Drawing the Line. 3/?
Title Drawing the Line.
Genre Angst/Hurt/Comfort/Romance
Pairing US/UK
Rating M overall for disturbing content and sensitive topics.
Summary A British soldier is diagnosed with tuberculosis during the chaos of the second world war. In the understaffed and war-weary English hospital, he and a volunteer physician from America find comfort in each other.
Chapter Rating T for angsty thoughts and really depressing imagery
Warnings Dr. Jones puts his foot down and Arthur relents.
Arthur dearly wished to breathe.
He wished to taste the fresh bite of air on his tongue and not be afraid of choking on it, prompting new bouts of blood and pain and dizziness. He wished to speak easily with a throat that wasn't scarred and sore from frequent vomiting and relentless coughs that rattled his body with each torturous heave. He wished to tell his body that it was being foolish; to stop the useless tremors that ran through his limbs and kept sleep at bay on nights where he craved for nothing more than the sweet envelopment of unconsciousness. He wished his stomach to be able to hold its own and not reject the food that was served within a few hours' time, causing the pain to magnify and his head to reel.
And as much as he wished and wept and wanted, he knew there was no one there to grant the pleas.
So after a week of being in the care of sterilized needles and probing hands, Arthur settled into a routine of staring at whitewashed walls between bouts of sick and agony, watching memories of happiness and laughter flicker on the surface through the projector of his mind. He would lose himself in the small joys that he took for granted at their occurrence; a fresh gust of wind in a late autumn afternoon, or the feel of rain cleansing his flesh in an unexpected London shower. They seemed like such trivialities at the time, but as one day began to meld into the next, Arthur could taste the bitter tang of desperation to experience them once more.
"Time for your nightly dosage of penicillin, Mr. Kirkland."
A harsh American accent ripped through his reminiscences, leaving his eyes wide and fists clenching at the sheets below him as he started. He jerked his head toward the familiar sight of a white lab coat and lustrous blonde hair. The presence of this man had been nearly constant since the beginning of Arthur's stay; he was presented his medicines and meals with a brilliant smile, the young doctor helping him into a comfortable sitting position and cleaned the filth of vomit and bloodied lung tissue that clung to his lips and bedding after.
The result of such tender care was a feud of emotion that had since waged within Arthur. Each touch upon his body sent simultaneous soothing ripples that hummed pleasantly through each nerve, coaxing his muscles into a lax state of contentment and an awful scream in his head that tore at his mind and crushed his fingers into painful fists. The conflicting states of mind battled for control, only adding to the wears upon his body.
"Can it wait?" he sighed, trying to calm the tremors in his hands. "I'd rather not have it now. I still feel a bit ill from the earlier injection."
"Sorry, but penicillin is a pretty strict when it comes to the timing of the dosing. I need to be as near exact as possible to the times I administer it." Lips quirked into a small, apologetic smile.
"It can't wait five minutes?"
Blue irises twisted into a dark, rueful hue. "Something tells me that giving you the five minutes won't do a thing for whether or not you're ready."
Sickening, audible pops of grinding teeth grated into the pleasant hush of the room, leaving behind a palpable air of tension. Neither body moved.
"Will you not leave me a shred of dignity?" Arthur's voice strained and cracked, but he held his indignant scowl with the bottomless azure that peered back at him.
"I know this isn't exactly the most comfortable way of receiving medicine," the calm, almost carefree lilt in the man's voice both lulled and clawed at Arthur's nerves, "but it's the fastest way to get this stuff into your bloodstream."
Arthur's lip curled into a sneer. "I highly doubt my arse is a prime location for an injection."
"You'd be surprised!" Blue eyes twinkled with unvoiced laughter and Arthur's heart thumped just a bit faster. "It's one of the best injection sites because of its muscle mass. The more muscle, the faster it's pumped through the body."
"It certainly doesn't make it any less humiliating," he murmured, his cheeks heating and eyes shifting to the impeccable white of the tile.
There was a hesitancy that took over the younger man at those words, but Arthur didn't dare look up. His entire body was shaking with self-deprecation and the vulnerability of it all made him hot and itchy with prickles of mortification. He wanted to scream when a large hand covered his tightly clenched fist.
"I know this illness is hard on you."
Arthur's head snapped up and his mouth fell open to contest to the statement, to tell the young doctor he had no bloody idea what it felt like, but he was cut off before he began.
