"Dammit," Roy swore quietly as the key slipped out of his bloodied fingers, falling to the doormat below.
Kaldur stooped to get it, casting a glance behind them. Little droplets of Roy's blood had fallen to the pavement as they'd come, marking the way all the back to his apartment, and this worried him – he wasn't sure his friend was lucid enough to notice, and they didn't need anyone snooping around. Making a mental note to come back and clean it up before the night was out, he slipped the key into the lock and let them both inside.
The leftover Korean food was still lying out on the table; the dirty dishes were still in the sink. Everything was exactly as they'd left it.
"Bathroom," Roy grunted. He seemed barely able to stand on his own now, supported mostly by the arm Kaldur had around his back, and his skin was cold and clammy to the touch. Kaldur steered them in the right direction, helping his friend into the cramped little room and turning on the light, which flickered on after a few seconds.
In the mirror, Roy's face was pale and beaded with sweat, his jaw clenched tighter than usual as he peeled off the trench coat he'd used to hide his costume and dropped it to the ground. Blood was seeping from the place where the bullet had pierced his right shoulder, trickling down his arm, bright red against his pale skin. Checking it out in the mirror, the archer swore quietly.
Kaldur watched as Roy reached up to unbuckle his quiver, dropping it to the ground without much ceremony; the strap of it had been just next to the wound, preventing him from accessing it.
"Shades," Roy muttered, as if suddenly remembering. "Could you…?"
Kaldur nodded, ducking out of the bathroom and going to pull the blinds around the rest of the apartment shut – they didn't need anyone watching this and asking questions. While he was in the bedroom, he pulled the blankets back and arranged the pillows, then returned to the bathroom, where Roy had peeled the top half of his uniform down to his waist, revealing the wound (and everything else). The archer was fumbling around in a drawer, his hips braced against the counter to keep himself from falling over. Kaldur put a hand on his back to steady him and frowned in concern.
Finally, Roy withdrew his hand from the drawer, clutching a pair of tweezers.
"Should…sterilize," he mumbled half-deliriously. Kaldur reached out to gently take the tweezers from his friend's hand, then turned on the tap as hot as it would go and ran the metal under the water with some liquid soap that had been sitting on the counter. Then he handed them back to Roy, the only sound in the room the archer's own ragged breathing.
Kaldur tried not to watch as Roy dug the bullet out of his shoulder, but he was too worried to look away. From the way Roy was gritting his teeth and his hands were trembling, it was clear just how painful this was, but he didn't make a sound as he finally jerked the tweezers out of the wound, the bloody, warped metal of the bullet clasped between the prongs. Gasping, Roy collapsed against the counter, the tweezers dropping from his twitching hands and clattering to the floor beside the trench coat and the quiver. Kaldur slid a hand onto his friend's bare back, feeling his harsh breathing gradually quiet, his trembling gradually cease.
"Need to clean it," Roy mumbled, as if reminding himself.
"Let me," Kaldur implored.
Roy nodded.
"Not fair," he grumbled as Kaldur grasped his hips and gently lifted him up onto the counter, giving himself easier access to Roy's injured shoulder. "Superpowers…"
Kaldur didn't bother to correct him; it seemed petty and useless to remind his friend that his superior strength and thick skin were just his physiology, not a superpower, especially when Roy was sitting there bleeding out on his own bathroom counter.
Adjusting the tap to a temperature that would be hot enough to sterilize but not hot enough to hurt, Kaldur reached out his hands and took control of the stream. Gently, carefully, he redirected the flow over Roy's bloodied shoulder, noticing when the archer's grip on the edge of the counter turned white-knuckled and easing the pressure just a little with a soft apology. When he was satisfied that the wound was clean, he let the water drop bank into the sink and followed Roy's muttered instructions about where to find bandages.
"You need a doctor, my friend," the Atlantean murmured as he leaned forward to wind the bandages around Roy's shoulder, distracted by the archer's breath on the side of his neck – the warm air tickled his gills.
"You're doing fine," Roy mumbled drowsily, letting his head loll down to his chest.
"You have lost much blood."
"I'll be fine."
"The wound is deep. It may become infected."
"It'll be fine."
"Roy," Kaldur said sternly, tying off the bandages and resting one hand on his friend's knee, waiting for him to look back up at him. "Your stubbornness will kill you if you are not careful."
"I'm being careful," Roy protested with a frown. "You're here."
Kaldur wasn't entirely sure what Roy meant by that, but he knew better than to try to argue with him at this point. The bleeding had slowed, if not stopped, and the inevitable struggle Roy would put up if Kaldur actually tried to take him to a doctor would have undone all the good they had done in treating it thus far, so he simply sighed and relented, pulling his hand back.
