#aceteling

COMMISSIONS ARE OPEN!

heyy, the inflation in Poland has been making it really hard to make ends meet so I’m opening commissions! UPDATE: I’m so sorry, but I had to raise the prices a bit because everything is so expensive...

if you’re interested please contact me via PM or e-mail; more art examples under the cut!

(That I can do, friend. cw for vague wound stuff--

“…sorry I woke you.”

“‘S okay,” Kaname mutters, automatically, groggily, disentangling himself from the duvet. 3:28 AM, reads the alarm clock he has to squint to see without his contacts in. It sits over in the corner where Nishimura and Kitamoto lie sprawled half on top of one another, snoring softly, the sliver of light from the bathroom illuminating their slack faces.

Kaname rubs his eyes. “Wha’s th’matter?” The words catch on a yawn as he pushes himself upright. Natsume’s kneeling beside him, hair damp, clad in pajama pants, bare shoulders hunched around the borrowed yukata he’s clutching to his chest. His eyes are too wide, face bloodless in the scant light.

“Do you know where a first aid kit would be?”

That is enough to vault Kaname into complete, unsettled alertness. He leans forward. “Why?”

Natsume hugs the yukata a little tighter. “Just, um. I don’t want to stain any more of your aunt’s towels.”

Kaname blinks. “What?”

 “Sorry,” he repeats, in lieu of any explanation, eyes on the floor.  It’s then that Kaname notices the fine tremor in Natsume’s shoulders, and he feels icy pinpricks down his spine.

“Come on,” he says, on his feet in the span of a breath and holding out both hands. Natsume only takes one offered hand, still gripping the yukata like a lifeline, and makes his own shaky way to his feet. Oddly, when they head to the bathroom, he waits for Kaname to go in first, and trails along behind.

And the sight that meets him in the bathroom is…alarming, to say the least. A mess of old gauze and tape litters the sink, some crusted with blackened blood, others tinged a sickly yellow color. Wadded up bits of toilet paper lying nearby are splotched with brighter, newer blood, as is the rumpled white towel draped over the edge of the tub. Presiding over the whole grim scene is Ponta, perched on lid of the toilet seat, face inscrutable as ever as he regards Kaname.

“Thought you were meant to be getting more bandages, brat,” he says, though his voice lacks a bit of its usual bite.

“I am,” Kaname tells him, hoping his voice doesn’t sound as faint as he suddenly feels. “Just needed to see—” He rounds on Natsume. “What happened?”

“I—” he begins, and falters, gaze casting about the mess he’d made of the bathroom before finally landing on the dark open space of the room past the door. It’s when he turns to close it, presumably to keep from waking the others, that Kaname does see.

Four ragged tears in the skin midway up his back, puckered, angry red and weeping in places. The shortest of them has to be at least as long as Kaname’s hand. He feels his breath catch, and Natsume wheels back around, looking rather caught in the headlights.

“It’s not that bad,” he says, quickly. “Or, um,” he amends, when Sensei snorts. “It wasn’t, until earlier today, I guess.”

Kaname shakes his head. “Must’ve been some really nasty stairs you fell down,” he hears himself murmur, through lips gone numb.

That’s what Natsume had told them, earlier, as to why he’d been moving so gingerly, why he’d opted for sitting on a boulder and watching while the rest of them had gone splashing around in a nearby sun-dappled stream that afternoon. The lie was transparent, and not just to Kaname; it had been all Kitamoto could do to keep Nishimura from staging a hostile intervention in favor of letting Natsume sleep when he’d dozed off before the rest of them had headed for the bath after dinner.

He doesn’t even have the time to look properly ashamed of himself before Kaname’s stepping forward, gripping his skinny shoulder with one hand and sliding the other up beneath his damp fringe. He needn’t have bothered, he can feel the heat coming off Natsume’s skin before he even touches, can feel him trembling. Natsume’s chewing his lip a little under the scrutiny, but his gaze has gone a little wide, something adrift and glassy in his eyes. Kaname takes his other shoulder, more than a little worried that his knees will give out.

“The room across the hall is empty.” He forces out an even tone. “You can wait there while I get the kit.”

