Of Tissues and Twinkies (XMA, Quicksilver)

[Jazz]

Hey guys! It's been so long since I posted anything on the forum that I literally had to clear the dust off this account (I couldn't even remember my password) but I've been feeling inspired, and after watching X-Men: Apocalypse a few weeks ago, I've been on a bit of a Quicksilver kick. But seeing as the internet has very little sickfic featuring my fave speedster to offer, I figured I would write my own. And, rather than have it sit on my hard drive where I look at it maybe once or twice, I thought I’d share it with y’all. I should warn you, I’ve never written X-Men fic before so this may end up unintentionally OOC. Apologizing in advance for that. Honestly I haven't written anything in a while, I'm hella rusty, so bear with me. Also, I know, his name is Pietro but seeing as the iteration of the character in this fic is from the films specifically, I’m gonna call him Peter. Yes, it bothers me too. I’m sorry.

 

Disclaimers: Peter Maximoff, all of the X-Men and any related intellectual content? Not mine, unfortunately.  Very vague, almost non-existent spoilers for X-Men: Apocalypse. This fic takes place after, but honestly it’s mostly fluff and has nothing to do with the plot of the movie. Oh, and I'm NightSilver trash, so you might see a little of that. Or maybe a lot of that. Probably a lot. I don’t know yet. Whoops. Also, I know the title sucks. I've never been good at titles. To make up for it, here's a GIF of Quicksilver before the actual fic.

 

 

Of Tissues and Twinkies ( or, How Quicksilver is Actually a Big Baby When He's Sick )

There are a select few things in life of which Peter Maximoff is absolutely certain — Hostess snack cakes are the food of the Gods and can be eaten at any time and with any meal (honestly, they should just have their own tier on the food pyramid as far as he’s concerned); Olivia Newton John did not deserve the number one spot on the Billboard’s year end Top 100 chart last year for Physical, it should have been Survivor or the Human League and Soft Cell totally got shafted for not even making it to the top ten; someone definitely should have told Jobs or Wosniak that Lisa is a weird name for a computer; and, finally, Peter is sure beyond a fragment of a doubt that being sick blows. Like, mega blows. He’s pretty sure he’s dying right now. At least a solid 87% sure, and with odds like those, he’s pretty sure someone should be at least a little worried for him. They’re not. He makes no effort to hide his sulking.

 

And yeah, okay, maybe it’s kind of his own fault anyway. Not that he would ever own up to it out loud (of course not, because that would imply that he, Peter fuckin’ Maximoff™, made a mistake and he just isn’t cool with that) but no, he is probably definitely the only one to blame for why he woke up this morning feeling like literal shit. Or maybe like he got he got hit dead-on by a mack truck. (“So, like roadkill shit,” Ororo had quipped casually in the courtyard when he’d tried complaining to her, and he had to admit, he was so stunned by the simplicity of it that he actually forgot for all of about six seconds how crappy he felt. But that short-lived bliss was snatched from him by an ill-timed cough, and there was a grimace in place of his typical devilish smirk as he looked back at her. “Exactly like that.”)

 

But you know what isn’t his fault? How insanely, unimaginably, inconceivably bored he’d been last night when he rounded everybody up (literally rounded everybody up, much to the dismay of both Scott and Jean, who were mackin’ so hard on each other that he had to grab the both of them together lest he spend forever trying to disentangle their — thankfully clothed — limbs) and pitched the absolutely genius plan to skinny dip in the lake while the Professor was sleeping. In his defense, Peter had been penned up for weeks on end waiting for his leg to heal. There were days when Hank had half a mind to strap the restless speedster down to his bed because, “No, Peter, a broken leg is not going to get better if you just walk it off. Or run, for that matter.” (And if Peter had mouthed along to the words like a petulant child, it was only because he was going to lose his mind if he had to spend another five seconds sitting still.) That was weeks ago, and even now he’s not supposed to be zipping around because his “—body is still recovering, Peter, and it will continue to be in a weakened state until you’re fully healed.” (More childish mouthing.) He’s never really been a big fan of rules anyway.

