Fic: Sick Day
Well, what was meant to be a short little thing that...didn't exactly stay that way.
Title: Sick Day
Pairing: Peter/Claude
Summary: Peter gets a little break from training.
Rating: PG13
Word Count: 2222
Disclaimer: I own the DVDs, but that really hardly counts.
“God damn it,” he wants to say, rolling away as fast as he can and avoiding the inevitable blow.
What comes out, of course, is pretty much, “Umph.”
But he does manage to get away, scramble up and behind Claude and that’s unusual, as is his stolen moment of thought, a moment of Maybe I am learning something, after all.
And then there’s pain again, of course, as long coat and solid staff spin through the air, in the few seconds he spends trying to catch his breath and dart away.
A dull kind of pain, radiating from his shoulder and down his chest, not the aching, stabbing kind of a full blow and Maybe I’m actually getting used to this.
Which is sort of terrifying, not terribly encouraging, and if he so much as mentions it he’ll probably end up with something all together worse to deal with.
He can’t think too closely, though, can’t waste that time.
Moves ahead of Claude, dodging more blows than he meets and he’s starting to feel just a little bit proud of himself, when things click into place.
His reflexes haven’t gotten any better; Claude’s are, for some reason, off.
He hazards a quick glance away from the well-used instrument of torture he’s been single-mindedly avoiding, with varying degrees of success, before dashing to the right.
The fact that he gets away with it, that Claude had expected a feint, makes everything all the more odd.
“Enough with the…dancing, Pete,” the man pants, out of breath and that’s really odd; the man normally gets manages to beat him around for several hours before showing any signs of exhaustion.
“Are you okay?” he says, cold morning air that stinging his lungs as he warily awaits an answer.
Claude snorts, eyes narrowed but slightly unfocused, now that he’s looking carefully, before swinging again.
Peter winces a little, feeling a rib crack but it can heal itself and he’s felt worse, even within the last week.
“Are you okay?” he asks again, standing still and trying to take in as much of the ragged, bitter, and pretty much not-okay person in front of him. Maybe it’s not the best question.
“I mean, are you…feeling okay?”
“Worry about yourself there, poodle,” he starts to smirk, before Peter’s able to grab at the staff bearing down on his head and yank it away, throwing it to the floor, and he’s left trying keep someone much taller and heavier than himself from falling over.
It turns out to be unnecessary; the man rights himself almost immediately, with a particularly dirty look in his direction, then turns away, stifling a cough that makes his shoulders shake anyway.
“You’re sick, aren’t you?” and Claude just looks at him, picking up the staff from where it’s rolled to the corner of the roof, and closes in.
“Stop,” he sighs, managing to pull it out of the air all too easily. “You must be really sick if I’m able to do that.”
“You’d be able to do that anyway,” he says, and his voice even sounds scratchier. “If you weren’t such a-“
“Yeah, yeah, I’m a useless, got it,” he moves closer, ignoring the increasing intensity of Claude’s already very focused glare as and reaches a hand up.
“What’re you…”
“Seeing if you have a fever, okay?” Placing the back of his hand on the man’s forehead, realizing that after chasing him around the roof for a couple of hours and beating the crap out of him, he never looks that tired, and probably shouldn’t feel as warm. “Yeah, we’re done for the day.”
“I say when we’re done for the-“
Peter smiles; he really shouldn’t be enjoy how weak the man’s voice sounds, or how much he’s getting away with right now.
“Really? And you’ve got the medical training to back that up?” He lets his smile grow into a grin, “Trust me, we’re done. You’re about to collapse anyway.”
“Am I, then?”
He only nods, wondering at how close he’s managed to get right now and how much longer he’ll be able to stay.
“At least I’m not the only one.”
Peter sees it coming a second before it happens: he’s pushed to the ground, forcefully, but not before he’s able to grab hold of a heavy overcoat, and even if he does hit his head pretty hard, giving Claude a taste of his balance-upsetting medicine really is worth a concussion that’ll take care of itself anyway.
And having Claude on top of him, even for a couple of seconds, unhealthy heat pressing him to the ground, mouth hovering above his, isn’t too bad either.
“Told you,” he gasps, catching his breath as the body pinning him down clambers off. “About to collapse.”
Funny, he hears, before the man starts coughing again.
“Stop talking,” Peter says, opting to bring logic into the equation. “You won’t hurt your throat, and I can practice something useful.”
Claude glares, As if you’re not annoyin’ enough, now you’re enough, now you’re going to be in my head? Fantastic.
“Come on, old man,” he laughs, laying a hand on his arm and barely stumbling at the halfhearted shove he gets in return.
