"You Jerk..." Michael Afton x Reader

Chapter 20. Bruised Knuckles

It was a day after the fight Michael had with his friends, well, now ex-friends. Y/N was unaware that any of that even occurred, so once she was ungrounded she was eagerly awaiting to see the group again. It was 1 PM, Michael and the guys usually are at Y/N's house to pick her up way before 1 PM. Yet, they still haven't arrived. Y/N decided to take things into her own hands and go to Michael's house to see what was going on.

She grabbed her jacket and slipped on her shoes, calling goodbye to her parents as she dashed out the door. She ran across the street and hops onto the Afton's front porch. She pithily knocks on the door with the back of her hand, she hears footsteps on the other side. When the door opened, she was met with Michael.

"Hey, Mike, what's up? Can I come in?" she gives him a small smile. Michael doesn't return the smile, he just steps aside and lets her in. She furrows her eyebrows and clears her throat as she steps in, "Uh, alright then..."
Michael leads her upstairs to his room, she was quick to follow. He plops down on his bed and sighs. Y/N gently sits next to him on the bed, she watches as he grabs his Nintendo switch and resumes a Pokemon game that he presumably was playing before she arrived.

She watches as his Gible fiercely attacks a wild Budew. A silence falls over the two, just the sound of Michael's video game filled the room. Y/N tilts her head as her gaze shifts to his hands. She widens her eyes slightly at the sight.

His knuckles were discolored purple from bruising, scrapes that were deep into his skin were healing into infected scabs.
"Oh my god, Michael..!" Y/N grabs his hand and brings it closer to her face so she can examine the wounds. Michael flinches slightly and pauses his game, "What?" he knew what she was referring to, but he still played dumb to it all.

"Michael..." Y/N sighs, "Where did you get these? What in the world happened?! They look horrible."
He evades eye contact with her, negligibly shameful to admit what happened yesterday. He knew he lost his cool, and Y/N would be disappointed in him. But he felt as if he did it for a good cause, after all, he couldn't stand there and let his friends talk about her like they did without defending her. "Got into a fight...doesn't matter." he tried wriggling his hand away from her grasp, nevertheless, she kept a tight hold on it.

"It does matter, stay right here." Y/N gets up and grabs the first-aid kit downstairs, racing back up the stairs she makes it back to Michael's room in record time. Michael barely looks up, he doesn't even meet eyes with her. Once she sat next to him again on the bed she grabs a cotton ball and drenched it in hydrogen peroxide to clean his scrapes. "Michael these are infected, for fucks sake, what have I told you about being careful?" 

Michael rolls his eyes slightly, "It wasn't my fault I-" when the cotton ball came in contact with his skin he immediately hissed in pain, the peroxide was cleaning out the infection, leaving the scrapes burning. "Ow! Fuck!" He tried pulling his hand back, but Y/N never gave up the tight grasp on his hand. "Michael stop, this is helping."

He bites his lip and groans, throwing his head back once she applied more peroxide. Y/N blushed slightly at his reaction but pushes back any dirty thoughts that entered her mind, she shakes her head slightly; even if the reaction was hot. 

Thankfully for Michael, the cleaning process was done. She applied bandages to his hand and stares him in the eye sternly once she was done. "Alright Mister, you got 2 seconds to talk before I pry it out of you."
Michael stares at his bandages and takes a deep breath to prepare himself.

"The guys and I were taking a walk when you were gone. They were talking about how much we all missed having you there, and one thing lead to another. The topic shifted to something uh, how do I put this..?" he looks down at the ground and stammers slightly. "To put it bluntly, they were talking about your body, it was disgusting shit, It made me uncomfortable knowing that's how they spoke of you when you weren't around." he finally makes eye contact with the teen in front of him.

She had a revolted look on her face as she awaited him to continue. "I didn't tolerate it. I beat the shit out of them." a smirk hints at his lips as he remembered the events that unraveled. In a way, the brutality gave him a thrill. Mainly because he felt as if he protected Y/N, the girl he loves the most.

Y/N shakes her head in disbelief, "Holy shit. This all happened because I was gone a day?"
"Basically, yeah." Michael chuckles dryly, "I couldn't let them talk about you like that, you can't blame me. I had to defend you."
Y/N smiles softly. Michael blushed at this and fixes his gaze on her lips, the way she was smiling drove him crazy, she was perfect. She looked so pacifying, it made Michael's brain melt into mush. His thoughts were drowning in her presence.

"Hey, I mean it all worked out in the end," Y/N sets the first-aid kit aside as she took Michael's hand into her own once again. "I took care of you, and you took care of me."
Michael raised his eyebrows, "Oh yeah, how so?"
"Well, you beat the shit out of your friends for me, I took care of your battle scars."
Michael laughs quietly, "I guess we do take care of each other..."