Fic: Respite (Comfortember)

[csi_sanders1129]

Title: Respite
Chapters: 1/1
Author:csi_sanders1129
Genre: Hurt/Comfort
Ratings: K+
Word Count: 1230
Pairings/Characters: Cooper Frederickson/Josh Miller
Synopsis: In which Cooper wakes up feeling awful and profoundly regrets whatever poor decisions he made last night.
Comments: Written for Comfortember 2020, (Alternate) Prompt: Sick Character. Comments and kudos would be awesome. Enjoy!

Cooper wakes up with a splitting headache and an uncomfortable churning in his stomach. "Ugh," he groans, suddenly regretting whatever he'd gotten up to last night. What had he gotten up to last night? How much had he had to drink to wake up feeling this level of spectacularly shitty? He rolls out of bed with considerably less grace than usual, feels the word spin off its axis as he stumbles toward the door to the bathroom.

"Coop?" Josh's voice sounds too loud, but it gets louder when he sways alarmingly into the doorframe. "Cooper!" Josh jumps out of his desk chair, where he'd been working laboriously on some report or the other for one of his classes – apparently unphased by a hangover of his own (and since when does Josh hold his alcohol better than Cooper?) – and steadies him before he goes down. "Man, you look awful."

"Feel awful," he agrees. "What the hell did I do last night?"

Josh frowns at him, "Nothing? You stayed in with me. We watched that stupid movie with the guys, remember?"

He has a hazy recollection of some god awful comedy playing on the television in Pickle's room. An even hazier one of falling asleep halfway through it, leaned against Josh's shoulder, Hank and Zeke's friendly teasing. The barest traces of a memory sometime later in the night, when Josh had nudged him awake and sent him to bed. He hadn't had any alcohol, hadn't even smoked at all. "Am I sick, then? Shit. I hate being sick."

"I don't think anyone particularly enjoys it," Josh counters.

His stomach, up to this point merely considering rebellion, offers a bit more of a solid threat when a wave of nausea rolls over him. "Oh, I'm gonna be sick," he manages to choke out in warning. It gives Josh just enough time to shove him forward, into the bathroom, and to his knees in front of the toilet before he's retching over it. It seems like it lasts forever, but Josh is still there when the puking finally stops, pressing a damp washcloth to the back of his neck and offering him a bottle of water. "Ugh," he manages, reveling in the cool cloth on his too hot skin. "Thanks."

"Want me to take you over to the campus clinic?" Josh offers, but Cooper's sights are set a bit closer.

"Just bed," he decides.

Josh complies with his request, though he does pause their slow but steady progress toward the bed to wrangle Cooper out of his sweat-soaked shirt, into a clean one and Cooper has to admit that feels a bit better. "You need anything else?" he asks, when Cooper's once sprawled out on cool bedsheets, head buried in his pillow.

"Can it be dark? And quiet?" Cooper requests, two hard asks in a busy dorm at roughly noon on a Saturday. Still, he hopes that will help the pounding ache behind his eyes.

But Josh handles that, too. He pulls his blinds closed, hangs up a towel over them to block out additional light still seeping through. He kills the lights, leaving only the dim glow of his desk lamp on the other side of the room. He offers up the headphones his sister had sent him for Christmas, plugged into nothing but enough to block out the ambient noise from the halls full of rowdy students surrounding their room. He offers more water, a couple of pills from the medicine cabinet in the bathroom. All of which Cooper greatly appreciates. "Do you want me to leave? I can go work in the library if you want me to?"

What he really wants is Josh in bed with him. He always seems to sleep better that way, but that's not an option. Josh has work to do and he's not going to ask the other boy to waste his Saturday wrapped around him just because he feels miserable. And he's sure Josh would probably rather be in the library, anyway. He probably doesn't want to write his paper in the dark, but when he looks up at the other boy, there's a look of concern on his face that makes him reconsider that line of thinking. Maybe Josh does want to stay here in the room with him. "If you want to," he answers, letting Josh make the call, "I don't mind if you stay."

Josh offers a smile and reclaims his seat at his desk.

Cooper falls asleep to muffled silence, the cool darkness of their dorm room, and Josh's quiet, reassuring presence. He hopes he'll feel better the next time he wakes up.

---

When he does return to the world of the waking, much later than he expected, he feels considerably less awful. The ache in his head is a much duller throb now, rather than the bass drum it had been earlier. His stomach growls, interested in the smells of food from the other side of the room. He sits up slowly, and the world doesn't spin. He sighs with relief and Josh, engrossed in a book on his bed, turns to look him over. He seems relieved with what he sees.

"You look better," he says. "I grabbed you some food from the cafeteria before it closed for the night," Josh explains, motioning to a bowl of soup and some crackers perched on Cooper's desk. "I wasn't sure if you'd want it or not, but it's better than the junk we have stashed in the room."

"I could kiss you," he says, managing a smile as he shuffles across the room toward the food.

"Later," Josh promises, his tone joking and easy, "When I'm sure you're gonna keep that down."

"Fair enough," Cooper concedes. "Did you get your paper finished?"

"Mostly," he answers, "I have one source I need to double-check at the library, but I didn't want to leave you alone for too long."

Cooper absolutely would not have known if Josh had left him to sleep off whatever that was. Hell, Josh had left, albeit only long enough to run downstairs for food, but still – Cooper had remained unaware. "You didn't have to stick around all day just to watch me sleep," he says.

"I wanted to," Josh assures him, and he sounds like he means it.

They've been dating for a year now, by far the longest relationship he's ever had, and it probably shouldn't surprise him that Josh actually does care about him, but every once in a while, it still catches him off guard. "Thanks," he says, and, "I love you."

Josh says the words back and returns his attention to his book.

---

Once the food is gone, once Cooper's made it through a shower that takes the last traces of the headache with it, all he really wants to do is crawl into bed with Josh. Despite his lengthy naps, he's still tired, and Josh, still reading, seems to know that. As soon as Cooper appears, he sets the book aside and raises the blanket in invitation. He slips in beside the other boy easily, the two of them pressed close in the single bed.

"I'm glad you're feeling better," Josh offers, stealing a kiss now as he winds an arm around Cooper as he settles in.

"Thanks to you," Cooper says, his head pressed into Josh's shoulder, "thanks for everything today."