First Story: Godchild Christmas

A/N: Alright, so it is about 2 months after Christmas and I had yet to upload this story, so finally I did. It's supposed to be fluffy/funny so I hope everyone enjoys it. Also let it be noted that I will be writing another story like this in which Jizabel falls ill…only much more seriously. Let the angst commence in that one! Oh yes, and the name "Thomas" pops up later in the story. I sort of copied that from one of Sorryll's stories…only I didn't realise it until after I wrote it. So I apologise for that.

This was too perfect. Finally, after nearly a year of carrying out ridicules orders, stomaching numerous insults, and watching after an absolute lunatic Cassian's patience had paid off. A grin passed over his face as he sauntered across the room the bedside of his so-called "superior".

For ten months now, since Cassian had come to work under the doctor, the younger man had awakened every morning at five on the dot. The first clue that something was different was when Cassian went down to the lab. No one was there. He waited around a few moments, assuming that the doctor was either on his way, or he had already been there and was off getting something from the infirmary. Cassian found his way to the shelf of organs that lined one of the walls. His stomach did a flip. How could anyone collect body parts? He turned away from the jars, feeling the contents of the previous night's dinner rise in his throat.

After nearly a half an hour of waiting, and still no Jizabel, Cassian concluded that something was strange. The doctor had never overslept before, and he didn't seem like the type to change his patterns out of the blue. Still, he waited, exploring the work area. Nameless medical instruments were strewn about the room in no particular order. A scalpel sat next to a haphazard stack of papers on the desk. Ink had spilled onto the floor, and splattered the wooden surface. It almost surprised Cassian. Every time he'd been to the lab before this, it had always been perfectly clean, and now it looked as though there had been a storm in the room. Cassian picked up a few sheets of paper from the floor and set them back on the desk without reading them. He looked around a few more minutes, listening attentively for footsteps. Another fifteen minutes ticked by and there were none. This was too odd. Nothing threw off the doctor's schedule.

Unless…

Jizabel coughed, and pulled his lab coat tighter around his shaking body.

"Are you alright, doctor?" Cassian asked, knowing that the younger man would snap at him.

"I'm fine!" just as his assistant had predicted, his voice was cold and bitter. Jizabel sneezed, then sniffed before returning to his work.

"Are you sure? You sound ill to me." The doctor rolled his eyes, then spun around in his chair to face his assistant.

"I'm fine, Cassian." he said, clearly annoyed. Cassian stood silently as the younger man sneezed again. He didn't dare say anything like, 'bless you'. "Just…you may retire for the night."

"If you say so" Cassian muttered without a complaint. If Jizabel wanted to work while he was sick, then he could.

That had to be it. An illness. The doctor must have caught some sort of virus. So now, as Cassian stood there, his idea that the younger man was ill had, for the most part, been confirmed. He couldn't help but smile as he looked at his superior who was out-cold underneath the covers. Surely he would kill Cassian for invading his bedroom, but right now, in this condition, the younger man was next to harmless..

"Merry Christmas, Cassian." The "boy" grinned to himself, almost feeling the urge to jump in the air from excitement. Still, he did feel a bit guilty. After all, Jizabel was his superior and it was his job to watch over him…but at the same time, he couldn't allow himself to feel too badly for the man. He'd insisted on staying up late when he'd been sick, so he really had no one to blame but himself. Cassian knew that even if he had asked Jizabel to go to bed like a normal person would when they were ill that he would not have listened.

Slowly, he walked towards his superior's bedside, not really knowing why he was doing so.

"He's such a child." Cassian muttered to himself, looking at the man who trembled beneath the sheets. The sleeve of his nightshirt was clutched tightly in his hand as he continued to shiver. His eyebrows furrowed and he mumbled something in his sleep before flipping over. A few more moments passed in which Cassian watched Jizabel thrash and turn beneath the sheets. Clearly he was having a nightmare, and once or twice Cassian debated whether or not to wake him up. Jizabel did not seem like a morning person to him, but even so, watching him suffer in his dreams made Cassian's heart tighten. Fortunately, (or unfortunately a that) he didn't have to decide, for a few seconds later Jizabel's eyes fluttered open. Something between a groan and a yawn escaped his lips and he blinked once or twice, turning away from the sunlight pouring into the room. After a few moments of simply studying his superior, Cassian spoke,

"Um…doctor?" getting caught in the room had never been part of the plan, and Cassian, needless to say, felt very out of place watching as the man slid out of beneath the covers wearing only a long nightshirt.

