Band-aids

Vincent stared at the blood-patched cloth drenched in vodka Leo was hovering in front of his face with dismay. “Another one? Don't you think this is enough now?”

He winced when the cloth was brought down on a small cut on his left cheek. Just as soon as the alcohol stopped burning in the wound, he had another bright pink band-aid with a grinning unicorn plastered on his face.

“Shut up, or the next one goes over your mouth,” Leo grumbled. He had spent the past fifteen minutes freeing Vincent from the glass shards that the other man had taken as a souvenir from the hospital.

“When did you even have time to grab all that?” Vincent watched with dread as his partner opened another pack. Leo had run out of unicorns and was now moving on to elephants.

Leo shrugged. “Had some time to kill while you and your wife had a chat.”

“And the first thing that came to mind was robbing the children's ward?”

“Nah, man. These were just lying around in the nurses' ready room.” He took Vincent's wrist and turned it. “Here, let me see your hand.”

With a defeated sigh, Vincent let him continue. “I suppose the tweezers and the vodka as well?”

“Yeah. You'd be surprised what kinda shit you can find in there, man.” Leo added two elephants to Vincent's palm and then inspected his work with a grunt of approval. “Any other spots?”

“I think you got them all covered,” Vincent said hastily. He wasn't going to complain about the massive bruise that was developing on his right side where his hip had connected hard with the roof of a car. Leo might feel compelled to turn it into a colorful elephant graveyard, just for good measure.

“You're lucky it's not broken, man. A fall from that height—”

“Yeah, well. I know how to roll,” Vincent waved it off. “Let me ask you another question. Why?”

“Why, what? Why would a guy jump from the second floor through two glass windows?” Leo feigned innocence as he packed together his makeshift first aid kit. “You know… I asked myself the same thing.”

“Why did you plunder the nurses' ready room?”

“Well, we needed something to celebrate with, didn't we?” Grinning, Leo picked up the bottle of vodka that had doubled as disinfectant a minute ago and passed it to Vincent. “You got lots of stinky diapers to change. If that's not a reason to drink, I don't know what is.”

“Oh…” Vincent considered the bottle. He hadn't really had time to process everything that had happened tonight. Between finding out that Carol had given birth, being nearly strangled by a hit man, and having to escape the police, there just wasn't much room to let reality set in. Sure, he had talked to Carol and held his daughter, but that short moment was hardly enough time to let the realization sink in.

He was a father now.

Damn.

“The words you are looking for are, 'Thank you.'” Leo chimed in. He swiped the bottle out of Vincent's hands and took a generous swig. “Namaste!”

Vincent's attention is brought back to the here and now by the strange words. “Nama— what?”

“It's a thing you say when you drink,” Leo explained with the confidence of a man who had never been wrong in his life.

“I really don't think it is.”

Inspired by This post. ☺