|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Posted: Mon May 03, 2010 1:26 am
Hector's jaw had twisted into a clenched-tooth grimace. At the worst of it -- when Johnny was coaxing the tweezers at the tip of the bullet, wrenching it from his flesh -- he made a low baying grunt of pain, a sort of mixed-up nnnghh! squeezed out from between his molars. Now he pressed his uniform shirt to the wound and lay back panting. He'd forgotten the order; now he breathed.
"Not bad," he said lowly, "bright spark."
They were both relieved. Sodden black wisps of fabric were attached to the pellet, which was irritatingly a lot smaller than Jesse had imagined it to be. Also unimagined was the hot water, the care with which Johnny had sterilised everything when he hadn't even thought of infection or sterility or anything but forking out the bullet in his shoulder.
Slipping back to Jesse was another thing entirely. He was pulling off his sweater, yanking off his shirt in a hurry before he got blood on it, clamping a palm over it to clot the flow as Johnny got a cloth. His breathing was still shallow, his face ashen: mild shock. Having mild shock in the room filled with the world's largest supply of candy wasn't a bad idea.
"All right," he said. "Here's the part where I admit you just went above and beyond." His smile was wan but genuine. A Sudoku book fell to the foot of the bed as he tossed it there with his good arm. "You're an annoying, self-righteous know-it-all with stupid glasses. And you just performed backalley surgery on me without even thinking about chickening out, so I owe you, boy genius."
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon May 03, 2010 3:24 pm
It took him a moment to regain his bearings before the green-haired teen skittered off for bathroom. The blood aside, pulling a bullet out of someone's shoulder while they were still a) alive and b) with no pain medication was not an experience he'd like to repeat any time soon. He was so glad he wasn't studying to be a doctor or anything, otherwise he would have been having a very serious career choice crisis.
The cloth was damp and still warm when Johnny pressed it up against the bullet wound, holding it firmly. They'd both been lucky that it hadn't hit anything vital and Johnny hadn't hit anything vital trying to get it out. Only once he was sure the bleeding had gone down enough to bandage he covered the wound with a wad of gauze and then one of those large, fabric Band-Aids that didn't come off unless you forced it to (and when it did it took all of the hair in that area with it). Seemingly satisfied, he took the opportunity to settle on the free portion of his bed with a small sigh.
Thank god that was over.
His breather was short lived, however, as Jesse tossed him his Sudoku book. What was he… oh. Right. The thing that had started this whole mess in the first place. In hindsight it was stupid thing and Johnny's could help the half-smile that quirked the corners of his mouth upwards. It would figure that Jesse could both insult him and praise him in the same breath without even trying. "Seeing as you took a bullet for someone who insulted your intelligence, among other things, I think it makes us even."
He paused to set his glasses on top of his head, eyes wandering around his room as he considered his next move. They were neutral again. That was where they always ended up. Friends that bothered the crap out of each other but still stuck around when they were needed most. How completely bizarre.
"You want ice cream first or painkillers?" he asked, attention back on his recovering patient.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon May 03, 2010 4:58 pm
There they were, a Cold War of grateful disrespect. Johnny's tentative smile made Jesse's bigger, and it was just about squishy between them before he got distracted with the band-aid patch on his shoulder and got involved picking at the corners. War wound. You couldn't hang around with someone, get shot with them, have them dig around near your clavicle and stick you with a band-aid without ending up even awkward friends.
They were probably going to strangle each other sooner or later, clawing for scraps of Dylan's attention and pretending they weren't the whole time. But it'd be a friendly kind of strangling. Strangling between brothers. How completely bizarre.
"How about we stick the painkillers in the icecream and leave it at that?"
Jesse, 1; Johnny, 1.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Reply