"Cassian?" Jizabel mumbled, rubbing his eyes with a closed fist. "What are you doing here?"

"I…Um…I came to check in on you because, well, you weren't in the lab this morning…" Again, he yawned, stretching a thin arm towards the ceiling. Cassian felt a steady blush creep to his cheeks. He'd never seen the doctor act like an actual person before. He'd always assumed Jizabel to be so cold hearted that seeing him so vulnerable, so fragile in the morning light shocked him. He was beautiful.

"I'm fine…" he mumbled, falling back against the pillows with a cough. "Wait for me in the lab, I'll be down in a moment."

"Oh…um…alright…" Cassian said, shifting from foot to foot. It was easy to see that Jizabel was in absolutely no condition to be working, especially in the freezing temperatures of the laboratory. "Don't you think you should get some rest, doctor?"

"No…I'll be," he was cut off by a fit of coughing. Jizabel leaned over the side of the bed, bringing the sheets to cover his mouth until he was finished. "Fine."

"I really think you should stay in bed for the day, doctor…do you even know what day it is?"

"Thursday?" he asked with a small sniff.

"Well that, and it's Christmas eve…why not take the night off, eh?" Cassian had really no idea why he was being so nice to someone who had never returned the kindness to him. Not to mention that he felt as though his heart would burst at any moment, given the velocity at which it was beating.

"No…Christmas is no different than any other day, Cassian. You've worked here long enough to know that by now." Jizabel swung his legs over the side of the bed.

"Well…yes, but…if you're sick surely you should-," for a second time there was an episode of coughing. Watching someone who was obviously sick try to fight it was pathetic. This time, Cassian walked over to the bed, sat down, and gently but awkwardly began to rub his superior's back. He felt his stomach drop when his fingers brushed across several of what felt to be lacerations on the skin. Jizabel winced, but his cough silenced. He fell back against the mattress once more.

"Hold on, doctor. I'll get you a glass of water." Cassian said quickly, happy to escape that room.

"Alright…" was the croaked response.

What the hell are you doing? a voice hissed in Cassian's ear as he walked the empty halls of one of Delilah's many headquarters. You have the day off, why would you even bother visiting him?

"I don't know, ok?" he said aloud, rounding a corner. "If he's sick I'm not just going to leave him…besides, if I hadn't been there he'd probably drag himself down to the lab, and then the next corpse I'd be cleaning up would be his." he was sure that if anyone saw him talking to himself that they'd think he was crazy, but then again, if they did think that, they might not be wrong.

. . .

"Here, drink." Cassian said, feeling a wave of relief spread through him when Jizabel did not protest. Instead, the younger man sat up, leaning against the headboard of his four-post bed and took the glass from Cassian's trembling hand with shaking fingers of his own. A few drops of water spilled over the rim and ran down his shirt sleeve, but Jizabel did not seem to notice.

There was a spluttering noise as he coughed, water trickling down the corners of his lips. Cassian found himself staring in shock and another emotion that he couldn't quite describe as the doctor wiped his mouth on the bed sheets. For someone of Jizabel's social status the action seemed hardly appropriate.

"Do you want me to get you a napkin…or something?" Cassian asked after a moment of tense silence in which Jizabel simply gazed at him. The older man was scarcely aware that he was blushing until Jizabel said,

"Cassian…are you feeling alright? Your face is very red…do you have a fever?" the tone of concern itself took Cassian by surprise. The doctor never spoke that way about humans. He remembered once, when he had first started working under Jizabel, that he had come down with a terrible cold. Not knowing any better, he had asked for the day off, only to find more work being dumped on him than usual. It was on that day that he officially decided that the doctor had no soul…so why now? Perhaps it was because he was ill. He was letting his guard down.

