gun-shy: hesitant, wary, or distrustful, especially because of previous unpleasant experience.

We were always too rough, even when we were trying to be gentle.

It was funny, if you thought about it.

The accident was a minor thing, that's what her doctors said. Looked nastier than it was (though she was disinclined to believe that, because it had hurt like a bitch), and she'd be up and about in no time. The details were fuzzy even now, as she woke up from the heavy dosage of medication they had given her (she vaguely remembered demanding horse tranquilizers, a request that had alarmed the physicians and had her admitted for a couple extra hours just to make sure she wasn't a frequent substance abuser, given the levels of alcohol found in her blood). She groaned, lips feeling numb, tongue scratching like sand against her teeth.

The car had come out of nowhere, really. Mimi had only left the restaurant in a huff and all she remembered was dim lights, a frantic touch of hands, hands, hands and her rosé tickling the back of her throat. There had been the click clack of needle-point shoes, a rustle of leather and silk and bright lights, harsh smells, the screeching of tires as they came to a violent halt.

She had been lucky, they told her, that the car was one of those cute electric bugs she insisted Koushiro should buy. When they told her, she swore she'd never, ever mention them to him again. In fact, she'd disown him if he ever expressed so much as a passing interest in the little menaces. She'd been sent flying into a backing car, and down to the cold pavement. His face and his fist colliding against the driver's face with a sickening crack was the last thing she remembered.

Her eyes didn't open slowly and gracefully like those people on the movies and the medical shows she hated so much, and there was a mildly embarrassing and strangely vindictive pleasure in waking up groggy, disoriented, hurt and bruised and aching all over, and finding him right next to her, head bowed low and fingers laced together with a vice. Slowly, with trembling fingers, she reached out to him, touched his hair and his head shot up, immediately making her regret the motion.

"Mimi," he gasped, as though he had not expected to say her name out loud so soon.

"Ow," she groaned, sitting back and wondering if this was what a broken rib felt like. "Are you trying to kill me?"

Yamato paled and for a moment, she really thought he'd blush. But then he scowled, face like glass once more as he ran his nervous fingers over thin, golden blond hair.

"Don't joke about that," he chided her, though not ungently.

"I'm not," Mimi sighed, drawing herself higher on her bed and reaching out for the pitcher of water with a lazy finger. Yamato poured her a glass, drawing himself up to her and helping her drink, an action both endearing and embarrassing to her, who hadn't been in a position of needing anything from him in so long. She swallowed, feeling blissfully aware and sharp, sharp, sharp, like the needles she had seen in Sora's home studio, who had prickled her fingers even after Sora had warned her not to touch them. She'd never been really good at listening, for some reason.

"Jyou had you stay the night for observation, but he said you could go whenever you woke up. Everyone came down yesterday, but you were out pretty cold."

It took a while before she realised Yamato was talking again, moving around the room. Her eyes lingered on the spray of fresh white orchids and she sighed, closing her eyes for a moment.

"... and I already told them I'm staying with you, so don't worry about it."

Her eyes snapped open.

"You can't stay," she said, hesitating.

"I can't very well leave," he countered, brow furrowed. "Not with you like this."

In her condition, she tried very hard not to be offended. She failed too, as he could see in the way she scrunched her face up and that alone caused him to blush.

"I'm sorry," he said quickly. "I should've followed you outside."

Should've, should've, should've.

Mimi, having already decided she hated this hospital room, barely shrugged as she climbed off the bed, holding on to his arm when he dashed to her side.

"I wasn't going to listen to you," she stated matter-of-factly. "Or anyone else, for that matter. It was an accident, Yama. It happens."

"You weren't in so many accidents before, you know."

The glare she shot him melted when she caught that glimpse of sea blue and she sighed, floating to him as gently and gracefully as her tasteless hospital gown would allow her. Her hands touched his face and for once, she didn't think about what she looked like, just woken up and bruised.

"It's not your fault," she murmured, and for the first time she acknowledged the conversation she had vowed to put behind her. "You can't stay just because I don't know how to take care of myself."

"That's not the only reason," he breathed, and Mimi kissed his lips softly.

"We've talked about the other reasons."

Extensively, heatedly, with anger, and hurt and longing and all of the above. So much that they often ended up in bed, a mess of limbs and promises they wouldn't keep, of things they wouldn't do, places they'd never see. So much that she had left in a drunken haze, wine on her tongue and heart between her fingers to avoid being pulled into the same spiral once again. So much that she'd had to be hit by life (in car form), to realise it was always going to be this way. Mimi blinked tiredly, reaching for the fresh clothes on her bag and slipping on loose harem pants and an off-the-shoulder shirt that could have, for all intents and purposes, been his once.

"Take me home, please?" she said, knowing he'd been about to protest. "We can not talk about it tonight. And tomorrow, and..." and she didn't say it, but he took her hand in his, kissing the back of it.

"Of course."

He took her hand and it took everything not to scream, not to tell him that she burned, wherever he touched. In a couple of mornings he'd be gone, far and away and she'd miss this touch, and the way his eyes always seemed to soften when she looked at him, and the way her heart ached when he didn't.

Notes: I am really not sure what I tried to do here, but the scene practically wrote itself and after a month of not being able to write anything, I'll take what I get.

Thanks for reading.