Written for Sick Days a couple years ago for the prompt "changing colors," and a combination of requests that I received including "that looks infected' and "I know it hurts" and "if I puke, will you hold my hair back?" Content warning for vomit. Enjoy!
"That looks infected."
Yuri nearly jumps out of his skin at the unexpected voice; he drops the roll of bandages that he was holding. It falls to the floor with a soft clatter-he's too stunned to catch it.
There's a beat of silence before Yuri gets his voice back and starts making excuses. "It's not that bad," he snaps, ducking his head to hide his eyes behind his long blonde bangs. He lets his face fall into a blank mask to hide the pain radiating out from his upper arm.
Ignoring Yuri's protests, Otabek takes a hold of his arm so he can get a closer look at it. The 'it' in question is a nasty-looking scratch on Yuri's right bicep; a scratch from a cat, by the looks of it. The injury is an angry red, with hints of yellow pus around the edges.
All in all, it looks pretty terrible.
Otabek lets out a low whistle at the obvious infection. "Is this from your cat?"
"Potya didn't mean to, it was an accident!" Yuri blurts out, yanking his arm out of Otabek's grip. "And I'm fine, dammit!"
Otabek studiously ignores Yuri's defense, his brown eyes dark and serious. "Accident or not, it's still infected. You need to treat it before it gets worse." He pauses for a second, thinking.
"Well I'm not going to a doctor! I have a competition in three days, and I'm not missing it over some little scratch!"
Otabek just waves him off. "Do you have any antiseptic?"
"Huh?" Yuri asks, taken aback. "Oh-yeah," he replies, digging through his bag to find the aforementioned item and passing it to Otabek. "I've been cleaning it out myself, but as you can see, I'm not great at it," he admits, flushing.
The blush is a sharp contrast against his pale skin, and as he takes the antiseptic from Yuri, Otabek can feel how warm his skin is as their hands brush. "This is going to sting," he warns, twisting open the bottle with nimble fingers and pouring a generous amount onto a couple of cotton swabs.
It's the only warning that Yuri gets before Otabek attacks the wound, scrubbing harshly at it. Yuri lets out a low keening noise, flinching and slamming his eyes shut and gritting his teeth against the pain. "I know it hurts," Otabek acknowledges, but keeps going. They need to nip this infection in the bud before it gets any worse.
Otabek is about halfway done with his ministrations when Yuri gasps sharply and stops his hands with his left hand. "Feel sick," is the only explanation that Otabek gets.
Yuri burps loudly, covering his mouth with his good hand and swallowing thickly. "If I puke, will you hold my hair back?" he asks plaintively, looking at Otabek imploringly with bloodshot eyes.
He nods, and apparently it's the only encouragement that Yuri needs because a split second later, he leans over the sink next to him with a painful gag. Otabek barely has enough time to gather Yuri's hair and move it out of harm's way before Yuri heaves again, bringing up a mouthful of bile that splashes nauseatingly against the bottom of the sink.
Yuri doesn't have much in his stomach to bring up, so there's only a few more retches before he's reduced to dry heaving. Finally, his stomach seems to calm down and he sags against Otabek's side, exhausted. He takes that as a sign to keep going and quickly finishes cleaning out all the signs of infection. Yuri gasps and whimpers a few times but doesn't verbalize any real protests.
When the scratch is clean enough, Otabek takes the gauze that Yuri had earlier and wraps it up tightly. Yuri is motionless and pliable, like a rag doll; Otabek sits him down on a bench while he cleans up and washes his hands.
When the area is neat enough to meet his expectations, he grabs their skate bags and hauls the now half-asleep Yuri to his feet. "Let's get you home," he murmurs into soft blonde locks. "You're going to need to rest to be up for that competition."
Thank you for reading! Please leave a review if you liked it.
