Five Times James Wilson Was Sick Freshman Year (R, 4/6)
Title: Five Times James Wilson Was Sick Freshman Year (And a Couple of Times He Wasn’t), Part 4 of 6
Author: Dee Laundry
Pairing: Wilson/McKay (this part), Wilson/OFC (other parts)
Rating: R
Words: 1824
Notes: Set in late 1980s (as was my US college experience). Many, many thanks to mer_duff and topaz_eyes for providing Canadian expertise, and daisylily for beta. Warning for teen drinking, if that kind of thing disturbs you. Written as a Secret Santa present for samaurai_pyoko.
Part One - Part Two - Part Three
iv. Acute viral nasopharyngitis
“Rodney,” James whined from the nest he’d made on his bed. He was pleased to hear that the congestion amplified how annoying he could make the tone. “Stay in with me. You never go out on a Friday night.”
Rodney was halfway in the closet, digging into the back for something. “I never go out on a Friday because there’s never anything going on that’s worth interrupting my work.” He emerged from the closet with two different blue button-down shirts in hand, one of which was a horrible check pattern and the other of which was James’.
“Tonight, on the other hand,” Rodney continued, looking into the mirror and holding each shirt in front of himself in turn (James complimented himself on his excellent control in not laughing hysterically at Rodney primping), “there is actually something that I wouldn’t feel was wasting my valuable time.”
Tugging his blanket higher and his Kleenex closer, James tried to look as endearingly pitiful as possible. His parents, friends, girls, and even his brothers fell for it all the time, but Rodney seemed to be immune, damn him. “What’s the big deal?” he asked, and sniffled.
“Keep your snot to yourself,” Rodney warned as he pulled off his sweatshirt and began applying deodorant. “My constitution must be protected.”
James rolled his eyes and readjusted his pillow to ease a twinge in his back. “You gave me this cold. Remember last week when you thought you were going to die?”
Hands flapping dismissively, Rodney selected James’ blue shirt. He tugged it on and seemed bewildered by the length of the sleeves.
“It’s my shirt,” James pointed out. “Roll up the sleeves and you’ll be fine.”
Rodney regarded him skeptically. “I don’t want to look like a heathen.”
Flopping back, James groaned, “Where are you going?”
Rodney’s sleeves were going up in precise, neat folds, and that more than anything told James how nervous he was. “Off-campus sorority event. You could come too, if you’d get one of your biomed-whatever friends to write you a prescription.”
“There’s no medicine that cures colds, as I told you last week; students can’t write prescriptions; and anyway, I would never ask a friend to write one for me,” James said scornfully. “Writing prescriptions for friends is begging for trouble.”
Rodney shrugged. “Suit yourself.”
“Since when do you care about Greek events, anyway? I’ve been trying to get you to go - wait a minute.” He thought for a second; colds like this always made him feel frustratingly slow. “Kappa Alpha Theta is the only sorority throwing a party tonight. You hate ‘the fake kitties,’ as you call them.”
“You call them kitties, too,” Rodney retorted. He was looking in the mirror again, raking his fingers through his hair. If James had felt like being generous, he would have admitted Rodney didn’t look half bad in James’ blue shirt. If.
“Rodney, you hate them, and it’ll be boring,” James wheedled. “They’ll talk about clothes and soap operas and Andrew McCarthy, and they’ll probably play Tiffany and Whitney Houston the whole night.”
He could see Rodney wavering; the guy hated small-talk and most things pop culture with a passion. James went in for the kill. “Come on, stay in with me. I have the TV and VCR out of the common room and The Untouchables on tape. And my mom sent cookies today.”
“Good cookies?” Rodney asked, his head tilting to the ‘maximum interest’ position. “Without -”
“Yes. To both of those.” James bit his lip, trying to hide his triumph. “Half are chocolate chip and half are sugar cookies with icing.”
James pointed toward his dresser, and Rodney swooped down on the box, ripping it open. “Sweet,” he mumbled, a cookie already between his lips.
“You’re hilarious,” James commented and gestured for Rodney to hand over the box.
