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-> Step 1: Take a quick cold shower.
This step is the easiest, and usually feels the best. It cools you down after being in the heat and lets you clean your wounds easily. You’re supposed to keep your showers short to save on the water bill, and you’ve gotten them down to exactly five minutes and one second. You don't feel that clean afterwards, but it doesn’t really matter. Your sweat is rinsed off and you aren’t actively bleeding anymore, and that’s what’s important here.
Once you’re out of the shower, you hang up your Bro’s puppet as gently as you can, even though your hands shake a bit. The little guy is cool, okay? You just don’t like when he’s in the tub with you. You’re worried about mold and shit, ‘cause he’s made of wood, that’s all.
-> Step 2: Patch yourself up.
None of your wounds are too deep– enough to need stitches, anyway– which makes this part pretty easy too. You’d already washed the small cuts, but it doesn’t hurt to put a bit of disinfectant on them too.
Okay, it stings a lot, but it’s for the best. You barely wince anymore when you swab it on, and you know Bro would give you an approving nod at your almost completely still reaction. Or at least he would if you could get your eyebrows to stop furrowing. You still need to school that last little bit of your expression.
You slap bandaids over the cuts, and glance over the bruises a couple times to see if they’re bleeding at all. You aren’t really sure what you’re supposed to do for bruises, and you’re not going to ask now, long after you should’ve figured that out. One on your knee seems to be swelling pretty bad, and you wince a bit when you poke it. You take a deep breath and poke it a bit harder, and this time your face is still. Good.
-> Step 3: Half-assedly reply to your friends.
Once you’ve gotten all cleaned up, you slip into your pajamas– a baggier shirt than you normally wear and sweatpants– and go back to your room. Each step sends a jolt of pain through your leg, but you don’t react. You suppress the urge to limp, even though your Bro can't even see you in the hallway. You figure you must’ve fucked your ankle back up when you did a super cool flip or something. Worth it, even if your move did nothing for the strife.
You sit down at your desk and avoid sighing in relief once the pressure is off your ankle. You’re cooler than that. Showing that you have a weak point would only give an opponent an advantage here. Not that an opponent could overhear you, considering it’s just you and Bro here. Still, to your knowledge, he doesn’t know about your recurring pain, and you’d like to keep it that way.
Your friends have all sent you messages while you were away, which you will lazily respond to now. You expect Rose at least to point out how lethargic you’re texting, but you don’t care right now. You just don’t want them thinking you’re going MIA out of nowhere.
John complains about some kids at his school, Rose asks you in her typical over-the-top way if you’d like to proofread something she’s been writing, and Jade tells you that ice reduces swelling. Huh, weird timing, although you suppose Jade has always had a knack for that. You grumble a response to John, tell Rose to send you her draft and that you’d get to it in a bit, and thank Jade for her advice, but say you’re not going to need it. She replies with a comment about your foot and how it might help with that as well. You laugh it off and shut down your computer.
-> Step 4: Sleep for 12 hours straight.
Okay, you usually don’t sleep that long after strifes, but you’re pretty fucking tired right now. You flop straight from your desk chair to your bed, not wanting to take another step until you’ve taken a nap and hopefully are in less pain. Your post-strife naps tend to be the best sleep you get, since you’re usually too exhausted to dream about puppets– or anything, really.
You’re hungry. The adrenaline is dying off and you’re feeling it again. You really don’t want to get out of bed and dig something out of your closet right now, and you’re pretty sure you’re down to just a couple bags of chips and don’t want to expedite the need for a snack run. It’ll be fine. You’ll be hungrier when you wake up, but you know you’d be hungry after your nap anyway. Might as well save it until then.
As you’re beginning to nod off, your door creaks open. It always creaks. You hate the noise.
BRO: do you want to play cod?
You do not want to play Call of Duty right now. You want to take a super long nap and not feel like garbage.
DAVE: ok
You’re sure you’ll feel like worse garbage if you deny his request. Either because he ramps up the next strife tenfold, or because he stops asking if you want to play games entirely. You’d rather push yourself through a few boring games than risk what little you already have with him.
Your Bro is great. Of course. You just wish you could rest a bit after a strife. You want to put ice on your knee and ankle like Jade suggested, but you can’t do it in front of Bro without seeming like a pussy. You’re sure he could stick out a small bruise or a slightly weak ankle, so why wouldn’t you be able to?
You get out of bed and immediately get dizzy. You keep steady as you exit your room– or you hope you do, anyway– and ignore how your ankle is trying to give in. If Bro notices, he doesn’t show it; which means nothing when it comes to him, really, but you pretend it makes you feel better.
-> Step 4: Sleep Have fun with your Bro.
Bro sits on the futon before you can, taking the left side. You sit on the right, next to the wall. You think he does this because it makes it harder for you to leave when you’re done, but it doesn’t really matter. You like spending time with him. It’s not a big deal. The futon is just as uncomfortable as always– the foam inside is lumpy and it’s too thin to not feel the metal frame. You seriously wonder how he can sleep on it most nights.
You’re only starting to play the game with Bro when you feel your eyelids getting heavy. It’s around five, and your hunger is really hitting you. You don’t want to ask if Bro is going to order a pizza or anything, but you think he gets food more when the two of you are doing something together. Another benefit of getting on the Xbox with him.
