Charlie was lying on the couch with the latest issue of Discrete Applied Mathematics; when he looked up, it was to try running a cycle of Cechlárová's algorithm for testing eigenvectors in his head. Sight cut in before sound, so for a few seconds he was processing the algorithm and watching Don walk through the noon-bright living room, waving his hands expressively as he spoke. He wasn't looking at Charlie, wasn't talking to him; Charlie wasn't obligated to synthesize noise into meaning. But it was Don, and Charlie barely made it through the first two steps before the algorithm dissolved. It was awfully early for Don to be home, but then he didn't act like he was staying--his shirt was dirty, and he was headed for the stairs. Charlie's eye caught on the leg of Don's jeans, torn from the knee halfway to the hem. The dark fabric gapped as Don walked, flashing a dirty white bandage.
Not dirty. Bloody. "--To change clothes," Don said, "I'll be out of your hair in a minute."
Charlie tore his eyes away from Don and looked toward his father, who was standing in the dining room, watching Don. He didn't look concerned. He hadn't seen the bandage. Don hadn't wanted him to see it, that's why he'd walked so fast. His father turned away, heading toward the kitchen--cooking? For lunch?--and Charlie looked back toward Don, just in time to see his stride falter, ever so slightly, as he started up the stairs. The sound of the journal hitting the floor in front of the couch was loud in Charlie's ears, but he was already on his feet, glancing back to be sure his father was in the kitchen, not watching, before he followed Don up the stairs.
He took the steps two at a time, and caught Don limping openly in the upstairs hallway. Don glanced over at his shoulder, smiling the way he did when he wanted Charlie to think nothing was wrong, and said, "Hey, buddy--"
"What happened to your knee?" Charlie asked. Don's smile faltered, and Charlie pressed on. "Don, you're limping, what--"
"It's nothing," Don said, but he didn't shift his weight onto his right foot. "It's just a bruise."
"There's blood, I saw--"
Don said, "Charlie--" but Charlie waved his hands, shushing him.
"Go sit down, okay? I'll get the first aid kit. You at least need a new bandage, that one's bled through."
Don looked at Charlie, intently, until Charlie looked away, but from the corner of his eye Charlie saw him look down at his knee, shifting his leg to see it better, and then he said, "Okay. Thanks."
When he turned away and headed the rest of the way down the hall--to his old bedroom, where Dad had been leaving his clothes when they turned up in the laundry--he didn't bother to hide the limp. Charlie knew that should have made him feel better, to have Don not hiding this from him, but it just made his stomach hurt.
It really was nothing, obviously; if it was bad, he wouldn't be walking, even with a limp. If it was bad--but the paramedics had just bandaged him up and let him go when he'd been shot, even if it was just a graze. This could have been anything. Charlie picked up the first aid kit from under the bathroom sink and headed into the bedroom. Don was sitting on the bed, his ruined jeans in a heap on the floor, his legs bare between the tails of his white shirt and the tops of his socks. His head was bent as he peeled back the tape holding a square of gauze the size of Charlie's palm to his right knee, and Charlie dropped to his knees beside him and watched, his hands tight on the plastic box.
Don wasn't a slow peeler or a quick ripper--he did the first half slow and the second half fast, just like he always had, like he meant to be patient and careful but then it got to be too much for him. Charlie had always picked at his bandages, minutely, until they fell off more or less on their own. Under this bandage, which Don folded up into a more or less tidy bundle of stained gauze and dirty tape, was a raw patch of skin, covered in drying blood. As Charlie watched, a few fresh drops oozed to the surface where removing the bandage had restarted the bleeding.
"See?" Don said above him. "Nothing, just a skinned knee. You've had one or two of those yourself, as I recall." Charlie nodded, but he couldn't look away from Don's knee. He'd always gone to Don with his skinned knees, when he was younger. His mom or dad for bruises, when there was nothing to be done but have them kissed better--but always Don when he drew blood. Maybe because he'd wanted to impress Don. He wondered if Don had ever felt like this, sick-scared that Charlie could have been hurt worse, when he saw Charlie bleed. Don had always seemed to take it in stride.
