Fic: "In Sickness and Hotel Rooms" (PG) by taste_is_sweet
Yeah, so, ariadnes_string is holding a comment fic meme over at her live journal. The theme she chose in her awesomeness is Running Hot: Fever Fic. Because who doesn't love gallons (that's four liters per gallon) of H/C with their delirium?
I do! But sadly, while the comment fic meme is multi-fandom, so far only edajainigriv has posted a prompt for SGA.
Now, I did, honestly, promise myself that I WOULD NOT GET INVOLVED WITH THIS, other than reading the fic. Because much as (fictional! Fictional!) fevers are a bulletproof kink of mine, not only do I tend to write long but I'm also ostensibly trying to earn a living. So I was brave and true and did not write anything for THREE WHOLE DAYS.
And then I got worried that poor edajainigriv wouldn't get her prompt filled, buried as it is in a sea of Sherlock, Supernatural and Hawaii 5-0.
So I wrote this. Naturally it's too long for comment fic, so I'm posting it here. :)
Title: In Sickness and Hotel Rooms
Author: taste_is_sweet
Pairing: McShep (thanks, edajainigriv!)
Rating: PG
Warnings: None
Prompt: John is really sick, but is being all stoic and "I'm fine" about it, and Rodney takes care of him.
Summary: "You wouldn't know 'okay' if it came running at you with a pitchfork." Rodney smacked his hand against John's forehead and left it there through John's growling dissent. "First of all, your lungs sound like a carburetor. And second, I'm surprised you haven't burst into flames."
John watched, a little blearily, as Rodney shoved his way into the hotel room with his shoulders since his arms were full of a paper sack and he had a plastic bag dangling from each hand. It was dark outside and all the lights in the suite were off, so the light from the hallway seemed to blaze across the carpet and right into John's sore eyeballs. John could hear the tinkling of some kind of music and more tinkling of laughter from somewhere down the hallway and then the door slammed and Rodney got the light switch with his elbow then grumbled and stomped over to the desk. He managed to put down the bags and the sack without spilling anything, and then began methodically emptying the bags and setting everything up on the polished wood like he was preparing for a siege.
"Hi, Honey," John croaked. "You're home."
"Yes, I know where I am, thank you very much." Rodney snapped on the desk light and then barely glanced up to catch John's reflection in the huge decorative mirror that hung artfully over the table. "Why aren't you asleep?"
"Well, I was," John said, "until you came bashing through the door. I thought you'd called in a freaking extraction team!" He might've put a little too much exclamation into the last part, because the words barely got out of his mouth before he doubled over coughing.
Rodney was at his side in an instant, blue eyes big with concern. "Are you all right? Do you need to throw up or anything?"
John shook his head mutely as he got his breath back, and then sagged against the bulwark of pillows Rodney had stacked behind his head before he'd left to--it looked like--clean out half the drug stores on the island. "I'm okay."
That got an incredulous snort. "You wouldn't know 'okay' if it came running at you with a pitchfork." Rodney smacked his hand against John's forehead and left it there through John's growling dissent. "First of all, your lungs sound like a carburetor. And second, I'm surprised you haven't burst into flames. Don't move."
John rolled his eyes as Rodney bustled back to the desk then instantly regretted it when it made his headache worse. Rodney came back with no less than two thermometers, one of which he shoved into John's mouth.
"Yur goff gru fermomerers?" he asked around the one in his mouth.
"What?" Rodney looked at him quizzically then jammed the thermometer under John's tongue. "Don't speak. It'll throw off the reading. And hold still." He jammed the second, tympanic thermometer in John's ear.
"Ow!"
"John!" Rodney grabbed the oral thermometer that was now dangling like a cigarette from John's chapped bottom lip. "I told you to be quiet!"
"Then quit poking me!" John snapped, which set off another coughing fit. This time he leaned on his bent knees, taking shallow breaths when the coughing finally stopped.
Rodney was rubbing circles on his back, which was kind of surprising since his tee-shirt was damp with sweat. It felt nice, though. As much as anything could when he ached to the roots of his hair.
"Can I take your temperature now?" Rodney asked, and John wasn't too sick to miss the worry veiled as sarcasm.
John nodded and obediently held the thermometer in his mouth and didn't move. Rodney put the tympanic thermometer in his ear like John was an Ancient artifact that might explode if he was too rough with it. He took the big thermometer out of John's ear almost right away, which was great because it itched, but John really didn't like Rodney's deer-in-headlights expression when he looked at the readout.
John wanted to ask what the big deal was but he just gritted his teeth--carefully--around the thermometer and waited until it finally beeped. Rodney read the number on that one and didn't look any happier.
