Dare woke up with a throbbing head and throbbing arm. For a moment he was back in the dirt behind the Gold Lasso, waiting for Sam to call Mandy to come get him again. Then he noticed that the ground underneath him wasn't weed-choked pasture, it was cement. And the bar's dumpster smelled a lot like apples.
"Dare? God, Dare, don't move."
The anxious voice exploded in his aching head. Dare disregarded both the anxiety and the order as he heaved himself over with his good arm and threw up on the apple-scented cement.
"Shit, goddammit, hard-headed idiot, god please let him have a hard head--"
"Hey." It was only a whisper, but it got the guy swearing a blue streak to shut up. Gentle hands eased him back down, and this time something soft and spice-scented pillowed his head. He took a shaky breath, and it all came back to him. Culley, the orchard, trying to fix the damn drive shaft on the press...
"Ow, damn it!" Culley just brushed his hand aside and continued pressing something against his forehead. "Cut it out!"
"You're bleeding, Dare. Be still."
Swallowing against another surge of nausea, Dare cradled his right arm against his chest. Culley's voice had a strange, tight sound; he opened his eyes to find a blurry, shirtless Culley leaning over him. "What happened?"
Those beautifully full lips pressed into a thin pale line before Culley answered him. "You didn't wait for me to get back from the west orchard before you started working on the press. I came in just in time to see the brace slip. It hit your arm, then your head. It flung you back..."
Dare was reaching out even before Culley's voice cracked. "I'm okay," he said, left hand cupping his lover's cheek. Culley just gave him a disbelieving stare. "All right, my head hurts like hell and my arm feels like someone ran over it. But I'll be okay."
"Well, Doc Mitchell, I'd believe you more if you weren't bleeding like a stuck pig," Culley shot back. "I'm going to get the Jeep. Just...just stay there and hold this on your head until I get back."
"Yessir." Dare closed his eyes again; Culley's glare didn't lose any potency from being out of focus.
"And fucking well try to stay awake," his boss growled, the tone at odds with the careful way he turned the t-shirt over and placed Dare's good hand on top of it. "You've probably got a concussion, you stubborn ass."
The drive to the hospital in Jerseyville wasn't fun; it gave Dare an all-new appreciation for the trials his mother had gone through when she'd been on the way to the hospital to deliver him. Pot-holed blacktop, winding country roads, and a couple of slow-moving tractors hauling hay made a forty-minute drive into an eternity of bone-jarring, pain-throbbing torture. Dare supposed he should be thankful that Culley drove like a bat out of hell and made it in twenty.
Dizzy, sick and thankful to arrive in one piece, Dare let Culley lead him into the emergency room. The bloody t-shirt was immediately replaced with a thick pad of gauze, and Dare wondered for a moment what Culley was going to wear home. He could hear Culley's voice in the background as the nurse led him behind a curtain. He didn't sound happy.
"Okay, let's see what we're dealing with here, honey." The nurse checked his pulse, his pupils, and peeked under the gauze. "Can you tell me your name?"
"James Mitchell." Dare winced a bit as she pressed the gauze back down.
"Date?"
"January tenth."
"Any dizziness, blurred vision, nausea?"
"Yeah. But that's mostly because my head hurts like hell." He frowned as Culley's voice got that tight growl that meant he was nearing the end of his patience. "Arm does too."
"Let's get the shirt off, then. Should I cut the sleeve?"
"No, no. I can get it off. Need it to wear home." He got the flannel off his left arm with the nurse's help, then bit his lip bloody easing it off his right arm. On the other side of the curtain, the ranting took on a nasty edge. "Culley!" he called, then rode out the resulting wave of pain.
His lover was there beside him in seconds, his skin pale under the fluorescent lights. He helped Dare lie down on the gurney as he muttered about under-staffed rural hospitals and pagers and hospital procedures. Then he started harassing the nurses for blankets to tuck around Dare, and medication for the pain, and a pillow to cushion Dare's rapidly bruising arm. Dare just lay there quietly in lightheaded bemusement and watched Culley skirmish with the nurses until he was sure that the duty nurse was going to deck his partner.
"Culley."
The muttering stopped. "Yeah?"
"Put my shirt on," Dare said softly, so he wouldn't make his head hurt worse. "You're giving the nurses a free show."
It was worth the effort for the bewildered look on Culley's face and the blessed quiet that followed.
Several hours and X-rays later, Dare was back in the Jeep on the way home. This time, he had a hospital blanket wrapped firmly around him and enough pain killer in his veins to handle a roller-coaster ride. So now, naturally, Culley was driving like Mrs. Crader on her way to church on Sunday.
"I'm hungry. Can we stop at Hardee's on the way?"
Culley threw him a glare; the other man practically vibrated in his seat with tension. "Aren't you feeling sick? I can fix you soup when we get home."
Dare held up his right arm, or at least tried to. Between the plastic brace, the sling and the blanket, he couldn't lift it much. "Can eat burgers left-handed. Can't eat soup left-handed," he pointed out logically. Culley just sighed and hit the signal to make the turn.
