i don't feel so well

[discretion]

Who: Franz (discretion) & Daedalus (gaveherwings)
When: 5/16, shortly before sirens
Where: Their apartment.
Summary: Someone's got a case of the deadly guilt-flu.
Warnings: References to illness and vomiting. A disturbing + violent dream sequence that includes implied harm toward children.

[His NV has been buzzing on and off for a half hour. Or maybe it's his work cell phone. Or at least, Franz thinks there's a buzzing, somewhere - it could all be in his imagination for all he knows or cares, or perhaps a hornet has made its way into the apartment somehow. He is not the least bit interested in moving even the slight bit it would take for him to sit up and pick up his NV from where he halfheartedly threw it on the dresser and check.

Franz is sick. Like he hasn't been since he caught food poisoning on Titan. Sure, he's somewhat acclimated to the headaches and sometimes nausea that accompanies his empathic abilities, but this is a different beast entirely. He had awoken with the sniffles and treated himself to a dose of vitamin C this morning, and by the time his day was nearly finished it was all he could do to keep from puking in the wastebasket near his desk. It wasn't just mild congestion by then, but aches and a fever and gripping nausea.

He decided the wise thing to do was to get a cab and vomit in the clean privacy of his own home. He texted his boyfriend: think I'm sick :( and promptly neglected to make any other sort of response.

Fortunately Franz was able to achieve this goal of throwing up in his own bathroom. Repeatedly. He had barely enough strength to brush his teeth (because seriously, ew), take the dog out to do his business and crawl into bed. He only just managed to kick off his shoes and throw off his work jacket before pulling the covers nearly over his head.

He is in bed and uninterested in moving. Mr. Muggles is very concerned.]

Comments

[gaveherwings]

"You're not feeling well." He supplies simply, with a mild little shrug- he's a doctor, not really anyone skilled for dream analysis. The fever's not alarmingly high, but he sighs when he sets down the thermometer, noting that Franz is watery-eyed too. In a moment, he'll retreat to retrieve a damp washcloth, he supposes. And make sure the bedsheets can be changed out later for something fresh and cool.

"Ah, but my lousy french probably doesn't help your head much, does it?" Daedalus laughs, gentle, pleased that Franz thinks to ask. Smart patients always do. "Serofed-Flu. It's just a decongestant plus NSAID."

[discretion]

"I killed a baby," Franz mutters stubbornly. He's not willing to let go of that miasma of self-loathing that lingers around him in the wake of those ugly nightmares for the time being, in fact he seems to pull it more closely around him, like a blanket, his expression gloomy. Wrinkling his nose a little, he pops the pills in his mouth and diligently swallows them with several large gulps of water.

After recovering a moment, Franz speaks a bit more kindly, almost shyly. "I like your lousy French. It means a lot that you're trying so hard. No one but you ever has for me, you know. I don't deserve it." His voice cracks a little and he looks away, rubbing at his eyes.

[gaveherwings]

"You what?" Daedalus rears his head back sharply, desperately hoping he meant only in a fever dream. Killed a baby? In dreams, that might mean any number of symbolic things, but he doesn't want to consider that now. Instead, he watches Franz settle in misery and wishes there were better means of helping him sleep.

"You do deserve it!" He protests, with his own indignant pout, about two seconds from grasping Franz by the wrists to forcibly drag his hands away from his eyes. The last thing he needed was an eye infection on top of things. "And isn't Kurt always itching to practice his French with you? He speaks it far better than me."

[discretion]

"I didn't really kill a baby," Franz mutters after a moment, fussing with his grubby-damp hair and pushing it out of his face. A few of the tears he's been trying so studiously prevent drip down his flush cheeked, feeling cold to the heat of them. "I just wanted to, because I was jealous. I'm horrible." His words are a little slurry, from sleep or fever. He wraps his arms around himself, rubbing his arms.

"I've barely spoken to Kurt for weeks," Franz says. "He got really angry with me awhile ago, and I made him cry. I'm scared to talk to him now, since apparently all I ever do is make him cry. Just like all I ever did was make Albert angry--" Further complaints are cut off by a violent fit of coughing.

[gaveherwings]

"Darling, things that happen in dreams rarely make any sense, and they're often a symbolic load of subconscious 'junk'-thoughts, all mingled together. Or, if you follow Freud, it means you have more buried sexuality issues." He sighed, wiping his boyfriend's face in turn with a cool cloth. "I wouldn't worry who you've killed in your sleep, or why. You're not horrible. Everyone dreams of things they'd never really do."

"Kurt's..." Daedalus makes a softly exasperated noise here, shaking his head gently. "He's a regular mess of involuntary emotion, you know. He's been through a rough time, and I'm sure you were only trying to talk some practical sense into him. "

[discretion]

"I told him something that he didn't want to hear. He acted like I broke his heart and called me miserable. Albert never realizes that I have feelings too, just because I can hide them, just because I always have to. I would never say anything just to hurt him, just to interfere with his happiness. I only nag because I want him to be happy, so badly." Franz snatches up Daedalus's hand, his eyes blurred with tears. He presses his cheek against the cool cloth a moment, swallowing back the sobs that gather in his throat and threaten to break free. Perhaps this is what waves of malaise mean: not just nausea but a sort of hysterical despair that he can hardly keep track of, that makes him want to hide under the covers and cry for days. "Speaking of a mess of involuntary emotion..." He sniffs, and curls up to one side on the bed. He's completely ignored the offering of tea. "I'm sorry... can you please stay until I fall asleep?" Franz's voice sounds small, not unlike how it must have when he was trapped in his childhood body.

