what if tom scratches greg's back where he can't reach when he has sand mites
Greg scratches across the back of his neck, glancing slowly between Rhea and Uncle Logan, as the silence settles, then to Shiv, where she’s smirking into her glass. The group begins to shrink, but the awkward lingers, as a staff member wanders in to whisper a few words in Rhea’s ear, then when Gerri gets a call. It seems to signal most of the non-family to find something to do, too, but Greg, unfortunately, doesn't have anyone that isn't in here already to pull him out.
”Hey, so you kind of blew it?” Shiv says, laugh at the edge of her voice, throwing her head back to peer at Tom behind her chair. “I ask you to flirt, and instead you make some VIP bondage crack that falls like a lead sinker. How did you manage to land me, again?”
It’s something that should sound like a joke, probably, but it lands a little heavy. It doesn’t lead to an eye roll or a mocking, cartoonish voice, like it should, just Shiv awkwardly looking not quite up at Tom, while Tom stares down with a too blank smile at her shoulder.
“Bullshit, Wambsgans could never flirt,” Roman interjects, eyes rolling all but up inside his head. “He’s a wear-you-down type, all the way. A no is just another opportunity for a yes.”
Tom all but flinches, for some reason, shoulders squaring rapidly under his blazer. He tightens his jaw, markedly, setting his glass onto a table while his other hand rubs loosely at his side pocket.
“Jesus Christ, Rome,” Shiv says, a sneer flitting across her mouth, as she lightly taps the rim of her glass. “Shows what you know.”
Greg glances back and forth, an idea forming to get maybe him and Tom out of here. He takes a pair of steps forward, hasty and clearing his throat. “Hey, uh – do you know where I could buy a – an itch cream, maybe?”
Roman scoffs with an upward, exaggerated tip of his head. “I don’t even know where the fuck to buy that at home.”
“But it’s like really – I need something, I think? I think I could be in real trouble if it –”
“Will you stop talking about it, if we go find a pharmacy?” Tom interrupts, raising his brows, then sighing and stepping out from behind the chairs. He reaches out and grabs Greg’s elbow, yanking a little hard, toward the exits of the room. “I’ll take you on this goose chase if you never, ever mention fleas again.”
“Can do,” Greg says, turning sideways a bit to slip out into the hall when Tom neglects to hold the door open properly behind himself.
“No, you can’t,” Tom sighs, letting go of Greg’s arm with a harsh sigh. “But I appreciate the effort of a lie.”
Tom takes them outside, passing Rhea, who ignores Greg’s wave.
“She’s kind of having a hard time, eh?”
“She walked herself into this,” Tom says, a peculiar quietness to his tone. “The den of well-dressed wolves.”
“Sucks,” Greg mutters, rubbing at his nose, as Tom and he pause just outside the doors on the steps. He leans forward on his toes, catching the sound of a car starting, then seeing one gradually beginning to move from the ring at the side of the hotel. “She really doesn’t fit in, you know? Like worse than – than other people, even.”
Tom lifts his head with a snort. “You fit in, bud. Too well, sometimes.”
“Man, I dunno?” Greg mutters, but that could be effected by his current physical circumstances; too hard to feel he really fits in anywhere when he wants to strip out of his actual skin.
“Stop scratching,” Tom sing-songs, somewhat threateningly, as he rounds the other side of the Mercedes after a wave at the driver. “You’re making it worse.”
“They’re biting me,” Greg says, climbing into his own seat, as the sensation urging him to scratch almost burns between his shoulder blades.
“We’ll get you a cream, maybe some flea bath,” Tom says, gesturing pointedly at the driver, who seems to understand that they need a pharmacy. Hopefully. “A Frontline Plus.”
“I’m like a person, Tom,” Greg says, glancing up to the driver while he lifts his hand to scratch just behind an ear.
Tom reaches out and grabs Greg’s wrist, forcing it down to the armrest. “You’re a person with fleas. And if you give them to me, I will be furious.”
