Title – Bathtubs and Marshmallows
Author – QueenWillie
Pairing – Daniel/Wilhelmina
Rating – PG
Summary – In response to Meade_slater drabble game. Prompt used - Marshmallows (it takes a while, but marshmallows are involved, I promise lol)
Also before reading you should know…this is PURE FLUFF!!
After telling himself he wouldn't about a hundred times that day, Daniel found himself knocking on her door. She had been out of the office all day, a perfect time to purge her from his system. If he didn't have to see her, he wouldn't think about her and if he didn't think about her he wouldn't end up doing what they had been doing every night for almost a month.
Not seeing her had made it worse, had made him wonder why she wasn't there, what was she doing. Marc had fed him some line about her being sick. Please…robots don't get sick. Which meant she was up to something…or with someone? He didn't know which bothered him more.
He knocked on her door again, growing more impatient with every second. He finally heard footsteps coming towards the door and listened as the chain scraped back. The door opened, she stood wearing her long black robe. His eyes drank in the form of her body he could make out beneath the silk, his eyes travelled up to her face, she looked…..
Like Hell.
'Daniel, why are you here. If I'm too ill to come into the office, then I'm too ill to give you a happy.'
She moved to close the door, but his hand stopped it. He studied her more closely, eyes puffy, nose red, hair scraped back into something he was sure resembled a ponytail when it began and a handful of Kleenex.
'You're sick?'
'Thank you for your astute diagnosis Dr Meade, now if you'll excuse me I have an urgent meeting with my duvet and Lifetime TV.'
Before she could try and shut the door again he pushed it open and stepped inside. That she didn't try and stop him was a testament to how weak she was feeling. He closed the door behind him and turned to her, she was rubbing her hands up and down her arms furiously.
'You're shivering.'
'Well it's freezing out here.'
He put a hand to her forehead.
'Jesus, how can you be cold, you're burning up.'
'It's called the flu dumbass.'
'Nice to know it hasn't affected your sparkling personality.'
She lifted a hand to her head and swayed on the spot, Daniel's arms instantly caught her.
'Whoa, you should be in bed.'
'That's precisely where I was until an insane, horny, pain in my ass started banging on my door.'
Rolling his eyes and choosing to ignore her, he lowered one arm to her knees and lifted her.
'What are you doing?'
'Putting you to bed.' He started walking to her bedroom.
'No, no, no put me down. You're not supposed to see me like this, all pathetic and needy. I'm the ball buster remember.'
He smiled as he laid her in the bed, 'It's ok, It's actually kinda nice to have proof you're human.'
She narrowed her eyes at him, 'You know, when I feel better I'll have a catty comeback for that.' She tried to give him one of her trademark glares but instead a coughing fit wracked her body.
He reached for the glass of water next to her bed and held it to her lips, she took small sips in between coughs.
'Thank you Nurse Ratched, you can go now.'
'No you need someone to watch you.'
'Daniel, it's the flu not the plague.'
'Well at least call Marc.'
'I will not!'
'If you don't I will.' He pulled out his cell phone.
'Please do, but make sure you stay in here. I'd love to hear that conversation "Oh hello Marc? Yes I just came over for my nightly jump on your boss…"' She arched an eyebrow at him.
He opened his mouth, thought better of it and snapped his phone shut.
'I thought so.'
He huffed and crossed his arms. 'Well then I'm staying.'
She frowned, knowing she couldn't physically remove him in her current state.
'Fine!'
XXXXXXXXXX
She could hear him banging about in her kitchen, which was doing nothing to help her pounding head.
'Could you make anymore noise?' She asked in a pained voice when he cam back in the room.
'Sorry I was looking for something to help your fever.'
'Why are you being nice?'
He shrugged and busied himself with the items he had brought in with him. 'You're sick.'
'Yeah, but still…we don't do nice. Arguing, undermining, hot angry hate sex, that's what we do.'
He sighed and turned to her, he didn't have an answer for her. 'Wilhelmina, for once…shut up.' He stuck a thermometer in her mouth.
She continued to stare at him with a confused look on her face. Between that and the thermometer sticking out her mouth it was all he could do not to laugh. But sick or not, this was not a woman you could laugh at.
He removed the thermometer and his eyes widened. 'Jesus, you're temperature's 102.' His hands went to her head and her cheek, he could feel the heat burning them.
'Daniel, stop pawing me!'
He removed his hands and poured some of the medicine he had found.
'No I'm not taking that, it makes me loopy.'
'You're temperature is sky high, shut up and drink it.'
'That's the second time you've told me to shut up.'
'Why do you have to make everything so difficult, drink it.'
'No.'
He stood up from the bed and lifted her Prada purse, he tilted the bottle over it. 'Drink it, or it goes in the swag.'
She downed it.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Half an hour later, the medicine had done precisely jack, except what she had predicted it would and made her loopy. Her temperature had increased to 104 and she was currently laughing insanely at a commercial. Daniel was watching her in panic, he knew it wasn't serious enough to take her to hospital but he was way over his head. Think Daniel think, he remembered when he was young and he or Alex had been ill, his mother used to….wait…no…he had to.
Leaving Wilhelmina to laugh at the dancing toothbrushes he snuck out her room and dialled his mom.