***

Kaname really wishes he knew what he was doing. He’s got half the kit’s contents pulled out and strewn around by his knees, along with a basin of water, a stack of hand towels, and a bottle of peroxide. He’d had no idea if peroxide was the right thing to use when he’d grabbed it, but rubbing alcohol had seemed like it would be too painful. Natsume’s huddled before him on a fresh futon with his back fully bared, a pillow squashed between his face and his knees. Ponta’s curled up by Natsume’s hip, impassively watching Kaname work.

“What did this?” he whispers. The wounds don’t look phenomenally deep—though Kaname’s not certain he would know—but it’s clear that Natsume had needed, and failed, to get prompt medical attention. Natsume’s holding himself rigid, barely breathing as the peroxide sizzles and hisses. If there’s a better way to flush out the wounds than to just pour the peroxide directly over them, Kaname doesn’t know it, but he can smell the infection, acrid and stomach-churning, and see the red and yellow spilling from the edges of the torn flesh and into the towel in Kaname’s hand.

“Some great ugly bear-faced brute,” Ponta grouses, in response to the question Kaname nearly forgot he asked. “I could’ve taken care of him easily, but this moron wouldn’t let me.”

“He wasn’t so bad.” The words are soft, nearly lost in the pillow.

“Here, lie down.” Kaname helps ease Natsume onto his stomach on the futon, realizing he’s probably emptied just as much of the peroxide bottle straight onto the sheets as onto the wounds. Could’ve easily just been because his fingers won’t stop trembling. “If he wasn’t so bad, then why’d he tear your back open?”

It’s the wrong thing to say, Kaname realizes it immediately. Natsume goes very still, under his hands. The long pause before his answer is like a door slamming shut. Kaname thinks he hates it.

“There’s not always a reason,” Natsume says, finally, diplomatically. “They act on whim, most of the time. It’d be more odd to come across a large one like that that didn’t at least try to take a bite out of you, anyhow.”

That’s reassuring, Kaname thinks, dryly, though he realizes it may not have meant to be. Natsume had obviously helped the creature, sensed some kind of distress in it and shown it kindness even when it had hurt him so badly, because of course he had. Kaname knows if he presses for the whys and hows that Natsume will just hedge and evade and it aches, to be stuck on this side of a wall he just can’t scale.

It’s not the time right now, though, to pry further. Not when Natsume’s gripping the edge of the futon with pale fingers, breathing hard through his nose while Kaname uses a soaked wad of gauze to press the peroxide into any sickly corners of the wounds he may have missed, hoping he’s doing the right thing and not causing unnecessary pain. Natsume needs a doctor, if not now then the instant his aunt wakes up and can call for one.

“When did this happen?” Kaname asks. “The Fujiwaras left on, what, Thursday morning?”

They’d gone up to Osaka, the two of them, for a conference for Shigeru’s work. They’d wanted very much for Natsume to accompany them, apparently, to get the chance to explore the faraway city with Touko. But there had been a round of exams on Thursday and Friday that Natsume couldn’t be excused from, though the Fujiwaras had been relieved to know that Natsume would be going down with Kaname, Nishimura and Kitamoto to Aunt Satomi’s inn for the four-day holiday that followed. They’d all arrived Saturday morning, and it’s Saturday night—or Sunday morning, now, Kaname supposes.

“Um…” Natsume’s pause now feels less like hesitancy and more like he’s genuinely trying to remember. “Thursday evening?”

“You sat a whole day of exams like this?”

“It wasn’t infected, then,” Natsume replies, simply, and Kaname doesn’t know if he wants to laugh or cry. “And I think I did okay on my History test, at least.”

“Why would you not go to the hospital? Any of us would’ve gone with you. Dad could’ve driven you.” He’s trying really hard not to sound accusatory, or hysterical, but the sight of any one of these gashes is enough to make the bile rise in Kaname’s throat.

“They’d have come back,” Natsume says, softly. “The Fujiwaras. I didn’t want that. I thought it’d be fine if I just kept them clean and wrapped up…it usually is fine when I do that…and it was mostly okay until yesterday morning, but. I really did want to come here.”

It usually is fine when I do that.

“They’ll have to find out, anyhow. You need help.”  

