Johan met Fiori’s gaze while he talked, for once soft, if only just for a moment. A blink of an eye, and then it was gone. His eyes narrowed back down to the end of the bed. It must have been tiring for him to stubbornly hold onto so much anger and hurt. And Fi was right—it was downright painful. He reached for his half-finished plate of food, moving it to a safer location on his side table. “I’m done talking about it for now.” For now. So the conversation wasn’t over. “I’m seeing Mikhail today…I need to get dressed. And shave,” he added the last part with a slight frown, running a hand over his jaw.
Fiori gave him a small smile in return and pushed himself to his feet. "Alright." He appreciated that Johan was willing to continue talking, and proud too. There was so much potential in the younger prince, below the anger and the hurt and the lashing out, but it felt like he didn't get to see it very often. "I'll fill a basin and find you a razor. Do you feel up to walking now?" He'd need to get up eventually of course, but Fi saw no value in using up his energy before the day had even really begun. "Or should I bring them to you instead of setting them up in the bathroom?"
Johan bobbed his head. Whether in appreciation, or simply just letting Fiori help. Either way, perhaps, was an improvement. “I can walk.” He took one last bite of his breakfast from the plate sat on his side table, then swung his legs over the side of the bed. As long as he stayed easy in his movements, he seemed capable enough not to hurt himself. He sat at the edge of his mattress for several long moments, his shoulders rising and falling gently with each breath. Lost in his thoughts while he waited for his water basin and water to be ready.
"Alright." Fi padded out of the room and then returned a few moments later, watching Johan sit with a mix of pride and wariness in his eyes. It was good to see him healing, but at the same time it boded for more trouble. There was no reason for him to believe that Johan's good mood would stick around, as nice as that would be on Fiori's frayed nerves. "Be careful with the razor. And… I'm sorry, again." He nodded towards the door, indicating that everything was prepared. "People don't tell you that enough, I think."
Johan pushed himself up to stand, but not without the aid of his hand on the bedpost for stability. “I’ll be careful,” he muttered off-handedly, then turned his glance to Fi at the apology. Hints of surprise in his expression. As if Fi hadn’t apologized already, the sincerity took him off guard again. “I…I appreciate it. Really. People never seem to think they’ve done anything to me that they would need to apologize for.” He dipped his head in a short nod, pushing himself off the bedpost towards the bathroom.
Fiori forced himself to sit and watch Johan go without hoovering at his side the way he usually did. He returned the nod with a thoughtful expression, hiding his own surprise at Johan's reaction to the apology. It would always be shocking to him, that people treated Johan so cruelly. A measure of it was justified, he understood that, but Johan was still a person, and an incredible one at that. No matter his sins, he deserved some manner of respect. An apology was the least Fi could give him. "When you see your brother… would you like me to stay?" He hoped he was loud enough that his words carried. "Or should I go and let you be alone?"
Johan braced himself against the counter as he surveyed the items he would need to shave. His ribs still hurt, but at the very least he could care for himself now. And for that he was grateful. The soap bar he picked up first, dipping it in the basin to wet it and lathering a decent amount in his hands, which then he spread over the lower half of his face. He was reaching for the razor when Fi asked the question, and he hesitated. Unspeaking while he considered his answer, Johan started shaving.
“You can do what you want,” he finally said. “It won’t matter to me whether you stay or let us alone. I will say he might be…intimidated by your presence.”
Fiori hummed quietly, the way he always did when he had something to think about. The last thing he wanted to do was scare the boy, but he'd told Levi that he would meet him and even the thought of lying made him feel sick. Leviticus had been the one person he could depend on here. To repay that loyalty with dishonesty would be nothing short of a sin, at least in Fi's mind.
"I'm surprised, I thought you would take the opportunity to be alone." He glanced down at himself, his calloused swordsman's hands. The tendons in his arms flexed as he clenched them into fists and then relaxed as he flattened them out again, scar shiny against his tan skin. It was strange, knowing that the people here didn't see him the way he saw himself. "Do you really think he would find me frightening?"
