He isn’t thinking when he gets home. His brain hurts, his heart aches, but it was a good night and he feels so much better than he did when he left. He has his duffel bag over his shoulder and Kronk is walking beside him, falling into a picture perfect heel right at his hand. He’s still in his onesie, the hood off around his shoulders. He is so tired, emotionally wrung out by everything that had happened in the past week.

Still—he is so happy to be home.

He drops the bag at the door, walking in. Kronk leaves his side, padding off to his dog bowl for a well-deserved drink of water. “Mitya! I’m home.”

The room is quiet, the home feels weird in a way he can’t pinpoint. He feels relief when he finds Mitya, but it’s fleeting—Juno is curled up beside him, fussing in a way that makes J’s knees fail slightly. Wobbly. Scared. It comes across in his voice. “Dimitri?”

It takes Mitya a few moments to register that there's someone in his room, to realize that the voice he hears isn't just some far away thing from the dreams he's been having, but that Jackson is there, home, and sounds — worried. Of course he does, and Dimitri knows he should've messaged in advance to warn him, but the past eight hours has been a total blur — from getting thrown around like a rag doll by a monster in Ethan's apartment to the barely memorable trip to the hospital, to treatment and hours of monitoring, and then when he'd finally piled himself into the back of a Lyft and barely struggled into their apartment, taken over from the friend he'd called to watch Juno, and then stripped and collapsed into his bed.

Given the circumstances, it isn’t like Jackson can really blame him.

He's only been asleep for roughly forty minutes, and only home for an hour, and he winces and shifts a little under the covers. "Hey, you're home." Mitya answers, his voice rough, and it's obvious there's something wrong when he doesn't immediately throw the covers back to jump out and welcome Jackson back. He's been worried, after all — feeling impotent and useless in his inability to help — but the last thing he wants to do is show his face, even if there's bruising obvious on his shoulder peeking out from underneath the blanket.

He had to remember his control. But he has to remember what he has learned, that he can’t just push it down, that he can’t act like the emotions didn’t happen. He has to accept them. Something spooks around his fingers, but he takes a deep breath.

Juno whines and wags her tail, pleased that he's moving at least a little, but Dimitri doesn't roll over — and isn't quite sure he can do it too easily. "Sorry, mm, I just,... got home not... long ago... How was the party?" He sits on the edge of Dimitri’s bed, reaching to pet Juno gently. Gentleness is what he holds onto, what he projects into his voice even as he wants to stay shaky and scared. But what would that accomplish? Who would his fear help? Only himself, and he isn’t that selfish.

He doesn’t touch Dimitri. He doesn’t know what has happened, he only knows that his friend is hurt. He doesn’t know to what extent or why. His voice is low, everything soft and controlled and purposeful. “Hey. What happened?”

Dimitri knows it'll be much worse the longer he holds out and tries to hide it from Jackson — which isn't, actually, a very wise thing considering what J is going through, and Mitya knows it. He lets out a long, muffled sigh against his pillow, and answers with a quiet, "Well, I had a date, and it went kinda bad." He knows exactly how that's going to sound — but it takes effort to even talk about it and Dimitri isn't entirely sure how to explain the enormous monster that took control of his date and tried to eat him. Yet, anyway. And sure enough that is exactly where Jackson’s head goes, to a deep, dark, fearful place. But he breathes through it.

He lets out another huff of a sigh and shifts under the blanket, movement a little stilted because he's got some bruised ribs that make rolling over a painful, not terribly easy act to accomplish, and he props himself up on his elbows and lets the blanket slip around him and turns his face, apology written across it, to Jackson. The immediate swelling on one side of it has gone down but it's replaced with dark bruising and a black eye that he can barely open, and a patch of gauze taped to his forehead that hides the gash he earned from the blow to his head. The bruises at his ribs are stark, too, and underneath the covers he's got one around his calf that looks like a hand three times the size of any human's grabbed him too hard — which, well, is accurate.

"I'm okay." Dimitri knows that's not terribly convincing. "I went to the hospital. Nothing serious, no lasting damage. Bit of a concussion."

“Mitya.” It’s not any kind of reprimand. It’s soft, sympathetic. He wants to ask more questions—but he doesn’t. It wouldn’t be helpful, and this doesn’t really feel like something that should be about him. Right now, Mitya doesn’t need his criticism. He doesn’t need Jackson to keep going over and over. He might not even want to talk about it. Jackson swallows hard and takes a minute—stretching his hands to get rid of the itching feeling in his palms where he wants desperately to fix this (and he doesn’t even know if he could—he suspects no, and he doesn’t want to risk it on something as delicate as this).

So instead he focuses on the things he can ask, the things that aren’t time bombs. “Okay. So—what did the doctors say?”

Dimitri sighs and lowers his gaze — both because he's tired beyond belief and because it's difficult to maintain a level look when Jackson's watching him so sadly. He knows he must look like absolute shit, even if he hasn't taken time to glance in the mirror. "That I'm lucky I didn't end up with a brain bleed." He answers matter-of-factly, because there's no way around it — getting your head knocked by the edge of a table at high velocity is pretty risky business. Jackson winces, but it’s with sympathy. "But nothing is broken. Bruised ribs, a prescription for painkillers, and I have to come in for a few follow-ups."

Jackson made a mental note to make sure that Mitya had actually filled that scrip.

Now with Jackson there, Juno moves off the bed to go about her own business, and Dimitri slouches until he sinks back against his pillows and tucks a hand behind his head. He smiles wearily up at Jackson, even though it doesn't quite meet the bruises near his eye. "I'll be alright." Mitya tries. "I'm... sorry. This is the last thing — you need, right now."

