fire & smoke

Was this the time he was finally gonna feel like absolute crap in the morning? He’d been expecting it after that first trip out to the club with Kitty. Squeezing his eyes tighter shut when he’d woken up the next day, anticipating light slicing through his eyeballs like a scalpel, making him wish someone was actually cutting his brain out. It’d taken him a full minute to ease them open in the end, the anticipation only fading at the very end when Bram had realised it really wasn’t that bad. Maybe there’d been a vague headache lingering at the back of his skull when he’d finally dragged himself out of the apartment for lunch, but that was all. It was almost disappointing, like he’d missed out on some major milestone.

Early nights, a diet rich on protein and seriously low on alcohol, 6am training sessions. In college the first time Bram had been all work and no play. The couple of parties he’d ended up going to with the team might have ended up wild, but he’d been the one slipping out early, determined not to be feeling like death on the ice next morning. Regret had sunk in the second it was all over. Why hadn’t he spent a little more time getting the full college experience? His dad had always warned him about tunnel vision, but he’d shrugged it off right up to the moment it had left him blindsided. Going to Whitmore was meant to be his second chance. Ha! Look who’d ended up being the responsible one.

If anybody was gonna help him put an end to the run he was taking at sainthood, it was Kitty. Under her tutelage he’d gone from ’just a couple’ to losing count. Each night out added a couple more to the tally, the line being shoved further and further ahead until he reached the point where she was gonna have to be dragging him out of there. It’d be like an ant trying to move a redwood, a strong ant – he’d had his hands on Kitty’s biceps enough now to know she was no weakling – but still, he had a foot and a hundred pounds on her. Usually Kitty seemed just as sober as he did. Usually.

Bram grinned sloppily at her as the last song played. The warning had come a little while before, voices raising over the crowd to warn of last call. The six shots he’d picked up then counted as one for the road right? They’d worked to keep his knee numb at least. He glanced down at his feet as the lights came up and they walked out finally, with Kitty clinging onto his arm. Yeah, his legs were still there, that was good news. That he’d definitely pay for when he woke up in the morning, probably right back in Kitty’s bed. It’d become like a second home to him lately, his welcome there only seeming to run out when Krista’s asshole boyfriend was there. Hopefully he wouldn’t be tonight. He didn’t wanna leave Krista in an awkward position again.

At this time of night the square was pretty empty, just the holdouts at the club drifting across it now. Bram laughed as Kitty pulled away from him, squinting at her as she jumped up onto one of the benches. Up there she was just about his height. She was way more graceful though, leaping into the air between two of the benches. ”Guess I’m gonna get burned,” Bram joked, glancing around for some spot to hop to where he wasn’t gonna have to climb up on a bench. If he did go head first off of one he doubted Kitty would be in any state to pick him up tonight. ”Least I can…” Perform first aid on himself if he burned up. The dumb suggestion stuck on a tongue that was already feeling thick after all that liquor.

”Oh, shit.”{/b] Bram giggled as Kitty fell over the back of the next bench, the sound only stifled when he clapped a hand over his face. ”That was real graceful. I thought you were meant to be a decent dancer.” Although when lava was involved, he guessed things got slippery. Still snickering, Bram knelt on the bench and peered down at Kitty over the back of it. ”You need a hand up out of there? Don’t want you getting too … woah … dude … your arm … Lemme see.” A couple of years of placements in hospital ERs meant he knew a broken arm when he saw one. A couple of hours in the club meant he wasn’t half as concerned about it as he probably should’ve been. Kitty was still laughing after all.

Sliding awkwardly over the back of the bench, Bram thumped down on his ass next to Kitty. His mouth hung open slightly as he reached out a finger to trail the back of it gently over Kitty’s forearm, purposefully avoid the break. ”I haven’t got an x-ray machine out here, but in Doctor McCabe’s infinite wisdom … you broke your arm. It probably should’ve taken him hours to sober up, but like someone had turned on a tap, Bram felt the buzz draining out of him as he frowned down at Kitty.

Tagged: KITANA RYO * Word Count: 883

As a kid, hell, even a decade ago, he could’ve taken a spill like that and bounced right back up on his feet. His mom would’ve gone pale, fussing over every scrape and bruise, but he’d barely feel them. Bram McCabe was invincible. He’d skated in the championships with raging flu when he was eight, hiding the fact that he felt like crap from the coaches and his parents alike. Staggering off the ice at the end, he’d barely been able to get his uniform off, finally dumping his sweat soaked t-shirt off onto the locker room floor before the shivers had started. Being grounded for two weeks after hadn’t felt like a hardship, when he was weak as a kitten anyway. A broken wrist at 3 hadn’t slowed him down, falling through the ice into a frozen pond at 15 hadn’t either, even if it had meant his first overnight stay at the hospital. In the end it was one stupid tackle that had put him down for what felt like good.

Graceful he was not these days, but he’d managed a couple of hours out on the dance floor with Kitty. His knee throbbed mildly as he twisted around looking for his safe spot from the ‘lava’, but in that kinda distant way you could ignore – like you knew your eyelashes were there, but until you went rubbing at your eye you weren’t really aware of them (unless you were a girl, of course). Kitty had moves he could never dream of though, a flexibility and sense of rhythm he couldn’t emulate yet. If you put an ice rink right here it would been a different matter, but this wasn’t that and Kitty’s flight over the back of the bench wasn’t just a spill on the ice.