Charlie could see how the scrape had happened; it had an obvious leading edge marked by superficial parallel scratches, and though it had been cleaned, the job wasn't perfect. There were a few specks of grit in the blood. He set his hand thoughtlessly on Don's thigh--hairy and warm and whole under his touch--as he leaned closer, and then he said, his voice as steady as he could make it, "Don, this is road rash. What happened?"
"It's not--"
Charlie looked up at Don, fighting not to snap at him. Dad was downstairs. He couldn't make a scene. "Tell me what happened," he repeated, in a normal tone. "You're hurt. Tell me why."
Don was frowning at him, puzzled, as though just because his leg wasn't broken he hadn't been in danger, as though this didn't matter because he'd walked away from it, as though--
"Okay," Don said slowly, "Okay. It's not road rash. I was pursuing a suspect on foot, and I wound up tackling him down a flight of stairs, concrete stairs--"
Charlie had to look away from Don's eyes; he could see how it had happened, now, the way Don's body had skidded down the risers, curling, turning--his hand lifted from Don's thigh, reached for his right elbow, but Don jerked his arm away. He trailed his fingers down Don's side, and when Charlie touched Don's hip he hissed audibly. Charlie pulled up his shirt--had to see, had to know--and there was a bruise there, black and purple. Charlie pulled down the waistband of Don's boxers to see the whole extent of it. It was bad, but there was nothing to do for it, really--and before Charlie thought about what he was doing or why, he leaned in and pressed his lips to the discolored skin. It was smooth and flushed-hot under his kiss, and then Don's hand was on his forehead, shoving him backward so hard he fell on his ass as Don jumped to his feet, whispering, "Charlie, what the hell do you--"
Charlie pushed himself up, straight back at Don, caught him by the shoulders and kissed him, fiercely, shoving against him so hard that Don faltered backward, his mouth opening under Charlie's as much from shock as anything else. Charlie couldn't let go, even though there was at least a one in four chance Don's shoulder was bruised as well, that Charlie was hurting him, but he couldn't let Don push him away again, and Don's mouth was hot and wet and moving under his, fighting.
But then it all fell into place; Don's hands caught Charlie's elbows, holding him in place, holding them both in place, and Don's head tilted, and he was kissing Charlie back. Heat dissolved the sick knot in Charlie's stomach, and Don drew back as if he could sense the precise instant when Charlie no longer needed the kiss more than he needed to breathe. Don's arms went around him then, pulling Charlie close, too close to kiss, and Charlie closed his arms tightly, too tightly, around Don. "Charlie," Don whispered in his ear, "Charlie, hey, it's okay, I'm okay." What he meant, Charlie thought, was not here, stop that, but also that he was okay. He was okay, of course. He was on his feet. They were both still on their feet, so by definition, they were still okay.
"You just--" Charlie meant to sound angry; he still felt angry, and his arms tightened hard enough around Don that it had to hurt a little, but Don just held on right back, and Charlie's voice wobbled no matter what his arms did. "You have to be careful," Charlie whispered. "You can't--tackling someone down a flight of stairs, concrete--you can't--Don, you have to be careful."
Don rubbed his cheek against Charlie's and murmured, "I am careful," and then he pulled away, bending to pick up the first aid kit. As he sat down again at the foot of the bed, he said, even more quietly, so soft Charlie could barely hear it, "We have to be careful."
There was blood down to Don's shin now, and Charlie had to look away. Better anger than anything else, warm in his belly, so Charlie muttered, "It won't matter if you break your neck."
Don leaned forward, resting his elbow on his left knee and his face in his hand for a second, and said, "Charlie..."
He sounded too tired to finish the sentence, and Charlie felt like an ass, yelling at Don when he was the one who was hurt. "Yeah," Charlie said quietly. "I'll go--I'll tell Dad you're staying for lunch."
He didn't wait for Don to tell him he didn't have time to stay for lunch, just headed downstairs. The living room was flooded with light, and when Charlie looked down he saw a smear of blood on the knee of his jeans. He stood there, staring, until he heard Don's steps on the stairs behind him, and his father coming out of the kitchen to see what he was doing.
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