A/N: This is a fan fic for Two Step by Disrupted Original. If you are unfortunate enough to not have read it yet, all you have to do is click a few links and be submersed into a story of actual survival. It is truly a remarkable piece of work and I highly recommend it to anyone, even those not familiar with Left 4 Dead. For those of you who have read the story, this is a short one-shot on Sean trying to connect with an unconscious Nick.

The Bedpan

by Kimmae

There was only so many hours of sleep he could get. Despite weeks of running and hiding on less than three hours a day, Sean found he couldn't get more than a few hours rest in the safe haven of Eight Springs. Lots of food, no zombies, no reason to be on edge, and yet almost every time he woke up he'd start like he overslept on guard duty.

So he wandered the grounds at night, memorized every nook and cranny, read almost every book or note that was lying about. He tried not to bug Isaac too much—he'd only just been discharged from bed rest, and since he'd been attached to his mother's hip. Once in a while the girl with messy hair and the beat-up face—Sarah, he reminded himself constantly—would try to spend time with him. She was just too damn cheery and too much like Terrence to talk to for long, though. He also avoided Dustin adamantly despite wanting to interrogate him on medicine and healthcare all the time. More than the doctor, though, Sean desperately tried not to go to his bedside.

He felt like a clingy girlfriend or something. Sure, the old guy was out of it and wouldn't know if nuclear war waged over his head, but Sean couldn't shake the feeling he was being watched. It burned and itched on his neck when he had his back to his patient, and whenever he turned to make sure he was definitely still comatose, he felt heat rise up behind his face by looking in that direction. So he just stayed as far away as possible from the storage room as he could get, while wanting so badly to go back.

He could only hold his breath for so long.

It was another one of those sleepless nights and he was bored out of his skull. He wandered around the resort, looking for some sort of distraction to keep him from going to that stupid storage room in the stupid bar that was supposed to be a stupid infirmary. He wandered into the hotel and quietly poked about in the little library there for the umpteenth time, not expecting to find anything. It was filled with the most random shit you could think of—maps, brochures, the kind of paperback novels you found in pawnshops and garage sales, textbooks, and even porn magazines (of which Sean always averted his eyes and tried not to think about). As he scanned the small collection, his eyes fell on something he was surprised he hadn't seen before.

Care and Maintenance of Large Breed Dogs.

It was like experiencing minor shock for a second—Sean found himself staring at the book, knowing what it was but feeling realization dawn on him slower than it ought to have. Finally he brushed aside the other articles covering it and picked it up. A golden retriever was featured on the centre of the cover with thumbnails of other big dogs surrounding it. It looked like one of those books made for kids; big font, grade four reading level, lots of pictures.

Like giving in to a guilty pleasure, Sean turned on his heel and didn't think twice before he left the hotel and headed for the bar-turned-hospital, book tucked tightly under his good arm.

It had been conflicting, trying to find reasons to see Nick and reasons to stay away. He wanted to believe that he didn't hunger for approval from the man, but wanted nothing more than to subtly draw it out in bits and pieces. He felt stupid when he was mothering Nick and useless when he was away. He wanted to apologize and he wanted to argue. Most of all, he wanted to take back what he'd done.

Once Sean entered the bar, he tiptoed silently in the dark. Everyone was asleep but him, and he knew Dustin would raise hell if disturbed. It took him awhile to navigate in pitch black but Sean managed to cross the bar to the back hallway where the storage/sick room was located. Holding his breath, Sean gently grasped the door handle and twisted it ever so slowly.

He couldn't see a thing—not if Rob was stretched out at the foot of the bed, one ear perked and tail wagging; not if Izzy had decided to visit during the night and was curled up on the bed again; not even if, by some wild miracle, the old guy himself was awake. Sean strained his ears for a moment, dead silence filling them. Then came the faint, rattling rasp of breathing.

Nick was sleeping.

Sean cracked the door wide enough to slip through before gently easing it shut again. Then he transferred the book under his splinted arm and reached out to grope around blindly, searching for the bed or the broomstick acting as an IV stand. He was afraid to move, should he trip or kick Rob or otherwise make a giant blunder that would wake the dead.

"Rob," he whispered so quietly he barely breathed it. "Rob, where are you?"

He heard a light pat-pat. Rob's tail brushing the floor. Sean used it as a homing beacon.

"Rob, again." Pat-pat-pat. "One more time." Pat.

Sean gave a wide berth to where he was certain Rob was and eventually touched wall. He then inched along until his fingers brushed against the TV tray he'd set up beside Nick's bed. From memory he reached down to where he kept the small pocket flashlight and grasped it like he could see it. He liked to pretend that it was from his adept kinesthetic skills rather than the fact he had done this dozens of times before and always left the flashlight in the same place. Sean made sure it was pointing to the wall before he twisted the nob and turned it on.