 

Skinny dipping had taken quite a bit of convincing. A hell of a lot more than Peter was expecting anyway. They were young and bored, there was a lake in their freakin’ back yard. Peter wasn’t even that great at math, and even he could put two and two together there. It should have been easy. Should have. It wasn’t. But he’s nothing if not persuasive (and, okay, maybe fast, and clever, and pretty humble, too, if he’s being honest, but that’s beside the point) and it wasn’t long before he had them all in the water. And yeah, maybe it wasn’t totally skinny dipping because they all still left their underclothes on (Peter was willing to go without, admittedly, but he didn’t want to be the only one) but it was still a great ass time, way better than sitting in his bed, flipping through comics and bingeing on Twinkies. He wasn’t complaining. Or, rather, he hadn’t been then. But now, it’s all he seems capable of. Well, that and producing snot fast enough that it in and of itself should be considered a mutation, but he’s not trying to think about that—

 

“Hhih—ihh! Hh’ihTSHh! —tCHSHhih! Ih…! hHTZSCHih!”

 

Which would be so much easier if he could just stop. Freaking. Sneezing. Peter groans dramatically as he finally flops back, a half-assed attempt to garner a little attention from anyone who might be within earshot. When he doesn’t hear anything, a single hand silently appears from within the nest of blanket he’s made himself on the couch to grab a tissue. Maybe a few, if the wetness on his palms and the frustratingly persistent itch in his nose are indicative of anything. Just as his breath begins to hitch, the telltale start of another fit, he’s startled by a sudden puff of blue smoke on the other end of the couch (so much so that he nearly falls off the cushions) and it’s all he can do to blink, gaze watery and nose still twitching as he teeters on the edge of a sneeze he can already feel backing into submission. For the moment, anyway, he thinks bitterly, but he doesn’t have much time to dwell on it before his attention is once again stolen by a very friendly (and very German) “Gesundheit!” from the boy now perched on the arm of the couch.

 

Peter snuffles into the tissues, pokes his head out of the blanket cocoon to glance up at Kurt. Strands of silver are mussed in nearly every direction, some dark and plastered to his forehead with a thin sheen of sweat and others sticking straight up in unruly waves. His nose, still hidden behind the tissues he’s currently rubbing furiously against it, is a bright shade of pink, a highlight of color amidst otherwise pale and washed out features. The speedster is usually pretty confident (okay, very, he’s very confident) about his appearance, from his taste in metallic accessories right down to the color of his hair, but right now, he’s aware he looks like crap. Complete and total crap. “Thanks, Blue,” he mutters, his smile weak and lopsided as he gives another liquid sniff and tosses the tissue toward the waste basket across the room. It misses. And normally, he could alter the trajectory before it’s even reached the trash can, but he can’t be bothered right now. He’s barely got the energy to move at anything other than a sluggishly, staggeringly normal pace. “What’re you doing here anyway? Don’t you have a class or something?”

 

“But Peter, it is Saturday.” He just blinks at Kurt as if it’s the first time he heard the news. It kind of is, in truth. And seriously, if he wasn’t already one hundred percent sure being sick was the worst, this was just the icing on the cake. Sick on a weekend. Sick on a Saturday. He hadn’t even realized it. No wonder the school seemed so empty; he was pretty sure he heard Jubilee say something about trying to talk the Professor into a mall trip today, that was why she’d been so opposed to a technically prohibited swim last night. Something about new earrings or whatever. Peter gets it. He’s always been a sucker for material things too; it’s how he ended up with the collection of street signs and the row of arcade games that are still back home in his mom’s basement. Man, if only he could have brought them. He’d kill to play a round of Galaga right now. “Everyone was about to leave to go to ze mall. When I asked Jean where you were, she said you were not coming, that you were feeling under ze weather. So I came to find you.”

