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It happened so quickly that Luke almost didn't have time to realize what happened.
The knife slipped off the watermelon and in Luke's panic, he slid it toward his body. The knife was pressed against his hand just hard enough to slice his hand open. In less than five seconds, blood started pouring out of the palm of his hand and a searing pain spread like wildfire throughout his right hand.
Luke stared at his bloody hand for a second, momentarily stupid with his panic, before yelling out for his brothers.
"Jack! Quinn! Come here!" Luke's voice sounded terrified and distressed, shaking as he watched blood drip from his hand to the counter, then onto the floor. He knows that he should be covering the cut up with a towel or something to lessen the bleeding, but time feels like it's standing still and he's stuck in place, his feet glued to the floor.
He can only distantly hear Jack and Quinn running down the stairs, Quinn yelling at Jack to hurry up and Jack saying that he's going as fast as he can without falling.
"Luke what happ-" Quinn gasped and rushed to Luke's side, covering Luke's hand with his own two hands. No towel or anything, effectively covering his own hands in blood. Luke became aware of the metallic smell that was filling the room, assaulting his senses and bringing tears to his eyes.
"Shit! God, this just had to happen while mom and dad are outta town! What do we do?" Jack didn't realize that he was yelling, hands running through his long hair and crouching down.
Quinn was clearly trying not to panic himself, for the greater good of his siblings. The bleeding hasn't stopped, and the only thing Quinn has done by covering the cut is cover his own hands with the thick liquid.
"God, oh, um," Quinn licked his lips, struggling to find the words to say what needed to happen. Although, it's hard to find the words to a solution that he doesn't know. "I can drive."
"You have a permit! Legally, you cannot drive us to the hospital." Jack yells, standing up and walking to Luke's side. He stood there, taking in the amount of blood that is on the counter, on the knife, on the floor, on his brothers.
"If I drive really safely, we won't get pulled over! The E.R is like, ten minutes away. We gotta get to the car." Quinn said, removing his hands from the cut and wiping them on his white pajama pants without thinking.
Jack stared at him with wide eyes, glancing down at the blood stained pants. "It looks like you killed someone."
Quinn doesn't hear him, though, he's grabbing the car keys and opening the door, motioning for his brothers to follow. Jack wraps an arm around Luke's shoulders and hurriedly leads him out the door and into the car, sliding into the back seat next to him.
Luke is still shaking, trying to stop thinking about how much the cut hurt, trying to stop thinking about the feeling of the blood drying and then being coated with another layer of sticky liquid.
“I don’t wanna die.” Luke sniffled, trying to stop tears from falling out of his eyes. Jack felt his heart break at hearing how scared Luke sounded, “You will not die, Luke. I promise.”
Jack didn’t know if he could keep that promise.
"I'm sorry." Luke whispers as Quinn pulls out of the driveway cautiously, his voice is so quiet that Jack barely catches it.
"What for, Lukey?" Jack asks gently, covering the cut with his own hand, covering his hand in blood as well. Luke distantly thinks that it will just look so great when three young boys walk into the Emergency Room, covered in copious amounts of blood.
"I caused you guys to panic over a stupid cut." the eleven year old muttered, shuffling closer to Jack's warm body. Jack wrapped a protective, yet still so comforting, arm around Luke's smaller body, "It's not stupid, Luke, you cut yourself pretty deep. You would've needed our help anyway. Don't feel bad about this."
Luke shivered, New Jersey winters are no joke, trying to press himself impossibly closer into his older brother. Jack hugged him tighter, enabling him to get closer and warmer. Luke gagged a little when warm blood trailed down his arm and to his elbow, dripping onto his sweatpants.
Quinn pulled into the Emergency Room and found a parking spot close to the entrance. "Can you walk, Luke? Have you lost too much blood yet?" Quinn asked, unbuckling his seat belt and opening his door, Jack doing the same for Luke and himself.
"You've lost a lot of blood, I'm not risking it. I'm carrying you inside." Luke opened his mouth to protest, but closed his mouth when Quinn gave him The Look.
Jack stepped off to the side and Quinn hooked an arm beneath Luke's knees and under his shoulder blades, picking his youngest brother up and closing the door with his foot.
"Okay, go inside. He's cold." Luke emphasized Quinn's point by burying his face into Quinn's arm.
