Incredibly short, but I just wanted Billy/Teddy fluff while they're at home. Also, this is set shortly after Teddy moves in with Billy
Babying
"You feeling okay?" Teddy asks when Billy rubs his forehead for what seems like the hundredth time in the past hour.
Billy digs the point of his pencil into the corner of his calculus book. "Yeah. Just a killer headache." He runs his hand through his hair, sighing softly when Teddy's thick fingers join in and scrub gently at his scalp. He leans into the touch for a moment before dragging himself to a standing position. "I think I'll take a nap and finish my homework later. I feel like I just took Thor's hammer to the head," he mumbles, turning around to stumble towards his bed.
"You did take a piece of concrete to the head the other day," Teddy points out, biting his lip as he watches Billy drop into the bed and roll himself into a cocoon of blankets.
"I'll be fine." Billy's hand waves it off from behind the tuft of hair visible from the top of the blankets.
Teddy frowns but just shakes his head and goes back to his own homework. It's hard sometimes, okay, all the time, to balance their superhero pains and aches and troubles with something as trivial as homework and school.
"Billy has a headache," Teddy says when he goes downstairs to get a snack. He's always been a big eater, probably due to the amount of energy it takes to shapeshift, and it mortified him when he first began staying with the Kaplans to realize in only a week he'd gone through their entire cupboard. Thankfully, Billy's mom had only said something about growing boys and made sure to buy more boxes of protein bars and other healthy snacks for him. It was little things like that which had made Teddy feel infinitely more comfortable about living with the Kaplans.
Mrs. Kaplan looks up from the stew she's currently stirring some vegetables into and says, "Thank you for letting me know, Teddy. Did he take an aspirin for it?"
"No, he's taking a nap right now, so I'll ask him if it went away when he wakes up. But he did hit his head the other day when we were chasing some muggers, so I just want to make sure it's not cause of that."
Mrs. Kaplan's cheeks crinkle as she smiles, and her eyes soften from business-like motherly efficiency to true affection as she cups his cheek. Her hand is warm and smells like garlic and broth. "Thank you for watching out for him, Teddy. It makes me feel so much better about what you boys are doing."
Teddy resists the urge to put his own hand above hers, if only because he knows that the hand he'll be touching will be bonier, older and more fragile than the one he remembers feeling for sixteen years.
Teddy laughs when Billy's mom comes in the room and fusses over Billy, checking his forehead and forcing him to take an aspirin and to let her know if it gets worse. It's particularly funny because not half an hour before, Teddy had done the exact same thing.
"Really guys, stop babying me." He sulks and sinks lower in his chair until his chin touches his textbook.
Teddy laughs again and continues reading his history book, sliding his hand to Billy's crossed ankle and squeezing gently.
Thanks for reading!