#it's neither whump nor a sickfic | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

flyswhumpcenter · 5 years

Text

Bad Things Happen Bingo! The event where you send me I give myself self-indulgent requests according to this marvelous card!

47-Survivor AU DR stuff in 2019?? More likely than I’ve ever thought. For those who never heard from it before, it’s an AU of mine (originally co-created with someone, though) where everyone but Junko survived out of the DR casts for DR1, 2 and V3, whom after escape Hope’s Peak began working for the Future Foundation as the 14th Branch (directed by Hajime). This fic takes place during their FF days and is, like my first prompt fill for this bingo Corrupted Flower, Maki-centric. (I dunno why, I really wanted to write about Maki. I still want to lmao).

Also, phew, can you believe we’re more than halfway done through this card? It’s weird to mostly have filled spots lmao.

Crimson Eyes

Summary: Trapped in an ambush by Despair supporters, what is a former hirewoman going to do to protect her life and the integrity of her companion?

Fandom: Danganronpa (Almost Everyone Lives AU - V3 cast-centric) Characters: Maki, Shuichi (background), Kaede (background)

Wordcount: 1.1K words

Event hosted by @badthingshappenbingo

AO3 version available here.

“Squad Alpha, HQ here! Do you copy?!”

Maki could have recognized this voice among a thousand others: Kaede, panicked and screaming into her microphone. Usually, she’d have minded: she hated irritated, agitated voices when she was supposed to be investigating on the field. There was nothing more aggravating than trying to be stealthy and have someone scream at you with no concern for how discredited they made you to sneak on people.

As it stood, she was closer to being reassured than pissed about Kaede contacting them with that high-pitched, urgency-filled, yelling voice of hers.

“Squad Alpha here,” she said into her ear microphone, hidden behind her hair and her helmet over it.

“Ah, Maki, I’m relieved to hear you! (Kaede lacked professionalism, when she was concerned). How many are you, down here? Who’s with you?”

“We’re two. We split with Mukuro before that happened. Shuichi’s with me.”

Maki glanced over her shoulder, making sure the bear-masked psychos didn’t start attacking them while she was seemingly looking away. Sure enough, Shuichi was still there, hands trembling from fear but trying to maintain his composure in the face of danger.

“Yeah, Mukuro contacted us back, she told us about the situation. Be careful, we’re sending backup asap!”

Yeah, that was good and all, but they were still trapped among the crazies. Shuichi had no training, as he had tagged along for an investigation in what they thought was a Despair-controlled research facility having long been abandoned. They had been wrong or, more exactly, she had seen it coming: Despairs weren’t the kind to simply flee away from any place they had partially destroyed and inhabited, relishing in the desperation to have destroyed one’s last home and staying there with a bunch of other junkies of the sort.

There was only disgust and contempt in her to seeing it all, the glass shards on the floor, the dried puddles of blood, the browned splashes on the walls, the Monokuma masks torn apart and hung from the ceiling, the beheaded Monokub plushies and those who had had their heads swapped out. It was like looking right into the eyes of a mass-disaster that had claimed the lives of thousands; which was the case, because they were right inside a physical representation of humanity’s worst.

To that, Maki only wanted to spit her hatred and want to destroy them all back, but she had to keep quiet and stay sharp.

She lifter her eyes to make them understand she knew they were all gathered around here, in the shadows, as she forced Shuichi to hold onto her arm. It wasn’t a sign of affection, at least not more than platonically for them: it was just her way to tell he was there, by her side, unharmed and alive. Only living people with uninjured limbs could do that, that was a thing she had been taught about in case she ever had to escort threatened figures to some places while avoiding as much as possible to see everything go up in flames and finish in a flow of blood.

There was nothing weird to make sure a friend was alive, after all.

While most of them had generic masks, one of them had this golden Monokuma head in lieu of their face, a sure sign she was directly facing their leader. It was a battle of stares, to see whom would attack the other first and who’d survive the fight. Maki and Shuichi were a measly force compared to the dozen of Enoshima followers circled around them from the broken parts remaining of other floors above. In any other situation, she’d have sneaked her way out of it and found another way out of the delicate situation to get her bounty from shitty people.

However, she had to do with what she had. She had military-level training in killing and spying, but Shuichi didn’t, having mostly detective experience and very little physical skills in. She couldn’t just give up on him despite the desperate situation, now when she was still convincing herself she was deserving redemption like Kaito was always insisting on (what an idiot…). A new plan, quick, quick…

Perhaps because of all the rotten surprises she had had in her previous years of life, Maki always had some urgency weapons on her. As she watched the followers glare at them with appetized, swirly eyes filled with a will to kill and pulverize anything going their way, yet strangely relishing in the idea that they could be busted and die on the spot from a well-targeted pull of a trigger, she put her fingers on some leftover kunai from an old, old mission. Truth be told, she had never given them back and the blood of the guilty must have still been on some of them, drier than the puddles serving as this wretched place’s décor.

Keen-eyed, trained to murder on sight and on orders, Maki gave herself her own orders now. Kaede had stopped talking, Shuichi’s breath kept hitching behind her shoulder. She was going to go to end up in Hell anyway, so better keep herself and an innocent soul out of a bloodbath and throw her weapons to escape the predicament they had gotten themselves trapped inside of. Calculating a way for six of them to eat the entire pack wasn’t difficult, more like a task she had already had to complete in more stressful conditions.

Reflexes were engrained inside her brain. First, check for their weapons: metal bats. Lethal if used violently against the skull to cast death by blunt force trauma. Second, check for their stances: all crouched and looking upon them. Unpractical to move and run away fast, exposes the back of the neck for some of them and throat for all the pack. Third, check for expressions: the masks hid everything away apart from their thirst to kill, visible in their uncovered eyes.

In all, it was a safe situation to be throwing kunai around, as long as she steadied her aim and knew exactly what to do. All that was left, once she had planned her course of action, was to make sure she wouldn’t hurt Shuichi in the process. Murder the rotten, spare the good: her humanity had survived by repeating herself that motto. She maybe believed sometimes you could save the Despairs, bring them back to normalcy, but there was no way around the issue without killing someone and getting killed if you didn’t act first. A shame, really.

“Shuichi, crouch down.”

“H-huh?”

“I said, crouch down!”

She threw the first kunai.

#bad things happen bingo #danganronpa #maki harukawa #shuichi saihara #kaede akamatsu #ambush #ndrv3 #it's neither whump nor a sickfic #shocking i know #also yes i am still a dr fanfic writer apparently lmao #bthb 1 #au: 47 survivors

6 notes · View notes

nativestarwrites · 3 years

Note

sickfic whump prompt: caretaker breaking down and crying silently at a whumpee's bedside while they sleep because they're so sick and they have no idea what to do for them

Summary: Mac’s on borrowed time when he’s slipped a poison during a mission, but neither Mac nor Jack have any idea what’s coming as they drive to meet a contact in the middle of nowhere, with help too far away

This has been sitting in my ask box for months, but I've found it hard to write recently and finish this off. It was originally going to be a quick, few hundred word prompt fill but it grew! I hope you like this and its worth the wait!

