A/N: Fell in love with "Frostbite", even though I am on OG hardcore spitfire fan. Very saddened by the lack of attention these two get, even as far as portrayal of their childhood friendship, both on the show and in the fandom.
Prompt: Cameron is sick & calls his old BFF for help.
Disclaimer: If I owned YJ, this would be canon. Apologies in advance for any typos.
Ice Packs & Chicken Soup
She snuck into the apartment through the fire escape window, landing on the carpeted floor with minimal noise. Crossbow drawn, she scanned the living room looking for potential foes hiding in the shadows. Sensing none, she moved forward with extreme caution.
As she watched for a surprise attach, she also took note of the sad state of the apartment: Peeling paint on the walls. Cobweb in one corner, something slimy looking – probably mold – growing in a different corner. Clothes strewn all over the floor. A sinkful of dishes that smelled like they had been out for days.
Damn, he didn't use to be this much of a slob she thought, as she moved towards the tiny hallway. The "he" she thought of was Cameron Mahkent, a.k.a Icicle Jr, a.k.a her ex-best friend from her dark past. You know, the past she made a conscious effort every day to try and forget.
Why the hell am I here? she thought
She'd gotten a call several hours ago while she was still in school. She hadn't answered, as the teachers fully enforced their no-cell-phones-in-class policy when it came to her. Of course, this was only after they had figured out she wasn't one of the rich kids whose parents would cry to the school board for the smallest thing. Besides, when she had checked her phone she had seen that it was from a private number, and that a voicemail had been left. She assumed it was a telemarketer.
She hadn't even remembered to check her voicemail until a few hours after school, when she had taken her phone out to text Wally and further procrastinate her own homework. She certainly hadn't expected to hear Cameron's raspier than normal voice coming from her phone.
"Heh Artemis, Arty, Tigress. Wow, your 'leave a message' voice sounds much nicer than I would have thought. Hah. Thought. I'm not good at thinking. Anyway, I'm super sick, and I'm not sure if this a fever dream or not, but I could like, totally use a Tigress with me right now. Pretty sure I'm dying. I mean, I hope not but I don't know." He rambled on like that for a while, until the voicemail cut him off for talking too long. At some point in between his ramblings, he managed to drop an address and reiterate his request for her to arrive. "Please. Wouldn't ask if there was anyone else. Or maybe this is just a dream?"
It was unmistakably Cameron's voice, but they hadn't been on speaking terms for a couple of years now, so why the hell would he call her if he was really sick? And besides, Cameron didn't get sick. She could count on one hand – using one finger – the number of times she'd seen Cameron sick or wounded from anything other than the usual beatings inflicted on him by his father or during training.
Pfft. She wasn't an idiot. No, she wasn't going to fall for such a basic trap. I'm just going to stakeout the address she told herself an hour later, when she was suiting up into her outfit and sneaking out her bedroom window. And when she hadn't been able to identify any noticeable heat signatures from the outside of the apartment, she was just going to get a lay of the land she told herself, as she broke in.
If I get kidnapped by the shadows with the lamest trap ever, I'll never friggin live this down.
That's how she ended up standing at the doorway of the only room in this dinghy apartment, staring at the collapsed figure on the bed. Sensing no obvious tripwires and seeing no one else in the room, she lowered her crossbow – but didn't put it away – and approached the bed.
It was clearly Cameron sprawled out on top of the sheets, his chest rising and falling with shallow breaths. He was outside of his ice-form but his skin had much more color than was normal for him even when he was de-iced. When she got closer she noticed thin droplets of moisture at the top of his forehead, near his spiky hair.
Damn. He really was sick.
Whatever concern she had about this being a trap slipped away as her memory briefly flickered back to the only other time she saw Cameron sick like this – to memories of him throwing up into the toilet and being too weak to even eat himself – and she quickly shut those thoughts out.
His low core temperature protected him from almost ever getting sick, but it was a double-edged sword.
Never getting sick meant having a notoriously weak immune system when he did get sick.
She touched his forehead, and her concern was raised to another level. His skin was slightly warm. Normal temperature for a human being, but several degrees too warm from a cryokinetic.
