#ev001

“Nope, don’t touch that.”  Jack barely tore his eyes away from his screens at his workbench when he saw the hand floating towards some of the prototypes that lay open on the bench in the mechanical shop.  He hated when things were slow; it meant less people were out on missions and more of them were lingering around-- nosey and (what he considered worse) bored.

It turned out that the man who found himself in one of these beds every month could not handle the sight of a loved one in the same place. He felt so small, so utterly powerless, not being able to do anything but wait was driving him up the walls. He'd bitten his nails raw and tried distracting himself with some reading, but nothing made time pass faster. He stared at Severus' eyelids until he felt he could burn holes through them, or will them to open already, whichever came first.

Instead, he had to wait. He took a hold of Severus' hand once, ten minutes ago, and had gotten a weak twitch of fingers in return, that he'd quickly overanalyzed and convinced himself it was probably a negative response. Which, in hindsight, was pretty dumb, but he was that stressed.

But now that dark lashes finally started to flutter and limbs shuffle in response, Remus couldn't help the knee-jerk reaction to reach for his hand again with both of his. "Finally, thank Merlin," he muttered dumbly, voice laced with overwhelming relief. "Hi. Take it easy. You're in the infirmary."