The Attic

Twelve

*   *   *

            “Hm, rice with more rice,” John said sardonically once they were at the table eating, his pride still hurting slightly from not having been able to cook.

            “There’s some salt, and some grated cheese to put on it,” Paul said.

            “Isn’t there some bacon or something?” John asked, poking at the lump of rice on his plate, but grudgingly sprinkling some ancient cheese dust on his plate.

            “John, I’m a vegetarian now,” Paul said patiently.

            “Oh, this is some of Linda’s health crap, isn’t it?”

            Paul frowned at John. He’d obviously upset him earlier. John didn’t throw verbal punches like this every second unless he was in a foul mood, or holding some kind of grudge. Paul stuck his fork into the rice, adamantly ignoring John’s bullshit.

            Because, really, if there was someone who’d learned to deal with an upset John over the years, it was Paul.

            They finished the rest of the meal in silence.

*   *   *

            “I’m taking off your dressings,” John said, entering Paul’s room abruptly.

            “What?” Paul asked, misunderstanding the meaning of what John was saying, and ready to give him another speech on why an affair while in hiding was not a good idea.

            “Your bandages, you nit,” John grumbled, holding up some medical gauze.

            “Oh, you’re talking to me now?” Paul said, a smile tugging at his cheek. He paused, a thoughtful look crossing his face. “I can do it myself, you don’t—“

            “You can reach the middle of your back and see what you’re doing as to not touch the wound?” John asked, raising an eyebrow. Now he was mocking Paul with a touch of humor, a sign that the bad mood had passed.

            Paul made a face he reserved for his children when they misbehaved, and turned around, unbuttoning his shirt and sliding it off.

            John’s fingers ghosted around the edges of the bandaging, and he felt slight goosebumps spring up on Paul’s skin. He smirked though the other man couldn’t see it; for all his saintly talk of it being wrong, Paul wanted him.

            He peeled the tape holding the bandage down and began to unwind the gauze, passing under Paul’s arm, then above, around and around, and John saw Paul flinch every time his fingers grazed a patch of his skin. John took advantage of this sensitivity and pinched his neck slightly with schoolboy malice, which made Paul squirm away.

            “Now, now, don’t move,” John admonished.

            “Fuck you,” Paul said, but he stood still.

            The gauze was getting redder and more soaked with blood and whatever else was oozing out of the wound. John held his breath as there were only a few layers left, and then nothing. John felt himself go slightly dizzy at the gaping hole where there was once smooth, flawless skin that he’d touched and felt and tasted.

            A little twisted fragment of white, shattered bone stuck out of the ragged edges. John closed his eyes for a second, then took a cotton ball and soaked it in the solution he’d been given to clean the wound.

            John dabbed at it and didn’t miss the slight hiss of pain from Paul.

            It was all his fault, he thought, as he wiped the blood clean and the pale pink, scarred flesh that had begun to form appeared. It was his fault if Paul wouldn’t be able to play again, his fault that Paul was out here, and that he might be killed before seeing his family again. The bullet was meant for him—he was the only target, Paul might’ve been fine.

            John hated that it was the bullet that would’ve killed him that did this to Paul, and he hated that it was his hands applying the liquid that was making him grit his teeth in pain.