***
“Okay, uh, get into bed,” he says, because there’s no other way really to phrase that.
Are you that desperate, Pete?
“You’re not exactly up for it, are you?” Peter grins, because this, right now, is something he can handle.
It’s probably not something too serious, he thinks to himself.
Nothing worth the fight that would ensue were he to suggest a trip to an actual doctor, for actual medicine beyond the old bottle of cough syrup he hadn’t found the need for in years.
Nothing worth the kind of concern that starting to seep through his moment of enjoyment at suddenly being in control of the situation
Nothing worth the sudden need he feels to go and check on him every fifteen minutes.
The first time, that made sense; it was better not to pour out soup and cough syrup if the person about to receive them was asleep already. He hadn’t been; he also hadn’t been particularly hungry, or particularly eager to take anything Peter couldn’t guarantee was not past its best-before date, but he’d done both.
And now Claude was asleep, in his bed, and it was odd; before, he’d felt totally, completely and uniquely in control of the situation.
That had been one of the more selfish reasons, the one he doesn’t really ever want to admit to himself, he’d wanted to be a nurse.
They’re who people look to, in a difficult, panicked situation and they’re the ones who have to remain calm, and because of that, they tend to.
And he had, had known exactly what to do, exactly when to smile, be condescending, be calm, be encouraging, because Claude was suddenly a patient, but the thing is, patients didn’t usually end up sleeping in his bed.
So now, curled up on the lumpy, narrow couch, he’s started thinking, maybe this wasn’t the best idea, letting a minor, Stockholm-esque attachment turn into something else.
He turns over, pressing his cheek against the roughly textured material, and listens for labored breathing.
***
There’s a slim, cool hand pressed into his forehead, and his first instinct should really be to pull it away, maybe break the arm it’s attached to, and get away as fast as he can. But he doesn’t.
“Hey,” comes a voice, lower than normal.
He looks up, blinking as intent, serious brown eyes come into focus.
“I brought you juice,” the voice continues, as the hand continues to stroke his face a little too familiarly for comfort, “To make sure you stay hydrated.”
He grabs the boy’s wrist, carefully, and pulls it away.
“Sorry,” he blushes, “I was just…checking your temperature.”
Shame an ex-nurse hasn’t got a thermometer on him.
“I’ve got a thermometer…I just…I wasn’t…about to shove it into your…you were asleep…” Peter rambles, suddenly blushing much more fiercely and avoiding his gaze. “Drink your juice. I’m going to go.”
And he does, standing up and taking a grudgingly appreciated warmth from the side of the bed.
***
Well, that had been stupid, on his part. Juice? Really? Checking his temperature?
And this was stupid too; it’d only been about half an hour, if he was being generous (probably more like 15 minutes, actually). He probably wasn’t in a deep sleep again, and would realize he was back.
He’d drunk the juice, at least; he could be coming to remove the glass.
He steps closer to the bed, watching the man turn over onto his side, shivering a bit, and…he didn’t have any other blankets.
Well, he might, but it would take too long to go and find them.
***
The second time he wakes, it’s not with a cool hand on his forehead, it’s with a warm presence pressed against him and a light arm draped over his chest, and of course, that’s Peter.
And he doesn’t have the strength, or, being as honest as he can, and at that hour he can’t be anything else, the inclination to do something about the position they’ve both landed themselves in.
He takes a much less painful breath, quietly as he can, and lies back again, feeling Peter’s chest rise and fall against his side.
***
He should’ve woken up earlier, he knows; should’ve gotten up before Claude, made breakfast, made plans, but instead, he’s being shaken awake.
Since violence doesn’t seem imminent, he relaxes a bit.
“You really were that desperate, then.” Claude smirks over at him, but he doesn’t look angry or upset, and he’s not moving away.
They’re not so much as touching, but he’s not moving away.
“Guess so,” Peter yawns. “Feeling okay?”
“Well enough,” he says, looking at the ceiling, and Peter sits up, trying to catch the expression in unusually unguarded eyes that seem desperate to avoid his, to the point of closing again as he looks down.
***
“What’re you…what’re you…doin’?” he tries to say, trying to keep his voice neutral, at the sudden weight and heat on his chest.
“Listening to your lungs,” he feels vibrate against him, “For fluid.”
“Really?” He rasps out, somewhat doubtful.
“Just being thorough,” in a voice tinged with amusement. “Deep breath, please.”
At that point that’s all he really should do, concentrate on breathing, not on the sudden, flushing heat creeping down his chest and across his body that probably has nothing to do with the fever that’d broken hours earlier.
