All the Tricks In the Book (Pudd SA)
Title: All the Tricks In the Book (oneshot/SA)
Pairing: Poynter/Judd (a bit of Fletcher/Jones if you want there to be)
Rating: PG
Genre: Mixed bit of drama with humour (I think… hope…)
Warnings: None (my bad humour?)
Summary: Sometimes you have to go to extremes to get your point across.
Word count: 4131
Authors Note: This isn’t great. It’s not fantastic - it’s one of those odd ones I managed to jot down on an impulse on the bus to work, at work, and on the bus home from work basically.
“Have you finished your chips?” Tom threw a quick glance over his shoulder to check. “Doug?”
The only reply he got was a groan from the backseat, which Tom saw as an improvement in behavior and stress level - until the crying and whining started again. The blonde guitarist opened his mouth to speak when a honk from the car behind his cut him off and he glared into the rearview mirror.
“Alright, alright…” he muttered, plastering an apologetic smile on his face as he crept up to the service window, the window of his car now fully rolled down.
“Anything else we can help you with Mr Fletcher?” The girl asked patiently, correcting the headset on her head, her ponytail resting long and blonde on her shoulder. Tom blushed and shook his head.
“I’m sorry… I just - just a few more laps?”
The girl raised an eyebrow before sighing deeply giving him a quick shrug. She couldn’t see why not really, but at the very same time she clearly couldn’t see a point to it anymore either. Tom nodded and thanked her before driving past the second service window shaking his head at the puzzled young man thinking he’d be picking something up.
Tom took the turn and drove across the parking lot… and rejoined the line of cars waiting to be served by the drive thru personnel, the yellow and red McDonalds logo glaring down at him in its cheery colours. Slowly, slowly the car would go around and around the restaurant and Tom hummed in what had been a soothing manner up until about the 24th drive around the same circle, around the same restaurant but had now developed into a frantic cry for Dougie to please, please fall asleep and stop crying.
Going past the outside dining area Tom glanced at Giovanna as she sat on one of the tables, feet dangling in the early summer night breeze. She twirled the spoon of ice cream around her tongue, savouring the taste of the ice cream and the chocolate sauce with a small smile.
“McFlurry for my McFlyer?” she grinned, holding the cup of ice cream out towards Tom who rolled his eyes. Giovanna shrugged and went back to her ice cream eating as Tom disappeared around the corner of the building again.
The midnight blue mini soon reappeared again though and she looked up a bit more serious this time as Tom rested his forehead against the steering wheel as he drove by this time. The blonde straightened up as he caught his girlfriends’ worried expression.
“Maybe if I buy him another Big Mac?” Tom asked her, leaning out through the window slightly.
Giovanna grimaced in disapproval.
“Don’t make him eat more Tom… poor thing’s already got a stomach ache, remember?”
Tom muttered something she couldn’t quite catch in response as he once again disappeared around the other side of the restaurant.
The screaming from the backseat, and the little lump looking figure causing the havoc, had now been reduced to whimpers and sobs and Tom tried to convey the newfound hope he found in this to his onlookers in the service windows but they didn’t seem to catch on to his enthusiasm and the girl in the first window felt the need to point out that the environment was suffering from his constant driving. If anything the attitude got to Tom and by the time he’d done five more drives around the restaurant and Giovanna had not only managed to get herself a muffin, but also finished a cup of coffee Tom’s frustration was getting to him. The next time he drove past his girlfriend there was no way he could hide his painful expression and she wanted to run out and hug him. A small audience had gathered around the table Giovanna was sitting at and Tom tried not to glare at the three ladies as they peered curiously at him, sipping coffees.
“Still haven’t settled down then?” Gi asked and Tom shook his head. Giovanna smiled sadly.
“Surely, by now though, it would just be quicker to take him to the A&E hun?”
“Shut up…” Tom groaned and ran a hand hard over his face. “I don’t get it! Feed him… drive around for a while with the car with him in the backseat, and he’s out like a light. Always worked!”
“Tom…”
“No! It always worked when he was little.”
