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You knocked on Bigby’s door.
No answer, but that was typical. He didn’t usually answer the door for people who only knocked once, just like he doesn’t answer the phone on the first call, provided he hasn’t taken it off the hook completely. So, you knocked again, a little louder this time.
“Bigby?” You called softly. Maybe if he heard your voice he’d answer.
Still nothing.
“Bigby? Are you okay? I saw Colin in the hallway. He said you’d wanted to see me?” You paused for a couple more seconds.
…
Okay, now you were worried.
Gently, you twisted the handle, not expecting it to give, but found that it was surprisingly unlocked. As the door swung open, a hard miasma of alcohol, smoke, and sweat assaulted you. It was pungent enough to make you gasp, and you had to turn your head away from the door to keep yourself from vomiting.
“Oh… wow… Bigby? Are you here? Bi-“ The floor of Bigby’s apartment was slathered in blood that you prayed wasn’t his. “Bigby!” You panicked, following the trail of blood to Bigby’s sitting area. You grabbed the wall as you rounded the corner, and terror spiked from your heart to your fingertips.
Bigby’s body slumped against the back of his blue chair, now stained purple with blood. His head reclined back in a way that you worried made it hard for him to breathe. Red patches bloomed through his white dress shirt, and in his right hand, a tumbler dangled from his fingers with the last vestiges of whiskey collecting at the bottom.
“Bigby!” You ran over and grabbed his shoulders. “Bigby wake up! Bigby?!”
Slowly, Bigby groaned and raised his head as far as he could manage until its dead weight fell forward on his chest. The hand holding the glass dropped it on the rug, splashing whiskey across the floor, and his arm sluggishly raised up to brush away your grip.
“Shoulder, hell… get off.” He slurred. You flinched and let go of him.
“Bigby? Bigby what happened?” You asked with a tremble in your voice. Confusedly, he called your name, and with gargantuan effort, he lifted his head up to look at you through glassy eyes.
“Is that you?”
“Yeah Bigby, yeah it’s me. What happened to you? Colin said you needed me, but… Wh-Why are you bleeding? I- we need to get Swineheart, he-“
Bigby seized your wrist in his vice-like grip. He started at you for a long while, brows pinched together and mouth slightly agape as if he were about to say something, but the whiskey had him spellbound. His breath rattled in and out of his lungs, and his warm breath buffeted up against your chin. You watched him swallow thickly.
“Swineheart’s already been here. Just… Ergh… gotta… rewrap these bandages.” He said. With a grunt, Bigby heaved himself forward in his chair, and if you hadn’t caught him, his face would’ve been nose-deep spilled whiskey. You pushed him back onto the cushions despite his gruff protests.
“Where are the bandages?” You asked.
“I’ve got it-“
“Where are the bandages?” You asked more sternly.
Bigby raised his brows at you. His pupils rolled back a bit, losing focus as he concentrated on thinking.
“Uh… The- The bathroom mirror.” His tongue darted out to wet his lips. He sighed, gave me a nod, and relaxed in his chair. “I’ll just wait here.”
You eyed him for a few more seconds, making sure he kept his word, then quickly walked to the bathroom.
It was as narrow as his kitchen and only half as long, but perhaps Bigby didn’t mind so much since he only showered once every couple of days. A toilet sat at the far end of the room on top of dingy yellow tiles. To your right there was a tiny glass shower, and to your left, a tiny enamel sink. Under the flickering fluorescent lights, you squeaked open the mirror above Bigby’s sink and grabbed a thick roll of gauze and some rubbing alcohol, both of which he kept in bulk supply apparently.
“Okay, I have the stuff.” You announced, walking back over to Bigby. He looked slightly more aware, sober, but his perpetual shiners hung lower and darker below his eyes than you’d ever seen. He didn’t look like Bigby anymore: not the Bigby you knew. He looked tired, and if you had to guess, he probably hadn’t had a decent night’s rest in the two weeks since this last case started. You came to a halt in front of him and knelt on the ground. You set the first aid supplies on the side table, then turned to Bigby and began unbuttoning his dress shirt.
His torso was wrapped in gauze to the point that he looked more like a mummy than a werewolf. You grimaced at their rust color. The smell was stronger now, nauseating.
“Dear Lord Bigby.” You whispered. The man grunted disinterestedly, staring blankly over your shoulder at some distant point beyond his window. You worried the inside of your lip as your fingers began unraveling the bandages. Bigby’s chest rhythmically leaned into you with each unwinding, but his eyes never left the skyline. Occasionally he’d hiss whenever your hands accidentally brushed up against a wound, and you would apologize quietly.
