found an unfinished trevor/jamie ducks era injury fic in my writing doc from years ago... we used to have fun....
You'd almost think Trevor was the one nursing a season-ending injury with how restless he gets.
"Your eyes look so crazy after, Jim"
The closest Jamie can get to asking what the fuck Trevor is talking about is a lazy, "Hm?" The codeine's already working its magic, his shoulder melting off his body and his body melting off his brain. Give him ten and he'll be doing astrophysics in another realm.
"Your pupils get huge," Trevor explains, or doesn't explain actually, because Jamie still has no idea what they're discussing. Trevor's leaning in, very close to his face, eyes jumping back and forth between Jamie's in a way that borders on hypnotic. Nauseating, almost.
Jamie blinks slowly, fighting an uphill battle to peel his eyelids back up. He hms again, then licks blearily at his teeth because his mouth has gone all cottony. Trevor has the worst conversational timing. When he touches Jamie's face, it's like music playing in another room. Some Jamie in another dimension has two of Trevor's fingers on his jaw, and this Jamie is just barely feeling the pressure through space and time.
"You gotta stop falling asleep up here, JD." Trevor laughing, the puff of his breath making Jamie slow blink again. "Some kid with a go-go gadget lens on his iphone is gonna sell pics of you conked out on the roof to TMZ or Barstool or something."
That makes Jamie snort, at least. He tries to say I'm not you but what comes out is closer to, "mmmmnutyuh."
Trevor seems to get it though, beaming at him. It's too much face for the amount of brain Jamie has left. "But you're with me, so you're about as famous as they come these days, Jim. And besides- Olli Matta."
Cup parade, Jamie wants to argue, but can't summon the bother. He's started to suspect Trevor saves stupid little arguments for the minute he sees Jamie take his pills, just so he can win easier. Seems like the kind of cheating he'd get up to.
In the time it takes Jamie to work through this line of thought, he's somehow ended up horizontal on the couch, covered with the good soft blanket that usually stays in the living room so they don't leave it out in The Elements. Hm, he thinks, meaning to close his eyes-- except they've already closed. How funny.
Jamie is weaning himself off the pills. Jamie is in what could delicately be called a bad fucking mood. Trevor is not helping.
"You're smelling pretty rank, Jimbo."
Jamie gnaws silently on a peanut butter protein bar since someone ate all the chocolate chip.
"Maybe that's what you're going for, your new thing, huh? Marking the whole apartment with your stink, like a dog."
Gnaw, gnaw, gnaw. If he gets enough of the protein bar in his mouth, he won't be able to snap at Trevor even if he wants to, all his spit dried right up.
What with the peanut butter.
"I'm just saying, James, imagine if you had a lady friend over, and the first thing that hits her when she opens the door is just week-old armpit--"
Jamie swallows through sheer force of will, the peanut butter bar heading to his stomach in roughly the same constitution it arrived in his mouth. "Can you," he says, not wincing at the horrible rough drag of his own voice, "shut the fuck up."
There's not even a pause, just Trevor laughing like they're having a good time, bouncing around the kitchen island while he haphazardly prepares a mostly pre-made smoothie. "Can you take a shower, is the real question here, Jimmy."
I hate you, Jamie thinks, hard, at the back of Trevor's head as he bounds out of the kitchen, happy, healthy, wholey fucking annoying.
Later, on the roof. Jamie is closing in on his one pill of the day time and he's itching for it, consciousness narrowed down to his shoulder and how it doesn't fit right, never mind pain. Sometimes he just stands in one place and tries to imagine holding a stick, taking a shot, but it feels like a language he can't speak at the moment.
"Mean what?" he asks, tired, trying to focus on the low music coming through their home-brew speaker set-up. He can't place the beat, which is absurd-- it's the same playlist every night.
Trevor holds his palms up, waving them in a gentle shhh-ing motion to cut Jamie off before he can build up a head of steam. "I'm not being a dick this time, JD, I'm really asking- can you? With the shoulder?" His eyes skip down from Jamie's face to the sling, mouth twisting unhappily. "It can't be easy."
And the truth is, it's not easy. He barely feels like standing up long enough to wash his hair, never mind how he can't get a good scrub at the pit on his uninjured side. Putting on deodorant afterwards is like a circus trick. At a really boring, frustrating circus.
Suddenly, the whole thing starts coming down on him, the weeks of shitty feelings he's mostly managed to hold off by popping a pill whenever words like bullshit or unfair start bouncing around his head. Jamie screws his face up, quickly turning away from Trevor and the soft glow of the roof lights, trying to tuck himself into the bunched hood of his jacket where it's crumpled up on his good shoulder.
He does not tear up, but it's a close call. And there's Trevor, scooting across the couch until he's plastered to Jamie's side, careful of the sling, saying hey, hey, hey, in an unbearably soft voice that is so very un-Trevor. He's so long, gawky, his legs and arms touching Jamie all over.
Jamie makes himself breathe, a shaky suck of air that gets him the full bouquet of his own hoodie. "I do stink," he mumbles wetly, and Trevor laughs, surprised, into the crook of his neck.
"I wouldn't lie to you, would I?" He doesn't unplaster himself from Jamie's side, though, so at least they're both gross. It makes Jamie feel a little better.
Trevor comes back from practice the next morning brandishing a plain white box.
"Kyrre you believe we didn't already have one of these?" he demands, flopping onto the couch beside Jamie and tearing at the cardboard with his short nails. He's not getting very far, but Jamie just woke from an accidental nap and needs a beat to catch up anyway.
"One of what?" he grumbles, casting around for his water glass when it comes out phlegmy and disgusting. He'd love to have one thing about his body right now that wasn't awful.
"I just said," Trevor says, infuriating, finally realizing there's an easy-open tab on one end of the box and yanking it with a victorious shout, "a kyrre."
Jamie gives up on Trevor, reaching for his own phone and guessing at the spelling of whatever the fuck Trevor's saying, letting the Google search bar gently shepherd him in the right direction.
"A stool," he says after a minute, testing the word out. Google's showing him a three-legged stool from Ikea, utterly unremarkable. It costs less than Jamie's standard Chipotle order.
"En avföring," butchers Trevor with relish. He's got the pieces out of the box now, spread across the table with the sparse assembly instructions held up to the light like an old-world explorer examining a lackluster map.
"Why did we need a stool," Jamie yawns, awkwardly levering himself off the couch in search of more water. "We've got chairs. Couches." The floor, honestly. He's not picky.
"It's not just any stool, James, I swear you have no imagination. This is where a good American education could've really helped you out, you know, learning to think outside the box, to see the- the possibility in things, that's what you're missing, JD, and I have to say, it's a real shame-" Trevor's mostly talking to himself now, on a roll just for the sake of rolling as he pulls little pieces out of the box.
"A good American education," Jamie echoes to himself, bemused, as he bends to grab a water out of the fridge.
"I heard that tone, Jim!"
Jamie grins in spite of himself, the feeling foreign on his face. He really has been shitty lately if smiling threatens to cramp his jaw.
"Alright," Jamie allows when he shuffles back into the living room, "what's so special about the stool?"
The stool is starting to look vaguely stool-like, one leg stuck on and the other two splayed in Trevor's lap while he fights with the weird flat little screwdriver. "Well, since you asked so nicely, it's a shower stool."
A beat in which Jamie wonders whether he should feel insulted or guilty that he smells so pathetically bad it drove Trevor to Ikea. Whatever, he probably had a good time there.
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