take care of yourself; you belong to me (Ocean’s 8)

[curlyq9393]

Hey guys! In the hopes of inspiring people to share their own, here’s an Ocean’s 8 fic I wrote! Hope you enjoy!

“Ooooh, Tim-Tam, you look rough, dude. Baby’s first hangover?”

 

Tammy shot Constance a watery-eyed glare. “I’m older than you, first of all,” she said croakily, “and no, I am not hungover, thank you very much.”

 

“Hey, no shame,” Constance said, grinning wickedly. “No one ever said having fun was a crime.”

 

“Well, some kinds of fun are,” Amita said under her breath, smirking. 

 

Tammy’s breath caught in her chest, then hitched delicately once, twice, three times before she was bent in half by a shuddering sneeze. “Ugh, sorry,” she said, sniffling thickly. 

 

“Oh, don’t tell me you’ve got the plague, too,” Debbie said, suddenly appearing in the common room, a mug in her hands.

 

“What do you mean ‘too’?” Constance asked, eyes narrowed. “Who else is sick?”

 

“Lou,” Debbie said, leaning up against the wall. “She was up half the night sneezing and coughing and blowing her nose.” She smiled tiredly and yawned. “Which means I was also up half the night.”

 

Daphne, Constance, and Rose awwwwwed in unison at this reveal, genuine and teasing at the same time. Debbie and Lou had finally recently placed a label on their decades long relationship, and the rest of the team spent a considerable amount of time making fun of them in a loving sort of way about it.

 

“Oh,” Tammy said, suddenly feeling quite forlorn and sorry for herself, because she’d been up half the night too, for the exact same reasons, but without anyone to hand her tissues or rub her back or tell her what a poor thing she was. 

 

Three loud sneezes followed by a chorus of rattly coughing echoing out of Lou’s room cut Tammy’s pity party short. Constance clapped her hands together. “So, I vote patients zero and zero get quarantined together because, uh, hell no, I am not catching whatever zombie plague those two are carrying around.”

 

“Guys, I’m fine, really,” Tammy said, offering the team what she hoped was a spunky, chipper smile. Their answering looks, which ranged from  displeasure and suspicion {Constance} to soft-eyed pity {Daphne, oddly enough} clearly emoted that she had not succeeded. 

 

“Sweets,” Rose said, glancing up from the dress she was sewing, “I hate to break it to you, but you do look a bit, erm—“

 

“Contagious?” Constance supplied. Rose glared at her.

 

“I think ‘miserable’ covers all our bases quite nicely,” Debbie said diplomatically. 

 

Not willing to risk it, Constance stole away to the upper level to see what Nine Ball was doing that seemed to be periodically making the power in the entire building flicker. 

 

Tammy sighed, crumpling onto the sofa next to Daphne and cuddling further into her purple bathrobe. Daphne wordlessly handed her several napkins from the coffee table, leftover from Chinese takeout a few nights ago.

 

Tammy blew her nose, loudly but ineffectually. “I can’t breathe,” she said, leaning fully into the sickling routine now that the universe had given her its permission. “My head feels like it’s full of cement.” 

 

“You sound like it, poor thing,” Daphne said, gently running a hand through Tammy’s hair, and suddenly Tammy felt like she might cry for happiness, because yes, this was all she’d been hoping for. She leaned into Daphne’s hand and closed her eyes, sighing. 

 

Debbie rounded the back of the couch and wrapped her arm’s around Tammy’s shoulders. “Alright sickie,” she said. “I think it’s time for you to go back to bed.”

 

“It’s cold and lonely in my room,” Tammy protested, clinging to Daphne. 

 

“Then come and share my bed.”

 

All heads turned towards the source of the spoken suggestion. Lou had apparently wandered into the room at some point during the discussion.  She looked just as badly off as Tammy, and her eyes were uncharacteristically glassy. But her mouth was turned up in a sleepy version of her usual smirk at the implied innuendo in her comment.

 

“Ms. Miller, you’re trying to seduce me,” Tammy bantered back. “Aren’t you?”

 

“Oh yeah, baby,” Lou said. “We’ll open a jar of Vapo-Rub and go to town.”

 

Tammy laughed, though it quickly turned into a fit of raspy coughs. She rubbed her chest when it was over and winced. “Ow,” she said weakly. It was just as congested as her head, she noted sourly, like she was drowning in her own fluids. 

 

Lou sneezed three times, as if to commiserate with Tammy’s unspoken thought. 

 

“We’re a mess,” Tammy said hopelessly, and Lou laughed. Then she walked over to Tammy and helped her up, wrapping an arm securely around her waist. 

