[Master Post – Glass]Â
Title: Drink From My Glass
Fandom: Viridian Legacy: Glass
Characters: Betty, Arkady
Rating: M (L3 N0 S0 V0 D2)
Warnings: Expletives, explicit illness
Notes: So, not like I needed an excuse to inflict more hell on Arkady, but having been sick since before Christmas kind of makes me think I should.
Of all the altered states in which one was likely to find Evan, sick was pretty low on the list. Sure, there was puke-drunk, but that was different. Throwing up usually made that stop. This was just horrible, and there was no end in sight.
He'd been a little vacant and tired for days, but that wasn't too bad. It was pretty ignorable. He'd only had to go out once, and he just let Liz do all the thinking for him. He usually let her order when they went out to the Thai place, anyway. She was better at figuring out what would actually be good.
But, that had been Thursday, and now it was Saturday. He'd been hit by cars, a couple times, when he was younger — usually while running across roads that no one actually expected to see anyone crossing — and the sensation he woke up with was startlingly similar to the last time he'd bounced off the hood. Everything hurt, in that bruised and maybe-broken sort of way. The back of his neck had swelled, and every time he tried to turn his head, he retched. The headache didn't really help with that, either. Everything spun, whether he could get his eyes open or not, which was mostly not. It was too bright… in the middle of the night, with the drapes closed.
The irrationality washed over him in waves, bringing panic and paranoia along. He'd never been a sickly kid, really. The whole idea of catching something that felt like you'd been run over was foreign and terrifying. Sure, he'd had the sniffles a few times, maybe a stomach bug or two, but nothing like this.
He thought about standing up, maybe trying to go get a cup of coffee, but it just sounded like too much effort. Rolling over not to choke while he was coughing sounded like too much effort, too, but after the first few, he managed it. This was not how he wanted to spend the day. And the worse thought was that it might not just be one day.
Pulling the blanket up over his head, he tried to go back to sleep, but the sound of his heartbeat echoing in his head was too loud. Finally, he reached for the phone, squinting at the glow of the numbers on the handset. It took him nearly three minutes to dial, as he forgot where he was in the sequence, over and over. After what seemed to be an eternity of ringing echoing through his head, Liz's answering machine clicked on: "Speak, peon!" it commanded, and he obeyed.
"Liz?" His voice was thick and plaintive, catching in all the sticky places in his throat. "I think I… I don't feel so good. Do you have any… Can I borrow a… I can't find the Tylenol, and I don't think it's going to help. Call me?"
He thumbed the disconnect button and dropped the phone on his face. He was sure that should've hurt, but the room was spinning so much faster, and everything seemed so puffy and far away. Didn't matter, he figured. He'd sleep it off.
It was the last thought in his head for the next four hours, until he became vaguely aware of someone in the room. Smelled like Liz. That was okay, then. He didn't need to do anything about that.
"Evan? Evan, come on, wake up." She was shaking him, and she sounded a little more afraid than he could find a reason for.
With a groan, he opened his eyes and squinted at where she knelt beside the bed. "Liz," he managed, before the coughing started again. "I thought you'd call."
"I did call," she said, squinting into his eyes. "You didn't pick up. You also sounded like complete shit. Leslie sends her love and some codeine. I picked up some soup from the pub. You shouldn't take these on an empty stomach."
"You do love me!" He rolled over and dropped an arm across her shoulder in a weak attempt to pull her into a hug.
"Of course I do. It's why I have keys." She reached into the shopping bag next to her and took out a small pillbox and two styrofoam containers of soup. A bit more unpacking brought out napkins, plastic spoons, a foil-wrapped chunk of cheese-bread, and a six of stout. "Micko asked after you. I told him you were sick, and he just blew off what I was going to bring you."
"You told Micko I was sick?" Evan pulled a pillow over his face. "Oh, god. Why?"
"He asked! Said he hadn't seen you all week!" Liz opened one container of soup and put a spoon into it. "If you can't sit up, at least lean this way, so you don't spill this on he bed."
There was a bit of rearranging as he got into a position where he could eat, and took the soup off her hands. "What soup is this?" he asked, finally getting a mouthful. "That's not cream of potato."
