Title: Look After You
Genre: fluff
Prompt/s: sick!Charlie, fluff, "Love, are you ok?"
Character/s: Charlie, Claire, Aaron, Hurley
Spoilers set in the night just between "One of Us" and "Catch-22"
Original Post Date: 26/06/2007
Summary: When Charlie gets food poisoning, Claire volunteers to look after him and much fluffy goodness ensues!
Disclaimer: 100 fanfictions in this Fandom and I'm still not writing for the show? Well I give up. Title and lyrics in the cut are stolen from "Look After You" by The Fray.
Dedication: requested by Jill as part of my 100 Lost Fanfiction celebrations.
It all started because of the mangoes.
Or rather, it started because of the lack of mangoes. Or the lack of any kind of fruit for that matter. The fact of the matter was that everyone had been pretty slack in the fruit gathering department for a few days now – ever since Sawyer had hosted his sumptuous banquet of several days previous.
So when Charlie went to the kitchen with the idea of bringing a selection of fresh fruit to Claire for dinner he was aghast to find that all of the fresh fruit was gone. In fact, all that remained was a half dozen overripe mangoes, some bruised bananas and a large collection of shrivelled looking passionfruit.
For a moment he felt utterly flattened but then, sighing, he set about finding an alternative. He warmed up one of the pots of oatmeal that was simmering lumpily on a low fire and when it was warm enough, he served out two helpings of it into bowls salvaged from the hatch. He then delved into the new stock of smoked fish and took a handful of the Dharma muesli bars that he knew Claire liked.
She had protested as he was leaving that she still was still feeling a little peaky and as such didn't have much of an appetite. After much coaxing that she needed to regain her strength again after the mysterious illness that had hit her so hard however, she finally gave in and let Charlie go.
When he returned to their shelter, bowls and cutlery stacked up on a roughly hewn wooden tray, Claire glanced up from nursing Aaron. "No fruit?" she guessed as he knelt down and balanced the tray on his knee so he could begin to transfer their dinner onto Claire's little table.
"Not a single sausage," Charlie said glumly, now transferring cutlery on the rickety little table. "But I have oatmeal!" he added brightly, brandishing a slightly warped spoon at her.
Claire laughed as he set the tray aside and tucked into his own bowl enthusiastically but there was something close to jealousy on her face as she watched him eat. Sighing in a resigned sort of way, she glanced down at her son, his face and her own breast hidden by his blue blanket. "I wish you'd hurry up little man," she muttered reproachfully to her son. "Mummy's hungry too you know."
"When he's finished I'll burp him if you like," Charlie said thickly through a particularly large mouthful. "Then you can eat your oatmeal before it gets too cold."
Claire nodded vaguely. "Sure."
Charlie returned to his oatmeal with a renewed vigour and by the time he'd eaten the last spoonful, Aaron had just about had his fill too. Claire readjusted her top to cover herself and then parcelled her son over to Charlie who automatically propped Aaron on his shoulder and began to burp him, alternately using his free hand to pick at the smoked fish and humming between swallows.
"What is that?" Claire asked, peering interestedly at Charlie as he began to gnaw on his first piece of fish. "Is that fish?"
"Yeah. It's been smoked or something I think," Charlie said and pushed the plate towards her to help illustrate his point. "Here, help yourself."
"So it is fish then?" Claire made a face. "Erk – no thanks."
"What's wrong with fish?" Charlie asked, taking another bite and then resuming his burping of Aaron."Trust me, after working in a fish and chip shop for three years?" Claire shuddered. "I got so sick of the taste of it. And then I had this huge craving for battered fish once when I was pregnant with Aaron so I went and got myself fish and chips and I ended up getting food poisoning from it because the fish was off."
"This is like, fish jerky," Charlie pointed out, waving a piece of it around. "How could it possibly go off?"
"Um, by not being cooked properly in the first place?" Claire pointed out. "Or it could have had flies land on it and spread bacteria all over it?" Charlie considered this for a moment, then shrugged and took another bite.
"Tastes okay," he offered around a mouthful. Claire rolled her eyes and continued to scrape her oatmeal around the bowl.
"Oh sure it tastes good now," She pointed her empty spoon warningly at him. "But if you get food poisoning don't say I didn't warn you."
"I'll keep it in mind," Charlie chuckled. Several minutes passed in companionable silence. Charlie slowly polished off the remaining fish. When Claire finally licked her spoon clean she took a closer look at the muesli bars Charlie had scavenged.