#Macgyver #Macgyver fan #Jack Dalton #Riley Davis #Angst #Lots of angst #Hurt/Comfort #I wrote a thing

12 notes · View notes

sparxwrites · 4 years

Text

replayed tales from the borderlands this week, for Reasons, and... well, one, i’d forgotten how damn good it was (and how damn full of whump it was), but two...

there’s that bit of like. “lost time”, right? where rhys rips out his implants, and then all the explanation we get - when the last time we saw him, he was passed out and bleeding, down an eye and an arm, with a giant bloody hole in his head and skull - is “oh i went to that atlas facility, holed up there for a bit, and fixed myself up”. which. cool! okay! but you have a gaping hole in your head that is presumably drilled through the skull down to your brain! and also you just full on ripped out cybernetics that were clearly wired into your actual flesh. like... that arm comes away with a spray of blood. he’s screaming the whole time he’s yanking those yards of cabling out of his eye.

so. rhys wakes up, post-cybernetics removal. woozy from bloodloss, injured from the crash, further injured from his impromptu self-surgery. apparently gets up, and just like... drags himself to the atlas base, perhaps via stealing some kind of transport that survived the helios crash.

at which point, upon arriving at the atlas base (or pretty soon after), he presumably just fucking collapses for several days with fever and infection, because. giant hole in head. ripped-up arm socket. you get the idea.

now, in my save file, rhys keeps the little eye chip with jack in it. and i’m just imagining, out of- stupidity? sentimentality? a weird kind of empathy? sheer desperation? that upon arriving at the atlas base, he has just enough coherence for just long enough to dump jack into a computer. not a computer connected to anything, mind, or with the capability to connect to anything. just a screen and a camera, really, so jack can speak and see out of it.

and the first thing jack sees is rhys, pale everywhere except the high splotches of fever-colour on his face, exhausted, blood-crusted, the hole where he ripped his port out inflamed and bloody, oozing, just swaying on his feet. rasps out, “you- behave. or, or i’ll-” before he just full on collapses.

jack has several days of watching the only person who might possibly free him lying feverish and insensate on the floor, and spends it alternately belittling him and cajoling him into Not Fucking Dying because god, rhysie, it’s gonna get real boring here without you.

the rest of this little fill-in-the-gaps story is the world’s weirdest hurt-comfort dynamic with rhys sick and injured and in pain, healing very very slowly, trying to rebuild his cybernetics from scratch.

and jack, who is in what should be the caretaker role of this dynamic, but he’s a) not actually capable of touching or doing anything, other than talking and watching, and b) jack has never taken care of anyone in his life ever, and does not intend to start now with this annoying little moron who crashed his space station. but also, is desperately afraid of being left alone by rhys, or ignored, or switched off again, and so does kind of end up alternating between being an absolute bastard, and playing nice, and panicking badly whenever rhys has a particularly bout of infection or an accident with his inventing or whatever.

i just really, really want like. a 100k enemies-to-fellow-bastards fic that’s not actually about jack getting any nicer, or about rhys becoming evil or anything, but is just about this weird awkward lonely cohabitation between this guy who has lost everything, who is hurt and broken down and full of guilt for all the people’s he’s killed, who is desperately trying to put himself back together but is neither a doctor nor an engineer when he really needs both of those things. and an evil ai who is (reluctantly, deeply against his will) coming to care for rhys in his own super twisted and asshole-ish kinda way. like the world’s snippiest, most fucked up domestic cohabitation fic, with lots of shouting arguments, lots of sickfic/whump, some angst and trauma, maybe an injury acquired during attempted cybernetic repairs or two...........

i absolutely Do Not want to write this, but damn do i want to read it.

#tales from the borderlands #tftbl #rhys the company man #handsome jack #whump #sparx chats #if anyone knows any fics like this PLEASE rec them to me #or just any good tftbl whump tbh #the fandom is... tragically fluffy. for reasons i have never quite understood.

58 notes · View notes

merryfortune · 3 years

Text

Beneath the Weather

Written for 100ships on Dreamwidth

Prompt 66: Grey

Ship: Respectfulshipping | Ryoken/Spectre

Fandom: Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS

Word Count: 1,794

Rating: T

Warnings: No Warnings Apply

Tags: Fluff, Whump, Sickfic

In this sort of grey and dreary weather, it was easy to feel beneath it.

But Spectre was not going to allow himself to feel anything more than inch outside of his usual self. He had a fussy personality, he didn’t mind nurturing his hobbies or his beloved. Actually, if anything, he thoroughly enjoyed micromanaging his plants and, of course, Ryoken too but he hated to be taken care of. It elicited a vulnerability that made him extremely uncomfortable. After all, the only kindness and affection that he had ever felt genuinely had been robbed of him very early as a child.

Thus, he would very much prefer to toil through his bout of under the weatherness. He wasn’t even going to entertain it by calling it some sickness or illness. Even if it was a day off from activities as a cyber criminal operating with the Knights of Hanoi, he still had a long list of chores and other things to do.

He wasn’t going to let the gloomy weather outside stop him nor his little sniffles that were bothering him. It was barely anything at all. So long as he kept rugged up, perhaps a little more than usual, he ought to be fine. He would simply sweat it out tending to his indoor plants, the outdoor ones would be fine in the vague precipitation, so long it didn’t turn foul and tumultuous. It would all be perfectly fine.

And yet, despite having the utmost conviction, Spectre still succumbed to whatever it was which was dredging up the worst tiredness inside of him.

He stirred, irritated that he had fallen asleep at all, and he realised something. There was a soft blanket laid over him and the more confused he became, the more confusing things he realised. He was propped up on his side; he usually slept on his back. Now that he thought about it, he did not recall putting himself to sleep and this pillow that he was using was very peculiar as well. For lack of a better word, it was bony but not necessarily uncomfortable.

“Welcome back to the land of the living.” Ryoken teased him.

All grogginess that Spectre felt evaporated immediately. His eyes went wide and his face went bright red. He had been asleep. In Ryoken’s lap. And for goodness knows how long. The humiliation was instantaneous and more than enough to bring upon another dizzy spell. Spectre’s head spun and he collapsed back down into Ryoken’s lap.

“Oh, you poor thing, try not to move too much.” Ryoken murmured, looking up from his book and lazily putting it away with just one hand.

He pet the top of Spectre’s head and Spectre’s eyes squeezed shut. On one hand, he very much did not want this but on the other, he very much did. His compromise was to pretend that neither of them existed but that did little to quell the undeniable - and soothing - sensation of having Ryoken play with his hair. His fingers were very gentle, deftly raking through the thick strands of Spectre’s grey hair, all clumped together with sweat.

Spectre moaned to himself and then feebly asked, “What happened? I don’t remember the last… half an hour or so at all.”

“I would imagine so,” Ryoken agreed, “you’ve been out cold for at least two hours.”

“Two hours?!” Spectre exclaimed, only to sound like he was running out of air to breathe, his voice twisting and murmuring.

“Yes, two hours.” Ryoken confirmed. “You were passing through from the kitchen, perhaps on your way to your bedroom, perhaps not when you stumbled and luckily, I noticed. I was able to catch you before you fell, mid-faint, and drag you to the lounge where we’ve been ever since. It’s been pleasant. You're cute when you snore.”

“I do not snore.” Spectre denied, red hot.

“It made for very nice white noise as I read. I managed to get through half of my novel.” Ryoken made small talk.

He paused and his hand roved down to the side of Spectre’s face. Spectre recoiled, Ryoken’s hands were freezing to him but it was nice. Cooling. Ryoken then checked Spectre’s forehead. He hummed thoughtfully.

“You're still burning up…” he mused.

“I - I feel awful.” Spectre murmured.

He took a deep breath and tried to get up. Ryoken allowed it, rescinding his hand from Spectre’s head, but he was worried for Spectre as he was entirely ungraceful as he propped himself up to sit up straight. Or at least, straight-ish. He sat somewhat slumped and slanted. Exhaustion dripped off him no differently than sweat. He breathed heavily, raggedly.

