Clinic

[iparkedmycar]

Three days later, his head's still hurting. He keeps trying to read but his vision swims a little bit. He's had a concussion once before, falling out of a tree as a kid, catching his temple against a knot of root. This si a similar sort of pain. There's an impressive bruise on the side of his face where he must have caught the tree trunk. The

Comments

[howto_submit]

She marched into the clinic like she belonged there, barely sparing the doctor at the table a glance -- the man who looked very much like Dr. Reid but very clearly wasn't -- on her way toward the patient beds.

She hadn't heard until that morning, and even then, she hadn't been sure whether she could come or not. But Nicki wasn't the type to be timid, not about these sorts of things, and while she hardly knew the boy, he was obviously in need of some sort of supervision.

Her eyes falling to his bruised face, she sighed and said, "What on Earth have you gone and done to yourself?"

[iparkedmycar]

It's fucking amazing how it feels to see her; he barely knows her, but there's something about her that exudes 'Mom' and it's ilke a weight goes off his shoulders the minute she walks into the room. Cooper sags back against the pillow and self-conciously covers the bruises with one hand. At least she can't see the bloody bandages under the sheet.

"Uh...dinosaurs," he says, with a crooked smile. "It's okay, though. I'm fine."

[howto_submit]

"You're not fine. I've got eyes in my head, Cooper Harris, I can see you quite well," she pointed out, reaching for a pitcher of water nearby and pouring him a glass.

"You're lucky you didn't get yourself killed."

[iparkedmycar]

"Okay, I'm not fine, but I'm not going to die or anything," he says, shoving himself into a sitting position against the pillow so that he can take the water that he's clearly supposed to drink.

"I had to do something, Nicki. Jesus."

[howto_submit]

"All right, all right," she said with a dismissive shake of her head. Heaving out a sigh, she seated herself in the chair by his bedside, folding both hands in her lap.

"Are they giving you something for the pain?"

[iparkedmycar]

"Yeah, it's okay," he says, shifting his weight against the bed because, he's not about to tell Nicki this, but his stitches do kind of ache. He rubs the heel of his hand against the bruises down the side of his face.

"I bet nobody noticed I was gone."

[howto_submit]

"You've hardly been here a month. You can't expect them all to be fawning over you, quite yet," she told him, reaching out to smooth a strand of hair back from his face.

"The only reason anyone would notice I was gone is if they didn't get a hot breakfast on Fridays." Which wasn't entirely true, but there was no one she saw with enough regularity for a few day absence to cause any worry.

[iparkedmycar]

"Yeah, but, you know, you kind of want someone to notice if you've died." The corner of his mouth twitches in an unconscious smile when she brushes his hair back from his forehead. Dimly, he remembers either Rachel or Pepper touching him in the jungle, or maybe he dreamt it.

"I'd miss you," he admits.

[howto_submit]

"Oh, so we're talking about death now? How dramatic," she said, her eyes widening, playful and mocking all at once.

"Well, of course you would. Who else is going to hold your hair back out of the vomit, next time you drink yourself stupid?"

[iparkedmycar]

"You want to see my stitches? They're kind of dramatic, too," he says, grinning broadly and twitching the sheet.

His nose wrinkles.

"I don't throw up every time I drink, you know."

[howto_submit]

Arching a brow at him, she said, "I suppose that depends on where they are."

As for the rest of it, "Oh, no. Of course not. Only when you don't have enough self control to know when to stop."

[iparkedmycar]

He lifts the corner of the sheet, making sure that he preserves his modesty and doesn't upset Nicki, twitching bloody bandages to show her his stitches.

"And they don't hurt that much."

[howto_submit]

"Well now," she said, arching a brow, "On the bright side, you ought to be able to boast a pretty impressive scar, once that heals."

[iparkedmycar]

"Everyone keeps telling me that girls dig scars," he says, more to see if he can get that particular look on her face than anything else. He pauses, looking down; it's weird how young Nicki makes him feel sometimes.

"You got time to stay for a while?"

[howto_submit]

If it was possible, Nicki looked even more unamused in that moment. She thought, suddenly, of the boys back on Juniper Creek. The ones who began showing interest in the pretty young girls living in the big house, who suddenly disappeared. The Lost Boys. Just like Bill.

"I suppose so."