"Fine."
"Bed," Roy mumbled.
Kaldur nodded, then hesitated a moment. Roy was not dressed for sleep – the top half of his costume was pooled around his waist and he was still in his mud-splattered boots, for starters. Unsure what was expected of him, and not wanting to overstep his bounds, Kaldur tried to start with the obvious, reaching forward and unbuckling Roy's belt. When his friend didn't move to stop him, he detached it from the leg straps and set it down on the counter; next he pulled Roy's boots off and slid the various pouches and pockets strapped to his thighs down and off. This revealed the seam line of his costume, and with silent relief, Kaldur unzipped the upper portion from the lower and maneuvered it off his friend's shoulders, moving slowly and carefully as not to rub up against his injury.
Last of all, he reached up and hesitantly brushed his fingers along the edge of Roy's mask. It wasn't as though they didn't already know one another's identities, yet somehow it felt very forward to remove someone else's mask, even in the privacy of his own home. But when Roy didn't move to do it himself, just sat there on the counter expectantly, Kaldur nodded and gently peeled the disguise away.
Beneath it, Roy's eyes were half-lidded and hazy. They were also very blue, and looking right at him.
Swallowing, Kaldur eased his friend off the counter, and when Roy mumbled something about carrying him that sounded vaguely like a death threat, helped him make his way to the bedroom with a hand on his back and Roy's uninjured arm around his shoulders.
The second he eased Roy down onto the bed, the archer's eyes slid shut and he was out, as if it had taken an extraordinary effort to stay awake even that long. Kaldur sighed, adjusting the pillows beneath Roy's head to make him more comfortable and gently pulling the covers up over his bandaged chest.
"Good night, my friend," he whispered.
Looking down at Roy's pale, sleeping face, and at the bloodied bandages peeking out of the blankets, Kaldur had a feeling this was not what Black Canary had had in mind when she'd sent him out here. But at least Roy was breathing – he could tell by the slow rise and fall of his chest – and at least…well, no, there wasn't really another "at least." He hadn't told Roy any of the things he'd come here to tell him, and the entire near future had just become a very bad time to do so. He had to be there to care for him. He couldn't complicate this already complicated situation with anything as silly as a declaration of love. It would be unthinkably selfish.
Looking around the dark room, Kaldur found his nerves were running too high even to contemplate sleep, and beyond that there would have been no place for him to do so, anyway, given the mess covering the couch and the rest of everything. There was work to be done, here. He might as well do it.
With one more glance at his friend's sleeping form, Kaldur reassured himself that Roy would be fine for a few minutes at least, and quietly let himself out the front door, shrugging on his weapon pack as he did.
The morning sun was just beginning to lighten the edges of the sky when Kaldur stepped outside and rolled up his sleeves. He didn't have much time. Fortunately, it wouldn't take much – he figured he just needed to backtrack a mile or so to be safe, and he could cover that distance long before the shadows disappeared. So he set off, drawing his waterbearers and sending a firm spray across the ground that erased the tell-tale signs of their return journey from the pavement as he went.
When he was convinced the trail had been wiped clean, he made his way back to Roy's apartment. The adrenaline had begun to wear off, tiredness settling into his limbs like a heavy load, but he kept himself together – Roy needed someone to look after him right now. Locking the front door behind him, Kaldur slipped silently into the bedroom to check on his friend, whom he found sleeping deeply but definitely alive, and breathed a sigh of relief.
He was certain he would drift off himself if he sat down in that darkened room, so he shut the bedroom door without a sound and flicked on the lights for the rest of the apartment.
It was a mess. Clearly, between holding a real job and keeping up the hero act, Roy hadn't had time to do the whole housekeeping thing – there were dishes piled in the sink, clothes and books and newspapers strewn across the living room, long-expired containers of food on the shelves, and now bloodstains in the carpet and on the tile in the bathroom. With a sigh, Kaldur removed his civilian coat, hanging it on the doorknob, and got to work.
As he worked his way through the place, patient and methodical as ever, Kaldur found his mind drifting. In all the night's excitement, he had nearly forgotten why he'd come here in the first place – it had seemed more important to focus on Roy's wound than on his bare, sculpted chest, more pressing to get him to bed than to consider the fact that in some bizarre way, he was getting to spend the night. But then again, their relationship had been rooted in deep respect and admiration (at least on Kaldur's part) in the first place, so it wasn't a surprise that he had wanted to see Roy safe before he'd wanted to see him naked.