"Well?" John asked, getting a little concerned despite himself. He knew he felt like hell, but he was sure he'd been sicker than this. "You look like someone gave you a lemon. What is it?"
"The average of the two temperatures is 102.3," Rodney said. He flattened his lips, looking at John worriedly. "Maybe I should take you to the hospital."
John burst out laughing, which of course made him cough again. "Rodney," he gasped when he could speak, "I'm not going to die with a lousy temperature of 102, okay?"
"102.3," Rodney interjected. Kind of pissily, John thought.
"Whatever." John leaned back into his mountain of pillows. "It's not a problem until it hits at least 104."
"Oh, so I should wait until you're raving in delirium before I get medical attention, eh? Thank you. That's exceptionally comforting." Rodney stalked back to the desk muttering darkly about pneumonia.
"I don't have pneumonia, Rodney," John sighed. He wiped the sweat off his forehead, grimaced then wiped his hand on the sheet. "I've got the flu. Lots of people get the flu. I'm not going to die from the flu."
"You'd better not," Rodney shot over his shoulder at him. He finally finished doing whatever it was at the desk and came back to the bed with a medicine cup full of a dark, venomous green liquid. "Here." He shoved it at John. "Drink that while I get the rest."
"What is this?" John eyed the cup dubiously. He sniffed it then grunted in disgust. "Are you trying to poison me?"
"Yes. Of course I am." John managed to hear Rodney's eyeroll from the bathroom. "Because that would be the absolute perfect capper to this so-called 'vacation'"--John could hear the finger quotes too--"in this gritty, irradiated, citrus-plagued pit of hell."
"Gee, Rodney," John rasped when Rodney stomped out of the bathroom holding a brimming glass of water and two suspiciously pink pills. "Don't hold back now. How do you really feel about Hawaii?"
"On a scale of, being tortured by the Genii to eaten by a Wraith? I'd give it a being molested by a dominatrix starship captain" Rodney put the pills and water on the night table. "I told you to drink that."
John put the medicine cup down on the night table. "Then why the hell did you agree to come, Rodney, since you obviously hate it here so much?" he demanded, angry. "You don't like the sun, you don't like sand, you don't like salt water, you sure as hell don't like hiking. Why didn't you just stay home?"
Rodney put his hands on his hips. "Jeannie insisted on bringing her family here! How else was I going to spend time with her?"
"You haven't spent any time with her at all!" John remembered at the last second to keep his voice calm enough not to start yet another coughing fit. "All you've been doing is following me around and bitching all the time!"
The flash of hurt across Rodney's face was unmistakable, but as usual it was eclipsed by righteous indignation almost immediately. "Well, excuse me if I didn't feel like being assaulted by dolphins this afternoon! And besides, someone has to make sure you don't drop dead because you keep insisting that you're not sick and then spend the whole day trying to keep up with a God-damned Navy SEAL and a former surfing champion, who were both probably at least twenty years younger than you by the way--"
"Rodney!" More coughing, this time a particularly bad one that had John gasping and feeling like someone was pounding a big hammer through his ribcage. "Fuck."
"John?" Rodney's hand was on his back again and it looked like his anger had bled out with all the color in his face. "Are you all right? I mean, you're still breathing, right? I don't have to call an ambulance?"
John shook his head and wiped more sweat out of his eyes. He fell back against the pillows. "God, I feel like crap."
"No kidding," Rodney huffed, though there was none of his usual vitriol in it. He stroked John's hair back then let John move his palm to his forehead. It felt nice. "Will you please take some medicine?"
"Yeah," John said. "But not that," he amended when Rodney used his free hand to try and give him the small cup.
"It's NyQuill," Rodney said, like John was the only person on the entire planet who didn't know that.
"It's disgusting. And green."
"It's NyQuill. It's meant to be disgusting and green. Drink it or I swear I will sit on you and pour it down your throat."
Rodney looked like he actually meant it, so John glared at him but dutifully gulped down the NyQuill, which was exactly as vile as he thought it would be. He had to will himself not to gag on it. "God. That's awful."
"Just be glad they don't sell Buckley's Cough Syrup in this country," Rodney said. "Here." He poured the pink pills into John's hand. "These will help with the post-nasal drip and the coughing if the NyQuill doesn't do it."
John eyed the pills. "I'm not going to have some bad reaction to mixing this stuff, am I?"
"Like you'd even notice if you got more brain damage," Rodney scoffed. "But as it happens, no. I called Jennifer and she assured me that as long as I only give you the recommended doses, it'll be fine."
"You called Jennifer?" John gaped at him. "Do you even know what time it is over there?"
