Pain Management

Chapter 8: Long-Term Side Effects, Pt. 1

Law's quarters were more claustrophobic than you had recalled, and this time it wasn't just the oppressive weight of uncertainty and his all-consuming presence making the walls close in around you. Stacks of books and papers threatened to topple over at your feet, clothes were heaped in small piles, half-opened boxes blocked the doorway to the small lavatory attached to his room; it was barely-controlled chaos, nothing like you remembered from the night you ended up in his room. It wasn't clear what he had been looking for, but you did have to wonder if he ever found it.

Law sat in his desk chair, leaned forward with his elbows on his knees and his fingers folded beneath his chin, his steely eyes settling on anything and everywhere in the room except for you and the space you occupied. He scratched at the scruff of his chin, moved his hand to the back of neck and rubbed at his skin, jiggled one leg, then the other, then both at the same time; he didn't have to say a damn thing to tell you where this conversation was going to go. You stood with your upper arm pressed against his door as though hoping to be absorbed into the metal and escape this discomfort, silently trying to will him to say something—anything—to break the thick tension that was trying to suffocate you, as a sharp twinge manifested in your lower left side.

"I'm sorry," he finally said, wading into the uncomfortable silence. "For earlier—for the way I behaved, and the things I said. That was—well, I wasn't quite myself."

Yet, down to the marrow of your bones, you knew Law had been more himself in those moments than he had been since you'd begun your treatment plan, more honest in the way he looked at you with a covetous desire and the way he seemed to claim your body with his mouth, as though he had something to prove to you, to himself.

"It's okay, I didn't mind," you mumbled, a sudden heat overtaking your ears.

"Whether you minded or not isn't the issue. Every time we're near each other, these feelings just start to bleed through and I—I can't stem it. And what I'm doing to you"—his mouth hung open for a moment, as he fumbled for what should come next—"I can't keep treating you, and acting like everything is fine. I just can't."

"Captain, please." The way you heard yourself ready to beg was degrading, but you couldn't stop, even if you tried. It was as if you'd wilt without his touch, wither like a summer bloom in the cold of winter, no matter how the ever-dissolving rational part of you knew otherwise.

"The damage is already done, but I can stop making it worse. Just look at yourself. You're telling me I haven't made you like this?" Law's eyes scanning every inch of your face, analyzing the twitch at the corner of your lips and the rapid blinking of your eyes as you tried to suppress a wretched flood of tears.

"So what if you have?" You threw up your hands while you searched for words. "What is it you said to me that night—the night you kissed me? That maybe I just needed the right man to bring it out of me?"

"Stop. I don't want to think about that."

"Why not?"

"That's. Enough." The way his nostrils flared and the way he drew out each word made something crumble within you, feeling the last vestiges of whatever romance you thought was tethering the two of your together starting to slip from your grasp. He inhaled deeply, closing his eyes. "I've taken this time to consider your situation.

"Which situation?"

"Your medical care."

"Oh." Not the situation of his manipulation and your willingness to be malleable for him. Not the situation of the unspoken needs and desires. Not the situation of the feelings that enrobed you both in some warmth you couldn't seem to handle without burning each other in the process. "And...what have you concluded?"