'Mom, listen, I'm at….a friends house and she HE's not feeling well her HIS temperature's up at like 104 and the medications doing nothing…what do I do!?'
As his mother spoke on the other end, he screwed up his face. Wilhelmina was not going to like this.
'Uh huh…I see…okay Thanks Mom'
Just as he hung up, the door opened and Wilhelmina was standing there with a completely un-Wilhelmina like goofy grin. 'Did you say Mom? Was that Clare? Did you tell her I said Hi?'
Daniels eyebrows shot up and he looked at her like a rabbit caught in the headlights. 'Uh…yeah sure, she says hi and she hopes you feel better soon.' He tried to manoeuvre her back to bed.
She let herself be guided by him, taking clumsy steps back to bed. 'Awww, that's nice. I like your mom…she has nice hair.'
Daniel nodded slowly, 'Yesssss, very pretty hair.'
She turned quickly and almost lost her balance, 'But not as pretty as mine!'
'Ok….gotcha, you have the prettiest hair in all of hairdonia, back into bed.'
She got into the bed and laughed, 'Hairdonia…did we do a photo shoot there?'
He rolled his eyes and went to her en suite.
XXXXXXXXXXXX
When he emerged from the bathroom, she was asleep. He silently thanked god as it made what he had to do a whole lot easier. His mother had said the best way to lower a temperature was to put them in a cool bath. Not that a wet, soapy Wilhelmina was necessarily a bad thing he thought and he felt his body react to the images that were forming, no, no stop it Daniel, she's ill. He checked her temperature again, hoping it had dropped, still 104 and climbing. He moved to lift her from the bed and she stirred. Shit
'Whaddya doin'?'
'Your temperature is really high, I'm just gonna put you in a bath to help you cool down.' He whispered and got ready to fight her when she refused.
She surprised him and nodded sleepily against his arm and let him lift her from the bed and he carried her into the bathroom. He had filled the tub to the top with bubbles to hide her body. He had seen her naked dozens of times, but this was something different, intimate.
When she was in the tub, she was still half asleep thanks to her fever and her body kept slipping away from him making it near impossible for him to hold her above water. As she slipped away for the fifth time he realised there was only one way to keep her still in the bath, he steadied her with one hand and removed his clothes with the other, he looked up and sighed.'
'God forgive me.'
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
She had fallen asleep against his chest in the bath and he had stayed there for longer than he needed to. Looking down at her lying on him he had felt a rush of…..something. He couldn't find a word to put to it. Over the past month he had grown used to the rush of lust he felt accompanying the malice he felt for her. But this wasn't lust. Seeing her lying there, peaceful, content…fragile, had brought something else to the surface. What, he didn't know, and he didn't want to.
He was sitting on her bed, wrapped in a towel and he had wrapped her in the massive terry robe he found in the bathroom. It drowned her and obviously didn't belong to her and he tried to ignore the stab of jealousy that came with the realisation it was another mans.
He made sure she was settled on the bed and moved to the bathroom to dress. When he came back she was awake and propped up against the pillows.
'How are you feeling?'
'Better, a lot better.' She spoke softly and she was looking at him with something he had never seen before, gratitude.
He walked over to her and felt her head, 'You've cooled down a lot but you're still a bit warm.'
'I'm sure the bath helped.' She said with her eyebrows arched.
'I…uh…your temp.'
'It's fine Daniel.' She was smiling. 'Thank you.'
'You're welcome.' He was smiling awkwardly and he could feel himself beginning to go red, he shuffled on his feet like a nervous schoolboy. This was too nice for them…for her especially.
'I should go.'
He was at her bedroom door when she called him. 'Daniel wait…'
He turned round.
'You said yourself my temperature's not all gone. Who's going to look after me, I'm still ill….ahem ahem.' She said with an over the top fake cough.
He grinned at her. 'I suppose I can't leave you yet can I? Can I get you anything?'
She bit her lip in concentration, 'Oh…can I have hot chocolate?'
He smiled at how childlike she sounded, 'Sure, anything else?'
'Can you put some of those teeny tiny marshmallows in it?'
'I think that can be arranged.' He laughed as he saw her wiggle her feet under the covers.
20 minutes later he returned with a cup of hot chocolate which was probably more marshmallow than hot chocolate. He walked over to hand it to her, she was asleep again. He sat it down on the table next to her and frowned, should he stay or should he go? Hell, he had pushed into her apartment, told her to shut up, made her do something she didn't want to do plus stripped her off and put her in a cold bath.....what was one more bullet?
He took of his shirt and got into bed with her, he moved the hair from her face. Sure she was asleep and wouldn't feel it, he kissed her forehead gently.
When she woke in the morning, her first thought was that it had been a dream. Fevers make you hallucinate strange things and a cold bath with Daniel Meade…was definitely up there. Feeling the body behind her, she woke up fully. He was here, snoring lightly and holding her. She looked at the table next to her and saw the remnants of the teeny tiny marshmallows bobbing in the cup. She remembered his lips on her forehead when he thought she was asleep and she smiled.
They used to have arguing, undermining and hot angry hate sex.
Now they had bathtubs and marshmallows.
The End