2jamie promt idea:
Jamie is sick and dosent know how to deal with it properly so the doctor helps take care of him
Ten entire minutes after Polly and Ben abandoned the Doctor to deal with Jamie on his own, the Doctor grips the TARDIS console with one hand, and the last of his patience with the other.
Jamie backs away to mirror him directly on the other side of the hexagonal control panel, flushed with what could be exertion on anyone else, running around the console room in this entirely unamusing little game – but the Doctor has seen Jamie do more and redden less. Which wouldn’t be a problem, in theory, except Jamie has taken it upon himself to make it one.
“I’ll be fine!” Jamie insists for the umpteenth time, vocals strained over the cough he’s clearly trying to hold in.
“Certainly,” the Doctor agrees, eyes itching for a good roll. “But you’re clearly not fine right now, so hush and let me help you.”
“I don’ need yer help,” Jamie retorts, glaring at him over the transparent column. “Nothing’s wrong!”
“Now this is just ridiculous,” the Doctor mutters. It’s no mystery why Ben and Polly have long since given up talking any sense into their fellow traveller, though the Doctor would have appreciated their backup. It’s like debating a particularly contrary brick wall. “And do you have a brother who only speaks the truth, by any chance?”
Now that knocks Jamie off his course of denial. He rears back with a frown. “Do I wot now?”
“You know, the riddle with the two guards, where one always lies and the other…” the Doctor breaks off as Jamie doubles over in a coughing fit. “Oh dear.”
Jamie stays bent over when the coughing subsides, letting out a groan of despair. The Doctor cautiously circles the console once more, gaining confidence when Jamie doesn’t start away from him again. He reaches out towards Jamie slow enough not to spook him, and when there’s no reaction, he wraps an arm around his shoulders and guides him bodily back to his bedroom.
Jamie puts up not an ounce of resistance along the way, which worries the Doctor far more than his previous false bravado, and in this position the Doctor can no longer check on Jamie’s expression. By the time they reach the threshold of Jamie’s room, he isn’t walking with the Doctor so much as falling forward, held up only by the tight grip of the Doctor’s hands.
“Used up all your energy being difficult, have we?” the Doctor teases, hoping for a laugh or frankly for any sign of life at all. Jamie groans in response. “Yes, I thought so.”
He picks up the boneless Jamie in a princess carry to ferry him the rest of the way, taking on Jamie’s familiar weight in his arms, which does seem to trigger a last reserve of energy from him in the form of indignation.
“Och – Doctor, really –”
“If you wanted to stop me, perhaps you should have saved your energy rather than using it all on being stubborn,” the Doctor chides, striding across the bedroom and tightening his hold against Jamie’s squirming. It would hardly help the situation to drop him, after all.
“Aye, well, I didnae think you’d be picking me up like a damsel in distress!” Jamie’s pitch climbs high in protest, cracking on the last few words.
“Are you not distressed?” he asks innocently, bending down and shifting his hold on Jamie so he can flick back the tartan blanket on Jamie’s bed.
“Am no’ a wee girl,” Jamie mutters sullenly. That draws a laugh from the Doctor, and as he lowers Jamie onto the pillows, he expects his first glimpse of Jamie’s face will be a glare.
He is surprised, then, to find on Jamie’s face a look of such anxiety to kill all the laughter in the Doctor’s throat. Jamie refuses to catch his eye, and the Doctor sighs.
He trails a hand down Jamie’s chest, smoothes down his kilt, and goes to work unlacing his shoes, gentle as he can. In his periphery, Jamie watches, silent. He sets the pair of shoes on the floor by the bed and then draws the blanket back over. He covers Jamie up to his chin but resists actually tucking him in lest it come across as patronising.
“There now,” the Doctor says, hushed. “Is this really all that bad?”
Still Jamie won’t meet his eye, and the Doctor sighs, running a hand lightly through Jamie’s hair. Suddenly Jamie’s hand shoots out from under the blanket to catch the Doctor’s wrist. The Doctor’s hearts plummet – what has he done to make Jamie recoil from him so? – but before he can apologise for overstepping, his grip shifts to bring the back of the Doctor’s hand to his lips.
“I don’t mean t’ be difficult,” Jamie murmurs, his breath hot against the Doctor’s fingers.
“Yes, well… catching ill can be scary,” the Doctor offers haltingly. “Particularly when you’re travelling with me. I understand. I do remember the incident on the moon.”
On the moon it wasn’t simply a common cold plaguing Jamie, of course. Still, the Doctor remembers well Jamie’s palpable fear that the phantom piper would take him, as well as his unconscious pained cries that the Doctor could only futilely try to ignore. At least this time he can make Jamie comfortable through it – if Jamie would only let him.
“Now I hope I don’t have to lock you in to keep you in bed,” he says, playing stern. “What you need is rest, and –”
“It isn’t that,” Jamie says quietly.
“– with lots of fluids and maybe – eh?”
“It’s no’… am no’ scared. No’ wi’ you. I always feel safe in the TARDIS, you know tha’.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” the Doctor says, though the words aren’t adequate to describe how the reassurance makes him feel. He squeezes Jamie’s fingers to emphasise the point. “But then why…?”
