"You're a fucking idiot."
"Thanks, Timmy. Last words I hear from you before my wounds kill me— 'you're a fucking idiot.'" He props his head up on the pillows and flashes you a sharp-toothed grin, unchanged from the night you cracked three of his ribs, except for the mass of bandages cocooning his arm. Of course he decided to play with fire. Of course he got burned and learned nothing.
"Winston, you ain't never gonna fuckin' die," you say with the certainty of Moses delivering the Ten Commandments. "God'll take one look at you and spit you right back out."
He considers that, biting the corner of his lip until it bleeds. "Damn straight."
You flip through the newspaper you stole from a convenience store on the way here— they chose a solid picture of him, some school ID snapped in his freshman year, not the mugshot you were expecting. (Much wider selection of mugshots. Just saying.) "Speakin' of which, can't believe this gem ain't got 'wanted dead or alive' written under it. Like bein' a hero now, tough guy?"
"You just come here to flap your jaws?" he asks, rolling his eyes up at the ceiling and letting them hang back in his skull. He looks like a caged animal; he doesn't belong in this hospital room, with a backdrop of wires and ice chips and neat plastic meal trays. There's a new form of anarchy in every muscle he twitches here, lying still against clean sheets.
"Nah. Came here to say it's a damn shame you're gonna miss out on the rumble tonight. Maybe you can watch a Leave It to Beaver rerun instead or somethin'."
"Shut your goddamn whore mouth, Shepard, or I'mma call up hospital security and let 'em bounce you like a pogo stick," he snaps, his bottom lip sticking out further than Angela's when she doesn't get her way. "Quit rubbin' it in."
You love pushing, shoving, prodding the edges of his pride and seeing where it collapses. You love when he's down on his knees. "Can't do it yourself, crip?"
He gives his IV a few experimental tugs, and when it proves hard to pull out, throws a Reader's Digest at your head and misses spectacularly. "If I wasn't hooked up to this shit, you'd be spewin' blood an' teeth all over the floor. One more word—"
You get up and kiss him, tasting the bright copper from his torn lip; he reaches up with his good arm and grabs a fistful of your hair, pulling you onto him, trying to devour you. He won't succeed. You'll eat him whole first, because you don't know who you'd be if you let yourself lose, even to Dallas fucking Winston. "You wanna beat the hell outta someone," you say once your lungs have no more air, "make it a Soc."
One spark and the entire powder keg goes off. "Don't worry, I'll be there," he says grimly, tugging at his IV again. "Gimme your switch. Bastards stole mine when they checked me into this joint."
"Not a fuckin' chance," you say, unable to wipe the smirk off your face. "That'd be makin' it way too easy on you."
His stream of curses follows you all the way out the door.