“Younger Tom… younger, he was 15 and he’s in pain. Lets give up and just sit the A&E out. Please?”
One of the ladies that had gathered to find out what was going on spoke up, stirring her coffee carefully, a small smile on her lips.
“15 months? Such an adorable age, but they can be a handful!” She smiled at Giovanna, her face soft and Giovanna threw her rubbish in the bin her face remaining serious.
“No, 15 years.”
~*~
“Tom!” Giovanna slapped him hard in the arm. “Stop staring.”
“I’m not staring.” Tom tore his eyes off the play area, still leaning sideways in his seat so much that he was surely going to fall at any minute. Gi ran her fingers through Dougie’s tangled hair, carefully sorting it out, trying not to worry too much about the warmth radiating off his flushed face and forehead.
“Fine… Tom, go play with the legos.”
“Really?”
“Yes,” she rolled her eyes and brushed her fingertips lightly over Dougie’s closed eyelids, his head resting on her lap, her touch forcing his face to relax. “Just go. You’re creeping people out. At least if you go over there the parents will know that it’s the toys you’re after, not their toddlers.”
Tom grinned before kissing her on the cheek quickly.
“Thanks, I’ll be right back, I just think I saw the space ship set as we walked in and you know I’ve been dying to try that out! You’re the best!” He bounced off towards the play area, pulling his jeans up as he went.
~*~
Harry and Danny are met by a frantically pacing Giovanna as they jog up to the hospital entrance.
“Oh thank god you’re here now…” she mumbles as she gives them a quick hug each and Harry just stares at her, eyes wide.
“What’s wrong?” He asks her tugging at her hands urgently. She only shakes her head in response and he can see all worst case scenarios possible flash before his eyes making him feel nauseous suddenly, nerves giving him a sudden head ache.
“Just… go inside,” Gi squeezes Harry’s hands carefully before pushing him towards the doors, Danny following looking lost and confused. “I have to wait for Fletch. Go! You’ll find him.”
Harry blinks and swallows rising bile down his throat as the corridors seem to get narrower and narrower the closer they get and subconsciously the two young men seemed to have picked up their pace, soon running alongside each other, eyes darting to the ceiling and the rows of sharp letters against the black signs pointing them in their direction. Danny reaches for the two glass doors as they reach them but Harry’s quick to step in between the northerner and the doors, afraid Danny’s going to punch his way through them due to fear and adrenaline rather than opening them. Scrambling through they both frantically search the waiting area for their two remaining band mates, their breathing hitched and rushed. Danny pushes his hat around on his head, feeling himself get more and more upset by the second.
Then he sees it… his eyes land on the lego space ship abandoned on the floor, and nudging Harry in the side his eyes follow a small trail of legos and stuffed animals across the floor until they both see Tom on his knees on the floor, looking down at a withering Dougie laying down across a row of plastic chairs.
As they approach the pair they can hear Tom telling stories about bunnies and princes and princesses, rubbing a warm hand across Dougie’s stomach, under his t-shirt and Danny and Harry fall to their knees on either side of the blonde, hands settling on Tom’s shoulders.
Tom doesn’t flinch or jump. He knew they were there… he knew they’d arrive and gasping for air, he looks up at them, teary eyed and Harry squeezes Tom’s shoulder suddenly realizing how badly Tom’s shaking. Danny takes Dougie’s clenched fists in his large hands and stroke and probe them open, relaxing his palms and kissing the now bleeding cuts where Dougie’s pushed his nails into his own skin. Someone’s taking a picture of the scene with her phone and someone else is talking about them on their mobile and Tom grinds his teeth together, his jaw clenched. This was exactly what he didn’t want.
Sitting back on the floor all of them, they let Harry scoop their bassist up and lift him down from the chairs and putting him down on their laps, his face now buried in Harry’s stomach and Dougie grips onto Danny’s large thumb sniffing into Harry’s shirt. He’s not asleep, not quite, but he’s exhausted and his head his foggy, luring him closer and closer, making him dip and dive into and out of consciousness. It’s harder to hold on now when he’s warm and held close and he knows, deep down that though he should hold on and keep taking deep breaths, he can fall now and still be caught and it’s hard to resist. His breathing falls to shallow snippets of air which Harry, with a hand clamped on Dougie’s back catches and just as Fletch arrives the boys send him off to get them a doctor, now!
