Orphic

Spring Seventeen - Cassius

I stuck the needle into Clint's IV and pushed the new drugs in as quickly as I could.

"you think this will work?" Emily asked. She woke up shortly before Andrew arrived with the medication, however, she still looked mostly asleep.

"I would be surprised if it didn't make some changes. If this doesn't work, we have other options." Bella lied, giving her a soft smile.

It was still early but judging by Emily's face, she hadn't really slept anyways. Bella and I were also running on no sleep and neither of us had eaten. Luckily, Andrew looked well rested, it was good that I'd sent him home.

"Where's the groceries I asked you to grab?" I sighed. We all needed to eat actual food. Even if I hated cooking.

"Fridge. Need help?" He asked.

I shook my head before turning to Bella, "Go take a nap, I'll wake you in a few hours. Andrew and I can watch him."

She hesitated but made her way to her room and Andrew found himself a spot in the corner of the living room where he could monitor Clint without getting in Emily's way.

I moved towards the kitchen while tugging out my phone to answer yet another phone call from Abigail.

"Hey." I answered, tugging food out of the fridge.

"Hey? That's it. I've been calling for hours, where are you?" She sounded relieved, and out of breath.

"I came to the city with Elliot. I have contacts at the hospital. Why? What's up?"

"Oh. Gotcha. Listen, it's about Leah, she was saying something that I wanted to ask you about."

"Go for it." I sighed, turning on the stove.

"Are you -."

"Cass!"

A pair of arms wrapped around me from behind and I froze, dropping my phone. I was immediately aware of how close we were.

How they were touching my back.

After a few seconds I couldn't do it anymore and I spun around, pinning their wrists up with my hand while trying to ignore the tingling in my back and the vomit threatening to make its way up to my throat.

When I saw that it was Elliot, my grip only tightened. He looked like he'd just woken up, his hair was in the worst messy bun I'd ever seen and his shirt was still off which meant I had to fight to not admire him as if I were still a teenage boy.

He still looked perfectly fuckable.

"Cass, you're hurting me." He said it, but he didn't actually look like he minded it so much.

I slowly lowered my hand, cautiously as if he would go off and start touching me again at any moment.

After I finally let go I took a step back. He looked like he wanted to ask but ended up keeping his mouth shut.

"I'm uh - glad you're okay. Even if you look like you got hit by a truck." he joked, maneuvering around me to take over cracking a few eggs into the pan.

I'd showered and cleaned up to the best of my abilities but I had a black eye and my knuckles were bruised. He'd freak out if he could see the wound on my stomach, Bella would too.

He moved through the kitchen easily, talking about what they did last night but not bringing up the hospital or what had happened a few moments ago.

I watched him patiently, giving simple replies to any questions he had but not going into much detail about anything, eventually I felt normal again. Less on edge and the tingling in my back was gone.