#stris

“Chris?” Street shouts, rapping his knuckles on her door again. “Come on! I can hear you, you know! For the past ten minutes.” He adds under his breath. The newest exclamation has a neighbor poking his head out his door and rolling his eyes; Street can neither blame nor apologize to the man. Thankfully, the neighbor goes back inside quickly. However, enough is enough, and Street reaches into his pocket.

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The sound of her fists on the heavyweight bag continues as easily as if she didn’t know that someone—her partner—her best friend—was standing in the hallway waiting to be let in. A pounding rhythm that never falters even as her breaths grow heavy and a stinging sensation rips through her leg. Sweat drips down her face, music plays in her headphones as loud as she can stand it, and—

“Hey!” 

One of Street’s hands is on her shoulder and the other has pushed her headphones half off. She manages to catch her instincts before she throws a roundhouse kick to his stomach, only now aware of just how out of breath she’s become. 

“What the fuck, Street?” She gets out between shallow gasps, and reaches for her water bottle to down it. Behind him, her eyes search the entryway to her apartment but find nothing out of place. “What are you doing here?”

Returning her gaze to him, his eyes are wider than normal. Not scared, but scanning as if he already knows that something is amiss and he just needs to sniff it out. She pulls away from him, an odd electric feeling left on her bare shoulder, and only then does she remember that she’s in a sports bra and spandex shorts. 

She strangles the blush where it blooms in her stomach, outright refusing to allow it to exist. Instead, she keeps her eyes on his and reaches for the sweatshirt draped over the back of her couch, taking her headphones off and pulling it on in one fluid motion. 

Nothing is wrong if she doesn’t let it be. She’s in her own apartment, for crying out loud. And—right!

“You gonna answer my question or leave me guessing why I need to change my locks?” 

Coming back to Earth from his racing thoughts, Street’s muscles relax now that he’s inside—and now that a green sweatshirt has halved the stifling intimacy between them. He reaches into his pocket with ease and produces a key. 

“You don’t. You forgot you gave me this?” 

It catches the light and turns a knot in Chris’s stomach. 

“No—I remember that I only gave you that for emergencies. As far as I can tell, no emergency.” 

“Look down.” He says, smug and heartbroken all at once. 

Resistance flares in her gut the moment he says the words, like he’s issued a challenge and she refuses to back down. Her lips form a thin line and her eyes narrow, even though the stinging sensation is returning and this time it’s joined by something warm and wet. 

“You want me to say please?” Street offers, raising his eyebrows and then dropping his gaze back to her leg. She hates him—that he can make her feel ridiculous, like a child that needed the adult to do it first before she’d follow.

She looks down. 

Rivulets of blood are leaking steadily from the wound torn into her tan skin, and the butterfly bandages the EMTs put on are now just limp, sweat-soaked pads only half-stuck on her leg.

“Come on,” He sighs, and then, without another word, turns and walks to her bathroom. When he realizes she isn’t behind him, he adds, “Get it out of your system now. I’m not coming back here tonight.”

She scoffs, casts one more lingering glance at the bag, takes a deep breath, and follows.

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“You can’t keep hiding these things.”

Street doesn’t look at her, instead letting the words echo off the wall as muscle memory guides him to the cabinet next to her sink. Steady hands reach in until he grips the slowly-depleting first aid kit on the top shelf, and then he shuffles on his knees so he’s in front of the toilet that she sits on, watching him in silence.

“I don’t hide anything.” She counters as he dumps out the supplies onto the tile, but he can hear her teeth grinding now that the pain has returned in full. 

He debates giving this little game of ignorance and subtext a few more rounds as he usually would, but Chris’s blood is soaking into the grout and staining the stitches of his jeans. He presses the edge of the gash with just the amount of force he’s learned that she needs—enough to make her hiss and recoil, but not enough to make her pull away. 

Maybe she also needs the reminder she’s still alive, he thinks. They’ve run in this circle before. They’ll run in it again.

