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fic: what you need from me (baby!Panic)
what you need from me
baby!Panic | 1500 words | G
Greta never likes telling the boys that one of them is going to be absent for the day.
Today feels like a baby!boys kind of day. There are a lot of sad faces on my flist right now, so hopefully this will help. Like with most things written in this verse, this is unbeta'd, self-indulgent, and ridiculously fluffy. ♥
Jon Walker's mother calls that morning to let Greta know that Jon wouldn't be coming to daycare that day; he'd come down with a really bad case of the flu over the weekend, and his fever had yet to break.
Greta thanks her and wishes Jon a speedy recovery. She can't help but imagine Jon's sad little fever-flushed face--he's rarely sick, but when he's not feeling well, it's almost like watching a puppy with a stomach ache.
She hangs up the phone, but then takes one look at her class and sighs. In the far left corner, like always, Brendon and Spencer and Ryan are huddled around the end of the table with their crayons out, all neatly lined in a row. First thing every morning, Greta has color time, where she lets the kids draw and color to their hearts content, and then explain their creations to her. She tapes the drawings to the back windows for the rest of the day.
But this morning, she notices the empty chair beside Brendon. Jon's crayons are arranged beside a clean sheet of paper; she knows Brendon must have gotten them out of Jon's cubbie, since it's right beside his own.
Greta never likes telling the boys that one of them is going to be absent for the day. They don't have cell phones to text, or email to check on each other; class time is the only time they see one another, outside of them spending the night at each other's houses (which Greta knows happens frequently, given how often they go home together). She takes a deep breath and smiles at the rest of her class, telling them to go ahead and start creating their masterpieces, then makes her way over to the small huddle of boys.
Brendon is on his knees in his chair, elbows on the table with the tip of his tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth as he concentrates very hard on drawing something in green--Greta wagers it's another T-Rex, since Brendon has yet to stop drawing dinosaurs on a regular basis. Beside him, Spencer rests his cheek on his left arm as he draws lazy circles in purple.
"Miss Greta, how many claws does a porcupine have?"
She smiles down at Ryan, who is looking up at her with wide, very earnest eyes. He is infinitely serious about the details of his pictures, and if the details are wrong, then he can't draw it, period. "I'm not sure, Ryan. Four?"
Ryan frowns, staring down at the brown Crayola in his hand. "Is that the same as a raccoon?"
He'll stress himself out at this rate, Greta knows. "Yes, it is. Exactly." She pats him on the head, and that seems to satisfy Ryan; he nods once and reaches for a black crayon, probably for the mask.
Brendon is growling under his breath at the blobby neon-green tyrannosaur taking shape on the page. Greta laughs softly and decides she might as well get it over with.
"Boys, just so you know, Jon is sick today. He won't be coming to class."
Spencer's eyes get very big, and Brendon immediately stops his dino growling.
"But...but I got his crayons out..." Brendon says softly, poking at said crayons.
Ryan, meanwhile, looks a bit stricken. "Was he bitten by rabies?" he whispers, and good lord, Greta has to wonder what his mother lets him check out of the library sometimes. This week it's rabies and forest animals, last week it was sharks.
Spencer's eyes get even more wide, and he presses his face a little harder into his arm, his lower lip trembling slightly.
Greta sighs loudly. "No, Ryan, Jon wasn't bitten by rabies. He has the flu, and a fever. He'll be fine, he just needs to stay home today and let his mom take care of him."
"What's the foo?" Spencer whispers, voice still a little shaky. Greta keeps reminding her that losing someone even for a day is traumatizing for a four-year-old, and Spencer takes his friends' well-being very seriously. She still remembers the crying jag Spencer had when Brendon was out for a week with the chicken pox.
Brendon bites his lip and leans in to whisper in his not-whispering voice to Spencer, "It's when you get all hot and your tummy hurts. And you drink lots of Sprite." He looks back up at Greta. "Can we make 'im a card?"
