Chapter Text
You watch silently from Kix's bunk in the barracks as he attaches the large needle to the syringe, double checking it's fully screwed on before placing the cap on the small tray of supplies.
"That's a very large needle," you comment dryly. It isn't the biggest out there, you've seen larger, hell, you've had larger jabbed into on the side of a battlefield, delivering localized nerve blockers directly to a limb you almost lost in an explosion. Despite enduring all of this, the thought of a needle going under your skin makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up, your eyes quickly look for the nearest exit, and the rest of your body tense to make a quick get-away.
"It's not," Kix says, opening the small vial of depo-testosterone, and sticking the needle into the bottom of it. He looks up at you, and his face softens when he sees a glimpse of anxiety in your eyes. You've always been good at hiding it, you have to be with your job, but he's always been able to read you like a book; you always let him see through you anyway. "Are you saying it's a big needle because all needles are big to you?"
"No, I'm not afraid of needles."
"You said that way too fast for someone who's actually not afraid of needles," he quips back. You sigh in defeat. Stars damn it, he knows you too well.
"Okay, maybe I am, maybe I'm a little scared," you say to him. Better to admit it now than have him press for the info right when he goes to do the injection.
"Well, I have good news for you," he says, "this isn't the needle that's going into you. It's just that depo is really thick, and I need to draw it up with the 18 gauge before I put another needle on and stick it into you."
Every muscle in your body relaxes. "Oh, it's smaller?"
"Yeah," he says offhandly, all his concentration on trying to get an air bubble out of the syringe and back into the bottle, "you're doing this sub-q, right?"
"Like in my fat instead of my muscle? Yeah."
"Then, it's only a 27 gauge needle."
You tense up so violently Kix can hear you accidentally hit your foot on the end of the bunk when your toes curled up in your boots. "How is that smaller? That's like ten sizes bigger!"
He looks up at you, "needle gauges are backwards, di'kut."
"Huh?"
"The bigger the number, the smaller the needle." He puts the cap back on the 18 gauge and screws it off, before dropping it in the mini sharps container he brought with him. He picks up something that looks vaguely like it’s wrapped in plastic and wax paper, before peeling it open to reveal a significantly smaller needle, still capped. You can't really see its girth while it's still capped, but he quickly rectifies that by screwing it back onto the syringe and uncapping it.
It's ridiculously thin, and about three to four inches long. Despite this easily being the tiniest needle you've ever seen, it's still far too long to go inside you. Your fingers grip the bare threaded sheets of his bunk tighter, and your feet ground themselves on the dirty barracks floor.
The door is to your left, you note, and only five or six long strides to get to. If you wanted to, you could make a break for it. You do want to make a break for it, you decide, but before you can lift your butt off his bunk and make a run for it, Kix fixes you with a serious look.
"If you run, I get Rex to hold you down, and we do this with you kicking and screaming, or you do this willingly, right here, right now." It's the most authoritative you've seen him since Rex dislocated his shoulder, or when Jesse accidentally gave all of the torrent company athletes foot.
"I-"
"I know you're scared," he interrupts, "but I've seen you face much scarier things than this, fearlessly." He's earnest in only the way a true friend can be, when you're anxious and worrying about something truly ridiculous.
"Would you actually make Rex hold me down?" You ask him, trying to distract yourself from him sitting himself next to you on the bed, the alcohol wipe, shot, and bandaid in tow on the small tray he sat next to him.
"Yes."
"You answered that far too fast for someone who'd make Rex hold me down." You quip back.
Kix smiles, small and genuine. "You're right, I'd get jealous. Now pull your shirt up, I need access to your belly button."
"You're putting the shot in my belly button?"
He pauses, and the expression that falls onto his face is the exact expression he had when Fives replaced his bedding with Care Bear themed blankets. Just shock and confusion before the dust settles into exasperation and exhaustion.
"Now why would I inject this in your belly button?"
"Well, you said you needed access to my belly button. That's a reasonable assumption."
"This is a sub-q injection. When, in the history of medicine, has anyone ever done a sub-q injection inside someone's belly button?"
"Why would I know this? I'm not a medic."
"Did you not pay attention when the doctor prescribed you this?"