Getting Dougie separated from his band mates is a mess of tangled arms and legs and the boys look lost and naked without their bassist to Fletch, who can’t look at his hands, ‘cause it makes him think of Dougie blindly grabbing for his shirt sleeve as they forced them to leave him, and he can’t look at his boys because they look so miserable.
~*~
His summer bronzed fingers are buried deep into the sheets and he grimaces, splutters and coughs as the nurses, each on one side of him take the tube out of his throat and Danny’s holding Harry’s hand hard in his too keep the drummer from rushing forwards and pushing the nurses away as they’re obviously causing Dougie discomfort. A stern looking doctor holds a hand out to stop the three young men as they step forward to jump on their bassist and Fletch groans behind them as he can see Tom’s fingers flex and unflex under the long sleeves of his hoodie and the way Danny’s shoulders tense. Harry’s eyes darken and with his head held high he looks defiantly at the hospital staff before them. Fletch knows, all the tell tale signs are there as Dougie glances their way, his eyes tired and puffy, his lips dry and chipped - Fletch knows from observing his boys that the second they’re allowed to reunite with Dougie the famous McFly barrier is going straight up. Tom’s flinching and nervously flicking his fringe out of his eyes, chocolate brown scanning Dougie from head to toe, the mother in the blonde coming out to play while Harry and Danny, subconsciously go into war and battle mode - tense and prepared to protect what’s theirs. Fletch motion to the doctor, from behind the band that he better steer them to the other side of the room for the now being and the doctor nods.
It’s not often they close themselves off from the rest of the world - but when they feel they need to, and Fletch can easily tell when that’s coming, they do it damn well and there’s no way to get a word out of any of them then.
The two nurses and the doctor take on the three pop stars, pushing and shoving until Danny, Tom and Harry are seated at the back of the room, and not crammed up on the edge of Dougie’s bed as they’d preferred. Fletch is given the evil eye for not being on their side, he can feel it but he pretends not to notice. There’s an eerie silence hanging over them for a few minutes and Tom jumps a foot in the air as there’s suddenly a bright light flicked on. Dougie coughs and wheezes for a few minutes and the remaining band members immediately look his way, three sets of eyes trying to communicate with the youngest. Normally it would have worked just fine but today Dougie’s tired and sore… and with his eyes downcast none of the others can seem to reach him.
One of the nurses closes the blinds a bit and Tom shifts uncomfortably in his chair - personally believing that whenever there’s darkness present there should also be at least one cuddly toy to even things out a bit. The corner of Harry’s shirt will have to be a good enough substitute and under the circumstances Harry just scoots closer to the blonde as he can feel his shirt being gripped tightly by long pale fingers instead of rolling his eyes like he’d done any other day.
The doctor glances at Dougie quickly and then at Fletch before he with great execution, Danny notes, thinking it must be quite difficult, adds an x-ray to the luminous wall. The boys blink at it a few times and with furrowed brows lean a little bit closer trying to make out more than the obvious from the picture. There’s Dougie’s lungs, and his ribs… and…
“Young Mr Poynter, perhaps you’d like to explain to your friends what we have here?” The doctor pushed his glasses up on his nose, turning to Dougie who still wasn’t looking at anything but his hands. The bassist shook his head. It was a tiny little movement but his band knew it was as firm of a no as anything could be. If Dougie didn’t want something, he didn’t want it. There was no point in being fooled by his shy expressions.
“What was that?” the doctor asked, looking more intensively at Dougie.
“No.” Tom, Danny and Harry answered in chorus for him and the doctor cleared his throat and stepped back to the x-ray, defeated.
“Alright then…” he looked at the three older band mates oddly before continuing. “First of all, you might want to take notice of this…” says the doctor and points to what the boys do recognize to be Dougie’s stomach. “Now… anyone want to tell me what this is exactly?”
