The Battle: Hearts or Friendship?

Chapter 8: A Recovery of Revenge

!TW! Slightly spicy, description of wounds, mention of wounds, blood

(Branzy's POV)

As I slowly dragged the half dead jester to his house so I could heal him up, I could feel my energy slowly being drained as the daylight faded. I had decided that I was going to stay with Clown to make sure he was okay if he woke up, besides the fact that it was getting dark and I hated to travel around during the nighttime. I could see the faint halo of light that illuminated Clown's house as we got closer, pushing me to keep going and get him rested and recovered. Hopefully he would be okay, because there seemed to be a trail of blood coming from Clown since we had left the smoky fight scene. He also hadn't stirred or done a thing yet, the fight must've really knocked him out.
As I pushed the door open, I put Clown on his rug in the living room, hoping he wouldn't mind if it got bloodied or dirtied. I managed to prop him up in a sitting position so his blood wouldn't settle, if there was much or barely any left... I also didn't want to pull Clown's mask off, since I wasn't sure if he was okay with me seeing his true face yet, so I settled for unbuttoning his jester shirt. And it was a little awkward, as the buttons were hard to undo, and there were more than it seemed. After taking the shirt off him and throwing it to the side, I also cut off his blood stained turtleneck, being careful not to cut him. I blushed as I saw Clown's shirtless chest, my cheeks most likely a rosy color. But his body was filled with cuts and scars, dripping with blood. I blushed even harder when I realized that he had a very fit pack of abs. By this point, my entire face was red, so I really hoped that Clown would not wake up at that moment. After finally getting through that-awkward-moment, I went to go search for a kit and healing items.

(Clown's POV)

I woke up to find myself propped up on pillows, covered in dirt, mud, and blood. I couldn't feel anything as, but soon winced harshly, a wave of pain washing over me. I saw that I was sitting on my rug, which was also covered in blood and grime, gonna have to wash that later. And then I realized, I was shirtless- why was I not wearing a shirt or even my turtleneck? Moreover, WHO had taken off my clothing? I noticed my torn, bloody, dirty jester shirt across the living room, and my black turtleneck also flung across the room, but slightly closer to me. As I looked around to see if anyone was in my house, I noticed a familiar fluffy head with white locks was in the kitchen, which now made sense who was the one who brought me back.
"Branzy?" I croaked out to him.
He turned around. "Clown? You're awake!" He said as he rushed over. "Are you okay? How do you feel? Do you need something?" He asked me.
"Uhh yeah..., I got something to ask." I told him.
"Yeah, anything! What do you need?" He said.
"BranzyCraft, why are my clothes strewn across the floor everywhere, and WHY am I shirtless?" I asked him.
He blushed and turned red as he told me, "Uhhhhhh-uhm-I-uhh..."
I laughed and smirked as I said, "Speechless again, BranzyCraft?".
He looked away slightly as he told me, "Uhm...I uh-had to take off your clothing to make sure your wounds were okay, and I was-Uhm-gonna get some healing stuff and kits-Uhm-and I didn't know where they...they were!" He stuttered out.
I lightly laughed. "I thiNK there's a few heAling kits in the stORage room, and the other stUFf should be tHEre too." My voice cracked horribly as I told him.
"Don't go speaking too much now, your cut on your throat is still fresh, I'm sure it hurts." He heartily laughed.
I also realized that soon after, as my neck started to burn with an intensity of a raging fire in my throat from the cut. But the burning hopefully wouldn't last too long. Branzy quickly got to work as he took out small bandaids, gauze, and alcohol rubbing liquid. I was still very weak from the blood loss, so all I could do was sit there and let Branzy heal me, and move every once in a while so he could reach around me. But even moving the slightest was hard to do. I could feel the blood trickling down my neck from my cut, which oozed out every time I took a huge breath. I winced as some blood touched my throat, feeling like salt in a wound.
               "Don't move too much Clown, you'll only make it hurt more." Branzy told me.
I obeyed as I tried to sit as still as possible, but it was not possible to not completely move when blood is oozing out from you and everywhere hurts. As I sat there, Branzy worked around my waist, wrapping a long strip of gauze around my stomach to stop a bleeding cut on my upper stomach. He wiped the dripping blood from my cut throat using a small cloth and put a bandaid patch on top of it to stop the bleeding from leaking out everywhere. He then worked on my arms, which had many smaller cuts from rolling around and dodging Vitalasy's various attacks. I tried my best not to wince as Branzy dabbed the rubbing alcohol on my stinging cuts. Branzy distracted me from my pain for a bit as he asked,
                "How did Vitalasy find you? How did he even know where you were?"
Assuming I was able to speak slightly better, although my throat still stung pretty badly, I told him, "I don't know. Maybe he knows that I would build a house away from spawn. Maybe Subz told him because he saw-cough cough- that I was pretty far from spawn already." I tried to limit my speaking, but I couldn't find a shorter way to tell that to Branzy.
But he seemed to understand, as he continued to work on cleaning my wounds.
"Well," he said, grabbing the rubbing alcohol bottle and another gauze pad. "I hope that this location is still safe, but I don't think Vitalasy found your house, since the fight was pretty far away from here."
"I think he was looking for me." I said abruptly, and then shortly coughing after.
Branzy stopped cleaning my wound and turned to look at me.
"Well, that would make sense that he was, but it almost seems like he's trying to hunt you down when you're at your weakest. You just fought Subz a few days ago, and I'm sure you're not in your usual armor that you usually have during the season." Branzy told me as he turned back to my wounds. That did make sense that Vitalasy would try to weaken me at the start of the season, though it was quite merciless, especially suspicious, for Vitalasy to do something like that this early on. Branzy interrupted my thought as he said,
"Right! You're all good to go, for now... at least. The patches and gauze should let you heal for a while, and then you can hopefully recover fast enough to be back to normal!"
"Thanks Branzy, I heal pretty fast too, so I should be fine." I smiled behind my menacing mask.
                   "Do you need anything else? If not, I think I'm going to get ready for bed soon, maybe cook some dinner... oh! What about dinner? I can cook you something!" Branzy told me.
                   "I'm not very hungry right now... but I could use a golden apple maybe? I have a few in a basket by the sink in the kitchen."
                   "Sure, I'll get one for you, drink this healing potion for now, I'll be back." He said as he handed me a potion, got up, and walked away.
As I drank the healing potion, I could feel the slightly uncomfortable warmth spread through my body, but soothing my pain from some of my wounds. Branzy then emerged from the kitchen, holding 2 golden apples.
"I know you only wanted one, but I got an extra one in case you end up needing another." He stood up. "Well, I'm going to head off to bed soon, so I'll help you to your bedroom."

He hoisted me up, slightly struggling but soon finding a good position to help me hobble down the merely lit hallway. After getting to my bedroom, I settled into my bed after struggling for a couple minutes to get into my usual nightwear. Branzy also nicely provided me with a few bottles of water and some other healing items in case. After we said our goodnight to each other, and Branzy set the two golden apples on my nightstand and shut the door, I settled in for a long night of lingering pain. I knew the pain wouldn't go away immediately, obviously, with my smaller scars from my fight with Subz, and my large scars from my fight with Vitalasy. But I wasn't going to give up anytime soon. Especially not to the hands of someone like Vitalasy, Subz, or Zam. Fighting, death, it's in my bloodstream. Maybe I wasn't the deadliest assassin because I die...

but I was because I never give up. And this game would soon be in my favor.

Yay! Another chapter for you guys. This one took longer since irl stuff, kinda matters. But I made it long to make up for the time being, so ENJOY!

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