Heat (Piper & Trickster) PG-13 3/7
It's that time again. Here's the next chapter in greenygal and I's rather long angstfest. Comments will be loved and adored!
Part One is here.
Part Two is here.
39.4 Degrees Celsius / 103 Degrees Fahrenheit
It had been more than the day or two they’d talked about now, and Piper had even managed to leave for long enough to find the truck and get it running. Unfortunately, making the long journey back to civilisation wasn’t an option they wanted to pursue. Trickster’s condition had gotten worse, not better, and Piper was beginning to get seriously worried.
It was time do a more thorough search of the shack’s cupboards.
Trickster lay curled on his side, blanket drawn around him, flushed and sweating but shivering a little as well. He looked faintly curious as he watched Piper turn the kitchen upside down, but his eyes were vague and unfocused until Piper came out from the kitchen triumphantly holding a dusty metal and glass object.
Then he looked confused, and managed to speak through the gasping breathlessness. "What... What’re you doing?"
Piper gestured towards him with the object. "Found a thermometer. I’m taking your temperature. Say 'ah'."
Trickster squinted at Piper’s find. It looked old, practically antique, and the dust had been there for so long it appeared to almost be part of the thing. "You...you're not putting that in my mouth." He paused and made a face, looking semi-appalled to have fallen into such a blatant double entendre. "What did I...I just say?"
Piper restrained himself, simply raising an eyebrow. "Don't worry. I wouldn't go near your mouth." He sat down next to Trickster and started to pull the blanket off.
Trickster flinched a little and twisted his head to look at his companion, looking more than a little concerned. "Where...where are you going to--"
Piper gave him one of Trickster's own disquieting grins, and waited for him to squirm before shaking his head. "I wouldn't go near that either." His tone was light, but the edge to it was audible. "Under your arm, that's all. It's usually for kids, but it does work."
"Oh." Even through the shivering, and the gasping, Trickster managed to assume an expression that indicated that he certainly wasn’t relieved because that would imply that he’d been worried in the first place. "Right...'kay." He winced and lifted his arm a little. "Where'd you find that? Thought the kit didn't...didn't have anythin'...."
"It was in the kitchen, right at the back of one of the cupboards." Piper carefully slid the thermometer in place. "I guess you use it for...food." Truthfully, he was a little uncertain about that; he’d only checked the kitchen out of sheer desperation. Cooking wasn’t his specialty.
Trickster made a face, his teeth clattering. "So the... the metal's not there to make it extra f...freezing?"
"I don't think they had it in mind, no," Piper said absently, pulling the blanket back up.
"I...I'm cold. It's cold. Why'sit so cold?"
Piper frowned and arranged the blanket so it was covering more of his patient. "It's not; it just feels that way. You're running a fever. That’s why I have to see what your temperature is." He kept his voice reasonably calm, but he found it difficult to disguise the look of worry on his face. Things were rapidly proceeding beyond his admittedly limited grasp of medicine and into distressing territory.
Trickster didn’t look like he was in any state to calm Piper’s fears. He shook his head in frustration, and then winced in pain yet again. "Stupid, stupid. My head hurts. I can't...can't sleep and I'm freezing.... Why can't I..." He cringed and pressed his hands to his forehead. "Stupid stupid head!"
"Well, that's something I never expected to hear out of you," Piper joked weakly.
"Jus' shuddup. You're not doing anything...you're not even distracting me."
Again with the distracting? Piper eyed him for a moment. How was he supposed to take someone’s mind off this? Then again, this was the Trickster. "That last poker game? I was cheating the whole time. And you never noticed."
Trickster directed a look Piper's way. Success. "Sure...sure you were. Sure you'd like to wish..."
Piper smiled annoyingly. "I won, didn't I?"
Trickster looked indignant. "Can't win when we never got to finish. If it hadn't been for the assass...assass...." He gritted his chattering teeth. "People trying to kill us, I would've had it. Delaying tactics!"