“Do you want some help?” Ryoken asked quietly.

“Not particularly,” Spectre admitted, “but… in this case. I could use some assistance.”

Internally, Spectre fumed. He was not the one who was supposed to need assistance. He was the one who provided it. Day in, day out: he provided for Ryoken in all sorts of ways. He was very much the glue that kept their routines and schedules together. He was very much not used to leaning on others for support, mostly because he felt as though he couldn’t or had no one to, but Ryoken was very much not no one. He was rather special to Spectre.

Ryoken smiled tenderly. He got up and he offered his hand to Spectre. Spectre gingerly accepted it so Ryoken held onto him tightly. Spectre’s grip was weak and how he hobbled along, even with Ryoken’s aide, was even worse. He ambled along like a newborn fawn, determined not to fall but if he was, he was absolutely going to take Ryoken down with him.

Thankfully, Spectre’s room was on the ground floor of the mansion so with enough patience, they were able to get in and Ryoken put Spectre to bed. Ryoken tossed Spectre a bed shirt that he could wear that was probably more loose than the button-up shirt that he was already wearing. Spectre wanted to insist that he was fine but he knew that would be a battle that he would lose, so he didn’t bother fighting it. Whilst he got changed siting down in his bed, Ryoken drew his curtains across. The sudden darkness in the already dim room was a load off, Spectre had to admit. When he was changed, he handed his shirt back to Ryoken who put in the nearby laundry basket and turned his gaze, soft, back onto Spectre.

“Do you need anything?” Ryoken asked. “Aside from painkillers and water, I’ll bring you some in a sec but is there anything else you might like?”

Spectre hesitated, “I’m kind of hungry…” he murmured.

“I know, I’ll warm you up some of yesterday’s tomato soup and bring it as well.”

“That’s an awful lot to carry.” Spectre worriedly pointed out.

“I’ll be fine.” Ryoken said. “Besides, I know you would go above and beyond for me so this is the least I can do.”

“Then can I be selfish and ask for a heat pack too? It's weird, I’m hot and cold at the same time.” Spectre added on. He shivered for emphasis but it wasn’t on purpose, he looked too clammy and pale for it to have been on purpose.

“Absolutely. You're not being selfish at all.” Ryoken said.

With that, Ryoken left to go and raid the kitchen for the various supplies and comforts that Spectre needed. He smiled to himself and finally in his own bed, Spectre did feel more obliged to try to recover but even so, he didn’t feel able to relax. He had this terrible headache and more, he just wanted to escape from it all, even if it was momentarily. He receded down into his sheets and doona, pulling them up and over himself and whilst he enjoyed the comfort of his cocoon, his whole body still felt like he was in agony.

The pain that he felt was amorphous and moving. Vague, just blobs of hurt, inside of him and yet, it was enough to rate incredibly high on his pain scale. His stomach growled. Tomato soup was sounding very nice right about now and he strained his ears. He could hear the microwave buzzing and whirring, and Ryoken’s footsteps. It shouldn’t be long at all now and against his will, Spectre’s eyelids fluttered, getting very heavy and he drifted off to sleep for a moment, or at least something akin.

That was, until, his door opened and disturbed him. Spectre roused from his nap and Ryoken looked sorry for it. He stepped inside slowly and made his way back to Spectre, giving him plenty of time to wriggle back up and rearrange his pillows so he could sit up.

“Here, drink this and take these first, hopefully they’ll help.” Ryoken said.

Spectre’s fingers were shakier than he thought they would be but he managed to accept the glass of water regardless. He took a sip and then Ryoken gave him the pills to take. He swallowed them without issue then set aside his glass on his bedside table. Ryoken lowered the tray so Spectre wouldn’t burn either himself or his doona with the hot bottom of the bowl of tomato soup.

“Thank you, Ryoken…” Spectre murmured.

Ryoken smiled, “I know you're just having lunch now so its probably too early to think about dinner but well, do you want me to order takeout later? Your favourite, of course, or whatever you want.”

“That sounds rather nice, actually.” Spectre replied as he stirred his soup before blowing on a spoonful.

“Great,” Ryoken said, “well, I’ll leave you be. You probably want some peace and quiet.” He wasn’t quite mumbling but he was close.

“I don’t mind but thank you.” Spectre said. He drank a spoonful of his soup and rather demurely, his gaze flicked back to Ryoken and he managed to utter out, “I love you, I appreciate your doting.”

“I love you, too,” Ryoken told him, drawing in closer, unable to resist, and he pecked the middle of Spectre’s warm, damp forehead, “get well soon.”

“I promise.” Spectre murmured, his heart raced in his chest and he could feel himself getting dizzy again but he suspected that this instance was unrelated to his previous instances.

With that, Ryoken gave him some more privacy with the promise to drop in on him later so he could pick up the used bowl and cutlery. Spectre didn’t mind so long as he was quiet. Though, quiet was something of a misnomer. The vague precipitation that had clouded and meandered with the grey of the poor weather had finally become something else. A gentle rain that tapped on his window as he ate and rested, feeling entirely loved and doted upon.

#100ships challenge #writing tag #respectfulshipping #yugioh vrains #vrains #yugioh #ryoken kogami #kogami ryoken #spectre (vrains)#this is so self indulgent but i deserve it #and was an idea i wrote down last year and forgot about until i combed through my archives so i decided to rez it here

3 notes · View notes

whumphoarder · 5 years

Text

Emergency Contact

Summary: It’s not that James disliked his roommate, it’s just that they didn’t exactly get off on the right foot.

Or, in which fifteen-year-old college freshman Tony Stark needs a ride to the ER and James Rhodes is too responsible for his own good.

Word count: 4,050

Genre: sickfic, hurt/comfort, angst, whump

A/N: Thank you so much to @xxx-cat-xxx and @sallyidss for beta reading, ideas, and encouragement!

Link to read on Ao3

It’s not that James disliked his roommate, it’s just that they didn’t exactly get off on the right foot.

To be fair, the skinny five-foot-four prepubescent kid who’d walked into James’ dorm on move-in day didn’t look much like a college student, nor was he lugging in cardboard boxes and duffle bags filled with crap like the rest of the freshmen in the hall. There was no air of excitement and trepidation to him—no telltale buzz of new experiences. Not to mention, James had spent the majority of his summer away at Air Force ROTC camp, cut off from most forms of media and therefore oblivious to the rumors that Howard Stark’s infamous fifteen-year-old child prodigy was set to start his engineering course at MIT the very same semester that he was. It was hardly his fault for not recognizing the kid.

Even so, he probably shouldn’t have addressed Tony as ‘champ’ and asked if he was there to drop off an older sibling. That was on him.

What was not on James, however, was the fit Stark pitched at the resident assistant’s office upon realizing that his father had evidently not set him up with a single room after all.

“So move me then,” the little twerp demanded. “Just put it on the old man’s bill—he’s got the money. I didn’t just live through the last seven years of boarding school dormitories only to have to keep sharing the fucking bathroom in college.” He glanced over his shoulder at James, before adding, offhandedly, “No offense—I’m sure you’re swell.”

James huffed out a short, ironic laugh. He was standing in the back corner of the office with his back leaning against the wall and his arms crossed over his chest, quietly taking in the scene unfolding in front of him. “None taken.”

(At this point, he wouldn’t have minded a switch either.)

The mousy redhead at the desk looked frazzled. “Look, I’m very sorry, Mr. Stark,” she tried to explain, “but there’s nothing I can do. All our single dorms are fully booked.”

