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drabbles-mc · 9 months

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Gone Soft

Takeshi Kovacs x F!Reader

For @the-slumberparty's Bingo Challenge! Bingo square: nursed back to health

Warnings: 18+, language, blood/injury, mild angst

Word Count: 1.6k

A/N: I've been tossing Tak around my head like a pinball for weeks now. Eventually I will get my thoughts and feelings about him together to do some longer fics and all sorts of stuff. But this was a nice little something to start writing him 😌

Altered Carbon Taglist: @garbinge (If you want to be added to any of my taglists, please let me know!)

He came to with a groan and a cough, which was about what you had expected. Well, for a little while there you were wondering if he was going to come to at all. But Tak wasn’t ever the type of man who stayed dead. Might go down for a year, or a decade, or a century, but he always came back around. Lucky for you, this time he didn’t really go down, and he was only out for a week.

You looked over at him from the chair you’d set up beside his bed. Your bed, but for now it was his. You watched the way his face contorted—exhaustion, confusion, pain, all in rapid succession. He shut his eyes tight for a moment before opening them up all the way. After a few long, slow blinks he finally turned his head to look around the room. The confusion faded slightly when he saw you sitting beside him.

“You’re back,” you said as you uncrossed your legs, leaning forward.

“Didn’t realize I left,” he grunted. He braced his palms against the mattress, went to try and push himself upright just enough to lean back against the headboard. He didn’t get very far before the pain shot through him again and he dropped back down flat onto the mattress. “Fuck.”

You shook your head, a small smile on your face. “Yea I’d just stay flat if I were you.”

“Thanks for the warning,” he said, still staring up at the ceiling. He brought his hands up to his face, dragging his fingers down as he wiped the last of the sleep from his eyes. “How long?”

You laughed. “Not like you were on ice, Tak.” He turned his head so that he was looking at you. Propping your elbows on your knees, you told him, “One week.”

“And it still hurts this fuckin’ bad?”

You laughed. “Imagine if you hadn’t been out.”

He groaned, letting his eyes shut again. “I’m going back to sleep.”

You chuckled, shrugging. “Sure.”

He was already awake when you came in to check on him the next morning. He was lying on his back, staring up at the ceiling. You lingered in the doorway for a moment, wondering what he was thinking about. He knew you were there—it wasn’t like you’d been quiet. And even though he’d been put through the wringer you knew that his senses were still going to be sharper than most, sharp enough to have heard you the second you got up off the couch in the living room.

Flicking on the light, you stepped in. You couldn’t help but to chuckle at the groan he let out. “Like you didn’t know that was coming.” He turned his head so that he was looking at you. Not that you needed a reason to be popping in to check on him, but this time you actually did have one. Holding up the pack in your hand, you said, “Bandage change time.”

He let out a deep breath. “Right.”

Walking over, you peeled the blanket down off of him before sitting on the edge of the bed. For the first few seconds, your lingering stare could be written off as checking to make sure that everything was healing alright, the bruises, the cuts. But it didn’t take long for that excuse to run its course. Then you were just staring because you could.

When you finally made your eyes look into his, you found him already looking at your face. Despite the exhaustion and the pain, he still had that same stupid shit-eating smirk on his face. “Is it everything you remember?”

You rolled your eyes but you couldn’t help the smile that was creeping across your face. “Shut up. Just making sure you didn’t wake up with any new injuries.”

“Yea, I can see that.”

If he wasn’t already so beat up you would’ve given him a shove or clipped him on the side of the head. That seemed a little unfair given the circumstances. Rather than dignifying it with any kind of a response, you opted to start peeling away the bandages that were secured to his side and his chest.

“Couldn’t find me a sleeve that wasn’t beat to shit?” he asked, cringing slightly at the pull against his skin.

You shrugged. “Maybe. But I actually like this sleeve.” You paused, looking up at him until he locked eyes with you. “It’s pretty enough to make me forget how annoying your stack is.”

