A Pox On Your House

[staticsnap]

Characters: Shark!Erik, Pilot Fish!Ben
Date&Time: December 25th, evening
Setting: Ben's absconded den  Erik's room 
Summary: Gesunteit; see also: alternatives to chicken soup.
Rating: Rish?
Status: Open to Cooler!Erik.

Comments

[staticsnap]

It became apparent almost immediately that Ben hadn't really thought this through. The momentum of his initial lunge was enough to send both he and Erik crashing to the carpet in a cataclysmic tangle of limbs but once they arrived there, he was reminded of just how fucking exhausting physical grappling was. Making his limbs move in any sort of coordinated manner required so much effort, effort that he'd already expended by lying in bed doing his best imitation of a furnace. Indignation helped to fuel his endurance a little bit and Ben managed to snarl and batter at Erik's stupid shoulders for a few moments, hopefully with enough strength and precision to leave a collar of bruises that would spell out, "go to hell, you ass."

And then Erik bit him. Erik bit him.

"Ow!" Ben yelped, one hand flying up to clap over his throbbing neck. Panting and flushed, he stared down at Erik in disbelief. It was one thing to nip during a romp in bed but this was a damned fight. That wasn't allowed and it certainly wasn't sporting

[staticsnap]

Left to the quiet cast of the room, Ben found that his miserable sullenness made for poor company. It rose sickly to fill up the corners of the solitary space and seemed to suck the colour - normally warm and rich - out of the embellishments. Rather petulantly, Ben let it wrap around him and greedily held fast to it's ragged edges. He was allowed to be in a bad mood, damn it. That was a right afforded to everyone who felt like horseshit, never more so than when those aforementioned fecal sympathizers were in such a state during the holidays. What was the point in trying to soldier stoically through the dredges of immune dysfunction? That was for fucking martyrs and everyone knew what happened to martyrs: they burned at the stake. Goddamn idiots

[rageserenity]

They did say that imitation was the sincerest form of flattery

[staticsnap]

To say that the medicine tasted foul was like saying the French were a bit gruff. The thick syrup (a consistency of coagulated blood) was reminiscent of turpentine and battery acid, reduced down to an offensive mire before being laced with a sickly sweet note of overripe plums. Ben had a sneaking suspicion that three spoonfuls was more than he needed and that Erik was just ensuring that eventually the anesthetic quality to the linctus would knock him out. He couldn't be sure - he never got close enough to the bottle to actually read it - but he wouldn't have put it past the man to outsmart him in a bid to force him to rest. Alternatively, Erik might have just found it amusing to watch Ben's face twitch as he tried to bite back the rictus of disgust that erupted as he gagged the awful concoction back. He did have a high appreciation for black humour

[rageserenity]

Erik put the bottle down on the bedside table and focussed now on caressing the boy's back with one hand, a soothing tender sort of gesture considering not 15 minutes ago they'd been tussling on the floor, biting and punching and Erik had been doing his damndest to reach through Ben's epidermis, grab hold of his scapula, and yank it clean out.

The other hand stroked sweetly through Ben's sweat-slickened hair, lulling him to rest, calming.

A force of his willpower against the boy's.

And really, this was better, wasn't it? Being good for Erik meant Erik took care of you, it meant he was tender and kind, and rewarded you with lovely attention.

"Sh sh sh shhhh, there, my beautiful boy... it's time to rest now."

Time to do as Erik said.

[staticsnap]

Ben trembled faintly, bowing beneath Erik's touch so that his head curled to rest more completely atop his lap and the tension in his shoulders bled out ounce by ounce. This was what he'd wanted, this soothing caress that had been so foreign for so long that now the young man was greedy for it, finally having recognized his hunger for such things. Ben hummed softly in appreciation as the repetitive flow of the strokes on his back began to tip him toward a hypnotically content state.

Christ, he'd been an ass, hadn't he? And on purpose. Ben didn't have any illusions about himself. He knew he wasn't the easiest person to get along with, that he got into aggressively solitary moods and snapped at anyone who had the idiocy not to read his mind and discern that he wanted his personal space. That was just part of his personality. To purposefully gird himself in more of that abrasive safeguard was just fucking poor play

[rageserenity]

Erik's fingers - an artisan's talent embedded in the fibres within them - worked at those sensitively needy temples, soothing them out, guiding Ben towards rest and compliance.

Sometimes mutant abilities simply weren't enough... to bend metal was all well and good, but to bend another person could be better.

"I forgive you." Which was probably better and more rare than being absolved by the Pope.

"I know you don't mean to disobey and disappoint me, Ben. You'd never want to disappoint me, would you?

That's right... just rest now... let me send you to sleep. I'll stay until you're settled, I promise."

Erik was such a benevolent ruler when he was being obeyed, and the will of others was voluntarily subject to him.

[staticsnap]

A shiver curled around a knob of Ben's spine, down low where it's cold reach could ricochet in the valley of his lower back. An uncomfortable flush threatened to spill onto his cheeks and the younger man turned his face instinctively into Erik in a vain attempt to hide his shame. Even halfway to death, Ben was all too aware of the prickling dread that pitched into his belly at the mere insinuation of disappointing Erik. Disobeying? That wasn't a problem. Ben had never been one to colour in the lines and independence was too ingrained in his personality for him to be of much use as a letter soldier

[rageserenity]

Erik responded to Ben's sorry attempts at movement by physically lending his strength to move the boy himself, gently manoeuvring Ben up the bed and putting him in it, gently drawing the single sheet up to Ben's waist and curling up behind him, spooning him snugly and wrapping an arm about the poor sickly boy's slender waist.

He didn't want to be facing Ben, afterall. Even this amount of exposure to viral microbes was bad enough.

He kissed just behind Ben's ear softly, the whisper of lips.

"There... tomorrow, if you're a good boy for me and a little better."

There was nothing about the sick that Erik found the least arousing, even Ben. A broken limb was one thing, flesh wounds and injuries of that ilk were also quite satisfactory when it came to eroticism. But colds? The flu? Pneumonia? Hardly the stuff that stirred him.