@cool2bqueer asked: "shut up and let me help you" // bloody prompts
MICHAEL’S PROTESTS don’t exactly end, but they falter for a moment in the face of Sam’s fiery insistence. “Sammy-” He stresses, more quiet this time. “I’m fine.”
He doesn’t look it. The handful of tissues clutched between fingers does little to stop the blood gushing from his nose. It drips down his chin and stains droplets on his shirt. It isn’t the first time, and Michael knows better now than to think it will be the last. As accustomed to it as he is, the blood keeps pouring for longer than he would have expected— maybe it should concern him more than it does, but he can’t really find it in himself to care.
It concerns Sam, though, even as they play a silent game of pretend. As if Michael had walked in fresh out of a fight at school, rather than how the walls of the house shook with it not long ago. A shock of shame runs through him. He usually conceals it better than this.
But because it’s hard to deny his little brother much, Michael takes the damp washcloth. A burst of pain ripples through him as he presses it to his face— still, it does a far better job of cleaning the blood. “… There, happy?” Definitely not. He takes a steady breath as he wipes it away, putting on his best act for Sam. “It should stop soon.”
