a frown on his face.
“Beetch, I can do zis myself,” the Frenchman protested, narrowing his eyes; he was visibly disgruntled, tense. He tried to take the cloth away from Kyle with his free hand, only to have it slapped away. “’Ey!”
“Shut up.”
Christophe glowered like a petulant child.
“He can do it himself, Kyle,” Gregory commented from the side, just casually watching them, secretly amused with their antics. “And maybe he should. If you baby him like this, he might think it’s not so bad being careless.”
The twin glares he instantly received were positively delightful; he had to bite back a smile. “Shut ze fuck up, cocksucker,” Christophe snapped.
Gregory’s face remained unchanging. “Quaint.”
“Honestly, did you really not patch him up when it was just you two working together?” Kyle asked, quirking an eyebrow in silent judgement as he glanced at the blonde.
Gregory acknowledged the look with a slight roll of his eyes. “I assisted him only when he couldn’t do so himself,” he answered flatly. “He’s a big boy, always has been. And him knowing how tedious it is to stitch yourself up would deter him from being put in that situation again. Classic conditioning.”
Kyle snorted. “Well, it obviously didn’t work.”
A chuckle. “He’s stubborn, as you would know. Hard-headed.”
“Can’t argue with that one.”
“I am right fucking here, beetches!” Christophe cursed, enraged.
“Hold fucking still!” Kyle demanded, glaring at him. “Jesus Christ dude, you’re still bleeding! There’s fucking glass in your skin!”
“And maybe if you’d ‘ave let me do zis myself, I would ‘ave finished ze job by now, instead of chat’ng eet up an’ bein’ assholes,” Christophe retorted, heat in his voice.
“If you have the energy to backtalk, it really must not be that bad,” Gregory stated in a matter-of-fact tone.
“That iz what I fucking said!”
Kyle resisted the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose. “You two are fucking exhausting,” he stated simply, beginning to feel how late it was becoming. “Gregory, why don’t you start actually being useful and grab me the tweezers.” He tossed the bloodied cloth back into the bucket and gently pressed his fingers into Christophe’s tanned skin, closely inspecting him for any more wounds or abrasions that were still bleeding; luckily, most of the shallowly cut skin had closed up by now.
“Manners, Kyle—what have we said about them?” Gregory said with a sigh, but he did as he was requested anyway. He moved behind the two to open the medicine cabinet and rummaged through it for the tweezers. It didn’t take him long to find (because he and Kyle always kept this cabinet meticulously clean and organised) and when he turned back, Kyle was patiently holding up an open palm in his direction, green eyes still trained on the naked chest before him. With another slight roll of his eyes, he promptly placed the tweezers into the waiting hand.
“Thanks,” Kyle muttered. He pressed another clean rag to the still slightly bleeding cut on Christophe’s arm. “Mind pressing this for me?” he asked the blonde. There was a beat when Gregory didn’t move, and Kyle added an exasperated, “Please.”
“Better, but you could fix your tone,” Gregory quipped, walking closer to press the rag onto the other’s arm.
Kyle didn’t acknowledge his words and began to carefully tweeze out the shards of glass embedded in Christophe’s skin and cuts, disposing the bloody pieces in a plastic container. “Jesus, dude,” he reprimanded quietly. Then his voice took on that sharp quality again and he stated, “You’re such a fucking moron.”
Christophe’s previously stony face pinched in irritation. “Eet eez not like I fucking wanted to be shredded, Broflovski.”
“No, but you fucking refused to let either of us come with you!” the redhead retorted hotly. Gregory was slightly impressed at the way he was able to argue with such heat while at the same time keep his hands calm and steady and precise. He was impressed, but not surprised—Kyle could be remarkably professional when he wanted to be, even unconsciously, despite his volatile temper. He could have been a surgeon, really, if he wasn’t a mercenary. “We went over the logistics together, remember? And I fucking said that you might need back-up on the ground? But oh no, you said—what was it you said? ‘I can fucking do zis sheet on my own, I do not need a goddamn babysitter,’” he quoted, actually doing pretty well at his impersonation of Christophe’s heavy and rough French accent.