"That's what I'm trying to tell you. Micko wouldn't stand for it. He had Hedy make some soup special for you. He says it's what she feeds him when he gets sick." She broke off a bit of the cheese bread and ate it.
"It's good. Hedy made it, I mean, it has to be good." He drank off some of the broth and kept eating, suddenly remembering he hadn't eaten all day. "He's still full of shit, though."
"Well, it's Micko." She shrugged. "But, what is it, this time?"
"He doesn't get sick. When's the last time you went in, and he wasn't right there at the bar?" Evan suddenly set down the soup, pressed his forehead against the pillow, and retched. "Oh, god. Make it stop. Pills?"
Liz popped open the box and pressed a pill into his hand. "Wait until you stop retching, or it'll come back up."
He held onto the pill, tightly, trying to breathe evenly. Nausea was something he knew. He'd gotten puke-drunk enough times to handle it. "He's still full of shit," he mumbled.
"Does it matter if he is? It's Micko; when is he not full of shit? Hedy made soup for you — just for you. And she doesn't even want in your pants, dearling. She just wishes that she fit in your pants."
He put the pill in his mouth and reached for the soup, again. "She'd have to be like a foot taller," he slurred, holding the pill in place with his tongue. "It's not her weight, it's her height."
After a few deep breaths, he gulped some broth and laid back down, face in the pillow. "Stay a little?" he asked. "Just until it kicks in?"
Liz finally took off her coat, folding it next to the bedside table. "Bucket, first," she suggested, sensibly, heading back toward his tiny kitchen to fetch the trash can. The sound of crinkling plastic and running water could be heard, as she took out the bag and splashed a bit of water and floor-cleaner into the bottom. There was no bleach; there wouldn't be. Nearly everything Evan owned was black.
"Aim for this," she said, setting the bin beside the head of the bed and taking a seat beside his knees. "You'll live. You know that, right?"
"'S not dying I'm afraid of. Promise," he groaned.
She reached out to brush the hair off his face, but he caught her wrist in an iron grip. "Don't touch."
"Twenty minutes," she offered. "And then you'll probably pass out again."
"Thank god." He paused and thought about it. "Pick a god, any god."
"Odin," she suggested. "I've always liked the Norse gods."
"Burly blond guys? That really explains what you're doing here…" he joked, and a snort degenerated into a coughing fit. "Twenty minutes, thank Odin."
"Well, I'm not doing you, am I?" she shot back.
"No, but you're not doing Lir, either. Mike's burly and blond," he protested. "And a totally decent guy."
"And I scare the pants back on him. You want burly, blond, and sexy? What about Sin? He's dreamy, and he looks good in a mini." Clasping her hands beside her cheek, she fluttered her eyelashes like a schoolgirl.
"I always forget he's blond. I never forget you'd be all over him, if Sev hadn't gotten there first." He managed to look faintly snide, but that might just have been the pressure in his head.
"He'd never get those colours, otherwise. I am just mad with envy after that peacock blue." Her whole body fluttered for a moment, like a bird fluffing its feathers to scare off the cats.
"Do you want him, or do you want to be him?" he teased.
"Oh, no. I want him. I want him like I have you." She leaned to the side a bit, smiling in his field of vision. "Tied up and hung over the sofa."
"Mmm," he conceded. "I want to be there, if you do. I have to see if he takes it as well as I do. And you know Sev's not going to let it happen unless he's right there."
"No, Sev's not going to let it happen. I've asked." She shrugged. "Well, I asked Sin. How could I not? It's so easy to ask him anything. But, I guess Sev's got some hangups, so we can't."
"Probably good. I don't really want to get caught in the fallout," he yawned. "Twenty minutes, my ass."
"It's the soup, not the pill. I'll tell Hedy, tomorrow, if you're still in bed." She closed up the soup and wrapped the cheese-bread again. "I'll leave these right here, so you don't have to get up to eat."
He reached out and grabbed her hand, still moving clumsily. "I love you, Liz," he mumbled. "Really. Thanks."
"It's why I have keys," she reminded him, kissing the back of his hand. She'd stay a bit longer. Just until he was really asleep. She could let herself out. She had keys, after all.