 

“C’mon,” she said, leading Tammy towards her room. “We’ll hide in bed and make them wait on us hand and foot. Tea and soup, and maybe a few sexual favors if they play their cards right.” Lou winked, then met Debbie’s eyes pointedly. Tammy blushed. 

 

“Enticing, but I think I’ll wait until you’re a little less...drippy here,” Debbie said, gesturing vaguely at Lou’s nose. Lou batted Debbie’s hand away, rolling her eyes fondly. 

 

Minutes later, Tammy crawled under Lou’s down comforter and flopped down on her stomach. Lou and Debbie were talking with their faces weirdly close together in the corner. Tammy was suddenly so exhausted that she couldn’t keep her eyes open. “Can you two lovebirds take that outside,” she murmured into a pillow.

 

“It’s my bed,” Debbie said over Lou’s shoulder. 

 

“Not anymore; I stole it,” Tammy replied, voice slightly slurred, already halfway to sleep. “The greatest heist of the century. Ta-da.”

 

“Impressive,” Lou said, sliding under the covers next to Tammy. 

 

“Do either of you need anything?” Debbie asked. 

 

Lou shook her head. 

 

“To not be sick anymore,” Tammy said, voice muffled by the blankets.

 

“I think the only cure for that is time, Tim-Tam.”

 

“Well,” Tammy said, at this point sounding no more than 3% awake, “go steal some for us, Ocean.”

 

Debbie laughed. “I’m not sure it works that way,” she said, “but I can try.”

 

~~~

 

Tammy woke up a little while later, feeling shivery and disoriented. “What time is it?” She swallowed hard against the raw pain in her throat.

 

“Just past noon,” Lou said, then blew her nose. “How are you feeling?”

 

“Awful,” Tammy said, too congested and achy to downplay it, pulling the covers more tightly around her body. “I think I’m running a fever.”

 

“You do look a bit flushed,” Lou agreed, absently pressing a hand to Tammy’s forehead. 

 

Daphne appeared in the doorway, a small smile on her face. She looked strangely...shy? Yes, her face was definitely shy, which was very weird because while Daphne Kluger was many things, shy hadn’t ever been one of them. 

 

“Hey guys,” Daphne said quietly, walking towards them. “I figured you could use some, you know, sick day supplies.” She was wearing a few bulging drug store bags on her arm and carrying a tray that held some bowls and a box of saltines. 

 

“Jesus, Kluger,” Lou said, eying the contents of Daphne’s tray, “what did you do? Run a job at Duane Reade?”

 

“I went out and bought all of it myself, thank you,” Daphne said primly. “You have, like, nothing in this loft, Lou, did you know that? Like not even a bottle of Advil. It’s absurd.”

 

“I’ve got stuff much better than Advil if anyone needs it, but that’s beside the point.”

 

“I don’t doubt that, but did you have lotion tissues for Tammy’s faucet-nose, or Neosporin for your pink one? Or NyQuil so you can sleep through the night—assuming you and Debbie take a break from your usual nighttime activities while you’re sick—or cough drops for Tammy’s obviously sore throat? Or a thermometer for when Debbie gets this and we have to convince her to rest?”

 

Lou raised an eyebrow, equal parts surprised and amused.

 

“Did you really make us soup?” Tammy said, admiring the two steaming bowls sitting on the tray. 

 

“Well, technically Campbell’s made it and I just heated it up, but sure,” Daphne said, laughing. 

 

“This is so sweet, Daph, thank you,” Tammy said, not quite managing to keep all traces of disbelief out of her voice because, seriously, who knew that Well-Known Diva Daphne Kluger had a soft spot?

 

“There’s no need to sound so shocked,” Daphne said, huffing. “I can be nice.”

 

Lou and Tammy raised their eyebrows, but said nothing. Then Tammy’s maternal instincts kicked in and she nodded considerately.

 

“I can!” Daphne said, sounding rather close to stamping her foot.

 

“I’m not sure anyone on this team is especially nice,” Lou said. “Not exactly a con’s greatest asset.”

 

“Well, I’m nice to the few people I care about,” Daphne muttered, looking down at the floor.

 

Lou and Tammy both squealed in exaggerated glee at Daphne’s words. “She likes us, she really really likes us!” Tammy said, imitating Sally Field as she clasped Lou’s arm. 

 

“Both of you are impossible,” Daphne said, rolling her eyes and walking back towards the doorway. 

 

“But you looooooove us,” Tammy said, batting her eyelashes.

 

“Yeah, well,” Daphne said, smiling in spite of herself. 

 

~~~

 

Another long nap followed Tammy’s soup and mug of tea, and when she woke up it was pouring rain. The room was dark, the shades drawn. She was alone in the bed, too, but there was light coming in from under the closed door. She was anxious and confused; what time was it? How long had she been asleep? And where did everyone go? 

