“tending to a wound”
written for day three of @theoraekenapperciation week!
(i somewhat combined day seven with this, but am def still planning of doing something separately for that day, have no fear)
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
TW: brief mentions of blood, descriptions of wounds, discussion about bullying
“Ouch!”
“It won’t hurt so bad if you don’t move around so much, bub.”
Rowan’s hand tugged on the denim of his jeans, the end of one side pulled up past his knee to show his lower leg, which was sluggishly bleeding. Theo’s touch was soft and tender, the complete opposite of what someone would have come to expect from the infamous Chimera of Death. Maybe the stories are true and fatherhood does change you. It certainly changed him.
“How did this happen anyway?” he asked, his voice quiet and prodding.
When he’d gotten the call a few hours ago from his son’s school that he’d gotten into a fight, Theo had dropped the wrench in his hand and took off, a half-apology on his lips in the direction of his boss. He’d make it up to Derek later and stay late to finish up the work on that Mercury, but his son was more important in that moment than whatever paycheck he was trying to earn. Thankfully, Derek understood that. Both of them had turned over new leaves after the war, eventually finding themselves children to raise to be better than them. Derek had Jordan and Eli and Theo had Liam and Rowan.
“I dunno… Just kinda… Happened, I guess,” was his son’s reply.
Theo gently continued to clean the wound on Rowan’s knee, mostly just getting out all of the extra debris, before he lifted up the bottle of peroxide and held it over the injured site.
“Hold your breath,” he instructed, waiting until Rowan sucked in a great, heavy breath before he poured a generous amount of the antiseptic over the injury. The action made his son jolt for a moment, mostly from the temperature of the liquid, but thankfully it didn’t seem to hurt too much. He was tough, just like his parents.
“You alright?” Theo asked, his fingers already working to rescrew the cap of the antiseptic back on. Rowan nodded tentatively and looked down at Theo’s hands, his top teeth digging into his bottom lip nervously.
“Dad? Are you… You’re really not mad? I didn’t mean to get hurt, I just… I wasn’t… I guess I wasn’t strong enough—“
Theo interrupted the rambling words with a firm hand on Rowan’s uninjured knee, his palm almost completely encompassing the area. He looked up into those bright, bright blue eyes firmly and squeezed his knee, resolute conviction written plain across his face.
“You are strong, Rowan. Stronger than any other kid out there. I don’t care what happened, all I care about is you. As long as you’re safe, nothing else matters, okay?”
The response was a very tentative nod, his son’s eyes dropping back down to his hands in his lap. Theo pulled back a bit, just enough to pick up the rest of the dressing supplies, and then resumed his work. It wasn’t awful, but it was definitely… Something. Rowan was lucky he hadn’t broken or injured his leg any further than it already was, considering the state of it. The biggest injury was a long, thin slash across the front of his leg, not enough to need stitches, but enough to need dressing. His arms and hands were also torn up pretty bad, but not as bad as his leg. After today, he was definitely going to have a word with the administrators at the school about sharp surfaces within reach of children.
Now that the wound was clean and sanitized, Theo could continue. He squeezed out a general amount of antibiotic ointment all across the scratch and gently dabbed it into the wound before spreading it across the skin, making sure the entire cut was saturated with the ointment before he wrapped it.
“One of the kids in my class is different.”
Theo’s eyes lifted up a bit at the sudden words, his hands still working slow and steady. He kept quiet, his silence prompting Rowan to continue. The little boy squirmed for a moment, obviously uncomfortable with what he was about to say, before he continued.
“Nobody knows what’s different about him, but he doesn’t talk like everyone else, doesn’t look anyone in the eye, doesn’t hang out with anyone at recess. He’s nice, just… Different.”
Theo nodded, somewhat understanding where the story was going, but still giving Rowan the floor to elaborate. He capped the ointment and placed it back in the first aid kit, pulling out a roll of bandages instead. As he placed the bandage over the wound, Rowan continued.
“Today, at lunch, he was sitting by himself and one of the other kids went up to him and started being mean to him. They… They called him bad names and knocked his tray down. I… Alyssa said I shouldn’t do anything, but I just…”
A soft, wet sniffle sounded out from above him and Theo paused, his hands stopping mid-motion. Carefully, he finished wrapping the bandage around Rowan’s leg and snipped off the end, tying it into place, before dropping the roll into the box. He turned his full attention back to his son and carefully rolled his pant leg back down, barely registering the large amounts of blood staining the denim.
“And that’s why you punched him?”
Rowan nodded, and lifted one of his injured hands up to his eyes, furiously rubbing at them.
“I know you and Dad told me not to fight, but I couldn’t just sit there and do nothing. They were being really mean to him and he didn’t do anything wrong.”
“I know. Row, we’re not mad at you.”
He lifted his head and looked up at Theo, his eyes teary and red.
“But I—“
“No buts. There’s nothing to feel bad about or be ashamed of. If anything,—“ Theo paused, looking around conspiratorially, before he leaned in closer, his voice now down to a whisper. “I almost wish you’d broken more than just his nose.”
Rowan’s eyes widened and he looked up at his father with round, disbelieving eyes before the tension in his shoulders melted away, his hands no longer trembling. He dropped his head down onto Theo’s shoulder and Theo instinctually lifted his arms up to wrap them around Rowan’s torso, holding him close in a firm, tight hug.
“I’m proud of you for standing up for yourself and for your friend. Your dad will be too. In fact, he’s probably gonna be ecstatic to know that his propensity for fighting is apparently hereditary.”
Rowan’s face scrunched up slightly, the expression remarkably similar to the way that Liam looked whenever he was trying to figure out a difficult problem.
“What’s her-ed-it-ary mean?”
Theo smiled ever so softly and pulled back, sitting down on his heels. He looked up at his son, the best thing in his entire fucking life, and brushed a few strands of curly, brown hair out of his eyes.
“It means that you’re your father’s child. Now come on, let’s go show Dad your battle scars.”
