Once the cream's been smeared liberally around--Laertes doesn't know how much to use, so he all but empties the tube--Laertes begins wrapping Damien's hand with the bandage. Unbidden, his hands fall into the rhythm that he's used to wrap his own hands for boxing (and the memories flow freely through him: duels in cities where common men were not permitted rapiers, the explosive bloom of pain from a well-thrown punch and the long, sweet bruise blooming after). Wrist over the web of the thumb, around the palm, around each finger separately before wrapping them together. "There," he says as he tucks the end beneath another (oddly tacky) length of bandage. "That looks well."

It doesn't. It doesn't at all.