Even when the kid shoved a wad of cash at her tall enough to make James’ eyebrows rise, the RA held her ground.

“It’s a first come, first serve policy,” she explained, her voice faltering, but words firm. “At least until something opens up. I’m sorry, but that’s just how it has to be.”

So there they were, a nineteen-year-old Air Force cadet from a working class family in Philly who had gotten into ‘fancy school’ on an ROTC scholarship, a 3.87 GPA, and a prayer, and a spoiled rich brat with a pile of daddy issues taller than the Bunker Hill Monument. The two were going to be stuck together for at least the next few weeks and neither of them was particularly thrilled about it.

Despite James’ initial concerns, rooming with Stark wasn’t actually that bad.

James had an additional scholarship that was dependent on his academic performance, so he joined several study groups to keep his grades up. Between ROTC, student government, and mock UN, along with his never-ending mountain of engineering coursework, he was rarely home.

Meanwhile, Tony might look like a twelve-year-old, but that certainly didn’t get in the way of his budding popularity on campus. The kid was swimming in invites to different parties and events (though whether that was due to his own sharp wit and natural charisma, or simply his undeniable social status as the son of Howard Stark, James couldn’t tell). Either way, between James’ busy schedule and Tony’s avid social calendar, the two could go days without seeing each other, which suited them both just fine.

With all the partying, James figured his roommate’s grades must be suffering, but a curious glance at the quarterly report letter lying on Tony’s desk last week proved otherwise. The kid had straight A’s in all seven of his classes—two more than James himself was taking.

(Alright, maybe he disliked Tony a little bit.)

James knew it wasn’t going to be a good day from the moment he woke up to see sunlight streaming in through the blinds. That just wasn’t supposed to happen at 5:45 a.m. in November.

“Shit,” he muttered, scrambling out of his twin-size bunk. The display on his alarm clock was silently blinking the very incorrect time of ‘12:00’. The previous night’s storm must have knocked out the power. He grabbed his watch from atop his desk to check the actual time and immediately breathed out a sigh of relief. 7:22. No morning run today, but he should still be able to make it to his eight a.m. class if he hurried.

Still rubbing the sleep from his eyes, he snagged some clean clothes from his dresser and made a beeline to the adjoining bathroom. He pushed open the door and slapped on the light switch, but the second the room illuminated to reveal the scrawny figure sitting slumped on the floor between the toilet and the wall, James froze.

“Tony?” he asked in confusion. He hadn’t even heard the kid come home last night.

Without opening his eyes, Tony hummed a bit in response. Then all at once, he lurched forward and gagged, coughing up what looked to be mostly bile into the toilet bowl.

James grimaced. It was definitely not the first time he’d seen his roommate severely hungover, but it was the first time he’d seen it happen on a Tuesday . At the rate this kid was partying, he’d be lucky if he had any liver function left by the time he graduated.

With a sigh, James set his stack of clean clothes down on the sink counter. “Look man, I’m sorry, but I really gotta shower. I know you’re not feeling too great, but do you think you can give me, like, five minutes in here?”

Tony blinked up at him, seeming to process the question. Then, slowly, he nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, okay…”

Doing his best to ignore the acidic smell of vomit, James stepped carefully around Tony into the small room. He flushed the toilet and grabbed the metal trash can from beside the sink while Tony pulled himself shakily to his feet.

“Thanks dude. I promise I’ll be fast.” He passed the can off to Tony and watched him stumble back out of the room before shutting the door.

If the military had taught James nothing else, it was efficiency. He emerged ten minutes later—showered, dressed, and clean shaven—to find Tony sitting listlessly on the edge of his bed. The boy looked more dead than alive, with one arm wrapped around his stomach and sweat soaking through his thin gray t-shirt. Just the sight of him was practically an underage drinking PSA in itself.

“Bathroom’s all yours,” James announced as he grabbed his backpack from the floor.

Tony acknowledged him with a small grunt, but didn’t make any effort to move. His mouth was slightly open and he was breathing through it carefully, warily eyeing the trash can on the floor in front of him. For once, James was glad he had an eight a.m. class to get to; he figured in about five minutes, he wouldn’t want to be here anyway.

In a spur of the moment gesture of kindness, James grabbed a fresh bottle of water from the case under his desk and tossed it onto Tony’s bed. “Feel better, dude,” he said on his way out the door.

Tuesday was always a busy day for James. He had back-to-back classes all morning, followed by a student council meeting in the afternoon and a mandatory ROTC training session. It was nearly seven o’clock by the time he made it back to the dorm, and by that time he’d honestly forgotten about that morning’s excitement until he opened the door to their room.

As miserable as Tony had appeared that morning, he looked decidedly worse now. He was lying curled up on the edge of his bed in a tangle of sheets and blankets, cheeks flushed and body shivering. The whole room carried the vague scent of vomit, though the trash can by the bed was currently empty.

“So… I take it this isn’t a hangover?” James deduced, stepping inside and closing the door behind him. He plopped the paper sack of Taco Bell that was going to make up his dinner onto his desk, causing Tony’s face to scrunch up in displeasure. “Stomach flu?” he guessed.

Tony made a non-committal sound in the back of his throat.

“Think you got a fever?”

Another low noise issued from Tony, somewhere between a grunt and a moan, which James took to mean something along the lines of ‘don’t know, and don’t care.’

James hesitated a moment, unsure what to do. If his mother were here, she’d tisk her tongue and press her hand to the kid’s forehead to gauge his temperature, but somehow he didn’t see that going over too well with Tony.

Instead, James checked his watch and sighed. “I can give you a ride to the student health center if you want,” he offered. “They don’t close until eight.”

“Don’ have to... ‘s just a bug,” Tony mumbled into the pillow, the most consecutive words James had heard from him all day. “I’ll be fine.”

The thing was, if Tony were one of his ROTC buddies, James would have dropped it right there. He’d never been particularly good at caretaking, and besides, he had a test coming up in his thermal-fluids class tomorrow morning that he should really be studying for. But something about the utter vulnerability Tony was displaying at the moment gave James pause. True, the kid might be a stuck-up asshole, but he was also just that— a kid. Only a few years older than James’ own kid-brother.

James looked at Tony appraisingly. “Can you handle a shower?”

“Huh?” Tony breathed.

“A shower,” James repeated. “Remember those? Water, soap, maybe even some shampoo if you’re feeling adventurous,” he said wryly. “That is, if you can do it without passing out.”

Tony fixed him with a rather pathetic glare. “Not gonna pass out.”

“You better not,” James quipped, crossing his arms and watching as Tony pushed himself up to sit on the edge of the bed. “I’ve seen more than enough white boys’ pasty asses this summer to last a lifetime. I have no desire to add another.”

(Tony lifted his middle finger weakly in his roommate’s direction.)

Over the sound of the shower running in the background, James ate his tacos and started flipping through his class notes in preparation for the test the next morning, but he was finding it unusually hard to focus. He kept listening for any sounds of distress from the bathroom, and after fifteen minutes had elapsed, he got up from his desk and crossed the room.

“Hey, I was serious about the ‘no passing out’ rule, Stark,” he hollered, rapping his knuckles against the door. “If you biff it in there, you’re on your own.”

As if on cue, a loud crashing sound immediately issued from inside the shower.

James’ eyes widened. He jiggled the door handle only to find it locked. “Tony?” he called. “Did you just fall?”

There was no response.

James cursed. He grabbed a paper clip from his desk and quickly jimmied the flimsy lock open—a skill he’d learned from his cousins years ago—before pushing open the door. “Tony?” he called again.