Shiiiit. The word came again in his brain as Bram clamped a hand over his mouth and stared at Kitty’s body sprawled on the concrete. ”Maybe not a decent jumper then. That looked painful.” He’d half anticipated some bruises, maybe a split open chin or forehead given how wasted Kitty seemed to be tonight, but it looked like she’d managed to get a hand down when she’d fallen. Landing with your full weight on one delicate little joint made for some gnarly injuries sometimes. He’d seen kids come in with their hands at right angles – most barely making a sound – grandmothers with multiple bones laced by fractures (which was why he always warned those kids to drink their milk). Little bones and long ones giving out under the pressure.

Bram snorted as he hit the ground, shaking his head at Kitty. Fine was what he’d said when he’d broken his arm too, but at 3, he’d recovered fast enough to be back on his bike two days later, pedaling like a maniac around the yard with his mom wailing after him. At 22, or however old Kitty was now, recovery wouldn’t be fun. ”Just a broken bone?” he asked snorting. ”Accidents happen. When I was just a kid I ... woah, hey, don’t move it, the bones could...” Poke through her skin and create an open fracture that was gonna be a thousand times nastier.

Already grimacing at the thought, Bram clambered to his feet, slower than Kitty had. Too slow. She was already moving it behind her back, like she was worried he’d make a grab for her again (the absolute right thing to do when you’d seen the distortion under the skin of an obviously broken bone). Kitty’s wrist had been held at that weird angle, maybe dislocated as well as fractured, if she was trying to pop it back in it might do something, but the worst of the damage was still there. The click had him wincing and letting out a little groan. That was such a bad move.

There it was again, the F word. Bram reached out the second Kitty offered her arm up. ”Bullshit.” He gripped her hand lightly in one of his, the other slipping around her forearm, a couple of inches below where he knew he’d seen signs of the break. ”I saw it. Your wrist was twisted weird, the bones probably got displaced when you hit the ground.” That probably meant both the ulna and radius had been fractured, if he didn’t get them realigned maybe it’d start affecting the ...

”What the Hell?” Expecting to see the same lump, colour blooming up the skin from the broken blood vessels, he found smooth skin instead. Bram stepped closer, lifting Kitty’s arm up til it was an inch from his face. He narrowed his eyes, squinting at her arm. ”I saw it. Dude, you broke your wrist.” They both had to be wasted way more than he’d thought. Carefully, already grimacing in anticipation of her shrieking, he slid his hand up her forearm to grip her wrist at the same time as he gently manipulated her hand. If it was broken she’d start pulling away the second it hurt.

Tagged: KITANA RYO * Word Count: 837

By the age of 12 he’d been able to call it when he saw a broken nose or broken finger. They came with the game. Sure, they had masks and pads and gloves and all that stuff, but shit still happened. Most guys got pretty good at just popping things back into place and rushing back out on the ice again. Later their parents would go ape shit, but when all you wanted to do was keep on playing, you put up with the pain. Bram guessed it was the same when you were partying. If you were drunk, and maybe high – although they hadn’t done any of that tonight, he hadn’t at least – you didn’t want to come down from that.

Kitty had literally brought herself down by falling over the back of the bench. It didn’t seem to have put much of a dent in her mood, but it had scared the shit out of him. Already he was picturing having to take her to the ER. Face glowing he’d explain that she’d just had a slip on a night out. The doctors and nurses were smart though. They’d seen people in all kinds of states, they’d be able to tell he was drunk, and if they saw the way Kitty was blowing off a broken bone they’d definitely know she was too. At some point the numbing from the liquor in her system would vanish, along with the adrenalin and then it was gonna hurt like a bitch.

He’d held on to her gently, trying to get a good look at it, but Kitty had pulled free, moving too fast for him to catch. Wincing as she’d hidden her wrist and rotated it, Bram had braced himself for her scream, but it hadn’t come. Either she was a thousand times tougher than he was or he’d … Nah. He hadn’t been seeing things. Even as he’d looked back and forth between her face and her wrist he saw the way it had been in his mind. Puffing out a breath, he was shaking his head, his fingers shifting slowly on her skin like one little squeeze would have the bone popping out of place again. He didn’t wanna hurt her, but bones didn’t magically mend in two seconds flat.

”You wouldn’t be able to … oh nonono, Kitty don’t …” The words babbled out of him, but Kitty was already pulling away, running over to a clear spot. Bram clapped his hands over his face, fingertips resting on his cheekbones like they could slid up and cover his eyes if the ragged end of broken bone suddenly tore its way out, her hand taking on that weird angle again. ”Oh God,” he managed weakly, tasting the cocktails he’d drunk in the back of his throat, like he’d be seeing that neon liquid again. Kitty was up again though, laughing, walking back to him. All good.

Puffing out a strained laugh, Bram reached for her again. One hand on her shoulder, the other reaching for her arm again. Not as much as a bruise blooming under her skin, that pale blue stain that threatened to become a thunderhead of bruising in a few hours. ”Definitely discharged. I didn’t even get to put a band aid on it.” His brain was still flickering like the street lights overhead, as though it was trying to get focused. ”We’re definitely drunk,” he snickered, the tightness in his chest easing. Blue eyes narrowed, looking down at her as he tugged her a little closer again. ”You’re really OK after that fall? No bruises anywhere else you need me to check out? I could do a home visit, I’ve got the white coat and stethoscope and everything.” His grin was brighter, the worry he’d felt when she’d fallen falling away, leaving mostly warmth behind. Maybe later he’d start questioning himself again, because that had been weird, but for now he wanted to trust what Kitty had promised him. She had no reason to lie to him after all.

Tagged: KITANA RYO * Word Count: 675