"She was very glad I called, actually," Rodney said primly. He pressed the glass of water into John's free hand. "You're lucky I was able to convince her not to take the next plane out here to check on you personally."
"Yeah," John agreed, meaning it. He slid the pills into his mouth and drank the water. Rodney had broken up with Jennifer for him over a year ago before they returned Atlantis to the Pegasus galaxy. So that burn that felt like jealousy was totally the fever. Yeah.
"Great!" Rodney smiled and rubbed his hands briskly. He plucked the empty glass out of John's hand and went back to the desk to set it down. Then he ripped open the paper sack and pulled out what was obviously some kind of burger and a Styrofoam container for soup. He opened the soup, dunked a spoon in it and brought it over to John.
"What's this?" John took the soup automatically, poking at it with the spoon.
"Chicken soup." Rodney's grin was triumphant. "And you have absolutely no idea how difficult that was to get around here. So eat it."
"You brought me chicken soup? Thanks, mom." John meant his smirk to match his sarcasm, but he had a feeling that it came out a bit more goofy and fond than that. He really didn't feel like eating, but Rodney was looking at him so hopefully that he figured he could probably manage to down a few spoonfuls. And he definitely did not feel all warm and fuzzy when Rodney beamed at him when he tried the soup, because he wasn't five.
John slowly ate about half the soup while he watched Rodney inspect his burger for anything remotely resembling citrus and then wolf it down like he had two minutes to eat before the next crisis. Afterwards John listened to Rodney's exhaustive teeth hygiene and wondered if he had enough energy to take care of his own teeth. Or to change into dry clothes. Or to get up. He decided that no, he really didn't and he really didn't care, either.
He was beginning to drift into a medicated haze when he heard the lights clicking off one by one and felt Rodney climbing onto the bed. Rodney hummed softly to himself as he turned on his laptop, then John felt Rodney's hand, gentle and warm on his shoulder.
"Are you okay?" Rodney asked softly. "Do you need anything?"
"No," John said. He turned his head so he could see Rodney's face, cast in shades of blue from his computer screen. "Thanks. For being here," he said.
Rodney snorted. "Like I'd be anywhere else." He reached down and took John's hand and curled their fingers together. "Go to sleep. You need your strength in case we meet an Army Ranger or a platoon of Marines or a gold medal gymnast or something."
John smirked a little, but he was too tired to do anything else. He felt Rodney squeeze his hand gently before letting go, and then John let the constant, steadfast clicking of Rodney's keyboard carry him down into sleep.
END
I do! But sadly, while the comment fic meme is multi-fandom, so far only edajainigriv has posted a prompt for SGA.
Now, I did, honestly, promise myself that I WOULD NOT GET INVOLVED WITH THIS, other than reading the fic. Because much as (fictional! Fictional!) fevers are a bulletproof kink of mine, not only do I tend to write long but I'm also ostensibly trying to earn a living. So I was brave and true and did not write anything for THREE WHOLE DAYS.
And then I got worried that poor edajainigriv wouldn't get her prompt filled, buried as it is in a sea of Sherlock, Supernatural and Hawaii 5-0.
So I wrote this. Naturally it's too long for comment fic, so I'm posting it here. :)
Title: In Sickness and Hotel Rooms
Author: taste_is_sweet
Pairing: McShep (thanks, edajainigriv!)
Rating: PG
Warnings: None
Prompt: John is really sick, but is being all stoic and "I'm fine" about it, and Rodney takes care of him.
Summary: "You wouldn't know 'okay' if it came running at you with a pitchfork." Rodney smacked his hand against John's forehead and left it there through John's growling dissent. "First of all, your lungs sound like a carburetor. And second, I'm surprised you haven't burst into flames."
John watched, a little blearily, as Rodney shoved his way into the hotel room with his shoulders since his arms were full of a paper sack and he had a plastic bag dangling from each hand. It was dark outside and all the lights in the suite were off, so the light from the hallway seemed to blaze across the carpet and right into John's sore eyeballs. John could hear the tinkling of some kind of music and more tinkling of laughter from somewhere down the hallway and then the door slammed and Rodney got the light switch with his elbow then grumbled and stomped over to the desk. He managed to put down the bags and the sack without spilling anything, and then began methodically emptying the bags and setting everything up on the polished wood like he was preparing for a siege.
"Hi, Honey," John croaked. "You're home."
"Yes, I know where I am, thank you very much." Rodney snapped on the desk light and then barely glanced up to catch John's reflection in the huge decorative mirror that hung artfully over the table. "Why aren't you asleep?"
"Well, I was," John said, "until you came bashing through the door. I thought you'd called in a freaking extraction team!" He might've put a little too much exclamation into the last part, because the words barely got out of his mouth before he doubled over coughing.
