Work Text:
“C’mere,” Tommy says, reaching out to her with one arm from where he’s stretched out on the couch in his office, setting his ledger and pen to the side.
She huffs dismissively, pressing the heels of her hands to her eyes, hard , close to tears with the frustration and helplessness and unmitigated, devouring pain radiating out from somewhere deep inside her brain. She pulls her hands away suddenly, nearly slams them against her own skull with desperation, but stops herself at the last moment, knowing that will only succeed in making the pain worse. Instead she lets out a stifled whine, high in her throat.
“C’mon, come here,” he says again, coaxing her to him with a deliberate, softened voice, widened eyes, a corner of his mouth turned up to her. When she comes within reach, Tommy tugs her to him by the hand. She allows him to pull her up onto his lap, and with her this close he can feel that her muscles are so tight from bearing the weight of her pain that she’s trembling from the effort of it.
“You take your medicine?” he asks, rubbing slow, deep circles into her shoulders. She sighs into it but doesn’t answer.
“Eh?” he prompts.
“Yeah,” she replies shortly, tongue thick and heavy in her mouth from the migraine and the morphine both. “S’breaking through anyway,” she manages. “Can only do so much.”
Tommy hums sympathetically, his adept hands still working over the muscles of her shoulders and neck. She feels caught in contradictions, body held bowstring-taut by her pain while simultaneously weak and heavy and lethargic under the medication, thoughts slow and tangled. It’s exhausting, and she just wants — G-d, she just wants it to stop, to give way, to sleep until it’s done. It’s been days, but it feels like forever.
“I don’t know if I can keep doing this, Tommy,” she says quietly, letting her eyes drift shut. She knows it’s whining, feels like it's weak to say it to Tommy who has been through so much worse, knows she has no choice but to keep living with this pain, but she can’t stop the words or the little hitch in her breath as she says them. She bites her lip hard, tasting blood.
He lets out a heavy breath, her body rising and falling with the motion.
“Alright,” Tommy murmurs soothingly in that horse patter voice, stroking over her hair. The movement is heavy and slow.
“S’alright. I know you’re hurting. But it’ll pass. And if it doesn’t, I’ll blackmail every fucking doctor in England ‘til we find one who can fix this, eh?" He raises an eyebrow in a playful smirk, and she shoves at him lightly.
His tone turns sincere again.
"We’ll find something new, my love, something better. You’ll be alright. You just rest now, eh? Can't fight it, have to sink into it; let it pass through. Rest right here. I’ve got you, darling."
She stills with a deep breath as he brings his hand down from her hair over her aching eyes, fading the still-painful light that sneaks through her closed eyelids into blissful darkness.
His palm is cool and dry, a comforting weight, soothing pressure against the pain sparking across her skin, through her nerves, down to the bone, down deep inside her skull. With his other hand Tommy guides her to lean her head back against him, his arm looping around her waist. He shifts her so that she’s leaned back against his firm chest, taking her weight. She allows her aching head to fall back against his shoulder.
With her throat bared like this she should feel so vulnerable, eyes closed and body open, fighting the morphine and wracked with pain. But there is nowhere she feels safer, more secure, wrapped up there in his arms, held and protected.
With her eyes still closed she feels him shift again, removing the arm wrapped loosely around her waist to snag his ledgerbook from the side table. She hears him flip it open and settle back into the couch with a comfortable sigh.
His other hand stays at her forehead, occasionally stroking his thumb against her temple.
The pain does not go away under his caress, and she hadn’t expected it to. But the restless energy of it, the too-tight, ill-fitting feeling of her body that had kept her fidgety and on edge fades with his touch. Finally she is able to drift on the waves of the pain and morphine rather than crash against it, no longer sinking but buoyed by his gentle words and soft touches, his solid, reassuring presence.