 

Kurt has this smile on his lips, it’s caught somewhere between earnest and hesitant and it makes Peter’s chest tighten in all sorts of weird ways. He coughs, hoping it might help dispel the sensation, but all it does is make his throat sore. He’s not thinking about that though, not really. His mind’s still stuck on the fact that Kurt asked about him. Kurt noticed he wasn’t there and went out of his way to ask about him. Peter knows it’s not a big a deal as he’s currently making it seem, but still. So he’s kind of got a soft spot for the boy with the yellow eyes. Sue him. “Well, y’found me,” Peter says with a sniffle and nods toward the lump of blankets he’s called home for the past hour as if to suggest it’s where he’s been this whole time. It almost has. It’s rare that he can manage to sit still for this long. “But don’t you want to, like… I dunno, go with them? I know I’d rather be at the mall than here any day.” But Peter didn’t even get an invite. He can’t find it in him to be resentful, though, surprisingly enough; he wouldn’t really want anyone coughing all over him while he was trying to have a good time either. But still, an offer would have been cool. 

 

“Nein, not — not really,” Kurt admits, and it’s enough to draw Peter out of wallowing in self-pity for a moment to pay attention to him. “The mall is — it is fun, but…” he hesitates, and ever curious Peter can’t help but wonder why. “I do not wish to spend ze next three hours shopping for scrunchies. I am not even entirely sure what that is.” Even as crappy as he feels, Peter has to laugh at that. And he does, all the way up until the laughter devolves into a coughing fit that leaves him breathless. He doesn’t even care. It’s so worth it. That’s what he loves about Kurt. The guy doesn’t even try, he’s just accidentally hilarious. When he finally manages to catch his breath, Peter looks back up at him with a grin. It’s not quite as blinding as usual, but it still brings out the dimples in his cheeks as he swipes a wrist under his nose, and he has the decency to look at least a little sheepish at the embarrassment painted across Kurt’s features.

 

“I’m sorry, Blue, I wasn’t laughing at you, man,” Peter begins, sitting up a bit in his nest of blankets and pulling a duvet even tighter around his shoulders. “It’s just, if you could’ve hh—ih! If you could’ve h—heard…” To his credit, he tries his best to finish his thought even as he feels a tickle begin to bloom in his sinuses, scrunching up his nose and talking through the slight hitch in his breath until it all but forces him to trail off. Kurt seems to realize this, and he’s swiping the box of tissues from the coffee table with his tail and holding them out to him in one fluid movement. Peter reaches wordlessly for one, dark eyes fluttering shut and head tilting back slightly as he winds up for another fit. And honestly, this is the most frustrating part. If he could just sneeze and get it over with, that would be cool. Instead, he’s got to wait for what feels like forever (especially for the speedster, it’s agonizingly slow), hitching and panting as tears prickle in the corners of half-closed eyes and nostrils flare wildly in irritation, probably looking totally ridiculous until— “Hh’tZSCH! Hh—hehh’IHSHh—ihh!” Somehow, amidst the rapid fire paroxysms, Peter notices Kurt open his mouth as if to speak, and he shakes his head, silently asking him to wait before doubling over in a blur of silver hair with a final, louder “Hyeh’TSCHuh!”

 

Sometimes, he swears he can’t get them out fast enough. It’s so annoying. Peter sighs when he’s finished, head tilting to rest against the back of the couch as he reaches lazily for another tissue and gives a small nod from behind it in thanks when Kurt blesses him again. Or wishes him good health or whatever it translates to in German. He’s not totally sure, but he appreciates it anyway. “It’s always ad odd — ugh,” he cuts himself off to blow his nose because he can’t stand the sound of his voice when he can’t form consonants. “Always an odd number. Always. Kinda weird, right? I mean, I guess it’s fitting though.” He chuckles at that, but Kurt seems unfazed by his self-deprecating humor. Or oblivious to it, one of the two. When his golden gaze narrows slightly, head falling into a curious tilt, Peter can only assume it’s the latter.  The shy, “I am not sure vhat you mean,” that follows in that same accent (somewhere in the back of his mind, he can hear himself call it adorable, but he pushes that thought away as quickly as it comes) only confirms his assumption.

