AUTHOR'S NOTE: originally posted at /works/18308888/chapters/43433291#workskin
WARNINGS: unspecified injuries, blood, bandages, quick binder mention, mild swearing, mentions of cigarettes and drug use, references to self-harm.
...
He sits on the floor of the bedroom to bleed out.
It is ridiculously polished, and a single floorboard is probably worth more money than everything he'd owned at one point. A part of his brain balks at the thought of covering such lovely, shiny wood with blood.
He does it anyway, sitting there in what would have grown to be an uncomfortable position had he not been in considerable pain already.
He stares at the wall. Powder blue and hung with paintings, all of them no doubt priceless and certainly pleasing to his own eye.
The bed he's slept in for no more than maybe a few months looks the way it always feels, ridiculously plush and warm enough that it threatens to smother the harder, sharper parts of his mind, and for a moment he wonders if he should bother getting up and dragging himself there to die in comfort. He'll get the sheets dirty- and they've clearly been changed recently, no doubt by an Akuma servant- but it might actually be worth it.
The decision is made, and he gets up. Or, at least, he tries to, before the room starts spinning around him. (Part of his brain pairs this and the lightness and the cold and the slow thumping sounds and tells him you're a goner, mate, you're dead, but it's already a bit late for his brain to be useful.)
(The door is ajar, and he briefly considers calling for help.)
Darkness closes in, and it strikes him as a bit ironic that he's going to die surrounded by pretty things and the smell of cigarettes.
The door opens wide.
.
He wakes in an unfamiliar room, swaddled like a child in blankets and bandages, binder off and someone else's clothes on.
.
"Do you know how scared I was?" Tyki asks. This, it should be noted, is the first thing he's said after walking in with long sleeves and the stench of cigarettes. "You trailed your blood through the whole damn house."
(There's nothing but a weak croak that tries to pass itself off as sorry.)
.
"Allen, you... you should've come to the medical wing. Or the Earl. Or me."
He mumbles, "Didn't know I was hurt til I got to my room."
"Bullshit. I'm going back to mine. Hell, I'm not even supposed to be here."
.
He's not unaware of Tyki's past. He does wish he'd been aware of trailing his blood through the house.
.
(He can just imagine it, like a Hollywood-red carpet or rose petals or paint. A rug of crimson silk over expensive hardwood floors.)
.
Road eyes him. "You look awful."
"That's not a very nice thing to say to a convalescent."
"You told Tyki you were 'fine'- don't bother, I know he visited you four separate times- and the Earl that it was 'barely a scratch.' Make up your mind."
The glare he sends her is only half-joking, and she knows that well. "Seriously. Are you okay? Tyki was a wreck after finding you. Screamed loud enough to give Wisely a whole new headache on top of the one he already had, and then he had that little breakdown. And I can't really see enough of you to determine for myself, under those bandages."
"Then how d'ya know if I look awful or not?"
(She sticks her tongue out like the child she is, and he almost smiles.)
.
"I don't need to see," she's hesitant for once, "to know when a member of my family is in pain. And when two of them are, it's unacceptable."
.
Keep walking, he had told himself once. But how do you walk away from your problems when you can barely move?
.
"You look awful, dude." Jasdevi speaks in unison.
"You're lucky-" that's Devitt-
"-that we managed to heal you-" Jasdero-
-and unison again. "-with our super awesome magic powers!"
("Also, it's a good thing we've got human nurses here with the Akuma!")
.
Most of the staff of the Noah medical wing is Akuma, and having his eye on "off" mode so much is giving him a headache. Good thing he's on so much pain medication.
.
"Allen, m'boy," the Earl says, "It's good to see you looking better."
"When can I go back on missions, then?" He dares to ask.
("We're not sending you on any more missions because you're an idiot child, even if you're past twenty, and clearly incapable of making decisions to keep yourself safe," he does not say but Allen can hear it in his voice, see it in the way he regards the boy stuck in a hospital bed.)
"Oh, we'll figure it out as we go along."
"Okay," Allen says, staring at the white tiled ceiling. "Okay."
.
They release him on a Thursday. Not that the day is very important, since he's the Destroyer of Time and all, but it's a very Thursday-ish mood and that sticks in his head.
Tyki is not on his floor, where he's nominally been confined after what he was told was a spectacular mental breakdown. Allen decides to wait there.
He notes that the wooden floor is covered in rugs, all of them plush and in varying shades of purple and indigo.
.
"Do you know how scared I was?" Tyki asks, and Allen wraps shaky arms around him.
"I'm sorry."