He managed to squirm free of his thermal-cotton strait jacket in time to wave at the girl in the drive-thru. Culley took the bags from the staring teenager and explained, "He hit his head."
The girl leaned forward to get a better look, then grinned. "If it makes him run around shirtless, I'd hit him on the head too."
The skin under Culley's eye began to twitch.
Dare managed to unwrap his burger left-handed, too many years of eating while driving to work coming in handy. He'd nearly finished it by the time they hit the city limits. While digging for his french fries, he noticed that Culley hadn't even taken his out of the bag. "Aren't you hungry?"
Culley didn't even bother glaring at him this time. "No."
Dare settled back to watch the dark countryside crawl by, meditatively munching on a french fry. Silently he blessed the golden cloud of drugs cushioning him from reality right now. Normally, he'd take Culley's behavior personally. Now, with the detachment of the well-medicated, he could try to figure it out instead.
His lover was high-strung, opinionated and hated being out of control. He'd taken it as a personal affront that no doctor had been on duty when they arrived, and he'd been infuriated when they'd had to wait two hours for the X-ray machine. He'd taken an instant dislike to the doctor when he did arrive, and pestered the nurses until he was satisfied that Dare was as comfortable as possible. While Dare could certainly appreciate the concern, he still didn't understand why Culley had gone into his "in your face" mode so quickly.
Somewhere in the middle of his deliberations, Dare fell asleep. He awoke to the click of the seatbelt release and Culley's cold hand on his cheek.
"Come on, acushla. Let's get you in bed."
He huddled close to Culley on the way to the door, as much for the support as to share his own body heat with his shivering partner. Damn fool, running around shirtless in January. They'd both be in bed at this rate.
Then he decided as they stumbled into the kitchen that both of them in bed wasn't such a bad idea. His head still hurt, and Culley was reaching the end of his endurance. And damn, why didn't they have a bedroom on the first floor? He'd never had good luck with stairs when he was tanked. Good thing Culley was sober. Still vibrating like a combine engine, but sober.
They made it upstairs with a lot of hissed swearing on Culley's part and weaving determination on Dare's part. Sitting on the edge of the bed while Culley knelt in front of him to untie his shoes, Dare let the blanket fall from his shoulders. Thank god he didn't have to take his shirt off again, since Culley was wearing it. Right now he'd gladly never move his right arm again, if it meant it wouldn't start hurting like it had before. He reached down to tug the band from Culley's ponytail, then just let his hand rest on the soft, curling mass.
Culley went still, then slowly his head dropped until his forehead rested on Dare's thigh. He shivered twice, hard. "I was scared," he whispered. "I don't do scared very well."
Dare combed his fingers through the burnished gold hair, soothing his love as the last piece of the puzzle fell into place. Culley was familiar with anger, knew how far he could let it go and still be in control. No surprise, really, that his intrepid partner would rather be angry than scared. "The arm's just a hairline fracture, Cul. Mild concussion. And you know how head wounds bleed. I'll be fine in a few days."
"Yes. I know. Doesn't make me feel any better." Culley looked up at him with blazing dark blue eyes. "You promise me, Dare. No more working on the press without my help. I'll damn well make it an order if I have to."
"Shh. I promise. You know it was just an accident; it could have happened to either of us." Dare fought the pull of exhaustion and the drugs to pull Culley into a kiss. "Now, that offer to get me in bed sounds pretty good. Join me?"
Culley huffed a short laugh. "You're insatiable. And drugged out of your mind. You'll be asleep five seconds after your head hits the pillow."
Dare gave it due consideration, then drawled, "Well...yeah. But I could fall out of bed in my sleep. I need you here, holding me, to make sure I don't."
Pressing a kiss to the unbruised side of his forehead, Culley stood and pulled Dare to his feet. "Let's get you settled, then I'll go lock up the barn. Wouldn't be surprised if I left the damn door swinging open when we left. Then I'll come keep you off the floor for the rest of the night."
Culley stripped him after Dare found out that he couldn't unfasten his own jeans drugged-up and left-handed. He spared a few moments to worry about how he was going to get dressed in the morning, then abandoned that concern as his aching head touched his pillow. Oh hell, that felt good. The warm flannel sheets and down quilt felt even better as Culley settled them over him. He closed his eyes to properly enjoy it, then startled half-awake sometime later as Culley inched in beside him.
His arm throbbed with a distant, muffled ache, but he turned over anyway to twine his legs around Dare's longer ones. "Good," he murmured into Culley's neck. "Won't fall out of bed now."
He felt arms pull him closer until they shared the dip in the center of the mattress. A kiss on his temple, then a shaky sigh. "Need you too, acushla. Need you to keep me from breaking, just like you did today."
Dare nuzzled the tendon under his lips as sleep rolled over him in a soft, black cloud. "Didn't do anything special."
"You called my name," Culley whispered. The live-wire tension was easing now, here in their warm nest. He sounded as honestly confused as Dare felt. "That's all. You just called my name."