“What?” Rodney said, amusingly confused, but James just smirked and picked a cookie for himself.
They munched for a minute, Rodney leaning against the dresser and James tucked contentedly under his covers. When Rodney started pushing his bed over next to James’ so they could both see the television screen, James ignored his grumbling and complaining. Rodney had made him do all the heavy lifting the week before; turnabout was fair play. He did pull his blankets up and out of the way so they wouldn’t get caught between the bed frames, and threw a corner over Rodney when the guy flopped down, sighing like he’d had to move a mountain.
The movie was pretty good, and the cookies were excellent, although in pieces due to the shipping. Rodney kept the box firmly planted on his lap, so James found himself leaning over a lot to grab another chunk of cookie. Eventually he realized it’d be easier to get to the treats if he simply made Rodney’s shoulder and side into his pillow. Rodney grumbled for a second but didn’t move away.
“The rest of this movie better have more shootouts and less historically inaccurate posturing,” Rodney said a while later. “I gave up Micheline Lapointe for it, after all.”
“What’s Micheline Lapointe?”
“Who. Cute blonde Kappa Alpha Theta alumna who I heard was going to come back for the party tonight. I met her when her father did my student interview.”
James felt unaccountably annoyed. Rodney had talked, at length, about girls he liked - if James had to hear the story of Jocelyn and the movie Alien one more time… - but this was different, for some reason James couldn’t name.
He butted his skull into Rodney’s upper arm on the pretext of reaching for another cookie, and smiled to himself at Rodney’s muttered ow. The blanket had slipped, so he rearranged it around their legs.
“Micheline Lapointe,” he groused. “What kind of name is that?”
“Who cares?” Rodney replied absently, reabsorbed into the movie.
Still annoyed, he muttered, “What does she have that I don’t?”
Rodney pulled back suddenly, and James found himself tumbling into Rodney’s lap.
When he looked up, Rodney was staring at him, confused and amused, movie forgotten. “Boobs and a Québécois accent.”
“I can do a Québécois accent,” James sniffed. He grabbed at a conveniently close tissue and blew his nose, never moving from his comfortable spot on his back with his head in Rodney’s lap.
“You so can’t,” Rodney replied as he settled back onto his headboard. “I’m in awe that no one else has ever told you that, so that I have to keep telling you in the hopes it’ll sink in. And regardless of the Freshman Ten, those aren’t real boobs either.” He gestured toward James’ chest, just brushing James’ left shoulder.
“Hey! I haven’t gained weight. My chest is perfectly flat and… manly!” Seeing Rodney’s smirk, James felt driven, no, compelled to prove his point, and he yanked his sweatshirt up to under his armpits. “See?”
Still smirking that infuriating smirk, Rodney replied, “Boobs always look flatter when you’re lying down.”
James felt like growling but instead he sat up onto his knees and pulled his shirt completely off, throwing it aside. “See?” he said and grabbed Rodney’s hand and pressed it to his chest. “Flat.”
“Um,” Rodney said, and James was suddenly aware of how warm Rodney’s palm was, right over James’ heart. It was - he didn’t know what it was. Except now he was letting it go on too long, and Rodney was turning his head away. He let go quickly, self-consciously, and then shivered as Rodney’s warm hand dropped away.
“You’re cold,” Rodney said quietly. When James looked up, Rodney was looking at his face. It was a serious look, with some questioning to it, but no anger. James had been expecting anger… or amusement, he realized. A joke, they could laugh it off as a joke, except Rodney didn’t seem to feel the need to do that. James felt himself shiver again.
Rodney shook his head and said, “Get under the covers if you’re cold, you idiot.”
A little disappointed - although it hadn’t been anything, really - James was slinking back to his bed, leaving Rodney alone, when a pair of warm arms encircled him.
“Shared body heat, good for this sort of thing,” Rodney said sheepishly, and James twisted around until they were face to face, inches apart, lying across both their beds. He held in a breath and watched Rodney blink.
“So,” Rodney whispered a moment later. “You’re a hundred percent sure that’s the same cold I had last week?”
