What Are Friends For

“Ahhh, fuck me, shit that hurts!”

Everyone in the room tries desperately not to laugh, or smile. It’s a serious situation, what with Monty lying at the foot of his bed, clutching his left arm so tightly that he’s leaving red marks on the skin. The worst offender is Sasha who is giggling - and also kind of crying, but Larissa isn’t sure if it’s from the laughter or if she’s actually upset. Both Sasha and Monty are topless, which is partly why the situation is so funny.

“You’re telling me that you were about to get down,” Basim says, wiggling his eyebrows, “and you just fell off the bed?”

“Super embarrassing dude,” Ciarán drawls. He’s grinning from ear to ear, not even trying to hide it, and it’s obvious that he’s never going to let Monty live this moment down. Larissa herself is planning on bringing up at every opportunity.

At least she’s being mature at the moment.

Larissa kneels down beside him, examining his arm with a great deal of care, doing her best to imitate the doctor’s she has seen examining patients during her mock shifts on the wards. As she goes about her examination, Monty tries to shift so that he can glare up at Basim and Ciarán. “Fuck you guys.”

“Stay still, will you?” she orders. To her surprise, he stops fidgeting, looking more sombre than she’s ever seen him.

Sasha joins them, rubbing soothing circles into Monty’s shoulder. “What’s the verdict, doc?”

“Not a doctor,” she shoots back, though there’s a twinkle in her eyes as she glances up at Sasha. The unspoken yet resting between them. “I think…” She works down his forearm, as gently as possible. When she gets to the point just shy of Monty’s wrist, she feels him tense beneath her touch, and he mutters out another string of curses. Some of them directed at her, most not. “It might be broken.”

“Might?”

“Broken?!”

Two raucous sets of laughter ring out. Larissa has to bite her lip as a way to force herself not to join in, which earns her a pointed look from Sasha.

“You have to admit, it’s kinda funny.”

“Rissa…”

“Alright, alright,” she says, sighing dramatically. Then she tilts her head, glancing down at Monty with as much sympathy as she can muster - definitely not any lingering amusement in her eyes. “I’m no expert and I’ve only really done the theory work, but I think I’ve been around enough docs to know that this bad boy is broken. Maybe just fractured. Okay, I’m not sure, but it’s probably broken.”

“Your confidence is staggering, Princess,” Monty groans. He sounds annoyed, but Larissa is content to assume that’s just a side effect of the pain forcing him to grind his teeth.

“I can poke it if you’d like? Then we’d know for sure.”

There’s a hefty pause. Monty seems to be calculating whether or not Larissa is serious which she’s not - he may be an asshole most of the time but Larissa’s not about to hurt him just for the fun of it - but the pain must be making him borderline delusion because he can’t seem to tell. “No. No poking. Just, fuck, take me to get it checked out please?”

To which Larissa slaps his shoulder and only takes a slight amount of joy in his wince, before rising to her feet and saying, “no problem, Monty Boy, let me just go fetch the keys.”