There was a burn in Christophe’s cheeks, half from anger, the rest from embarrassment. “I did not need you zere, as you can fucking see. I am here, non?”
“In pieces.”
“Now you are being overdramatic!”
“My point still stands, though, doesn’t it? Maybe if you weren’t so proud, we could have come with you and this would have been avoided.”
“Or you could be just as injured as I am, eef not worse,” Christophe returned darkly. “Do not give me this ‘could ‘ave would ‘ave’ bullshit, Broflovski. You don’ know what could ‘ave ‘appened.”
“What are you saying?” Gregory asked lightly, sitting on the edge of their bathtub; it had been awkward just bending down as he pressed a rag to Christophe’s arm and he refused to either kneel or crouch. He could actively help Kyle right now, if he were honest, but his passiveness was a silent protest of this unnecessary coddling. He was certain the redhead was aware of his motives; their hacker was too smart not to be. “You make it sound as if we can’t defend ourselves, Christophe.”
“Zat eez not what I meant,” the brunette grumbled, glaring half-heartedly at the blonde. He knew that both Gregory and Kyle could hold their own in a fight—Gregory was trained and quick with his hands, the years of fencing giving him sharp reflexes and combat finesse, and Kyle had a powerful right and left hook with an impressive knowledge of guns and how to use them, and was actually rather skilled with a knife. He trusted his partners, knew they weren’t to be messed with nor were they pussies. But still.
“He thinks we need to be sheltered and protected like princesses,” Kyle said with a scoff.
Christophe transferred his glare onto the Jew. “Beetch, I just said—”
“Yeah, yeah,” he interrupted, satisfied with all the glass removed and pulling back slightly. “You’re a badass, a gallant knight, what the fuck ever. Still doesn’t mean you’re not an idiot.”
“I took ze necessary precautions,” Christophe said slowly, simmering with anger as he glowered at the redhead before him. “Every mission haz eets risks. I do not understand why you are scolding me like zis when com’ng hom’ means succe—AH! Beetch! Zat fucking stings!”
Kyle gave Christophe a bemused look as he dabbed antiseptic liquid on his wounds with a cotton ball. “Don’t be a pussy, Mole,” he mocked.
“Casse-toi fils de pute.”
“Now that’s not fair.”
“He pretty much said ‘piss off, son of a bitch,’” Gregory supplied helpfully, ignoring the look of irritated betrayal Christophe shot at him. He smiled. “Knowing this uncouth Frenchman for as long as I have, you get pretty familiar with the insults. Granted, that is not the worst he could have said to you, Kyle, so I wouldn’t take it to heart.”
Kyle took a mental note to learn French insults so that he wouldn’t be caught clueless the next time the brunette spat vehement French words at him. “Is that so,” he said simply, and then more harshly applied the biting solution onto his cuts.
Christophe hissed at him through bared teeth, body stiffening under the touch. “Zat’s fucking abuse!”
“See what you’ve done to him?” Gregory said with a forlorn sigh. The two glanced at him in confusion and he elaborated, “He’s milking it. Verbalising his pain and being a whiny brat so that you would pity him and coo.”
“Va te faire foutre, Gregory!” Christophe snarled, and this time his glare was legitimately furious, jolting both Kyle and Gregory’s hands away from him as he made a rude, violet gesture with his arms and finger.
“Hey!” Kyle snapped, reaching out to grab Christophe firmly by the shoulders. “Fucking quit it,” he demanded, using his harsh, no-nonsense tone as he glared at them both; the mercenaries immediately looked at him with caution. Kyle’s temper wasn’t one to mess with and Christophe was already battered enough. “Honestly, you two are being fucking children. Gregory, he’s injured, so shut the fuck up and stop provoking him. ‘Tophe, fucking sit still or I’m going to fucking tie you to a chair. So help me God if you two don’t fucking behave I’m going to make life fucking miserable for the both of you.”
