Black and Blue

By Alasse Fefalas

A crash and a loud curse in her living room jolted Eve awake. Grabbing her gun from inside the drawer of her nightstand, she carefully made her way out of her bedroom. A shadowy figure was on the floor, beside her coffee table. Training her gun onto it, she flicked the light on.

"Flynn?!" she said incredulously when she recognised who it was.

The mop of messy hair and the suit gave it away. He was doubled up and clutching his shin, probably where he had accidentally walked into the table. "Hi, Eve," he groaned.

Eve sighed and lowered her weapon. It was then that she realised something was wrong. Flynn's suit was dirty, bloodied and torn in multiple places. She ran up to him and knelt down beside him. "What the hell happened to you?"

Flynn looked at her and, despite all the bruises on his face and a dark line of blood that trailed down his cheek to his chin, gave her a crooked smile. "Cave troll trouble."

Eve held his chin gently and turned his head, examining his forehead wound. It was still bleeding. Biting back a curse, she shook her head.

"And tell me why you were hunting a cave troll in the middle of the night?" She asked sternly as she helped him up and onto her couch, noticing him limping and wincing at every movement he made.

"I wasn't hunting them," he said defensively as he clutched the side of his chest. Eve rolled her eyes and went into the kitchen for her first aid kit. "They were hunting me!"

"THEY?!"

"There were three, and in hindsight, knowing different styles of swordfighting is probably useless against multiple ten-foot trolls using large stones as weapons," rambled Flynn.

Eve slammed the her kit onto the table and narrowed her eyes at him. She pulled a chair up and sat down opposite him to clean and patch up his wound. "What were you even doing there in the first place?!"

"Well, I was doing a little bit of research in the Library when the Clippings Book came up with a new page. It didn't really seem too dangerous, just a lot of missing people, so I thought I'd have a look and then go back in the morning with you," he explained.

"Are you ever going to learn," she started as she put on a large waterproof bandage over his wound and applied hard direct pressure on it, eliciting a howl of pain from him. "That nothing seems too dangerous until you get there?"

Flynn took her hands on his wound and brought them to his lips, kissing it. "Well, I've survived all this time, haven't I?"

"Lucky streak," she grumbled.

"Hey, and a lot of knowledge!"

"Fine, I'll give you that," laughed Eve. She squeezed his hands and said, "I need to see how bad that chest wound is."

Flynn winced as he shrugged off his jacket and vest as Eve's fingers deftly went through his shirt buttons. Slowly, he peeled his shirt off him, groaning with every movement.

"This is bad, Flynn," she breathed when she saw the extent of the bruises that ran down his body.

She gingerly touched the biggest patch of pale blue and red, the blooming bruise on the left side of his chest threatening to become a dark mix of black and blue in a couple of days. Her fingers ran down his ribs, assessing what damage the trolls had done to him. Flynn hissed in pain and she held onto a hand to give him assurance. She gave a quick apology and continued prodding gently, making sure that nothing was broken.

"Good news," said Eve, finally, "is that you don't have any broken ribs."

"Plus one for the Librarian!" cheered Flynn.

"But bad news is that you'll probably be hurting for the next two weeks," she continued.

"Plus one for the cave trolls," he groaned.

She helped him up and looped an arm around her neck. Her other arm encircled his waist, holding him close to her. "Come on Librarian, you need a shower. You're filthy."

"Oh? Are you joining me then, Guardian? I mean, I'd shower myself but I'm wounded," said Flynn, a mischevious grin pulling at his lips. "Who knows, I might accidentally slip and fall."

She couldn't help but to laugh. "Alright, but only because I don't want to call an ambulance on you!"

"Yay!" cheered Flynn. He turned to face her and gave her a kiss. "Sorry for worrying you."

Eve sighed and rested her forehead against his. "Well, at least you came back alive."

Flynn grinned. "That I did."

Fin.

A/N: Man, I was getting secondhand embarrassment from the two dorks just by writing this. It's so hard to write fluff with a straight face! Anyway, I hope you enjoyed it! Thanks for reading!