Turn to Me: Chapter 12
Link spoke through heavy lips. “I don’t feel —“ His knees started to buckle. Rhett caught him under the armpits and carefully lowered him to the floor. By the time he got there, Link’s eyes were closed and he was out cold.“Oh no, oh no,” Rhett muttered to himself. He grabbed a roll of paper towels off the counter and pressed one against the cut, holding it firmly for a minute or so. Link’s eyes were fluttering as Rhett lifted the towel to check underneath. The bleeding had slowed. “I’ll be right back, Link. Don’t go anywhere.”
Rhett grabbed the first aid kit from the closet and a blanket from the bed and brought them back to where Link lay. His eyes were open now, tracking Rhett’s movements, but he looked very pale. His bare chest was coated with viscous yellowish soup and the occasional noodle. Rhett attempted to wipe the worst of it off with the power towels before bundling Link into the blanket.
He took Link’s wounded hand and looked at it closely. It was still bleeding, but didn’t seem terribly serious now that Rhett had some time to view it calmly. He opened a packet of antiseptic wipes, took one out, and pressed it into the wound, feeling sick to his stomach as Link gasped in pain. “Sorry, man,” he whispered. For all their competitiveness and bravado, when it came to real pain, he would always choose to feel it himself rather than watch Link suffer it.
He put some antibiotic ointment on a piece of gauze and taped it over the wound, wrapping more tape around Link’s hand until it seemed secure. By that time, Link had become more functional. He looked up at Rhett with asomewhat delirious grin. “You have something on your face.”Rhett wiped his hand over his face and pulled a noodle out of his beard. “Gross,” he said.
“Yeah.” Link nodded. “That was pretty stupid of me, huh.”
“At least I was here to keep you from hitting your head.”
“If you hadn’t been invading my personal space, maybe it wouldn’t have happened at all.”
“Oh? Do I get you that hot and bothered?”
Link blushed and turned his head away. “That’s not what I meant.”
“Sure, sure.” Rhett stood up and tried to clean the counter without tripping over Link. He took out another can of soup and opened it quite easily. He started heating it on the stove as Link carefully got to his feet, clutching the blanket around himself.
“I’m gonna try to clean this stuff off so I can stop smelling like chicken,” he said. He disappeared into the bathroom and emerged a few minutes later having changed into his pajamas, looking cleaner. He went to Rhett’s side. “I can keep an eye on that if you want to go clean up.”
Rhett washed his face and changed into his cotton pants too, and put his flannel shirt back on. He felt exhausted even though it was only mid-afternoon. His shoulders ached from chopping wood.
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