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[swordfucker]

Guren Ichinose | Red | #A5211F

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[passio]

[ dextera’s breath flutters, when guren moves his hair, but if that was enough to wake him then he probably wasn’t sleeping too deeply anyway. ]

Mm?

[ his fingers twitch, suggesting the beginning of consciousness. where…?

he remembers falling asleep safe and warm, but he doesn’t perfectly recognize this place. he’s in a bed, which is strange, and only once he actually remembers why does he blink himself awake.

his eyes are blue once again. ]

[swordfucker]

[Thank god. He's still here, thank god. Everything else could have been a dream, but as long as Dextera is still here, still alive... Guren lets out a quiet breath, amazed and drawn in by the restored color of Dextera's eyes. His fingers rest against his cheek, brushing there.]

Your eyes are back to normal.

[They look nice.] I never asked how you were feeling after coming back.

[passio]

[ how does he describe the feeling of coming back to life? it’s a lot for something so early in the morning, even if it’s not technically early. dextera places his hand over guren’s, with nothing to say immediately. he wants a moment to close his eyes just another few seconds, to collect his thoughts, and then he breathes out a soft sigh. ]

The same. [ not that that helps. ] As always.

[ his complicated relationships with death means a complicated one with life, too, and he’ll tell guren about the unique sketchiness and everything eventually… but it’s mostly that death is just so familiar. ]

[swordfucker]

[...Right. He's used to it, or as "used to it" as you can be. Guren watches him quietly at that answer, not wanting to push any further. Not wanting to make him relive it.]

Sorry. [He forgot. It's not normal, and it shouldn't be, and it was all his fault. But anyway... He pulls his hand back.]

Did you get enough sleep?

[passio]

[ dextera doesn’t want him to pull back, but there he goes, and his eyes are open again—half-lidded, this time, still sleepy and warm. it’s much different, being here, compared to tucking himself away in ryo’s room. ]

…

[ he nods, at least, and he finds that he wants to kiss guren again as if that will be enough to get rid of that look on his face. ]

Wounds?

[swordfucker]

I just have to change the bandages.

[He doesn't want to make Dextera do that, so he was just going to himself. He shifts, carefully, to try and sit up, and even that is probably faster than it should be.]

They don't really hurt.

[passio]

[ dextera wants to be able to help, but he doesn’t know how? he doesn’t know any first aid, and now he’s realizing that he should.

he sits up, too. ]

Show me.

[ before guren has the chance to answer, dextera touches his wrist, and leans in to capture his mouth in another kiss—chaste, as before, but a quiet reminder that their relationship has shifted ever so slightly. ]

Let me help.

[swordfucker]

[He was going to try to decline that, but then lips are against his, and as brief as it is, he's lost to it. He'd been wanting to do the same thing each time he woke up, but it was hard to think that it was really like this. No titles or families keeping them apart... but entire worlds. Still, in this place, it's relatively harmless. It's surreal.

He blinks out of it and then turns to look to the door to the bathroom.]

I keep everything in there. Let's head over there first. [He's shifting to get up, now. He can get up on his own, since it's mostly his upper body hurting, but he still goes slow.]

[passio]

[ dextera doesn’t know where to put his hands, since trying to assist guren in any way will absolutely put pressure on a gash or a bruise, and he feels a little useless—once he learns how to change those bandages, though, guren won’t be able to escape from his helping hands ever again. ]

…

[ he brushes his fingers against guren’s hand just long enough that he can feel the contact, and he lets himself into the bathroom since he can walk faster anyway.

he wants to kiss guren for a thousand reasons. because they’re awake. because guren is hurt. because he can. all of them feel like good reasons to bask in their affection, but then, there are a lot of things going on that are more important than kissing. ]

Mahiru?

[ signed with one hand, while the other is already going for clean bandages—everything is easy to get to, even if dextera didn’t know where they were before. ]

[swordfucker]

...The bogeyman screwed with her abilities, and it seems like it has lasting effects. It's getting better.

