Re: Apartment: Sam/Russ/Louis
Louis tipped his head and said nothing when Russ told him he couldn't blame himself. He didn't know if he could or not. He didn't remember who he ought to blame, but it did seem as if this feeling of violation, this sickness in his very soul, that couldn't be an invention of his own, could it? Memory or not, he felt wrong. Beyond paint and burns, something unpleasant stirred. It was all making him a bit sick the more he thought about it, as it all finally started slowly sinking in.
He let Sam look at him. He'd done a quick, artless job of applying some antiseptic ointment and a bandage to the burn on his chest. He didn't have the least idea of how to care for a burn that deep, except that it radiated head. Over his palm was a flat, long bandaid, also covered with a judicious amount of neosporin. The paint on his chest, when Sam took her look, was all still there. The thought of taking pictures of it for evidence had mostly fled by now. He just wanted to get it off.
He listened to Sam speak without hearing her at first, rolling his shirt back down over his torso. Was there a design in that oblong burn? He couldn't tell, and looking at it too long made his stomach turn. He lifted his head and came back into the conversation when Sam was saying none of the damage would kill him. Sleep. As soon as she said it, his eyelids felt heavy. He couldn't remember the last time he'd seen an expression like that on Sam's face, that open, tired fondness, her continuing calm in the face of the terrible, and he really didn't know what to make of it.
He wrapped his hands tight around the mug of coffee, looking up with Russ. "As do I," he said, quietly. No one wanted him to thank them, tonight, halfway between ashamed of himself and grateful, but it needed to be said. Russ had done him the kind of kindness he wouldn't forget any day soon.