across the hall

two

||Chapter Two; Three Months Ago||

Quote of the chapter: "She glued your forehead?"

"Noah, a-are you okay?" She asks softly, shutting the door behind her.

"Why wouldn't I be? It's not like my best friend told me he saw my fiance hugging another guy and spending the entire fucking day with him." He snaps, keeping his voice low.

"That was m-my brother. I haven't seen him in four years." She sets her bag down on the bar beside her, looking in on the kitchen.

"He's met your brother, you fucking slut." She swallows her fear at his tone.

"Ty. The one I told you was in the Military. He got his first break and was going back tonight. I-I'm sorry I didn't tell you, but you were already at work. I left a n-note on the fridge door for when you got back." She slips into the kitchen and to grab the note she wrote this morning, before leaving. Hurrying back to the living room of the rather big apartment, she hands him the note. He snatches it away and quickly skims over it. He sighs and crumples it as he stands. He puts his arms around her, holding her tightly and forcibly to him. She learned long ago not to go against him, so she forces herself to relax in his grip.

"I've got to go. It's one of my coworkers birthdays and I was invited to hang out with him and his friends." He shoves her to the side, making her fall to the couch, and walks to the door.

"Have fun." She whispers as he shuts the door. She sits there for a minute before glancing at the time. Almost nine. She gets up and shuffles around the apartment, cleaning everything up, and then heads to the bedroom she shares with him. She showers, brushes her teeth, dries her hair, and braids her hair into two side braids before getting dressed in her pajamas. She slips on the pajama pants and tank top and as she goes to slip under the covers, a thud sounds from across the hall, in her neighbors apartment. A load groan comes as well as she pulls on her vans. She cautiously exits her apartment and steps hesitantly into the open door of her loud neighbors apartment. He shouts a lot, to a game most likely, causing her to smile on her worst days. He sometimes has friends over, Jack, Wade, and Bob are their names. Jack is the Irish one, and the other two are American. She's seen her neighbor sometimes, and she recognised him once, in being in some of her favorite youtuber videos. Like Jacksepticeye, she assumes that is who Jack is. She's seen her neighbor in his videos more than once, under the alias Markiplier. She googled him once and learned that he, like Jacksepticeye, is a youtube gamer. She's watched a few of his videos and has to admit, he's quite funny.

She looks around and can hear grumbling and groans occasionaly, coming from the kitchen. She walks slowly to the noise and sees her neighbor buried under various items, mostly of food and some dishes. There's a few broken plates strewn across the white floor and also the entire cabinet laying on the ground as well. It must have fallen.

"Are you okay?" She asks, moving items to help him stand. Once she has the dishes off of him, and the heavier things, she helps him stand.

"I'm fine. Just insanely tired." He sighs, running a hand through his black hair and squinting down at the mess. She sees glasses laying on the ground, a smaller pair similar to hers, in the middle of the mess. She picks them up and hands them to him. "Thank you." He says as he puts them on. "Holy shit," he sighs. She inspects the mess as well and notices a small pool of blood. She looks at him and spots the blood staining his white shirt and a cut on his forehead. "Did I wake you up?" He asks.

"I was just about to get into bed," She replies, shaking her head. "You're bleeding kind of badly." He looks down at his front. "Your forehead and shoulder."

"I have to clean this up," he shrugs off his injuries. "Thank you for coming and saving me. You can go back to bed now."

"Do you have a first aid kit?" She asks, earning a sigh.

"You're not really going to give me a choice, are you?" He takes the small smile on her face as an answer. "Yeah, it's in the bathroom. Down through there."

He sits down on the closed toilet as she rummages through the first aid. He pulls the shirt off and she takes it, running it under cold water. She's had to clean blood from her clothes as well, though typically from the fact that she starts her period in the middle of the night.

"Uhm, here. Bite down on this." She hands her neighbor a rag after she cleans the blood from his shoulder wound and sees exactly how deep it is.

"Do you know what you're doing?" She nods. "I'm trusting you." She sterilizes the needle and string for this she got from her apartment and threads the needle. She put on some numbing gel around and on the wound to reduce the pain he will feel.

"I'm not going to lie," she says quietly as she lines up the needle. "This will most likely hurt." The second she pierces his skin, his jaw clenches on the rag and he flexes. "You need to relax."

After closing the shoulder wound, she cleans the blood up and puts a gauze on it. She cleans the cut on his forehead but only puts on some skin glue.

"What is that?" He asks, shivering at the cold contact of the glue.

"Skin glue," She looks at him. "Take that off in a couple weeks and go to the doctors in the morning." He yawns, nodding. "Go to bed now. You can't put strain on the stitches."

"I need to go clean up the mess." He mumbles, sleep close to him. She helps him to the couch in his living room and lays him down. He cuddles into a pillow laying on the couch as she goes to the kitchen.

The next morning, she rushed to the hospital at four, not leaving a note for Noah who lays asleep in the bed she previously was in, drunk.

"Oh, fuck that hurts." The neighbor groans the next morning as he sits up at seven twenty three. He yawns, waking himself up, heads to the bathroom, and once done splashes cold water on his face. He sees the glue on his forehead as the events of last night flooded his mind. "Fuck, I need to call someone to fix that cabinet." He sighs as he trudges to the kitchen. He stops at the doorframe and looks at the spotless kitchen. She cleaned it for me? He looks around the kitchen, looking for any sign of last night. The missing dishes and sturdier cabinets are the only thing. Nothing from last night is in his garbage. It's like last night never happened. He almost thought that too, until the pain from his shoulder made him flinch. The cut on his forehead and shoulder let him know that he really was saved by a gray eyed angel last night.

Following the words he remembers her telling him, he catches a taxi to the hospital.

"Alright Mr. Fischbach, what seems to be the problem?" He looks at his doctor who sits in the Spinny chair in the room, on the computer.

"My cabinet fell on me last night. One of my neighbors stitched my shoulder and used this glue stuff on my forehead." He says, a little distant as he pictures the girl as she stood at the frame of his kitchen, looking down at him.

"She glued your forehead?" He walks in front of Mr. Fischbach and inspects the flu. "Ah, skin glue. Only a few of our doctors use that component, and even fewer actually have it at their home." He chuckles. "Let me see your shoulder." He pulls his shirt up and off only one arm. He prods at the stitches. "This seems to be sutured quite professionally. Whoever closed you up seemed to know exactly what she was doing. This is better than what I could have done."

"So, she was a doctor?"

"Perhaps. Though, she could just be skilled in the profession. There are multiple things she could be to allow her to be able do this." He puts his shirt back on and looks at his doctor. "This cabinet. Is it in the trash?"

"No. She cleaned the kitchen and fixed my cabinets, all of them, while I was sleeping." The doctor chuckles.

"She may possibly work in home improvement. Architect." He sighs. The doctor pats his uninjured shoulder. "I'm sure she will show up again soon."

"What makes you say that?"

"Well Mark," the doctor chuckles to himself. "I believe you've found your guardian angel."

"If she's my guardian angel, why can't I get her out of my mind?" He shrugs.

"Maybe she's who you've been waiting for."