Page 58 of Walking Wounded

Hal drops the skillet. On his foot.

“Fuck,” Luke says, choking on a sudden laugh, even as his own foot flares with sympathetic pain.

Hal bites his lip, hard, and braces both hands on the edge of the counter. He’s always been a stoic one, silently swallowing pain with screwed-shut eyes and careful breaths through flared nostrils. This appears to be no exception, though Luke can see the pulse pounding along the side of his throat.

“Jesus, ouch,” Luke says, snatching the skillet up off the floor and replacing it. “You alright?” He rubs soothing little circles between Hal’s should blades, the sculpted muscle beneath tense.

Hal exhales in a long, unsteady stream. “I’m fine,” and he sounds mostly so.

“Here, sit down. Let’s take a look at it,” Luke urges, hand pressing at Hal’s spine. “I’ll get you some ice.”

“I’m fine,” Hal repeats, stronger this time. He flexes his foot inside its pristine white sock. “Really, it’s okay.”

Luke gives him an unimpressed look that Hal glances away from. “You always say that, right up until something starts to bleed.”

“Dude, whatever,” Hal says, but hobbles over to one of the kitchen stools and props his foot up onto Luke’s thigh when he crouches down in front of him.

Luke tries not to think about the warmth and weight of Hal’s foot against his leg, how vulnerable Hal looks crouched awkwardly up on the stool, arm braced on the counter. It’s a short athletic sock, and Luke hooks a thumb in the back, at the firm line of Hal’s Achilles tendon, and draws it slowly down, watching the flicker of nerves and tiny ligaments as the foot is revealed.

“Skin’s not broken.” But a large red welt is forming right along the top of the bone, where the skin is thinnest. “I’ll get some ice.”

“You don’t have to.”

“You gonna limp over here and get it?” Luke throws a smirk over his shoulder as he raids the freezer.

“Don’t temp me,” Hal says, a little lift at the corner of his mouth that leaves Luke fumbling at the handle before he gets a good grip on it. What the hell kind of look is that? What…

Nevermind. Ice.

He finds a bag of peas, smiling a little when he remembers all those post-practice afternoons in their teen years, playing video games with a bowl of Cheetos between them and a knobby bag of vegetables cling-wrapped around one of Hal’s joints.

When he turns back, Hal’s watching him, expression unreadable.

“What?”

“What?” Hal echoes, and accepts the peas and dish towel Luke hands him. “Thanks.”

“You want me to take over?” Luke gestures to the chicken packages abandoned on the counter.

“Uh…”

“I can turn on the burner. And I have opposable thumbs. Look.” He waggles them for proof.

Hal rolls his eyes. “Sure. Let’s live dangerously.”

“Walk me through it, o’ ye of little faith.”

“Step one.” Hal settles into a more comfortable position on the stool, peas balanced on his foot. “Wash out the pan I dropped all over the floor like a dipshit.”

“Roger that, dipshit.”

Hal laughs, that low quiet laugh that was just for the two of them, and never meant to attract undue attention. One of many things Luke remembers from high school, and still can’t quite believe: the way Hal always made time for just them, best friend time, when he kept his other friends at arm’s length.

Luke washes the skillet and wipes it out with a clean towel, sets it on the burner. This part he knows: crank the heat, open the chicken.

“Salt and pepper,” Hal tells him. “And a little bit of chili powder and cumin.”

Luke waits until he has the chicken seasoned and hissing in the pan before he says, “What about Kate makes you drop kitchenware on your feet?”

---