He thinks his voice must shake or something when he says it, because then Natsume lifts his head and cranes his neck enough to look back over his shoulder at Kaname, face ashen where it’s not fever-flushed. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.” It’s not okay, obviously, but he thinks Natsume must be worried Kaname’s mad at him, or at least irritated for having to deal with all this. And he’s not mad at Natsume, may be half out of his mind with worry but not mad. Or he is, sort of, that Natsume wouldn’t value himself enough to speak up when badly hurt for fear of being a nuisance. But that’s not fair, is it, not when it’s clearly a learned behavior to keep his head down and his mouth shut.

“There’s a doctor from the clinic in town who makes house calls here sometimes if a guest needs it,” he tells Natsume, now. “A lot of the guests here are elderly and there’s not any major hospitals very close-by, so. He’s nice, he saw me sometimes when I was little. That’s probably who Aunt Satomi will call first.”

He doesn’t leave it up for negotiation as to if the doctor will be called, and Natsume doesn’t argue. He just turns his face back down and into the futon, sighs. “I have no idea what to tell him about this.”

“You tell him you got jumped by a damned bear. That’s mostly true,” Ponta says, as though this ought to be obvious. Kaname starts when he speaks, when his eyes had closed a few minutes ago Kaname had thought he’d gone to sleep.  

Kaname’s “no” comes at the same time as Natsume’s “I’m not telling him that,” and it might’ve made Kaname smile if he didn’t still feel so sick to his stomach. They lapse into silence after that, and it’s not until Kaname’s begun taping gauze over the wounds—he hopes he’s got enough of it here—that he finally says, “You know that old iron fence, at the edge of the park by the school? The one by the walking paths that’s all rusted out and falling apart in places.”

Natsume’s only response is a tight “mhm”—he’s clutching the futon again and Kaname makes a mental note to see if his aunt has any Bufferin tablets stashed away where he can find them, for the pain and to bring that fever down.

“You could say that you wrecked your bike there, or something. That the bars gave way and you went through it. I think someone in my class mentioned that happening to a boy from the junior high, that he’d hurt his leg and his mom’s been lobbying for the city to fix it. I don’t really know if the doctor will believe that, but the Fujiwaras might?”

Or they won’t. Nishimura and Kitamoto might not, either, and it feels both different and worse to need to lie to them directly even if it’s on Natsume’s behalf. But he thinks Kitamoto at least will have the good graces to not give Natsume the third degree when he’s hurt this badly. If Nishimura does, it’ll only be because he’s worried and panicking, but Kaname does not have the energy to fret about that tonight. And who knows, maybe they would buy it after all— they’re all too aware that Natsume’s still only about as coordinated as a kindergartener at times on his bicycle, despite their best efforts.

A slight pause. Then, “Thank you.” Something about the way he says it, quiet and so grateful, makes Kaname’s chest hurt.

“Of course.” He manages a smile, even though Natsume’s not looking. “I’m almost finished. Let me find something for the pain, then you can sleep.”

***

Kaname wakes with an aching neck and his cheek squashed against the futon. It takes a good ten seconds for him to realize why he’s slumped over like this, or that the thing pressing against the top of his head is Natsume’s duvet-covered leg. When he does remember, he shoots up so fast he almost falls backwards.

And Natsume’s watching him, head resting on his folded arms.

“I’m sorry,” Kaname blurts. “I didn’t mean to fall asleep, are you okay?”

He doesn’t look it; he looks like death barely warmed over, honestly, bloodshot eyes rimmed by bruisy circles. Kaname wonders if that fever’s budged at all.

“Relax, brat. I kept an eye on him.” Ponta’s nestled up neatly on the corner of the futon by Natsume’s elbow.

“What time is it?” Kaname scrubs a hand over his face. A dumb question; he’d realized last night that this room didn’t have a clock.

“Still early,” Natsume says. Even his voice sounds rough, like there’s pebbles caught in his throat. “Haven’t heard anyone else get up yet.”

“That Nishimura kid would’ve kicked in the door by now if he’d woken up and realized you’d both gone, I’m sure,” Sensei scoffs.

Natsume’s eyes drift over Kaname’s shoulder to the door behind them, something sheepish in the set of his mouth. “Yeah.”