[gaveherwings]

"Sometimes, people need to hear a difficult truth." He finds himself thinking of Re-l, of his hurt declaration that she was an awful girl, and what he's heard of Iggy calling her a selfish bitch. That's something which seems to have stuck to her in a very miserable way...but he's seen her try to be better, a little more conscious of people who care for her. True, she'll still flout his pleading and go out to fly after siren, but-

Well, you can never expect to change people. Simply nudge them toward the right path, and sometimes the nudge is a little more like a rough shove that catches one completely off guard. "...in the end, if you never let them know, it'll only take them longer to grow."

"I know you have a good and selfless heart, Franz." Daedalus sighs, he really shouldn't take close contact with the sick if he can help it, preserve himself for another day on the front lines. But Franz asks so needily, and...well. He does have something of a weakness for feeling necessary. So against his better judgement he obliges the plaintive sniffle and settles on his side, on top of the blankets, and rubs at Franz's back through the comforter. "That you mean well."

[discretion]

"It's not a good heart," Franz murmurs. "I'm just as selfish as anyone else, I just do it by being as unselfish as possible." Such a statement might normally be followed with a waggle of eyebrows, a joke about his sexual proclivities, but in this state, it is mostly just quiet and honest. He closes his eyes and relaxes a little, very comforted by the rhythmic, soft touch of Daedalus's hand on his back. Franz would never admit it because it's a little bit strange, but he loves the way Daedalus touches him, always so careful and steady. The way he's so reserved yet darling rolls off his tongue sometimes, as if it's meant to be there. Franz still feels absolutely terrible, feverish, but he is able to find some peace with his lover present.

"Tell me about your day?" Franz mostly wants to hear Daedalus's voice, knowing he can't focus very well on the actual words. It's stupid, this clinginess. He's never like this. He's always independent. He already knows that things have gotten bad in the city. "Or, if that's too stressful... I don't know. Tell me about something interesting your read recently, or something...?" His words are muffled by the pillow.

[gaveherwings]

"But you try so hard, not to be selfish!" Daedalus sighs in protest, resting his own head down against the pillow, hand falling into a steady, soothing pace. "That's the best that anyone can be expected to do?"

It's a quiet killer, to harbor temperance in the way he and Franz have, sacrificing so much, Franz even further and more nobly than himself. Daedalus is a little jealous, sometimes, for how good his lover is, even when he claims to be just awful. Even when he wrestles with all the conflict over Albert- Franz is less proud than he is, over Re-l. Franz worships Albert less, loved him in a way that Daedalus fiercely envies, because of their equal footing.

"You've even hurt yourself, for the sake of sparing others. How can you doubt that you are good? We all want good things for ourselves. You're very good at recognizing when other people can be elevated above your own needs..." And not because they're flawless gods in a secret, exquisite, way that only you know. If only you hadn't given everything of yourself for him- ah, but then you may have never been mine.

"Maybe even a little too much." He admits quietly, sighing at the prompt to keep talking about more mundane things. The hospital politics are boring, treatments all went smoothly, there's no need to frighten him further with just how much an ordeal this 'flu' is shaping up to be, so Daedalus tries to pass off his doctoring as casually as possible.

"My day's been mostly preparation for this bug you've caught, since it seems to be very contagious, and spreading fast. I hope it's not something in the food supply? They're talking about possibly something bacterial, some are saying viral- It's too early to confirm, lab's busy from the clinic alone." He mutters, giving a lower grunt of stress.

"I haven't really had much time to read anything lately, unrelated to work?" His hand lifts to comb at the back of Franz's hair gently, moving sweaty strands off the nape of his neck. "Maybe you should find me some more Sturm und Drang, and we can relish together in all the prettily put miseries of man-" Rolling his eyes behind closed lids, he smiles. "I've been reading Schiller's letters on aesthetics, actually...you see? I am trying to understand all these things you're so passionate about."

[discretion]

Franz shivers pleasantly when Daedalus's fingers dance spider-light on the nape of his neck. For a moment, he feel possessive and indulgent, and a little bitter he can't enjoy this attention in better spirits. He smiles into his pillow, exhausted and aching down to his bone marrow. "Only through Beauty's morning-gate, dost thou penetrate the land of knowledge," Frans mutters, of Schiller's letters. "An idealist dreaming of utopia... I love you for trying to understand it. No one but you ever would, I think, you know?"

His eyes are closed, his voice drifting, but already lulled into a half-sleep. "That's why... I could never kill your baby... no matter how jealous I was..."

Maybe he's more than a little half asleep.

[gaveherwings]

He's pleasantly surprised that Franz can recite lines off by heart in such a state, smiling gently, tousling though his sweat-damp hair. It's nice that he recognizes it immediately- that Franz understands, too, it is his own attempt to make better understanding of all his partner's sense of taste and style. True, it's a bit more scholastic an approach than, say, studying the magazines that Franz pours over with Kurt, when he's over, but.... Franz is right. Few would reach for Schiller, in efforts.

"You really are fever-addled." He sighs with a low scoff- my baby indeed. "...you have no reason to be jealous, Franz. I'll be right here."