“You’re, like…” Greg glances down, biting at his cheek. “Giving them to yourself?”
Tom narrows an eye, as he slowly releases hold of Greg.
“Can I see your phone?” Greg asks, as the car shifts into drive and begins to pull around the driveway.
Tom glances sideways with a frown, but he’s already reaching into his pocket. “Why?”
“I don’t have, you know, international data?”
“Good Lord,” Tom says, a flat pinch at the corner of his mouth. “Do I need to add you to my plan?”
Greg shakes his head, heat flaring across his ears; he wants to be more offended, can feel it surge and settle, but Tom does seem like honest rather than taunting in the question. “No, I – I can pay for it. I just didn’t think about it? So I forgot to – ”
“Alright, alright,” Tom says, unlocking and handing over the phone with an upward eye roll. “Don’t save any weird pictures.”
Greg takes the phone and starts searching for sand mites, then feels a sweep of a crawl down his itchy back. “It says they can lay eggs in my skin,” he says, scrolling down the phone, then back, looking up at Tom while his thumb hovers over a horrible picture. “What if I have – ?”
“You do not,” Tom says, drawing out the words in an upward, condescending pitch.
The car pulls to a stop, just as the driver clears their throat. “Sirs, we’re at a Lloyds.”
Greg blinks rapidly and peeks out the window.
“Oh,” Tom intones, plainly also startled at the entirely too-short drive.
“Do you desire me to – ?”
“We can g-go in ourselves,” Greg says, hurriedly, reaching for the door handle, then wincing when it snaps under his hand. Shit. He laughs awkwardly, as the locks clunk, then pushes at the door. “Thank you!”
“How about you go ahead,” Tom says, as he gets out of the car on the other side. He waves back toward the opposite direction. “We’ll walk our way back.”
Greg raises his brows up his forehead, glancing up and down the street, then back over at Tom.
The driver nods, leaning back between the seats. “Would you like my mobile, sir?”
“Sure,” Tom says, reaching out toward Greg with a pair of snaps of his fingers.
Greg wets his lips with a sigh through his nose, as he hands over the phone.
The car pulls from the curb with a soft rumble echoing the somewhat close, narrow street. It’s lined with small cars and a few meandering pedestrians, and Greg is reminded of the last time he was in the UK, to some detriment to his mood. He’s not sure how to clarify a feeling that veers between a guy he’d… gotten to know actually dying and getting wailed on for trying to tell Tom about a less than stellar development. It isn’t great.
“You want to walk?” Greg says, backing up onto the sidewalk next to Tom in front of the pharmacy.
“I’ve never been here, Greg,” Tom says, taking a deep breath, as if he’s inhaling the essence of this little village. “I’d kind of like to see it – you should, too, you’re the one with the family connection.”
Greg furrows his brows slightly, glancing down the street a second time. He feels his mouth flatten. “…Right.”
“I won’t tell, if you don’t,” Tom amends, then huffs, turning around to pull open the door of the shop behind them. “Not that anyone will ask.”
Greg shrugs some, then turns his head to look at the sign that advertises a pharmacy above them. He takes a breath, following Tom, and glances at the low lintel as he narrowly passes underneath it. “Everything is sort of short?”
“Maybe that’s why your grandfather had to leave.”
Greg scratches at the back of his neck with a huff. “I think he wasn’t, like… even ten?”
“And already big, no doubt. Now lets find you some calamine lotion and an antihistamine,” Tom says, peering at the also low shelves with a few clicks of his tongue. “And flea shampoo.”
Greg picks up a bottle of shampoo after trading Tom’s phone back and forth, searching remedies that don’t seem to be a cure. He kind of wishes his mom was here – the essential oils don’t like seem to work a lot for what she wants, but… like, this is real skin stuff.
“You having a breakout?” The pharmacist asks, at the till, as Greg sets down a bottle of shampoo. “Need any help with that?”