“I’m sorry,” Kaname tells him again. When he’d gone to get the painkillers he’d meant to grab a coffee or two from the vending machine his aunt had had installed in the downstairs lobby to keep himself alert. But going back into the room where his friends were sleeping to fetch his wallet hadn’t seemed worth the risk of waking them.

“It’s okay.” Natsume studies his face for a moment. “I think I wore you out.”

Kaname’s sure Natsume won’t buy it if he denies that, so instead he asks, “Did you sleep at all?”

“Um.”

His heart sinks. “It hurt too much?”

Natsume nods. “I did try.”

Kaname puts a hand on his shoulder. He’s too exhausted to wonder if this is an appropriate gesture in this situation, but Natsume doesn’t tense up or anything, so he leaves it there. It’s as much for his own sake as it is for Natsume’s, really. “I’m sure everyone would rather let you rest today than try to make you answer too many questions, so at least there’s that.”

Natsume’s eyes cloud right over at the prospect of having to field any questions at all. “Hope so.”

Kaname gives him a sympathetic smile. “I’m sure the doctor will want to hear the details from you directly, but I’ll try to fill in the gaps if I can. I’ll ask if he’ll let me stay in the room when he’s here…uh.” He trails off, as it belatedly occurs to him that, despite him having had no real choice but to go to Kaname for help the night before, Natsume might not want more eyes on him than strictly necessary when he’s hurt like this. “I mean. Only if you wanted.”

Natsume doesn’t answer him immediately, takes long enough that Kaname begins to wonder if he should have even offered. But then he says, “Thank you.” 

No problem, he’s about to say, but Natsume isn’t finished. He’s flagging already from the effort of holding a conversation, his gaze gone half-mast, but soft as the words are they’re still clear. “For, um. All of this. Really. I know I scared you.”

“Yes, you did.” He slides his hand from Natsume’s blanket-covered shoulder to the bony base of his neck, as good a place as any to feel for the still very present and alarming heat rolling off his skin. Kaname needs to check the bandages.

“Just,” he finds himself saying, a moment later, while he’s slowly peeling back a corner of gauze. “Tell someone, next time? Don’t be hurt on your own. If you don’t know how to tell an adult, you can tell me. I won’t ask what happened, if you don’t want to say, but. I’ll come.”

Kaname wonders, briefly, if he’s crossed a line by saying all that. But then he finishes lifting away the gauze, and he promptly stops caring about being presumptive. He can’t really say if they’ve gotten better or worse in the handful of hours since he’d first seen to them—he doesn’t really know how to tell, when it’s all discolored and swollen up around the torn flesh—but it’s no less horrific in the daylight. He’ll have scars here.

Kaname’s not sure if he should try to flush the wounds out again, or just wait for his aunt to wake. He opts for the latter, seeing Natsume’s shoulders go rigid from just the feeling of the air across his back. He replaces the gauze. “Just think about it? Please?”

“He could do with a bit more thinking before letting himself get roped into so many stupid situations in the first place,” Ponta grouses, poking the side of Natsume’s head with a paw. “Any at all, really.”

Natsume reaches out to rest his hand on the top of Ponta’s head. He huffs, rolls his eyes, but submits to the ensuing ear scritches nonetheless.

When Natsume angles his face back toward Kaname, his smile is a small, gentle thing. “Okay,” he says.

Kaname reaches over towards Ponta too, his little finger brushing the back of Natsume’s hand somewhere near Ponta’s left ear. “Thanks.”

And Kaname’s not entirely sure if that okay was an okay, I will or an okay, thanks but let’s change the subject. But he feels lighter, now, a little boneless, now that he’s said what he had to and Natsume heard it. And there is something quietly considering in Natsume’s eyes, peering at him from across Ponta’s back, unless he’s imagining it. Considering what, exactly, Kaname can’t say.

This year, I was a Secret Santa for @aceteling! Sooo this is my gift I did for @vncsecretsanta event.

I hope this counts as a tender moment  \(·ω·)/  I didn’t make an art with a background for months, so it took me more time than I planned haha

Wesołych i radosnych Świąt Bożego Narodzenia,Domi, czy też jakichkolwiek świąt które obchodzisz/nie obchodzisz! Niech rok 2020 będzie dla ciebie najlepszym rokiem w życiu i niech spełni się cokolwiek, co tam sobie zażyczysz!  (✿◠‿◠)