"N-no…I mean…ah. I'm fine." Cassian stuttered, his vocabulary dwindling away by the second. "Is there ah…something that you would like, doctor?" This was ridicules. It was his day off…so why in all of hell was he helping the man that had made him suffer so much? Before he could think further on this, Jizabel spoke, or rather tried to speak. Instead he coughed violently, and fell back against the pillows.

"Can you bring me another blanket?" he whispered with a shiver. Cassian looked over the bed where at least three quilts lay over him.

"Aren't you hot, doctor?"

"N-no…it's freezing in h-here…" he said softly through chattering teeth.

"Well…alright…if you say so…"

Cassian left the room to fetch a blanket, only to realise when he was halfway down the hallway that he had no idea where one was. A frustrated grumbled escaped his lips as he concluded that there would only be one place to find one, short of going to Alexis, that is,

. . .

There were loud, obnoxious voices coming from the trump card's living quarters as people began to ready for the day. Cassian stood outside of the door, eyebrows furrowed. Would Jizabel even want a blanket from here? He could smell tobacco radiating from the room, and he wasn't even inside yet. With a final, begrudged sigh he turned the knob. Instantly the noise lever rose to the point where he wanted to cover his ears.

Even though it was early in the morning, many of the trump cards were sitting around a small table, cards in hand, smoking. A few others were still asleep in the bunks lining the walls, and others still were doing things like throwing knives or wrestling one another. It was like living in the circus again, only sometimes the animals smelled better than the people he had to share a room with.

When you rise in the ranks you'll never have to see these morons again he thought to himself, rolling his eyes as a particularly annoying one spotted him.

"Cassian! Where 'ave you been all mornin'?" Cassian gave the young man a confused glance, unsure of how such an imbecile even made it into the organisation. His name was Thomas, and that was all Cassian knew. What he did not know was why Thomas was suddenly so interested in seeing what he was up to.

"With the doctor, as usual." he mumbled, attempting to cross the loud room to his bunk. Thomas stood in the way.

"Why you spend so much time with that lunatic, eh?"

"It's my job." he shrugged, hoping that it was a good enough excuse as he tried to sidestep Thomas who blocked his way again. As much as Cassian wanted to punch him in the stomach right then, he controlled himself. That would only escalate into a fight, which was something he could do without for the time. "I have to get back to him though…dissecting a pretty gruesome corpse today and he'll have my head if I don't bring him something to wipe the blood up with." Cassian forced an awkward smile, but for a third time, Thomas prevented him from escaping. He lay a hand on Cassian's shoulder, and leant in close.

"Anyway I could 'elp you out…you know as like…A second assistant or somethin'?" Cassian frowned.

"I don't think so, sorry." inside rage was building. How dare someone like Thomas want to work under Jizabel? He wouldn't last one day! No way. No one else was going to move in and take what was rightfully his; a position in the higher ranks. Besides…Jizabel would never hire such an idiot, right? He shook his head, pushing past Thomas to grab a blanket from his bed. Then, he crossed the room to the doorway, ignoring Thomas who was following close behind.

"'ey! You get back 'ere I ain't through talkin' to you yet!" just as he slammed the door shut behind him, musty blanket in hand, he heard one of the older trump cards, Ronald, shout to Thomas,

"Give it a rest you moron." Cassian almost smiled. Ronald was a big guy, and he was sure that Thomas wouldn't be giving him any more problems for a while.

Cassian lingered outside of Jizabel's bedroom door for a moment, then knocked on it softly. There was no response from within the room. Slowly, he opened the knob.

Thankfully, the doctor was still there, though his eyes were closed. Cassian breathed a sigh of relief that he hadn't run off or done something else of equal stupidity. Cassian stood in the doorway a moment, clutching his blanket to his chest. It smelled, like he suspected, of tobacco and even a bit of alcohol. Still, it was better than watching Jizabel freeze.

Slowly, he crossed the room, looking at the man lying on the bed. He shivered beneath the covers, and his hair was a mess but… Cassian also noticed that he looked different. There was just something so…off about seeing him like this. Before Cassian could stop himself, he was running a small hand across Jizabel's cheek, watching as the hair near his mouth stirred each time he breathed.

Amethyst eyes fluttered open, and Cassian quickly yanked his hand back. Jizabel hadn't seemed to notice.