A pale blue light filled the room. In the dim light Sean could see Nick, impossibly pale and even thinner, crumpled up on the bed like a discarded napkin. He was upright as he usually was to help him breathe properly, and he had a chunk of the blanket bunched up under his arm as if to mimic cuddling with something. Most of his legs were left exposed.

Sean put the book down on the tray and went to the shelf on the wall to collect another blanket. He replaced the comforter with the flashlight and unfurled it slowly, all the while Rob watching him with pointed interest, and gently laid it out over Nick's feet. He resisted the urge to tuck it under his legs—that was just a step too far, and Rob was watching him just too damn closely.

"I brought you something," Sean dared to mutter. He waited to see if Nick remained asleep. He did. "Reminded me of you."

He looked to Rob. "Reminded me of how beat up you are, actually." The dog waged his tail.

After a moment of contemplation, Sean rounded the bed and checked Nick's IV. The bag was full and dripping steadily. Then Sean put his ear close to Nick's chest without actually touching him. There was still a wet rattle whenever he took in a shallow breath, but Sean was hopeful that it sounded far better than before. Carefully lifting the blanket (as to not pull it out from under Nick's arm), Sean checked the bedpan. The stench of stale piss invaded his nose.

Normally Sean would have acted disgusted and made some sort of snide remark to Nick about pissing shit, but instead he found himself conscientiously planning how to remove and clean the piss pot without disturbing the patient. He only had one arm to work with, after all—the other was bound in a sling and still very broken.

Ten seconds later found Sean unlacing his shoes and stepping out of them. It was a crazy idea, but he was determined to do it, no matter how ridiculous the means.

Sean stuck his arms out to the sides and slowly lifted one foot off the ground—Graceful like crane, he thought inanely and suppressed the urge to giggle—before he slowly slid it under the covers and just under Nick's spindly legs. The man barely had anything to him; Sean was sure they were of a size, despite Nick being twenty years his senior. He lifted his leg a bit and tented Nick's, then carefully reached down and slowly slid the pan out from underneath his patient's ass. Nick sunk into the bed where his pan used to be, grumbled once, coughed weakly twice, and fell silent once more.

Sean held himself awkwardly in order to keep his balance as he retracted his leg. He then grabbed the flashlight off the shelf with his teeth and awkwardly tried to open the door with his fingertips on his injured arm. He went down the hall to the bathroom, poured the urine out in a stall, and turned on a gentle stream in the sink to slowly rinse out the bedpan.

After all, it was his fault Nick was out of it right now, his fault the miserable douche needed to use a can in bed in the first place. A fever and pneumonia. Jesus, how hadn't he thought of that?

You were thinking about helping him, Sean thought, trying to reason with himself. You were thinking about his life. It was any miracle the three of them were able to walk away from that massacre—well, him and Nick could walk, Isaac needed carrying. They should have all suffered the same fate Terrence had. Maybe he was just so overwhelmed by the fact that he wasn't dead and they were alive and they were going to make it that he didn't fully think through if wrapping Nick's broken ribs was a good idea or not. What if he'd done the same to an infected wound? What if Nick had gotten blood poisoning or developed gangrene, and Sean just slapped a bandage on that too? Shit. He needed to know more.

"Weeks? I haven't got weeks," Nick had said.

And Dustin had replied, "If you'd arrived here any later, you wouldn't have hours."

"Fuck."

Sean shut off the tap and let the pan drip-dry in the sink. He leaned on the counter by his elbow and ran his hand through his hair. The only thing that hurt more than his arm was the weight of the guilt pressing down on his chest like Destruct-O was sitting on it. The one time Nick needed him and he'd gone and fucked it up.

And Nick... Nick distrusted him now, he knew that beyond a doubt. Before he fell into a fever-induced stupor, his body language screamed louder than his words did. The looks he gave, the way he recoiled like a wounded dog backed into a corner. And Sean wanted so bad to fix it. How to do that was just as much a mystery as how he'd managed to earn any sort of trust on Nick's part to begin with.

Thanks a million, Sean.

It wouldn't have hurt nearly as much coming from anyone else.

Sean brooded in the bathroom for twenty minutes before snatching the bedpan up and creeping back to Nick's room. He used the same manoeuvre to remove the bedpan in order to put it back in place, almost falling over once. He smoothed the blankets over Nick's legs for longer than necessary.

Sean sat on the floor by the bed and leaned his head against the mattress. He focused on Nick's wheezing, and the sound was oddly placating. "When Isaac's mom saw him for the first time... I don't know. I wanted to leave... the resort. Just go."

