Bend and Break(poly)(bxb)

Fourteen

Von is bleeding out and exhausted.

"Take this off," he breathes with limp limbs.

I pull his leather jacket off first and notice how tense the muscles at the center of his back are. Slicked with sweat and cold chills, I raise his shirt next. He has a gunshot wound in his stomach.

I feel pain when I see it. It starts in my chest and spreads tightly throughout. Until my nose burns and my eyes water. I let the fabric fall back down.

When I get up to go get L, Von grabs tightly onto my wrist. "It didn't hit anything major," he coughs. "Rosemary's injuries are more severe and L can't treat both of us at once."

I wipe my eyes with the back of my hand before speaking. "You're bleeding internally."

"I'll be okay just... just stay with me."

I snatch my hand away from him. He always knows what to say to fuck me up. "L needs to check on you. If you want me to stay with you then I'll just bring you to him myself."

Von's eyes widen for the briefest moment. He's keeping his breathing calm, even when I reach for him, when I pull his body flush against mine and feel his blood on my skin.

I'm stronger now that there's more urgency. I pull him up, using the wall for support and groaning out the entire time.

He hisses in pain, his mouth against my ear as he tries to push me off. "L needs to take care of her right now."

I struggle again to pull him with me. His body is dead weight and resistance but I keep trying. When he tells me not to. When my knees hurt and my vision blurs. I keep trying.

"Stop!" He yells at me, as rare as it is. We slip down onto the floor. "It fucking hurts, Mia."

"Let me help you! I have to save your life." Again. That way things can go back to how they were.

"No, you don't." Von shoves my hands off of him and I let them fall to the floor. The black wood in this black room threatens to swallow us whole. "Why can't we stop this? Why do you keep coming back when I push you away? I've done everything to push you away. For months I tried to put more and more distance between us. You could've left the gang, left me. You could've told your dad to put you in witness protection or whatever. You could've done something—anything else. Why are you still staying with us? You're throwing a life away when it's barely even started."

"You want me to leave? Why didn't you just tell me that?" I shake my head as I struggle to process his words.

"I don't want you to leave—" Von coughs. "I'm terrified of losing you more than I am of losing myself. But this isn't safe for you. You haven't even been with us for half a year yet, and look at you. We let this happen to you. I let this happen to you."

"I chose to be here despite that and I'm still choosing to be here. I want to be with you." I say it as steadily as I can through my shaking. I'm covered in scars.

"You didn't have a choice, none of us did," he says, his tattooed body as still as possible. Smoke and roses on his bicep, a clock and quotes on his forearm. "I have to let you go before it's too late."

He wants to let me go but he's scared to lose me. Or he wants to let me go so that he won't have to see me die. Either way.

"You're such a coward," I tell him. "I'm here with you right now yet you're telling me to my face you're not going to be there for me. You kiss other girls right in front of me like I'm—"

"Don't compare yourself to Rosemary."

"How can I not?!"

"Rosemary is just a vessel. Whatever was left of her before we separated is gone now. I don't want that to happen to you. I want you to stay the way you are because you're perfect like this."