AN: Prompts will be displayed at the bottom to avoid them potentially giving away things.
Blood and Biscuits
AlwaysPadfoot
Dean kept up a jog as he passed the engineering building.
The last thing he wanted was for his professor to notice him skipping out on the lecture that started in eight minutes time. After spending the weekend at home, he hadn't done any reading, and was planning to skip the lecture to catch up.
It was a lie that all students told themselves.
It was bitingly cold out today. Icy patches had remained on the ground all day, and Dean could see his breath in front of his face as he slipped through the crowds of students. Everyone was wrapped up; everywhere he looked students had scarves coiled around their necks and coats pulled tightly around their bodies. Dean had just come from the gym, so he stood out from the crowd in shorts. He didn't mind — the jog was keeping him warm.
"Dean?"
He recognised the voice even over the music in his ears; it was his lecturer. Dean injected some speed into his jog, rounded the nearest corner, and went through the next available open door.
Stopping to catch his breath, Dean leant over, taking his earphones out, and switching off the music on his phone. That had been too close.
"Hi there, are you here to donate blood?"
Dean looked up to see a blonde girl smiling at him, clutching a clipboard to her chest. He gaped at her, at a loss for words, until he finally cleared his throat and answered her question. "Um, yeah, I am."
It was donate blood, or go back outside and risk the wrath of his lecturer.
Dean was lead through to a quiet room, given a form to fill in and a pint of water to drink. He'd never donated before, but he leant over the form, filling it in carefully with a black pen. The questions were relatively simple, and Dean had them finished far quicker than he'd initially thought it would take. He busied himself reading an information booklet whilst he waited patiently for the blonde to return.
His flatmates were never going to believe that he willingly had blood taken from his body to avoid going to lecture.
Eventually, Dean was taken through to see a nurse, who went through everything with a fine tooth comb, before pricking his finger to check for something Dean hadn't listened to the reasoning behind.
"You're good to go, Mr Thomas," she said with a smile. "If you just take a seat outside someone will take you for donation."
As he stood and thanked her, Dean felt a flicker of fear in his stomach. Not letting it show in his face, he did had he was told, and sat in the empty plastic chairs outside the makeshift cubicle. Maybe donating blood for the sake of skipping a lecture wasn't one of his brightest ideas. Perhaps he could slip away now, before they came to take him through to donate.
This whole thing certainly wouldn't be a story to tell his flatmates if he chose to runaway.
Dean took some even breaths. He'd had immunisations and blood tests before now; he was perfectly capable of doing a good thing and donating blood. It would make up for the bad karma he was going to get for not going to class and purposely ignoring his lecturer.
Finally, the blonde girl that had greeted him came back.
Dean wasn't sure whether he was grateful or not. But the next thing he knew, he was following her to a room with four donation beds in. Only one of which was occupied, by a familiar face.
Well, somewhat familiar.
The guy on the bed opposite him looked up, and Dean met his curious gaze with a smile. Recognition registered on his face as he tried to place him in his memory. Dean could have helped — they were on the same course — but he was too busy being prepared for donation. A nurse got between them unintentionally and set Dean up in a blink of an eye.
It didn't even hurt.
Dean watched as she took three samples from another tube and then watched as crimson filled the tubes, spiralling down into a bag sitting beneath the bed.
"You feel okay?" she asked.
"Yeah, I'm fine," Dean responded.
"Great."
She said all he had to do was shout if he needed her, but Dean was sure he wouldn't. Stepping over to the side of the room, the nurse went to fill in forms at a table not to far away and left Dean sitting directly opposite the other guy.
"Dean, right?"
He was Irish. That was a pleasant surprise; Dean had gotten used to thick northern accents since being here at Sheffield University.
"Yeah, yeah, it is," Dean responded. "You're supposed to be in the lecture I'm skipping, right?"
The brown-haired boy gave him a cheeky grin and held his hands up — the best he could with a needle in his arm — feigning surrender.
"You got me."
