El Fuego y La Flor - The Storm

Chapter 13 - And sometimes your nurse is a sadist.

Cassia

Eventually, I fell asleep. There wasn't really a lot of room to lie down, or to move away from each other, but we were both tired, cold, exhausted and desperate for some rest. It didn't matter that I had slept all night long. Try fighting dozens of monsters, saving a cruise, and jumping off a ship into the ocean between the hours of 7am and 10am. If you're now thinking »Hah, I could easily do this!«, No. No you could not.
Either way, I slept until Leo winced, which echoed eerily enough to wake me up. At first I thought we were in trouble, that some monster had spotted us, maybe that the Nymphs had returned and wanted to play another party of Marco Polo with us, starring as the ball, but no. It was nothing like that.

Had I ever mentioned that I stir a lot in my sleep? And that I occasionally kick the air, or slap whatever is near me? One time, back when the Persephone cabin hadn't been built yet, I was still staying in the Demeter cabin. Miranda had described me as »Rotisserie chicken in the microwave« back then, because I just didn't stop turning in my sleep. Apparently, that hadn't changed. The reason why Leo had whined, was because I may or may not have kicked him, where it hurts. Of course not on purpose.
I sat up straight and moved away from him.
»Sorry-«, I set on but he held up a hand while his brows were still furrowed in pain.
»It's okay«, he replied, his voice hoarse and an octave higher than usually. I looked away in embarrassment, trying to give him and his hurt manliness some privacy. Wasn't easy in a space that maybe consisted of five square meters.

After some time, he had calmed down, and, as we both noticed, we were hungry and still had some injuries to tend to. We left our alcove to find the box with bandages, which we had spotted on our way through the hall, prior this day.
»Seriously. You carry around a prism but not bandages and band aids?«, Leo asked, somewhere behind me, his voice curious and in disbelief. He wasn't wrong. But the little amount of bandages I had packed, had already been used on my hand, the day before, when the Cetus had attacked us. Had that really been one day ago? It seemed like a whole other lifetime.
I just shook my head and rolled my eyes, which he couldn't see anyways. Thankfully, he also didn't see the embarrassed blush on my face.
We found the box with bandaids and bandages and alcohol to clean our wounds. We took as much, as my backpack could fit (in the metaphorical sense, since my backpack was enchanted and could fit a lot more than it seemed.)

Once we had made our way back to the alcove - which we found without any problems, luckily - we helped each other with our wounds. My arm was fairly easy to disinfect and bandage but the cut on Leo's face looked worse. I carefully removed tiny shards of glass, which were still in, and near the wound. He really tried his best not to wince or move his head, or change his expression, because all of that made it worse, but his succession rate wasn't exactly sky rocketing.
»Okay, this is gonna hurt. Ready?«, I asked, not even waiting for his approval. I felt the responsibility of telling him about the pain, but I figured that the element of surprise would take some of that away. I was wrong.
»Yea- OUCH! Cas- what... don't you count till three and THEN put the burning stuff on my face?!«, he shouted, which led me to anxiously look over my shoulder, towards the container that hid us. Although we were barely visible, we were still audible. Especially in a hall, with bass and echo frequencies, like this one had. (The Apollo cabin would love it here.)

»I thought it'd hurt less, if I didn't count down.«, I replied quietly, but kept pressing the liquor soaked tissue on the scratch.
Leo shook his head, only barely, then he narrowed his eyes at me. For some time we sat like that, while I disinfected the wound and then put several band aids over it. They were tiny and blue and all of them had a different creature doing the thumbs up. Basically, band aids for monsters children.
Finally, I finished and withdrew my hand from his face. I tilted my head and looked at the bit, that was still visible from the scratch below the bandaids. It looker better now, less red and oozy. I smiled a bit.
Leo tilted his head as well, and replied my smile confusedly.
»What?«, he then asked. I noticed that I was still looking at his face. The bandaids crinkled up a bit, from his smile. I shook my head and looked away.
»Nothing.«