Peppermint And Gunpowder

Chapter Thirty-Four: Stitches

"Draw a circle on the floor," I twirl a yellow crayon in my finger and hold it out to Gracie. She smiles and attempts to draw a faded wax line across the wooden floors. She sits up tall and proudly examines her circle that is more an oval.

"Now, place the marbles around the outside ring. The goal is to knock the marbles out before the other person. You can go first." I hand her the rock that she has proclaimed her favourite--a little smooth rock that could be skipper should we have a body of water.

She tosses the rock and knocks two marbles out of the ring. I do the same but knock out only one.

This goes on for many minutes, her and I exchanging turns to try and knock marbles out of the ring until Gracie ultimately she wins with twelve knocked out while I only had eight.

The door opens and Jet runs in, hair more frazzled than normal and a wild look in his eyes.

"Mercury, you've gotta come here now!" He makes broad movements with his hands and gestures to the door. "Poison and Ghoul got the shit beat out of them!"

"What?" I stand, but Gracie stays where she's at and watches Jet with a confused look.

"You should have seen it, Mer! We were out on patrol and we ran into the Ultra V's--you remember Val Velocity? Yeah, his crew" Jet runs past the threshold, yelling back to Gracie and I. "Val came up and was talking to Ghoul--I couldn't even hear what they said, you could see it was getting pretty heated--and Poison was backing him up. Kobra and I had enough sense to back away before everything happened. I think Val swung first? All I know is Poison didn't throw the first punch, surprisingly."

I grab Gracie's hand and run out of the room, not bothering to even shut the door. Gracie laughs behind me. She could barely understand the words being said, but she saw thee look on Jet's face as he bounced into the room, beaming about the fight that ended with Ghoul and Poison probably bloody and bruised.

"If you wouldn't have intervened, I still would've been able to take him." Ghoul brushes away locks of stringy ebony hair matted with what looks to be blood. He has a gash above his left eyebrow and a black eye is starting to form.

"Bullshit, you would have been wailing for my help like a baby. Hell, Gracie would have been able to take him." Poison grimaces at the sudden pain in his lip from the split and the busted nose.

"Yeah, yeah." Ghoul dabs the gash on his forehead with his finger, squinting at each touch, no matter how light. He give up on trying to touch his wound and pulls himself up onto the hood of the Trans-am, while Poison merely leans against the driver's side door, glaring.

I touch his cheek gently, fearing he might jump away at any sudden touch. Instead of moving away, he tilts toward me.

"What..." I look past the bloodied nose and split lip and sigh. "What the hell have you gotten yourself into this time?"

"They started it..." He murmurs. I roll my eyes. "Well, they did. They were talking to Ghoul and I don't even know what was said until one of 'em came at me, then they swung first--I swear they swung first--and after, I don't even know what happened. Kobra and Jet had to drag us back to the car we were so fired up..."

"Oh, you're such a fool." I fumble around in the backseat of the Trans-am for the first-aid kit Jet had put together and has been settled under the seats since before I was with the Fabulous Four.

Finding the small satchel, I pull out gauze and bandages. I look at the kit, then to Poison, then back to the kit and say, "We should probably go back inside, or would you rather face the eyes that are surely watching from the windows?"

Poison grumbles and Ghoul grumbles right back in response and they limp up the stairs, while Kobra laughs at their misery.

"Go sit on the beds, we'll be over in a minute." Jet says, opening the door to the room with all the supplies and extra whatnots.

Though Ghoul walks toward the beds as Jet instruced, he still argues some counter with something along the lines of, "Why should I?"

The only person who is better at medical wounds than myself is Jet. He is the doctor of the Four, and I am merely the orderlie.

He grabs more medical supplies and goes back to the bedding area.

Since Ghoul's wounds are worse, Jet tends to him--he has to be sure he doesn't need to stich any of his gashes. I wipe the blood away from the split in Poison's lip and gently feel around to be sure he hasn't got a broken nose.

When cries of frustration and pain comes from Ghoul, our attention is once again turned to him.

"You're going to need stitches," Jet says, fumbling about in a separate bag, assumingly for numbing cream, thread, and a needle. "You'll be fine, I've done stitches before. I can't find the materials here. Mercury, will you help me look in the other room?"

I nod and follow him to the other room. When we pass, I see the glimmer of a needle in his satchel bag.

Once inside the room, he turns to me in a panic. "So I lied." He says bluntly.

"What?" I give him a confused look.

"I lied to Ghoul. I've never actually done stitches before." He looks down, face slightly redder than normal.

"You'll be fine. Do what you always do: wing it. Besides, you know how to sew?" I say and he nods--when clothes need mending, it typically goes to Kobra or Jet, even though they all know how to sew. "It's just like sewing."

"You sound like you know how to do this, do you?" He raises his eyebrows.

"Somewhat, I can guide you through it." I smile and pray he accepts. I know how to do stitches on myself, never on anybody else. He nods again.

"Alright." He turns around and looks for something unsaid, and grabs an old rag.

"What's that for?" I ask as we walk back to the bedding area.

"Ghoul. I've heard stitches hurt, he needs something to bite down on." He tosses the rag up and catches it again, smirking. I can't help but laugh.

Jet carefully applies the numbing cream and hands Ghoul the rag. Explaining the reasoning, Ghoul scowls but bites down on the rag anyway.

Slowly and through a string of curses, Jet sews Ghoul's gash together with me doing nothing more than talk him through.

When finished, he looks at me and smiles. "Thank you."