Skid

Skid - Chapter 2

Chapter Two

No-one looks particularly surprised as I walk through the hall with a tight smile, blood dripping from my left hand into my right and then pooling on the floor.

The least surprised is Asa, who doesn't even raise his eyebrows, just purses his lips in the way the he does when he's stifling laughter. Bastard, I think in his direction, and narrow my eyes as if he can hear me doing it.

He holds the door open for me, and I nod at him as I walk through with as much dignity I can manage while I'm dripping blood all over the linoleum.

He graciously waits until everyone's out of earshot and the door is closed behind us before snorting, raising one hand to rub his forehead. "What'd you do this time?"

It's too early in the morning for this shit. I sit down in the chair that practically has my ass grooves moulded into it due to all the time I spend there. I flutter my eyelashes- everyone says makes me look like a presumptuous ass, which is what I'm looking for. "Who says I didn't just come here to bask in the pleasure of your company, Asa the Medic?"

Asa laughs, short and choppy. "No, seriously."

"I cut it making french toast," I admit after a moment. I had glanced up at Jason to tell him to change the channel, and when I looked down the bread was swelling with something that definitely wasn't food colouring. The pain didn't set in until I noticed the steady drip of definitely-not-food-colouring down the wrist of the hand not holding the knife.

"We let you cook breakfast ONE TIME," Riley had yelled at me as I went out the door. Like I wasn't trying to staunch the continuous flow of blood coming out of my palm as she said it.

Asa hums, nodding as he shuffles through his cabinet. When he turns around, needle in one hand and antiseptic in the other, he frowns. "Why did you need a knife to make french toast?"

"What?"

"A knife." He swishes the needle around as he sits in the seat opposite me, mimicking scraping a bowl. "You just need to crack the eggs, shove a few spices in there and then dip the bread in. Bam, french toast."

"Yeah, but I had to slice the cheese."

Asa pauses over my hand, looking up at me with creasing eyes. "Sorry, the cheese?"

"...Yes?"

"You put cheese in french toast?"

"Well, duh, what do you put in it?"

"Brown sugar. I sprinkle it over the top, like a normal person."

"What? Why the fuck- there are eggs- ow," I add pointedly, flexing my fingers.

Asa blinks at me for a second before looking down where he's been stitching up my hand kind of absently. "Oh. Sorry."

He doesn't talk until he clips my bandage into place, where he tells me it'll be fine as long as I don't do anything stupid for a while that could tear my stitches. Then he glares at me for a while, due to us both knowing I'll be slinking back to ask him to re-stitch my hand sometime in the next week or so, as per usual.

I'm heading for the door when he asks me what happened.

"I told you, I was making french toast. With cheese, because I don’t use brown sugar like a freak-"

"Not that." He gestures towards my bruise, sitting easily up near my eye, over my forehead. "That."

I raise my good hand to prod at it, which doesn't do anything apart from send a dull twinge from where my finger touched it. "I sort of grazed myself."