***
“What is it your doin’ now, Pete?”
“Checking your pulse,” he says, sliding a hand down a warm, long arm as he sat up.
A sudden sigh, either in relief or disappointment, eases from chapped lips and Peter smiles to himself, checking the steady, decelerating beats against the clock on the wall.
“Were you excited about something?” He mumbles, glancing up quickly. “Your pulse is going pretty fast.”
“Your not a very good nurse, then,” Claude smirks up at him, “ ‘m probably dyin’ and you wouldn’t even know.”
“So the talking thing, it’s not a problem anymore?”
Claude just glares up at him, and he realizes he still has his fingers on the man’s wrist.
“You know,” he starts, staring at the pillow by Claude’s head. “I actually was pretty good at it. Nursing.”
He ignores the snort of derision as he leans closer, judging the relative frailty of the moment and not finding anything to be terribly concerned about.
“I really was, though. Might even go back.”
“Let me guess,” Claude looks up at him, almost…expectant, and holds back cough. “Excellent bedside manner?”
“Among other things,” he says, tilting his head to the side and waiting, thinking.
Watching, and his fingers slide up, settle on Claude’s shoulder as the man closes his eyes and takes a breath.
And it takes Peter a moment to understand what that means.
It’s a very simple, calculated moment of vulnerability,
More obvious and more conscious than showing up sick, than letting himself be bullied into his apartment and taken care of, but part of that pattern.
For this, and for now, I trust you he doesn’t say, doesn’t think.
But his eyes are closed, and his breathing labored, and his moment is stretching thin, and it’s really, really time to make a move, if he’s going to make one.
His lips are dry and rough and taste, really strongly, of cough syrup, medicinal and oversweet, not actually terribly pleasant.
The heavy hands skimming across his back, brisk and erratic, fingers digging into his arms and shoulders and down his spine too quickly to keep track of are a lot better, even if they leave him aching.
And he has to pull away, because this it’s too much, too quick.
Too intense, and he’s taking advantage, and he’s had enough training, medical and otherwise, to recognize the potential disaster, in pursuing this, in giving in to what feels so very right about this, at least for now.
So he sits up, carefully, slowly, and can only shake his head when Claude’s eyes open again, and whisper a quick, “I’m sorry,” as he gets off the bed and walks back to the kitchen.
*
Title: Sick Day
Pairing: Peter/Claude
Summary: Peter gets a little break from training.
Rating: PG13
Word Count: 2222
Disclaimer: I own the DVDs, but that really hardly counts.
“God damn it,” he wants to say, rolling away as fast as he can and avoiding the inevitable blow.
What comes out, of course, is pretty much, “Umph.”
But he does manage to get away, scramble up and behind Claude and that’s unusual, as is his stolen moment of thought, a moment of Maybe I am learning something, after all.
And then there’s pain again, of course, as long coat and solid staff spin through the air, in the few seconds he spends trying to catch his breath and dart away.
A dull kind of pain, radiating from his shoulder and down his chest, not the aching, stabbing kind of a full blow and Maybe I’m actually getting used to this.
Which is sort of terrifying, not terribly encouraging, and if he so much as mentions it he’ll probably end up with something all together worse to deal with.
He can’t think too closely, though, can’t waste that time.
Moves ahead of Claude, dodging more blows than he meets and he’s starting to feel just a little bit proud of himself, when things click into place.
His reflexes haven’t gotten any better; Claude’s are, for some reason, off.
He hazards a quick glance away from the well-used instrument of torture he’s been single-mindedly avoiding, with varying degrees of success, before dashing to the right.
The fact that he gets away with it, that Claude had expected a feint, makes everything all the more odd.
“Enough with the…dancing, Pete,” the man pants, out of breath and that’s really odd; the man normally gets manages to beat him around for several hours before showing any signs of exhaustion.
“Are you okay?” he says, cold morning air that stinging his lungs as he warily awaits an answer.
Claude snorts, eyes narrowed but slightly unfocused, now that he’s looking carefully, before swinging again.
Peter winces a little, feeling a rib crack but it can heal itself and he’s felt worse, even within the last week.
“Are you okay?” he asks again, standing still and trying to take in as much of the ragged, bitter, and pretty much not-okay person in front of him. Maybe it’s not the best question.
“I mean, are you…feeling okay?”
“Worry about yourself there, poodle,” he starts to smirk, before Peter’s able to grab at the staff bearing down on his head and yank it away, throwing it to the floor, and he’s left trying keep someone much taller and heavier than himself from falling over.