Greta grins. "Sure you can. He'd love it, I bet." She's pretty sure the Walkers live within ten minutes of her apartment. She can drop it off on her way home.
Brendon beams, all sadness at not having Jon around gone for the moment as he grabs a sheet of neon pink and pushes it toward Ryan. "Ryan, write Jon's name and 'get better.' I'll draw him a kitten, with stripes!"
Ryan doesn't actually know how to write yet, but he has a strangely amazing way of drawing things that resemble letters, like a weird alien kid language only he can decipher. However, he can write the other boys' names, and he draws a very careful J across the top of the page.
Spencer frowns and says, "What do I do?" in a very small, pitiful voice.
"Duh," Brendon says, rolling his eyes. "You draw the hearts. Hearts make everything better."
"Oh." Spencer's instant smile is all happy baby cheeks and sunshine. "Okay." He takes the pink crayon from Brendon and begins scribbling little hearts all around Ryan's J (the O and the N are a tenth of its size, and sort of squished to one side).
She lets coloring time go long, until the boys finish with their get well card. Brendon's kitten is a mess of black and gray scrawls, but there is a distinct set of whiskers in the middle. Spencer's hearts are more like spastic triangles, and Ryan's "get better" is still in a cryptic fake language.
Greta thinks Jon will adore it to pieces.
~
Later that afternoon, Greta rings the doorbell at the Walker's house and hands the card to Jon's mom.
"From Brendon, Ryan, and Spencer with love," she says with a smile.
Mrs. Walker laughs fondly. "Is it sad I was sort of expecting those boys to make something like this?" she says, shaking her head.
"No," Greta replies, and means it.
"You should give this to Jon in person, it would make his day."
She follows Mrs. Walker upstairs to Jon's room, and sure enough, Jon's huddle up under blankets, clutching what looks like a well-loved stuffed Dalmatian and watching Aladdin. He looks completely miserable.
But his eyes flare happily when he sees Greta.
"Miss Greta!" he says, his little voice croaky and weak.
"She brought you something, Jon," his mother says, then holds out the card. Even for as sick as Jon looks, he still scrambles up in bed and plucks the card from her hands.
"That's my name!" He points to the giant J. "Ryan wrote that, didn't he?"
Greta nods. "He certainly did."
Jon scrinches his mouth to one side like he's carefully reading the nonsense letters. "He says I should get well soon," he eventually announces matter-of-factly, and Greta can't help grinning. Of course he can read it, it's their own secret boy code.
"Is that a kitten?" Mrs. Walker asks.
Jon huffs. "Duh! Brendon drew Clover, Mom." He looks to Greta. "Right?"
Greta nods again.
"And Spencer drew the hearts, 'cause I taught him how. He's really good at it." Jon bites his lip, beaming down at the card in his hands. His cheeks are still flushed with fever and his bangs are a little damp with sweat and eyes look tired, but Greta knows that in this moment, Jon feels fantastic.
"Let's hang it on your bulletin board," Mrs. Walker starts to say, but Jon shakes his head firmly.
"No, no, on the ceiling! Wanna see it!" He tries to stand up on the bed and reach.
His mom laughs as she rolls her eyes. "All right, we'll hang it on the ceiling, but I want you back in bed, mister." She gets some tape and pulls the chair out from Jon's desk. It's a stretch, but with Greta's help they manage to stick the card to the ceiling above Jon's bed.
Jon lays flat on his back, half-sunk into the pillows, staring straight up and smiling contentedly.
"Thank you," Mrs. Walker whispers to Greta. "Seriously, he's set for the rest of the week."
"No problem." Greta waves to Jon as she adds louder, "Bye, Jon! Feel better!"
"Bye, Miss Greta," he calls back.
"What do we say, Jon?" his mom prods.
"Oh, right." Jon sits up and says softly, almost shyly, "Thank you to Brendon and Spencer and Ryan." Then he flops back onto the bed, sighing happily up at the card.
"I meant say thank you to Miss Greta, but that's close enough," Mrs. Walker replies dryly.