Rodney was at his side in an instant, blue eyes big with concern. "Are you all right? Do you need to throw up or anything?"
John shook his head mutely as he got his breath back, and then sagged against the bulwark of pillows Rodney had stacked behind his head before he'd left to--it looked like--clean out half the drug stores on the island. "I'm okay."
That got an incredulous snort. "You wouldn't know 'okay' if it came running at you with a pitchfork." Rodney smacked his hand against John's forehead and left it there through John's growling dissent. "First of all, your lungs sound like a carburetor. And second, I'm surprised you haven't burst into flames. Don't move."
John rolled his eyes as Rodney bustled back to the desk then instantly regretted it when it made his headache worse. Rodney came back with no less than two thermometers, one of which he shoved into John's mouth.
"Yur goff gru fermomerers?" he asked around the one in his mouth.
"What?" Rodney looked at him quizzically then jammed the thermometer under John's tongue. "Don't speak. It'll throw off the reading. And hold still." He jammed the second, tympanic thermometer in John's ear.
"Ow!"
"John!" Rodney grabbed the oral thermometer that was now dangling like a cigarette from John's chapped bottom lip. "I told you to be quiet!"
"Then quit poking me!" John snapped, which set off another coughing fit. This time he leaned on his bent knees, taking shallow breaths when the coughing finally stopped.
Rodney was rubbing circles on his back, which was kind of surprising since his tee-shirt was damp with sweat. It felt nice, though. As much as anything could when he ached to the roots of his hair.
"Can I take your temperature now?" Rodney asked, and John wasn't too sick to miss the worry veiled as sarcasm.
John nodded and obediently held the thermometer in his mouth and didn't move. Rodney put the tympanic thermometer in his ear like John was an Ancient artifact that might explode if he was too rough with it. He took the big thermometer out of John's ear almost right away, which was great because it itched, but John really didn't like Rodney's deer-in-headlights expression when he looked at the readout.
John wanted to ask what the big deal was but he just gritted his teeth--carefully--around the thermometer and waited until it finally beeped. Rodney read the number on that one and didn't look any happier.
"Well?" John asked, getting a little concerned despite himself. He knew he felt like hell, but he was sure he'd been sicker than this. "You look like someone gave you a lemon. What is it?"
"The average of the two temperatures is 102.3," Rodney said. He flattened his lips, looking at John worriedly. "Maybe I should take you to the hospital."
John burst out laughing, which of course made him cough again. "Rodney," he gasped when he could speak, "I'm not going to die with a lousy temperature of 102, okay?"
"102.3," Rodney interjected. Kind of pissily, John thought.
"Whatever." John leaned back into his mountain of pillows. "It's not a problem until it hits at least 104."
"Oh, so I should wait until you're raving in delirium before I get medical attention, eh? Thank you. That's exceptionally comforting." Rodney stalked back to the desk muttering darkly about pneumonia.
"I don't have pneumonia, Rodney," John sighed. He wiped the sweat off his forehead, grimaced then wiped his hand on the sheet. "I've got the flu. Lots of people get the flu. I'm not going to die from the flu."
"You'd better not," Rodney shot over his shoulder at him. He finally finished doing whatever it was at the desk and came back to the bed with a medicine cup full of a dark, venomous green liquid. "Here." He shoved it at John. "Drink that while I get the rest."
"What is this?" John eyed the cup dubiously. He sniffed it then grunted in disgust. "Are you trying to poison me?"
"Yes. Of course I am." John managed to hear Rodney's eyeroll from the bathroom. "Because that would be the absolute perfect capper to this so-called 'vacation'"--John could hear the finger quotes too--"in this gritty, irradiated, citrus-plagued pit of hell."
"Gee, Rodney," John rasped when Rodney stomped out of the bathroom holding a brimming glass of water and two suspiciously pink pills. "Don't hold back now. How do you really feel about Hawaii?"
"On a scale of, being tortured by the Genii to eaten by a Wraith? I'd give it a being molested by a dominatrix starship captain" Rodney put the pills and water on the night table. "I told you to drink that."
John put the medicine cup down on the night table. "Then why the hell did you agree to come, Rodney, since you obviously hate it here so much?" he demanded, angry. "You don't like the sun, you don't like sand, you don't like salt water, you sure as hell don't like hiking. Why didn't you just stay home?"
Rodney put his hands on his hips. "Jeannie insisted on bringing her family here! How else was I going to spend time with her?"
"You haven't spent any time with her at all!" John remembered at the last second to keep his voice calm enough not to start yet another coughing fit. "All you've been doing is following me around and bitching all the time!"
