#sjfhskfj these two and their head wounds: we're fine

[vastiitas]

He shuffles out from the bathroom, boot heels clicking tile to carpet. "Big folk like that only know how t'look big," Crow's feet wrinkles indent the corners of his eyes as he rifles through their luggage, unzips the aforementioned blue carry-on, and rummages arm-deep within its polyester stomach. From here, he can still hear the bathroom flourescents buzzing like the over-burdened wings of a june bug beatle. The bathroom acoustics bow out her voice, makes it float and dream-like.

"Reckon I look better than you, Birdy," He returns to her porcelain station with the kit hugged between his fingers: a travel-sized container made of cheap plastics scrapped off a gas station shelf. He crooks a thin-lipped, canted smile, but it's got nothing on Lena's feral flash of red teeth. "I'll survive." He's going to feel the son of a bitch like a motherfucker tomorrow. They both will, for their respective injuries.

For now, he stumbles down to a kneel, shoves his thumbs against the clasps and snaps them to a release. The kit butterflies open to suture materials, gauze, packets of alcohol-infused cotton and standard band-aids. Cole pilfers through, rips open one of the alcohol swabs, and tosses its casing carelessly towards the clear plastic-lined waste bucket. It lands on the rim.

"Ain't got much for that broken nose of your's," His brows push in to a knit, concentration kneading his eyes to a squint as he dabs down fractured skin, navigates a scarline dragging across a temple. The red sinks in, blooms. He tosses this, too, and finds the butterfly closures. His hands hover, linger. Despite their steadiness, a concussion delays his handling: Some visible two-second setback. He murmurs, distractedly, "Plenty of ice in the lobby machine for when we hunker down tonight."

Time ticked by in a lurching matter, here one second and gone the next. Ten hours took them up the stairs, stumbling into the door. Trekking from door to bathroom another ten minutes. Things skipped by quickly then, Chickadee nosing concernedly at her face and blood flecking out from a lopsided nose at dazzling rates. Lena remembered a haunted house as a kid, the flashing strobes making things move at impossible rates.

Throughout their impossible stumble back to the motel, Lena gifted him with the blind trust he's earned after these years. She sat, shifting awkwardly on the toilet, resting the base of her skull against the cool porcelain while he moved about above her. Any semblance of paranoia she once had filtered out between the scuffs of violence and fleeting moments of peace.

She was startled from her stupor by a wet nose in her fingers, pressing comfortably between palms and into her lap. A familiar sensation, comforting. Brown eyes flickered open, gazing through the swollen tissue to look up at Cole. Busy. Always busy.

"In my carryon." It was rough, crass, but harmless against the gloom of the evening. "Blue bag."

There was a beat of easy silence, and Lena didn't mind breaking it, voice hoarse against the irritant of backwash blood and resonance shattered through the crook of her nose. "Y'know, 'ad the big'un m'self. Talk'd a bi' game bu' they fall easy."

Bloodied slugged out, crusting over the splits in skin and tissue alike. It buried into ravines of flesh, dried in the rivulets left behind by predecessors. It was familiar, a distant reminder of the past scarred into freckled skin, but it didn't bother Lena like similar reminders had.

"Was pretty impressed, taking that bottle across the head like that. Sure you're okay?"