The three young men look at the doctor and at where he’s pointing and they all squint at the three dark shapes pointed out to them. Triangular with rounded edges… not very big, but not super small…
“They’re… they’re plectrums!” Tom gasps, whipping his head around to stare at Dougie in a mixture of amazement and horror. “You swallowed plectrums?!”
Harry pales in his seat and sinks down suddenly and the defiant man ready for a battle looks small and wounded.
Dougie slowly rises his gaze to meet Tom’s and nods.
“Why on earth would you do that?” Tom demands leaning forwards in his seat, pulling Harry with his, his fingers still entwined with Harry’s shirt and the drummer yelp as he’s tugged at.
“I told you, the other day… when I walked in on you playing the piano in the music room, that song you wrote about Danny!”
Tom’s jaw tightens and Danny looks curiously at Dougie. Tom was thankful the room was dark now as he felt his cheeks heat up.
“It wasn’t about Da- Dougie you never said anything about having eaten plectrums! I was so worried when you suddenly got those stomach cramps, god, Doug…” Tom rubs a hand across his face, and glancing at him Danny knows he’s drying tears away.
“It’s a beautiful song Tom!”
“Shut up Dougie…”
“What’s so dangerous about letting him hear it? If we recorded that it would be the love song of the century!” Dougie’s voice is still a bit scratchy and he doesn’t quite sound like himself yet but he’s waving his arms around to prove his point and his passion for the subject and Danny can’t help but laugh when Tom sheepishly turns to him and mutters that it’s not quite as much of a love declaration as it’s a song written about his best friend - a kind of love in itself of course.
Danny pats Tom on the knee and tells him it’s okay.
“It’s beautiful!” Dougie continues and Tom shoots him an evil glare telling him to shut up.
“I’m not hitting on you… I swear.” Tom looks up at Danny and the brunette laughs again making Tom smile carefully. “That doesn’t give you the right to eat my plectrums!” Tom says suddenly turning back to Dougie who coughs a bit more for sympathy votes.
“I told you that day. I told you that if I could take a bite of that talent of yours, if I could have what you possess, I’d be proud and happy and I’d bloody bite into it and savour it instead of hiding away in my music room. You never listened.”
Tom pulls his hoodie closer as he’s suddenly feeling a bit chilly and he chews nervously on his bottom lip as him and Dougie sit and quietly look at each other for a moment.
“I’m sorry…” Tom whispers into the dusky darkness and Dougie simply nods on the bed.
Danny suddenly stands and walks over to the x-ray on the wall, a freckled finger pointing to an odd shape.
“What’s this?” he asks and the doctor checks quickly, nodding.
“Ah… that would be the erasers Mr Poynter swallowed. In the shape of question marks even.”
“Huh?” Danny looks at Dougie confused and the bassist, having picked up some courage from his confrontation with Tom nods.
“Because you Danny, let yourself be passed off as much more clueless than you’d be if you’d allow yourself to ask all those questions, and share all those thoughts of yours with the rest of us. Because we love you and we appreciate you just the way you are - and I hate to see you fade into the background and hide away behind a false smile because there’s something that doesn’t click with your logic. We love your logic. I try to tell you all the time but you brush me off.”
Danny stares at him for what feels like hours to Dougie and the blonde can feel his heart leap in his chest thinking he might have worded this all wrong, and what if Danny hates him now and doesn’t at all want to share anything with him? With them?
Suddenly Danny smiles though and ignoring all protests from the two nurses, the northerner join his younger band member on the bed, clinging carefully to his middle, hugging him close, whispering to him.
“Just whack me up the back of my head Doug… don’t give yourself stomach cramps, please?”