Suddenly, a hand emerged and pulled the edge of the shower curtain back just enough for Tony to stick his head out the side. His face was totally straight, but there was a hint of mirth in his eyes. “Whoops, must’ve dropped the shampoo bottle,” he deadpanned. “Thank god I’m rooming with the US Coast Guard.”

“Air Force,” James corrected irritably.

Tony pulled the curtain back closed. “Whatever.”

James rolled his eyes. “Next time I’m letting you drown, Stark...” he grumbled as he stepped back out of the room.

By the time Tony finally emerged from the bathroom an additional twenty minutes later (the latter ten of which he’d spent retching loud enough into the toilet that James had broken out his walkman and headphones), all traces of his earlier humor had dissolved. He moved shakily back to his bed and managed a couple sips of water before curling up on his side, the trash can within easy reach.

James tried to turn his attention back to his textbook, but Tony’s labored breathing as he drifted in and out of consciousness was making it difficult to focus. James kept stealing worried side glances back at the bed, wondering whether there was something else he should be doing.

At around nine-thirty, Tony jerked up suddenly and stumbled back to the bathroom to start dry-retching into the toilet again, and that was when James gave up trying to study for the night. He got up from his desk and pushed open the hastily half-closed door to the bathroom to wet a washcloth at the sink. When the mostly unproductive spasms ceased, he handed the cloth to Tony.

“Have you eaten anything today?” James asked, though he was pretty sure he knew the answer already.

Tony just grimaced and shook his head.

“Want some crackers or something?” he offered. “I can go raid the cafeteria soup station.” James might not have had as packed of a social calendar as Tony, but it wasn’t like he never partied. He still knew the college hangover tricks.

Tony shook his head again, eyes closed. He seemed to lack the energy for words.

“Gatorade at least then?” James tried again. “All I’ve seen you drink today is one water bottle—you’ve gotta be getting dehydrated by now.”

Another head shake. “I’ll jus’ puke it up again…” Tony muttered. “Prob’ly a kidney too at this rate.”

“Well it’s better than puking up nothing,” James reasoned. Technically, he didn’t know if that was true or not, but he was tired of watching the kid be miserable. He moved back to the room to grab his keys and jacket. “What flavor do you want?” he called.

“Doesn’t matter,” Tony croaked back from the bathroom. “They’re all terrible.”

“That’s the most ignorant thing I’ve ever heard you say,” James retorted. “Just for that you’re getting purple.”

And with that, he exited the dorm and shut the door behind him with a bang.

It turned out that the vending machine in the lobby outside the dining hall only sold three Gatorade flavors—blue, orange, and red. James bought a bottle of each, then slipped into the deserted cafeteria to snag a handful of individually-wrapped saltine packets from the clam chowder counter before heading back to the dorm. It took some cajoling, but he managed to get two full crackers and half a bottle of the sports drink into Tony before it came right back up.

“Told you,” Tony rasped, spitting neon blue strings of bile into the toilet bowl. “Lost cause.”

“We’ll try red next,” James said, cracking open a fresh bottle. “One of them’s bound to stick.”

But red didn’t stay down any better, and neither did orange. James mooched a can of ginger ale and a quarter of a bottle of Pepto Bismol off a fellow cadet down the hall, but those fared no better. Even the cup of tap water James kept bullying him into taking sips from proved too much.

By midnight, Tony was still sitting slumped against the toilet on the bathroom floor, barely conscious, and James was at a total loss. “I think we have to go to the ER,” he admitted finally.

Without opening his eyes, Tony made a low noise of discontent in the back of his throat. His eyes were sunken in and he was alarmingly pale.

James let out a deep sigh. “Look, I’m sorry man, but we’re running out of options here. If you can’t even keep water down, you’re gonna need an IV.”

“No…” Tony lifted a shaky hand to try to take the cup of water James was holding. “I’ll-I’ll try again… just—” His words were cut off by a weak gag.

James cursed under his breath and quickly steered Tony’s head back over the bowl. It turned out not to matter though because for the next several minutes of miserable retching, nothing came up. When it was finally over, Tony slumped back against the wall. His eyes were red and puffy, and James figured it was only dehydration that was keeping the tears from falling.

“Alright, that’s it,” James declared. He wrapped an arm around Tony to lever him upright, feeling the feverish heat coming off the kid in waves. “I’m not letting you die on our bathroom floor—we won’t get the deposit back.”

Tony breathed out the ghost of a laugh. “Jus’ tell Howard to write you a check at the funeral...” he murmured. “‘bout all he’s good for,” he added under his breath.

James’ brow furrowed but he chose not to comment. He hoisted Tony to his feet and bore most of the kid’s weight as he led him back to the bedroom and sat him down on the edge of the mattress. “I’m gonna get you a clean shirt, okay?”

Tony nodded, gazing blankly forward with half-lidded eyes. James ended up having to help the kid pull his sweat-soaked t-shirt off and guide his uncooperative arms into a fresh one, followed by his coat. When they got to the shoes, James didn’t even bother having Tony try himself. He just stuffed the kid’s feet into a pair of sneakers for him.

“I taught my little sister how to do this last summer,” James explained as he tied Tony’s laces, if only for something to fill the awkward silence. “She’s in first grade.”

Tony hummed lightly. “I never went.”

James frowned, pulling the knot tight. “What do you mean?”

“Firs’ grade,” Tony clarified. “Or second. They started me in third.”

James smirked, imagining tiny five-year-old Tony filling out his multiplication tables in a classroom full of kids a full head taller than him. But his face quickly fell again as he suddenly realized a potential flaw in their plan. Tony may be in college, but he was still technically a minor. James wasn’t even sure if he was allowed to bring him off campus. “Shit, we’re gonna need to call your parents...” he said.

Tony’s face scrunched up in confusion. “Why?”

James raised an eyebrow. “Because I’m about to haul their fifteen-year-old son’s ass off to the hospital? Have you been following this conversation at all?”

“Oh. Jus’ leave a note for the RA.” Tony shrugged, listless. “They won’t care.”

James gave him a strange look. “Of course they’ll care—they’re your parents.”

Tony’s eyes were glassy with fever. “They won’t,” he croaked. “Been in boarding school since I was seven.” A shiver ran through his body and he swallowed hard before continuing. “Got pneumonia one winter and was in the hospital eight days. Dad jus’ paid the school to handle everything—didn’ even visit.” A tear finally slipped down the side of his cheek. “I was twelve.”

James knew it was just the fever making Tony so forthcoming at the moment, but it didn’t make his words any easier to take. As much as James always complained about his own mother’s doting whenever he wasn’t feeling well, he couldn’t imagine being sick enough to be in the hospital and not having anyone there for him. He didn’t know what to say.

Thankfully, Tony broke the awkward silence. “Sorry,” he whispered, closing his eyes and pressing his palm against them. “‘M fine.”

With a quiet sigh, James put his arm around Tony to help him back to standing. “You know what? We’ll just call them when we get there,” he said before leading Tony out to the car.

The drive to the hospital was uneventful. Tony sat curled up in the passenger seat of James’ old beater of a Chevy Monza with an empty plastic bag in his lap, quiet except for the occasional whimper he’d let out when they’d hit a bump in the road. When they arrived, James got Tony checked in and situated in the waiting room with some forms to fill out before stepping out to the foyer to use the payphone.

James fished the scrap of paper containing the number that Tony had finally agreed to give him out of his pocket. He dialed it three times. Each time, the call was picked up by the answering machine. On the third round, he left the Starks a brief message stating which hospital Tony was at and how they could contact their son, then hung up quickly before he could add anything else he might come to regret.