“I wouldn’t be alone if I’m in the room with my brother.” It was a snarky response. Johan knew what Fiori had meant. He didn’t correct himself for a decent chunk of time while Fi examined his own hands. Besides, he was more focused on the razor at his jaw and the slight tremble in his hand to bother with honest responses.
“Yes,” he finally said without turning his gaze away from the looking glass, “he’s never seen someone like—goddamn it!” The small metal blade hit tile with striking ferocity, bouncing once until it slid into the far corner of the bathroom. Johan backed up against the nearest wall and kept his hand pressed against his cheek, though a small trail of blood dripped through a wrinkle in his palm and down his wrist. He shut his eyes as tightly as possible. “I-I don’t want to hear it,” he snapped, because of course his greatest fear was Fiori reproaching him for being so insistent on shaving by himself.
Luckily he had made it nearly the whole way. Just a final stripe or two on his right jaw.
In the second that Fiori had to process the answer, his stomach sank. Luckily, there was something loud to pull him from his thoughts. A yell. The clang of metal hitting the floor. He was up on his feet in a heartbeat, pushing thoughtlessly into the bathroom and taking in the scene.
He should have felt guilty for latching onto the distraction. He wanted to, but blood was starting to pool at Johan's elbow and the blade he'd been shaving with was still open in the corner where it had landed and Fi's own heart was beating so hard he could feel it in his fingers. There was no room for dostractions, there was only this room. "I know." Before he even processed what he was doing, he was at Johan's side, reaching up to brush away the hand that had been clapped carelessly over the cut. His touch was almost painfully gentle, but that couldn't have been a surprise by now. He couldn't stand to be careless when Johan was so clearly hurting. "I won't say it, Johannan. Will you let me take a look?"
Johan immediately stiffened when Fiori entered the bathroom. He shrank back, instinctual as if he still expected criticism, until his bloody hand was swept aside with a gentleness that startled him as much as a reprimand might. “I’m fine.” He didn’t move away, though. The greater flux blood from the cut had dwindled to a thin trickle by now; the worst of it had trailed a path down his arm. He hesitated before answering the question. Normally he would say no. An immediate no given the context. Given exactly who was asking. Yet Fi hadn’t brought up the obvious, and he was being so gentle, and for once Johan found he didn’t mind that as much as he should. “I suppose. Go ahead.”
Fi gave him a wan smile and reached forward, tilting Johan's chin up and to the side so he could see exactly how bad the damage was. The cut bled sluggishly as he studied it, but he didn't find that particularly worrisome. Head wounds were slow to close, especially when they were long like this, gouged across the line of Johan's cheekbone. "You're not fine," he said finally, reaching over to grab a cloth from the sink. It only took him a moment to wet it and bring it to Johan's cheek, the pressure just slight enough to keep from stinging. He didn't quite know why he was being allowed so close—as always, Johan was an enigma to him—but whatever the reason was, he was grateful. "You're bleeding. You're hurt."
As much as Johan hated Fi, the only reason he was letting his enemy—and his brother’s close friend—so close to him was petty, mostly. He was tired. Lonely. And the other man was offering him a moment of gentleness. He was far too aware of Fi’s fingers. They felt like they burned imprints into his skin, equally as bothersome as the wet cloth, to which he winced in anticipation for pain. The small intimacy had him clenching his jaw beneath the shallow wound. Had a lump forming in his throat, and made it difficult to speak around. “I’m hurt,” he echoed weakly.
He couldn’t help his emotions. They slid from one to the other too easily, sometimes within the minute, with invisible triggers. Anger to sadness. Playful to standoffish. It hurt him too, perhaps just as much as he hurt others. “For…goddamn once, I just want to do something right,” he lamented, as if he forgot it was Fi he was talking to.
Fi ran his fingers absently over the curve of Johan's jaw as he winced, an unconscious effort to soothe. It was funny, almost. He had spent his whole life being carved into a soldier and yet he still felt the need to help so keenly that it hurt. Even now, when there was so much for him to run from, he found solace not in anger but in kindness. In care for another person, no matter how distant or angry he may be. What did it matter that he didn't understand Johan? He was allowed to be here, tending carefully to wounds they both knew could be taken care of alone, and that was more than enough.
