Chapter 6, What a Lucky Man
Oak Ridge, Tennessee
Christopher's had a bad night. First, the fight with David and then, to add insult to injury, he couldn't find anyone willing to buy a drink for him. He curses his lost fake i.d., forgotten months ago on the checkout counter of some random Drug Mart.
Eventually, he'd given up and gone into a grocery store to buy some sandwiches, chips, and soda from the machines outside. A sort of peace offering.
He's had plenty of time to stew over the argument as he wandered from store to store. The way he sees it, they were both wrong, they both overreacted, and they're in the middle of Tennessee, hundreds of miles from home. It just isn't worth it. He congratulates himself on his mature thinking, and sure, it doesn't make David less of a bastard, it just means he can acknowledge that he had been a jackass too.
The car sits alone and shadowed as he approaches. It's well past midnight now and the parking lot is lit with streetlamps that create glowing halos of light, reminding Christopher vaguely of UFOs. Except he wouldn't mind being abducted, he thinks, as he hurries through the shadowed areas and slows in the light. Near the Mazda, he shifts the bag of groceries to his hip, holds the pop cans in one hand, and fumbles to pull the keys out of his pocket. It's inevitable that he drops something, an action he'll later be grateful for, as one can of Coke slips from his fingers and rolls under the car.
He curses quietly and sets the other items on the roof, before kneeling and peering under the car. It isn't the can that catches his attention immediately, or at all, but a dark form on the ground near the passenger door.
"David," he whispers and stands quickly to jog around the car.
"David?" he says again. The other boy is slumped on the ground, one leg stretched out in front of him, his forehead resting on the other knee, hiding his face.
"Hey David?" Christopher jokes in a Jamaican accent. "Ya dead man?" His smile falls flat though when the boy still doesn't respond. He drops to his knees and reaches out to him, because David can't possibly be so angry as to out rightly ignore him. At a light touch, David jumps and attempts to lift his head up slowly, but it's either too heavy, or he misjudges, and ends up clunking it against the door panel with a hollow thud. Bruises shine like deranged war paint under his eyes and Christopher reaches toward him hesitantly.
"What happened?" he asks carefully.
"My wallet," David croaks and Christopher furrows his brow, leans in closer to see David's eyes that are hazy and unfocused. Of course this would happen now, Christopher thinks grimly. Just their dumb luck.
"Are you okay?"
David squeezes his eyes shut, bites his lip, and shakes his head slightly.
"He got my wallet," he says again, albeit more clearly. Christopher grabs the boy's shoulders and shakes him a bit, because he knows David didn't have any money, or anything else of great importance on him, and that wasn't what he was asking anyway.
"Are you okay?"
David's eyes flick around the parking lot before coming to rest on the blonde's face.
"My knee," he grinds out.
Releasing his shoulders, Christopher pulls David's shorts up over his knee, ignoring the sticky moisture that can only be blood.
"Fuck," he breathes at the sight of it. The knee is bruised, swollen plum purple and bleeding from a gash on the side. He's seen plenty of injuries in Everworld and knows as much from those, that this isn't good.
"Can you stand?" he asks.
"I walked all the way over here," David returns with venom, because although he needs help, the words spoken earlier are not yet forgotten. And this whole mess, a lot of it anyway, can be blamed on Christopher.
"Where're we going?" David asks, once he's slumped into the passenger seat.
"The hospital," Christopher tells him, holding in the 'you idiot' part for much later. He has two hours to sit in the waiting room and worry while David gets x-rayed, an hour after that to stand quietly next to the bed while a doctor applies the cast to his knee, and three hours after that to pace the hall while they wait for paperwork and the police to take a statement. It's after all of this, when they're limping out of the county hospital in the morning sun, and Christopher knows that David is going to be physically okay, and David leans on him just enough, instead of using his crutches, to let him know that they're okay too, that Christopher opens his mouth.
"Dude," Christopher begins in a theatrical tone, certain with all of the medicine they gave him that David is feeling no pain. "The General of Athena's army, the carrier of Galahads sword, the Great Davideus of Everworld fame, just got his ass beat in a back alley by some mugger with a crowbar."
"Fuck you, Christopher," David spits, but its without real feeling and Christopher can't help but grin as he closes the car door and strolls around to the driver's side, knowing that all is forgiven.
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A/N: It just wouldn't be good fic if David didn't get beat up at least once. Okay...so maybe it would be good fic, but some entertainment value is definitely lost. Cool Runnings, anyone catch that? Anyone? ...sigh...obscure movie references, not as funny. darn.