“No, you gotta sort-of-angle-upwards when you pull,” I say, crossing over and gripping what space is left for me on the handle.
I don't know what it is in me, I just can't stand by and watch a job be done incorrectly.
I yank sort-of-upwards, once, twice—
The drawer springs free, and my elbow flies back, colliding with his nose.
He falls back, and my hands cover my mouth, downgrading my shriek of horror to a squeak.
“Oh no, I’m so sorry—” I start to say, my face turning scarlet. The mortification spreads through my body from there, heat moving through me like ink in water.
I just elbowed his face. Did I break something? Surely Orc bones are too solid for a puny human to shatter, right?
“Don’t worry, it was just an accident,” he says, his massive hand cupped over his nose protectively, like I might do more damage than I already have.
“But your nose, I am so sorry,” I repeat like it'll do anything.
He waves his other hand to dismiss my concern and shrugs casually like being elbowed in the face is nothing to be concerned over, and not something we need to file a whole accident report over.
He removes his hand and dark green blood is dripping down his face. Some of it is smeared on his palm, and his eyes darken behind his glasses when he looks at it. “Oh, fuck.”
I gasp at the sight of what I’ve done, and as soon as I breathe in, all the hair on my skin stands up, a storm of red flushing my cheeks.
My heart is pounding and my head feels a little funny. Not like I’m going to faint at the sight of blood or anything like that, but more like the fog of a fever taking over. It’s not just my forehead, I can feel it all the way down my stomach.
“Yeah, uh, that's what I'm saying, it's bad,” I tell him. I turn away, searching the room for a tissue box, but the feeling continues to bloom. There’s a package of paper towels stored here, for the office kitchen. I tear through the plastic and haphazardly rip a few off.
When I turn back around, the feeling returns in a second wave. It’s so heavy I think I forget to breathe for a solid few seconds. It’s definitely too hot in this room for me to be wearing this cardigan.
I look at him, tipping his head back, trying to pinch the bridge of his nose gingerly with one hand and cupping the other beneath his chin to catch the blood. A drop has already stained his shirt, the fabric straining even more intensely at the buttons than it was before.
“You’re supposed to lean your head forward for a nosebleed,” I mumble. The words don't come out the way I want them to, authoritative, like I've got this, like I'm keeping my cool in bad situations. “Something about gravity and... oh.”
My knees feel weak as I try to move closer to hand him the paper towels. They fall out of my hand, drifting pathetically down onto his lap. I don’t even have the capability to cringe at myself for dropping them, I’m so physically overwhelmed, and I have no idea why.
It’s then I recognize some of the sensations sweeping through my body. The desperate, aching hollow between my legs, the pulsing arousal of my clit, the fact that I can tell exactly where my nipples are in my bra now.
My blood shouldn’t be rushing anywhere but my brain in this situation.
I need to get out of this room.
I turn around and stuff my reports in the drawer, before running out the door. I don’t know what’s come over me, but I can barely think until I’m in the bathroom near my office, pressing my face against the cold porcelain of the sink. I turn on the tap and only barely resist sticking my entire head underneath it like a woman in a badly written 90’s movie. Instead I'm at least a little more mindful of my makeup. I cup cold handfuls of water to my cheeks and forehead and avoid making my mascara run.
The air in here is cool and easy. I gulp down breaths like I’d just been drowning.
When I have a little bit of my brain back, I yank a dozen paper towels out of the dispenser and soak them under the tap. I wring them out and press them to my neck. For the first time in ten minutes, I can think like a person that has manners and is considerate of others.
I was just super rude to that Orc from accounting.
“Fuck,” I groan. I really just elbowed him in the face, threw some paper towels at him and left. I definitely didn’t put my papers in the right spot in that drawer either.
I need to go back and apologize for all of that. He’d tried to help me, and I’d essentially beat him up.
That makes me snort a little. I wonder if there’s ever been an HR complaint filed for a human knocking an Orc on his ass before.
My laugh turns into a hiccup, and then a dizzy feeling. I don’t understand it. I’ve never gotten sick from seeing blood before.
Maybe sick isn’t the right word for it. None of that was necessarily a bad feeling, just entirely inappropriate.