A decent threat. Kyle had access to all their computers (and could possibly very easily access Gregory’s private one) and that Friday he was supposed to cook for them his special lamp chop that they both drooled over every time the Jew made it. They’d been looking forward to it all week—it was rare that Kyle felt generous enough to make it and he remained tight-lipped about its ingredients; even Gregory couldn’t deconstruct the origin of its taste—and they knew that the redhead was very capable of withdrawing that offer if he was pissed off enough, a prospect that made both of them bitter. Also, Kyle could be a pretty anal bitch when he wanted to be. If he wasn’t happy, neither of them were. Simple as that.
Gregory remained tight-lipped but Christophe dared to mutter, “He fucking started eet,” to which the blonde resisted the urge to sigh exasperatedly in response.
Kyle had the same sentiment and he glared unamusedly at the brunette, bandaging up his cuts. “How’s the arm, Gregory?” he asked instead, firmly pressing a strip of gauze over the longer cuts.
The British man leaned forward, Christophe stoutly ignoring his very existence, as he inspected the deepest cut on his arm. Smooth, but not delicate, fingers pressed against the tanned skin as he looked over it closely. “He’s going to need stitches,” he murmured. It was still bleeding, the flesh torn up jaggedly but luckily, not the worst Gregory had seen the Frenchman sport on his body.
Kyle nodded curtly and finished up with his work on Christophe’s torso and sides. He stood up and stretched, then ushered the blonde away as he picked up thread and a needle from their medical kit. He worked in silence, Christophe offering no more complaints or expletives as the redhead stitched up the wound. Gregory watched them both, at the way Kyle’s hands meticulously worked over the bloodied, tender flesh, and the thought of him as a surgeon once again crossed his mind. A part of him was saddened that he’d probably never be that. When he glanced at the Frenchman’s face, he saw that he’d been discreetly watching the redhead work as well and, sensing his attention, he glanced up. Their eyes locked and a silent thought passed between them. Gregory’s lips quirked in a half-smile, his shoulder minutely lifting in a helpless shrug. Christophe released a quiet breath and relaxed his posture. Just like that, with all three of them there under the starkly white bathroom light, bloodied rags on the floor and Kyle’s careful hands fixing up the other, everything felt as it should be.
“There we go,” the redhead murmured, pressing his fingers gently against the bandaged up arm. “Done.”
Gregory stood up and took some painkiller tablets from the cabinet and brought them over to Christophe. The brunette tossed it back into his throat without the aid of water.
“Next time,” Kyle began as he began to clean up the excess dried blood on Christophe, “don’t be so fucking careless.”
A flash of irritation. “I couldn’t ‘elp eet. I tried.”
Kyle finished up and leaned forward, pressing a soft kiss onto the other’s clammy forehead. “I know,” he said quietly. “Just—next time your partners advise you not to go alone for a mission, don’t fucking argue about it, okay?” He pulled back, green eyes dead serious.
Christophe defiantly met the look. “I will not ‘ave you ‘old my hand like a child.”
“That’s not what I’m fucking saying and you know that, you stubborn idiot,” Kyle scowled. “Gregory?”
Not particularly fond of being pulled into this argument, the British man sighed and held Christophe’s gaze calmly. “You know that some missions require more than one of us to do the ground work. We’ve done it before, countless times,” he said flatly. He glanced back at Kyle and shrugged. “This was just one of those cases where Christophe’s judgement was wrong, and so was ours since we allowed him to go alone. We are only human. We’re bound for mistakes, however rare they may be.” Then his hazel eyes slightly narrowed as he appraised his two partners. “We do our best, but it is impossible to avoid situations like this completely. What we should strive for, however, is that even if one of us were to find themselves in this kind of mess—” he glanced at Christophe’s patched up wounds meaningfully and then looked back at Kyle—“there will always be another to fix them up again. Correct?”
Christophe regarded him coolly and Kyle nodded his head, resolute. “Yeah,” he said, determination making his green eyes shine. “Of course.” He glared at Christophe. “But that doesn’t fucking mean we like stitching you back up like a rag doll.”
