( nursed back to health shipping meme. )

[forthemayqueen]

Nursed Back to Health Comment with your character, preferences, preferred role, and any information you'd like to include. Your character has either been injured/sick and had to be taken in (possibly against their will) or has been the one to help somebody like the former. Through the mending process, the two characters in a thread have fallen in love - or at least grown closer and more affectionate. Reply to others. Thread.

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omg hi

[hitactor]

[When hope dies it's a steady decline and a burst of desperation. Barry can't remember how many people he killed in pursuit of Fuches. Fuches. Who was supposed to have his back. Fuches, the guy he'd recognized as family before he went after Cousineau. Fuches, who was personally responsible for taking what life he could have made for himself away from him.

Whoever shot him, did so from behind - like a coward, but with the piles of bodies left in his wake, it's not like he could blame them. What he remembers is a bullet lodged in his shoulder and a self-made tourniquet. He remembers calling himself a car, and everything blanks after that.

The news had to be covering the aftermath already. The Chechen mafia and the Bolivians. The Burmese "monastery." It was going to look like a war of the worlds and he'd used more than one gun, and more than one clip. That was his only saving grace, but he knew he had to disappear. Just like he knew happiness wasn't meant for him. He'd be running from the things he had to do as long as he was alive. He'd always be poisoning the people around him.

To say his sleep was fitful was an understatement. Even after passing out from the pain, he had too much guilt on his mind to let him rest for long.

What he isn't expecting is the smell of bacon? Eggs? He jolts with a start, immediately regretting the action when the sharp stab of pain courses through him. Blue eyes find the gentleman across from him, cagey like a wild animal.]

It's fine. [It absolutely wasn't, and Barry couldn't even remember how he'd gotten to this guy's couch. He can feel the dried blood on it under his fingers. Nausea washes over him, as prevalent as the fear. Blacking out, rage, it never got him anywhere good.]

💃

[salbutamol]

( It's absolutely insane that Eddie brought him up here. Absolutely insane that Eddie didn't call an ambulance, or the cops, or both. It's absolutely insane that he slept with this guy on the couch. For whatever reason he didn't though, compelled to help and now he has to see it through. Even if he's nervous and twitchy, watching the man closely with big, dark eyes, like it'll somehow give him some insight into how bad an idea this is. )

Okay, fine. Just...don't freak out at me then.

( He doesn't mean to, but he ends up treating the guy like a rogue stray – setting his coffee down on the table before raising an empty hand up for him to see, approaching slowly. Eddie can see the tension radiating off of him in waves, and it's making his own stress levels sky rocket.

Someone has to figure out how to get the tension down before one of them snaps, and by virtue of not having a bullet wound Eddie supposes it's up to him. He nudges the kit closer to the edge of the table, closer to where he'll need them, and then comes around to sit next to the man. There's blood everywhere, more than he expected. He's going to have to throw this couch out. )

I'm Eddie, by the way. I did...tell you last night, I don't think you were really awake at that point. ( The man's shirt is still off from last night, kind of ruined from the injury and Eddie's subsequent panicked attempts to cut it off to prevent a stranger from dying in his apartment hallway. ) I'm not going to ask– questions, if that helps. You can tell me whatever you want.

( Hopefully that's slightly distracting, because it's almost definitely going to hurt when he peels away the gauze and bandage currently holding the wound closed. )

[hitactor]

I'm not. I'm - I'm not freaking out but just-

[Barry pinches the bridge of his nose between his forefinger and thumb. A spike of disorientation hits him strong enough to keep him belly down on the couch. Vertigo.]

Where am I, and who are you?

[It's clear he had no recollection of what happened the night before and he's grateful when this guy steps in to fill some of the blanks. He's skittish, like a horse that had yet to be broken and twitches away from him without intending to. He didn't trust easy and what trust he did have had been abolished now.]

Eddie? Are you some kind of doctor, man? [Barry winces, and his teeth click closed when Eddie gets to work on the bandages. He pushes his forehead into the arm of the couch.] How'd I - I mean, were you my uber? Or did I get dumped and you're just the unlucky- fuck - [Yeah, that hurt.] Guy that found me.

[salbutamol]

( Privately Eddie thinks the man is freaking out, but wisely chooses to keep that to himself. It'd be a little hypocritical anyway, calling him out when Eddie is very visibly also on the urge of his own breakdown. )

This is my apartment, you uh– really don't remember shit, do you.

( Like how Eddie had cursed out the entire West Coast as they struggled their way up the stairs, simultaneously furious and also pleading the man not to die as he unlocked his door.

Hopefully he doesn't remember the part where Eddie dropped him. It wasn't on purpose, he's just a big guy and Eddie's only got so much he can do in terms of propping someone up while trying to get a key out of his pocket, but Eddie still feels a little bad. )

If I was a doctor I'd have been smart enough to make you go to the hospital. Sorry–

( It's not about to get any easier, but Eddie's making a concerted effort to be careful. Uncharacteristically gentle, actually, as he presses alcohol-soaked gauze against the wound. It's not going to help the sting at all, but he still smooths his hand across the man's upper arm all the same. In part comfort, in part to try and keep him from moving too much. )

I don't know, you were in the doorway when I got home. Were you going to call an Uber? Like this? ( very insensitive but he can't help the quiet snort all the same. ) No I think...I don't know, it seemed like you were trying to go somewhere, but you weren't getting very far. I didn't want to wake up to a body in the hallway and you wouldn't let me call an ambulance, so...