And besides, the whole thing was inevitably inexplicable – he couldn't expect to understand his feelings. Roy was nothing like Tula. Tula had been sweet and kind and honest, full of earnest energy and good will; Kaldur had loved her because she had been the one saving grace of his otherwise lonely and isolated childhood, the only one who had never mocked him for being so serious, for looking so different, or for not having a father; he had loved her even while he had somehow always known she wouldn't love him back. He was too much of an outsider, and always had been. She was too much a part of everything to be chained to someone who had never really belonged.
But then Roy…Roy was nothing like Tula. Roy was impulsive and rough and temperamental, even for a land-dweller, shoving people away for reasons ungiven, holding his secrets close, bottling his bitterness up like gunpowder to be exploded at a later date. Roy was everything Kaldur was not. He was impatient and cocky and oh-so sure of himself, prone to fits of prideful anger and frequently disappearing without warning for weeks on end. He was as unpredictable as Kaldur was steady, and yet Kaldur found himself strangely drawn to that, to all the fire and poison and secrecy that was Roy, because underneath it all there was a man unashamed to be exactly what he was, unafraid to fight for what he believed in, and too impatient to wait for anyone's permission to do it.
Loving Tula had been easy. Thus far, loving Roy was not. But easy wasn't really the point, was it?
Love was in the electric thrill of chasing Roy through the darkened streets of his city. Love was in watching the muscles in his arms ripple as he swung out on a grappling line. Love was in seeing that unaccountably alluring smirk crawl onto his face when he finished the fight and turned to see you watching, his true expression a mystery behind the mask.
By the time Kaldur had finished with the apartment, sunlight was streaming in through the blinds, the tile floor of the kitchen was practically reflecting it back, and he was asleep on his feet. Worse still, training started at the Cave in an hour. He hoped that Black Canary had received his message, because there was no way he was leaving just yet, not with Roy still dead to the world in the next room and no one else to look after him.
Figuring there was nothing to do but wait at this point, Kaldur slipped back into the bedroom without a sound, eyes trailing over the unconscious archer. Roy hadn't moved an inch throughout the night, but he was still breathing, and though the blood was still seeping through the bandages criss-crossing his shoulders and chest, it had slowed. Satisfied, Kaldur took a seat on the floor by the bed and settled in to watch over his friend.
He awoke to a calloused hand on the side of his face, gently nudging him awake.
"Kal," Roy muttered as Kaldur looked drowsily up at him from where he still sat on the floor. "You imbecile. You could have gone home."
"I am sorry," Kaldur said hurriedly, sitting up as Roy retracted his hand. He had fallen asleep with his head pressed to the side of the bed, which had given him a magnificent crick in the neck. Meanwhile, Roy was sitting up and looking around in confusion, the blankets pooled around his waist.
"Why is my apartment so clean?"
Kaldur didn't feel the need to supply an answer; he just shrugged uncomfortably. Roy gave him a disbelieving look.
"Jesus, you didn't have anything better to do?"
"You were rather uncommunicative," said Kaldur defensively.
"Yeah well I…" Roy began, trying to lift his right arm, but he cut himself off with a hiss of pain. "Shit. Last night really didn't go as planned, did it?"
"If your plan was to avoid getting shot, then I suppose it did not."
Roy laughed, and Kaldur's stomach lurched. The archer was nice enough to look at even when he was scowling. The laugh was impossibly attractive.
Roy eased himself back down onto the pillows with a yawn.
"When did you get so sassy?"
"My apologies," said Kaldur. "I have been…concerned. Perhaps my concern has made me, as you say, sassy."
Roy shook his head, an amused smirk on his face.
"Yeah that, or the fact that you slept on my floor."
As he spoke, Roy was maneuvering himself out of bed, sliding his legs over the side and moving as if to stand. Kaldur scrambled to his feet and held out his hands to help, but Roy pushed them away impatiently and stood up on his own, taking a few halting steps into the room.
"I got this," he said. "I'm injured, not incapacitated."
"You have lost enough blood to put an ordinary man in a coma, my friend," Kaldur objected, following closely behind, ready to catch his friend if he should collapse.
"Yeah well, I guess I'm just extraordinary."
With an exasperated sigh, Kaldur allowed the irresponsible independence, but continued to trail behind just in case. When they reached the bathroom, Roy suddenly turned around, forcing Kaldur to stop abruptly to avoid bumping heads. With a hint of that damned smirk, he leaned his uninjured shoulder against the doorframe casually.
"I was going to go take a shower," he said, arching an eyebrow. "If you're really that worried, you're welcome to keep watch…but somehow that doesn't seem like your style."
Kaldur flushed, taking a hurried step back.
"I am sorry, I did not mean to…"
"It's fine," Roy laughed, turning away. "I'll yell if I start bleeding uncontrollably or I drop the soap, okay?"