James nodded. “You’re safe.”
“Yeah,” Rodney breathed. “I guess I am.”
They kissed slowly. It wasn’t shy, exactly, just… testing. Experimenting. Rodney started out, frankly, as an okay kisser, but he responded quickly to coaching, to James’ delight, and ended up as one of the better kissing partners James had ever had.
Then Rodney touched James’ hard-on for the first time, and from there everything went fast. A blur of sensation and pleasure and Rodney’s eyes crinkling shut, soft non-words falling from his mouth.
Afterwards, James threw all the tissues to the floor, and they lay under the blanket with Rodney curled into James’ chest, watching the end of The Untouchables.
When the credits rolled, right when James was about to point out that one of the crew members was named Skotchdopole, Rodney asked, “So when you had the lice-things, they tested you for other kinds of VD, right?”
Immediately embarrassed, James was glad Rodney was still looking at the TV screen. “Yes. I didn’t have anything else. And the lice were gone right away, too.”
“I know. Otherwise I wouldn’t have moved in. And have you been with a lot of, you know, people since then?” Rodney’s hair tickled James’ chest as he talked.
“No, not really. Kissed two girls, but kissing was as far as it went.”
“And I haven’t - well, that is to say, I’m clean. So… if we wanted to do something like that again, then it wouldn’t be a problem.”
“I guess not,” James replied, a grin stretching across his face. Rodney turned off the TV, and they were asleep within minutes.
When James woke up in the morning, Rodney had already pushed his bed back against the other wall. James thought about that for a minute, and had just reached the conclusion that he was glad - Rodney snored and kicked at night - when he was hit in the face with a sweatshirt.
“Up, lazy-bones,” Rodney ordered. “Let’s go get breakfast before they run out of pancakes.”
“Yeah, all right,” James replied as he pulled on his clothes.
Rodney’s rant about the idiocy of the students in his Saturday study group took them all the way to the nearest cafeteria and halfway through breakfast. Then they were joined by a couple of people from James’ chemistry class, and Marie and Anne stopped by, too, and the day went on the way any given Saturday did. If James was acting a little more cheerful than usual, nobody mentioned it.
Author: Dee Laundry
Pairing: Wilson/McKay (this part), Wilson/OFC (other parts)
Rating: R
Words: 1824
Notes: Set in late 1980s (as was my US college experience). Many, many thanks to mer_duff and topaz_eyes for providing Canadian expertise, and daisylily for beta. Warning for teen drinking, if that kind of thing disturbs you. Written as a Secret Santa present for samaurai_pyoko.
Part One - Part Two - Part Three
iv. Acute viral nasopharyngitis
“Rodney,” James whined from the nest he’d made on his bed. He was pleased to hear that the congestion amplified how annoying he could make the tone. “Stay in with me. You never go out on a Friday night.”
Rodney was halfway in the closet, digging into the back for something. “I never go out on a Friday because there’s never anything going on that’s worth interrupting my work.” He emerged from the closet with two different blue button-down shirts in hand, one of which was a horrible check pattern and the other of which was James’.
“Tonight, on the other hand,” Rodney continued, looking into the mirror and holding each shirt in front of himself in turn (James complimented himself on his excellent control in not laughing hysterically at Rodney primping), “there is actually something that I wouldn’t feel was wasting my valuable time.”
Tugging his blanket higher and his Kleenex closer, James tried to look as endearingly pitiful as possible. His parents, friends, girls, and even his brothers fell for it all the time, but Rodney seemed to be immune, damn him. “What’s the big deal?” he asked, and sniffled.
“Keep your snot to yourself,” Rodney warned as he pulled off his sweatshirt and began applying deodorant. “My constitution must be protected.”
James rolled his eyes and readjusted his pillow to ease a twinge in his back. “You gave me this cold. Remember last week when you thought you were going to die?”
Hands flapping dismissively, Rodney selected James’ blue shirt. He tugged it on and seemed bewildered by the length of the sleeves.
“It’s my shirt,” James pointed out. “Roll up the sleeves and you’ll be fine.”
