OUR FOREST OF THORNS | tbosas ✔️

023 || Wishes, Wants, Desires

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE —        Wishes, Wants, Desires ..

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          "I'm sorry for the late hour," Daphne deliberately tensed her jaw in hopes of her voice not actually bending to the undulations dictated by the obvious pain coming from her right hand. The pain had gotten a lot worse by the time they got to Dr. Cellgrey's house, yet she couldn't find it within herself to regret punching Sejanus, much as she couldn't bring herself to complain about her wound — unlike Coriolanus and his many needed stitches, her little accident would be easily fixed by a tight bandage and some patience.

"You wouldn't have made a home call if you didn't truly need my assistance," Dr. Cellgrey dismissed Daphne's worries with a faint appeal to his vows, tightening the bandage a little more before tying it up. He sighed back in his chair, dropping his hands on his knees. "I only hope you two won't be making a habit out of needing a medic every week now though," he made sure that through his alluded scolding he also threw a look back over his shoulder at Coriolanus.

Though he was curious to know how they each got their wounds that late evening, Dr. Cellgrey knew it wasn't his place to know such details, irrelevant to actually doing his job. And indeed, it was far too late in the evening to even truly want to place curiosity above anything else at all. The yawns he kept resisting were signs that he was missing the bed the unexpected knock on his door pried him away from, just about enough to be comfortable in silence of unanswered questions and even with leaving the two night visitors on his couch while he drags his step to the kitchen, to follow protocol and put on the kettle for some tea — though Daphne had spared a moment to insist Thaddeus should be there to pick them up soon enough.

The silence in which Coriolanus and Daphne were left was disturbed him deeply. He felt like he couldn't be trusted with a moment of introspection, not when everything that happened in that arena was still a visible stain on his hands — feeling like an intruder in Dr. Cellgrey's house had discouraged Coriolanus from asking to use the man's bathroom, so he was yet to wash his hands clean of the blood so obviously not his own.

"Did you fix the... decay problem?" Coriolanus cut desperately at the silence between them, clinging onto the only subject he knew they would have discussed first, had the night went according to plan.

He had had plans for that night: getting home after Mentor duties, taking a shower, putting on cleaner clothes and waiting for Daphne downstairs with invitation to extend that he show her their small rose garden on the roof. But all thanks to Sejanus and his idiotic attempt to kill himself into a martyr of sorts, he now sat besides Daphne, not only wearing stains of blood, but also sporting an unflattering disheveled look — his creased and torn shirt, yet to be buttoned all the way up over his bandaged chest, his uniform coat and pants of a red no longer pristine, but dusty and bruised. Fact was, Coriolanus feared to take a look at himself in the mirror because he knew he would seeing a frightened boy, dirty and pale, someone otherwise not even close to being worthy of the fantasy of marrying Daphne.

"I did," Daphne nodded after a short break which felt like a century of pressure had been added onto Coriolanus' chest. Hearing her reply didn't cure his uneasiness either because it so seemed that the topic of conversation he approached wasn't going to take them anywhere but back to the dangerous quietness he needed so badly to avoid. "It wasn't all that difficult," she added with a deep sigh.

"Good," Coriolanus nodded, so focused on keeping the conversation going that he discovered himself unsatisfied with his choice of words. "I mean, congrats—"