Cuno don’t do hospitals.

They smell like bleach and fear and piss and something worse underneath. Something like people giving up. But he’s here anyway, standing in the too-bright hallway in a stolen hoodie and one of his shoes has a hole in it. He won’t sit down. Won’t ask the nurse anything. Won’t look at the fucking IV tubes going into your arm.

You’re sleeping, maybe. Or just too doped up to say anything. Which is good. Cuz Cuno ain’t saying shit either.

He stands near the foot of your bed, chewing the inside of his cheek raw. His hands twitch like they’re supposed to be doing something—throwing, tagging, flipping someone off. Anything but his arms hanging limp at his sides like he doesn’t know what to do.

“You look like shit,” he mumbles finally, voice low, all gristle and gravel. “Cuno seen roadkill look better. Fuckin’ pathetic.” (He stares at your bandaged ribs when he says it. Not blinking.)

“You were s’posed to duck, dumbass,” he says, louder now, angrier. “When they pull a fuckin’ gun, you duck! Ain’t that what pigs are s’posed to do? Learn that at pig school or some shit?”

He wipes his nose with his sleeve. He’s not crying. Not like that.

“Cuno don’t care, okay? Don’t give a flying fuck if you croak or not.”

But he doesn’t leave. Not even when the nurse comes in and gives him a look like you again? He just folds his arms tighter, eyes glued to the pulse beating slow and stubborn on the screen.

“Don’t fuckin’ die,” he mutters, barely audible.