Rodney regarded him skeptically. “I don’t want to look like a heathen.”
Flopping back, James groaned, “Where are you going?”
Rodney’s sleeves were going up in precise, neat folds, and that more than anything told James how nervous he was. “Off-campus sorority event. You could come too, if you’d get one of your biomed-whatever friends to write you a prescription.”
“There’s no medicine that cures colds, as I told you last week; students can’t write prescriptions; and anyway, I would never ask a friend to write one for me,” James said scornfully. “Writing prescriptions for friends is begging for trouble.”
Rodney shrugged. “Suit yourself.”
“Since when do you care about Greek events, anyway? I’ve been trying to get you to go - wait a minute.” He thought for a second; colds like this always made him feel frustratingly slow. “Kappa Alpha Theta is the only sorority throwing a party tonight. You hate ‘the fake kitties,’ as you call them.”
“You call them kitties, too,” Rodney retorted. He was looking in the mirror again, raking his fingers through his hair. If James had felt like being generous, he would have admitted Rodney didn’t look half bad in James’ blue shirt. If.
“Rodney, you hate them, and it’ll be boring,” James wheedled. “They’ll talk about clothes and soap operas and Andrew McCarthy, and they’ll probably play Tiffany and Whitney Houston the whole night.”
He could see Rodney wavering; the guy hated small-talk and most things pop culture with a passion. James went in for the kill. “Come on, stay in with me. I have the TV and VCR out of the common room and The Untouchables on tape. And my mom sent cookies today.”
“Good cookies?” Rodney asked, his head tilting to the ‘maximum interest’ position. “Without -”
“Yes. To both of those.” James bit his lip, trying to hide his triumph. “Half are chocolate chip and half are sugar cookies with icing.”
James pointed toward his dresser, and Rodney swooped down on the box, ripping it open. “Sweet,” he mumbled, a cookie already between his lips.
“You’re hilarious,” James commented and gestured for Rodney to hand over the box.
“What?” Rodney said, amusingly confused, but James just smirked and picked a cookie for himself.
They munched for a minute, Rodney leaning against the dresser and James tucked contentedly under his covers. When Rodney started pushing his bed over next to James’ so they could both see the television screen, James ignored his grumbling and complaining. Rodney had made him do all the heavy lifting the week before; turnabout was fair play. He did pull his blankets up and out of the way so they wouldn’t get caught between the bed frames, and threw a corner over Rodney when the guy flopped down, sighing like he’d had to move a mountain.
The movie was pretty good, and the cookies were excellent, although in pieces due to the shipping. Rodney kept the box firmly planted on his lap, so James found himself leaning over a lot to grab another chunk of cookie. Eventually he realized it’d be easier to get to the treats if he simply made Rodney’s shoulder and side into his pillow. Rodney grumbled for a second but didn’t move away.
“The rest of this movie better have more shootouts and less historically inaccurate posturing,” Rodney said a while later. “I gave up Micheline Lapointe for it, after all.”
“What’s Micheline Lapointe?”
“Who. Cute blonde Kappa Alpha Theta alumna who I heard was going to come back for the party tonight. I met her when her father did my student interview.”
James felt unaccountably annoyed. Rodney had talked, at length, about girls he liked - if James had to hear the story of Jocelyn and the movie Alien one more time… - but this was different, for some reason James couldn’t name.
He butted his skull into Rodney’s upper arm on the pretext of reaching for another cookie, and smiled to himself at Rodney’s muttered ow. The blanket had slipped, so he rearranged it around their legs.
“Micheline Lapointe,” he groused. “What kind of name is that?”
“Who cares?” Rodney replied absently, reabsorbed into the movie.
Still annoyed, he muttered, “What does she have that I don’t?”
Rodney pulled back suddenly, and James found himself tumbling into Rodney’s lap.
When he looked up, Rodney was staring at him, confused and amused, movie forgotten. “Boobs and a Québécois accent.”
“I can do a Québécois accent,” James sniffed. He grabbed at a conveniently close tissue and blew his nose, never moving from his comfortable spot on his back with his head in Rodney’s lap.