"Oh!" she snatched one up and gazed rapturously at it for a moment before tearing the wrapping off with gusto. "You got my favourite!"
Charlie grinned at her as he pushed himself to his feet, Aaron was now lolling sleepily against his shoulder, lulled by Charlie's humming and the rhythmic patting on his back. "Of course I got your favourite Claire – what kind of idiot would I be to not know to get your favourite kind of muesli bar by now?"
Claire grinned back at him, her cheeks bulging and Charlie couldn't help but laugh.
"You look like a chipmunk," he said and he saw Claire flush as he tucked Aaron into his cradle. "You know I really don't understand how you can eat those things. They taste like pencil shavings compacted into a brick."
Claire raised an eyebrow and crossed her arms imperiously as Charlie brushed a hand over Aaron's downy head and then came to sit beside her.
"What?" he said defensively. "I'm not allowed to hate muesli bars now?"
"Nope,"
"Uh huh. But you're allowed to hate fish?"
"That's right."
"C'mere."
Claire frowned, looking more than a little concerned. "Why? So you can breathe your fishy breath all over me and make me feel sick again?"
"No silly," Charlie tugged at her until she was sitting right beside him. "Because I'm going to kiss you. If that's alright of course."
"You're going to taste like fish," Claire protested.
"You're going to taste like muesli," Charlie countered, slinging an arm around her shoulder and gazing at her with wide puppy dog eyes. "And I hate muesli much more than you hate fish."
"And how exactly do you know that?" Claire asked, keeping her face just far enough away to stop any unwanted kissing from happening.
"Because I'm far too smart for my own good?" Charlie guessed cheekily.Claire's eyes flickered down to his lips for a fraction of a second and Charlie shook his head at her, surreptitiously bridging the gap between them. "Go on Claire, you want to kiss me, I know you do."
"Let me guess," she murmured. "You know that I want to kiss you because you're just too smart – right?"
"Something like that," Charlie murmured back, making the distance between them smaller again. "I'm right though aren't I?"
The two of them hesitated for a long moment, lips hovering an inch apart, eyes cast down, breathing shallow and shaky on both accounts.And Claire closed the distance between them gently.
Like most of their kisses, it was brief and chaste. Although the length of it might also have had something to do with Charlie pulling back after only a moment or two and laughing at Claire, "I was right! You do taste like muesli!"
She hit him across the back of the head.
The day had long since faded when Charlie and Claire curled up together beneath their selection of airline blankets. Charlie was delighted when she allowed him to trace his fingertips down onto her hip and stay there and the two of them fell into an easy slumber.
It was still dark when Charlie started to come out of the darkness of sleep and back into the world of conscious thought. His subconscious might have been happy enough but Charlie's body only knew one thing, and that was that his stomach was roiling about viciously, like he was about to…
"Oh bollocks!" he groaned, instantly awake. Scrambling out of bed, he propelled himself out of the shelter and into the tree line just as he started retching violently, his stomach clenching, his fringe swinging into his eyes as he fell to his knees. And then quite suddenly someone was running up behind him. He felt a light touch at his ankle, his hip, and then they were pushing his fringe back from his eyes, their other hand moving to rub his back gently.
"Love, are you okay?" Claire murmured, her voice still half-muddled with sleep. "Charlie?"
Charlie didn't answer, merely retched again and then he took a moment to cough the remnants out of his throat, smacking his lips at the bitter taste of vomit.
Claire continued to rub his back soothingly. "Oh Charlie… just get it all up okay? It feels better that way – trust me."
It was nearly a half hour before Charlie felt well enough to stagger back to their shelter and allow Claire to tuck a blanket in around him. Then she sat there in the darkness with him, his hand tucked up in both of hers, murmuring frantically about the cause of the sickness while Charlie shivered and felt generally ill.
"What did you eat that I didn't? It was probably that bloody fish! Or are you allergic to something? I don't know…"
Charlie lay there, exhausted from vomiting and waited for it to pass. When he continued to be sick however, Claire was obliged to go and wake Jack up. To Charlie's supreme indignation, Juliet came too and hovered at the edge of the tent, watching silently as Jack checked out Charlie's symptoms.
His diagnosis turned out to be the same as Claire's – food poisoning from the fish. "You two just can't seem to stay out of trouble can you?" Jack tutted as he sponged Charlie's brow with a damp cloth. "I'm not even back two days and Claire gets sick and now you've got food poisoning…"
"I didn't exactly plan this," Charlie muttered, feeling sicker than ever.