"I may not know from experience, but I've seen too many men and women and children struggle with disease to think anything else. I've lost so many patients since I've come to England; I've seen the fear in the eyes of a person coming face to face with death too many times."
A slight pause for breath spurred the warm hands to tighten over Arthur's trembling hand.
"I don't want to lose anyone else. And this - this can be avoided if you trust me. I know you're feeling embarrassed and I know you just want to be left alone. But I can't let you accept something that doesn't have to happen. I won't let another patient die when I know there's something I can do to prevent it."
The room collapsed into a heavy silence. It weighed upon Arthur's chest with an excruciating force, nearly squeezing the breath from his lungs in the face of dazzling eyes that glittered with the brilliance of a midday sky. The iridescence of those glimmering orbs pulled at him, beckoning him closer with sweet promises and gentle whispers of something amazing and wonderful -
He jerked his gaze to the opposite wall and rolled tentatively onto his side.
"Get on with it then." His voice was just shy of inaudible, but he could feel the warmth of an ecstatic grin spreading across his back.
Heat flared beneath his flesh as the meager barrier of thin sheets were eased away, pushed tentatively to bunch at the slope of his hip. There was a slight tinkering of glass upon metal, nearly noiseless in reality but thunderingly loud in the stark calm of the room. A fleeting breath of soft, warm fingers brushed along tender skin as it cleared the the hindering papery gown and Arthur tensed, waiting for the sharp bite of a needle as a steady hand braced itself against his hip. It came and went, but the hand lingered, giving a slight caress before drawing back to right the barriers it had disturbed.
"Done!" The youth smiled as he helped ease his patient back to his original position. The radiance of the smile was definitely not mesmerizing, Arthur thought vehemently. "It wasn't that bad, right?"
"I suppose as far as injections go, it wasn't horrible," Arthur conceded, desperately trying to reason with his body that there was no reason to be blushing now. The broadening of that infuriatingly dazzling smile only seemed to spur his body into thinking the opposite, however. He scowled.
"That's probably the nicest thing that's come out of you since your entry, Mr. Kirkland." Arthur stammered out a stream of indignant retorts, but the doctor simply smiled in response.
"I'm just glad, is all." Flustered words came to a screeching halt.
"Glad, you say?" the soldier managed around a suddenly very dry throat.
"Well, yeah." Bright, airy tones wove tendrils of calm into nerves that trembled with an apprehension and aggravation that Arthur couldn't explain, couldn't begin to fathom, leaving him odd with an odd sensation of being deeply sated and strung as taut as a bow. "You've been distant with the staff; sometimes downright rude," he continued on despite the sharp snort of dismissal. "I'm just happy you're warming up to us. We want to see you better, Mr. Kirkland, and attitude plays a decent part in recovery."
"There is no recovery for me, Doctor." A darkness chipped away at the edges of the statement, leaving the voice slightly hollow despite the attempt at neutrality.
"That may be," the younger agreed. "There isn't a definite cure for tuberculosis yet. But," and here the azure caught alight in flames, flickering with determination, "you can't let that get you so low you let down your defenses. I see you, Mr. Kirkland, staring off into nothing and just sitting letting the disease beat you down into nothing more than a shell. In a way I'm relieved to see you yell at me and the nurses; at least I can see that you're still alive."
Arthur suddenly felt too small under the searching gaze of the other, too vulnerable under earnest eyes and too aware of himself in every possible way. He shrank back into the mattress, trying to sink into the stiff bedding below and melt into the fibres of the fabric, become nothing more than tiny bits of cloth in the face of such blatant passion. And yet something boiled in the pit of his stomach, rolling with every word and building, festering, tearing.
"Why did you come to England?"
A slightly shocked air bled into the room at the abrupt turn of conversation, settling itself over the two occupants like a thick film of transparent, viscous material. Blue eyes darkened slightly.
"To help people." It was a simple answer that was much too cliche for Arthur's liking.
"There has to be a specific reason why you came," he beseeched, the fire boiling, boiling, boiling. "America is in a neutral state; there's no logical reason for you to be here." He stared into the void of blue eyes. "Unless it's a personal endeavor."
"I want to be a hero." The voice was quiet, but eyes held steady.
And suddenly the boiling reached its limit; it burst forth, sending a searing fire that blazed through his veins, ripping through his esophagus and spewing from his lips.