It turns out to be unnecessary; the man rights himself almost immediately, with a particularly dirty look in his direction, then turns away, stifling a cough that makes his shoulders shake anyway.
“You’re sick, aren’t you?” and Claude just looks at him, picking up the staff from where it’s rolled to the corner of the roof, and closes in.
“Stop,” he sighs, managing to pull it out of the air all too easily. “You must be really sick if I’m able to do that.”
“You’d be able to do that anyway,” he says, and his voice even sounds scratchier. “If you weren’t such a-“
“Yeah, yeah, I’m a useless, got it,” he moves closer, ignoring the increasing intensity of Claude’s already very focused glare as and reaches a hand up.
“What’re you…”
“Seeing if you have a fever, okay?” Placing the back of his hand on the man’s forehead, realizing that after chasing him around the roof for a couple of hours and beating the crap out of him, he never looks that tired, and probably shouldn’t feel as warm. “Yeah, we’re done for the day.”
“I say when we’re done for the-“
Peter smiles; he really shouldn’t be enjoy how weak the man’s voice sounds, or how much he’s getting away with right now.
“Really? And you’ve got the medical training to back that up?” He lets his smile grow into a grin, “Trust me, we’re done. You’re about to collapse anyway.”
“Am I, then?”
He only nods, wondering at how close he’s managed to get right now and how much longer he’ll be able to stay.
“At least I’m not the only one.”
Peter sees it coming a second before it happens: he’s pushed to the ground, forcefully, but not before he’s able to grab hold of a heavy overcoat, and even if he does hit his head pretty hard, giving Claude a taste of his balance-upsetting medicine really is worth a concussion that’ll take care of itself anyway.
And having Claude on top of him, even for a couple of seconds, unhealthy heat pressing him to the ground, mouth hovering above his, isn’t too bad either.
“Told you,” he gasps, catching his breath as the body pinning him down clambers off. “About to collapse.”
Funny, he hears, before the man starts coughing again.
“Stop talking,” Peter says, opting to bring logic into the equation. “You won’t hurt your throat, and I can practice something useful.”
Claude glares, As if you’re not annoyin’ enough, now you’re enough, now you’re going to be in my head? Fantastic.
“Come on, old man,” he laughs, laying a hand on his arm and barely stumbling at the halfhearted shove he gets in return.
***
“Okay, uh, get into bed,” he says, because there’s no other way really to phrase that.
Are you that desperate, Pete?
“You’re not exactly up for it, are you?” Peter grins, because this, right now, is something he can handle.
It’s probably not something too serious, he thinks to himself.
Nothing worth the fight that would ensue were he to suggest a trip to an actual doctor, for actual medicine beyond the old bottle of cough syrup he hadn’t found the need for in years.
Nothing worth the kind of concern that starting to seep through his moment of enjoyment at suddenly being in control of the situation
Nothing worth the sudden need he feels to go and check on him every fifteen minutes.
The first time, that made sense; it was better not to pour out soup and cough syrup if the person about to receive them was asleep already. He hadn’t been; he also hadn’t been particularly hungry, or particularly eager to take anything Peter couldn’t guarantee was not past its best-before date, but he’d done both.
And now Claude was asleep, in his bed, and it was odd; before, he’d felt totally, completely and uniquely in control of the situation.
That had been one of the more selfish reasons, the one he doesn’t really ever want to admit to himself, he’d wanted to be a nurse.
They’re who people look to, in a difficult, panicked situation and they’re the ones who have to remain calm, and because of that, they tend to.
And he had, had known exactly what to do, exactly when to smile, be condescending, be calm, be encouraging, because Claude was suddenly a patient, but the thing is, patients didn’t usually end up sleeping in his bed.
So now, curled up on the lumpy, narrow couch, he’s started thinking, maybe this wasn’t the best idea, letting a minor, Stockholm-esque attachment turn into something else.
He turns over, pressing his cheek against the roughly textured material, and listens for labored breathing.
***
There’s a slim, cool hand pressed into his forehead, and his first instinct should really be to pull it away, maybe break the arm it’s attached to, and get away as fast as he can. But he doesn’t.
“Hey,” comes a voice, lower than normal.
He looks up, blinking as intent, serious brown eyes come into focus.
“I brought you juice,” the voice continues, as the hand continues to stroke his face a little too familiarly for comfort, “To make sure you stay hydrated.”
He grabs the boy’s wrist, carefully, and pulls it away.
“Sorry,” he blushes, “I was just…checking your temperature.”
Shame an ex-nurse hasn’t got a thermometer on him.
