Jamie Lannister (![]() ![]() @ 2012-11-16 22:56:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, oliver wood, verity |
Who: Oliver Wood and Verity Ashford
What: Helping Oliver with his puzzles
Where: Hospital
When: Backdated to Wednesday, 14 November 2012
Rating: PG-13 for flirting
Status: Complete!
Verity really had no idea what she was doing. She had no idea why she was so interested in this football player. Perhaps it was because Oliver reminded her so much of her father, or perhaps it was because of his blue eyes or his accent, but something made her want to spend more time with him. Get to know him. It was unlike almost anything she’d done in the past. She felt like she was taking her turn to chase someone down, rather than waiting for him to come to her. Honestly, she wasn’t sure if she liked it.
But she offered to come and help him with his puzzles and keep him company. Verity was nothing if not a woman of her word. She was able to rearrange a couple of things in her busy schedule, go into the shop early so she could take a long lunch and go see him at the hospital. She snacked in the car on the way there so she wouldn’t be hungry in front of him, as she had no idea when he was going to be able to eat solid foods again, and then parked and headed in.
It was a pleasant happenstance that Lizzy was Oliver’s head nurse. Verity knew where to go, knew the hospital pretty well considering she’d never been admitted there. She headed straight for the ward, said hello to her Sister In Law, then knocked on Oliver’s door.
The knocking stirred Oliver from a light doze. Scrubbing his face with a hand, he called out, 'C'me in,' having no idea who to expect.
In the last two days, Oliver had been checked on, poked, pestered and prodded by more people with more needles than his mother's knitting basket. He very much resented the knocking; why nurses and doctors needed him awake every few hours to check a couple of blips on his monitors escaped him. Couldn’t they let him sleep through it? And what did anyone care how many CCs of urine his body had produced? Couldn't the lot of them see that all Oliver cared about was maintaining the drug haze and sleeping? After all, those were the only two pain and boredom free activities he was allowed.
But as soon as Verity's face appeared in the doorway, being woken up was no longer an imposition. His grumpy glare melted into a hazy smile, stubbly cheeks wrinkling under the size of his grin. If Verity wanted to poke or prod him, he'd happily wake up for that.
'Hullo, there.'
“Hi, Scruffy,” Verity said as she entered the room. It was the same as the other rooms in the ward, but Verity noticed a couple of differences. Her basket was still there, on the table by the window, and the television was off. Either he’d just turned it off because of the knock, or he didn’t have it on in the first place. Both options were plausible, though Verity assumed the latter. She wasn’t really sure why.
Maybe it was the drugs, but Oliver looked pretty good for a guy who’d just had surgery. Verity crossed to his bedside and took the nearest chair, then settled down into it and dropped her purse on the table next to her.
“How are you feeling? Pretty good, I bet, considering the drugs you must be on.”
'Hmm, aye,' Oliver mumbled, shifting as Verity sat. He wanted to be more upright, more alert and personable, rather than just a blob of medical experimentation laying about on the bed. Moving wasn’t easy, and he did so slowly. ‘They’ve got some strange sort of nerve blocker in m’shoulder. Got the entire arm numb and motionless. So I’m not really feeling much of anything at the moment other than a sore arse from sitting in bed all day.’
“Sore arse isn’t fun, but it shouldn’t last that long, should it?” she said, hopefully. Truth was, she really had no idea beyond what little Lizzy had told her. Lizzy had arranged things so that she could care for Oliver in some function (if not primarily, at least part-time) for his entire stay at the hospital. It was good for him to have the most experienced care, and Lizzy was way up there on the list at the hospital. So, Verity would get to hear about him as much as she wanted.
“Besides, now you’ve got me here to help distract you from sore arse syndrome.” She added, breaking into a grin.
‘Ohh, I donnea t’ink m’up for tha’ yet, but I’ll tell you when I am,’ Oliver replied. Though how much of it Verity could understand was debateable. The more sleepy, the more drugged or the more cheeky Oliver got, the thicker his accent became. Words slipped together into single streams of vowels broken up by the occasional consonant, but never quite where one might expect a pause to be. It was the language of the Scots, a Highland tune long separated from the rest of the English speaking world by an ancient wall and mad-sounding bagpipes. A culture and a language all their own. Even Percy had a difficult time understanding Oliver into his pints.
More carefully and slowly this time, Oliver added, ‘By the end of the week I should be able to take you for that coffee.’
Verity gave him a warm smile. She liked that he was still interested in taking her out for coffee, and she wondered for a brief moment how many other girls came by to visit. She made a mental note to ask Lizzy to keep an eye on his door and tell her if he had any other visitors. Was that stalkeriffic? Maybe.
“I’m not going to let you take me to coffee until you’re absolutely ready to. I can pick up some on the way to visit you, though, and we can have our coffee date here.” She added, moving a little closer. Hospital beds were huge and awkward, and she wished she could get closer without it being painful, awkward and obvious.
‘Ah, donnea say that!’ proclaimed Oliver, his eyes sparkling to life and his laugh filling the empty space of the room. Hospital rooms seemed to have a lot of dead air; laughing was a good cure. ‘What if I promise to let you push me around in a wheelchair if I get tired?’
“Only if you promise to let me run around with you in the wheelchair,” Verity grinned. She’d done that when her dad had had his surgery. It scared the hell out of the doctors and nurses in the ward, but she and her Dad had the best time that day.
Though he knew nothing of Verity’s prior wheelchair exploits, Oliver found Verity’s proposition an extremely exciting prospect. ‘Perhaps we can find ourselves a nice downsloping hill. You could sit on m’lap, go for a ride.’