He reentered the waiting area to find Tony sitting hunched forward in his chair, breathing shallowly and clutching the small kidney-shaped basin that the triage nurse had given him like his life depended on it. “What’d they say?” he murmured. James wasn’t sure, but he thought he heard just a hint of hopefulness in the kid’s voice.

Without meeting Tony’s gaze, he slid into the seat beside him. “They didn’t answer,” he said guiltily.

Tony’s tone returned to flat: “Shocking.”

“They’re probably just asleep,” James reasoned, trying to sound more certain than he felt. “I left a message, but we can try again later.”

Tony hummed absently. Then all at once, he brought the small plastic container he was holding up to his mouth and threw up whatever little liquid remained in him. His hands were trembling so hard that James had to help him steady the basin.

When the heaving stopped, one of the nurses from the front desk exchanged the used basin for a clean one. Tony grunted in thanks, then looked up wearily and locked eyes with James. “You really don’ have to stay.”

James gave a tiny scoff. “What? You think I’d just leave you here to faceplant on the linoleum?”

Tony shrugged a bit. “‘S not like we’re friends, Jim.”

James pondered this for a few seconds before returning the shrug. “I guess you’re right.” He settled back in his chair and picked up a copy of Good Housekeeping from the stack on the waiting room table, flipping it idly open on his lap. “Too bad I’m invested now.”

It was around three a.m. by the time Tony’s name was called. He was taken back and briefly examined before getting hooked up to an IV line for fluids and antiemetics. The doctor ordered some bloodwork to be sure, but said that all signs pointed to a virus. As soon as they could get the vomiting under control and Tony’s vitals stabilized, he should be good to go.

While Tony dozed in and out of consciousness on the ER bed, fluids dripping steadily into his arm, James just sat there, silently mulling the events of the last sixteen hours or so over in his mind. It was weird seeing Tony like this—weak, and small, and just so undeniably young.

James waited until the clock struck five before slipping quietly over to the phone located near the nurse’s station. This time, he dialed a different number—one he knew by heart.

A familiar voice answered on the third ring: “Hello?”

Instant warmth flooded James’ chest at the sound. “Hey Ma,” he said softly.

“James?” His mother’s tone changed from puzzled to concerned in two seconds flat. “It’s so early, baby. Are you alright?”

“I’m fine, Ma,” he assured, the corners of his lips turning up into the smallest of smiles. “Just wanted to catch you before you left for work.”

“Well, you got me,” she laughed lightly. Over the line, James could hear her bustling around the kitchen, pouring coffee into a mug. “What do you need, baby?”

James hesitated a second, his gaze shifting back in the direction of Tony’s bed. “It’s nothing, just… I wanted to ask if I could invite someone home for Thanksgiving next week.” He shifted his gaze back in the direction of Tony’s bed. “I get the feeling he could really use it...”

Link to all my fics

#sickfic #ironbros #tony stark whump #sick tony stark #mit era #rhodey is a good bro #tony stark needs a hug #teenage tony stark #mcu writing #my fic #vomiting

264 notes · View notes

justanotherghostwriter · 4 years

Note

Fanfic ask - I, P, V.

Thank you so much for dropping into my askbox, anon! <3 =D

I: Do you have a guilty pleasure in fic (reading or writing)?

In case nobody has realised it, yet, somehow, I’m a big ol’ sucker for hurt/comfort (whump). I’m equally here for sickfic and injury fic, as long as neither the hurt nor the comfort is skimped. I’m not sure if I’m very guilty about it, though. :P Nor am I guilty about how much I’m here for (found) family dynamics and platonic love/soulmates. I guess the guilty pleasure comes from my love of ‘the great reveal’ moment. Either that whole ‘we thought you were a jerk but meanwhile‘ or ‘friends find out about that moment from the past’. Have I read a million ‘the team find out about Ed’s automail and how it actually affects everyday life’ and ‘the Gaang find out about Zuko’s scar’ fic? Probably. Will I read 100 more? In a second. Also flip me some of that ‘the usually quiet one goes ham in protectiveness’ and any fic where lived experiences of chronic pain or other disability is written well - not necessarily as the focus, but just there and represented, quietly, in all its daily facets. I think that’s important.

P: Are you what George R. R. Martin would call an “architect” or a “gardener”? (How much do you plan in advance, versus letting the story unfold as you go?)

I’m much more of an architect. I plan out most, if not all, of the fic before I even start writing it. Then I plan out scenes/dialogue. Then I write the outline in brief - sometimes months before I have time to write the fic, so I don’t forget about it. Then I write. Surprising moments and even changes absolutely crop up, and they’re wonderful, but, most of the time, I have it all ‘written’ in my head for ages and finally make time to ‘translate’ it to typed English.

V: If you could write the sequel (or prequel) to any fic out there not written by yourself, which would you choose?

Hahahaha. I’m so incredibly guilty of sticking my fingers in other people’s pies - either on anon or out loud and proud. I have, to date, written eleven snippets or ficlets or whole 36k-multi-chapter fic about other people’s fic. So I fear answering this, because it might awaken that part of my brain that demands I become a fanfic fanfic writer yet again. It’s really not because I think I do it justice, or anything - I’ve just found that my admiration for people who get me super into their wonderful fic make me react like the OG material does. In other words, I explode with love and therefore want to pour love into it the only way I know how: with words.

I’ve been dancing around this answer, haven’t I? Fine.

@thephilosophersapprentice‘s Xerxian and Amestrian Royalty AU I Give You Heaven’s Vows (And These Are Mine). I don’t know if I want to write a prequel, sequel or just ‘snapshots from minor characters’, but I love this AU so much and the possibilities here are chefskiss.

A prequel-ish to @agentcalliope‘s Cracks in the Ice. Mostly because it’s so flawless, I just wish there was more of it. Like, I want all those moments mentioned where Zuko was marched off or asked for help fully detailed. I want to swim in every one of them, no matter how repetitive it may seem to other people. Mostly I want them all written in Casey’s amazing writing, tbh, but, like, since you asked, Anon...

@ta1k-less/Aeoleus’ How to Disappear Completely verse. Ya’ll. Ya’ll. This is just... Okay, so Meagan writes like we all wish we could in our wildest dreams, so I know I’ll bomb it all but I just love the potentials in this verse so much. I want the before. I want all the after. I want to be as good at putting metaphor and meaning into all my fic as she is.

#replies #anonymous #Fic Ask Meme #In case nobody has realised this I'm verbose as crap #in all areas #I still haven't figured out how to shut up yet sorrrryyy #about my writing

9 notes · View notes

kbstories · 4 years

Text

Contingent

con·tin·gent (adj.) Dependent on; conditional.

There's only one thing Trafalgar Law is truly afraid of.

(Or: Bepo will be damned if he loses Law just when he got him back.)

Tags: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Sickfic, Nakamaship, Amber Lead Syndrome, Medical Inaccuracies, Childhood Trauma, Law whumps well and I have no excuse

Set between Zou and Wano. Read Chapter 2 here.

***

To say the Polar Tang is a tight fit is an accurate, if unfortunate, assessment.

Years ago, the shipwright they commissioned to make their submarine-turned-ship a reality had cautioned them about the limited capacity. Back in the North Blue, the logistics of cramming more than two dozen people into close quarters with high-pressure machinery seemed a far-away problem at best.