“Beetch, I get eet,” the brunette grunted, slowly standing up from his seat.
“He’s alive,” Gregory commented, putting a hand on Kyle’s shoulder. “And that should be the highest priority for all of us,” he said sternly. “Christophe is right. Tonight was a success. He’s home.”
Kyle leaned into the touch, biting his bottom lip as he looked up into hazel eyes. Then he sighed softly and turned to Christophe, who had stepped closer to them. “I know,” he said quietly. “I just… can’t help but worry, sometimes.” There was genuine sincerity in his voice, his expression betraying him.
Christophe pressed the back of his bruised knuckles against his cheek and leaned across to kiss him softly. “I am grateful, mon cher.”
Gregory felt a little jealous. “No words of gratitude for me?” he mocked lightly, his hand dropping from Kyle’s shoulder.
The brunette cast him an aloof glance, putting up his middle finger. “You pissed me off,” he stated bluntly. “An’ you barely ‘elped any. Your reward eez me not punch’ng you in ze face.”
Kyle sighed patiently and grabbed Gregory’s empty hand in his, holding it affectionately. The blonde was immediately appeased, narrowing mischievous hazel eyes at the other in challenge, to which Christophe openly glared at—he didn’t like that look. “Alright, alright,” Kyle said between them. “Let’s just go to fucking bed already. ‘Tophe, you must be exhausted.”
“Yes, mother is sending you off to bed,” Gregory said, smirking. “One of the punishments of getting yourself in such a pathetic state is that you are not allowed to exert yourself until your wounds heal.” He put his chin on Kyle’s shoulder, keeping steady eye contact with wary dark brown, and whispered huskily into Kyle’s ear loud enough for Christophe to also catch the words, “Meaning, you miss out when mummy and daddy stay up late to play.”
There was no mistaking the suggestion in his voice. Kyle’s face coloured and Christophe’s darkened dangerously; the reactions were instantaneous:
“Who the fuck are you calling the ‘mommy’—”
“I am not fucking eenvalid, you cocksucking asshole—”
Gregory chuckled, his lips still close to Kyle’s ear, making the redhead shiver. He hadn’t let go of his hand. “You two are so easy to rile up,” he mused. He knew that Christophe’s injuries from tonight were nowhere near the severity that would prevent him from fucking. He had three gunshot wounds once and that hadn’t stopped him from rutting with them into the night. It was mostly Gregory’s fault, to be honest—a secret game of his. He knew the Frenchman was possessive and jealous and he absolutely hated to be left out. That stubbornness was incredible. “Careful, Christophe. You might pop a blood vessel.”
Christophe cursed him in French as Kyle squeezed his hand warningly and said, “Enough.” Honestly, sometimes he did feel like the mother. “Move it, ‘Tophe. We are all going to bed,” he snapped.
That was another thing. Kyle always wanted to cuddle after a night of worry and distress. It was exasperating at times, especially to Gregory who sometimes wanted to continue working late into the night, but they all understood that need, could all relate to it, really. It was reassurance, comfort. No matter how they complained, they would always climb into bed together at the end, sex or not. Luckily, and Gregory made sure of this, Kyle (all three of them) didn’t feel the need to seek out those reassuring touches too often. As bittersweet as those moments were, none of them liked to experience that fear of losing each other.
Christophe grunted again and started to make his way out of the bathroom, but not before bending down to retrieve his tossed cigarettes from the floor. Kyle called him an idiot again under his breath and Gregory squeezed his hand in agreement, if only because bending down like that would have definitely caused the brunette some discomfort. They made their way silently across their apartment and entered their bedroom, where they carefully crawled beneath the sheets, Christophe in the middle.
Christophe didn’t actually light up a smoke and after a confirmation that the others were also too tired to fuck, promptly fell asleep between them, boneless and exhausted. Gregory and Kyle gently intertwined their fingers on top of the other’s chest, their hands rising and falling with the Frenchman’s every breath. They fell asleep to it, the comforting metronome.