“I’ve got a thermometer…I just…I wasn’t…about to shove it into your…you were asleep…” Peter rambles, suddenly blushing much more fiercely and avoiding his gaze. “Drink your juice. I’m going to go.”
And he does, standing up and taking a grudgingly appreciated warmth from the side of the bed.
***
Well, that had been stupid, on his part. Juice? Really? Checking his temperature?
And this was stupid too; it’d only been about half an hour, if he was being generous (probably more like 15 minutes, actually). He probably wasn’t in a deep sleep again, and would realize he was back.
He’d drunk the juice, at least; he could be coming to remove the glass.
He steps closer to the bed, watching the man turn over onto his side, shivering a bit, and…he didn’t have any other blankets.
Well, he might, but it would take too long to go and find them.
***
The second time he wakes, it’s not with a cool hand on his forehead, it’s with a warm presence pressed against him and a light arm draped over his chest, and of course, that’s Peter.
And he doesn’t have the strength, or, being as honest as he can, and at that hour he can’t be anything else, the inclination to do something about the position they’ve both landed themselves in.
He takes a much less painful breath, quietly as he can, and lies back again, feeling Peter’s chest rise and fall against his side.
***
He should’ve woken up earlier, he knows; should’ve gotten up before Claude, made breakfast, made plans, but instead, he’s being shaken awake.
Since violence doesn’t seem imminent, he relaxes a bit.
“You really were that desperate, then.” Claude smirks over at him, but he doesn’t look angry or upset, and he’s not moving away.
They’re not so much as touching, but he’s not moving away.
“Guess so,” Peter yawns. “Feeling okay?”
“Well enough,” he says, looking at the ceiling, and Peter sits up, trying to catch the expression in unusually unguarded eyes that seem desperate to avoid his, to the point of closing again as he looks down.
***
“What’re you…what’re you…doin’?” he tries to say, trying to keep his voice neutral, at the sudden weight and heat on his chest.
“Listening to your lungs,” he feels vibrate against him, “For fluid.”
“Really?” He rasps out, somewhat doubtful.
“Just being thorough,” in a voice tinged with amusement. “Deep breath, please.”
At that point that’s all he really should do, concentrate on breathing, not on the sudden, flushing heat creeping down his chest and across his body that probably has nothing to do with the fever that’d broken hours earlier.
***
“What is it your doin’ now, Pete?”
“Checking your pulse,” he says, sliding a hand down a warm, long arm as he sat up.
A sudden sigh, either in relief or disappointment, eases from chapped lips and Peter smiles to himself, checking the steady, decelerating beats against the clock on the wall.
“Were you excited about something?” He mumbles, glancing up quickly. “Your pulse is going pretty fast.”
“Your not a very good nurse, then,” Claude smirks up at him, “ ‘m probably dyin’ and you wouldn’t even know.”
“So the talking thing, it’s not a problem anymore?”
Claude just glares up at him, and he realizes he still has his fingers on the man’s wrist.
“You know,” he starts, staring at the pillow by Claude’s head. “I actually was pretty good at it. Nursing.”
He ignores the snort of derision as he leans closer, judging the relative frailty of the moment and not finding anything to be terribly concerned about.
“I really was, though. Might even go back.”
“Let me guess,” Claude looks up at him, almost…expectant, and holds back cough. “Excellent bedside manner?”
“Among other things,” he says, tilting his head to the side and waiting, thinking.
Watching, and his fingers slide up, settle on Claude’s shoulder as the man closes his eyes and takes a breath.
And it takes Peter a moment to understand what that means.
It’s a very simple, calculated moment of vulnerability,
More obvious and more conscious than showing up sick, than letting himself be bullied into his apartment and taken care of, but part of that pattern.
For this, and for now, I trust you he doesn’t say, doesn’t think.
But his eyes are closed, and his breathing labored, and his moment is stretching thin, and it’s really, really time to make a move, if he’s going to make one.
His lips are dry and rough and taste, really strongly, of cough syrup, medicinal and oversweet, not actually terribly pleasant.
The heavy hands skimming across his back, brisk and erratic, fingers digging into his arms and shoulders and down his spine too quickly to keep track of are a lot better, even if they leave him aching.
And he has to pull away, because this it’s too much, too quick.
Too intense, and he’s taking advantage, and he’s had enough training, medical and otherwise, to recognize the potential disaster, in pursuing this, in giving in to what feels so very right about this, at least for now.
So he sits up, carefully, slowly, and can only shake his head when Claude’s eyes open again, and whisper a quick, “I’m sorry,” as he gets off the bed and walks back to the kitchen.
*