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~PSon~*~0~*~PSon~
Tremors shook his hand to the point that the water in the little plastic cup sloshed up over his hand and dripped onto the scratched and scuff marked floor between his feet.
He curled up further into himself as he heard the heavy sigh beside him. He almost lost the rest of the water in the cup with his startle, when the large warm hand wrapped around his. He couldn’t help his own heavy sigh when the hand steadily guided the half full cup up to his parched lips without spilling any down his front.
He only managed a couple of sips before he had to turn his head away with a hoarse groan, lest he make even more of a fool of himself. There was another sigh, but this one sounded more sympathetic than put upon and he braved a quick look over.
The warm brown eyes in the age worn and weary face of his friend and mentor had him trying to swallow down the lump in his throat that had nothing to do with the roiling nausea in his gut that had been plaguing him for days.
"Ah kid, you need to tell me when it gets this bad, before it gets this bad," the familiarity of Gil's gentle scolding smoothed over the frayed edges of his nerves.
He looked back down at his still trembling hands and nodded carefully. The busy sounds of the hospital waiting room filtered in and out as he gathered himself to speak.
"I know. I'm sorry," the whispered rasp of his own voice startled him a little, as his dry throat sent shards of pain pulsing out in small excruciating waves.
He felt all the tension he didn't realise he was holding melt away as Gil pulled up the blanket covering his shoulders and slipped his arm around his back, drawing him into his side. His warmth and familiar smell doing more for the unrelenting pain and nausea, than anything else he had tried in the last week.
"I got you. Just rest and let me take care of you." Gil’s reassuring voice let him relax even further into his side.
He sank into the offered warmth, letting the gentle embrace soothe the shivers he'd been repressing and let go of the last of the tension he’d been holding onto for the first time, in a long time.
Gil would take care of it.
Of him.
He just had to remember to let him.
~PSon~*~0~*~PSon~