His eyes fluttered opened, and he groaned. "Now I know I'm dreaming," he muttered, but a small grin spread out over his face. It was quickly overtaken by a violent coughing fit and a grimace of pain.
"Damn it Cam, how long have you been sick like this?" she hissed, trying to rack her brain to think of places she could take him. A hospital? Nope. A free clinic? They wouldn't even know where to start with a cryokinetic. The cave? Absolutely not.
"Uh, like 1 day or-" he started coughing violently again "-Maybe 3? Saturday is the last day I remember," he answered, looking at her now with confusion. "You know you sound pretty real for a dream."
"3 days? It's Friday? Saturday was 5 days ago!"
"You look kind of hotter than I remember too."
"Argh, listen Frostbite-" she instinctively switched to her old nickname for him "-You're not dreaming, but if you don't tell me how the hell you got this sick, you'll be in one big permanent dream."
He opened his mouth but closed it. A dark look crept into his eyes as if he was remembering something painful, but it came as fast as it went. "Ice. I need ice. Too weak to make my own," he answered, choosing to ignore her question.
"Why do you- oh right, you need to lower your body temperature." She frowned at his obvious ignoring of her question, but if he didn't want to tell her then she wouldn't push. To be honest, she probably didn't want to know anyway.
He was, after all, a known villain. Even if the justice system only had him as a juvenile, the Justice League and the Team had him dead to rights on a half dozen felonious activities with other bad guys.
Not the time to be thinking about that she reminded herself, as she made her way to the kitchen.
Her nostrils were immediately invaded by the smell of the rotting food left on week old dirty dishes. It smelt almost as bad Wally's gym shoes. Almost. Opening the freezer, she found several bags of ice laying in there, clearly purchased from a gas station or convenience store. She always found it humorous that ice villains would actually go somewhere to buy their "emergency ice" instead of just making it themselves.
"Think about it A-mis, if we made all our own emergency ice and them something bad happened to us, maybe our ice stash disintegrates! You never know-ow!" exclaimed the young boy, rubbing his arm where his blonde haired friend punched him rather viciously. "Do NOT call me that again frostbite."
She caught herself smiling at the memory, but immediately shoved it back in the recess of her mind. That was a different life. A different time. If she started to remember all the good memories…No, they'd made their choices.
She piled as many bags of ice as she could into her arms and marched back to the room. Plopping the bags of ice down on the floor, she started to get to work.
…
"Put most of it around my six pack. I need to cool my core," groaned a 14-year old Cameron, as a worried looking Artemis hurriedly piled plastic bags of ice on her friend.
"Pfft. What six pack? This stomach is as flat as your jokes," she retorted.
Humor was good. Humor was better than when he was vomiting blood an hour ago, and she was seriously considering calling 911 and blowing their safehouse. Their dads would have killed them.
"Not as flat as your chest," her thoughts were interrupted by Cameron's raspy voice, and she let a little smirk on her face.
Humor was good.
"When you get better, I'm gonna punch you so hard for that."
…
She consciously ignored the obvious six-pack that 18-year-old Cameron Mahkent had developed in recent years. In fact, she couldn't help but note that many of his non-ice features had rounded out. Cameron wasn't exactly a handsome hunk, but his ice armor always greatly distorted his features: His noise looked too big, his facial structure too pointy. The uneven armor made his arms look far scrawnier than they were. No, iced down Cameron had definitely aged well, all things considered.
"I really appreciate this," He murmured in relief, his body greatly appreciating the cooling from the ice. "Honestly didn't think you'd come."
"I'm not sure you were doing much thinking at all when you called," quipped Artemis, but then her brows furrowed in thought with her next question. "How did you even know my number."
"Same number from when you got your first phone. You never changed it. I memorized it remember?"
"Oh."
At somewhat of a loss for words, she kind of stood there in silence, watching him. Cameron's breathing grew more relaxed, less erratic, as his body seemed to be stabilizing. Artemis felt a pang of guilt that she even suspected a trap. Her friend, ex-friend, hadn't even blinked at her presence. She'd come in expecting a kidnapping attempt, and he hadn't even considered the prospect that she would turn him into the League. What did that say about him? What did that say about her? Them?
The silence was deafening.
"Hey uh, have you eaten anything?"
"Uh, no. Why?"
"My wallet is on the kitchen table. You can order some takeout."