Poking at each other’s weak spots. Sniping and snarking their frustration out. Irritating each other just to get a reaction, any reaction. Piper was in familiar territory here, at least. "Excuses, excuses. I was winning when we stopped, that's all that matters."
"That... That was on purpose, and you know it!" Trickster shifted uncomfortably and scowled down at the thermometer. "C’n... Can I pull this thing out yet?"
Ah well. A brief distraction was better than none at all. Piper sighed and nodded, pulling the thermometer free. He frowned at the display.
"'mi dead yet?"
"As long as you're still talking, you're probably safe," Piper told him, but he didn’t stop frowning.
Trickster glared briefly and then his expression changed to something that was far more serious than anything Piper was comfortable seeing him use. "Are you going to give me the bad news, or don' I get to know?"
Piper hesitated, but really, it was pointless keeping it from him. "About a hundred and three. I think. It's not an exact science." He couldn’t manage to sound particularly reassuring.
"...that's not very good."
"It could be worse. Maybe it'll stop there."
Trickster half-shook his head derisively. "You...you don' believe that. I know you don't believe that."
"Well how would I know?!" Without meaning it to, Piper's voice had risen to a near-shout. "Do I look like a doctor, here?"
"You're not stupid. And you're not sitting there with a bullet in your back and, and your hands aren't shaking and you're not freezing and your head isn't about to split open and you don' feel like you're about to throw up and why don't you think of something for a change? There must be something! God, my head..."
"What, I'm supposed to be able to snap my fingers and--" Piper stopped abruptly and reeled himself in, taking a deep breath, then another, while his heart rate slowed. Getting angry was stupid. It was pointless getting angry. It wouldn’t stop the shivering, or change Trickster’s colour to something more resembling a human being than a zombie, or stop the....
Trickster gasped and jerked forward. "I'm... I don't... I'mgoingtobe sick...."
Oh hell. "Hang on." Piper scrambled to the kitchen and grabbed the first container that came to hand, a battered and dusty saucepan that was hanging from a hook on the wall. He carefully propped Trickster’s head up a little and tried to hold him steady as he painfully retched into the container. He could see Trickster start with agony as the wound got disturbed. See his face turn an even more ghastly colour as he vomited. See the water gathering at the edges of his companion’s eyes.... He tried to ignore that. It was difficult.
When Trickster had stopped retching, Piper waited a minute, then asked quietly: "You done?"
"Ack. I... Water?"
Piper put the saucepan down and hurried over to the kitchen again to fill a glass of water, grabbing a damp cloth while he was at it. "Here." He didn’t bother trying to put the glass in Trickster’s shaking hands, carefully tipping it into his mouth instead.
Trickster gulped, and spluttered a little, and then dropped his head back to the pillow, shivering, his eyes glassy and half shut. "Got to do something...can't think."
"You know, Trickster, you don't need to think all the time," Piper said with some exasperation. "Hold still, let me clean you up." He started to wipe down his companion’s face, and frowned.
It brought back memories. Helping at the homeless shelter, wiping down the face of a sick little kid whose mother had brought him there because they were both tired and miserable and hungry. He’d dug out some food, and some Child Panadol, and he’d cleaned the kid up, and wrangled a bed for the mother and.... They’d smiled gratefully, talked a little. And it’d felt good, so good. It had been a nice memory.
Once.
Now all it did was make him ache inside for the life he’d never have again. For the person he probably never was in the first place. Nothing left but ashes in his mouth and the man on the bed who avoided his eyes and flinched when he touched the cloth to his face. Like he was poison.
"You don't think. That's...that doesn' mean I..." Trickster’s voice was hoarse but persistent.
"The arrogance works better when you're not flat on your back," Piper said tiredly. "And as far as I can tell, when you think it just gets you in trouble."
"'Swhy it's so much fun." There was a vague whisper of a smile on his face, before another twinge of pain made him hiss.