"Is there anything we can do except wait for it to pass?" Claire asked anxiously. "Food poisoning usually just runs its own course doesn't it?"
"Yeah," Jack sighed. "I'll get you a container for throw up so you don't have to hang out in the jungle all night. Claire do you mind looking after…?"
"Not at all," Claire said instantly. "I'm used to staying up with Aaron anyway. You go get some sleep and if he gets any worse or his symptoms change I'll come get you again."
"Okay cool. Thank you." Jack nodded and touched her on the shoulder gratefully. "And if you can't raise me then I'm sure Juliet would give you a hand."
Claire looked uncertainly at the woman but when Charlie nodded his consent, she seemed to relax a little.
"Sure," Claire nodded. "Oh and somebody should probably check out the integrity of the rest of the fish stash. We don't really need anyone else getting sick."
"I'll do that now before I go back to bed," Jack offered.
"I'll help," Juliet piped up and the two of them disappeared together.
Claire stepped forward, damp cloth in hand and sank down beside him. "Well I hate to say I told you so…" she said chidingly but her eyes were sparkling nonetheless.
"Oh go on," Charlie groaned. "Just say it." Claire grinned at him and then began to sponge his forehead gently. "You're loving this aren't you?" Charlie muttered mutinously.
"Shh," Claire said soothingly. "Just relax okay?" Then she added, with a slightly condescending tone in her voice, "I'll get you better in no time."
Charlie snorted. "What are you – my mother?"
"Well nobody else here is going to sit here and sponge your forehead and try and make you feel better," Claire pointed out. "So I guess, for all intents and purposes, I'm kind of a surrogate mother for now."
Charlie made a face. "Does that mean I'm going to end up with an Oedipal complex?"
Claire chuckled. "I hope not. Maybe 'nurse' would be a better occupation to go with than mother hmmn?"
"Only if you're wearing one of those cute little nurse dresses," Charlie grinned crookedly at her and Claire frowned down at him self righteously.
"If you weren't sick I might just slap you."
"But I am sick."
"You are."
"So that means you won't slap me right?"
"Don't push your luck."
Charlie pouted. "You're no fun."
"If its food poisoning like Jack thinks it is," Claire changed the subject. "It should pass by morning I think. But in the meantime I think you just need lots of cosseting and TLC. That doesn't mean," she added warningly. "That I'm going to be waiting on you hand on foot mind. I've still got a two-month-old to look after as well – so I can't be pandering to your every whim okay?"
Charlie scoffed. "Like I'd ever try and make you pick me over Aaron."
Claire smiled knowingly at that and then began to work on sponging the remaining sick out of Charlie's beard. "So what do you think the deal is with Jack and Juliet?" she asked presently.
"Eh," Charlie murmured. "I'm not all that fussed to be honest. Just so long as we've got a doctor back. Having two is a bonus I guess."
Claire grinned as she set the sponge aside. "I guess. Do you think you're gonna puke again?"
"Probably not for a minute or two," Charlie murmured. "Why?"
"Because I'm tired and you're taking up all of the bed," Claire said sternly, gently pushing him over to the other side. "If you start to feel sick just let me know and I'll give you the bucket okay? But until then, I could really cope with a bit of a nap."
"I thought you were going to look after me," Charlie teased as Claire clambered underneath the blanket with him. "How does cuddling make me better?"
"Sometimes when you're feeling sick it feels good to just snuggle in with somebody," Claire yawned widely as she curled herself into him. "I used to climb into bed with my mum when I was little and felt sick. She made me stop when I puked all in her bed once."
Charlie laughed quietly, determined to not do exactly what Claire had just described – his stomach was feeling decidedly bloated and rumbly again. Trust him to have to get sick before Claire would let him sleep this close to her.
"Hey," he murmured. Claire opened sleepy eyes.
"Yes?"
"Thanks for taking care of me," Charlie murmured, raising a hand to trace his thumb across her soft lips. "It takes a special sort of person to share a bed with someone who's vomiting all over everything."
Claire smiled gently with her eyes. "I did tell you last week that I'd take care of you," she whispered and then pressed a sweet kiss to his lips – deepening it just enough to make Charlie sigh. "I do try and keep my promises where possible you know."
"You still taste like muesli," Charlie murmured against her lips, smiling.
Claire chuckled low in her throat. "Well you taste like vomit and I'm still kissing you so why don't you just shut the hell up and kiss me back?"
Charlie obliged.
Screw chicken soup and flat lemonade – he'd prefer this method of getting better any day.