 

“Because — well, I dunno, they come in odd numbers, and then there’s me and I’m kinda… odd — y’know what? Nevermind.”  Peter shakes his head, effectively cutting off his own tangent. Maybe he’s got a fever or maybe he’s just loopy from sitting still so long, but he wonders if maybe it didn’t make as much sense as he thought. Kurt’s still looking at him though and he hates it but he’s pretty sure he can feel his cheeks growing warm and it’s not because he’s sick. It is a pretty passable excuse, though. Either way, he shifts a bit, folding his legs beneath him and hiking up the blanket a little higher on his shoulders. “It was a joke. A lame attempt at one, anyway. Don’t worry about it.” He pauses, sniffles, running his hand through a tangled mess of silver. “So you’re not going with them?” Kurt shakes his head. “Not gonna, like, bamf yourself to the mall and meet them there?” Another no.

 

It’s all the initiative Peter needs to finally push himself up off the couch cushions, and out of the corner of his eye, he can see the twitch of a tail, the slight tensing of muscles as he sways a bit on his feet upon standing and Kurt waits to see if he’s gonna have to catch him (and Peter’s all for clichés about being swept off your feet, but this was really not the situation he had in mind, thanks). It only takes a second to steady himself before he’s reaching for a blanket from the mound he’s left in his wake; he was plenty warm when he was beneath them, but now that he was barefoot and exposed in a thin, old Pink Floyd tee and a pair of cotton sleep pants, he was regretting having left his cocoon. Wrapping it around himself haphazardly like some sort of makeshift cape, he turns to Kurt with a mischievous smirk. It falters quickly, though, and the expression left in its place is dazed, gaze distant for several seconds before he’s snapping forward with another short, rapid fit of sneezes (five this time, muffled into the blanket at the last minute and with barely enough time for a breath between each). “Gesundheit!” Kurt offers when it finally tapers off, clearly surprised by the spectacle. “Meine Güte, are you alright?”

 

“Yeah, I’m good. Definitely — definitely solid.” The words themselves are confident, but there’s a vaguely doubtful quality to his tone. Of course there’s gonna be, though, that just made him hella dizzy and he's not entirely positive he doesn't have whiplash now. But he’s not falling over, and he’s pretty sure he’s managed to snuff out that stupid freaking tickle for the moment, so he’s good. Peter coughs to clear his throat and smiles again. “C’mon, Blue, if you’re staying, let’s go find something to get into. If I keep sitting here, I’m literally gonna die of boredom, I can feel it.”

 

- - - - 

Alright, so there it is. Chapter one. Comments and critiques are totally appreciated as it's been a while since I really wrote anything and I'm also diving into characters I've never written before. Anyway, thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed it!

Edited July 21, 2016 by Jazz.
I'm so weird about formatting.

[Spoo]

First off, it's great to see you around again.  Second off, QUICKSILVERRRRRR!  I'm loving this fic so far, haha. Peter feels perfectly in character (so does Kurt!) and I'm enjoying their conversations (and Peter's misery ). Can't wait to see what else you have in store!

[Snowydays]

//squees in happiness

This was so well written and I love it so much!! Peter's hella cute and I'm so happy to see stuff for him, and I love him and Kurt so much so this was perfect!! I love how it was his fault he got sick in the first place; something he'd totally do!  

[Bongo]

This was completely spectacular. Your voice for Peter was spot on, as it was for Kurt. 

And then there were a bunch of little things I loved. Him having to scoop Jean and Scott up together was one of my favorite tidbits. And then his sneezes like rushing to get out, perfect for a speedster. 

I've been craving sneezy Quicksilver ever since I saw the third movie, and this was such a great thing to stumble upon. Thank you! And I can't wait for the next chapter.

[Elle]

Omg I love this so much. Just delicious! My two fave x-men in one tasty sweet sick fic!

[Nervous-Bean]

SCREAMING IN FANGIRLING TOO HARD 

I'm so new to the fandom and all but Quicksilver is my favourite and seeing this fic...I'm just giggling like a little girl!  

[lillian]

Omg anything with Evan Peters speaks directly to my soul. His little fits omfg. And he doesn't like his own stuffy voice. What happens when he can't help it anymore? More please!