Piper rested one hand very, very lightly on his shoulder for a moment, but his voice wasn't particularly gentle as he suggested, "Maybe you should be quiet for a while." He lifted his gaze from Trickster and stared hollowly at the dusty, cobwebbed cabin. "Fun." he muttered. "Right." He felt another desperate wave of homesickness for his relatively tidy, relatively sane life in Keystone. God, he even remembered thinking, back then, that he wished things could be a little more dangerous. A little more interesting.... Piper frowned again and picked up the battered pot to empty it. And here he was. Lucky him.
He came out a few seconds later to see Trickster grimace and curl into himself a little more. "What is it?"
"Nothing. Nothing diff...different. Just hurts. Won't stop..."
Piper closed his eyes, because he was tired, and he was trying to think what to do. Not because they were blurring. Of course not. "I know. I'm sorry. I can't do anything about that." He hesitated. "Unless you've changed your mind....?"
Just for a second, the shivering stopped and Trickster was very, very still. "No." He very nearly managed to cover up the thread of panic that underlay that word. "I'll survive. Be okay. I'll...I need 'nother blanket. It's wet. This one. So cold...." He shuddered badly and curled up a little more.
Piper opened his mouth to argue and then shut it, albeit reluctantly. "It'll hurt less if you hold still," he pointed out, not bothering to disguise a caustic note to his voice. "I'll change the blanket."
Trickster flinched deeper into the bed as the blanket was pulled off, turning away from the glare on his companion’s face. "I can't stop moving," he shot back. "Can't stop shivering. Too...too cold. You don’t know how bad this is." His voice seethed with frustration. "So...so, poor you got shot with an arrow once? That doesn' burn like, like... It doesn't burn you. You don't know--"
The words were so unexpected that for a moment he didn’t even register the pain, and then....
Poor you got shot with an arrow once. An arrow dipped in Joker venom, on the day that his tidy Keystone life had fallen apart and shattered into pieces. An arrow that had taken his mind and twisted it into something foul and horrendous, and he’d stood there laughing as he tried to kill and kill and....
Poor you got shot with an arrow once. He didn’t just say that--
Piper's body stiffened, his fists clenching. He didn’t just say that.
Trickster blinked up at him, looking confused. "Wha...?"
But then the rage...focused inside of him, into something detached and cold, and his tension shifted into angry, jerking motion as he dropped the blanket, turned and headed for the door. His hand was already on the flute by the time he wrenched it open.
"...Piper?"
The flute was versatile. It could put people to sleep. Make people trust and believe. Take away pain...and give it. Turn solid objects into broken little pieces, and he watched as the nearest tree shuddered and splintered and twisted under the sonic assault. As it was torn apart, as it was obliterated, as it died....
He stopped.
"Piper?"
He stared at the tree. It was...it was....
"Ahh...look..."
Obliterated. Pulverised. Dead.
He felt like throwing up.
"Piper..."
Part of Piper wanted to ignore the insistent voice, but instead he raised his head and turned back to the cabin. "Yeah." His voice was weary. "I'm here."
"I...you want to talk about...?"
Talk about it? His smile was a death's head grin. "Playing therapist now? It isn't exactly your role."
"I'm adapt...adaptable." Trickster shifted painfully. "And also...little confused, have to say." He gave Piper a look of 'genuine' concern that usually worked wonders in getting people to open up.
Most people, anyway. Piper had seen it before, and his eyes narrowed, the pain receding behind a wave of defensive bitterness. "Oh, save the phony sympathy, Tricks," he snapped, striding back through the cabin door. "You just want to know if I'm going to flip out on you. I'll be fine." He was back at Trickster's bedside by the time he finished the sentence.
Then he leaned in, and his voice was low, and very, very calm. "But don't start comparing suffering with me. That's not an argument you want to win."
Trickster eyed his companion warily. "I'll...keep that in mind."