“No, uh,” Greg shakes his head, scratching at his neck before he even realizes he’s lifted his hand, then shoving it back down to his pocket. “Sand mites.”
“Sand mites, you say,” the pharmacist says, picking up the bottle to scan with a narrow look at Greg. “Here?”
“Uh, no,” Greg says, awkward, stuffing his hands in his pockets, while his shoulders and back quiver with itch. “Just around.”
“You all brought the fleas to Scotland?” The pharmacist asks, voice lifting accusingly at the tail of the question.
“Just the bites,” Tom says, waving a cream box, then smacking it onto the counter next to the oatmeal shampoo. “Worry not.”
The pharmacist doesn’t seem convinced, but packs them up without further comment toward the concern. They hand off the items in an oversize recycle tote, peering at Tom’s card with a tut. “How’s that pronounced, then?”
Tom doesn’t quite sigh, but it’s an adjacent sort of breath. “Wambsgans.”
“Huh,” the pharmacist nods, handing back the card. “Enjoy the country.”
“You too!” Greg says, bright and reflexive, then immediately hangs his head outside on the sidewalk. He does sigh, rubbing hard at his face. “Do you, maybe have a – uh, a cigarette?”
“You know I don’t, buddy,” Tom says, switching the bag between hands and reaching up to unceremoniously begin scratching Greg right between the shoulder blades. “Is it really that – ?”
Greg shudders down to his toes and exhales what might awfully be a moan before he can help it.
Tom sputters out a laugh, his face lighting up while he wheezes out a series of choking giggles. He bends at the waist, though his hand keeps rubbing at Greg’s back, as he covers his face with the other, bag swinging upward, and visibly turning red in laughter.
“It’s not funny,” Greg says, faintly, ears burning and looking down at Tom, something swelling brightly in his chest the longer he hears the laughter, then feels a shudder down his spine when Tom accidentally digs his fingers in another good spot. “It, like – it just itches bad, you know?”
“Sure,” Tom says, clearing his throat, his hand moving up and down now with fewer shakes of wheezing, gulping breaths. “I was going to ask if you wanted to get a tasteless British nibble before we make the harrowing mile long journey back for the castle.”
“Oh, uh…” Greg wets his lips, pretending he’s looking up and down the street, rather than all of his worldly attention focused at the hand scratching soothingly down his back. “I… um.”
“I want one,” Tom says, his hand dropping cruelly from Greg’s back while he steps away and across the quiet street, toward a well-signed fish and chips company on a distant corner. “Let’s just begin and end on that note.”
“Okay,” Greg says, following while fisting his hands in his pockets to keep from continuing where Tom left off. He realizes, belatedly, Tom doesn’t seem in much of a hurry to get back, but they don’t really have anywhere to be until tomorrow, and… It is nice out?
The choice is a bit unexpected, though, with prices that are pretty low and food that is both fast and greasy. He knows Tom could’ve called the car, found somewhere, someplace to throw down his card, but instead he’s laughing at a joke by the cashier about being American in a place that smells permanently of old fry oil.
“You want a brownie, bud?“
“Uh, yeah, sure?” Greg says, dragging his teeth across his lower lip. “I’m going to – ” He reaches out and takes the bag. “Yeah.”
Tom nods and waves off, turning back to the cashier with a lean forward and a click of his tongue. “He’s going to go do some blow in your bathroom, real quick.”
The cashier offers an equally serious nod, visibly biting back a smile while ringing up the brownie. “Not sure there’s an option for that on the screen here.”
“We’ll just have to program one in real quick, huh?” Tom says, as the door closes behind Greg to the restroom.
Greg glances between all the bottles and boxes in the bag, then tears open the calamine lotion and the eurax. He slathers both on his back, across his shoulders, taking an instant to wonder if they might not be good to mix, but then the sensation cools and settles his skin, and it no longer matters in the moment. It doesn’t completely get rid of the itching, but… fuck, does it feel a lot better.
