Ain't It A Fine Life, Carrying The Banner!

Drabble 24- "You're the only one I trust to do this." (JackCrutchie)

Crutchie was woken by a thump and a loud breathless exclamation of 'dammit!'

Sitting up on his thin mattress, he looked groggily toward the fire escape. Jack was lying flat on his back just in front of it, as if he'd dropped shortly after pulling himself up.

Crutchie was about to go back to sleep when he looked closer. Jack's breathing was shallow and unsteady, and one hand was pressed to his side, the other stuffed in his mouth to stifle the little pained gasps and moans spilling from his mouth. As Crutchie watched, horrified, Jack moved his hand away from his side and held it up.

It was bloody.

"Jacky?" he called softly.

Jack gave a start and turned his head. "Hey."

"'Hey?' You come up here, bleeding and beat up, and all you say is 'hey?' Get yourself over here, let me have a look at you," Crutchie fussed, not bothering to keep quiet.

Jack shoved himself roughly into a standing position and crossed their rooftop in unsteady steps, collapsing on their mattress next to Crutchie's legs.

"What happened, Jack?" he asked softly, carding his fingers through his boyfriend's unruly mop of hair.

"The Delancey brothers," he groaned, giving up all pretense of being well, "What else?"

"What'd you do now?"

"They were pickin' on some little kid who hadn't been able to sell all the papes they bought. I bought 'em off the kid and told Oscar and Morris to pick on someone their own size." Even now, beat up and in pain, Jack looked a little smug.

"Idiot," Crutchie reprimanded softly. "You're gonna get yourself killed one of these days."

"I don't like bullies," Jack replied, "And that kid needed to have enough money to eat tonight."

"That big heart of yours is gonna land you in the Refuge again if you don't watch yourself."

Jack visibly shuddered. "Yeah, can we save the lecture for when I ain't bleeding out on our one mattress? Priorities."

Crutchie looked down, alarmed, to see that Jack was indeed still bleeding profusely. With slightly shaking fingers, he undid the buttons of Jack's shirt and vest, sliding them off until he had an unobstructed view of Jack's chest.

A long cut ran from the top of his ribcage to the last rib, bleeding slowly. He was bruised and scraped all over, and there were definite marks where someone had whaled on him with brass knuckles.

Crutchie whistled lowly between his teeth. "Ouch. They gotcha real good, huh?"

"Yeah," Jack agreed breathlessly. "The one on my side. Deep enough to need stitches?"

Steeling himself, Crutchie looked again. It was deep and probably painful, but they couldn't just ignore it.

"Probably. I'll go get Specs, he's pretty good with this sort of thing-" he started, interrupted by Jack's hand firmly encircling his wrist.

"No. I don't wanna worry the boys, and you're the only one I trust to do this. We've got a needle and thread up here, yeah? There's a first aid kit somewhere," Jack spoke in a rush, waving a hand vaguely to the stack of things by his container of second hand art supplies and unfinished drawings.

Crutchie stretched his arm, reluctant to get up, and snagged the first aid kit with his fingertips. As he threaded the needle with careful fingers and rinsed the cut with rubbing alcohol, he looked down at the boy lying in his lap.

Jack swore loudly at the first touch of the alcohol, but quickly managed to corral his sailor's tongue into simply gritting his teeth and bracing himself as Crutchie began to stitch up the cut with precise movements.

As he looped the last stitch through and tucked the supplies away, back into their tower of assorted items, Jack gave him a lazy grin.

"Thanks."

"Don't go thankin' me yet, you're going to be sore come morning."

"I know. But I knew I could trust you to fix me up."

"I'd really prefer if you didn't need to be fixed up," he fretted. "You keep doing this and making me worry."

Jack only smiled and grabbed Crutchie's collar, pulling him down and kissing him.

"I love you, dork."

"I love you too, you big idiot."