That was long before Jean Bart entered the picture, patient as their helmsman had been to accommodate the narrow spaces of his new home. The nightshift Uni and Clione had pulled to present him with a set of his very own Heart Pirates-branded overalls the next day probably had something to do with it, too.

And maybe it’s because they haven’t had guests in a while (or at least, none that were conscious enough to count), or that Law’s paranoia has rubbed off on Bepo more than he likes to admit… When their mismatched group of allies take the first step on deck, Bepo is watching them like a hawk.

The fact of the matter is: Bepo loves the Tang. They all do. She’s the one that carried them from the North’s frigid waters all the way into the New World. She’s the best. All they – pirates and samurai alike – give her are curious glances, though, neither overly positive nor notably negative as they follow Trafalgar Law into the bowels of his submarine.

Well, with exception of that Strawhat cyborg, Franky. The moment they’re inside he’s gone, fawning over metal walls and neatly-welded seams like they’re the delicate linework of an artist; all Ikkaku can do to prevent any damage to her baby is to run after him. Her harsh reminders to be careful grow fainter and fainter as the rest moves on.

Ikkaku was against this whole alliance thing and yet, Bepo assumes it’s only a matter of time until their chief engineer is charmed, too. It’s one of those inevitable things that tend to happen around the Strawhats.

In any case, Law doesn’t seem bothered and so Bepo isn’t, either. It’s not like the captain lets them dwell on it for long, anyways – he shuffles their guests into the galley like a goose herds its chicks and gives Penguin a handful of minutes to organize some snacks for everyone before the crew is called to the control room. In one big gulp, Bepo swallows the rest of his sandwich and off he goes.

He gets there just as Law emerges from the captain’s cabin in a fresh change of clothes and still-moist hair. “Ready?”, Law asks him, looking worn out still but sounding excited by his own standards, and Bepo nods with a fanged grin.

“Ready, Captain.”

The tanks are flooded and the engine purrs below their feet. From there, the Heart Pirates flit in and out and around Trafalgar Law like blood cells under a microscope and Bepo?

Bepo stands by Law’s side, one eye on the Log Pose and the other on the currents, and feels his pulse even out. There’s nothing like home.

The Tang quiets to a comforting hum once the course is set and optimal velocity is achieved, a background noise as familiar to Bepo as the cadence of Law’s voice. The residual heat from the engine room is making everyone but Bepo sweat in their suits, and he’d feel smug about it if his paws and nose weren’t wet with perspiration too–

It’s then that he remembers their allies, more specifically the only people without proper gear to be in a submerged submarine, and Bepo curses his own neglect under his breath for all of a second. By that point Bart is already letting go of the helm to pat Bepo's head, an automatic gesture of comfort.

“I told them to wait”, he says and shrugs a bit sheepishly because, as it turns out, the Strawhats actually listened. Bepo finds them lounging around one of the tables, just where they left them; the three from Wano Country are huddled in the corner a bit further away, heads stuck together to catch up. The Strawhats are in the middle of a round of some card game, it seems, even if their expressions are serious enough to make Bepo wonder if there’s more to it. He hovers in their periphery, hesitant to interrupt.

Suddenly, Nico Robin looks up and smiles. Usopp groans, throwing his hand away.

“I give up! You’re impossible, Robin. Impossible.”

“Bear”, Zoro greets him, gaze sliding lazily from his cards to Bepo. “You any good at Continental?”

“Uh”, Bepo replies intelligently. Conti-what? A glimpse at the cards Robin plays doesn’t reveal any epiphanies to him, either. “Sorry. I don’t know what that is.”

“It’s a card game from the East Blue”, Robin explains while she holds out a patient hand for Zoro’s cards as well. It’s one summoned by her powers, not that Zoro seems to mind as he rolls his eye and relinquishes the (presumably bad) hand he had. “Nami is a real devil at it.”

Usopp leans far back in his chair. “Playing this without her to knock out Robin early on is hopeless”, he adds with a dramatic sigh.

Bepo’s ears twitch in interest. Nami, their navigator? “Ah. Perhaps you can show me–” The sentence crashes into the realization that he's letting himself be distracted, again. “Later! Show me later. You guys need suits, and a tour around the– Wait, where’s Franky?”

Robin chuckles rather fondly. “Don’t mind him”, she tells Bepo, “Franky is easily excitable by the prospect of a new ship to tinker with”, and before Bepo can feel put out by her just deciding that, she glances over Bepo’s shoulder. A pause, pensive.

“I can reel him in, though. Your ship, your rules, Mr. Traffy.”

A huff confirms Law’s presence behind him a moment before he puts a hand on Bepo’s elbow, undemanding. Out of habit, Bepo nudges their shoulders together to acknowledge his captain properly and Law’s fingers tighten, once.

“Better get it out of Franky's system now, I suppose. We’re still close enough to the surface that an explosion or two won’t kill us all.”

Law’s voice is utterly deadpan and it’s most certainly a joke – Robin is snickering good-naturedly, too – but Bepo still gives his captain a look. These are the Strawhats they’re talking about.

Law just shakes his head, a movement so subtle it might as well not exist at all. Bepo lets out a breath. No sudden deaths by drowning today, how nice.

“As Bepo said: You need suits and a tour. Wano people, you too. Zoro, you need a guide.”

“Oi.”

“Hey, why the suits?”

That last one comes from Usopp, and Bepo opens his mouth to offer a perfectly rational answer–

“So the Tang doesn’t boil you alive”, Law says and gives them a sweet smile. It drops off his lips immediately. “Any other questions? I’ll send Uni over for your measurements. He’s the guy with the bandana. Shachi will show you around. Bepo, a word?”

Bepo nods along and… Huh?

As first mate, tour duty should fall onto him – after all, it’s a good way for him to gauge who exactly they invited into their home – but something in Law’s tone makes Bepo’s instincts perk up and pay attention and oh, Law hasn’t let go of his elbow yet.

Bepo doesn’t have time to ask his captain what’s wrong before blue engulfs them both and the world shifts around them.

Shambles is a mixture of falling and being held; for Bepo, the unique feeling of Law’s powers is a long-kept comfort, simultaneously a vanguard and the last line of defense in every battle they have fought together.

When it fades, Bepo finds himself in the captain’s cabin – the sight of floor-to-ceiling bookshelves lining the walls is a familiar one, the whirlwind of documents all across the desk not so much – and there’s no time to ponder on that before Law holds his hands inches from Bepo’s nose and tells him to look.

“Wha–?”

“Just– Humor me. What do you see?”

Bepo snaps his jaws shut because Law is serious, the air of snarky rudeness gone without a trace, and Bepo looks and sees... Well, nothing. There’s tan skin and fingernails kept obsessively neat; there are the precise lines of the tattoos that have been there for years.

Law’s hands are trembling.

“I don’t see anything, Captain”, Bepo says honestly. Gently, too, because anything that involves Law insisting like that is wrapped in caution tape and staked with warning signs, do not enter, all the way up to the ocean’s surface.

Law curses, then, shaking out his arms in an effort to stop the tremors and it’s wrong, for a surgeon’s hands to be that unsteady. He starts tugging at his clothes and Bepo watches, concern swelling bigger and bigger in his chest – Law’s hat falls to the ground unnoticed when he pulls his shirt over his head in one rough motion.

“Look”, he repeats, golden eyes gone cold and hard. His chest heaves with how heavy he’s panting, muscles taught under the strain; Law’s arm is the only thing left covered, bandaged all the way to his shoulder.

“Anything?”

