Heart's Done Time (Aerosmith Fanfiction)

Chapter twelve

Chapter twelve
Steven's POV
The morning after the fight I awoke in Sesame Bello's bed with my face, ribs, and stomach aching, along with a headache pounding away behind my eyes and little recollection of what actually transpired at the bar.
The clock on the bedside table read 4:23, and it was all I could do not to groan aloud.
Truth was, I was tired as hell, and had been ever since I'd begun this sobriety endeavor five days prior and had starting losing sleep, but I couldn't tell Sesame that. Not when she was so worried already between my eating issues and these other withdrawal symptoms.
I sighed, and decided that if I had to be up so early anyway, I might as well be doing something more productive than lying in bed--such as showering for the first time in a few days--and so I slowly, quietly began untangling myself from the layers of cozy blankets Sesame always covered me with to compensate for my extreme lack of body weight, all the while trying wiggle my way free without waking the sleeping beauty beside me.
I failed, ultimately, but I did make it out of bed, albeit loudly and uncomfortably.
The sheets got tangled around my left foot, and so when I went to roll gracefully and silently out of bed, I instead tumbled to the carpeted floor head-first and pulled the covers with me, waking Sesame when I let out a loud groan of pain at my abdomen making contact with the ground.
Sesame was awake in an instant, shuffling over to my side of the bed to investigate the commotion that had woken her so early on a Tuesday morning and laughing when she found me lying at an awkward angle with my foot still wrapped in sheets and my split lip reopened and bleeding on the floor. Everything ached.
"Are you okay?" she asked, clambering out of bed much more gracefully than I had and with bed-head much less ghastly than my own. She even looked beautiful first thing in the morning. I told her this, and she smiled almost sadly. "Did you hit your head?"
She pulled the pink sheets away and threw them back on the bed, kneeling down to inspect the damage done to my lip with a bemused look in her crystal eyes. "You've got to be the clumsiest person I've ever met," she told me when I didn't answer either of her questions, tilting my face to get a better look before helping me up with one hand wrapped around my upper arm and one hand on my torso right between my belly and ribs. I winced as her hand came in contact with a bruise.
"Do your ribs poke out like this because you're emaciated or did that dickbag break some?" she asked, sounding genuinely puzzled as she helped steady me.
"I haven't looked in a mirror in, like, a week, but neither would surprise me," I told her honestly, suddenly feeling hyper-aware of my body. "Seriously, you need to stop with all the underweight jibes, they're making me insecure."
She crossed her arms. "I'll stop when you get a clue and eat a sandwich," she replied, yawning and stretching her arms above her head. She wore nothing but her panties and a t-shirt--her bra having been shed the night before--and I tried not to stare. "Go shower, you smell like a sewer," she told me, righting the covers I'd messed up in my meeting with the floor.
"I'm going, no need to bitch," I jested, gently kicking her ass on my way to the en suite bathroom.
"You're the bitch, bitch," she said just as I closed the door, leaving me to laugh to myself as I turned on the shower and quickly undressed, taking time to inspect the vibrant bruising on my slightly-concave stomach in the full length mirror and tracing my ribs in search of breakage.
When I found none, I decided I would be fine without an ER visit and climbed into the shower, making quick work of washing my hair and body in the interest of getting back to Sesame. I didn't even bother conditioning my unruly curls.
When I was adequately scrubbed and squeaky clean, I turned off the water and reached for a towel, drying myself as best I could before wrapping the fabric around my bony hips in the interest of not putting on dirty clothes. Also, I was sure Sesame would make me show her the damage eventually anyway, so I might as well get it over and done with.
I gathered my days-old clothes into my arms and unlocked the washroom door, emerging just in time to find Sesame standing topless in front of the closet. 'Nothing I haven't seen before,' I had to remind myself gently.
"Holy shit," she exclaimed, hurriedly putting on a bra and a blue and white dress before approaching me, still socksless.
"That is the most spectacular bruising I have ever seen," she said, stealing my dirty clothes and tossing them on the made bed. She brushed my belly with her fingertips, making me wince. "Sorry," she said, eyes transfixed on my abdomen. "What are you even supposed to do with a stomach injury? Do you ice it?"
"I dunno, man, I've never been repeatedly punched in the stomach before. And I can't exactly walk into the ER and tell them that no, doctor, this wasn't my parents' fault; I got in a bar fight," I said, watching her stormy eyes well up with salty tears as they gazed upon more of the mess I'd made. I felt ashamed to have caused such emotion with my own foolish actions. "I'm sorry, Pink. I'm sorry I'm always screwing things up and I'm sorry you're left to do damage control every time." I really meant it, and when she met my eyes, and I knew she knew this.
"You aren't always screwing things up, Steven, and I'm not "left" to do anything; I help because I want to," she said, blinking away her tears and smiling a little. "Get dressed, I wanna be ready to go so we'll have the rest of the morning to do whatever."
I obliged, searching the closet for a pair of jeans, a belt, and a black button-down and dressing myself while Sesame sorted through records and put one on, skipping to a specific song--The Beatles' "A Taste of Honey".
"Dance with me," she said when I was clothed, grabbing a hand and placing it on her waist before taking the other in her own. She sang along to the song, and we danced around her bedroom to a soundtrack of the Beatles and the sweet voice of my lover.
We were kissing before the song even ended.