Chapter Text
Oscar flexes his hand and winces as he sits down heavily in one of the rickety old dining chairs occupying Wiesel’s kitchen.
He’s used to the feeling of bruised knuckles, that soreness that runs up his hand when he moves in just the wrong way - or moves at all, when it’s bad. His knuckles are rarely not bruised, what with the life that he leads, whether he’s punching people or walls - and there’s a familiarity to the ache. Something grounding to the pain. It feels like too much to say he likes it - feels too much like Morris and his habits - but Oscar appreciates it, maybe. Appreciates the ability to just flex his hand and be brought back down to earth with a thrum of soreness through those fragile joints and tendons.
These new bruises, however, are distracting. A sharp sting that only comes after a rarer opportunity to use his brass knuckles, evidenced by the bands of red and purple that wrap around his fingers right where the metal sits. He gets them sometimes when he just clenches the brass in his fist, an anxious habit or a threat, but they’re worse when he hits something. The metal gets driven back against him near as bad as it’s driven against his target, some Biblical idea of reaping and sowing, and he’s left bruised or split open, bearing the force against his fingers and the butt of his palm.
Fuck, his palm’s bruised too.
“Move your fingers,” Morris instructs from over his shoulder, and Oscar thoughtlessly does so. Winces again.
“Ain’t broke,” Morris comments then. He’s moving behind Oscar in the cramped little kitchen, sorting himself out.
“Yeah, I know that, dipshit.” Oscar glares, but doesn’t bother to aim it at his younger brother.
Morris had come off worse from the fight. His nose is fucked, blood poured down his front. Oscar keeps his gaze levelled on his own purpling hand, examining with some level of morbid curiosity how blood seems to be pooling at the edges of the bruised bands, but is trapped by the fact his skin hadn’t quite broken. It’s a colourful display, stark against the monotony of his undyed clothes and the bare wood table, more varied than Morris’ wash of red.
“So, could be worse,” Morris says. Oscar hums. He hears the ice box open and shut, and a moment later curses as a lump of ice wrapped in a stained rag is dropped on his injured hand.
“Motherfucker, Mo—!”
“Hold that on it.”
“Fuckin’ dropped it on me—“
“Your hand’ll swell up. An’ we’ll be fucked if Uncle Wies. Or Snyder. Wants us on another job an’ you can’t get your fingers in your knuckles.”
“I can punch just fine without ‘em too,” he mutters bitterly. But Oscar gathers the rag in his good hand and holds it to his knuckles, clenching his jaw against the wave of pain that dulls to a consistent throb.
He’s only had it there for a minute or two when he glances up at Morris, who’s clearly halfheartedly swiped at the blood under his nose but is still a mess of it. The bridge of his nose is split open, his nostrils bleeding, and he’s soaked red all down his chin and neck, right to the collar of his shirt.
Oscar takes the rag off his hand and stands up.
“Os—“
“C’mere,” he orders, faux-sharp, and Morris comes. Screws up his face as Oscar wipes at his injuries with the rag, damp from the ice, with cool efficiency.
“That was s’pose to be for you—“ Morris protests.
“I’ll get myself another.”
When most of the blood has been mopped up, Oscar presses the rag carefully to Morris’ nose and orders him to hold it there, and Morris does with a childish scowl. His own knuckles are bruised too.
“Good kid,” Oscar tells him, pats his cheek and dodges away from the ensuing hit with a grin. “Keep that ice on your nose. I’ll check later if it’s broke.”
“It don’t feel it.”
“You been wrong before.”
Still pouting, Morris sits down in the chair Oscar had been occupying, also still thoughtlessly holding the ice to his bruising nose. He looks young. He looks injured. All of a sudden not the ally who’d stood beside Oscar in that fight, cold and silent, but his little brother. His little brother who’d used to sob breathlessly as Oscar mopped up his bloodied face after a run-in with Da, who’d used to insist his nose was broken every time it was hit because it hurt.
Oscar flexes his bruised knuckles and goes for the ice box.