There was an uncomfortable silence, and then Piper picked up the fresh blanket and carefully began to tuck it in.
***********
To Part Four...
Part One is here.
Part Two is here.
39.4 Degrees Celsius / 103 Degrees Fahrenheit
It had been more than the day or two they’d talked about now, and Piper had even managed to leave for long enough to find the truck and get it running. Unfortunately, making the long journey back to civilisation wasn’t an option they wanted to pursue. Trickster’s condition had gotten worse, not better, and Piper was beginning to get seriously worried.
It was time do a more thorough search of the shack’s cupboards.
Trickster lay curled on his side, blanket drawn around him, flushed and sweating but shivering a little as well. He looked faintly curious as he watched Piper turn the kitchen upside down, but his eyes were vague and unfocused until Piper came out from the kitchen triumphantly holding a dusty metal and glass object.
Then he looked confused, and managed to speak through the gasping breathlessness. "What... What’re you doing?"
Piper gestured towards him with the object. "Found a thermometer. I’m taking your temperature. Say 'ah'."
Trickster squinted at Piper’s find. It looked old, practically antique, and the dust had been there for so long it appeared to almost be part of the thing. "You...you're not putting that in my mouth." He paused and made a face, looking semi-appalled to have fallen into such a blatant double entendre. "What did I...I just say?"
Piper restrained himself, simply raising an eyebrow. "Don't worry. I wouldn't go near your mouth." He sat down next to Trickster and started to pull the blanket off.
Trickster flinched a little and twisted his head to look at his companion, looking more than a little concerned. "Where...where are you going to--"
Piper gave him one of Trickster's own disquieting grins, and waited for him to squirm before shaking his head. "I wouldn't go near that either." His tone was light, but the edge to it was audible. "Under your arm, that's all. It's usually for kids, but it does work."
"Oh." Even through the shivering, and the gasping, Trickster managed to assume an expression that indicated that he certainly wasn’t relieved because that would imply that he’d been worried in the first place. "Right...'kay." He winced and lifted his arm a little. "Where'd you find that? Thought the kit didn't...didn't have anythin'...."
"It was in the kitchen, right at the back of one of the cupboards." Piper carefully slid the thermometer in place. "I guess you use it for...food." Truthfully, he was a little uncertain about that; he’d only checked the kitchen out of sheer desperation. Cooking wasn’t his specialty.
Trickster made a face, his teeth clattering. "So the... the metal's not there to make it extra f...freezing?"
"I don't think they had it in mind, no," Piper said absently, pulling the blanket back up.
"I...I'm cold. It's cold. Why'sit so cold?"
Piper frowned and arranged the blanket so it was covering more of his patient. "It's not; it just feels that way. You're running a fever. That’s why I have to see what your temperature is." He kept his voice reasonably calm, but he found it difficult to disguise the look of worry on his face. Things were rapidly proceeding beyond his admittedly limited grasp of medicine and into distressing territory.
Trickster didn’t look like he was in any state to calm Piper’s fears. He shook his head in frustration, and then winced in pain yet again. "Stupid, stupid. My head hurts. I can't...can't sleep and I'm freezing.... Why can't I..." He cringed and pressed his hands to his forehead. "Stupid stupid head!"
"Well, that's something I never expected to hear out of you," Piper joked weakly.
"Jus' shuddup. You're not doing anything...you're not even distracting me."
Again with the distracting? Piper eyed him for a moment. How was he supposed to take someone’s mind off this? Then again, this was the Trickster. "That last poker game? I was cheating the whole time. And you never noticed."
Trickster directed a look Piper's way. Success. "Sure...sure you were. Sure you'd like to wish..."
Piper smiled annoyingly. "I won, didn't I?"
Trickster looked indignant. "Can't win when we never got to finish. If it hadn't been for the assass...assass...." He gritted his chattering teeth. "People trying to kill us, I would've had it. Delaying tactics!"