"You've already done so much, Johannan. Hold this." He tapped gently on the cloth, waiting until Johan had set his clean hand on it to let go, and then grabbed a fresh one and set about cleaning the blood from his skin. It was slow work. Methodical. All too easy to get lost in, as he cradled Johan's hand in his. "Why not give yourself time to heal? There will be so many challenges to conquer once you stop aching, there's no reason to push yourself now."
Johan kept frowning as Fiori worked at tending to his cut. He tried averting his eyes, staring fervently at one of the stones making up the far wall. Even so his gaze kept flickering back to Fi’s face, so close to his own, to furtively study those unfamiliar features. Before a week ago he’d never been so close to an Usigen to convince himself that they weren’t all inhuman forces of evil. Fi’s sturdy jaw, his pale green eyes, and bronze skin were closer to a work of art carved from stone than demonic.
Johan forcefully blinked the thought away and banished his gaze to the wall again. “You don’t understand. Leviticus doesn’t understand. I don’t have time for rest, not until I’m at the top.”
Fi's eyebrows were pressed together slightly, and his lips were curved down in a faint frown. Not upset, though to somebody unfamiliar it may have seemed that way, simply concentrated on the task at hand. He pressed Johan's hand flat where it rested on top of his so he could wipe the blood away and then gently turned it over, every touch so soft it almost seemed like he thought Johan was something precious.
"You're right, I don't understand." His eyes flicked up to meet Johan's for a moment, searching. "I can't. Because to me you are… you are so… special—I could never treat you the way you treat yourself. You act like healing is some obstacle on your great journey. Like letting yourself get better isn't worth it."
The muscles in Johan’s face twitched into a sequence of micro-expressions. First there was relief in his first blink, and confusion in his second. Disgust. Then anger as he reeled back. Not so far away to break their contact completely—at first he was about to, but then he realized that didn’t want to. So he simply curled his hand into a fist under Fi’s, and scowled. “Why do you keep saying that?” he snarled. “I’m not like you, or Levi. I mean, and you- you know I tried to kill him. We’re not supposed to be anything but enemies.” Johan didn’t know where exactly this shifted from a shaving accident to ugly emotions, ones he’d never even considered, spilling carelessly from his mouth.
He was getting panicked again. His breath hitching softly. Cementing his gaze to the side again because he knew if he kept looking at Fi’s face he would say something that he couldn’t take back. “Enemies aren’t special, and they don’t like each other.”
There was a second or two of silence where Fiori went still and let everything sink in, and then he hummed quietly and turned Johan's fist over in his hands, touch as soft and careful as ever. His thumb ran over Johan's knuckles, the same absent affection as when he'd started.
"I cannot change the way I feel, Johannan, and I will not lie to you." The washcloth moved down slowly, from hand to wrist, movements sure despite their gentleness. Fi's eyes flicked up every now and then, observing for a while before they slipped away. Never looking too long. Never prying when Johan was clearly vulnerable, merely watching so he knew when this was getting to be too much. "I find you special, and brilliant, and a thousand other things besides. I know what you've done, and I hate it, but there isn't a single part of me that can bring itself to hate you." He pulled Johan's arm forward slowly, so he could clean the blood that had pooled at his elbow, and this time when he looked up his eyes lingered. There was something terribly soft in them, so close to tender that it almost made Fi wince. "You have done a terrible thing, but… that doesn't mean you are one."
Johan listened to Fi without moving his gaze. His shoulders rose and fell with each breath. Stillness. The only evidence to show he was still present was the flush gathering over his cheeks—just barely visible in the ray of morning sunlight shining through the bathroom window.
“You’re flattering me again,” he observed, though he didn’t seem bothered by it. Just a neutral assumption he made to himself about what Fi meant, even if it wasn’t accurate. In truth, the words affected him deeply. They imbedded into the back of his mind, and had him forcing down the lump in his throat so he could continue. “I hate you. Nothing can ever change that because that’s how it’s supposed to be. I’m not supposed to let you touch me, or help me, or anything, damn it.” Despite that, he made no attempt at pulling his arm out of Fiori’s hand. Even his tone held no fire behind the phrases; they were closer to a mantra more than anything. It was just a sense of reality he clung to. A reality that was chipping away in small pieces.