Nick wheezed in reply.

"I never really had anybody but my mom, either. And I let her down." He saw her being dragged away again, shrieking, like a five second movie on repeat he couldn't turn off. "I let you down too. I'm s..."

Sean tucked his knees to his chest and buried his face between them. He hid in the darkness for a few minutes, toiling restlessly for the right thing to say.

"Remember when you got us out of D.C.? And we drove around in that Hummer for... God, however long that was? D'you think we'd ever been able to do that without you?"

Another rattling sigh.

"No, me neither." He paused. "I remember when you kicked me out of the car and made me chase it." Then he snorted.

Rob wagged his tail. Sean patted the floor next to him, and the dog came. He rested his hand on the scruff of Rob's neck and absentmindedly scratched. What he really wanted to say kept catching in his throat and choking him. It was several minutes of silence before Sean took a deep breath and said:

"I'm different because of you."

The world did not shift under his feet, nor did explosions go off or alarms scream in his ears. He'd taken the plunge and resurfaced, unscathed. And Nick continued to breathe feebly, like nothing of importance had changed.

"I know you wish it was me instead of Terrence." Sean swiped at his eyes and sniffed, shaking his head. Don't do that. "I do t..."

Rob craned his neck and tried to lick at Sean's cheeks. He tried to shove the dog away but eventually just let him do it. Then he buried his face in Rob's fur and let go of the sob he'd been holding back.

It was hard to tell, but he vaguely knew he was in some sort of dream. Had to be, because Terrence was there, and part of Sean accepted it as normal that his friend was playing Nintendo while the other part of him knew it could never happen again. Isaac was nudging him insistently in the ribs while laughing, and he kept trying to ward him off and tell him to stop, but his arms felt thick and sluggish and he could barely lift them. It was when he tried unsuccessfully to shout at Izzy to knock it off that he made the concrete connection that he was indeed asleep and needed to be on guard duty—

He jerked awake and flailed his limbs, hissing when a shot of pain ran up his splinted arm. First he saw a foreign shoe, then looked up frantically to see Dustin towering over him. Half of his face hurt from where he had fallen asleep against Nick's bed.

Shit. Shit shit shit.

"Afternoon, Reynolds," Dustin said.

"Afternoon?" Sean blurted. He was suddenly very aware of the smell of feces in the room.

"I didn't want to wake you earlier; you looked like you were having the best sleep of your life. Being near him give you peace of mind?"

Sean shot up to his feet and sidestepped away from the bed. "No," he said with a scoff.

"If you say so." Dustin turned to the bed. "I've really got to get this bedpan out before the stink seeps into the walls."

Sean felt like he'd just been caught doing something he shouldn't have, although Dustin didn't act as if anything was out of the ordinary. He hadn't meant to sleep in Nick's room, and that he'd slept so long...

As Dustin threw back Nick's covers and prepared to take out the bedpan, Sean felt a bristling sense of territorial invasion setting his insides on fire. "Let me do it."

Dustin looked at him over his shoulder and snorted. "With what? A system of ropes and pulleys?" He nodded at Sean's broken arm. "I've got it, Reynolds, just relax."

"I did it last night," Sean snapped, shouldering next to the doctor. Dustin stepped aside and let Sean throw back the covers. Then, realizing he'd look like a complete idiot using the same methods as before, said, "I might actually need some help," with the utmost defeat weighing on his words.

Dustin moved to the other side of the bed. "I'll lift him, you get the pan, all right?" He slid his arms underneath Nick's lower back and legs and raised him like he weighed less than the covers. Sean reached in and slid the pan out confidently—

—then coughed and spluttered and nearly dumped its contents on the floor.

"Jesus Christ!" Sean shouted. "Ugh, why is it chartreuse?"

"Don't act like your shit doesn't stink," Dustin chastised, throwing the blankets back over Nick. "Months of not eating right will do that to you. I thought you said you did this already, anyway, what's the big surprise?"

Sean focused on breathing through his mouth (though he could still vaguely taste the scent) and glared at Dustin. "It's not a surprise."

"Well, then, let's get this shit cleaned up." Dustin giggled at his own private joke and led the way out of the room. As Sean turned to close the door behind him, he caught sight of Nick sleeping peacefully on the bed.

He was no longer bunching the blanket to him; his hand was stretched out over the side of the bed, hanging just over the spot Sean had slept during the night.

"Is he awake or something?"

Sean jumped. Dustin was staring at him expectantly. "No."

"Then hurry up. The stench is really starting to get to me."

It barely bothered Sean anymore.

He let his eyes linger on Nick for just a second more before he followed Dustin down the hall.