"No, they didn't tell me! The doctor at the VA wrote me the prescription and told me to leave!"
He pauses. "Civilian medics aren't worth the osik they produce, as usual."
"So, it's not going in my belly button?"
"No, it's going in the fat tissue of your abdomen," he says, "I just need access to your belly button because the shot is going two inches to the left of it."
"Oh." You look over at him, and he looks exhausted. "Are you mad at me?"
He fixes his face, going back to his usual down-to-business expression that he normally always has. He's admitted to being more expressive around you, but it seems he wants to hide whatever he's feeling from you. He's significantly better at it than you are, and it makes you wish you could hold him upside-down and shake him by the ankles until everything fell out of his overthinking head. It’s not the first time you’ve felt like that about him.
"I'm not mad at you," he says, "but I do think I need to get you over in the med-bay and explain the basics of everything to you."
"I wouldn't mind that. But it's up to you." You look away, far too embarrassed at how quickly you responded.
"You said that far too fast for someone who wouldn't mind," he jokes, "but tomorrow is going to be a slow shift and I'm going to want to check in on you anyway."
"Tommorow? I'm free at 1800."
"That works, but let's do this shot first."
You nod, because you'd rather just talk more, but Kix's hand is on yours, rolling up your regulation black compression top, over your stomach and up to your ribs. His hands are cold and feel like the blue powder gloves he put on before all of this.
"You want to count three fingers away from your belly button," he explains, "and alternate sides per injection, so that way you don't get tender."
You nod, and watch him find the spot he wants to do the very first injection. The alcohol wipe is cold against your skin, but the clammy feeling that comes over you is far colder and far more present.
Kix looks up at you. At some point he shifted from being on the bed next to you, to being on the ground, on his knees, in between your spread legs. His eyes were soft with concern. Despite the crippling fear of the injection, the view makes your heart speed up.
He watches the fear slowly leave your eyes, and relaxes a bit. "You're going to want to grab the skin of your stomach, and hold it, just so you can get a better grip of the tissue, can you hold it for me?"
His hand guides yours to your abdomen, and helps you hold it just the way he needs.
"Just like that, good job." His voice was soft, and it reminded you of why Jesse originally suggested that you ask Kix for help in the first place. He had laughed when he said he's your friend, and if you play your cards right, he could be your lover. He had wiggled his eyebrows suggestively, and you threatened to shave them off so they would match his bald head. He only shut up for five minutes before going on about how the two of you just needed to stop dancing around each-other and kiss already. Threatening to bleach his eyebrows was far more effective.
"When you give yourself the injection, do it at a 90 degree angle to the rest of your body, you want it to go in completely horizontally." He explains.
"How far should the needle go in?" You ask.
"All the way in."
Your gulp is audible. "Don't tell me when you stick the needle in."
"Cough for me?"
You do, one hand over your mouth because that's what you’re supposed to do when you cough, and the other holding your stomach so that way he could do the injection. You don't look down and count slowly down from ten.
Ten…
… Nine…
… Eight…
…Seven…
…Six…
"All done!" Kix says, before reaching to put his things down on the silver metal tray. He caps the needle before screwing it off the syringe, and putting it into the sharps box. "You did great, by the way."
"I didn't even feel the needle go in," you admit bashfully, "I feel silly."
"Don't feel silly for being scared," he states, "feel proud for being brave enough to do it." He peels the backing of the band-aid before sticking it on the spot he did the injection.
"Thank you," you tell him. He moves back up to the bunk, sitting next to you. Your knees are touching.
"You can pull your shirt down, by the way," he says. And you laugh as you reach to tug it down, only for his hand to grab yours and pull it up again. "Actually wait-"
You make a noise of confusion, similar to a dog that thought the ball had been thrown when it hadn't been. He leans down, and kisses your abdomen over the band-aid. "There, all better."
He leans back up, and sees the shock on your face, and before he can wonder if he went too far, sees the dopey grin spread across your lips like softened butter on toast.
"So… " he says.
"Same time next week?" You ask.
"Yeah, same time next week." He agrees.
You look away from him. "Will you kiss it better next week?"
"Depends. Will you let me buy you dinner first?"