"Hero?" That single word trembled with a raw emotion that Arthur couldn't place, couldn't label, couldn't handle and he was gasping for breath under its power. "You want to be a hero? How very American. To come in and believe you can fix the problems of the world with sheer wants and dreams -"
His lungs quivered under the vehemence of his storm, caving and sending waves of pure agony that spiraled and spiked through his body and made him quake with great, heaving coughs. He was vaguely aware of the strong arm that hoisted him into a sitting position or the gentle words that were murmured as the familiar metal of the basin was pressed to his chin. One mouthful of revolting lung tissue concoction splattered to the bottom, promptly followed by another and a bout of sick from the strain.
He sobbed as he neared the end of his torture, his body quivering and a fresh sheen of sweat clung to his brow. A cool cloth swept across his face and he moaned, reveling in the sensation of cold moisture contrasting with his fevered flesh as he lowered back.
"Maybe you should ease off laying into me for a while, fellah," the doctor mumbled, replacing the cloth and smoothing back damp blonde locks.
Arthur groaned, turning blindly into the tender touch.
"And just so you know," the tone was low but nonetheless kind in the ears of the exhausted soldier, "I know there's no such thing as a hero. There's no one around these days that will put everything on the line for a complete stranger and expect nothing in return. People are greedy by nature; to believe in something like a hero would be pretty ignorant.
"But I don't care." Fingers twitched against flesh before they drew back. "I may not be able to help everyone or stop world suffering," he paused, "but I'll do what I can to help the people that need it where I can reach. England needs help more than the States, so I hitched a ride over. It was the right thing to do in my head, and I'm sticking to my decision."
Suddenly the boiling seemed insignificant in the face of the doctor's words; it quickly settled to a distant ache. Arthur met the waiting azure gaze with a contrite smile.
"How was the world lucky enough to gain such a tenacious inhabitant?" he croaked with reedy breath and shallow jerks of shoulders trying to contain a softer set of coughs.
"Believe me, the earth didn't consider itself lucky in the beginning." A hard edge bit at the soft words, but the hands that slipped beneath Arthur were gentle as they lifted and prompted him to spit once more.
"I sincerely doubt that, Doctor Jones," Arthur wheezed, hands gripping sturdy arms as he was lowered once again. Blue eyes gleamed.
"Call me Alfred."
Genre Angst/Hurt/Comfort/Romance
Pairing US/UK
Rating M overall for disturbing content and sensitive topics.
Summary A British soldier is diagnosed with tuberculosis during the chaos of the second world war. In the understaffed and war-weary English hospital, he and a volunteer physician from America find comfort in each other.
Chapter Rating T for angsty thoughts and really depressing imagery
Warnings Dr. Jones puts his foot down and Arthur relents.
Arthur dearly wished to breathe.
He wished to taste the fresh bite of air on his tongue and not be afraid of choking on it, prompting new bouts of blood and pain and dizziness. He wished to speak easily with a throat that wasn't scarred and sore from frequent vomiting and relentless coughs that rattled his body with each torturous heave. He wished to tell his body that it was being foolish; to stop the useless tremors that ran through his limbs and kept sleep at bay on nights where he craved for nothing more than the sweet envelopment of unconsciousness. He wished his stomach to be able to hold its own and not reject the food that was served within a few hours' time, causing the pain to magnify and his head to reel.
And as much as he wished and wept and wanted, he knew there was no one there to grant the pleas.
So after a week of being in the care of sterilized needles and probing hands, Arthur settled into a routine of staring at whitewashed walls between bouts of sick and agony, watching memories of happiness and laughter flicker on the surface through the projector of his mind. He would lose himself in the small joys that he took for granted at their occurrence; a fresh gust of wind in a late autumn afternoon, or the feel of rain cleansing his flesh in an unexpected London shower. They seemed like such trivialities at the time, but as one day began to meld into the next, Arthur could taste the bitter tang of desperation to experience them once more.
"Time for your nightly dosage of penicillin, Mr. Kirkland."
A harsh American accent ripped through his reminiscences, leaving his eyes wide and fists clenching at the sheets below him as he started. He jerked his head toward the familiar sight of a white lab coat and lustrous blonde hair. The presence of this man had been nearly constant since the beginning of Arthur's stay; he was presented his medicines and meals with a brilliant smile, the young doctor helping him into a comfortable sitting position and cleaned the filth of vomit and bloodied lung tissue that clung to his lips and bedding after.
