Bruised Throats And Tired Eyes

Chapter 1

The first time they met, Pete was staring up at the dirty bar ceiling, stars swarming his vision, close to blacking out. He only managed to hang onto consciousness when a figured leaned into his view, crouching down beside him and waving a hand in front of his face.

"Can you hear me?" The figure's voice came through the ringing in his ears, warbled and faint, but still there. After a second, Pete figured out how to communicate to the rest of his body to respond. Eventually, his head moved in an affirmative motion. "Good, can you move anything besides your head? Like, can you stand up? I mean, not trying to rush you or anything, but it probably would be best to get up off the floor and maybe out of this dirty bar before your injuries get infected."

Pete groaned lightly in protest, but still pushed himself up into a sitting position.

Of course, after doing so, he realized that was a mistake. Every muscle in his body seemed to be screaming in protest, and he felt like he was going to throw up, but he could only taste blood in his mouth.

"Alright, that's progress. Can you talk?" Pete struggled for a minute, his senses still muddled as slowly sound came flooding into his ears, the loud commotion of the bar behind him. He turned his head to see what was going on, but moved too fast and ended up back on the floor, this time on his side. He pushed himself back up with the help of the stranger's hand and squinted his eyes, forcing his cloudy vision to clear, and saw the dude he had been fighting being knocked to the ground by another stranger absolutely covered in tattoos.

"Okay, so I'll take that as a no?" The stranger spoke up again and Pete suddenly remembered what he had been asked.

"I can talk," he slurred, his tongue in a strange amount of pain. After a second, he vaguely remembered biting it when the dude punched him in the jaw. "Just not... good." Pete finished, bringing a hand up to his lips. When he pulled it away, he saw that the tan skin was bloody, and swore.

"Don't worry, we'll get you all fixed up, okay?" The stranger got his attention again, and Pete turned to him, confused. He looked over the person, but it didn't seem that he was any sort of medical worker, if the lack of any medical supplies was any indication.

"Are you gonna..." Pete paused, confused as to why words were coming out of his mouth, but quickly remembered what he was going to say. "Are you gonna call an ambulance or something? Because I'm fine. I don't-" He cut himself off by pitching forward and grabbing the nearest trash can, he heaved up anything that was inside of his stomach, including a lot of blood. After that, he laid back down on the floor. The last thing he remembered was thinking that the floor was a perfectly reasonable place to take a nap, and the stranger shaking his shoulders in an attempt to wake him up.

When he woke once more, the bar floor had gotten much more comfortable than it was previously, and it confused him to no end when he turned and felt his entire body fall off... something; he wasn't sure what, since he was pretty sure the floor was the lowest level of the bar.

"Oh, you're up!" He heard the stranger's voice, and opened one eye, deeming it somewhat necessary to figure out what had just happened. "Or, I guess down, since you're back on the floor."

Pete just groaned in response, decided that opening his eye had been a terrible idea, and throwing an arm over his face. "Sorry, that was pretty bad. Here, I have..." He felt the stranger nudge his arm away from his forehead, and then a cool washcloth was placed onto the burning skin.

"How are you feeling?" The stranger asked, pressing the cold washcloth to different parts of his face now that his arm was back to Pete's side, wiping away blood that had stained his skin already.

"Pretty shitty, but I'll survive. Where am I?" Pete replied, words still slurred due to his lip being two times its usual size.

"You're at my house. Specifically, on the floor of my room. Andy and I thought it would be best to bring you here, instead of leaving you on the street or something. We would have brought you to your place if you wanted, but you were kinda... well, you passed out on the bar floor again before I could ask," the stranger explained, gently placing the washcloth back onto Pete's forehead. After a couple seconds of silence, Pete had deemed it safe to open his eyes, if he was slow, and squinted against the light coming in the window.