He’s like… He knows technically it’s not Connor’s fault? But he could’ve been like a little nicer about it totally being his fault.
Tom is still chatting with the cashier when Greg slips back beside him. He glances over, brows going up, and pushes away from the counter. “You feeling better?”
“Actually, yeah,” Greg says, holding out the bag between them.
Tom rolls his eyes, but takes the bag and hangs it on the back of the chair at a small table. “I drive you out here, I buy this, I buy the food, then you make me carry it – just who do you think I am?”
Greg shrugs and glances toward the counter. “I could –”
“No,” Tom scoffs, then looks over his shoulder at a loud call of his name. He paces quick back over to the counter, nodding mock-solemnly at the cashier, who offers what looks to be a real grin while handing over the food over the glass.
Greg wonders, suddenly, why Shiv wanted Tom to, oddly but evidently, flirt with Rhea. He hadn’t heard what Tom said, or how he said it, aside for what Shiv repeated, but it couldn’t have been that bad – like, Tom isn’t so great at first impressions, and he’s awkward, and a little harsh, sometimes to all of the above, but he’s pretty funny most of the time. He could only really tell that Tom didn’t exactly… seem into it? It probably just came off that way, because he’s like on the spot, maybe? …Is Shiv into her?
Greg clears his throat, looking up from a wrapped, crispy filet Tom sets in front of him. “So, like. Does… Shiv want like a – a something with Rhea? And you?”
Tom glances up with an actual wheeze around a fry. Or a chip, or whatever. “Excuse the fuck me, Greg?”
“Like Shiv said she, uh – She asked you to flirt with her?” Greg says, as his voice pitches, glancing around the small table and grabbing the cup from next to Tom, hoping it seems more natural than it feels. He doesn’t know that Tom is like necessarily projectile-prone, but he also isn’t not. “Right? And I’m like, you know, questioning why?”
“Not that it’s any business of yours, you proud extortionist, but…” Tom briefly, visibly bites at his cheek, then shakes his head hard. He doesn’t seem angry, thankfully, just sort of oppositely subdued. “No. It was meant to cause dissent in the Logan – Rhea camp.”
Greg stares for a pair of beats, slowly reaching out and picking up a fry, as he reluctantly lets that roll around in his head. He feels his nose curl, stuffing the fry into his mouth. “Ew.”
Tom wags his brows, until suddenly his expression folds and twists, wiping salt across a napkin with a scoff. “Bombed that, huh – no charm left in Tom.”
“She’s like super tense, you know, she… I bet she couldn’t flirt with anyone right now?” Greg says, in a bit of a mindless rush. He leans into the table and sets his elbow on the edge, thinking briefly about Tom’s bubbling laugh while scratching his back, or his sly lines at the cashier, then flinching far away from the temptation to dwell on any of it. “And like, she’s not that great.”
“Why, Gregory, you don’t find Ms Jarrell an enticing prospect?” Tom asks, in a startlingly good British accent, as a small curl of amusement peeks at the edge of his mouth.
“Oh, no, I don’t like – like, uh,” Greg pauses, then swallows hard, digging the toe of his shoe into his opposite heel under the table. “She’s really short.”
“Of course, what am I saying?” Tom says, slipping back into his normal voice with a huff through his nose. He wags a fry while offering a cock of his brows. “You wouldn’t want to risk rolling over and smothering her in your sleep.”
Greg grimaces with a weak snort. “You know, my mom is sort of her size. And my… my dad is mine, I think.”
“You think?” Tom repeats, a dubious curl across his lips.
Greg shakes his head, a tight feeling winding his chest, as he drops his chin to take the last fry. “I guess.”
Tom is quiet a beat, then clears his throat, crumpling the paper up in his hands. “I guess it’s possible, then. You ready to get out of here?”
“Sure,” Greg says, taking the plastic wrapped brownie and staring at it for a beat, the starting to unpeel it, as he follows Tom toward the entrance. “You’re in like kind of a – a weird mood, Tom?”
