Logs:Mending

Mending
Dramatis Personae Jax, Steve
In Absentia	2020-11-12 '
Location <PRV> Black House - Ridgewood
This stately townhouse has a cheerful yellow brick exterior, its front entrance spectacularly inaccessible but affording residents a commanding view of the quiet street below. Inside it's bright and airy and almost entirely empty of furniture. It has the pristine, sterile look that comes with professional renovation, but here and there the obvious custom touches -- whether from the previous residents or at the new owner's request -- shine through. The first floor is expansive, with a longish open floor plan that's quickly falling out of fashion. One entire wall of the living room consists of tessellated geometric mirrors, reflecting the truly massive and functional fireplace and even larger mosaic stone hearth. Beyond this the dining room and kitchen are conjoined; the space left for the as yet absent dining table looks vast and strange. A small half bath is tucked at the rear of this space, beside which the back door leads down into a small backyard with a patio sheltered by a quaint little pavilion and a strip of a garden along one side. The rain eased off hours ago, but the clouds still hang low and chilly, making the night ominously bright where it had had made the day ominously dark. Here, far from the skirmishes in lower Manhattan, the streets are quiet, the residents engaged with their evening diversions. Black House, though, is unlit -- asleep, if not empty. At least, it was until just a moment ago. The lights in the living room come on, followed by the kitchen in short succession. Steve has clearly had a long evening -- he walks with a bit of a hitch as he enters the kitchen, his hair a chaos of spikes after being rained on and drying out unattended, the swelling on his right cheek trying to raise a bruise. There's blood on his tan canvas jacket around a ragged tear beneath the left arm, and as he shrugs it gingerly off a matching rip is visible in the black t-shirt underneath, glimpses of a gash in his side still seeping blood. He coasts to a stop in the space where a dining table should be, swaying gently on his feet and holding his bloodied jacket as if unsure what to do with it. Trailing Steve into the kitchen, Jax looks pale, more than a bit worn, but unharmed, his silvery metallic jacket and quick-dry cargo pants showing no more than their standard signs of wear and tear. He sheds his own jacket, sets his heavily patch-emblazoned medic kit on the kitchen counter. Moves to Steve's side, laying fingertips lightly on an elbow as he guides the other man back nearer the sink, dragging a chair over from the small breakfast table and taking Steve's bloodied jacket to drape it over the back before he nudges Steve toward the chair. His fingertips pluck at the hem of the torn t-shirt, brows lifting before he turns aside to get a pair of bright purple gloves from his kit. For all his strength and not inconsiderable mass, Steve is easily guided, though he hesitates just an instant when prompted to strip. It's with the faintest flush of pink in his cheeks that he pulls the shirt off over his head, though this color flees almost immediately when the movement reopens his wound. He does not wince, but the tightness in his jaw and face speaks the impulse clearly enough. The gash is not deep, but curves across several ribs where the knife had been turned aside from what was probably a more vital target. Fresh blood -- though not a great deal -- trickles down over his side to stain the already darkened waistband of his jeans. He isn't looking at the blood, though, nor the t-shirt balled up in his hands. His eyes follow Jax's preparations, his gaze at once very present and somehow far off. Jax turns back towards Steve with one glove on, tugging several dishtowels -- starting to get kind of dingy, probably already in need of a wash -- from their place hanging by the sink. These don't go anywhere near the open wound -- just draped below it, against Steve's bloody side. His still-ungloved hand turns the sink on, testing the water temperature a few times before it gets to something mild; he stretches the long faucet hose over out of the sink. Flicks Steve an apologetic glance before he turns the water -- gently, at least -- on the cut, the towels at least catching most of the overflow rinse. Probably the floor gets some. And Steve's already-bloodied jeans. Such is life. Steve's jaw sets harder when the water starts flowing. His hands dig into his ruined shirt, but at least the bunched up fabric stops his bandaged right hand from clenching beyond its range of motion. His breathing comes deliberately slow and steady through the cleansing. He finally does look down at the wound once it's been rinsed off, the arch of his eyebrow faintly unimpressed even if his face is still tight with pain. Glances back up at Jax after this, curling his left arm sort of awkwardly across his chest now to keep his muscles out of the other man's way. Jax puts the other glove on only once the wound is rinsed and the sink nozzle back in its place. He kneels in front of Steve's chair, then, tearing open a pack of sterile gauze to press it over the wound, press more layers when the first seep red. Even through the gauze and gloves his hand is fiercely warm where it rests firm against the wound, his other braced lightly against Steve's waist on the opposite side. His eye lifts, now, to Steve's face with a gradual relaxing of a tension that had been knitted tight into his shoulders. Steve does finally wince, sucking in a sharp breath, when Jax presses the first gauze pad against his side, though he does not pull away -- does not move at all in his tense bracing. But the pain etched into his face fades away by degrees, his breathing returning to a more natural rhythm as clenched muscles ease beneath the warmth and care of Jax's hands. He uncurls his left arm and rests his hand gently on the other man's shoulder, his smile thin and tired but warm when their eyes meet. Jax closes his eye; for a long time he's still, quiet, his breathing slowly falling into pace with the rise and fall of Steve's ribs under his hand. His head tips to the side, cheek touching lightly to the back of Steve's knuckles. At length he opens his eye. Takes Steve's hand in his, places it over the gauze, holds it there as he slips his own hand out from underneath and rises. He returns with fresh gauze and ointment, very gently moving the bloodied gauze aside so that he can squeeze antibiotic gel onto a clean pad, dab it carefully at the wound, layer fresh gauze over top. Reposition Steve's hand to hold it there while he tapes the edges. Steve's eyes also slide shut at the touch of Jax's cheek, and he subsides slowly into the chair. His stillness now looks and feels a lot like exhaustion, but like relief of a kind, too. He is slow to blink his eyes open, but unresisting to Jax's gentle direction. Just from the brief application of pressure, his bleeding has practically stopped. His breath still hitches minutely when Jax applies the ointment and dresses the wound, though this time he relaxes again in very short order. It's with a great deal of reluctance and perhaps a touch of difficulty that he finally levers himself up out of the chair, swaying just a little once he's on his feet. Jax pulls one glove off, gathering up the soiled gauze and crumpling it and the used glove into a ball in his palm. He carefully turns the other glove inside-out around the whole mass, tossing it into the trash. He's just turning back around when Steve starts to stand; his eye widens and he hastens back, reflexively reaching a steadying hand to Steve's hip when he sways. His brows pinch into a deep frown; the hug that follows this is fierce, impulsive. Jax is pulling back almost as soon as it's begun, a deep blush in his cheeks as his gaze shoots apologetically to the bandaging. Steve is already blushing by the time Jax reaches to steady him, though he leans gratefully into the support. His pale blue eyes go ever so slightly wider at the hug, and his quiet gasp might well be one of pain. But then he wraps his arms around the smaller man and pulls him back in, careful of his strength and his side but not at all unsure. Rests the side of his head gently against Jax's, the same breath he had drawn easing from him in a soft, pleased sigh. Jax's eye widens when Steve pulls him back in, a very tiny gasp of his own coming. His cheeks darken further, but he melts into the hug, head resting against Steve's shoulder and a faint glow flushing out for just a moment to shimmer in the quiet kitchen around them.