Dean found himself smiling in response, unable to resist the look the Irishman was giving him. He shifted his position slightly, sure his legs were going to fall asleep at some point, and then looked back over to him.
"How come you're skipping lecture?" Dean asked him.
"Donating blood is far more fun."
Dean had a feeling he was being sarcastic. Although, those lectures were as boring as watching grass grow, and Dean was far more captivated by rough-around-the-edges man sat across from him. He looked pale, and yet most students did, but he had a twinkle in his blue eyes that Dean loved. It was mischievous.
"You must be freezing your bollocks off," he said to Dean, nodding to his uncovered legs.
"Oh, nah," Dean responded, "I just came from the gym."
The other boys eyes appeared to took Dean up and down, and then he smiled. "Of course you did."
Dean arched an eyebrow. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"You seem like the gym type," he responded.
The other boy clearly had no concern whether he'd offended Dean or not with that comment. He hadn't. He smiled at him and leant across, stretching his hand across the space between them. Dean reached over and took it.
"I'm Seamus," he said.
"Dean, but you already knew that?"
"That I did," Seamus grinned, sitting back on the bed. "You donated before?"
Dean shook his head and then explained to Seamus how exactly he'd ended up sitting here with a needle in his arm. Seamus laughed in all the right places during Dean's story, which he appreciated greatly. It was an easy conversation — something Dean didn't have very often — so he took comfort in that. They chatted back and forth until eventually, the nurse finished up, and came to check back on them. She stood in between them both, eyeing the bags of blood they were filling.
"Mr Thomas, you're bleeding nice and fast," she said. "You're playing catch up with Seamus here."
Dean noticed she used his first name, and shot Seamus an inquisitive look.
"You need someone else to run rings around you, Poppy," he said.
So they did know one another. The nurse — Poppy — exhaled and gave the other student a look that made Dean feel the embarrassment that Seamus should have been feeling. He didn't even blink in response; he just sat there with that goofy look on his face whilst Poppy removed the needle from his arm. Dean watched with mild interest as she stuck labels on Seamus' bag of blood and scribbled some things down, before returning to Dean's bed. Poppy repeated her actions with him, his fingers now pressed over a cotton ball covering the hole in his arm.
"Right, Mr. Thomas," she said, "you can go back to whatever marathon you were running."
Poppy gave him a look as though she was judging him, and Dean felt his cheeks heat slightly as he slid off the bed. She directed the two boys down the hall, where apparently they would find snacks and hot drinks.
Dean had never expected to be sitting — with a plaster over his arm and a cup of tea cupped between his hands — beside a deliciously sexy Irishman. He knew that this was far better than the lecture he could have been sat in, bored to tears. The two boys sat side by side at the table, sharing a packet of chocolate biscuits lying open on the table with their cups of tea.
It was nice.
They talked for a solid thirty minutes, helping themselves to more tea and biscuits as they did. Dean kept losing himself in Seamus' Irish lull as they spoke. They both had a vested interest in football, both studied the same subject, both enjoyed each others company as far as Dean could tell. They added one another on Facebook, and said that line of we should go for drinks, and when the time came that they stood to leave, Dean knew, he had to see Seamus again. He had to make it happen.
And he would.
Comp/Challenge & Prompts:
- Monthly OneShot Challenge: For Sophy [Deamus / Setting: Winter]
- FanFiction Resolutions Challenge: 43. Write a gift-fic for a Ravenclaw
- Conversation Starter Prompt Challenge: 12. What do you love about Winter? Write a story set in Winter.
- Insane House Challenge: 292. Scenario - School/College/Uni - We're both donating blood in the blood donation van in the quad to get out of the same class
- 365 Prompts Challenge: 9. Action - Running
- Tea Challenge: 6. Irish Breakfast - Write about Seamus Finnigan.
- Writing Club [Showtime] - 9. Patience (word)
- Writing Club [Count Your Buttons] - 4. Phone (object) 2. Marathon (word)
- Dragon Appreciation Challenge
Word Count: 1523 — not inc. notes, titles, or ANs.