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"Here, let me take a look at that." Dirk takes hold of your wrist and gently turns your arm over. You suck air between your teeth at the sudden sting. Really, it's lucky you managed to finish off the last of those frog-faced fuckers without earning any more serious damage, you tell yourself. The gash across your inner arm still hurts like fucking hell, though. At least you have an excuse not to get up right away. You'd probably pass out if you tried. God, you're pathetic.
Blood drips from the end of your nose. Oh yeah, you got pummelled in the face too. You'd almost forgotten about that.
"I don't think this is too bad," Dirk says after a moment. "Is it okay if we don't call for Jane? I think I can take care of it in a few minutes."
"Yeah, sure." Jane's healing energy is limited, and she needs to save it for the really dire injuries. Of which there will certainly be plenty by the time this bullshit is over. You're not sure you even remember how many bad guys there are left at this point -- all the battles have gotten so mixed up. You and Dirk chased those guys way out into the Veil, though, and there's little chance of your returning in time to make a difference in any of the other fights, so there's no harm in taking a little time out on this random meteor to recover.
Dirk equips his katana again, and you can't stop yourself from instinctively flinching. With that smooth, deadly weapon in hand he looks uncannily like Bro, and equally dangerous, and your stomach twists as he lowers it to your arm. But he merely uses it to cut the tattered remains of your sleeve away, careful not to nick your skin in the process. It's strange that you feel so uncomfortable around him all of a sudden -- just a few hours ago you were hugging the shit out of him, for Christ's sake. Maybe the adrenaline from the battle is making you jumpy.
The blade finishes its job and Dirk puts it away; you feel yourself relax microscopically. As he takes your arm in his hands to examine it again, you note in a detached way that it seems odd how carefully he's holding it. You mull this over for a moment before realizing it's just that it seems like such un-Bro-like behavior. Watching Dirk in the heat of battle a few minutes ago, flashing sword aggressively driving the enemy back, you almost forgot he wasn't your dead guardian somehow risen from the grave. But this... this is something new.
"How can you fix this in a few minutes?" you ask through gritted teeth, trying to distract yourself from the pain.
"This antibiotic healing ointment we alchemized during our session," he explains, decaptchaloguing it. "It encourages blood clotting -- which stops bleeding quickly -- and it also contains an anaesthetic. This will sting, but hopefully not too much," he adds, as he pulls a small washcloth -- decorated with a horse motif, of course -- from his sylladex, along with a water bottle.
"Sweet," you manage to gasp out.
"I'll start with your face, if that's okay," he says, abruptly kneeling in front of you and leaning forward to look at it.
This situation -- yourself on the ground, bruised and bloody, adrenaline from the recent battle still racing through your veins, with Bro's doppelgänger looming over you -- is so familiar that you feel your flight response kicking in and it takes a supreme effort not to flinch away when he reaches for your face. But all he does is take hold of your sunglasses and carefully slide them off. They would be in the way, of course -- but you don't like how naked you feel right now without them on.
As Dirk puts his hand to your chin and gently turns your face one way, then the other, and as he leans in to get a better look until his face is just inches from yours, you force yourself to breathe slowly in an effort to to calm your hammering heart and your trembling hands. Stop freaking out, dude. It's fine. He's not Bro. He's not going to hurt you.
Dirk takes the cloth in his hand, dampens it with water from the bottle and squeezes some ointment onto it. He then begins applying it to your left temple, holding the back of your head firmly with his other hand to keep it still. It stings, and your breath hisses between your teeth involuntarily. "Sorry," he murmurs sympathetically. "The pain will stop in a minute."
He's right: the sharp sting soon fades into a dull prickling sensation. You close your eyes and try to relax. It's difficult to do while you're injured and vulnerable and a very convincing facsimile of your Bro is mere inches away, but you do your best to shut down your brain and just concentrate on the feeling of Dirk's fingers against your skin as he carefully cleans the blood from around your now mostly-numb wounds -- which, oddly enough, does begin to calm you after a while.
He's so gentle.
You can't recall your Bro ever touching you except to roughly grab you or shove you out of the way. Or during strifes, obviously, which you'd rather not think too much about about especially in situations like this. After the strifes, it was your own job to clean your cuts and scrapes, and apply bandages -- that is, after you'd spent ten or fiften minutes sitting uncomfortably on the roof, listening to Bro coolly dissect your performance in battle and point out all the flaws in your technique while your wounds stung and your skin slowly burned under the hot Texas sun.
At least he was never bothered about you tracking blood all over the apartment. At the time -- conditioned by television to expect all adults to throw a fit over dirty children sullying their pristine walls and carpets -- you thought you were lucky.
Dirk's hands feel just as rough and calloused as you remember Bro's being, but his touch is soft. After a few minutes you're feeling collected enough that you even dare to open your eyes again. Dirk's face is close enough to yours that you can see his eyes behind the shades, and their intent, focused expression. When he touches one of your bruises accidentally and you wince, his own face flinches in a sympathetic grimace. "Sorry," he says, and his fingers brush lightly over the tender skin. You look into that uncannily-familiar face to find an expression you've never seen in it before. Something like... concern. Your stomach knots uncomfortably. You have no idea what it is you're feeling right now. A million different emotions are erupting in your chest, and you can't process any of them.
"All right," says Dirk at last, letting go of you. "It'll take a few more days to heal, but the bleeding's stopped. Let me take care of that arm now." He takes a minute to apply more ointment to the washcloth, and then takes hold of your arm with one hand and presses the cloth against the inside of your elbow with the other. Once again, it stings sharply before the painkiller starts to kick in. This time you relax more quickly under the gentle, soothing pressure.
"This one's pretty deep," Dirk comments as he works. "It should heal fine, but it might leave a scar."
"I've got plenty of those," you reply with a shrug, and Dirk falls uncomfortably silent, understanding your meaning.
In fact, you notice, one of those old scars runs right alongside the laceration he's cleaning now. You remember when Bro gave you that one. You look at Dirk's hands clasped gently but firmly around your wounded limb and a lump begins to form in your throat.
This is stupid, you think. Normal people look after each other like this all the time, right? It's no big deal.
Dirk glances up at your face again. "Sorry," he says, and removes his hands for a moment. He thinks you're tearing up because of the pain.
"It's fine," you say, wiping your eyes.