Greta just laughs.
baby!Panic | 1500 words | G
Greta never likes telling the boys that one of them is going to be absent for the day.
Today feels like a baby!boys kind of day. There are a lot of sad faces on my flist right now, so hopefully this will help. Like with most things written in this verse, this is unbeta'd, self-indulgent, and ridiculously fluffy. ♥
Jon Walker's mother calls that morning to let Greta know that Jon wouldn't be coming to daycare that day; he'd come down with a really bad case of the flu over the weekend, and his fever had yet to break.
Greta thanks her and wishes Jon a speedy recovery. She can't help but imagine Jon's sad little fever-flushed face--he's rarely sick, but when he's not feeling well, it's almost like watching a puppy with a stomach ache.
She hangs up the phone, but then takes one look at her class and sighs. In the far left corner, like always, Brendon and Spencer and Ryan are huddled around the end of the table with their crayons out, all neatly lined in a row. First thing every morning, Greta has color time, where she lets the kids draw and color to their hearts content, and then explain their creations to her. She tapes the drawings to the back windows for the rest of the day.
But this morning, she notices the empty chair beside Brendon. Jon's crayons are arranged beside a clean sheet of paper; she knows Brendon must have gotten them out of Jon's cubbie, since it's right beside his own.
Greta never likes telling the boys that one of them is going to be absent for the day. They don't have cell phones to text, or email to check on each other; class time is the only time they see one another, outside of them spending the night at each other's houses (which Greta knows happens frequently, given how often they go home together). She takes a deep breath and smiles at the rest of her class, telling them to go ahead and start creating their masterpieces, then makes her way over to the small huddle of boys.
Brendon is on his knees in his chair, elbows on the table with the tip of his tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth as he concentrates very hard on drawing something in green--Greta wagers it's another T-Rex, since Brendon has yet to stop drawing dinosaurs on a regular basis. Beside him, Spencer rests his cheek on his left arm as he draws lazy circles in purple.
"Miss Greta, how many claws does a porcupine have?"
She smiles down at Ryan, who is looking up at her with wide, very earnest eyes. He is infinitely serious about the details of his pictures, and if the details are wrong, then he can't draw it, period. "I'm not sure, Ryan. Four?"
Ryan frowns, staring down at the brown Crayola in his hand. "Is that the same as a raccoon?"
He'll stress himself out at this rate, Greta knows. "Yes, it is. Exactly." She pats him on the head, and that seems to satisfy Ryan; he nods once and reaches for a black crayon, probably for the mask.
Brendon is growling under his breath at the blobby neon-green tyrannosaur taking shape on the page. Greta laughs softly and decides she might as well get it over with.
"Boys, just so you know, Jon is sick today. He won't be coming to class."
Spencer's eyes get very big, and Brendon immediately stops his dino growling.
"But...but I got his crayons out..." Brendon says softly, poking at said crayons.
Ryan, meanwhile, looks a bit stricken. "Was he bitten by rabies?" he whispers, and good lord, Greta has to wonder what his mother lets him check out of the library sometimes. This week it's rabies and forest animals, last week it was sharks.
Spencer's eyes get even more wide, and he presses his face a little harder into his arm, his lower lip trembling slightly.
Greta sighs loudly. "No, Ryan, Jon wasn't bitten by rabies. He has the flu, and a fever. He'll be fine, he just needs to stay home today and let his mom take care of him."
"What's the foo?" Spencer whispers, voice still a little shaky. Greta keeps reminding her that losing someone even for a day is traumatizing for a four-year-old, and Spencer takes his friends' well-being very seriously. She still remembers the crying jag Spencer had when Brendon was out for a week with the chicken pox.
Brendon bites his lip and leans in to whisper in his not-whispering voice to Spencer, "It's when you get all hot and your tummy hurts. And you drink lots of Sprite." He looks back up at Greta. "Can we make 'im a card?"
Greta grins. "Sure you can. He'd love it, I bet." She's pretty sure the Walkers live within ten minutes of her apartment. She can drop it off on her way home.