[Gradually, slowly. It's why, as he undoes his bandages now and reveals the mess beneath them, there's no longer a hole straight through his chest. But it's certainly not healed skin Dextera will be looking at, either. Sorry for the gore.]

When I was possessed at the end, my heart was able to stay beating, but that's about it. I went straight to Josuke after, and he was able to heal my heart, but Mahiru-no-yo's attempts that are being blocked are somehow making it difficult to receive help from others, too.

[passio]

…

[ to dextera’s credit, he doesn’t flinch when guren reveals his wound. if he’s a little paler at the sight, he hopes guren doesn’t say anything, but he manages not to show how much it bothers him, either.

guren was possessed? he should have expected that, but he’s so glad—deeply glad—that things are better now. if dextera came back to a broken guren, one he needed to kill, he would rather have just stayed dead.

he touches whatever part of guren’s chest seems unhurt, his fingers light against his skin, and stares quietly. ]

[swordfucker]

...Being hurt like this reminds me of school.

[He says it out of nowhere as he grabs a washcloth and dips it in a bucket of water that seems to be waiting just for this. He just needs to make sure they're clean enough, and he's limited on supplies, so.]

I hid my strength from the Hiiragis for as long as I could, but Shinya was always up my ass about me being stronger than I seemed. I was stubborn. He aimed a punch at me when we'd barely met, one that would kill me if I didn't dodge. I dodged just enough to survive it and passed out.

[Hope Dextera loves all these fun time stories Guren never gives anyone else.] It hurt like hell. He punctured an artery, that asshole.

[Says the asshole who could have dodged and didn't.]

[passio]

[ dextera listens, even if he doesn’t at all like this storytime!

guren’s past is fraught with terrible memories, and even the good ones, it seems, are tainted by the knowledge that he killed his friends. dextera isn’t grateful for his amnesia, but it does make some things easier. in a way.

he places his hand over guren’s, just enough to half-guide the washcloth over the wounds. he doesn’t know how to bandage someone, no, but he understands that things need to be cleaned. he’s not sure his purification would work here, even if it feasibly should.

it’s too much of a risk, anyway. ]

…

[ he glances up at guren’s face. ]

I’m glad you’re here.

[swordfucker]

[That memory, though he didn't mention it, also brought the first time Mahiru had spoken to him since they'd been separated. He remembers being such a jerk, congratulating her on her engagement to Shinya, causing her to storm off and leave him behind to deal with recovery alone. All because he thought pushing her away might be easier on her.

He'd been wrong all along. He's just thinking... that he has to be careful not to make the same mistakes now.

His eyes meet Dextera's after he registers those words, and holding the washcloth in place, he leans forward, stealing his own kiss for the morning. It lingers more than it should.]

That's my line. [And then pulling back just enough, he continues, with ease.] There's a spot on my back, too. Can you get it?

[Just... where he was stabbed through, but honestly, that end of it is better healed than anything else.]

[passio]

[ dextera would much rather stand here and be kissed than try to take care of guren’s wound, but the blood and the gore is a lot more pressing than dextera’s desire. once this is finished, they can go back to bed—and dextera can figure out how he wants to face everyone else, after disappearing like that.

the days spent with ryo feel hazy. he wasn’t himself at all.

he circles around to guren’s back, taking the washcloth with him. immediately, of course, he realizes that guren was skewered by the bogeyman, and that’s a sickening thought he didn’t want or need. ]

…

[ he holds the cloth against the wound, and then simply… leans forward, resting his forehead against the plane of guren’s back and shoulder. ]

[swordfucker]

Hey.

[Guren's voice is soft but firm, an attempt at reassurance even if he knows it's hard to see him injured.]

I told you I can take things like this, didn't I? I'm still breathing. [He kind of hates it, but it's also just... what he is, now. Working powers or not. He's always been one able to take things like ruptured arteries or stabs that should kill.]

Don't think about it too much.

