Chapter Text
[Injured!Stefano x Nurse!Reader]
I>"The artist is the creator of beautiful things. To reveal art and conceal the artist is art's claim. The critic is he who can translate into another manner or a new material his impression of beautiful things."
You smiled as you removed the soiled, latex gloves from your hands, only to grab another pair from the box stuck to the wall. The low drone of the vitals monitor and the hum of the television set filled the space of his ponderous pauses, as he assembled his thoughts. Occasionally, he winced ever so slightly, but not enough to warrant any concern. As you turned to soak a few patches of gauze in saline, he spoke again:
"The highest as the lowest form of criticism is a mode of autobiography. Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault." as the words fell from his lips, your mind slowly drifted away from the monotony of your task to his voice. "Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope. They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only beauty."
"Oscar Wilde, huh?" you bunched a few of the tiny dressings in your hand and turned back to your smiling patient.
"Ah, what refined taste you have."
You clipped back strands of hair from the perforated wound, oozing in his right eye socket: red flowed through the vessels round the torn socket, and coloring the skin. Somewhere, concealed by the pool of aqueous humor and blood hid a piece of that dreaded shrapnel, teetering between his optic nerve and a cushion of shredded tissue.
Never again would this eye ever perceive the light of day, and for an artist, it was a wound far more crippling than even paralysis.
You masked a grimace as you carefully rubbed away the dried blood. The smell of alcohol and iron wafted into your nose as you peeled away bits of scab and necrotic skin. Despite the frequent eye wounds you encountered, something about their nature still made your skin crawl and blood curdle. It was such a sensitive organ, a tiny hair lightly tickling the sclera could leave one groaning in agony. Visualizing a piece of metal burrowing itself down to the retina would make anyone cringe.
But, as a nurse, you could show no disgust nor discomfort. You wore a mask of complete tolerance and composition with every patient, no matter how revolting the smells, horrifying the wounds, or disgusting the circumstances.
The remaining eye of the unfortunate, young photographer squeezed the more pressure you applied. Shockingly, he grunted only a little, then relaxed as he adjusted to your deliberate touches.
"Sorry, did that hurt too much?" you asked, recoiling just enough to remove any sensations of compression.
With a shake of his head and a wink, he replied,
"Not at all. Continue as you were."
"You sure? It's always best if you're a hundred percent honest with me about any procedure performed."
"I promise, it is nothing unexpected," he folded his arms over his chest and shut his eye. "Please continue."
Before you proceeded with your work, you watched the muscles in his face relax, and his breathing steady to a slow rise and fall. You couldn't help but admire his strength. Compared to the constant but understandable myriad of screams, shouts, and cries from patients within the wound care facility, he merely winced, whimpered at most. Be it his pride or his nature, whatever kept him grounded, you envied that.
With a gentle smile, you finally inquired,
"On a scale of one to ten, how would you rate your pain?"
After releasing a long, labored sigh, he recovered his charming guise once more.
"Not enough to wipe away my smile, but enough to commence my creative processes."
After packing the saline drenched gauze, you managed a thin laugh and ripped off a strand of the dry bandage on the bedside table.
"I'm not even gonna ask, but I like your spirit, Mr. Valentini."
His blue eye glinted as you situated yourself at his side, carefully ambulating his head to a comfortable position and started wrapping.
Such a beautiful, pale blue, much like a clear winter sky on a cold morning. As the rays of the golden sun intruded through the small window, it illuminated the warm highlights of his messy, oily hair and the sweat and crusted blood clinging to his cheeks. Bruises and cuts peppered unbandaged skin. Despite a long week of recovery, he resembled a brutally beaten ragdoll with only the seams holding it together. He watched friends literally explode into pieces, enemies shoot down his brothers-in-arms. He captured images of death and destruction. He immortalized humanity at its absolute worst with vision and a camera. To top it all off, his career as an artist would more than likely come to a screeching halt because of his injury neither you nor the doctors could repair.
So, what drove him to smile with these ghosts forever to wander through the corridors of his mind? What kept the sparkle in his eye when the horror of war left its companion so mangled?
"Tell me, dear nurse," the rumble in his whisper derailed your train of thought, and you reverted your attention to him once more.
"Yes, Mr. Valentini?"
A strange blanket of silence covered you both for a moment, and a dark, almost menacing aura cast over the man like a shadow in moonlight as he smiled. Your stomach clumped with the rest of your nerves as your neurons fired small, warning signals. Perhaps it was the broadening of his grin, perhaps the narrowing of his eye, perhaps it was the shadows cast by his hair, deepening the hollows of his cheekbones and heightening his sharp, angular features.
You knew not why, but you learned to always trust your gut, even if little reason presented itself.
Still, you glued your impassivity to your face, like a true nurse.
"Do you believe that beauty exists even in death or destruction?"
