Heart and Soul [bxb]

Chapter Three

*This chapter contains multimedia relevant to the plot*

"Oh, my God," Carter repeated, eyes wide. "Are you okay?" He asked, letting go of the door and sliding his phone into his jeans' pocket. He dropped to his knees, next to the boy spread out on the floor.

"I'm fine," the kid spat dryly.

Carter bit his lip, overcome with guilt. "Shit, I'm really sorry. I should've been looking—Shit. Let me see, is that blood?"

Carter tried reaching for the guy's face, but he jerked away from his touch. Carter pulled away, holding his hand at a respectful distance, as the boy turned his head to face him. There was a bleeding cut on the left side of his forehead, near the hairline, and his lip was busted.

Brown eyes widened as the kid got a look at Carter's face. "Shit, you're—", he cut himself off, wincing. His fingers moved to his torn lip.

"You should go to the nurse," Carter blurted. The fresh cut and the swollen lip were making him queasy. Carter had never been comfortable with the sight of blood. He had seen his fair share of nasty bruises in football, but blood just made his stomach twist and turn.

"I told you I'm fine," the guy snapped impatiently, sitting up straighter. "This wasn't you." He pointed dismissively at his own face.

Carter raised both eyebrows. "You expect me to believe your face was already bleeding, before I assaulted you with a door?"

To Carter's surprise, the guy snorted a laugh and looked at him with a little smirk. "Would you believe it if I said yes?"

Carter laughed a little too. "No."

The other boy bit his lip, making the purplish injury bleed a little as well. Carter's eyes zeroed in on the bright red blood... on pink, swollen lips. 

"Let me take you to the nurse," he said, meeting the boy's eyes again.

"I said I'm fine."

"Then let's just check."

"Will you manhandle me if I refuse?" The kid asked, in a scornful tone.

Carter's lips parted, a bit taken aback. "I—Sure. If I have to." He gave the boy a meaningful look to let him know he wasn't backing down. 

Carter pulled up onto his feet, extending one hand downward. The kid rolled his eyes, but there was a smile on his face as he took Carter's hand, accepting his help to stand.

The nurse's office was empty when they got there, except for the plump dark-haired woman who worked there. Carter was surprised to note the familiarity in her voice as she received them.

"Johnny. Did you fall down the stairs again?" She asked with a skeptical look of disapproval.

Johnny, the dark-eyed boy with darker hair, smiled humorlessly. "This time, it was a door," he answered matter-of-factly. "Ran straight into it."

The nurse shook her head with a chastising tsk, completely disregarding Carter's less familiar presence. She pushed Johnny down on a chair, non-too-gently, to take a look at the cut on his forehead. He winced at her touch.

"A door, huh?" The nurse – Carter could not remember her name, or even whether he'd ever learned it – mused. She reached for an old clam-shell Nokia model in her coat's pocket.

"Do you have to tell my father?" Johnny asked as he saw her thumbs pressing the keys on her phone. She merely shot him a hard, knowing look before stepping outside.

A strange silence settled in the room then. The boy leaned back on his chair, lazily, with the ease of someone who was not a stranger to this office. Carter simply stood in the middle of the room, hands in his jeans pockets, feeling a thread of awkwardness slither through his body. The silence stretched across several minutes – or so it felt.