~I'm not listening to the Hamilton while writing this.... hAhAhA~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As James and Thomas approached Thomas' front door, James tried to get out of Thomas' arms, but Thomas held him tighter. Thomas opened the door and stepped inside.

"S-Seriously I-I c-can w-walk." James protested, but still snuggled back up to Thomas' chest.

"I know" Thomas walked through his house and went to the  bathroom, where he set James down on the counter by the sink. Thomas shuffled around the bathroom, looking for the things they needed. He grabbed cotton balls, rubbing alcohol, and bandages.

He turned back to James, and James noticed a light blush on his cheeks.

"Jemmy, I'm gonna need you to take off your sweater..." Thomas set the supplies down by James and looked over to James, who was sitting there wide-eyed.

"W-Why?" James asked shakily. 

"I-I have to clean your cuts and bandage them up. So, we can either do this the easy way, or the hard way." Thomas put his hands on his hips. James shook his head slightly, the hard way was go home and get beat by his parents before going to bed, right? 

James still didn't take off his sweater, this made Thomas huff in frustration.

"Hard way it is then..." He mumbled. James was expecting what happened next. Thomas shoved his, unusually warm, hands up hos sweater and pulled it over his head. But James was quick to react, he quickly put his arms around his chest and stomach, which covered most of the cuts and bruises. Thomas huffed and ran his fingers through his hair.

"Jem, I need to clean you cuts and bruises. If I don't, they'll get infected." Thomas tried to persuade James, it didn't really work. James just shook his head once more, tears were threatening to spill from his eyes, it wasn't that he didn't want to show Thomas, he just didn't want to explain his... arms.... A single tear fell down his face, followed by more. Suddenly, he was crying up a river, but he didn't sob, he was just silently crying.

Thomas saw this, and immediately put his hands on his face to wipe away the tears.

"Jem, listen, I wan- no, not want, need to protect you. I know we only met today, but I just feel like I need to protect you with my life, literally. And if I can't do that, I believe I've failed myself and you..." Thomas trailed off as he shed a single tear. The very thought of losing James, or seeing him get hurt and he couldn't protect him, it scared him. Even thought they had only met that day, he already felt like he was solely responsible for protecting him. One tear turned into ten, ten to twenty. He was crying as well now.

"T-Thomas y-you shouldn't cry o-over me... I-I'm not t-that special." James reached up and wiped away his tears, leaving Thomas to look over all his cuts and bruises. Thomas raked his eyes over James' torso, and gently placed his arms around James' waist. James looked down.

"T-Thomas, I-I want t-to sh-show you s-something." James looked up, into Thomas' eyes, "but you have to promise not to judge me." Thomas was slightly perplexed as to why James thought he would judge him.

"Jemmy, I would never judge you." James searched his eyes, he searched for a lie. He found none.

"O-Okay" James, shakily, took his hands from Thomas' face and turned them so that his inner wrist were facing up. Thomas let out a, barely audible, gasp. Along James' arms were cuts. What looked like, intentional cuts.  He didn't know what to say, so instead, he decided to take action.

"Jem, I don't why you do this, but I do know that I want to help you. Let's get you cleaned up, and, if you want, we can talk about it afterwards." Thomas kept a steady gaze on James. James just nodded and looked down, again. 

"Ok" Thomas said softly, as he reached for the supplies on the counter. 

It took around 30 minute to clean and bandage all of James' cuts and wounds. Thomas even wrapped his wrists up.

"Done." He stated when he put the final wrapping on his arm. James looked up and into his eyes,

"Th-Thank You" Stupid stutter.

"So...." Now that they had done what they needed to do, what did they did now?  (I WAS SO TEMPTED TO PUT 'WHAT COMES NEXT')

"J-James, do you wanna talk about it?" Thomas was scared to ask, but he had too. For James. To his surprise, James nodded.

"Alright, lets get somewhere more comfortable then." Thomas smiled radiantly. He instantly picked James up, again, bridal style.

"S-Seriously Tommy. I-I can walk." But instead of trying to resist, he buried his head into Thomas' chest and wrapped his arms around his neck. Thomas only shrugged.

And they headed off toward the living room.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~It's trash I know. Sorry for the kinda short chapters. You gotta have suspense ya know :p~