 

Tammy whimpered, which she knew was decidedly dramatic, but she didn’t have the energy to care. Her head was aching, and her nose was so stuffed up that she couldn’t breathe through it, yet somehow still leaking. Her throat was full of post-nasal drip, raw and sore, but her mouth was dry and cottony. Her ears were clogged and achy, her eyes felt gritty and itchy, and she—“Heh'nTschhhiE-oo!”—and, apparently, she couldn’t finish a thought without sneezing. 

 

More than anything, Tammy didn’t want to be alone; she wanted to be where the rest of the team was. She wanted them to cuddle her and fuss over her because, as tough as they all were, she knew they wouldn’t judge her when she was vulnerable. She wanted someone to take care of her; since she and James had split up, no one had been there to make her a drink after a long day, to rub her back when the other moms were being bitchy to her, to cuddle her when she felt crappy. Now she was here in this weird club/warehouse/loft, surrounded by remarkably strong but soft-hearted women, and even sitting alone on a bed that wasn’t hers she felt more taken care of than she ever had in the last year of her marriage. 

 

Smiling softly even through the throbbing in her head, Tammy stood up, bracing a hand on the bedside table as she waited out a wave of vertigo. She took the comforter off of the bed and wrapped herself in it to ward off the shivers coursing through her feverish body. It was too long for her to be wearing it this way, and it dragged on the ground as she walked, but in this moment all she cared about was getting from point a to point b without collapsing. 

 

Sniffling, Tammy slowly made her way to the common room where she could hear the rise and fall of familiar voices. The light in the room was so bright that it made her squint, barely able to make out the outlines of her two dearest old friends and... well, her five new ones. As she stepped over the threshold, the setting sun dipped into the pane of the window and hit her eyes; she whined softly and covered her face. Then she promptly uncovered it and gave a violent sun-sneeze: “HASMHPkehpstch!!!”

 

“Bless you!” Daphne and Debbie called in unison.

 

“Oh, love, you look awful—“ Rose’s lilting Irish accent was the first thing Tammy heard when her ears stopping ringing, followed by a medley of other voices expressing similar sentiments. Several pairs of hands—Tammy wasn’t quite sure whose—led her over to the sofa where Lou was curled up and immediately tucked the comforter more securely around the both of them. 

 

Tammy stared at Lou with bleary eyes. “I don’t feel good,” she said hoarsely.

 

“I never would’ve guessed,” Lou teased, brushing a sweat-damp lock of hair out of Tammy’s eyes. “Because you look just gorgeous, darling.”

 

Tammy blinked tiredly, trying not to blush but knowing full well that she was. Then Lou brushed a dry kiss on her forehead, and the blush spread below her clothes. 

 

Luckily it came off as more feverishness, and Rose appeared and placed a cool, dainty hand on her forehead. 

 

“Oh, I have two kinds of thermometers!” Daphne interjected, rummaging in the bags of cold supplies.

 

“No need, dearie; I’ve got perfect temperature-sense.” 

 

“Uh, is that a thing?” Amita said, skeptical.

 

“It is not,” Debbie confirmed quietly,  but she kept reading over her pad of notes without even looking up.

 

“100.3°,” Rose proclaimed, definitive. 

 

Daphne used her brand-new high-tech ear thermometer to check, but it also read 100.3°. “Wow.”

 

“That’s a cool trick,” Constance mumbled from across the room. “How do you do it?”

 

Rose shrugged, and Tammy sneezed again. Daphne handed her a tissue. Lou put an arm around her shoulders. Tammy sneezed yet again and then gave a deep and exhausted sigh, dropping over so that Lou’s shoulder was supporting most of her weight.

 

“What can I do, sweetheart?" Lou had never been a particularly ebullient or openly caring personality, but something about Tammy’s pink nose, watery eyes, and stuffy-sounding voice hit a nerve that made her desperate to do all she could to help her to feel better. “Really, do you need anything else?”

 

Tammy said nothing, but lifted a single finger and made some strange little gaspy sounds. Then she emitted a "HSsmptchkooOOO!" that folded her body in two. 

 

Then Tammy looked around the room, so wide and cavernous but kept warm with heaters and extra blankets. It shouldn’t have been cozy but it was, though that may have had more to do with the women in the room with her. She sighed, contented, and lay her head on Lou’s breastbone.

 

She smiled sleepily at her friends, all of them staring back at her expectantly. “I think,” she said, “I have everything I could possibly want.”

 

Edited July 2, 2018 by curlyq9393

[zakandsara]

Wow wow wow wow wow wow wow I can’t believe I didn’t see this til right now. 1000 times yes. 

[PropertyofCora]

I love and adore this so much!  I'm so very glad to see some content of them on here!  Well done.