Again the room falls quiet and as the nurse goes back to open the blinds again Harry feels himself shift in his seat wishing she’d open the window a bit as well and let some air in. His head feels heavy and fuzzy and there’s a slight tingle in his fingertips which he recognizes as the need to feel, touch and probe Dougie properly to check for himself that he’s actually going to be okay, that he’s there… since they’d met he’d never liked to spend too much time away from his Pugsley and it didn’t matter if they spent time under the same roof or not if he didn’t get to quickly brush his fingers through his hair, or brush against him in the hallway - something, anything to get to feel for himself that Dougie was okay. Harry didn’t want to be ordered to sit, in an examination room in the A&E, Dougie looking small and ill on a strange bed. He wanted to be home, in one of their houses, curled up in the living room or in bed watching a film and falling asleep in the middle of it.
Dougie gives Danny a hug, with all the energy he can muster and whispers back that he’s fine.
Harry looks up at him through his dark eyelashes, having caught Dougie’s reply and the whisper settles in his stomach like a thick cotton. It’s soft but feels heavy and damp, suffocating and he swallows thickly knowing he’s jealous. It’s an uneasy feeling and sniffing and blinking tears away, tears he could swear aren’t his… he has no idea how on earth they welled up in his eyes of all eyes, strong Harry, he shoots from his seat and rushes to the door. His head is swimming and his throat feels tight. He’d been scared. He’d been worried and upset and to see Dougie like he’d seen him in the waiting room had been torture. To not be able to kiss and cuddle him like he’d easily have done at home or in the studio or in private out there had just about killed him and now they get him back and all the stupid kid has done is eaten Danny’s and Tom’s silly stuff!
“Now, as happy as I am to see that you’re all listening to each other and that we get this cleared up you should know not to eat laundry detergents Mr Poynter.”
Harry can just about hear and register the words of the doctor as he opens the door to leave and there’s suddenly nothing to stop him. Clear tears roll down his cheeks and he can feel his eyes sting and redden with the strain almost immediately, his heart racing in his chest. His hands fall from the door handle and he spins around, eyes wide.
“WHAT?” Harry’s squeaking from where he’s standing, feeling unsteady and nauseous.
“There are strong chemicals in these things and they’re not meant to be ingested! There’s a reason these things should be kept away from children. If you’d been unlucky really bad damage could have been made to your intestines Mr Poynter. Now as you’re painfully aware of,” the doctor’s suddenly at Dougie’s side and has pried his mouth open, and is looking down his throat, a little penlight to his aid, “we’ve pumped your stomach… which have left some nicks and scratches in your throat but that’s difficult to avoid I’m afraid and not at all as dangerous as the alternative of leaving these chemicals and strong bleaches in your stomach.”
“Dougie!” Harry yells, alarmed suddenly and having forgotten all about his anger and jealousy. “What were you thinking?!”
Danny uncurls from the bassist and gives his shoulder a comforting squeeze before crawling off the bed and going back to a pale looking Tom who’s being held down into his seat by a sore looking Fletch.
“You scrub the bloody bathroom more often than you… well… you know… scrub me!” Dougie sobs, crying just as hard as Harry now and he’s looking if possible even smaller on the big bed.
“Wha- I… but…” Harry’s hands fall limp at his sides and he stares at the younger man, his head trying to take in what’s happening. He stands there, crying with Dougie and neither the drummer nor the bassist notice the nurses, the doctor, Fletch and the other two leaving silently. The light of the room change slowly with the hours and the light summer night progressing… fleeting summer stars dance silently across the floor as they burn out above them and Harry don’t know exactly when it happened but he’s straddling Dougie, peeling the hospital gown off him, leaving his tanned skin glimmering against the white of the thin sheets. Slowly bending down Harry kisses long trails down Dougie’s shoulders, chest and stomach and he can feel the heat of the summer mix with the salt of distress from his pains mix against his lips. Dougie smiles at Harry, neither of them ever breaking the silence resting over them like a blanket, just listening to each other’s breathing. The bassist lifts Harry’s shirt over his head as in the early hours of morning he regains some more of his energy and as light bathe them again and a new day breaks the two fall asleep enveloped in each other, hip bones rubbing together and fingers entwined.
Dougie can hear the murmur of “I love you” against his temple as he falls deeper into his slumber and he shifts deeper against Harry’s body knowing Harry knows he feels the same way and that’s all he wanted - for them all to know that he loves them.
The End