DOUBLE TROUBLE ➳ levi ackerman

（ 44 ）SECOND THOUGHTS

FIADH WAS COMPLETELY RUN OFF HER FEET. Even with the help of several nurses, she found herself restlessly dashing around the hospital wing for hours on end, tending to patients left right and centre. All day, she couldn't seem to catch a break.

Fiadh had just finished extracting shards of glass from a patients leg, stitching up the wound (long story) and washing her hands when someone tapped her on the shoulder.

"Doctor Broin?" he said. Shaking her hands dry, Fiadh turned around, raising her eyebrows in response as a signal for the nurse to proceed with what he wanted to say. "Uh—Captain Levi is here to see you, ma'am. He says he's in need of urgent medical care, and requested you specifically. I'm not sure what's wrong with him, though. He looks fine to me."

Fiadh wasn't sure if she felt surprised or exasperated—possibly both. She let out a sigh so great that her shoulders visibly rose and fell, and she waved the nurse away.

"Thank you," she dismissed him. "I'll go check up on him now."

Fiadh opened the door to her office, carrying the unsanitary box of bloodied glass shards, and was not at all surprised to find Levi in there waiting for her. She had, however, been expecting him to claim the territory as his own and seat himself in her desk chair, so she was surprised to find him standing up, his palms pressed to the desk as he leaned against it.

"Are you serious?" Fiadh sighed with an added eyeroll for emphasis of her exasperation. "I'm working, Levi."

"And I hurt myself," Levi responded. If he wasn't so prone to wearing a blank face at all times, Fiadh knew he would've been grinning in that moment. "I need your medical assistance."

Scoffing, Fiadh harshly placed the box of glass down on her desk and rounded on Levi, her arms folded across her body.

"What did you do?" she demanded dryly, not at all buying into his act. "You look fine to me."

Fiadh wasn't sure what exactly she had been expecting to happen next, but it certainly wasn't for Levi to crack a bright smile, hoist himself up onto her desk and grab a scalpel for the tray of tools that she had left out on her desk because they needed sanitising. He flit the scalpel across his palm, cutting a thin but deep gash.

"Whoops," he said, expression and tone entirely blank.

"Are you serious?" Fiadh hurled, hoping she looked as completely and utterly fed up as she felt. Blood pooled in Levi's hand as she hurried forward, seizing his wrist. "Are you actually kidding me right now?"

Levi's eyes twinkled with humour. "I needed an excuse to talk to you."

"And you couldn't wait until after I finished working?" Fiadh said. She opened one of her desk drawers and pulled out a gauze pad, pressing it firmly to Levi's bleeding palm.

"Do you not see my bleeding hand?" Levi asked, feigning shock. "I needed urgent care. Do you want me to bleed out?"

"You're a child." Fiadh glared at him. "You're literally a child."

"I was thinking—" Levi attempted to spark a new conversation, but he didn't get the chance to make his point before Fiadh arched an eyebrow and drawled, "Well, that's a first."

"I was thinking about your birthday," he continued, placing an added firmness on his words to ensure that Fiadh didn't cut him off again. She removed the gauze from his hand and tipped some alcohol onto a wad of cotton wool, dabbing at the wound with much more aggressiveness than necessary, making Levi wince.

As he spoke, he watched Fiadh work, taking in the usual sight of her catching her bottom lip between her teeth and furrowing her eyebrows in concentration. "I was wondering if you wanted to go away for your birthday weekend? God knows you deserve the break."