Counterclockwise

Simon is standing there, hugging Lee Spencer, for a moment. He's warm, and he smells like vintage cologne, and his hair tickles Simon's cheek. Then, Simon is backing up, letting go of the hug, looking at Lee's flushed face as he sways. Then, Simon blinks- quite suddenly, in fact, like he's got something in his eye- and then Lee's fallen backwards, and suddenly everything is wrong.

Simon scrambles to help, unsure of what the hell could possibly have happened in a split second, but Lee is hunched over in a ball, bent over his stomach. Simon kneels down beside him, brushing his hair out of his face- he can't see what's wrong with his stomach, not yet, as his hands cover it, as Lee's face is scrunched up in pain.

"Lee? Lee," Simon says, and Lee looks up when he calls his name; he's present. "What's happened? Let me help you."

Lee takes a deep, shuddering breath, and when his clutched hands holding his flannel around his stomach let go, they're slick with blood. Simon sees a gash in his shirt, and he doesn't have time to try and figure out how. It's not possible, it shouldn't be possible, it doesn't make any sense, but Simon doesn't have time for that right now.

Simon's got first aid training, so at least there's that. "Alright, listen to me," he says in a low, comforting voice. He hears the sounds of chairs scraping, glasses clinking, feels the stares of people around them, and brushes them off as best as he can. "Now, you're not too badly injured. But it probably hurts a whole hell of a lot."

This is, at least in spirit, a complete lie. Simon has no idea how badly Lee is injured. It's just that panic does not help in any way, shape or form.

"Let me take a look, and we'll get you fixed up," Simon says, as calm as he can; and Lee's hands relax, although they shake as they do, and Simon can gently pull up his shirt, gesturing for Lee to lay back, to not look at his own injury.

Simon takes off his own jacket- fuck it- and presses it to the wound to clear the blood. When he takes it off, for a moment before the blood flows again, he can see it clearly. It's a clear cut across Lee's stomach, right below his ribs, diagonal. It's deeper and wider at the top, like it was made coming down. Which, again, makes no sense- for that to happen, Simon would've had to do it, with some kind of knife he wasn't holding. It can't have been something that flew between them. Simon considers the possibility that it was some kind of old wound that Lee had managed to pull open- but there's no scabbing, it looks completely fresh.

Simon cannot add two and two in this moment. He doesn't have the time to, anyway- he has to stop Lee from losing an insane amount of blood.

"You've been cut," Simon says, calm, "...somehow." He can't help that word. "But it doesn't look too deep. I'm going to stop the bleeding, and then we're going to the hospital."

"No-" Lee tries, but Simon shushes him without a second thought.

"You need stitches." Simon's voice is still calm, no easy feat. "Again, you're going to be fine. But we need a doctor to look at this."

Lee groans, his head falling back against the tile of the balcony. His eyes glisten in the dark, and Simon can't quite pick up what seems different about him. No time, no time, no time.

He slips his jacket underneath Lee's back, and sees the sliced ruin of Lee's t-shirt that once sat underneath the flannel; it's already ruined, and so Simon wastes no time ripping it down the front, using it to pad the wound so he can tie the sleeves of his jacket over the top. Lee's shocked face might be amusing in another context. "There," Simon mutters, "can you stand?"

"It's not that bad," Lee says through gritted teeth, "...just fuckin' hurts."

"I don't know what your pain tolerance is like," Simon justifies, but there's a little smile in his words; at least he's okay. "Take my hand, then, come on."