He shook his head immediately. “Don’t apologize. This isn’t your fault and it wasn’t your choice.”

In a weird way, projecting calm helped him become calm. He felt it, and he could only hope that it would translate so that Dimitri could feel it, too. Radiating off of Jackson, if in no other way. He reached out now, but gently—keeping his eye on Dimitri to see if the touch was unwanted or unwelcome. “I’m okay. Tell me what you need—is there something I can get for you? Water? Your painkillers?”

Dimitri shakes his head immediately — the last thing he wants is to be fussed over, even if he can barely tell what day it is, and some delirious part of his weary brain makes a note to cancel his future plans for the next week, all dates and dalliances and work obligations that will just have to wait, or forget him, because he has no plans to let anyone see him when he looks like this. (For a guy whose love language is acts of service, Dimitri was sure bad about accepting them.) He takes Jackson's outstretched hand easily, gives it a light squeeze, and lets his settle underneath and against his stomach, where it hurts less.

"I'm fine. Took one when I came in." Mentally, he's backtracked to what he said has happened — and he gives another wince and glances up at Jackson's face. "It was a... monster. Creature. That did this." It sounds crazy and he knows it and closes his eyes and tilts his head back into his pillow with a soft exhale of laughter — that hurts and peters out. "Everything is ... insane."

His jaw clenched a little, not pointing out that the assertion that Dimitri was fine was ridiculous. He didn’t point it out, though. It wasn’t relevant. He didn’t want to antagonize him when it was such an obvious lie and they both knew it—at least it was a comfortable lie.

“A monster? Did Ethan get out okay?” It was an assumption, and probably an unfair one—but it was still where Jackson’s mind went. It was out of his mouth before he could think to counter it. a small part of him was relieved that it was not as bad as it could potentially have been—that it wasn’t the darker version of what could have happened to Mitya.

Mitya's answer isn't instantaneous this time, but he tilts his head away and peeks his eyes open — one as much as it can be, what with the bruising and all — and stares coolly at the wall for a few moments. He's not sure how to describe it, the way the thing consumed Ethan like it had always been waiting, or it was him, or — Dimitri doesn't know. His pop culture knowledge is tenuous at best, thanks to a childhood spent in training and an early twenties lost to partying, and all he knows is what he's seen on the news.

"I don't know." He murmurs finally. He's sent a few texts to Ethan since, but heard nothing back. "I think it was him." He cringes, disturbed and worried and sick to his stomach that whatever it was wanted to take a bite out of him. Jackson’s mind starts ticking at that, trying to figure out those logistics. "It just — wrapped around him. And went at me." Mitya wets his lips and shifts to wiggle one leg out from under the blanket, moving so he can lean it into Jackson's side with a, "See?" He points down at the massive hand-shaped bruising around the lower part of his leg.

His heart breaks, his hand hovering over that imprint momentarily. It’s a lot, seeing Mitya like this, seeing him hurt. His hands shake and he presses them together to hide it. It takes a moment to get his breathing under control as he lets it just wash over him—the worry, the pain, that absolutely irrational desire he has to protect Mitya from anything that could ever hurt him like that again.

He moves quickly—reaching again, reaching and so so gentle as he frames either side of Dimitri’s face for a brief moment, kissing the crown of his head, his hair where he just hopes above all hope that it doesn’t hurt. Jackson turns away as quickly as he had turned towards, gesturing to the dog beside. “C’mon, Juno. Let’s go for a walk.”

Mitya's not sure what to expect from the hands against his face, and he's much too tired to do anything but lie there, eyes closing when Jackson leans close and presses that kiss to the top of his head. He lingers there, feeling weary and heavy, a little confused, mostly delirious. Juno wastes no time in hopping up and wagging her tail at the big wonderful word known as walk, even as she snuffles her nose closer to Dimitri's hand to check, double check, and confirm that it's alright that she leaves.

He scratches her behind the ears and settles underneath the blankets again, tiredly blinking up at Jackson and letting his hand drop against J's leg. "I'll be here when y'get back," he jokes. "Unless I suddenly get a surge of energy and start doing handstands, I'll..."

Mitya blinks a little, like he's just remembered something, and curls his fingers against Jackson's thigh. "Hey. I moved like— like when I was at my peak." He murmurs, enamored at the memory of how his body felt. "Better than then. Better than anyone in the world. Anyone I've seen, anyway." A beat, and, "I told him, you know. Everything. About what I'd done." He laughs, and knows he sounds like he's — maybe a little drunk, but it's probably the painkiller settling in, and his voice gets softer as each moment passes. Jackson’s brow furrows as he tries to figure out if it was more likely to be adrenaline or if that was Mitya recovering something of Dick’s—power he probably didn’t want to accept. "Crazy, right? Maybe they'll let me compete again. Or... is that cheating..."

“It’s probably cheating adjacent, at least.” After a pause. “I’m glad you told him.” His palms itch again, and he can swear he sees almost a faint hint of red swirling at the tips of his fingers, the horrible mixed emotions of pain and loneliness and love flooding him again—but he had ridden this wave before, and he rides it again. His eyes are glassy but he breathes through it, swallowing. “I’ll be back. Go back to sleep if you need to—I can take care of the pups.”

Dimitri can tell there's something up — something going on, a glimmer of something around Jackson's hands — but he's too close to sleep again to do much about it, and the dogs need their walks, and so he gives another loose squeeze of Jackson's knee and lets himself settle back into the bed. "Thanks, J," he murmurs. "Love you, buddy."

And that's the crux of it, right? Jackson stands back up, not lingering in the moment, not answering that because he doubts he can—he can at least do this, he can at least take care of this. He beckons for Juno again, encouraging the reluctant pup to follow him—and he leaves Mitya to his peace.