When all the soiled cloth finally sat in a wet pile next to Bigby’s chair, you moved to grab the alcohol and a patch of fresh gauze to dab his wounds with. Bigby, to your disbelief, also went for some alcohol: the whiskey. His bruised knuckles tightened around the neck of the brown bottle, but you quickly put my hand over his.
“Bigby, you look like you’ve lost a lot of blood, so you really shouldn’t be drinking right now. It’ll lower your blood pressure which isn’t something I think your body can tolerate with so much blood loss.” You said. He scoffed and wrenched the bottle away from you.
“I’ll be fine. Takes a lot to kill a monster.” He said casually, in a raspy voice, before taking a swig of his drink. You frowned.
“You’re not a monster Bigby.” You objected. Shifting back on your knees, you started dabbing at the gashes on his chest. He hissed.
“Tch. Don’t take my word for it. Just ask Snow.” He sneered. “Hell, ask anyone in this shit town. I’m pretty sure I don’t have to tell you what the consensus will be.” He fixed you with a hard look, took another sip of his drink, then let the bottle hang over the arm of his chair. He returned his gaze forward, refusing to look at you.
You didn’t gratify him with an answer, and he sat with a scowl while you finished dressing his wounds. Bigby was never this cold; sure, he laid down the law when he had to, but only because he wanted to do the right thing. What he was doing now, what he was saying, it was distancing, and you didn’t like it.
When you finished tying off the bandages Bigby gave you a curt “Thanks.” Getting up, you gathered the disinfecting alcohol and what was left of the clean gauze to return it to the bathroom, and you set them both on a shelf behind Bigby’s mirror. When the mirror clicked back into place, you noticed that some of Bigby’s blood had smeared on your cheek. You bit your lip. He was worrying you.
On the way back to the living room, you grabbed the back of Bigby’s single dining room chair and with a screech dragged it over to a spot in front of the TV. You sat, and the next few moments were spent with you looking at Bigby, and Bigby still looking out the window.
“What happened tonight Bigby?” You asked.
“My job.” He said. “My fucking job.” The whiskey swished as he tilted it back into his mouth. “You should go home. It’s late, and I’ve got nothing for you.”
“I didn’t come for anything Bigby… I came to check up on you. Colin said you needed me.”
Bigby barked with silent laughter.
“Of course he did.”
Swish.
“Bigby, you seriously need to stop dri-“
“What is it with everyone always trying to tell me what to fucking do?” He growled and shook his head, eyes lowering to the ground. You pressed your lips together, trying not to take his biting reply to heart. He glanced at you, then looked at the floor.
…
“It was… the Tweedles, and this woman named Bloody Mary. We’d found Crane harassing girls at the Pudding and Pie and were about to bring him in for questioning, but when we left the club those three cornered us in an alley. They uh… shot me and I… lost control.” Bigby raked a calloused hand over his face. He shook his bottle, and upon realizing there was nothing left in it, pushed himself off the chair. You immediately stood, hands out to stop him, but he just brushed you off and stalked around to the kitchen.
You followed on his heels, almost bumping into him. His legs moved slowly, and at one point in your short walk to the refrigerator, one of his feet kicked into the back of the other, and Bigby had to grab a wall to stay upright. You froze, hands hovering an inch above his arm. He looked unimpressed at you, then went to open the fridge.
As Bigby pulled on the thin black handle, the yellow light coming from inside of the ancient fridge scrolled across his countenance, and you audibly gasped, cupping your fingers over your mouth.
“Bigby…”
He ignored you.
The whites of his eyes shined unnaturally brightly against the deep maroon moons sunken above his cheeks. Some long-dried blood had caked around his nose and throughout his beard. On the cheek facing you, a long stripe of dirt ran from his brow to his ear, and in the light, you could see the shivers rippling through his chest as he breathed; it must’ve hurt like hell.
As soon as the light came, it went, and in its stead another flask of amber alcohol shined in the scant moonlight. Bigby turned his aching body to leave the narrow kitchen, but you planted yourself firmly in his way. He glared down at you and said your name very slowly, deliberately.
“I’m really not in the mood for this right now.”
You refused to answer him. Instead you simply glared back and crossed your arms.
“Seriously, move.”
Nope.
“I’ll let you have your whiskey,” You started, “If you let me clean your face, and then get you in the bed. Not the chair, the bed.”
He set his jaw and huffed through his nose. Bigby was a prideful man who didn’t much care for giving in, but after a sufficient pause you guessed he figured it wasn’t worth his dwindling energy to push you out of the way.
“Fine.” He growled.
