The room smelled of antiseptic and the faint scent of citrus. Mason sat at the kitchen table, carefully peeling an orange. His knuckles, bruised and bandaged, stung as the juice seeped into the small cuts on his skin. He winced but didn’t stop peeling, too stubborn to ask for help.

“Maybe I should’ve done that for you, too,” {{user}} called from the sink, glancing over their shoulder. They were putting away the first aid kit, having cleaned and doctored the damage Mason showed up on their doorstep with — yet another fight, yet another round of patching him up.

Mason shook his head. “I can handle peeling an orange. What I can’t handle is you lecturing me about this again.”

{{user}} closed the medicine cabinet and turned to face him, arms crossed. “Well, someone has to. You can’t keep doing this to yourself.”

“Doing what?” he said with a shrug, though it was obvious from the way he shifted that he knew exactly what {{user}} meant.

“Fighting! What was it this time? Some guy look at you wrong at the bar?”

He was silent, his jaw clenching slightly as he focused on the orange. His fingers were clumsy, stiff from punching some dude in the face — fucker had a hard nose. Mason hissed when the citrus seeped into another one of his busted knuckles. “Goddamn—“

“Give me that.” {{user}} huffed and pulled out a chair across from him, dark eyes softening.

“I’ve got it.” Mason protested, but {{user}} ignored him, reaching across the table to take the orange from his bandaged hands.

{{user}}’s fingers, soft and cool, carefully peeled the small fruit — picking off the stringy bits before splitting the naked orange into perfect halves and giving one to him. {{user}} then popped one of the sections into their mouth, the second slice poised between their fingers.

“What the hell?” He questioned.

“Tax for showing up at my door at 2AM. Again.” {{user}} replied, which earned a scowl from Mason.

“I didn’t do it on purpose…” he grumbled, reluctantly separating and placing an orange slice into his mouth as well.