Poking at each other’s weak spots. Sniping and snarking their frustration out. Irritating each other just to get a reaction, any reaction. Piper was in familiar territory here, at least. "Excuses, excuses. I was winning when we stopped, that's all that matters."
"That... That was on purpose, and you know it!" Trickster shifted uncomfortably and scowled down at the thermometer. "C’n... Can I pull this thing out yet?"
Ah well. A brief distraction was better than none at all. Piper sighed and nodded, pulling the thermometer free. He frowned at the display.
"'mi dead yet?"
"As long as you're still talking, you're probably safe," Piper told him, but he didn’t stop frowning.
Trickster glared briefly and then his expression changed to something that was far more serious than anything Piper was comfortable seeing him use. "Are you going to give me the bad news, or don' I get to know?"
Piper hesitated, but really, it was pointless keeping it from him. "About a hundred and three. I think. It's not an exact science." He couldn’t manage to sound particularly reassuring.
"...that's not very good."
"It could be worse. Maybe it'll stop there."
Trickster half-shook his head derisively. "You...you don' believe that. I know you don't believe that."
"Well how would I know?!" Without meaning it to, Piper's voice had risen to a near-shout. "Do I look like a doctor, here?"
"You're not stupid. And you're not sitting there with a bullet in your back and, and your hands aren't shaking and you're not freezing and your head isn't about to split open and you don' feel like you're about to throw up and why don't you think of something for a change? There must be something! God, my head..."
"What, I'm supposed to be able to snap my fingers and--" Piper stopped abruptly and reeled himself in, taking a deep breath, then another, while his heart rate slowed. Getting angry was stupid. It was pointless getting angry. It wouldn’t stop the shivering, or change Trickster’s colour to something more resembling a human being than a zombie, or stop the....
Trickster gasped and jerked forward. "I'm... I don't... I'mgoingtobe sick...."
Oh hell. "Hang on." Piper scrambled to the kitchen and grabbed the first container that came to hand, a battered and dusty saucepan that was hanging from a hook on the wall. He carefully propped Trickster’s head up a little and tried to hold him steady as he painfully retched into the container. He could see Trickster start with agony as the wound got disturbed. See his face turn an even more ghastly colour as he vomited. See the water gathering at the edges of his companion’s eyes.... He tried to ignore that. It was difficult.
When Trickster had stopped retching, Piper waited a minute, then asked quietly: "You done?"
"Ack. I... Water?"
Piper put the saucepan down and hurried over to the kitchen again to fill a glass of water, grabbing a damp cloth while he was at it. "Here." He didn’t bother trying to put the glass in Trickster’s shaking hands, carefully tipping it into his mouth instead.
Trickster gulped, and spluttered a little, and then dropped his head back to the pillow, shivering, his eyes glassy and half shut. "Got to do something...can't think."
"You know, Trickster, you don't need to think all the time," Piper said with some exasperation. "Hold still, let me clean you up." He started to wipe down his companion’s face, and frowned.
It brought back memories. Helping at the homeless shelter, wiping down the face of a sick little kid whose mother had brought him there because they were both tired and miserable and hungry. He’d dug out some food, and some Child Panadol, and he’d cleaned the kid up, and wrangled a bed for the mother and.... They’d smiled gratefully, talked a little. And it’d felt good, so good. It had been a nice memory.
Once.
Now all it did was make him ache inside for the life he’d never have again. For the person he probably never was in the first place. Nothing left but ashes in his mouth and the man on the bed who avoided his eyes and flinched when he touched the cloth to his face. Like he was poison.
"You don't think. That's...that doesn' mean I..." Trickster’s voice was hoarse but persistent.
"The arrogance works better when you're not flat on your back," Piper said tiredly. "And as far as I can tell, when you think it just gets you in trouble."
"'Swhy it's so much fun." There was a vague whisper of a smile on his face, before another twinge of pain made him hiss.