[passio]

[ the archangel always did tell him he thinks too much. his thoughts spin out of control of someone doesn’t guide him to settle down, and so he takes a deep breath, nodding against guren’s back.

guren is alive. he’s not well, but he’s alive, and people have been taking care of him. how ironic, that dextera is the one who died and he’s attending to the survivor. ]

…

[ he does wipe away the blood eventually, but he doesn’t come out to face guren just yet.

instead, he slides his hand down guren’s arm, until he’s able to reach his palm and try to write something there. like before, when they first met. ]

Accident.

[ he didn’t mean to die. ]

[swordfucker]

...I know, Dex.

[Ugh. He doesn't want him to feel guilty, but he wants him to feel loved, and missed. How does he get this across properly? He doesn't know what he's doing with things like this. He's horrible at it.]

I told you to run, and you listened. You didn't do anything wrong.

[passio]

[ dextera ran, but maybe he should have stayed. maybe if he’d fought, he could have prevented himself from dying. he could have kept ryo and guren safe. ]

…

[ he exhales, a little harshly this time, like he’s trying to push out the guilt before it can smother him. he’s a coward, he always wants to run, of course it was easy for him to try it… death was an appropriate punishment for not fighting harder.

he can’t stop it, though. he trembles against guren’s back, suddenly squeezing his hand tightly. for as much as he says he’s okay with death, the circumstances this time were different. ]

[swordfucker]

Dextera...

[ He can’t hug him with his wounds like this, but he can turn slightly, not wanting to knock him off balance, but not wanting him to stay hiding, either. He grips that hand back. ]

Don’t beat yourself up over it. You did great. You helped us kill it, and you were a huge piece of that. You helped protect everyone.

It wasn’t an easy fight.

[passio]

…

[ praise is still new to him, but he responds well to it all the same. whether it’s from guren or ryo or someone else entirely, it calms him to hear someone tell him he did something right.

if he’d had the angelic rifle, maybe… but he shouldn’t think like that. he inhales, calmer this time, and slowly forces himself to breathe it out.

he wipes over guren’s wound, just to try to signal to himself that he should leave the conversation alone, and then steps back into view. his face is red, near-tears, but he’s trying to be composed. ]

[swordfucker]

[ Poor Dextera. Guren wishes he could just fix that sadness and guilt. He’s the one who should be guilty, he thinks, but actually... reassuring Dextera is an eye opening thing for him, too. They couldn’t help how things ended. It would have been the same. There would have been casualties. Each solution that was offered to him was wrong in other ways.

Words don’t always help, but maybe having Dextera help more and getting back to bed will. He squeezes his hand again. ]

I mean it. [ But he’ll leave it at that, for now. ] Now, I just need to wrap those new bandages around my wounds. You want to help? Not too tight to cut off all the air, but not so loose that it drapes.

[passio]

[ dextera looks at his own arms, where plenty of bandages cover nothing in particular, not anymore—they’re not especially well applied, but he thinks that he can do it better on guren.

he nods, retrieving one of the rolls of bandages. something—something to fill the space. he should tell guren what these bandages once covered.

he wraps the biggest wound, across guren’s chest, his brow furrowed in thought as he does so. when he steps back to retrieve another roll, he pauses. ]

My arms. [ how inconvenient, that he needs his hands to speak and to wrap. ] The Archangel.

[swordfucker]

What about him?

[ at least Guren is easy in that he doesn’t wince or fidget. He’s patient and still and pays attention when Dextera stops to tell him things, head tilting slightly as he looks at those bandages. Right... ]

Did he do something to make you need those bandages, or just help you with yours? [ God he hopes it’s not the first, and yet, he’s prepared to be angry ]

[passio]

[ dextera doesn’t pause for too long, trying to help the smaller wounds with gauze and a tighter wrap, but when guren asks, he feels the need to answer. ]

He put something inside me. [ it’s too much, to explain consciousness orbs. ] Hid them—to watch, all his followers.

[ but he didn’t want dextera to know about them in particular, so his injured body was an excuse. ]