“What does that mean?” Tom says, looking backward, as he shoves at the door.
“Walking and, like…” Greg wags the brownie, as he slips ahead of Tom out onto the sidewalk. “Normal food.”
“We go to food carts, regularly.”
“Yeah,” Greg says, rolling his head, slightly, as he pinches his mouth flat. “But that you still like frame as culture, you know?”
Tom stares for a beat, then he sighs at length through his nose. “I’ll call the car for you,” he says, while he pulls out his phone. “You don’t seem like you got much of a nap after we got here.”
“No, it’s like okay,” Greg says, realizing uncomfortably that he doesn’t want to go back without Tom, where his cousins or sitting alone are his only two unwelcome options, or enjoy the idea of Tom out by himself when he wanted his company. “It’s nice out, you know, I just… don’t get it, I guess.”
“We’re traveling, Greg,” Tom says, flicking his hand around in front of them at the houses and shops along the narrow street. “It’s about seeing the country. You can’t do that inside a car or a hotel.”
“Yeah, uh, true,” Greg says, then looks down at his feet with a lift of his toes. “But you don’t think we’ll get blisters?”
“You don’t think you’ve walked a mile or two in those shoes running around the office every day?” Tom says, raising a brow and turning down the sidewalk toward where the car came from the hotel. “And didn’t you used to walk in?”
Greg tears off a corner of the brownie, slipping into step beside Tom with a shrug. He offers it with a turn of his hand across Tom’s chest. “I’ve never thought about it.”
“You’ll be fine, Greg,” Tom says, taking the chunk and throwing it into his mouth with a hum. “If you get some, the pain’ll just distract you from the itch.”
“Still not great,” Greg mutters, eating his own piece of the brownie. He jumps slightly when Tom’s hand lands on his back again, further down, around where he hadn’t quite gotten with the cream in his hasty bid to just get it on as quick as possible.
He hadn’t meant the itch was still real bad, because it is a bit better, but it’s not an unwelcome gesture or weight across his back. It maybe should be, considering the papers he feels hanging over his head, or the recording in his phone stuck in airplane mode at the hotel, or just generally why he has either of those things, because Tom holds just as much, or worse, over his head for the same reason, but… It’s just nice. It’s Tom doing him a sort of favor, and it feels good, even, against the itch.
He looks up from balling the empty, chocolate-stained plastic wrap to see someone looking over from across the street. He frowns a little at their attention, then wonders with a start if it’s because of how it might look – Tom with his hand across Greg’s lower back, as they take some afternoon walk.
Greg swallows hard, stuffing the plastic into his pocket, and drags himself away from that thought, too.
~
The shampoo sort of works, so Greg’s scalp is mostly saved, but the creams lose effectiveness after only hours. He feels worse than he had yesterday, his back and shoulders crawling, flattening the tube and looking for any relief at all.
“Just sit the fuck down, Greg,” Tom snaps, at the University, after Greg has somehow lived in an exponentially worse misery than the day before, and that’s not even counting his grandpa’s like whole deal. “Calm your twelve foot tits.”
“It’s driving me crazy,” Greg says, slumping down onto the lunch table and looking up at Tom, who glowers back with hands on both hips. “I’m suffering very much, Tom.”
“I can tell,” Tom says, voice lifting mockingly, as he reaches out to tug at the shoulder of Greg’s jacket, plainly urging him to take it off. He pulls the cream from the outer pocket, after it’s off, then lets it fall limp to the table. “You’re thirty times more whiny than usual, which is impressive, considering the already high bar set by yesterday.”
Tom leans forward and guides Greg’s head to the side with a slow gesture to look at his back, then immediately, unhelpfully starts to hiss under his breath. He reaches startlingly under Greg’s head, tugging at the buttons of his collar with a jerk.
Greg feels his shoulders tighten. “What?”