Kaldur nodded mutely as the door shut in his face. For a moment, he stood there, rooted to the spot, confused and excited and thrilled all at once. Had Roy been…flirting with him? Or was he just loopy from the blood loss?
From the other side of the door, the sound of the shower coming on jolted Kaldur out of his daydream. He moved into the kitchen, opening the refrigerator distractedly; Roy would need some real food when he got out. Unfortunately, it seemed the archer treated groceries the way he treated housework: the fridge was pretty bare, but at least there was an unexpired carton of eggs and half an onion. Pulling them out, Kaldur set about making some kind of scramble on the stove, trying not to think about what was going on in the room next door in any sort of context – neither worrying nor fantasizing was going to help him any right now.
Just as he began scraping the eggs off onto a clean plate, the bathroom door opened and Roy stepped out, dripping wet, a towel wrapped around his waist and his wound exposed – he had taken off the bandages, and beneath, his shoulder was inflamed and bleeding anew, albeit slowly.
"Little help?"
Nodding, Kaldur fetched fresh bandages from the cupboard beneath the sink and set about rewrapping the injury while Roy sat obediently on the kitchen chair.
"You made me breakfast?"
He had noticed the plate of eggs.
"You need to eat," Kaldur shrugged, tying off the wrappings and stepping back to examine his handiwork. Unfortunately, what he inevitably ended up examining was Roy's exposed body, and had to yank his eyes away before he could formulate a sentence to fill the silence that had suddenly welled up between them.
"You promised me an explanation, my friend," he reminded Roy as he set the plate of eggs on the table in front of his friend and handed him a fork.
"Of what?" asked Roy.
Kaldur took a seat across from him, folding his hands on the table as Roy dug into the eggs without hesitation.
"Of your unusual behavior last night."
Roy looked a little too quickly, then controlled his expression, fork dangling in his left hand as he chewed.
"I don't remember a whole lot of last night, to be perfectly honest," he said. "Refresh my memory."
"I have never seen you lose focus in the middle of a mission before," said Kaldur, frowning. "Not until last night."
"Oh," Roy said, frowning deeply and looking back down. "I…right, I'd…it's…look, it's kind of a long story. I'd rather not get into it, if you don't mind."
"If it is going to put you in that kind of danger again, my friend, then I mind very much."
"It won't happen again," said Roy, taking a bite and avoiding Kaldur's eyes. "I just had other things on my mind and I was caught off guard by…by the smell."
"The smell?" Kaldur repeated with a frown.
"Kal…you're happier not knowing this," Roy said seriously. "Trust me."
"I do," said Kaldur quietly. "But it seems you do not trust me in turn."
Roy sighed in frustration, pushing his hand through his hair distractedly.
"Look, can we just not do this now? I'm fourteen hours off of getting shot and I'm sitting here in a towel and you just cleaned my entire apartment and made me breakfast and it's just really not the right moment to open this particular can of worms."
Kaldur stared at his friend for a long moment before he finally nodded. It wasn't fair to press answers out of someone in a state like this.
They passed the rest of the meal in silence, until Roy finally rose with his dirty dishes, making his way over to the sink.
"Now I feel obligated to keep up with your standards," he grumbled, trying to ease the tension.
Kaldur half-smiled and nudged his friend away from the counter to take over the job of washing up.
"You should rest," he said quietly.
"And you should go home," Roy said, leaning back against the counter. "Your team is probably wondering where the hell their fearless leader's got to."
Kaldur couldn't deny that. As he set the dishes aside to try, he hesitated a moment.
"You are certain you will be all right?"
Roy smirked.
"Look, it's cute that you're all worried about me, but yes, I'll be fine. Go home, Kaldur. Go see your team and eat a decent meal and sleep in an actual bed."
Reluctantly, Kaldur picked up his jacket, zipping it up to cover his gills as he stepped to the door.
"You will contact me if you need anything?"
Roy raised an eyebrow.
"Have you ever known me to do that?"
Kaldur frowned. He was trying to be serious.
"All right, fine," Roy relented. "I'll keep my comm on."
As Kaldur opened the door and stepped out into the afternoon sunlight, Roy suddenly reached out to catch his arm.
"Kaldur?"
"Yes?"
"Don't…don't tell Ollie about this, okay?"
Kaldur hesitated a moment, unsure if he could make that promise in good conscience, then slowly nodded.
"Your business is your own, my friend."
As the door shut behind him, he began the trek to the zeta-tubes, blinking blearily into the bright light. Black Canary was bound to have questions, and at the moment, even he wasn't sure how to answer them.