“You’ll think I’m bein’ stupid,” Jamie groans.
“I might,” the Doctor agrees, nodding. Jamie blinks at him in surprise, and perhaps offense. “But it won’t make me think any worse of you, nor love you any less. So you might as well tell me.”
Jamie grumbles a bit before properly digesting that. He’s always been an open book, wearing his heart on his sleeve and his thoughts right on his face. The Doctor watches Jamie wrestle with himself. Watches him win.
“I just wanted t’ get past it. Ignore it until it goes away.” He winces and presses the Doctor’s hand to his cheek, and the Doctor obliges him, half sitting on the bed so he can reach more comfortably. “I remember takin’ ill on the moon too, spendin’ it all useless in a hospital bed.”
“Why that’s not fair on you at all. You’re right, I do think this is stupid.”
That finally coaxes a sheepish grin from Jamie. “I havnae even got to the stupid bit yet,” he admits.
The Doctor does roll his eyes this time, large and exaggerated to hear the laugh Jamie lets out after, one that dissolves into painful coughs that has Jamie leaning away from the Doctor and further into the bed.
Blast. He’d been trying to help Jamie, not make him worse. The Doctor steps away, rubbing his hands nervously as Jamie half hacks out a lung, searching for anything to do to help him. But there’s nothing for it apart from the obvious: stop dithering, fetch Jamie some water and cold medicine, and wait the whole thing out.
“I’ll just be right back, Jamie, with some water,” he calls, slipping out of the room and not stopping even when Jamie coughs out something that sounds like a plea for him to stay.
This human business… the Doctor wrings his hands and speeds on.
The TARDIS reveals herself to be feeling cooperative today; the kitchen is only at the end of the hall, when just that morning, it had been a brisk five-minute walk from the console room in the opposite direction. He pats the doorframe in thanks but then halts abruptly.
“Oh! Ben. Polly. Hello.”
A quick once-over assures him that he hasn’t walked in on something private – one never knows with those two – but they still start guiltily upon sighting him, offering muted hellos in reply.
He raises a suspicious eyebrow at them as he washes his hands and then moves to the cupboard where they keep the cups and mugs and so forth.
“No need!” Polly interrupts him quickly. She turns around and grabs something from the counter behind them: a tall glass of water and several packets of tablets from the bathroom pharmaceutical cabinet.
“Haven’t poisoned it, have you?” the Doctor asks, mostly in jest, as he takes them from her. But Polly only cringes.
Ben gallantly steps in. “Look, we just wanted to apologise for running out when you got there. Probably should have stayed and helped. So we fetched this. We’re, uh, pretty sure it’s all the right stuff. It’s not that we don’t – it’s just that Polly and me, we have rather short amounts of patience, and neither of us are exactly used to…”
“Polly and I,” the Doctor corrects with an indulgent smile.
“Yes?” Polly asks, taking a confused step towards him.
Oh, they’re fine. The Doctor leaves them to it.
“Not Polly and me. Polly and I!” he calls behind him.
“Well, tell Jamie that Polly and I are sorry we gave him a hard time and that we hope he gets better soon!”
Ben’s voice echoes down the corridor and the Doctor smiles to himself. How strange humans are to him, even now when he’s known so many! And with that volume, the Doctor won’t even have to pass on the message. Jamie surely would have heard it.
Indeed, as the Doctor nudges open Jamie’s door, Jamie is already upright in bed, expectant.
“Doctor,” he exhales in greeting, sounding strangely relieved to the Doctor’s ears.
“Here,” the Doctor says, brandishing the items in his hands. He offers Jamie the cup, mostly confident that he can handle that part himself, and goes about sorting through the medication Polly and Ben had scrounged up.
He hears more than sees Jamie gulp greedily, which is good at least; the Doctor had done the right thing by fetching him water.
“Don’t drink all of it now,” he warns, popping a few tablets out of their respective foil wrappings.
Jamie frowns over at him, holding the much emptier glass protectively to his chest.
“You’ll need some water to take these. Medicine, yes? No bloodletting needed,” he assures with a laugh. He walks Jamie through how to take them, eventually pulling up a chair to sit with him.
When the glass is set aside, Jamie gives him a cautious look. “What are ye doin’ with Polly, then, Doctor?”
“What’s that?”
“You were sayin’, you and Polly.”
“Oh, never mind that, I was simply correcting grammar. Now do enlighten me. What were you saying before your sore throat rudely interrupted us?”
Jamie nods with an air of resignation about him. Always so dramatic.
“I was just sayin’ I know how this goes, when I take ill. An’ I don’ hold it against ye or nothing. I just…” Jamie fidgets with the blanket and then shrugs. “I didnae want t’ be bedridden while you and Ben and Polly are out getting int’ trouble. Or havin’ fun. Or bein’ in grave danger. I don’ want t’ miss anything. And I thought I might be able t’ pretend I was well so ye wouldnae go off without me.”
The Doctor regards Jamie with a look of open fondness that Jamie doesn’t even see, so busy is he trying to avoid the Doctor’s eye. Probably for the best; means Jamie can’t make fun of him for it later.