“You so can’t,” Rodney replied as he settled back onto his headboard. “I’m in awe that no one else has ever told you that, so that I have to keep telling you in the hopes it’ll sink in. And regardless of the Freshman Ten, those aren’t real boobs either.” He gestured toward James’ chest, just brushing James’ left shoulder.
“Hey! I haven’t gained weight. My chest is perfectly flat and… manly!” Seeing Rodney’s smirk, James felt driven, no, compelled to prove his point, and he yanked his sweatshirt up to under his armpits. “See?”
Still smirking that infuriating smirk, Rodney replied, “Boobs always look flatter when you’re lying down.”
James felt like growling but instead he sat up onto his knees and pulled his shirt completely off, throwing it aside. “See?” he said and grabbed Rodney’s hand and pressed it to his chest. “Flat.”
“Um,” Rodney said, and James was suddenly aware of how warm Rodney’s palm was, right over James’ heart. It was - he didn’t know what it was. Except now he was letting it go on too long, and Rodney was turning his head away. He let go quickly, self-consciously, and then shivered as Rodney’s warm hand dropped away.
“You’re cold,” Rodney said quietly. When James looked up, Rodney was looking at his face. It was a serious look, with some questioning to it, but no anger. James had been expecting anger… or amusement, he realized. A joke, they could laugh it off as a joke, except Rodney didn’t seem to feel the need to do that. James felt himself shiver again.
Rodney shook his head and said, “Get under the covers if you’re cold, you idiot.”
A little disappointed - although it hadn’t been anything, really - James was slinking back to his bed, leaving Rodney alone, when a pair of warm arms encircled him.
“Shared body heat, good for this sort of thing,” Rodney said sheepishly, and James twisted around until they were face to face, inches apart, lying across both their beds. He held in a breath and watched Rodney blink.
“So,” Rodney whispered a moment later. “You’re a hundred percent sure that’s the same cold I had last week?”
James nodded. “You’re safe.”
“Yeah,” Rodney breathed. “I guess I am.”
They kissed slowly. It wasn’t shy, exactly, just… testing. Experimenting. Rodney started out, frankly, as an okay kisser, but he responded quickly to coaching, to James’ delight, and ended up as one of the better kissing partners James had ever had.
Then Rodney touched James’ hard-on for the first time, and from there everything went fast. A blur of sensation and pleasure and Rodney’s eyes crinkling shut, soft non-words falling from his mouth.
Afterwards, James threw all the tissues to the floor, and they lay under the blanket with Rodney curled into James’ chest, watching the end of The Untouchables.
When the credits rolled, right when James was about to point out that one of the crew members was named Skotchdopole, Rodney asked, “So when you had the lice-things, they tested you for other kinds of VD, right?”
Immediately embarrassed, James was glad Rodney was still looking at the TV screen. “Yes. I didn’t have anything else. And the lice were gone right away, too.”
“I know. Otherwise I wouldn’t have moved in. And have you been with a lot of, you know, people since then?” Rodney’s hair tickled James’ chest as he talked.
“No, not really. Kissed two girls, but kissing was as far as it went.”
“And I haven’t - well, that is to say, I’m clean. So… if we wanted to do something like that again, then it wouldn’t be a problem.”
“I guess not,” James replied, a grin stretching across his face. Rodney turned off the TV, and they were asleep within minutes.
When James woke up in the morning, Rodney had already pushed his bed back against the other wall. James thought about that for a minute, and had just reached the conclusion that he was glad - Rodney snored and kicked at night - when he was hit in the face with a sweatshirt.
“Up, lazy-bones,” Rodney ordered. “Let’s go get breakfast before they run out of pancakes.”
“Yeah, all right,” James replied as he pulled on his clothes.
Rodney’s rant about the idiocy of the students in his Saturday study group took them all the way to the nearest cafeteria and halfway through breakfast. Then they were joined by a couple of people from James’ chemistry class, and Marie and Anne stopped by, too, and the day went on the way any given Saturday did. If James was acting a little more cheerful than usual, nobody mentioned it.