"Here, I uh…got this from my bed… sorry it's not much…" Cassian muttered, laying the grey blanket over his superior. Jizabel coughed a bit, and closed his eyes. His assistant turned to leave, but he quickly protested.

"Don't go." his voice was muffled next to the blankets but Cassian heard him none the less.

"Is there something you want, doctor?"

"No…just stay here." this was too strange. Normally Jizabel would be yelling at him to leave at this point, but now it was as though he was an entirely different person. Cassian drew in a deep breath, quite confused as to the new state of his superior. Still, he walked over to Jizabel again, and knelt down beside the bed, folding his arms on the mattress. The doctor's eyes remained closed, and soon, Cassian found his own eyes doing the same, his head descending into his arms. Before he could succumb to sleep, though, Jizabel mumbled something incoherently. Cassian sat up,

"What did you say, doctor?"

"Can you get me another blanket…?" he whispered again. The voice inside Cassian's head groaned in detest to the thought of going back to the trump card's quarters again. He stood up, stretching his limbs before responding,

"Doctor, you'll overheat if you have any more blankets on you." he scolded, then sat on the mattress next to Jizabel, who also sat up.

"But I'm so c-cold." he stuttered, knuckles turning white as he gripped the blanket.

"Here, try drinking more water." he retrieved the glass of water from the bedside and handed it to Jizabel, who took a small sip.

"I'm still cold." he stated with a frown. Cassian almost smiled. Seeing Jizabel, a doctor acting in such a matter was almost amusing. Silence settled over the pair, and with silence came awkwardness. Cassian allowed his eyes to wander about the room, well aware that his superior's eyes were fixed on him. He was afraid to turn around and look at those eyes, afraid because he knew that if he did look something would happen. Something that he would not be able to control.

Suddenly, Cassian wanted nothing more than to leave that room. He didn't want to see Jizabel like this, so innocent. He wanted to think of the doctor as nothing more than a tool for advancement, he couldn't get attached to him if he wanted to move forward. Cassian felt his heartbeat speed up, and he was sure that the man next to him could hear it. Without thinking, he brought his gaze to match Jizabel's. Bad idea.

Everything that he had feared would happen stared back at him. Those eyes were beautiful, shining with innocent light instead of being hidden behind their constant opaqueness. Slowly, Cassian brought his hand to Jizabel's cheek again. In almost an instant the young doctor's eyes closed and he moved closer to the warmth of his assistant's touch. Cassian was confused to say the least. Jizabel, the stoic doctor whom he'd deemed as soulless was actually looking to him for affection.

How long the two of them stayed like that, neither knew. It seemed like only a few seconds, and eternity at the same time. Finally, as Cassian lowered his hand, Jizabel's eyes opened.

"You should get some rest, doctor." Cassian whispered. Jizabel nodded, falling back to the pillows. It looked as though he fell asleep instantly. Cassian stayed, sitting next to him, brushing silvery hairs away from Jizabel's face. He was not sure how long he remained there, but soon the sun began to set in the sky as night took over. Then, in a move he was scarcely sure he'd made until it was over, Cassian brought his lips to the doctor's own, savouring the feeling of warmth that ran through him. Jizabel did not wake up, which relieved him.

Cassian stood up, both legs having fallen asleep from sitting there too long. It didn't matter though, although he almost tripped twice on his way to the door.

"Goodnight, Jizabel." he whispered, closing the door softly.

. . .

The hallways were darkened as he made his way back down to the trump's quarters again. And it was only when he reached the door that he realised he'd left his only blanket with Jizabel. He shrugged, and begrudgingly turned the doorknob, knowing that tomorrow everything would be back to normal, that tomorrow Jizabel would most likely be better, and Cassian would be having orders barked at him once more…but that was tomorrow. Now, even though his only day off had been spent taking care of the man he had once despised, Cassian was happy. Even though he was returning to the noisy, crowded, living quarters, and even though he'd probably caught whatever Jizabel had been ill with in the first place, it was alright. Everything was alright.

Alright, what you guys think? Good, bad? Leave your opinion, it will only take a moment. Thank you sincerly for reading...

Now I must go, for I think I have come down with a cold. *coughs*