“Oh, you silly, silly boy.” Jamie shifts to turn bodily away, with embarrassment or shame, and the Doctor can’t be having that. He stops Jamie with a hand on his chest, holding him firmly down. “My dear Jamie. Would you do me a favour and remind me where we are.”
“We’re… in my room?”
“And where might that be?”
“In the TARDIS. But what has that got t’ do wi’ –”
“And would you remind me what the TARDIS is exactly.”
“It’s a ship. It’s our home. It’s for travelling, goin’ on adventures through the different planets and through time.”
“Through time indeed. So you can understand,” says the Doctor, patting Jamie gently on the chest, “why exactly it is that we are in no rush to leave without you. Time is the one thing I have in excess. The universe outside will wait until we are ready to meet it, with you by our side, recovered and healthy as ever.”
“But ye can barely stay in the same place for five wee minutes! What are ye gonnae do while I get better?”
“Well, I rather thought I’d stay and bother you, if that’s quite alright.”
“Bother me.”
“Well, I haven’t gotten the chance to play my recorder in some time, and I thought you might enjoy hearing a story from a book you’re not practising your literacy from, perhaps. And I’m sure I could come up with other things to occupy myself while you sleep it off, or when you bore of my company.”
“Never.”
The Doctor’s eyebrows shoot up. “I’m sorry?”
Jamie flushes bright red but this time doesn’t look away. “You’re many things, Doctor, but yer never boring.”
The Doctor preens at that. Of course, it’s at that moment that Jamie yawns jaw-poppingly wide, quite ruining the sentiment.
“Alright,” Jamie blusters, looking himself very surprised by his own yawn, “that looked bad but I promise that was no’ because of you –”
“Relax, my boy. Sleep will do you wonders.”
Jamie looks ready to do just that until the Doctor makes to stand, and then he’s righting himself all over again as if to stop him.
“I told you, I’d find something to do while you slept. I’m not about to go running off.”
Jamie still seems conflicted, so the Doctor settles back into his chair.
“How about this: I’ll stay with you until you fall asleep, then I’ll fetch a few books from the library and come back. I’ll be right here when you wake up again, I promise.”
It’s as though that’s all the permission Jamie’s body needed to go to sleep right then and there. Jamie’s out like a light before the Doctor’s even managed to get comfortable again. How stubborn to have held it off even that long.
There’s no reason for the Doctor to dawdle now, having fulfilled that first part of his promise. But Jamie is so peaceful in sleep, and he’s in no rush to leave. Might as well bask in his accomplishment of corralling Jamie out of his stubborn denial.
And funnily enough, sleeping Jamie is so fascinating on his own, the Doctor might not even need to go looking for something to entertain himself after all.
Not for the first few minutes, anyway.
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A03 2022 Wrapped
thank you for tagging me @luteandsword!
Works Published: 71 (well, technically I think it should be 54 since all the parts of the arranged marriage au should have just been one multi-chaptered fic)
Word Count: 297,480
Hits: 104,793
Bookmarks: 1,601
Most Popular
By Kudos: Not as alone as he thought (part four of the arranged marriage au)
By Hits: A New Us Will Begin (reincarnation au)
Longest: Also “ A new us will begin” ( 134,506 words)
Shortest: C is for "Can you believe no one ever gave Geralt flowers before?" (420 words)
Most Comments: so technically it’s “a new us will begin” again, but all of the parts of the arranged marriage au (which i count as one story) got almost three times as many comments, so i’d say the arranged marriage au is the most popular by comments
Fic that made me cry: I don’t really cry while writing but I probably came closest to it while writing the reincarnation au? just because there’s a lot of (non-permanent) MCD so sad feelings are happening
Fic that made me smile: what kind of smile are we talking about? happy smile - A Happy Man (old!Jaskier softness) or evil smile - “a new us will begin”
Gifts:
to someone:
i think i gifted some parts of the arranged marriage au to @rebrandedbard
The Greatest Gift a Griffin Could Give gifted to MaroonDragon
Not a Griffin to @karolincki
Grumpy or Ridiculous to khalea
Poems for the Poet to IveynAdler
Wood you marry me? to @samstree
Freckles and Wrinkles to 2jamie
Rest my Head at Night Content to @leaena2go
And They Danced to @thingr2
Give it your all to @imjusthereforthecatpictures
Friend of a Friend to @tears-of-a-fool
from someone:
No Magic like True Love by SaiaiSaiko
[Podfic] The Song of the White Wolf (will always be sung alone) by Mysterious_Frog
about love. by sapphistication
What Is Love by SwanFloatieKnight
The Pain Of Loving You by SwanFloatieKnight
A Friend in the Wild by Samtree
Events: none
Resolutions: finish my wips and not let myself get distracted. finish writing the whole thing, then actually do some major editing and only when I really feel good about it, post the fic instead of halfassing it and then feeling unsatisfied
tagging: @samstree, @swanfloatieknight @witchersgoldenbard @joeys-piano @alllthequeenshorses @leaena2go, @imjusthereforthecatpictures everyone else who wants to do this, and as alwas no pressure
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