You shook your head just a bit, almost as though your brain glitched in attempt to process the question. That one phrase, that one simple question drove its claw quickly into the forefront of your mind. Amongst all the objective data needing immediate documentation, this rang the loudest, itching for an answer, or at the very least a bit of pondering. Darting your eyes to the computer resting upon the table, you jerked it over and pulled up your chart. The weight of his gaze scrutinizing your every move sent a shiver down your spine, yet you refused to crumble. With a small cough, you spoke,
"Your wound has considerably improved since your first day of admission," the keys clacked as you typed. Perhaps you could distract him long enough until your departure. "I'll need to change your IV bags as soon as this drip finishes, but the green drainage is finally gone, and the swelling has reduced immensely."
With a slow exhale, he folded his arms over his chest.
"Impressive aversion technique, dear nurse," he brushed his hair from the fresh gauze and tape.
You blood went cold, and you swallowed the hard lump quickly forming in the back of your throat.
"Pardon?"
"Why avoid my question?"
"What do you mean?"
"You know exactly what I mean."
You winced as if a bullet burrowed between your ribs, straight into the apex of your rapidly beating heart. Your brain feebly fished for any kind of reply. Day after day, death visited you through the loss of a patient. Suicide, illness, infection, no matter the attire, its job proved the same: closing their eyes, closing their mouths, wrapping the body, except the wrist with the identification band, cleaning the room, opening the window, completing the final offices. Then, as always, you bore the burden of telling the loved ones of their loss, offering comfort, listening to their grievances and woes.
Was it possible to find anything beautiful within the agony of loss?
Causing you to gasp, you felt a calloused hand clasp your own. When you glanced at your patient, his expression softened. The once rapidly firing nerve fibers slowed the longer you studied his face: the shadows once darkening his face lifted, leaving the calming blue eye and smile you had grown accustomed to.
Finally, you forced out a tired laugh.
"Sorry," you practically mumbled. "It's an odd question for someone like me."
"Not at all," he said, dragging his thumb along the back of your hand. "It was not very gentlemanly to attempt to pry. Please, attend to your business."
Licking your dry lips, you nodded and rose from the side of the bed. Your mind still reeled as you adjust the wires to his IV and call light, finishing your general routine before sanitizing your hands and reaching for the door handle to leave.
Suddenly, you stopped in your tracks, eyes fixed forward.
Beauty in death.. Beauty in destruction...?
Was this the sort of mindset that fueled the artist on? Seeing the good within the bad?
You snickered to yourself the more you ruminated. Ironically, you gave this advice to many patients, especially those stricken with a chronic or long-lasting affliction.
And naturally, you never listened to yourself.
Closing your eyes, taking a deep inhale, you turned to meet the artist's gaze.
"I believe death holds something worthy of praise," you said. "Look at someone with dementia, someone whose mind slowly loses its function. Look at someone with metastatic cancer, a body losing the fight against a series of foreign invaders," you curled a finger over your mouth. "Death serves as a release for those people. They're released from that suffering....which in turn is good, right?"
He simply nodded and tilted his head, waiting for you to continue.
"Even when the family grieves for those losses," again, you remained silent, carefully piecing together your words. "At least, you see the amount of love spent on that person," you smiled slightly and put a hand on the back of your neck. "I never really thought of it that way, but....I guess you can find something good in something as tragic or horrible as death."
Much to your surprise, your words were returned with a nod of approval. For the first time in a while, a little pride swelled in your chest.
"Astute observation, dear nurse," he replied. "Not what I expected, but I'm pleasantly surprised."
You chuckled and pushed a lock of hair behind your ear.
"Well, it's a good question," you shrugged. "I just needed a little time to think. It's not an easy topic....especially when you're exposed to it often."
"Certainly, certainly," finally, he settled back in his bed and closed his tired eye. "Perhaps we can...converse on the matter another time."
You watched his muscles relaxed, and his chin tucked to his chest. As peace washed over him, once again, that devilish smile returned to his lips. Immediately, your blood ran cold, and your stomach knotted.
Why did he hold such an obsession...?
Moreover, why drag you into it...?
Before your mind could wander any further, you straightened your back, returning to your professional state.
"Just press your call light if you need anything."
With a quick sanitization, you switched off the light and slipped through the door, anxious to be rid of that feeling as quickly as possible. You had too full a schedule to be distracted with needless worries.
Even after the door clicked shut, the young artist remained still in his bed, listening for the echoing thump of your shoes to disappear down the hall, into the myriad of beeps and murmurs from the gossiping staff. Once the hospital's muffled, monotonous drones settled over, his eye flicked open. His smile broadened. Slowly, his new fire of creation consumed what was left of the naïve, eccentric photographer he once was.
"Goodness in tragedy," he mused. "Beauty in death."
The more he thought, the stronger his determination grew.
"I believe you're onto something, my dear, little nurse..."