"I'm not hungry."
"Yea, well I'm pretty sure I haven't eaten in a millennia." His stomach growled as if on command, emphasizing his point. "And neither me nor my kitchen are in optimal condition right now," he continued, referencing the dismal state of the kitchen.
"In your current condition you'll vomit anything solid."
"I'm a big boy Artemis." At that statement, Artemis raised an eyebrow and leaned against the wall, pointing one finger towards Cameron's general pelvic area.
"Says the guy covered in ice packs and wearing nothing but Black Canary boxers right now."
"I, uh, these were a gift! I didn't want to throw them," he protested, his face turning a slight shade of pink at the realization that yes indeed, he was wearing Black Canary boxers right in front of Artemis.
"Riiiiight." And to think, she felt so bad she was planning to leave without making fun of him. Hah.
"I'm telling the truth!"
"Uh huh well, I'm going to go make some chicken soup before you enter a food coma."
"Oh God. You are gonna make chicken soup."
"It's been a while, but soup was the only thing you would keep down the last time I saw you like this. And I saw an un-Godly amount of ramen packs laying around your kitchen."
"You'll kill me before the starvation does," joked Cameron. How long had it been since he'd had this type of banter with Artemis? Without arrows being slung and ice flying and her mini-justice league team in the background?
"Well I guess I can just leave then. My work here is clearly done," Artemis responded flatly, moving from her spot against the wall towards the bedroom window.
"Wait!" called Cameron said, the urgency in his voice causing her to pause. He hadn't expected her to leave so abruptly and cursed himself for sounding desperate. Hopefully she would just chalk it up to him being sick. "Sorry, I uh, I could use some soup."
A triumphant smirk spread on Artemis's face.
"Yea, thought so."
….
"Artemis you said you knew how to cook soup."
"It's soup isn't it?"
"The chicken in this soup probably feels insulted right now."
"Hey, that's top of the line Crock cooking right there!"
"Yup. Straight from the sewer, just the way I like it."
"Keep talking like that I'll throw you in the sewer."
"As long as you agree to shower me afterwards."
A loud smack revebrated on the walls of the cruddy apartment.
"OUCH!"
…
"Wow, this tastes just as bad as I remember."
His honesty was reward with a gentle punch to the arm.
"Ouch, you're not supposed to hit a sick man."
"That's why I hit a sick boy."
"Oof, that's low, even for you Artemis." He took another sip and gagged dramatically.
"I should have let you starve."
"Please, that'd ruin all your hero cred."
"Yea well, you're the one getting nursed back to health by a hero. Can't imagine that'll go over so well with Dad." The last word in her sentence may as well have been a boom tube sucking out all the oxygen in the room. She remembered too late the pain that topic inflicted, and her sudden discomfort was evident on her facial expression. Cameron meanwhile, tried to keep a playful smile on his face, but it was not in his eyes.
Artemis knew how toxic Cameron's relationship with his father was. He had lived and died by his approval when they were younger, and from the way he almost flinched at the mention of his father, she guessed he'd been dying more than living recently.
"I, I didn't mean anything by that," she offered as an olive branch. She was absolutely not comfortable broaching this topic right now. Of course, there was a time when she had been more than comfortable talking, even coercing information from Cameron about his father issues. Then she would discuss hers, and they would play therapist to each other. It was a bonding experience.
"For what? You don't have anything to apologize for," his bitter response breaking her thoughts.
She didn't answer, and that silence returned. That horrible silence that was so deafening, that never used to exist between them and never had time to exist in the heat of the battle. If this silence was a person, Artemis would have seriously considered killing it. But it wasn't, and she couldn't, so she did the next best thing.
"Well uhm, there's more soup in the kitchen. Enough really for a few days. Uh, get better," she said, moving to get off the bed and towards the fire escape and away from all these memories that she liked to keep stuffed deep down.
But a cool hand grasped her wrist loosely, beckoning her to stay.
"Could you stay the night?" Cameron's voice was a whisper now, but raw with emotion and fatigue.
"I…Cam I-" she stuttered, unsure of what to say. The amount of pure need in his voice physically hurt, because she recognized it from when they were little, and the two kids clung to each other like a lifeboat in a massive storm.
