Bandit Fighting Is Dangerous Work, but Broken Bones Are Cool
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The first thing Odin noticed when he woke up was that his head hurt. The second thing he noticed was that lots of his other body parts hurt. The third thing he noticed was that his head hurt a lot.
“Ow,” Odin said, hearing his voice come out funnier than usual. He tried to sit up and failed. So instead he said “ow” again but more pitifully this time.
“Odin,” said a nice-sounding voice. Odin managed to open his eyes a little bit, and there was nice-looking Murph, sitting beside his bed. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” Odin said. “My face hurts. And also my head and my nose.”
“Yeah,” Murph agreed, sitting right beside him on the bed. He was patting Odin’s hair, which helped a lot considering that Odin’s hair had gone numb. “You, uh, broke your nose.”
Oh. That explained why Odin couldn’t breathe through his nose, which sucked. That was his second favourite place to breathe from. And if he couldn’t breathe through it, that meant he couldn’t use his mouth for anything too serious, or even for eating. “Why? No, wait,” Odin said, remembering why. “Someone stepped on me. Really hard with a boot, not in the cute way.” Pierre stepped on him sometimes, but not to break his nose, usually just to get to something that was put too high for kids to reach.
“Yeah, someone broke into the inn last night and tried to beat you up,” Murph said. He sounded so worried. Odin didn’t blame him—clearly Odin couldn’t protect the inn. “And also stole your clothes? Which is a bit of a dick move when it was so cold.”
Odin nodded, but only once because that hurt. “It was, uh, it was the bandit guys. The Brotherhood of the Dickle.”
Murph frowned. “I thought it was sickle.”
“I’m pretty sure it’s pickle. They were trying to bandit the inn and I tried to stop them but they beat me up. I hit one of them with the broom. But they also kicked me in the balls.” Those were also sore. Odin lifted up the blanket to check on them, but they seemed fine.
Murph was looking closely at him, also peering under the blanket. “I’m a bit confused about that chronology,” he admitted. “But I think it’s really cool how you went down to fight them like that and I’m glad you’re okay. I’m going to go get your parents and tell them you’re awake.”
“Great,” Odin said. That seemed like a good idea. He reached up and touched his nose. “Ow, fuck.” That pain distracted him from the pain in his face, which had been distracting him from the fact that Murph had called him cool. Odin was kind of cool, wasn’t he? Kind of like Owen.
“Yeah, maybe don’t touch that. My dad set it for you but it’ll be a few days before the swelling goes down. Don’t worry, he’s a great field medic. This one time he was guarding this caravan and some robber got his whole hand cut off, and my dad sewed it back on for him and he was fine.”
Odin tried to nod again and then remembered that that still hurt a lot. “That’s so cool,” he said, wishing his voice didn’t sound funny. “I didn’t have any body parts cut off, right?”
“No,” Murph promised. “Just squished into shapes body parts don’t usually squish into. But you’ll be okay.”
“Great.”
“Great,” Murph said, not getting up. Then he got up. “Okay, I’ll go get your parents.”
“Thanks,” Odin said, smiling a little. “Hey, were you sitting with me?”
“Yeah. But not in a weird way! Just in a normal way to make sure you didn’t die or anything while everyone else talked about what to do about the bandits.” Murph was talking really fast like he did when he was trying to stop talking to Odin, which was a bit sad.
At least it had been a normal sitting and not a weird sitting, those could give him cramps. “Was I naked the whole time?” This seemed important for some reason.
“Yeah. We figured that was easier,” said Murph.
“Even when your dad was setting my nose?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay, awesome,” Odin said. “I’m going to maybe try and put pants on while you’re gone.”
Murph shrugged. “You don’t have to, it’s just us here.”
“But…won’t my parents be here soon?”
“Well, yeah. But they might leave and then it would be just us again.”
Oh, that was a good point. “Okay but if that happens you should get naked too.”
“No take-backs. I’ll be right back,” Murph said, and he left the room.
He was so nice, Odin thought. It wasn’t very fair to take advantage of his pity by making him get naked, but Odin wanted to see Murph naked again and this would be a great chance. Maybe while he was hurt he could ask Murph to help him with stuff, like having baths and changing clothes and jerking off. Everyone asked their friends to jerk them off when they had broken bones, that was actually a super normal thing to do. Howard had when Odin had broken his hand when he’d been younger, and Murph was cooler than Howard. Yeah, Odin would do that. Murph would probably help him.
He could use some help with jerking off right now, actually. He’d gotten hard even though his balls were still a bit sore, and without even Pierre to help him, Odin was forced to jerk himself off, touching his really hard dick and thinking it was a good thing the Tickle guys hadn’t broken that, because he needed that more than he needed his nose.
Yeah, he’d better keep jerking off just to make sure his dick was working. And his balls too, those were also important. He wondered if anyone had set those. Maybe Murph would do it for him. Maybe…
The door opened. “Odin!”
Odin jerked his hand away from his cock at the sound of his mom’s voice, pulling it out from under the blanket. “Hi, Mom!” he said, feeling a lot of heat in his face, which was probably making the swelling worse.
Mom came in with Dad, and Pierre and Phoebe and Uncle Oscar and Aunt Tina too, and Odin had a really obvious tent in the blanket, which sucked even if his mom’s voice was making the problem go away faster than it had arisen. Murph was behind them, lingering in the doorway, and Odin could see at least two of his dads in the hallway, and it was Lev and Rodrigue, who were the hot dads. So that was a lot of family members and/or people who Odin thought were hot who could see that he’d been jerking off.
Odin decided that the best thing to do was play this perfectly cool. Owen would be super cool about this, and Odin was basically Owen but less cool, so there was no reason this couldn’t be fine. “Hey,” he said to everyone, coolly. “The bandits broke into the inn but I scared them away. I think we need a weighted broom or something because I had to hit one of them in the foot with my nose before they left.”
They were all looking at him funny, but that was how people had used to look at Owen, so Odin smiled. Then he stopped smiling because it hurt his face.
In the doorway, Murph looked like he might fall over, watching Odin. He was probably embarrassed on Odin’s behalf, but Odin’s face hurt too much to be worried. Pierre jumped on the bed and several people scolded him, even though he only landed on Odin’s legs, which were the least injured part of him.
His parents started asking him questions, and that took a really long time even though the answers to all of them were “I don’t know.” Odin’s balls still hurt even more than they had, but his nose hurt a lot more, which made it hard for him to pay attention to whatever they were saying about watching the community and a plan Grandpa Lionel had come up with together with Murph’s dads, but that was okay. Odin had done his part, and he was happy to let someone else get their nose broken next.
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How Best to Use a Sword 