Talk Nerdy to Me

Chapter 11: A Grumpy Morning

Summary:

In which Ra wrestles with what happened in the night, is taken care of in spite of her grouchiness, and begins the process of drawing the boys for the first time.

Chapter Text

Midnight rolled around, and Changbin's phone alarm went off. It was quiet, quiet enough that Ra didn't even stir. Chris hadn't even moved in at least two hours. Changbin sleepily got up and went to the bathroom. When he returned, his flint-eyed gaze brooked no argument. Chris had seen that look in his friend's eye only a bare handful of times.

Changbin lifted the girl from her cozy cocoon on Chris' lap. She murmured at the loss of heat, wordless, and then snuggled into Changbin's ample biceps, still. Chris went to protest that he could do it, he could stay up with her. The flint returned with enough force that Chris all but scrambled to lay down where Changbin had been a moment ago.

He rearranged the pillows a bit here and there, and then set Ra down on them. Chris looked a question at the other man. The smile was rueful - wistful - almost a regret. It was gone in a flash, but Chris had seen it.

"I won't be able to stay up till morning if I sit on the bed like you were," Changbin explained in a hushed whisper. He pulled the chair over to the side of the bed next to Ra, scrunching up his body into it with his phone out, a lone earbud going into one ear. "Get some rest, Bangchan. I'll take care of her."

In all of this, Ra had not budged even once since her head rested on the pillows. Chris hoped that meant that the worst of the tranquilizer had come out of her system. He'd done some scrolling through Google to find out. Alarmed at what he'd seen, he had been relieved to find out that even if she'd overdosed on it the ketamine, it was unlikely she'd be hurt badly.

The talking in her sleep - if that had been sleep-talking, he still wasn't sure - was a side effect. The rest could be slept off, so long as she didn't wake up and try doing anything crazy. It had made him feel at least somewhat better.

Chris sighed, letting exhaustion pull him under. His friend, his roommate, his brother on the other side of the girl they were protecting, and the girl herself, sleeping peacefully. He expected the nightmares to come back tenfold after all the stress, and the sudden relief. Relief from stress often did the opposite of what most people expected to him. It made matters worse.

Instead, in what felt like a blink, he was being shaken awake. He was still tired. He was always tired, if he was honest. Running on caffeine and adrenaline did that to a man. But Ra was blinking owlishly in the overhead light, her cheeks still flushed with fever, but awake and alert.

"What happened?" she muttered, rubbing her eyes. Her fists made cute little hearts by accident. "I remember getting off the plane and now..." She regarded Changbin in the chair, one side of his mouth tilted into a wry smile, and then Chris, disheveled and barely awake on her other side.

"You gave us a scare, that's what happened, princess," Changbin said, shaking his head. "You've got some medicine for your cuts."

She looked at the bottle of pills and the ointment that he had handed her, along with a bottle of water. It was all in Chinese. She did know a few kanji from Japanese, enough to read a few, but about the only thing she recognized was the characters for one and five. "What is it?"

"Antibiotics," Chris said, stifling a yawn. "Are you allergic to any?"

Ra nodded. "Just one." She looked around the room. "Where's my phone?"

"Right here," Changbin nabbed it from the table, handing it to her.

She held her translation app over it. "Augmentin. This one's okay."