WHO: Geoffrey Hooper, Sullivan Burke, and special cameo by Theodore Nott! WHEN: Tuesday night-ish. WHERE: The PLAGUE centre, aka the hospital wing. SUMMARY: Slippers at 10 paces. RATING: PG. Some violence but it's pretty mild. STATUS: Complete!
Next to this new version of Geoffrey With Dragonpox, Normal Geoffrey was a walk in the park. A regular ray of sunshine. And various other cliches employed to describe someone of a temperament which Geoffrey typically didn’t exhibit.
He moaned. He grizzled. He tossed and turned. Lamented the tinge of green that his skin had taken on. The only thing that could compete with his steady string of complaints was the similar (and louder, in his mind) stream coming from the boy in the cot next to his.
“Oi Burke, will you give it a rest?” he grumbled.
Sullivan Burke was a similarly nightmarish version himself, normally so delightful to deal with, especially for Gryffindors. He wasn't entirely sure what Hooper was on about, either. Perhaps the other boy was hallucinating or something. But the fact remained that Sullivan was so accustomed to moaning and groaning that he realized when he did it anymore.
"I'm dying!" Sully retorted shrilly. He still wasn't sure what he was doing that needed to be given a rest but if he could stop himself from dying, surely he would. And, well, if it was anything else, the dying thing was definitely a good excuse to do, well, anything he wanted.
“You are not dying,” Geoffrey retorted back, rolling his eyes at the other boy’s theatrics in a gesture that was almost as pantomime in its obviousness. “You’re just being dramatic, so in other words, the usual. In fact, you’re so normal for you that Pomfrey will probably let you go back to Slytherin very soon. Hurrah! The rest of us will throw a party to celebrate.”
“You would miss me!” Sully asserted in his feverish state (not that he still wouldn’t say something like that). “You’d pine. Don’t even try to deny it,” he finished before he couldn’t hold his sneeze any longer and sparks went flying. Good thing the sheets were flame-proofed.
“Besides,” he continued, “no one can throw a party like I can. It wouldn’t even be a party without me.”
“Yes, I would miss you like a toothache,” Geoffrey agreed in a tone frosted with sarcasm. “And we would throw the party because you weren’t here, stupid. So it has to be a party without you in order to be a party.” He flung himself onto one side, emphatically presenting his back to Sully. Hopefully that would be the end of it, and Geoffrey would finally be able to rest in peace.
And that phrase wouldn’t become too literal before the disease had run its course…
“Ugh!” Sully sighed at Geoffrey. It was just so frustrating when people didn’t understand just how good he was at parties. And how dare the other boy turn his back to Sully! Sully was the one who decided when conversations were over. A fine, red mist appeared in front of his face and without even thinking, he reached down to the floor, grabbed one of his slippers, and threw it as hard as he could in Geoffrey’s direction.
“Oi!” The slipper connected with Geoffrey’s leg. And it wasn’t though it hurt; it was the principle of the thing that counted. He heaved himself into a sitting position, gripping the item as it were a weapon. “With an aim like that, it’s no wonder you’re not on the team.”
He gave the slipper another look. “I think my grandfather has a pair like this. In fact, does any other male below the age of sixty even own slippers? And I’m not giving it back now, so ha, ha, ha.”
Damn, Sully thought. He was much better at throwing shoes when he was only a foot or two away from the other person. Sully also struggled his way into sitting upright and glared at Geoffrey. He was impossible.
“They’re comfortable and they keep your feet warm. What sort of barbarian are you, not owning slippers?” Sully asked, reaching down to get his other slipper. It was going to take a lot of effort and energy, but he finally stood up, hobbled over to Geoffrey’s bed and smacked the other boy over the head with the slipper in his hand.
“Don’t HIT me!” Geoffrey declared. “I know that Max gets off on this sort of thing but I DON’T.” Sully’s first slipper joined in the act as he hit the Slytherin across the head too, tit for tat.
Theodore gingerly lifted a hand away from his eyes in a nearby bed, wincing at the effect the light and loud sound was having on the throbbing pain behind his eyes. As if it weren’t bad enough to be locked away in a sick room for days, he had to deal with childish bickering and slipper-fights. “Merlin.” He growled, kicking his bed sheets off in irritation. His green mottled skin felt as though it was burning, his blood boiling underneath. “Can’t you both just shut up?”
Deep, deep down, below the fever that was scrambling around his thoughts, Geoffrey recognised that he was being perhaps just a tad ridiculous. “Sorry, Theodore,” he mumbled with a touch of genuine contriteness, and bundled himself back into his bed, the matter in his mind put to rest. For the time being.
However, he couldn’t resist one last childish jab -
“He started it.”
Sully, however, did not think he was being ridiculous at all, even after Theodore’s outburst. However, it did remind Sully of just how terrible he felt since the rage ebbed into just irritation at Geoffrey. He slinked back to his bed and threw the covers dramatically over himself and huffed.
“Did not,” he muttered, but the covers muffled his voice. He was too tired to say anything more and drifted off to sleep, where he could continue to beat Geoffrey with slippers in his dreams.