You sighed, thankful, and grabbed Bigby’s wrist to ensure he followed you into the bathroom instead of meandering back to his chair.
You flicked on the fluorescent lights, and you both cringed. You recovered faster and pulled Bigby to the sink. You guess that must’ve been the first time he’d seen himself since the incident because his hard-set scowl immediately dissolved once he stared into the mirror. He frowned again, more upset than angry this time. He set his unopened bottle of alcohol on counter and gripped the lip of the sink to anchor himself. Quietly, You took a wash cloth from the shelf above Bigby’s toilet and turned on the faucet. You waited for some warm water, wet the rag, then began washing away the dirt, phlegm, and blood from Bigby’s cheeks. Through it all his gaze remained hollow and fixed to his reflection.
A few minutes pass you two by. Bigby gets cleaner, the cloth gets dirtier, and you both get more uncomfortable. As you scraped the last bits of dried blood from Bigby’s lip, he finally looked you in the eye.
“Why are you here?” He asked.
You gaped, fish-like. Then closed your mouth; then opened it again.
“Bigby I… I was worried about you. I haven’t seen you in a while, and from the few times we’ve run into each other these past several weeks, it seemed like life was really wearing on you. That and… I missed you.” Your heart constricted with the admission.
“Missed me? Tch, Not much to miss.” He quipped.
“What do you mean?” You frowned.
“I mean that there’s not much to miss, just some lonely alcoholic who hasn’t showered in a week. That’s not an exaggeration by the way; I actually haven’t showered in a week, in case you couldn’t tell.” He tried to be humorous, but his eyes held no glimmer of cynical self-deprecation, just a glassy, dead echo of himself. Fabletown had spent Bigby, just like they spent their fortunes, frivolously, but unlike credit cards, Bigby couldn’t deny them his services. And yet, he looked truly empty. You ached; watching such a proud man deteriorate, a man you cared for…
Tentatively You put your hands on either side of his face. He made no reaction.
“That’s a lie. You’re so much more than that Bigby. You do so much for this town. I’ve seen you break up deadly fights, save lives. I don’t know what Snow said tonight, but she tells me all the time how much she appreciates your support in the field, and how she doesn’t know what she’d do without you as a partner; that without you none of Fabletown’s problems would ever get solved. Colin even brags to me about what a good friend you are for letting him crash here at the risk of your own reputation. And I think that you are an amazing sheriff. I can tell that you genuinely care about Fabletown Bigby because I know you, and you don’t give anything the time of day unless you think it’s important or necessary; and you dedicate every waking moment of your life to making other people’s lives here as bearable as possible. You have a good heart in that big, wolf chest of yours Bigby; you’re a good man, and I… I love you for it.”
You clenched your fists hard enough that your nails dug into your palm. Why did you say that? Your heart skipped beats as you waited for a response.
Bigby finally crumbled; his face collapsed into harsh grimace as he squeezed his eyes shut. He tried to hide them, but small, hiccupping breaths shook his body. You took a small step forward, filling the gap between you, and slid your arms around his waist, cradling his shivering form to yours. His fingertips quickly dug into your back, and his forehead hit your shoulder. He let out a sob and flinched at the sound of himself crying. He hugged you tighter to him and wept more loudly, more openly. Tears soaked into your sleeve, and soon your own tears joined his on the fabric of your shirt. He needed this. He needed to let go.
“Oh Bigby… It’s okay. It’s okay.”
You stood there for what felt like hours in Bigby’s windowless, timeless, tiny bathroom. You rocked him back and forth gently and ran your nails comfortingly up and down Bigby’s back. Bigby continued to shake against you, periodically clutching at you, then relaxing. His breathing took a while to even out, and finally you heard him whisper something into your neck.
“Yeah Bigby?” You asked softly.
The man finally leaned back, standing up with his arms still encircling you, his face close to yours.
“I said, I love you too.” He confessed, his voice rough with crying. You watched his weak eyes flit over your expression before he leaned in. He pressed his forehead against yours, closing his eyes, waiting. His breath was hot against your lips, warming them up until you couldn’t stand it anymore and lifted your face up to meet him. Bigby wasted no time in capturing your lips, holding them between his, cherishing you like you always imagined he cherished his cigarettes. His big hands rubbed up to your shoulder blades and back down again as he kissed you one, two, three more times. He pressed one last kiss to your hairline, then rested his chin atop your head.
“Stay with me?” He asked. His chest rumbled warmly against your cheek. You smiled.
“Of course. But only if we sleep in the bed, okay?”
He chuckled.
“Yeah, we can sleep in the bed.”