He chuckled at that, and you could feel the movement of his muscles beneath your fingertips. Somehow you managed not to fumble at the sensation of it, managed to keep a straight face. He could still sense the shift in you, though, because of fucking course he could. Whether or not you believed in Envoy Intuition was a moot point because Tak could read you like an open book and you had faith that he would be able to do that just as easily even if he wasn’t an Envoy.

“More work than it’s worth,” he said with a shake of his head.

Your eyes were back on his wounds again. They were already much better than they were when you’d managed to get him back to your place, but he was still a ways away from being healed. You didn’t have the money or the connections to get your hands on things that would heal him instantaneously. The selfish part of you in that moment didn’t mind it too much.

“I’m always in need of a good hobby,” you answered casually. You heard him chuckle at that and you looked back over at him. “But got it—next time I’ll let them throw you back on ice.”

He shrugged, and you knew that there was part of him that really would be that flippant about the prospect of going down again. Even if he wasn’t gonna come back for another couple hundred years. “No more hobby for you, then.”

You tried your best to reciprocate the energy. “I’m sure there are plenty of other broody men out there who need patching up.” Your expression shifted and you allowed yourself a moment of honesty even if Tak wouldn’t do the same in turn. “I would’ve found you a new sleeve if I thought I had to.”

His satisfied grin made you want to take it all back.

“Don’t,” you told him with a shake of your head.

“What?” he asked and even though you weren’t looking at him anymore you could still hear the smirk in his voice.

Rather than giving him the satisfaction of saying any of it out loud, you dumped disinfectant onto the gash across his stomach that hadn’t completely closed and started to scab over yet. He pushed the air out sharp between his teeth, hands balling into fists as he clutched your bedsheets between his fingers. He wasn’t looking at your face, eyes shut tight for a moment instead. When he finally pried his lids back open, he looked at you, able to just catch from the angle you were sitting that it was your turn to have a self-satisfied grin on your face.

“Feel better?” he asked, voice still strained as he worked his way through the sting.

“Who knew you’d gotten so soft, Tak?” you taunted with a smile.

“Wouldn’t be soft if you’d grabbed me a new sleeve.”

“You’d still be soft,” you joked. You paused, taking a moment to wipe away the excess medical alcohol on his stomach. “And if you wanted someone who could just grab you a new sleeve anytime you got yourself into a goddamn shoot-out,” you locked eyes with him, “should’ve been nicer to your Meth buddies.”

“They weren’t my buddies,” he said the word like it left a physical bad taste on his tongue.

“Did you tell them that?”

“I think the shooting might’ve said it for me.”

“You assume too much of them.” You said it with a chuckle, almost like it was a joke, but you didn’t have to be looking at him to know that he heard the truth in what you were saying.

It grew quiet between you again. You were more at ease than you thought you were going to be. Up until now, swapping out his bandages had been a solitary activity since he was still unconscious. You were expecting him to try and brush you off, try and take care of it himself. It crossed your mind, you found yourself hoping, that maybe this was progress. He was still tense beneath your touch, still sidestepping almost every chance at a real conversation with a joke or a snide remark. But he was letting you help. He was sitting still and he was letting you help. That was something.

“How often you been doing that?” he asked when you were done.

“First two days it was twice a day. Once the bleeding slowed it was just once a day.”

“Why?”

“So you didn’t get blood all over my sheets.”

He huffed out a short, quiet chuckle. “No. I mean, why put in all the effort?”

“What is your problem with this sleeve?” you asked, eyebrows raised in confusion.

“Not about the sleeve.”

You paused, lips curling down into a small frown as you turned over his previous question in your mind. “Wish I could say I just didn’t want the guilty conscience.” You shook your head. “But unfortunately, I think that I care about you now.”

It got a brief, weak smile out of him. “Very unfortunate.”

“For both of us, apparently, since it means I’m gonna make sure you stay alive.”

He let his head drop and rest against the pillow. “Looks like I’m not the only one who got soft.”

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