She immediately knew that couldn't reject him outright, so she tried to reason. "I'm in full costume. I don't bring clothes with me. What if one of your friends come knocking?"
"I've got a closet full of clothes. Grab a clean sweater and sweatpants. No one will know who you are," he responded, confidence creeping into his voice when she didn't immediately bash his head in with a crossbow.
"There's only one bed."
"That never stopped us before," he responded, one eyebrow raised. Artemis snorted and crossed her arms over her chest. He couldn't help but roll his eyes.
"Oh come on Artemis, I'm half dead, and I know if I do anything you'll finish the other half off before I could get off a scream."
She stood there, arms crossed, eyes staring not at him but at the empty spot on the bed next to him. If she was kryptonian, Cameron was pretty sure she would have set it on fire with that look.
After what seemed like an eternity, she threw her arms up in exasperation and. "I'm only doing this to make sure you don't end up dead."
…
When she came back in the room a few minutes later, grey sweats & black wonder woman sweater (Seriously, why does he have so many superhero clothes? Artemis wondered), Cameron could have sworn his pulse stopped for a few seconds. Her hair was no longer in a ponytail, instead falling all the way down to waist-length.
She came over and very rudely ripped the blankets out from underneath Cameron. "Don't know how long you've been dying in this blanket. I am not going to be sleeping anywhere near this."
She tossed the old blanket on the floor and wrapped herself in the new blanket she had dug out of his closet.
Despite the piss poor condition of the apartment, Cameron, and everything she had seen here in general, she wasn't particularly worried about the sanitation of the bed. The Cameron Mahkent she knew had been almost OCD about keeping his bed "sanitary", courtesy of one horrible experience with bed bugs in the 5th grade. She wouldn't be surprised if he had changed his sheets while still zombified from whatever sickness ailed him this last week.
It didn't take her long to get snuggled into a comfortable position, and she ignored how not-weird and absolutely familiar this whole situation was. She also ignored the weird feeling of guilt that temporarily encroached her. She was in a bed with a man who was most definitely not her boyfriend, and certainly not on her side of the law.
Whatever. He's practically dying. I'm just keeping an eye on him for the night she told herself, mentally purging thoughts of her speedster boyfriend from her head. He wouldn't understand why she was helping Cameron.
Really, none of the team would.
Feeling Cameron's eyes on her, she opened hers to shoot him one last death glare as if to reaffirm that Yes I will cut your balls off and shove them up your nostrils if you so much as breathe at me funny which was an actual threat she'd once made to him.
"Hey, I'm on my deathbed here. No monkey business," he said in protest, having seen that particular look at least a few dozen times before. Artemis, having wrapped herself in his nicest blanket (how the hell did she even find that so fast?) just turned around to face the opposite direction of him, muttering "Just count yourself lucky I'm here."
He waited almost an hour, until after her breathing had slowed enough that he was sure she was fast asleep.
"I do."
…
"Wake up! Wake up! Cam get up!" hissed Artemis, shaking her friend violently.
"W-what's going on?" he asked groggily.
"Our DADs just walked in the building. If they find us in the same bed-" Cam's eyes shot open as the severity of the situation dawned on him. "Shit!"
He practically fell out of the bed, his vision temporarily blurred as his body reminded him that he was sick. But fear was a bigger motivating factor, and he was going to be more than sick if THE Sportsmaster found him in the same bed as his daughter.
And then his dad would bring him back from the dead, just to kill him all over again for giving Sportsmaster a reason to kill him.
Cameron almost fell three different times scrambling out of Artemis's room, lest he be skinned alive by the hulking brute of a man that was Lawrence Crock.
…
He woke up the next morning to the scent of mint and a face full of blonde on the pillow next to him. He smiled as the jarbled memories of the previous night came back to him. His smile grew wider as he realized he also did not feel like absolute shit.
Ice packs and horrible chicken soup. Who knew? Well, he did. Hence, the phone call to a certain archer. And the bombshell blonde asleep next to him? Well, she'd be gone as soon as she woke up so, best not to make any noise.
Yea. Maybe I should get sick more often.
A/N: I want to eventually make a dedicated multi-chapter fic, but I've got to get all these random one-shot ideas out of my head first. Read & Review!