Jack and Quinn walked as fast as they could to the doors, opting to go in through the revolving doors so they don't coat the door handle in their brother's blood. That's a bio-hazard, which is the last thing needed in a place filled with bio-hazards.
"Lukey, are you still with us?" Quinn asked calmly, smiling to himself when Luke nodded.
The three boys looked entirely too calm to be walking into the E.R with hands and pants and shirts covered in blood, with Jack off to the side holding Luke's bleeding hand. The cut hasn't stopped bleeding, but it's bleeding significantly less. Probably because Luke's body can only produce so much blood and he's running out of blood to bleed.
Jack walked up to the front desk, Quinn and Luke trailing behind him. The front desk lady looked down at Jack in confusion, understandably so, Jack is a young boy who's shown up seemingly alone to the E.R with nothing wrong with him, aside from the blood covering his hands that the lady has yet to see.
She glanced back at Quinn and Luke, gasping when she saw Quinn's pajama pants covered in blood and Luke's hand soaking Quinn's light t-shirt with even more blood. Call Quinn a towel because he's soaking up all of Luke's blood.
"Hi. We need help." Jack said, smiling sweetly like his father told him to do when he wants something. "What happened, sweetheart?"
"My brother cut himself on accident. It's really deep and bleeding a lot." Jack stood on his toes and leaned closer to the woman, "I think he might need stitches."
Luke is terrified of needles and anything sharp going into his skin, and actively avoids anything that could cause him to get stitches. Jack is still a little shocked that Luke plays hockey because of that.
"Okay, I will get you a doctor as soon as I can. Where are your parents?" She asked, typing quickly on her computer. Jack glanced nervously back at Quinn. "They're in New York. Brooklyn, I think." Quinn said, stepping closer to the desk.
"I think he's gonna pass out. He's lost a lot of blood." Quinn's eyebrows are knitted together with worry, glancing down at Luke's fluttering eyelids and feeling how limp Luke's gone in his arms.
"It's okay, sweetheart. He'll be okay. How old are you?" The question is directed at Quinn.
"I'm 15, I'm the oldest." The woman typed on her computer again, "And what's your name?"
"Quinn. Quinn Hughes. H-U-G-H-E-S." Quinn spelled out, just like his mother had told him if something like this ever happened. At the time, Quinn thought it was silly and that nothing like this would ever happen. But Quinn is now eternally grateful for his mother's cautiousness.
"Do you know if you have any insurance?"
"Uhm, I think it's AmeriHealth. I don't know, though." Quinn tries to remember what his mother told him about, but he really can't focus on anything that isn't how Luke is losing more blood as they speak, how Luke's arm feels cold, how Luke had gone limp in his arms. His brother could die in his arms.
"Okay sweetheart, who's been hurt?"
"Luke, same last name. He's cold, he's been limp for a while at this point, when can we get a doctor?" Jack answers for Quinn, feeling how scared Quinn is deep down.
"Soon, I promise. A doctor is on their way here right now. Your brother will be okay, he will not die, I promise." Jack thought this woman was making a lot of promises that Jack wasn't sure she could keep. She doesn't know that their counter and floor at home is covered in drying blood, she doesn't know that Luke has bled on the floor and seat of their car. Jack feels like she should know that, she should know what they've been through in the past thirty minutes.
"Jack? Are you coming?" Quinn asked, standing in front of a doctor.
"Yeah." Jack jogged over to his brothers, looking down at Luke in concern when they were reunited.
Neither of them had realized how scary this whole situation had been for them until the adrenaline wore off. They didn't realize that Luke could actually die, even if the chances were slim. Luke has bled so much, it made Quinn a little nauseous thinking about it. It made him very nauseous knowing that his little brother's blood was all over him, permanently staining his light colored clothes a dark red.
They were ushered into a hospital bed, or Luke was, and supplies for stitches were brought out. Quinn and Jack both hoped that Luke wouldn't be conscious enough to register what was happening, but not everyone is that lucky, and Luke's eyes widened and he sat up weakly.
"No, no. Please. I'll be fine." Luke weakly protested, pulling his cut hand away from the doctor. Quinn felt his heart break for his little brother. Regardless of how much they fought, Quinn could never feel anything but undying love toward his little brothers. He'll always hate seeing them in any type of pain.
