If You Think I'm Gonna Come Up With A Title For This, You're Dead Wrong

Chapter 13

He finally speaks. "This isn't going to work if you keep moving around."

You dig your nails into your palms as he pulls another shard from your back. "I know. Still hurts."

A pause. "I could ask Master Splinter to let you have some alcohol to numb it if you want." His voice throughout the whole process has been incredibly soft, from since you woke up in his room until now. "The skin disinfectant is going to sting more than this."

"I'll drink myself to death," you promise, half-joking in an attempt to lighten the suffocating mood. "Seeing how the past couple months have gone, I should probably just get used to pain, right?"

He pulls another piece of blood-soaked glass from your skin, placing it into a can at his side with a clink. "I really hope that doesn't happen." You feel him pull another portion of the skin on your back taught. "The pain thing, I mean. Not to say that I want you to drink yourself to death—"

"I get what you mean." You try to keep an eye on him without moving your neck, not wanting to get blood on his sheets. "I'm the same way about the murdering thing."

Silence, again.

"How's the cockroach thing going?"

"It's going." He is quick if nothing else; he is already three-quarters of the way done, now at your waist. "It seemed to be working alright this morning, so it should work tonight if I'm lucky."

You smile gently. "That's good, then. You're due for some good luck."

"Of the two of us?" He leans to the side from his seat on his chair, studying your face. "I think you need it more than I do."

You laugh. "Most teenagers boys don't have half-naked girls on their beds because of medical reasons," you argue. "I'd say you dealing with me is worthy of some good mojo."

"The portal wouldn't have been destroyed if not for you." He leans back, pulling a particularly large piece out of your hip. "We wouldn't even know what their ultimate plan was, what to look out for, what to expect." He bends down, and you hear the gurgling of a liquid being poured out. "Besides," he reasons, "it was as much my fault as yours for not thinking of the glass walls. It's the least I could do."

You bite down on your tongue as he starts wiping the blood off. "Shit," you hiss, "that stings."

A hint of excitement laces his tone. "Wanna know why?"

Your jaw relaxes as the pain subsides. "Sure," you chuckle, strained. "Why does it hurt?"

"Well," he starts, "this antiseptic, like most antiseptics, is comprised mainly of two compounds: ethanol, or just normal grain alcohol, and hydrogen peroxide." He sounds like a passionate schoolteacher when he goes off about anything science-related. It is absolutely enrapturing, listening to someone so in love with their craft. "Now, ethanol activates vanilloid receptor-one, which is also activated by capsaicin, which is what makes food spicy. But the funny thing about that," he continued, "is that, usually, the receptor is only activated by really high temperatures—the receptor is what lets you register hot things as hot."

"I thought you said you didn't know about medical stuff." You wince again as he continues to clean your wounds.

"Oh, I'm just not good at applied medicine," he chuckles nervously. "None of the serious stuff, I mean; I'd never be able to perform a proper surgery or prescribe medications without a ridiculous amount of research, but I know how to set bones and how certain chemicals react to certain receptors."

"So, you know how it works but not how to fix it?"

"I guess so, yeah." You hear the chair move as he gets to his feet. "I started looking into it the first night you came here, actually, since I never looked into how burns worked until..." he trails off, clears his throat. "Anyway," he tries again, "ethanol lowers the temperature threshold to body temperature, making the cut burn. It's also why it's painful to drink things with a high alcohol content: your receptors register it as if you're actually being burned." He pushes your hair off your neck carefully. "Hydrogen peroxide acts similarly, only it activates a different receptor, known as transient receptor potential ankyrin one, and while not as much as known about it, it's theorized that it acts similarly, resulting in you feeling pain." Your fingernails dig into your palms again as you suck in air at the burning sensation on your neck. "But it's important to note that antiseptics are different than disinfectants. Disinfectants are for non-organic surfaces because they contain higher concentrations of biocides than antiseptics."