Please, with a Cherry on top? | 18+

38 | Saint

A/N: This chapter has been altered as of 02.08.2025

***

"That's... a lot," Elliot said, "How...?"

The man looked lost for words, so Saint saved him the trouble of uttering the remaining ones.

"I'm fine," he stated, "My mom is too."

He had just finished telling El the news he had been given the night before.

After a few hours of dreamless sleep, Saint started the day by calling his mother to tell her he'd be going with her to France.

Plus two.

One was currently packing a suitcase at her apartment in preparation for their departure. The other?

Saint was working on that at this very moment.

"Well, you don't have to worry about anything here," El reassured, "Leave it to me."

"Thanks," Saint said genuinely, "But I was assuming you would be coming with us."

"Me?" El pointed at himself before shaking his head, "Another time. You aren't going for fun, you have unfinished business."

Saint watched him carefully, crossing his arms as he tried to read the expression on El's face. Something told him that his friend's words weren't actually what he wanted to say.

"Dude," El sighed under Saint's relentless stare, "I don't have any place there."

Saint raised his eyebrows, "You can't be serious."

Elliot shrugged, scratching the nape of his neck.

<><><>

"Better?"

Saint didn't answer, staring at the wads of material trapping his fingers in place.

Mitts.

"Sorry about those. I'm sure you want to get out of here, so let's not do that again," the nurse warned, clipboard in hand now, "Can you explain your reasoning again? I'll have to inform the doctor."

"I do not want it," Saint repeated again, offering nothing further.

"Understood. Is it for religious purposes?"

His jaw tightened, his fingers pressing into the mitts reflexively.

No, it's because it's not mine. It's already... can't clean it. I can't... I can't... Don't think about it...

His temporary loss of consciousness was indicative of how much blood he lost.

He had passed out twice, technically.

Once on the beach, and again on the way to the hospital. Lucky for the first responders, without Saint's mother around or a way to contact her, they only needed his implied consent to give him the first few units of blood while he was unconscious.

But he was awake now, and fully capable of verbally revoking that same consent.

When the nurse returned to check on him—after the psychiatry specialist had left—to inform him that his mother was on her way, likely in tears, she found him pressing his thumb over the seeping hole in his arm, the needle on the floor with the transfusion tube knotted to keep the blood from dripping onto the floor.

He swore he could feel it. Something foreign seeping into him. It made his skin crawl, and the sting where he'd yanked the needle out was nothing compared to the unease pooling in his stomach.