Thank goodness she hadn’t been sipping anything when she heard him suggest she go for a ride on his lap. That was spit-take material. Verity couldn’t stop a laugh from escaping her, though, where a drink would come bursting forth. “I think it’s a bit early on for you to be offering me rides in your lap.” She said, grinning.
Oliver replied without ever losing a beat.
‘True, but the catheter comes out at the end of the week, so just in time, really.’
Another line worthy of a spit-take. Verity gave another amused snort. Well, it was more of a giggle than a snort. “I’m really glad that we’re not having coffee right now, Oli.” She said, finding the nickname just came out without her realizing it. “Because I’m sure that you would have coffee coming out of my nose.”
Oliver’s laugh arrived even before his next line did; without meaning to, Verity was feeding him some brilliant starters and he was already having a wonderful time. The walls were crumbling away and although Oliver was still stuck in the same bed, he was starting to leave the hospital behind. ‘Suppose after the surgery my aim could be a little off. Did you want to skip the coffee altogether?’
Verity was grinning softly now. She went a little pink in the cheeks. As much fun as it was to flirt with Oliver, she wasn’t exactly sure where that flirting was headed. It was a little strange and foreign to her that someone as handsome and famous as Oliver Wood was flirting with her in such a way. She gave a gentle shrug of her shoulder, leaning over a bit shyly. “Skip the coffee altogether?” She asked. “Skip to... what, exactly?”
She had an idea what he was playing at, but she wanted to hear him say it. Mostly for her own ego.
But Oliver Wood never played into women’s games like that. Ending them early without a fight wasn’t fun for anyone and he found that simply complimenting a woman took away from the impact those same words had at a time in which he truly wanted to say them. ‘Why the wheelchair riding, of course!’ he said with an innocent smile, ‘What on heaven’s green earth did you think I was talking about?” But the way Oliver’s eyes locked onto Verity’s was anything but naive.
There was something different about Verity than any other woman Oliver had met during his adult life. A complete stranger, but already a friend. Oliver didn’t have female friends for the most part. He really didn’t have any friends at all, just people he worked with, the players and his coach, or family like his mother and father. But with Verity there was a different connection in their disjointed caffeinated flirtation that Oliver couldn’t quite pinpoint.
She flirted, but she never compromised herself. She was confident without having to ooze sex, which was far sexier to Oliver than a girl like Pansy or a woman like Alice. Her smile reminded him of his mother and her kindness rekindled hope. And all of that, in one simple eye-locking moment, as if Oliver had known her his entire life.
It was so very strange, but oddly comforting.
Sometimes, and she hadn’t known him long enough for it to be more than a couple of times, when she looked into Oliver’s face, Verity thought she saw more than just deep, blue, dazzling eyes. She saw the future and the past, and another world. It was just a strange sensation that she got, something that made her both thrilled and terrified. Something about him was incredibly attractive, incredibly familiar, and a little frightening. They were nearly strangers still, or perhaps friendly acquaintances, and yet here Verity was, sitting in his hospital bed where he was peeing into a bag with nearly half of his body numb and useless. It felt intimate. Strangely so.
She wanted to laugh, or to shake her head, or to look away, anything to tear her eyes from his in that moment. But she felt a little lost looking deep into his baby blues. It was as if she was hypnotized--just for a moment, but definitely for long enough that she noticed and it made her insides twinge.
“I don’t know what I was thinking.” She responded with a nervous chuckle. “I deserve a scolding for assuming the worst of you.” It was the best she could come up with while her heart was still hammering in her chest, and her eyes were only just now moving away from his.
The loss of eye contact was surprisingly saddening to Oliver, but though the emotions were briefly there, it would be months before Oliver would start to understand what they meant and why.
‘Nae, no the worst,’ he said, perking back to life. The sexual innuendos and the flirtation could continue another time; the moment was passed now. ‘Well! I believe I lured you here under the pretense of puzzles, aye? Want to get started?’
“I did tell Lizzy that’s what we’d be doing,” Verity said. She felt like the room had been gone for a moment there. Like nothing else had existed except for Oliver’s eyes. And now reality was crashing down around them again, and she found herself sitting by his bedside, reaching for a pen. “She’d be a bit suspicious if I don’t leave here with at least a started crossword puzzle.”
‘Could just tell her we’re both too dull to answer even a single question.’ An unlikely ruse; Oliver was more intelligent than his lack of degree allured to.
Shifting again in his bed, Oliver tried to peep over Verity’s shoulder so they could look on the puzzle together. ‘You may have to read them all out loud.’
“She’d see right through that,” Verity said, giving a playful sigh. “We’ll just have to do some work to keep her off of our backs.” She pulled out the puzzle book and a pen. On the top of the page in the margin she gave a little scribble, to make sure that the pen was working. Then she wrote Oliver’s name, as if it was a class assignment.
When she looked up, she saw him trying to lean over and look over her shoulder. It was awkward with him up there on the bed and her down in the chair. She gave a quick glance around the room, then stood. “Stay still.”
There wasn’t a lot of room on the bed, but there was enough. Verity moved the chair a little closer so she could put her feet on it, then climbed onto the edge of the bed, next to his good arm. Half her backside was on, the other half was off, but with her feet on the chair she managed to keep her balance. Now, side by side, they could read the book together. She brought one leg up and cocked her knee so she could write against it.
“One across.” She said, then read off the clue.
But Oliver wasn’t really paying attention; he was thinking again about Verity’s eyes and how when she sat next to him, the IV bag, the monitors, the bed and the blue walls drifted away.