"I'm telling you how I feel." There was a hint of reproach in Fi's voice. This wasn't some empty attempt to win Johan's favor. This was Fi being honest, spilling his messy emotions across the bathroom floor for Johan to pick through and understand. And of course, he couldn't be surprised when Johan explained it away as flattery, but that didn't make the way he brushed it all off sting any less. "And I'll not hide it. I don't hate you, Johannan, I can't. Every time I look at you… every time I see you…" He sighed quietly, finally looking away. It was difficult to explain this, and it felt wrong, almost. Like a betrayal. Like he was leaving Cadmus behind too quickly. "… you keep becoming more and more important."
Johan's hand was clean now, and the cloth was a rusty red-brown. Fi set it aside so he could reach up again—moving slow the way he always did when he was about to touch Johan—and pressed his hand back against the cloth. Almost cupping Johan's face. Almost affectionate. "Tell me to stop, Johannan, and I will, but until then I won't keep myself from caring for you. This hate you feel is yours. Don't make me bear it's burden too."
Johan closed his eyes with a soft wince at the reproach. He heard it, and he had heard himself how bad that comment sounded since it left his mouth. Cautiously, after Fi finally turned his gaze away, Johan looked back with a different expression. Brows knit together, lips pulling down at the corners: concern. Guilt. Those unfamiliar emotions resurfacing since his parents passed, Fiori was making him feel all of it. And yet he couldn’t bring himself to hate him for it either. Against his better judgement he watched himself, as if from out of his own body, craning towards the affection.
“Don’t stop,” he whispered, just a wavering sound, hardly any louder a breath. “I hate you. I hate you, so much. And I’m scared.”
It surprised Fiori, how two words could have him so completely floored. It wasn't just the don't stop, he knew that. There was context. There was the way he saw Johan looking at him, when he let himself glance up for a moment, the way he leaned in like he needed this—the way he sounded. All of that came together to make him feel this way, he knew that, and yet it still felt like those two little words were all it took to break the dam. Suddenly it was all he could do to keep from reaching out and holding Johan, from carding through his hair, from pressing kisses to the palms of his hands. He wanted to be so sweet that they both got sick of it, and just thinking about it made his chest ache.
"I won't." The promise sounded too simple, but it was all he had at the moment. "I won't, Johannan. Hate me all you want, and I will still be here to take care of you. I'll still be here to talk." His fingertips brushed across the curve of Johan's cheek. "Tell me what to do to make you less afraid, and I'll do it happily, because I will always be here until you tell me not to be."
Johan let out a long sigh from his nose, otherwise silent as he let the promise sink in. The cut forgotten for now. It didn’t seem so important anymore, despite its sting. His lip quirked up slightly at the touch to his cheek, just for a split moment, until he went back to frowning. “Will…will you go with me to see Mikhail?” That was one thing that bothered him most. The wondering what his little brother would think of him after all that had happened. “You know how to say things in a certain way. I’m scared that I’ll mess it up somehow with him. And I—“ He didn’t want to lose another brother.
Fi had been worrying over going before, not eager to be around a child who feared him despite what he'd asked of Leviticus, but now, because Johan had asked him to, the answer fell off his lips thoughtlessly. "Yes, Johannan, I will." He let himself smile at Johan for a moment, let his thumb run over the curve of Johan's cheek, and then pulled away. The straight razor wasn't damaged when he picked it up from it's corner, so he simply rinsed it and offered Johan it's handle. "Now. You need to finish shaving, would you like to finish? Or… should I?"
Johan hesitated with the decision before taking the handle. “I can…” and then, “Thank you.” For asking. For the offer. For the talk too.
He shouldered past Fiori. Stood in front of the mirror, lathered more soap on his face, and swiped the razor down what remainder of stubble he had. In no time he was finished. Rinsing off the blade first, then his face, until at last he turned back to Fi. Water dripped down his chin, to which he dabbed at with a hand towel. “I want to change into my normal clothes today.”