“Maybe not the injury.” He says in a clinical tone, his fingers turning gentle as they continue probing around the swollen skin to figure out what he’ll need to patch her up. It makes her feel like a bug. “But how bad it is. Your pain.” 

Quiet permeates them for a moment, but he’s never been good at holding his tongue even if all he can do is whisper. 

“You always hide your pain.” 

Time stands still for her at his observation—all her gears turning but with nowhere to go. There’s just the noise of Street getting up to wet a washcloth before he kneels again, and she isn’t looking at him but she can tell he isn’t looking at her, either. She clenches her fist until her thumb knuckle turns white and then releases it, swallowing. 

“Job requirement.”

In her periphery, she sees the ever-so-slight turn of his head and hears him hum. A performance of consideration only for her to see, never arriving at approval.

“I don’t think so.” He finally concludes. “Anyone else would’ve gone to the hospital. There’s no reason you couldn’t have.”

She stops him as he pilfers for a dry cloth in the cabinet, cups a hand on his cheek before she can think better of it, and searches every inch of his face under dim light for the move he’s playing. The cards he’s holding in their game. She only finds the truth.

A part of her could kiss him for that but her nerves are frayed and burning, and she’s tragically devoid of any whiskey. 

“You get to be heroes.” She says, warding off her own thoughts. She sounds tired. “I have to be a superhero.”   

What’s the difference? He debates asking, always willing and wanting to know more of what’s truly in her head, but this one he lets lie because he understands. He understands. 

Street’s also learned that changing direction doesn’t always work. However, maybe this time it will. Maybe, if she’s truthful, he can use this moment to head it off the next time this happens. With a dry rag finally in his hand, he sets his focus back on her leg and lightens his tone.

“How’d you even convince the medics to clear you?” 

That earns him a shrug.

“Let ‘em stop the bleeding and then told ‘em I was fine. Promised to change the bandage when I got home.” 

“And then?” He can’t help but push; not unreasonable, he thinks, given the gauze pad he’s ripping open. “What, you’re punishing yourself or something?” 

She can’t help but push back.

“Or something.” 

Fury explodes in his stomach, his fingers stilling as it rushes through him, but he catches a glance at her face and sees that she’s on the come down. Soon after, he feels his own body relax, too.

No stronger storm, no calmer peace. 

“I don’t know how I’m the only one of us with a reputation for being reckless.” He smirks.

That draws an honest to God smile from Chris. Chapped lips splitting to expose pearly teeth that quell the fire in his veins and replace it with a warmth akin to the first sip of tea in the middle of winter. She doesn’t have a response so she shrugs again, too sweet and too cool and too everything. She knows he’s almost done anyway, so she lets the new, comfortable silence fill the air, focusing on the expert movement of his hands as they press the gauze down and tear tape to hold it in place, smooth it all into her skin and soothe her in more ways than he knows. 

He’s quick as he gathers the trash and tosses it in the small bin next to the toilet and then admires his handiwork. She flexes her ankle and jerks her leg around a few times without him asking, giving him the certainty that the bandages will hold until she needs to change them again. Satisfied, he stands with a low groan and offers her a hand to do the same. 

She doesn’t take it, as expected, but she also looks so much more like herself that he gives her a genuine, if small, smile.

No words about the day, or her actions, or the red in his jeans, are exchanged as they walk back to the living room. They split, Chris grabbing painkillers and water from the kitchen while Street slips his shoes back on. He hears the empty cup land on the counter and finds her easily. They share one more smile, one more knowing nod, before he turns the doorknob and starts to enter back into the world, whatever it looks like now. 

“Hey,” her voice, as confident as ever, stops him when he starts to close the door. They always end like this, don’t they? “Thank you.” 

His huff of a laugh bounces off the door frame, and Chris knows he’s shaking his head even though she can’t see him anymore. 

Circles, or whatever shape they’ll find themselves running in next time.