FICLET FRIDAY THE SECOND: ROWOFSTARS
taking care, (David, Juliet, Hannah (David/Juliet if you squint), G, prompt:David/Juliet - sick
Juliet sighs and rubs a tissue over her nose, scowling at the TV and its uninteresting late afternoon programming of Law and Order reruns and the local news. She’s cranky and mad and sick. Mostly sick, she thinks, but there’s some definite consternation at David for sending her home from work. He just marched into her office, frowned at her, and told her if she didn’t leave and go straight home he was going to carry her out to the parking lot, toss her in the trunk of his car, and take her home himself.
She knew she was sick when the prospect of David carrying her around like a caveman failed to make her even raise an eyebrow.
There’s a sharp knock on her apartment door, and she groans, pulling herself up and shuffling towards the sound. She wipes the rumpled tissue over her nose again as she pushes up on her tiptoes to see through the peephole.
She blinks, frowns, and then looks again, pulling open the door a moment later.
“What are you doing here?” she asks a smiling David and Hannah.
“Making you feel better,” Hannah announces, pushing past both of them and moving into the kitchen.
Juliet watches her, raising an eyebrow at she sets down a crock pot and begins emptying a plastic grocery bag, trying to remember how long it’s been since either of them have been in her apartment.
“Chili?” Juliet asks, catching a quick whiff of the pot’s contents.
David shrugs and smirks. “I figured if cold medicine wasn’t working, we’d burn it out of you. Plus, I thought maybe you stood a prayer of actually being able to taste it.”
Her laugh turns into a coughing fit, and she ends up stumbling into the living room with her hand cupped over her mouth. David trails after her, a concerned look on his face, waiting nearby until she stops and looks up at him. Her eyes are a bit watery, her nose looks red and raw, and he wonders how she managed to go home to rest and end up worse than when she left work.
“Sorry,” she mumbles, and he shakes his head.
“You don’t have to be sorry for getting sick.”
She sniffles pathetically and wipes at her nose again. “I hate feeling useless, I hate not being at work when there’s so many open cases, I hate how disgusting cough medicine tastes and how it’s the only thing I can taste -”
She stops, and then sighs heavily. “I appreciate what you guys are doing, but you don’t need to stay, really. I don’t want to get either of you sick, and I’m sure you have tons of stuff to do at home, and -”
Her rambling is halted when David puts his hands on both of her shoulders and turns her to look at him. Her mouth is open as if she’s going to start speaking again, but instead she just sniffles wetly and coughs.
He tilts his head and brushes her hair back, an unconscious action that makes her breath catch, and then leans forward to press a quick kiss to her forehead.
“Jules,” he says softly. “Will you shut up and let me take care of you for once?”
She stares at him a moment, and then nods numbly. She’s unsure of what to say or do, finally saved when Hannah calls out that dinner is ready.
A few days later, Juliet is feeling almost one hundred percent again, her stuffy nose and cough forgotten in a fuzzy, medicine induced haze. She strides into David’s office, holding out a mug of fresh coffee for him, but stops when she sees him slumped over his desk, a collection of ragged tissues scattered over the blotter and filling the small trash can.
She sighs, shaking her head and smiling slightly, wondering where she put the recipe for her grandmother’s chicken soup.
winner take all, (David, Juliet, Chris, other agents), G, the games agents play
They play a game sometimes, sitting around the corner booth of the Perfect Pint, cramming ten people into a space made for eight and pulling up extra chairs. They tell stories, war stories they call them, and the crazier and stranger, the better.
Winner gets drinks on everyone else.
“A llama?” Warren asks in disbelief. “Seriously?”
“Seriously,” Chris replies, smirking and then downing the last of his beer.
David snickers. “I was there!”
“Like, where would you even -?” Warren starts, and then stops, shaking his head and holding up his glass to clink against Chris’s empty beer bottle.
“I think that’s the winner so far,” David says, popping another onion ring in his mouth.
Everyone around the table collectively laughs and shakes their heads, agreeing.
The door to the bar opens and closes, and Juliet crosses the room to slide into the single empty space beside David, who sets a fresh, cold bottle in front of her. She smiles gratefully, and then takes several long swallows before setting it down hard on the tabletop.
“Another day, another case?” Chris asks, eyebrow lifting slightly.
She nods and sighs. “Another day, another fat, balding, forty year guy old who lives in his mom’s basement, wears her underwear when she’s not home, and thinks I’m a twelve year old girl.”
She takes another sip of her beer, and then tugs David’s basket of onion rings closer.
“A challenger appears,” David says with a smirk.
Chris sighs and slumps back in his seat. “Juliet always wins,” he grumbles.
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