darker_london | Ill (Peter, Jeremy, Liz, Aly)

After feeling comparitively okay the last few days, Peter was now ready to admit he was sick. It was as if someone flipped a switch over night and Peter was stricken with a fever, malaise, and the inability to breathe correctly. Which was just not fair in the grand scheme of things, he decided. He had just been rescued from his Templar prison, and now he was imprisoned in his bed, unable to move. Worse, he didn't want to. He didn't want to do anything beyond lie there and moan while the full effect of his illness slammed into him all at once.

Peter's younger brother and older sister had arranged to visit, hoping to take care of him. Of course, when they arranged this, Peter had been in a state to be able to chat to them on the internet even while feeling slightly off. Today Peter wouldn't have been able to sit, though he did feel intensely guilty when Jeremy and Liz walked in. He wasn't going to be good company. He spent most of his time coughing uncontrollably, and then grimacing in pain while his head throbbed because of the force of his coughs.

"Whoa, Peter..." Jeremy looked over his brother with raised eyes. "You look shite."

"Thanks," Peter mumbled. He went through the effort of turning his head towards his siblings. That was nearly too much. "'mdying."

Jeremy glanced at Liz and he grinned. "Least you won't stay that way?!" he said brightly, trying to help.

"Yeah. You will." Peter's glare was quite fierce for a second, until he lost all energy to keep it going. "This is disgusting."

"Coughing crap up?" Liz asked, ever the blunt and reasonable one. "I would imagine so, yes. Have you eaten anything? Jeremy brought you some soup."

"Urgh." Peter didn't shake his head, but he hoped they knew 'urgh' meant 'please no, leave me alone'.

Aly entered the room, offering Liz a smile and Jeremy a huge grin. For some reason, Aly and Jeremy got along better than Jeremy did with either of his half-siblings. There was just something about them that clicked, though it could have just been the fact that Jeremy was closer in age to Aly than he was to Peter and Liz. And neither Aly nor Jeremy had grown up with everything at their disposal like Peter and Liz had. "I hope you're going easy on him," Aly said, moving to stand beside Jeremy. "He actually admitted he felt ill this morning. That's huge."

"Har." Peter mumbled. It was supposed to be 'har har' with a face, but he didn't get all the way through. "Feel like I can't breathe."

"You just have to cough more," Liz said, patting his shoulder.

"Nooooo." Peter frowned. "Makes head hurt."

"Well it makes lungs better," she finished, patting his shoulder. "Maybe you should get some rest?"

"Don't go," Peter hissed, looking up at her pleadingly. "Don't leave me."

Liz needed no further encouragement. From the age of seventeen, she had been cast in the role of Peter's caretaker. With their parents gone and no one else to pick up the slack, Liz had stepped in and managed to do a better job than either of their actual parents ever had. She had sat by his side while he suffered through chicken pox and a terrible case of the flu, as well as the other, lesser bugs all children come down with from time to time. Being here now was as natural as anything, even if he was now thirty-nine and she was forty-more than she wanted to think about.

A chair was quickly pushed over to Peter's bedside, and Liz settled herself down into it. She took Peter's hand and she smiled encouragingly at him. "Are you tired?"

Peter groaned and he shifted a little in the bed. "Mmm. Can't sleep. Coughing." Every time he had drifted off to sleep, a coughing fit had woken him up within minutes. He was reminded of sleep deprivation at the hands of the Templar. It was like they were still getting to him, darnit. "Keep...imagining what would have happened if I got this in there..." The idea of coming down with pnemonia in that dank hole was the stuff of nightmares.

"Eugh." Jeremy shuddered and he wrapped his arm around Aly who leaned against him gratefully. "But you didn't." Jeremy glanced at the easy love between Peter and Liz and he looked away again quickly. That was something he had never had and he was jealous of them for growing up that way. Having them now wasn't exactly the same. "Why did they even mess with you?"

"Because I'm the son of the devil," Peter sighed. "Did you know Dad was Satan?"

Jeremy laughed at that. "Actually, if Satan were real, it wouldn't surprise me if he were a Kempf! Lucifer is really German. Wow. Somehow I don't think Klaus would have made a very good Satan. Always having to think of other people all the time..."

All three of Klaus' children...at least the ones present in the room...were in agreement there. Klaus had never really fit in with the Kempfs because he was too self-centered to see any sort of big picture. It was the reason why he had faired better in England than Germany, despite his brother becoming the head of the family. "Yeah. So that's me. The Devil's son."

"Do they know you have siblings?" Jeremy asked, suddenly wary.

"Like I'd tell them that!" Peter looked horrified and his grip on Liz tightened. "I don't think they know, no. They know about my kids and Aly, but not you."

Jeremy looked slightly relieved, but he wasn't an arse. He was disturbed that people who made his icon of a brother into the pathetic, pitiable man in the bed in front of him, could possibly have access to his nieces and nephews. No one should hurt kids. Jeremy hated when people hurt kids. Adults, for the most part, were on their own but Jeremy would do practically anything to stop a child from being hurt even if he didn't know them. "They're safe here...right?"

"We have alarms." Peter tried to take a deep breath and instantly he was taken over by a coughing fit which didn't let up for several minutes. While it was in full swing, Aly leaned up out of Jeremy's arms and she darted from the room. When she returned with a cup of tea in her hands, Peter was settling down.

"Drink this," she commanded him. "And Jeremy and I are leaving because I want to show him my cool new toys."

Peter looked at the tea with greedy eyes, but he didn't have the energy to drink it. Instead he have his wife a dubious look. "You do mean the fightey, slicey, scary ones, right?" Jeremy was a fighter and now that Aly had David in her head, she had the makings of one. It made sense that she would want to compare notes.

Aly snorted and she winked. "Yes, Darling." She then pulled a rather crestfallen Jeremy out of the room with her.

"They're a troublesome pair," Liz said fondly. "They're going to get in to trouble, you know?"

Peter nodded. He knew. But since he tended to get into quite a bit himself, he didn't feel like he really had the right to say a word. "Imma sleep," he informed his sister. "You stay here?"

"Of course, Peter." Liz smiled at him, and she settled back in her chair, watching over him as he drifted off again. With Liz there, at least Peter knew nothing bad could happen to him. He might wake up coughing, but it was better than waking up underground in Rome. Much better.