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“Ow!”
“Sit still.”
“But it hurts!”
“It would hurt less if you would just keep still.”
Carson grips Aaron’s chin with one hand and uses the other to dab gently at the shallow cut on his cheekbone with a small cotton pad doused in disinfectant. Aaron flinches slightly but doesn’t turn his head away this time. He just gives Carson a doleful look. They’re sitting on Carson’s bed, both cross-legged, and Aaron has his hands in his lap. “How bad is it?” he asks, twisting his hands nervously. “It’s not gonna bruise, is it?”
Carson purses his lips. “I can’t say for sure. But putting ice on it will keep the swelling down.” He tosses the cotton pad into the trash can beside his bed and reaches for the plastic baggy of ice on his bedside table. But when Carson presses the ice to Aaron’s cheek, he hisses and pulls back. Carson sighs impatiently. “What did I say about moving?”
“It’s too cold,” Aaron complains. “I’m going to get frostbite on my face. Can’t we wrap the bag in a towel or something?”
Carson sighs again and leans over the side of his bed. He comes up with the t-shirt he wore to bed last night, and he’s wrapping it around the ice bag when he catches Aaron staring at him. Much to his embarrassment, Carson feels the back of his neck heat up. “Is this okay? I can go grab a towel from the bathroom if you want, I just thought-”
“No, that’s fine,” Aaron says quickly.
Carson is acutely aware of the way Aaron’s still staring at him as he holds the wrapped ice to his cheek. He clears his throat awkwardly. “So, explain to me what happened exactly?”
Aaron grins, then winces when the movement of his cheek scrunches the skin around the cut. “I was defending your honour, Carson.”
“Excuse me?”
“Well, not your honour. The honour of the Writer’s Club. Which you, you know, embody or encompass or whatever,” he says, still smiling.
Carson gives him his best unimpressed glare, chin tilted down and lips pressed together in a hard line.
Aaron laughs. “Oh, come on. Lighten up.”
“I’ll lighten up when you give me a straight answer.”
“Fine, fine.” Aaron heaves a sigh. “It was nothing, really. I caught a couple of Justin’s friends defacing the Writer’s Club flyers on the bulletin board by the main office, and I objected. Politely,” he adds, raising his eyebrows pointedly.
Carson ignores the dig. Aaron is the least confrontational person he knows; the fact that he dissented at all takes Carson by surprise. And over something as petty and trivial as a couple of dim-witted jocks writing misspelled slurs on some posters. Carson can’t fathom why. “And then?”
“And then they laughed at me and… They insulted my hair.”
“Oh, no.”
“Oh yes. So I made a few choice comments about their IQs,” Carson feels his chest swell with pride, “and they shoved me into the bulletin board. Somehow the corner caught my face when I fell and, well, here we are.”
There’s a pause, and then Carson pulls his hand back, taking the ice with him. “You shouldn’t have done it,” he says quietly, staring at his lap. “It’s not worth it, Aaron. We put up new posters every week and they’re always ruined by the end of the day. That’s how it works.”
“I’m glad I did it anyway. Maybe those idiots will think twice next time.”
“They won’t.”
“They might.”
“You still shouldn’t have.”
“I know. I wanted to.” Aaron reaches for the ice but Carson beats him to it, pressing it back against Aaron’s cheek with a shaky hand.
Carson is startled when Aaron grips his wrist lightly, steadying him. He swallows thickly and meets Aaron’s gaze, finding nothing but an easy smile and warm affection colouring his features. Carson lifts one corner of his mouth in a small smile in return. “I don’t need you defending me or my club, you know.”
“But it was kinda nice anyway, right?”
Carson thinks about how much the Writer’s Club means to him, and how much it must mean to Aaron for him to have done what he did. He thinks about how nice Aaron’s hand feels wrapped around his wrist, wonders if maybe it’s not the club Aaron cares so much about. He exhales slowly, and smiles more fully.
“Yeah. Kinda nice.”