Bepo does, expression carefully blank as he forces himself to look past the ink and all the things that make Law Law and directly at what’s hidden in plain sight: faded by time, he spots the outline of pale-white scars that have always been there, pre-dating even the fateful day they met.

Then, Bepo shakes his head. “Nothing. There’s nothing, Captain. It’s the same as always.”

“Honest?”

It’s a rushed breath, barely a question at all. It takes Bepo back a decade, the raw fear in it unchanged and belonging to a boy just scratching manhood, struggling to trust the one friend he has in the world. “Honest”, Bepo promises like he always has, and for all of his twenty-two years the ache in his heart feels ancient.

“Talk to me, Law. Please. You’re scaring me.”

Finally, Law inhales sharply and nods, fingers dragging through his hair the way he does after a close call, another life barely saved.

“Something’s not right. I didn’t notice with everything else going on but I’m tired and everything hurts? It’s like I’m about to pass out, fucking… faint like I used Room too much and things get fuzzy around the edges but I haven’t. All I’ve been doing is sleep and eat, I don’t– It makes no sense. And it’s not going away, Bepo.”

Bepo wants to hug him, the need to hold him close and tell him to breathe writhing inside him like a separate being. Law isn’t done yet and somehow it’s even worse to witness him trying to wrest himself into a semblance of control, to drag himself away from all-too-familiar devastation.

“Fatigue. That’s how it starts”, Law tells him, like he’s talking about a patient wholly unrelated to himself. He holds up his hand and counts down with his fingers, one at a time, utterly methodical. “Then pain in the limbs, difficulties concentrating for longer periods of time, discoloration of the skin and hair, high fever and–”

There are no more fingers left, all of them tucked against Law’s palm and exposing all five letters.

“–ultimately: death.”

Bepo can’t take it anymore. “Captain–”, he starts and again he’s interrupted.

“I must’ve missed something.”

Something flashes in Law’s eyes, something unstable and mad-looking and this is bad, Bepo thinks numbly. Very, very bad.

“I thought I cured it but I was a kid, Bepo. Nobody knows the long-term effects of surviving Amber Lead Syndrome, nobody lived long enough to tell. Just because there're no new spots doesn’t mean it’s gone. And what if there’s deposits on a molecular level? I couldn’t cut cells back then without Kikoku but I can now–”

“Law, stop! Shut up!”

Bepo hasn't shouted at Law and truly meant it in a long, long time. Law’s eyes go wide and the frantic rambling stops, and Bepo is done hesitating: He reaches through that gap and touches Law’s forehead, heat searing into the sensitive skin of his paw pads immediately. Shit.

“You’re burning up”, Bepo tells him and shakes his head, barrels through the acute panic in Law’s gaze before it can take proper hold. “Stop, okay? Listen to me.” His paws drop to Law’s shoulders, firm, careful where his fingers touch gauze. “Remember our promise on Swallow? You were delirious with pain and bleeding all over the place and you told me–”

Law whispers, “Promise to stop me”, almost as pale as he was when he said it the first time.

“Exactly. I promised to never let you operate without a clear head ever again ‘cause you’re only human, Captain, and you make mistakes like this. So this is me, stopping you. You’re unwell and you’re scared and you’re not gonna cut into your own cells looking for Amber Lead like this. Okay?”

“Okay”, Law says, the low rasp of his voice growing more solid, close to trusting. Bepo lets himself feel the rapid beat of his own heart for a moment and that, too, is calmer now if only marginally so.

“Okay. So: You’re tired, your body aches, you can’t focus. You have a fever and there’s like, a thousand reasons why that could be aside from– That. And there’s no new spots. What else causes those symptoms? Walk me through it.”

“The flu? Other viruses. Anemia. Iron deficiency in general. Uh–”

A few seconds pass where Law just thinks, brow furrowed and shining with sweat, and Bepo reaches blindly for the hoodie he knows he will find crumpled on Law’s desk chair. “Put this on”, he mutters and presses it against Law’s naked chest. Law does, even lets Bepo help when his injured arm catches on fabric and a pained hiss escapes his lips.

Then the scars are covered again, out of Bepo’s and – more importantly – Law’s sight for the most part. Law stops shivering as much and it's not much but it's still good, still progress. Bepo steers Law to the bed and makes him sit down; arms crossed on the back of the chair, Bepo sits directly across from him. Eyes soft, he nudges Law’s boot with his own.

“Captain. What else?”

“Bacterial infections, severe ones. Miningitis? Hmm... Lymphoma. Technically, most types of canc–”

“Whoa, that’s– Let’s stop there. See? Plenty of options. All of them suck, especially that… that last one.” Bepo pauses, can’t help but to ask: “It’s not that, right? You don’t have cancer.”

Law’s expression softens, the overall misery pushed aside for a moment as his lips twitch tiredly and he shakes his head. “No cancer.”

Bepo nods in relief, and his mind is already three steps ahead because they need a plan and Law is not the only Heart Pirate that has a knack for those. “What’s the prescription against fever? Painkillers and…?”

“Antipyretics.”

There’s not much finesse to Bepo searching the cabinet where Law keeps his private stash of medicine. The weight of Law’s eyes on him registers yet his captain says nothing, wordlessly watching Bepo as he reads labels and tries to place everything back where he finds it until– There!

“Got it. Take… uh, how many?”

“Two. And one from the red box. That one, yeah.”

Bepo gives him the pills and waits with crossed arms until Law obediently swallows all of them at once, wincing at– Wait. Water.

Scrambling to the adjacent bathroom, Bepo fills a glass and refills it right after his captain finishes the first, placing it on his nightstand. “My apologies.”

“It’s fine. You’re fussing.”

“You bet I am”, Bepo huffs, uncaring how petulant it makes him sound. “And I’m not done. Now, rest – and I mean rest, Captain, as in not moving from that bed or so help me – and I’ll get Shachi and Penguin to keep you company. You’ll be fine in no time.”

Pointedly, Law folds the covers over his legs, a wordless there, I’m in bed. “Happy?”

“Yes.”

“And you?”

Blinking, Bepo tilts his head at Law. Law just raises an eyebrow and waits, looking vaguely worried and–

Bepo reminds himself that for all he’s a genius his captain is also an idiot.

“You just came back and you’re sick, what do you think I’m gonna do? Figure this out, of course! There’s no way I’m letting you anywhere near one of the Emperors like this, much less freaking Kaido. Also”, he takes a long breath, “I’m taking Kikoku with me and there’s nothing you can do–”

“Fine.”

“–to stop me! …Wait, seriously?”

“Yeah, take it. You’re worried enough as is.” Law shrugs a little, like it’s no big deal he’s allowing Bepo to handle the sword he keeps close even in his sleep. “It’s cursed, though. Be careful.”

Bepo swallows, a little nervous despite himself. “I know. I will. And… we’ll get through this, okay? Just stay put. Don’t do anything stupid.”

Law leans back against the headrest and sighs, “Can't. The meds’ll knock me out in a few.” And perhaps he doesn’t look particularly happy about any of it but he still took the pills Bepo handed him, still decided in that moment to trust Bepo to come up with a solution while he’s down and out.

Determination sets into a tight-lipped smile on Bepo’s face. Law’s trust is all Bepo has ever needed, be it to wrestle ocean currents into submission or to help his best friend find the freedom he’s looking for, one cut string at a time.

“I'll tell 'em to hurry, then. Leave the rest to me, Captain.”

>>Chapter 2.

#one piece #fanfiction #trafalgar law #bepo #one piece fanfiction #i'm still emotional about the heart pirates hey how are you #this fic is also on AO3!#my stuff

41 notes · View notes