He was quick to rush to his little brother's side, providing any comfort that would be successful for Luke. "Lukey, look at me." Quinn said sternly, but still so softly.
Luke's teary eyes met his oldest brother's own calmer ones. "You need stitches. The cut is super deep, and if you don't get stitches, you will bleed out. If you bleed out, you'll die. You are too young to die, and we all love you too much for you to die. I will be right here with you, I promise. You can squeeze my hand as much as you'd like, but you can't not get stitches."
"Okay. Do I have to get them right now?" Luke asked, already grasping Quinn's hand firmly. Quinn would be shocked if he didn't leave here in a cast with a broken hand. "Yeah, unfortunately you do. Can we start?" Quinn knew that they would be starting either way, and it truly didn't matter what Luke wanted. He thanked any divine being who was listening that Luke slowly nodded.
Jack nodded at the doctor, who had respectfully stepped away to give the two siblings some space. He moved closer to Luke and picked up the lidocaine injection. "I'm just going to numb you, alright?"
Luke tensed up and nodded. "Squeeze my hand." Quinn reminded Luke.
"Three.. Two.." The doctor stabbed Luke with the needle, causing him to tense up and squeeze his eyes shut. Quinn pressed his lips into a thin line as Luke squeezed his hand harder. Quinn didn't even think that his little brother was that strong.
"Okay! All done! That wasn't so bad, was it?"
"Yeah, it kinda was." Luke said, slowly opening his eyes and loosening his grip on Quinn's hand. “Okay, now I’m just going to stitch you up. It won’t hurt, you might just feel a little pulling, but it’ll be over so fast! You’ll be out of here in no time!”
The doctor tried to sound cheery and excited, but Luke couldn’t reciprocate his happiness.
Jack stood off to the side of Quinn, his eyes shut tight and his head turned to the side. He couldn’t bare to see the needles going into his skin, pulling his flesh together and repairing the fjord looking cut in his little brother’s hand.
Luke’s eyes were shut in a similar fashion, his head buried into Quinn’s shoulders and his uninjured hand had a vice grip on his eldest brother’s hand.
”You’re okay, Lukey. It won’t hurt, I promise.” Quinn winced as he watched the needle be thrust into Luke’s hand quickly, pulling the string through the hole. While his brother’s couldn’t handle watching, Quinn couldn’t pull his eyes away from the scene if he wanted to.
And he wanted to. He felt the phantom pull of the thread weaving into Luke’s skin.
“Quinny,” Luke whined, “it feels so weird.”
“Does it hurt?”
“No. Just weird. I don’t like it.” Luke tensed his shoulders when he felt a particularly sharp pain, biting his lip and cheeks to stop himself from crying out in pain. He didn’t want to seem like a baby.
”You’re okay, only a little bit more. Halfway there.” Quinn ran his free hand along Luke’s arm, wanting to puke as he watches Luke’s skin get pulled together.
Quinn can hear Jack pacing behind him, he can see it out of his peripheral, Jack’s stained red shirt and hands and pants moving back and forth near the curtains. Quinn does not want to be the one doing laundry after all of this, he does not want to be the person to clean his little brother’s dried blood off the floors and counters.
Unfortunately, he will be that one to clean everything up. Although, as much as he loves his Canadiens shirt, he will probably just throw it away. There’s no way he’s getting all of the blood out of that thing.
”Okay! All done! A nurse will be right in with a wrap and we’ll get you all cleaned up and out of here.” The doctor patted Luke’s shin and stood up, his chair squeaking. Luke let himself breathe properly, trying, and succeeding, to take deep breaths.
“Good job, Lukey. You did so well!” Quinn stood up and hugged Luke tightly, more to sooth his own nerves rather than Luke’s, but Luke appreciated it either way.
“God you could’ve died, Lukey.” Jack joined in on their hug, clutching Luke’s head to his chest, pressing his middle and index finger into Luke’s pulse point, finding comfort in the fact that he can still feel his little brother’s heart.
Luke laughed, “Hate to ruin the moment, but both of you tried to break all of my bones yesterday, and now you’re about to cry over the fact I’m not dead.”
Quinn smiled into Luke’s hair, “The past is the past.”
They all laughed, Quinn and Jack holding Luke as close as they possibly can without hurting them. Luke lets Jack crawl into the E.R bed to hold Luke even closer.
If Quinn takes a picture, that’s no one’s business.