The flash of hurt across Rodney's face was unmistakable, but as usual it was eclipsed by righteous indignation almost immediately. "Well, excuse me if I didn't feel like being assaulted by dolphins this afternoon! And besides, someone has to make sure you don't drop dead because you keep insisting that you're not sick and then spend the whole day trying to keep up with a God-damned Navy SEAL and a former surfing champion, who were both probably at least twenty years younger than you by the way--"
"Rodney!" More coughing, this time a particularly bad one that had John gasping and feeling like someone was pounding a big hammer through his ribcage. "Fuck."
"John?" Rodney's hand was on his back again and it looked like his anger had bled out with all the color in his face. "Are you all right? I mean, you're still breathing, right? I don't have to call an ambulance?"
John shook his head and wiped more sweat out of his eyes. He fell back against the pillows. "God, I feel like crap."
"No kidding," Rodney huffed, though there was none of his usual vitriol in it. He stroked John's hair back then let John move his palm to his forehead. It felt nice. "Will you please take some medicine?"
"Yeah," John said. "But not that," he amended when Rodney used his free hand to try and give him the small cup.
"It's NyQuill," Rodney said, like John was the only person on the entire planet who didn't know that.
"It's disgusting. And green."
"It's NyQuill. It's meant to be disgusting and green. Drink it or I swear I will sit on you and pour it down your throat."
Rodney looked like he actually meant it, so John glared at him but dutifully gulped down the NyQuill, which was exactly as vile as he thought it would be. He had to will himself not to gag on it. "God. That's awful."
"Just be glad they don't sell Buckley's Cough Syrup in this country," Rodney said. "Here." He poured the pink pills into John's hand. "These will help with the post-nasal drip and the coughing if the NyQuill doesn't do it."
John eyed the pills. "I'm not going to have some bad reaction to mixing this stuff, am I?"
"Like you'd even notice if you got more brain damage," Rodney scoffed. "But as it happens, no. I called Jennifer and she assured me that as long as I only give you the recommended doses, it'll be fine."
"You called Jennifer?" John gaped at him. "Do you even know what time it is over there?"
"She was very glad I called, actually," Rodney said primly. He pressed the glass of water into John's free hand. "You're lucky I was able to convince her not to take the next plane out here to check on you personally."
"Yeah," John agreed, meaning it. He slid the pills into his mouth and drank the water. Rodney had broken up with Jennifer for him over a year ago before they returned Atlantis to the Pegasus galaxy. So that burn that felt like jealousy was totally the fever. Yeah.
"Great!" Rodney smiled and rubbed his hands briskly. He plucked the empty glass out of John's hand and went back to the desk to set it down. Then he ripped open the paper sack and pulled out what was obviously some kind of burger and a Styrofoam container for soup. He opened the soup, dunked a spoon in it and brought it over to John.
"What's this?" John took the soup automatically, poking at it with the spoon.
"Chicken soup." Rodney's grin was triumphant. "And you have absolutely no idea how difficult that was to get around here. So eat it."
"You brought me chicken soup? Thanks, mom." John meant his smirk to match his sarcasm, but he had a feeling that it came out a bit more goofy and fond than that. He really didn't feel like eating, but Rodney was looking at him so hopefully that he figured he could probably manage to down a few spoonfuls. And he definitely did not feel all warm and fuzzy when Rodney beamed at him when he tried the soup, because he wasn't five.
John slowly ate about half the soup while he watched Rodney inspect his burger for anything remotely resembling citrus and then wolf it down like he had two minutes to eat before the next crisis. Afterwards John listened to Rodney's exhaustive teeth hygiene and wondered if he had enough energy to take care of his own teeth. Or to change into dry clothes. Or to get up. He decided that no, he really didn't and he really didn't care, either.
He was beginning to drift into a medicated haze when he heard the lights clicking off one by one and felt Rodney climbing onto the bed. Rodney hummed softly to himself as he turned on his laptop, then John felt Rodney's hand, gentle and warm on his shoulder.
"Are you okay?" Rodney asked softly. "Do you need anything?"
"No," John said. He turned his head so he could see Rodney's face, cast in shades of blue from his computer screen. "Thanks. For being here," he said.
Rodney snorted. "Like I'd be anywhere else." He reached down and took John's hand and curled their fingers together. "Go to sleep. You need your strength in case we meet an Army Ranger or a platoon of Marines or a gold medal gymnast or something."
John smirked a little, but he was too tired to do anything else. He felt Rodney squeeze his hand gently before letting go, and then John let the constant, steadfast clicking of Rodney's keyboard carry him down into sleep.
END