The result of such tender care was a feud of emotion that had since waged within Arthur. Each touch upon his body sent simultaneous soothing ripples that hummed pleasantly through each nerve, coaxing his muscles into a lax state of contentment and an awful scream in his head that tore at his mind and crushed his fingers into painful fists. The conflicting states of mind battled for control, only adding to the wears upon his body.
"Can it wait?" he sighed, trying to calm the tremors in his hands. "I'd rather not have it now. I still feel a bit ill from the earlier injection."
"Sorry, but penicillin is a pretty strict when it comes to the timing of the dosing. I need to be as near exact as possible to the times I administer it." Lips quirked into a small, apologetic smile.
"It can't wait five minutes?"
Blue irises twisted into a dark, rueful hue. "Something tells me that giving you the five minutes won't do a thing for whether or not you're ready."
Sickening, audible pops of grinding teeth grated into the pleasant hush of the room, leaving behind a palpable air of tension. Neither body moved.
"Will you not leave me a shred of dignity?" Arthur's voice strained and cracked, but he held his indignant scowl with the bottomless azure that peered back at him.
"I know this isn't exactly the most comfortable way of receiving medicine," the calm, almost carefree lilt in the man's voice both lulled and clawed at Arthur's nerves, "but it's the fastest way to get this stuff into your bloodstream."
Arthur's lip curled into a sneer. "I highly doubt my arse is a prime location for an injection."
"You'd be surprised!" Blue eyes twinkled with unvoiced laughter and Arthur's heart thumped just a bit faster. "It's one of the best injection sites because of its muscle mass. The more muscle, the faster it's pumped through the body."
"It certainly doesn't make it any less humiliating," he murmured, his cheeks heating and eyes shifting to the impeccable white of the tile.
There was a hesitancy that took over the younger man at those words, but Arthur didn't dare look up. His entire body was shaking with self-deprecation and the vulnerability of it all made him hot and itchy with prickles of mortification. He wanted to scream when a large hand covered his tightly clenched fist.
"I know this illness is hard on you."
Arthur's head snapped up and his mouth fell open to contest to the statement, to tell the young doctor he had no bloody idea what it felt like, but he was cut off before he began.
"I may not know from experience, but I've seen too many men and women and children struggle with disease to think anything else. I've lost so many patients since I've come to England; I've seen the fear in the eyes of a person coming face to face with death too many times."
A slight pause for breath spurred the warm hands to tighten over Arthur's trembling hand.
"I don't want to lose anyone else. And this - this can be avoided if you trust me. I know you're feeling embarrassed and I know you just want to be left alone. But I can't let you accept something that doesn't have to happen. I won't let another patient die when I know there's something I can do to prevent it."
The room collapsed into a heavy silence. It weighed upon Arthur's chest with an excruciating force, nearly squeezing the breath from his lungs in the face of dazzling eyes that glittered with the brilliance of a midday sky. The iridescence of those glimmering orbs pulled at him, beckoning him closer with sweet promises and gentle whispers of something amazing and wonderful -
He jerked his gaze to the opposite wall and rolled tentatively onto his side.
"Get on with it then." His voice was just shy of inaudible, but he could feel the warmth of an ecstatic grin spreading across his back.
Heat flared beneath his flesh as the meager barrier of thin sheets were eased away, pushed tentatively to bunch at the slope of his hip. There was a slight tinkering of glass upon metal, nearly noiseless in reality but thunderingly loud in the stark calm of the room. A fleeting breath of soft, warm fingers brushed along tender skin as it cleared the the hindering papery gown and Arthur tensed, waiting for the sharp bite of a needle as a steady hand braced itself against his hip. It came and went, but the hand lingered, giving a slight caress before drawing back to right the barriers it had disturbed.
"Done!" The youth smiled as he helped ease his patient back to his original position. The radiance of the smile was definitely not mesmerizing, Arthur thought vehemently. "It wasn't that bad, right?"
"I suppose as far as injections go, it wasn't horrible," Arthur conceded, desperately trying to reason with his body that there was no reason to be blushing now. The broadening of that infuriatingly dazzling smile only seemed to spur his body into thinking the opposite, however. He scowled.
"That's probably the nicest thing that's come out of you since your entry, Mr. Kirkland." Arthur stammered out a stream of indignant retorts, but the doctor simply smiled in response.
"I'm just glad, is all." Flustered words came to a screeching halt.