Piper rested one hand very, very lightly on his shoulder for a moment, but his voice wasn't particularly gentle as he suggested, "Maybe you should be quiet for a while." He lifted his gaze from Trickster and stared hollowly at the dusty, cobwebbed cabin. "Fun." he muttered. "Right." He felt another desperate wave of homesickness for his relatively tidy, relatively sane life in Keystone. God, he even remembered thinking, back then, that he wished things could be a little more dangerous. A little more interesting.... Piper frowned again and picked up the battered pot to empty it. And here he was. Lucky him.
He came out a few seconds later to see Trickster grimace and curl into himself a little more. "What is it?"
"Nothing. Nothing diff...different. Just hurts. Won't stop..."
Piper closed his eyes, because he was tired, and he was trying to think what to do. Not because they were blurring. Of course not. "I know. I'm sorry. I can't do anything about that." He hesitated. "Unless you've changed your mind....?"
Just for a second, the shivering stopped and Trickster was very, very still. "No." He very nearly managed to cover up the thread of panic that underlay that word. "I'll survive. Be okay. I'll...I need 'nother blanket. It's wet. This one. So cold...." He shuddered badly and curled up a little more.
Piper opened his mouth to argue and then shut it, albeit reluctantly. "It'll hurt less if you hold still," he pointed out, not bothering to disguise a caustic note to his voice. "I'll change the blanket."
Trickster flinched deeper into the bed as the blanket was pulled off, turning away from the glare on his companion’s face. "I can't stop moving," he shot back. "Can't stop shivering. Too...too cold. You don’t know how bad this is." His voice seethed with frustration. "So...so, poor you got shot with an arrow once? That doesn' burn like, like... It doesn't burn you. You don't know--"
The words were so unexpected that for a moment he didn’t even register the pain, and then....
Poor you got shot with an arrow once. An arrow dipped in Joker venom, on the day that his tidy Keystone life had fallen apart and shattered into pieces. An arrow that had taken his mind and twisted it into something foul and horrendous, and he’d stood there laughing as he tried to kill and kill and....
Poor you got shot with an arrow once. He didn’t just say that--
Piper's body stiffened, his fists clenching. He didn’t just say that.
Trickster blinked up at him, looking confused. "Wha...?"
But then the rage...focused inside of him, into something detached and cold, and his tension shifted into angry, jerking motion as he dropped the blanket, turned and headed for the door. His hand was already on the flute by the time he wrenched it open.
"...Piper?"
The flute was versatile. It could put people to sleep. Make people trust and believe. Take away pain...and give it. Turn solid objects into broken little pieces, and he watched as the nearest tree shuddered and splintered and twisted under the sonic assault. As it was torn apart, as it was obliterated, as it died....
He stopped.
"Piper?"
He stared at the tree. It was...it was....
"Ahh...look..."
Obliterated. Pulverised. Dead.
He felt like throwing up.
"Piper..."
Part of Piper wanted to ignore the insistent voice, but instead he raised his head and turned back to the cabin. "Yeah." His voice was weary. "I'm here."
"I...you want to talk about...?"
Talk about it? His smile was a death's head grin. "Playing therapist now? It isn't exactly your role."
"I'm adapt...adaptable." Trickster shifted painfully. "And also...little confused, have to say." He gave Piper a look of 'genuine' concern that usually worked wonders in getting people to open up.
Most people, anyway. Piper had seen it before, and his eyes narrowed, the pain receding behind a wave of defensive bitterness. "Oh, save the phony sympathy, Tricks," he snapped, striding back through the cabin door. "You just want to know if I'm going to flip out on you. I'll be fine." He was back at Trickster's bedside by the time he finished the sentence.
Then he leaned in, and his voice was low, and very, very calm. "But don't start comparing suffering with me. That's not an argument you want to win."
Trickster eyed his companion warily. "I'll...keep that in mind."
There was an uncomfortable silence, and then Piper picked up the fresh blanket and carefully began to tuck it in.
***********
To Part Four...