“You sensitive-skinned moron – you hurt yourself, that’s what,” Tom says, pulling Greg’s shirt uncomfortably from the tacky, over-creamed skin across his nape and shoulders. “Scratched yourself raw and broken into hives. This is why you read labels. It says reapply every six hours and this – ” He waves the flattened tube, then taps Greg twice across the forehead with it. “Is emp–ty, Gregory.”
Greg wets his lips. “Uh…”
“I’ll be back,” Tom says, sighing hard, throwing his hands up while he turns around on a heel. “You sit here and don’t do anything.”
Greg clears his throat, embarrassed heat flushing his neck. “I thought you like wanted me to read…”
“Don’t even start,” Tom says, briefly turning around, nearly looking like he might throw the tube.
Greg reaches over his shoulder and scratches, only to hiss in pain, and now it stings, again, too. He groans low into a whine and drops his head.
Tom reappears with what looks to be a pack of baby wipes. He smacks it down onto the table, standing in front of Greg, and peels the seal and rips out one of the wipes. “Now all I’m missing is a little hat and white fucking uniform. Duck your head so I can get to your torn up back, bud – I don’t want to make you strip out here.”
Greg closes his eyes, hissing as Tom rubs a wipe under his shirt, and shudders slightly at the attention and the cool damp. He drops his chin, forehead hitting across Tom’s sternum, and inhales sharp when the attention drops deeper down the back of his shirt, pulling at his collar. The pressure is soon replaced with warm fingers, gently inspecting the faintly stinging, still itchy damage in wide circles.
“You need to just leave this,” Tom says, voice firm, picking up another wipe with a rasp of the container. “I don’t care if it itches, stop touching it. If I see you scratching again I’m getting you a fucking shock collar to go with your flea paraphernalia, Doderick.”
Greg hums and turns his head so Tom’s wrist sweeps heavily against his scalp. He should pull away; he isn’t going to move.
“Are you listening?” Tom asks, his voice softening, as the second wipe is discarded and his hand shifts so his two middle fingers parallel down the knob of Greg’s spine, while the pinky and pointer finger cradle his head down his nape.
Greg offers a weak nod, letting his head relax against the hold.
“Seems more like you’re just falling – ?” Tom goes silent, grip tightening almost painful on Greg’s neck, though he might not realize it. “When did your grandfather get here?”
“Dunno,” Greg lies, exhaling lengthy into Tom’s chest with a mumble.
“He is staring into me, Gregory,” Tom says, his voice now low and hissing through audibly clenched teeth. “I feel like human glass.”
“He just, you know,” Greg says, carefully ignoring the tiny, horrible little voice in the back of his head, threatening to grow with little bites of anxiety, like it had yesterday, saying that he is going to be judged and embarrassed; he’s pretty sure, though, working for Uncle Hitler is already the worst move to make in front of Ewan. The judgment hath passed. “…Looks like that.”
“And he is moving very slowly, now, across the quad,” Tom says, tensely, his chest motionless except for his heart thumping under Greg’s ear. He all of a sudden exhales a loud, punched out breath. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph; I think I need an exorcism.”
Greg ignores a weak impulse to turn around and look, just to see what particular sour face that he might see – probably that face when Greg gets too weird. Yeah, Tom’s hand is halfway into his shirt, but it’s down his back, a pile of wipes next to them. It’s touchy, but not… intimate. He’s just helping Greg out. A favor.
Tom pulls away a few seconds later, after squeezing another time across Greg’s pained nape. He clicks his tongue, piling the tube and wipes together. “We have that party tonight and you’ve got a very nice tuxedo you will not scratch out of,” he says, sternly, then cuffs Greg softly under the chin, forcing him to look up. “Got it?”
Greg blinks slowly, feeling the ghost of that pressure under his chin. He swallows hard, staring into Tom’s eyes, far brighter blue than the overcast sky, and feels his heart thud up against his sternum; oh fuck. “Ye-yeah. Got it.”
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