Your controller barely works, and it’s frustrating you more than you’d like to admit. It’s sibling tradition for the youngest to get the broken controller, and you know that, but it doesn’t make it feel any better to use. The game mode you’re playing is cooperative, so it’s not like he’s beating your ass or anything, but he’s absolutely carrying the game for the two of you. You’ve played the game on your own with the good controller and you’re perfectly fine at it, but you sure aren’t proving that to Bro right now. A bad swordsman blames his weapon, or whatever.
After twenty-ish more minutes of struggling to hit a single shot in the game while trying to stay awake, Bro stands up and sets his controller down.
BRO: ordering a pizza. don’t lose for us.
DAVE: ok
Score. You pick up his controller– because no way you wouldn’t die if you kept playing with the piece of shit you have– and keep up the game for the two of you. It’s so much easier to use and Bro has way better equipment than you do. It’d upset you more if you weren’t keeping your cool right now.
A couple minutes later, Bro sits back down on the futon, and you pass him his controller back.
BRO: pizza will be here soon.
DAVE: sweet
You and Bro keep playing together, and you’re stuck back with your barely-functional controller. Fuck, you’re so tired. You’ve just got to stick out a bit more of the game, and then the food will be here, and you can eat and go to sleep.
You blink, and it’s dark outside. You’ve gone from sitting straight to curled up on the cushion. Bro has switched the game mode to online, and is halfway through a match. You think it’s around 10:30 now, but you aren’t sure why exactly. You must’ve fallen asleep. Bro is going to think you’re so lame.
The pizza arrived a few hours ago, and Bro had dragged a large speaker to the couch to set the pizza box on, since the two of you don’t have a coffee table or anything. You sit up and stretch your arms. The way you’d curled up has only made your ankle ache worse.
BRO: mornin.
He picks up the pizza box and hands it to you, eyes still on the TV. He’s cradling Lil Cal in his arms, whose beady eyes are focused on you. You wish he’d look away.
-> Step 5: Eat.
You take the box and look inside. A meager two pieces are left behind, along with the crusts from the pieces Bro ate. It’s a meat lover’s pizza, topped with pepperoni, ham, and sausage. You don’t really like sausage– despite what some flighty broads might say– but you aren’t going to pick it off. You could never mess with the sacred irony of two extremely straight dudes eating a pizza called Meat Lover’s. Plus, you wouldn’t want Bro to think you dislike his choice in pizza.
The pizza’s gone cold by now, and the grease and cheese have solidified. Kind of gross, but you’re grateful to have gotten pizza in the first place.
You must make some kind of face without realizing, because Cal’s head shifts slightly towards you as Bro begins to speak.
BRO: you snooze you lose
Cal’s cool. You like Cal. You just wish his movements wouldn’t sync up so neatly with Bro’s sometimes. It’s a little creepy, is all? Not that you’d ever vocalize that, because you aren’t scared. Just a little put off.
DAVE: do we have any coke
Bro leans over, eyes still focused on the TV, and begins rustling around under the futon. Cal moves out of place, his head bobbing to face you. You want him to look away. Bro tosses you a can of Diet Coke and sits back against the futon. It’s room temperature, but you don’t really care right now. Cal is still looking at you. You look away, but you still feel his eyes on you. For something inanimate, you hate how lifelike it can act. You know that’s just Bro fucking with you, but still.
You like Cal. You are okay with living with Cal. He just freaks you out a bit sometimes. You aren’t scared of him, or puppets in general. You crack open the can and take a sip, squeezing it a bit harder than you mean to hide that you’re shaking. You’re shaking because you’re hungry. No other reason.
You take a piece of the pizza and start eating it slower than you’d like. You don’t want Bro to think you’re desperate. The taste of the sausage clings to the inside of your mouth, which you really don’t like, but you stick through it.
You finish both the pieces fairly quickly, and don’t really feel full. You consider eating the leftover crusts in the box, but you think that’d be a bit gross. And you don’t want Bro to know how hungry you really are. You finish your coke and crush the can, putting it in the box among the crusts.
DAVE: im going back to my room
BRO: ok.
You stand up carefully so as to not hint that your ankle is hurt, and flashstep as best you can across Bro’s room, so you don’t get in the way of his game. Your ankle only aches worse afterwards. You wonder how you fucked it up so bad in the first place.
-> Step 6: Change your bandages.
Since most of your cuts were pretty shallow today, you hadn’t bled that much, but it’s better safe than sorry to change the dressings before you go to bed. You stop by the bathroom, peel off the bandages you have on, and wash the cuts in the sink. You make sure none of them look gross and discolored, and they all look pretty normal. You dig out some ointment from within the medicine cabinet, rub it over the scrapes, and bandage them back up. That should be good for now.
You don’t look at the puppet in the shower. You try not to even think about it. You get freaked out when you do, some kind of performance anxiety or something.
-> Step 7: Sleep (for real this time).
You go back to your room for good now. Your bedding isn’t exactly cold, considering how hot your room is, but it still feels nice to lay on. Your pillows are old and stiff, far too flat now to be any comfortable, but it’s fine. You can go back to sleep just fine.
You’re still hungry, but you just ate something, and you don’t want to get something out of your main stash. Putting off a snack run for another day. You’ll be fine.
You hope you don’t dream about puppets tonight.