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“Fuck,” Aaron hissed, instinctively moving to cradle his burnt hand close to his chest. He’d been tasked with making dinner tonight, and decided to go with lasagna. It’s simple and easy, so it should have been impossible for Aaron to mess up.
Operative word being should .
Instead, Aaron accidentally hit his hand on the steaming hot oven rack when he tried to pull the lasagna out. For a moment, he didn’t even feel anything besides the stinging embarrassment of being too clumsy to pull the pan straight from the oven.
And then the pain hit, and a single, strangled gasp escaped from Aaron’s throat. His hands spasmed, and the lasagna fell from his grasp– luckily, landing straight back on the oven rack, instead of creating another mess on the floor.
The resulting crash! of the pan was nerve-wrackingly loud.
“What was that?” his mother yelled from somewhere else in the house.
“Nothing!” Aaron called back, trying his best to sound reassuring. “Everything’s fine!”
He held his breath for an endless, agonizing moment, praying that she wouldn’t feel the need to check the truth of his statement. The faint crackle of the TV static let him know that the coast was clear.
Aaron eased the oven door shut, waited another moment to make sure that his mom hadn’t decided to check in on him after all, and ran to the kitchen tap. A quick glance at his injured hand revealed that the skin was already beginning to turn pink and blister.
Aaron winced and, after a brief internal debate, turned the cold water on and stuck his hand under it. He was reasonably sure that that was the correct remedy for burns, and Aaron wanted to get this taken care of as soon as possible.
For one thing, Aaron wanted to at least try to prevent it from scarring.
For another, he didn’t want anyone asking questions. His mom would scold him for his carelessness. His teachers would gently inquire about his homelife, in that condescending tone that was so inadvertently infuriating.
And Andrew?
If Andrew found out that Aaron had gotten himself burned doing something as simple as making lasagna, he’d never let Aaron out of his sight again.
As it was, Andrew barely left the house by himself. He was much more likely to stay home or follow Aaron wherever he was going.
Aaron had tried asking about it once, in those first tentative weeks, when Andrew had only just arrived in South Carolina.
“Why do you always follow me around? Don’t you want to make your own friends?” he had questioned. The constant supervision had Aaron terrified that he was going to scare his new brother off (again). Andrew had already rejected him once before– who was to say he wouldn’t do it again, if Aaron didn’t prove himself interesting enough?
“Why would I want other friends?” Andrew had asked in return. “ You are my brother.”
That had sparked a warmth in Aaron’s chest that had yet to dissipate.
With Andrew’s interest came a protective streak a mile long, and Aaron knew that he wouldn’t let even this small burn slide.
Not with the way he’d reacted to the scrape Aaron came home with when one of his friends accidentally knocked him into a bookshelf. Not with the way he’d reacted to the bruised cheekbone Aaron sported when he accidentally woke his mother from a nightmare.
No, Andrew would take this injury as yet another sign that Aaron couldn’t handle himself. He’d take it as a sign that he needed to step up, that he somehow wasn’t doing enough to protect Aaron.
Aaron didn’t know how to tell Andrew that he was already doing more than anyone else had ever bothered to.
Really, hiding this burn was the least Aaron could do.
He rinsed his hand under the cold water for as long as he could stand, then snuck off to the bathroom when he heard Andrew open the front door. Aaron was determined to cover up the burn before he could be found out, but he wasted precious moments rooting around the medicine cabinet, trying to find the right kind of wrap-around bandages.
By the time Aaron slunk back into the kitchen, his hand inexpertly wrapped and tucked inside of his hoodie sleeve, Andrew was already laying in wait.
Aaron automatically tensed, sure that his brother would catch him out immediately. Instead, Andrew seemed content to study him as he darted around the kitchen, pulling out plates and silverware. Then Aaron opened the oven and paused, psyching himself up for his second attempt at retrieving the lasagna.
“Something wrong?” Andrew asked, his head tilted curiously.
Aaron shook his head in a vehement ‘no.’
“Everything’s fine,” he said, hoping he sounded more confident than he really felt. Aaron finally pulled the lasagna out of the oven, and managed to set it on the counter without further incident.
Andrew silently watched as Aaron divvied up the majority of the pasta between their three plates, careful that neither twin got a bigger portion than the other. Aaron felt the weight of his piercing stare follow him as he carried his mother’s plate to the living room.
When he returned to the kitchen to grab his own food, Andrew smoothly intercepted Aaron before he could turn tail and flee.
“Are you sure everything is fine?” he asked lowly. “You seem… off.”
Aaron carefully avoided looking at his injured wrist. “I’m sure, Andrew.”
“Aaron,” he said warningly.
“ Andrew ,” he returned. “It’s fine. Don’t worry about it.”
Andrew glowered at him, but did nothing to stop Aaron from reaching past him to grab his own plate.
Aaron turned to leave the kitchen, but stopped just short of the threshold. “Really, Andrew, I’m fine.”
Aaron almost felt guilty for lying, but he couldn’t bring himself to regret it. Not when he saw the tiniest bit of tension free itself from Andrew’s shoulders.
His brother already seemed to carry the weight of the world on his back.
Making that load a little lighter was the least that Aaron could do.