"Glad, you say?" the soldier managed around a suddenly very dry throat.
"Well, yeah." Bright, airy tones wove tendrils of calm into nerves that trembled with an apprehension and aggravation that Arthur couldn't explain, couldn't begin to fathom, leaving him odd with an odd sensation of being deeply sated and strung as taut as a bow. "You've been distant with the staff; sometimes downright rude," he continued on despite the sharp snort of dismissal. "I'm just happy you're warming up to us. We want to see you better, Mr. Kirkland, and attitude plays a decent part in recovery."
"There is no recovery for me, Doctor." A darkness chipped away at the edges of the statement, leaving the voice slightly hollow despite the attempt at neutrality.
"That may be," the younger agreed. "There isn't a definite cure for tuberculosis yet. But," and here the azure caught alight in flames, flickering with determination, "you can't let that get you so low you let down your defenses. I see you, Mr. Kirkland, staring off into nothing and just sitting letting the disease beat you down into nothing more than a shell. In a way I'm relieved to see you yell at me and the nurses; at least I can see that you're still alive."
Arthur suddenly felt too small under the searching gaze of the other, too vulnerable under earnest eyes and too aware of himself in every possible way. He shrank back into the mattress, trying to sink into the stiff bedding below and melt into the fibres of the fabric, become nothing more than tiny bits of cloth in the face of such blatant passion. And yet something boiled in the pit of his stomach, rolling with every word and building, festering, tearing.
"Why did you come to England?"
A slightly shocked air bled into the room at the abrupt turn of conversation, settling itself over the two occupants like a thick film of transparent, viscous material. Blue eyes darkened slightly.
"To help people." It was a simple answer that was much too cliche for Arthur's liking.
"There has to be a specific reason why you came," he beseeched, the fire boiling, boiling, boiling. "America is in a neutral state; there's no logical reason for you to be here." He stared into the void of blue eyes. "Unless it's a personal endeavor."
"I want to be a hero." The voice was quiet, but eyes held steady.
And suddenly the boiling reached its limit; it burst forth, sending a searing fire that blazed through his veins, ripping through his esophagus and spewing from his lips.
"Hero?" That single word trembled with a raw emotion that Arthur couldn't place, couldn't label, couldn't handle and he was gasping for breath under its power. "You want to be a hero? How very American. To come in and believe you can fix the problems of the world with sheer wants and dreams -"
His lungs quivered under the vehemence of his storm, caving and sending waves of pure agony that spiraled and spiked through his body and made him quake with great, heaving coughs. He was vaguely aware of the strong arm that hoisted him into a sitting position or the gentle words that were murmured as the familiar metal of the basin was pressed to his chin. One mouthful of revolting lung tissue concoction splattered to the bottom, promptly followed by another and a bout of sick from the strain.
He sobbed as he neared the end of his torture, his body quivering and a fresh sheen of sweat clung to his brow. A cool cloth swept across his face and he moaned, reveling in the sensation of cold moisture contrasting with his fevered flesh as he lowered back.
"Maybe you should ease off laying into me for a while, fellah," the doctor mumbled, replacing the cloth and smoothing back damp blonde locks.
Arthur groaned, turning blindly into the tender touch.
"And just so you know," the tone was low but nonetheless kind in the ears of the exhausted soldier, "I know there's no such thing as a hero. There's no one around these days that will put everything on the line for a complete stranger and expect nothing in return. People are greedy by nature; to believe in something like a hero would be pretty ignorant.
"But I don't care." Fingers twitched against flesh before they drew back. "I may not be able to help everyone or stop world suffering," he paused, "but I'll do what I can to help the people that need it where I can reach. England needs help more than the States, so I hitched a ride over. It was the right thing to do in my head, and I'm sticking to my decision."
Suddenly the boiling seemed insignificant in the face of the doctor's words; it quickly settled to a distant ache. Arthur met the waiting azure gaze with a contrite smile.
"How was the world lucky enough to gain such a tenacious inhabitant?" he croaked with reedy breath and shallow jerks of shoulders trying to contain a softer set of coughs.
"Believe me, the earth didn't consider itself lucky in the beginning." A hard edge bit at the soft words, but the hands that slipped beneath Arthur were gentle as they lifted and prompted him to spit once more.
"I sincerely doubt that, Doctor Jones," Arthur wheezed, hands gripping sturdy arms as he was lowered once again. Blue eyes gleamed.
"Call me Alfred."