#03 feb

It's like a goddamn Christmas miracle, the fact that Ravi manages to get stitched up without any alarm. He's never felt like more of a criminal than sneaking into the medical area of the estate and begging the nurses not to call his husband yet. They oblige, if only because he looks desperate enough. They take out the bandages put in place by Kyung-Soon, they clean his cut, they poke him with anaesthetics. Some of the throbbing blissfully stops, and he doesn't even mind feeling the stitches that are put into place. Three, they tell him. Three little stitches, and then they clean him up some more, and put a new square of gauze over his forehead to keep it clean. He'll need to change that every once in a while, and there's something about painkillers and antibiotics, too. He's just happy to be feeling alright when he finally gets released.

That's when he finally goes upstairs to find Marcus. His husband, his sweetheart, his Atlas, always so busy carrying the weight of the skies on his back. There's a reason why Ravi hides things from Marcus until the very last minute, and it's not because of any lack of trust or fear. It's because no one else sees the mornings with those weary eyes and coffee held by shaky hands. No one else has seen the late nights where sleep doesn't come to him, or the pacing around the terrace at ungodly hours, or the relief in his hug when Ravi comes home after a mission that took a minute too long. Marcus likes to bear the brunt of it all for the family and it's a noble job, but it takes its toll, too. Ravi notices every little tick, every little fidget, every little twitch that leads into a breaking point and he doesn't ever want to add to that. 

In sickness and in health, that means they're supposed to care for each other. He knows he's already a handful as it is. He tries not to make it worse, when he can.

So when he finally finds Marcus, waiting near Rafael Snr's room, he brings a hand up to cover the entire part of his face that got hurt, to stop him from seeing just yet. "I can explain," he starts, and he speaks fast before Marcus can have the time to start assuming the worst. "Hi. I'm totally fine. I got hurt, but it's nothing. I barely even feel it. It was Liam, but I won anyway. And it looks so much worse than it really is, love, and I mean that." Because yeah, it does look bad. His eye still has some kind of burst blood vessel in it, half of its sclera gone from white to bright red. The stitched up cut is hidden by the bandage, but his brow is still noticeably swollen and his skin is starting to bruise. He's cleaned up, but his shirt still carries the grotesque reminder of how much blood he lost, dried stain covering a good patch of the silk by his neck. "Remember that time I went skiing drunk? That hurt way worse," he's hoping that funny vacation memory softens the blow, and he finally lowers his hand so Marcus can see him. "How are things here?" He tries adding the question quickly enough to pull the attention of the conversation back to what matters, hands reaching out to smooth down the t-shirt by his husband's shoulders, just for the sake of something to do and to keep him close.

03 feb 2021

03 feb 2020