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Normally, Jamie's the last person on earth to complain about bloodshed. He's been the cause of some of it, usually grinning all the while, and has been patched up by glaring but sympathetic medical professionals often enough because of it as well, also grinning, at least when he wasn't wincing. He wasn't lying when he'd said he was frustrated that There Will Be Blood had hardly any blood; point of fact, he'd moped for days after he'd seen the movie. Malcolm had had to give him a pile of tastefully photographed female nudes to get him in good spirits again.
So it's more than slightly abnormal that his hands are shaking at the sight of blood right now. His one hand on Malcolm's shoulder, then cupping the back of his head, then in the crook of his neck, his other hand holding a handkerchief to Malcolm's face—they're trembling with nerves as he watches blood drip down Malcolm's ashen face and onto a shirt that's suddenly the same shade of his skin. “Here,” he says, trying in vain to dab at the cuts on Malcolm's cheek that are bleeding really quite profusely. “Here, just hold this, I'll maim the fucker who-”
“Not his fault,” Malcolm says. “It's my fucking fault-”
They're on the floor, Malcolm barely sitting up, propped up on one hand as the other tries to take the handkerchief from Jamie. Jamie's kneeling half in front, half beside him, and doesn't see Glenn coming up behind him—but he feels it. Or he notices the twitch to Malcolm's eye, the slight flinch of his body; Jamie turns with thunder written on his face, ready to do exactly what he'd promised, but Malcolm's shifting around, grabbing at Jamie's arm. As if to say, leave it. Leave him alone.
Then there's Glenn kneeling on the other side of Malcolm, a styrofoam bowl of water and a wad of napkins in his hands. “We'll try to get it cleaned up,” he says quietly, stiffly. He's sorry. Fucking Glenn, Jamie thinks, can't even punch a man without feeling badly about it after. Can't even punch someone who probably fucking deserves it. He has no idea what started the fight but, in spite of his readiness to finish it on Malcolm's behalf, he's sure it was probably Malcolm's fault to begin with.
Big fucker always did have a habit of punching above his weight class. Lucky for them this time the knob he punched is basically Eeyore.
*
“He walked into a door.”
“Aye, a cunt-shaped door with a face like a lobotomized horse,” Jamie snarls.
“Yes, that's exactly how we'll answer it,” Glenn says. “A door the shape of labia majora, that makes perfect sense.”
“You forgot the lobotomized horse part,” Jamie says. He frowns, one eye squinting tighter than the other. “Is a cunt just the labia majora?”
“I don't know. I mean, I always assumed the term refers to the entire assembly,” Glenn says, “but I thought that might be too wordy for a statement to the press.”
“I fell off a fucking bicycle,” Malcolm says. He's laying in a hospital bed because of an inability to tell medical professionals what day of the week it is—which, for what it's worth, has nothing to do with Glenn hitting him and everything to do with the fact that they'd been working on fumes and rage for the past three days trying to manage the fallout from a data leak that sounds a lot worse than it actually is in context, but for which context cannot be provided because the context is, in part, classified. Malcolm has no clue what day it is because he simply has no clue what day it is, and relies on Sam to keep him up to speed. There's no convincing a doctor of that fact, so here he is, in a flimsy bit of paper, under a thin blanket and on a somehow thinner bed, being kept overnight for observation. The stitches are clean, at least, and he won't have a scar.
“Fine,” Glenn says. He jots down notes. “Bicycle accident it is. Do you even own a bicycle?”
“Get Sam to buy one for me,” Malcolm says. “A nice one, but not too nice.” He turns back to Jamie, who had sat down in the chair next to the bed and hadn't moved since. “Keep Glenn from fucking up too badly.”
“Yeah,” Jamie says, nodding. “You know I'm just waiting for the opportunity to apply some corrective arsehole destruction.”
“Pleasant, Jamie,” Glenn says with a glare.
Malcolm glares right back, as well as he can with gauze over one eye and on his cheek. “You, shut the fuck up.” He turns back to Jamie, glare gone, and says, “You, come here.” Before Jamie can say anything, Malcolm's hand is on the back of his neck, pulling him down for a quick peck on the lips. “I'll be fine,” he murmurs.
It's typical Malcolm. Jamie should be the one telling Malcolm he'll be all right, but this isn't the first time they've been in this position and even though it was Jamie holding the handkerchief to his face, Jamie taking wads of paper towels from Glenn and cleaning Malcolm up before they could quietly get themselves out of the office undetected, it's Malcolm who's trying to calm him down. As usual. And his hand on Jamie's neck does it, his thumb stroking against the spot right under his ear that always does something to him. He looks at Malcolm's face and lets out a breath he didn't realize he was holding. Then he remembers they're not actually alone.
Jamie glances a little nervously at Glenn, wondering if Malcolm had somehow forgotten he was in the room. Office relationships tend to be kept quiet for any number of reasons. But Glenn's looking at them patiently, unsurprised, and—fucking Glenn, he thinks. This is why Malcolm keeps him on, he's sharp enough that he must have figured out the two of them ages ago—and Malcolm must have figured out that Glenn had figured it out—but he's been around so long that he can't possibly give a shit. Malcolm didn't forget about Glenn's presence, he simply knows that it doesn't matter.
Jamie must have been staring a little too long, because Glenn raises an eyebrow at him, his patience turning into a sort of glazed over boredom. “Don't expect a kiss from me,” he says. “Come on.”
“Right.” He kisses Malcolm again—fuck Glenn, maybe he wants a second kiss—and says as he gets up to leave, “Don't terrorize the nurses here, okay?”
“The nurses here love me,” Malcolm tells Jamie's retreating back. It's probably not true, Jamie thinks as the door closes behind him, but he's hardly going to tell his injured and weakened beloved that. He's not a monster.
“If Malcolm didn't need you, I'd take a knife and stab you in the taint before slicing you open, cock to chin, and hanging you from a flagpole for what you did,” he tells Glenn cheerfully.
Glenn stiffens slightly but keeps walking. “That's...sweet, in its own way. I think.”
“Yeah,” Jamie says. He's not a monster at all. He's just a good boyfriend, who worries about his Malcolm.