Brendon beams, all sadness at not having Jon around gone for the moment as he grabs a sheet of neon pink and pushes it toward Ryan. "Ryan, write Jon's name and 'get better.' I'll draw him a kitten, with stripes!"
Ryan doesn't actually know how to write yet, but he has a strangely amazing way of drawing things that resemble letters, like a weird alien kid language only he can decipher. However, he can write the other boys' names, and he draws a very careful J across the top of the page.
Spencer frowns and says, "What do I do?" in a very small, pitiful voice.
"Duh," Brendon says, rolling his eyes. "You draw the hearts. Hearts make everything better."
"Oh." Spencer's instant smile is all happy baby cheeks and sunshine. "Okay." He takes the pink crayon from Brendon and begins scribbling little hearts all around Ryan's J (the O and the N are a tenth of its size, and sort of squished to one side).
She lets coloring time go long, until the boys finish with their get well card. Brendon's kitten is a mess of black and gray scrawls, but there is a distinct set of whiskers in the middle. Spencer's hearts are more like spastic triangles, and Ryan's "get better" is still in a cryptic fake language.
Greta thinks Jon will adore it to pieces.
~
Later that afternoon, Greta rings the doorbell at the Walker's house and hands the card to Jon's mom.
"From Brendon, Ryan, and Spencer with love," she says with a smile.
Mrs. Walker laughs fondly. "Is it sad I was sort of expecting those boys to make something like this?" she says, shaking her head.
"No," Greta replies, and means it.
"You should give this to Jon in person, it would make his day."
She follows Mrs. Walker upstairs to Jon's room, and sure enough, Jon's huddle up under blankets, clutching what looks like a well-loved stuffed Dalmatian and watching Aladdin. He looks completely miserable.
But his eyes flare happily when he sees Greta.
"Miss Greta!" he says, his little voice croaky and weak.
"She brought you something, Jon," his mother says, then holds out the card. Even for as sick as Jon looks, he still scrambles up in bed and plucks the card from her hands.
"That's my name!" He points to the giant J. "Ryan wrote that, didn't he?"
Greta nods. "He certainly did."
Jon scrinches his mouth to one side like he's carefully reading the nonsense letters. "He says I should get well soon," he eventually announces matter-of-factly, and Greta can't help grinning. Of course he can read it, it's their own secret boy code.
"Is that a kitten?" Mrs. Walker asks.
Jon huffs. "Duh! Brendon drew Clover, Mom." He looks to Greta. "Right?"
Greta nods again.
"And Spencer drew the hearts, 'cause I taught him how. He's really good at it." Jon bites his lip, beaming down at the card in his hands. His cheeks are still flushed with fever and his bangs are a little damp with sweat and eyes look tired, but Greta knows that in this moment, Jon feels fantastic.
"Let's hang it on your bulletin board," Mrs. Walker starts to say, but Jon shakes his head firmly.
"No, no, on the ceiling! Wanna see it!" He tries to stand up on the bed and reach.
His mom laughs as she rolls her eyes. "All right, we'll hang it on the ceiling, but I want you back in bed, mister." She gets some tape and pulls the chair out from Jon's desk. It's a stretch, but with Greta's help they manage to stick the card to the ceiling above Jon's bed.
Jon lays flat on his back, half-sunk into the pillows, staring straight up and smiling contentedly.
"Thank you," Mrs. Walker whispers to Greta. "Seriously, he's set for the rest of the week."
"No problem." Greta waves to Jon as she adds louder, "Bye, Jon! Feel better!"
"Bye, Miss Greta," he calls back.
"What do we say, Jon?" his mom prods.
"Oh, right." Jon sits up and says softly, almost shyly, "Thank you to Brendon and Spencer and Ryan." Then he flops back onto the bed, sighing happily up at the card.
"I meant say thank you to Miss Greta, but that's close enough," Mrs. Walker replies dryly.
Greta just laughs.