Catching Colds on a Flying Rock, chapter one (Homestuck fic)

[nobrandhero]

Title: Catching Colds on a Flying Rock in the Middle of Space
Fandom: Homestuck
Rating: T
Pairing(s): Dave Strider/Karkat Vantas, Rose Lalonde/Kanaya Maryam
Warnings: cold symptoms

Summary: Rose catches a bad cold and it slowly spreads to the rest of the meteor crew. None of them are particularly good at admitting they're sick, let alone looking after themselves, but at least they're decent at caring for each other.

Notes: This takes place a little after year two on the meteor -- Rose's relationship with Kanaya and booze are both fresh, Dave and Terezi have only recently went their separate ways, no one realizes Terezi isn't blind anymore, etc., etc.

Read on Dreamwidth under the cut, or over on AO3.

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Rose woke to a headache and an unsettled stomach. It felt like just another hangover, albeit different than usual, but she supposed it was normal that they changed things up every so often. With a groan, she rolled out of bed and grabbed the hairbrush on her nightstand, trying to make herself look somewhat presentable before leaving the seclusion of her room.

Her balance hadn't returned since last night's drinking and she sometimes had to catch herself against the wall to keep from slipping to her knees as she stumbled to the nearest bathroom. Once safely inside, she hunched over a toilet to wait for the inevitable. Within thirty seconds, her stomach expelled the previous night's remaining contents. There were no solids, but it still burned her throat with each choke and she gripped the edge of the seat tightly, hoping after each shudder that her body was done.

She was too weary to shower after the vomiting came to an end, so she just washed off her hands and face before gargling. The cold water made her shiver and hug her arms, wishing she'd brought a coat or robe to cover the god tier pajamas. She wasn't aware that they had control over the meteor's temperature, but she made note to ask one of the trolls later if they had somehow lowered it. Or, heaven forbid, they were running low on energy and needed to conserve power.

She should have been hungry, her stomach empty long before she'd vomited, but the mere idea of food made her feel queasy. Even water sounded unappetizing, but her sore and raw throat outweighed the nausea.

She made her way to the nearest common area -- taking a transportalizer to the kitchen would just upset her stomach again -- where she knew of a stash of water she normally used for alchemizing spirits. She heard voices inside and she paused a moment to disguise the discomfort on her face.

Half of the room was covered in machinery and computers, the other half remodeled into an entertainment area with bookshelves stuffed with DVDs. Dave sat on the couch with a bowl of popcorn, the TV blaring some mindless action flick he was no doubt enjoying "ironically." He gave her a nod as she passed, but otherwise ignored her as she searched the jumble of alchemy materials.

Water had never tasted so bad and yet felt so relieving. The only reason she didn't swallow an entire gallon in one breath was because she didn't trust her stomach yet.

She poured another glass with intentions to nurse it on the way back to her room, but she barely turned for the door before she felt another wave of nausea threatening to overtake her. Pausing long enough to regain her composure, she instead moved to the couch; better to suffer a poor movie than to suffer throwing up in the hall.

Dave raised a hand in greeting. "Yo."

"Good morning to you too." She settled in next to him and stared at the screen in disturbed fascination. Her stomach was already calming just by getting off her feet. "What are we watching?"

"Snakes on a Train."

She tilted her head and leaned over to place the water on the end table. She didn't see Samuel L. Jackson on the screen, but there was certainly a snake and a train. "I thought it was called Snakes on a Plane?"

"I know what I said."

She raised an eyebrow as a little girl was swallowed whole by a large snake puppet. She faked a gasp. "I am shocked, shocked, that you would enjoy a film full of giant, phallic-shaped puppets. Whenever did you develop this habit?"

His throat made a strained noise in the midst of swallowing popcorn, but he recovered beautifully once there was no half-chewed food to catch him up. "Sometimes they're giant, phallic-shaped shitty CG. That's the real treat of this film. Come for the practical effects, stay for the nonexistent CG budget. And now we've been on this damn rock so long that the letters CG no longer stand for Computer Graphics and instead just make me think of angry gray capslock."

She smirked and grabbed a handful of popcorn; it tasted like warm, salted butter. Food sounded awful, but her stomach twisted in hunger enough that she swallowed the poor excuse for nutrients anyway. "Is this breakfast?"

"Nope." He threw a piece into his mouth. "No fast to break."

She narrowed her eyes. "That's not healthy."

"That's insomnia." When she caught him in her most prying stare, he shrugged, almost squirmed. "I'll sleep tonight. I just gotta take an all-nighter to get tired enough for it first."

"Hmm." She would be sure to guilt him about ignoring such a serious ailment later, when her own body wasn't busy rebelling against her. In the meanwhile, she grabbed another handful of popcorn, slipping it into her mouth piece by piece.

His head turned to follow her movements. "Is this breakfast?" he mimicked.

"Maybe."

He pulled the bowl away from her. "Alchemize your own."

She raised her eyebrows and smiled. "It tastes better stolen." She also really, really didn't fancy getting back on her feet. She meant to lean across him to snatch more popcorn, but the movement sent a wave of dizziness over her and she slumped against his chest.

He stiffened. "Uh, getting a little close there, Lalonde."

She wrapped her arms around him, in part to keep up the farce, in part because he was so warm and she'd forgotten how cold it was until she had his bodyheat for comparison. "You know, despite what your bro may have raised you on, families can be quite touchy-feely without crossing any lines. Your chastity is preserved."

"I'm pretty sure they need to be raised in the same household a few years before two hormonal teenagers can cuddle this close without it getting awkward."

"Why, Dave," she curled up even closer, "are you experiencing discomfort during perfectly normal sibling bonding? Do you mean to imply that your mind goes to sinister places when I embrace you as your sister? Here I thought you were over your incestuous impulses."

He shrank back. "I'll tell your alien girlfriend you were macking on me."

"Speaking of alien girlfriends, how are you and Terezi doing?"

"Hey, you know what I just noticed?" He straightened. "There's a perfectly shitty movie playing right now that we're letting go to waste. That shit ain't green. The political activists will come after us if we don't watch or recycle it and I don't see any recycling bins handy."

She closed her eyes. The screen was starting to give her a headache. "We wouldn't want to be wasteful."

"Exactly." He wriggled a little, but gave up on shaking her off in favor of ignoring her.

She probably could have fallen asleep like that, except that her back was chilled and she had enough pride not to ask Dave to return her embrace. She kept her eyes shut all the same and most of the movie's dialogue turned to gibberish when it reached her ears.

She startled from her half-unconscious state at the sound of the door opening. She knew it was Karkat without even looking -- no one else had such heavy footfalls.

"Hey, Vantas," Dave said. "Movie's almost over, but we can put Transmorphers on next if you want to join in on the quality entertainment taking place here."

"I'd rather fry up my own toenails than watch one of your shitass movies." Karkat's voice was close enough that he must have stopped by the couch. "What's wrong with her?"

Dave shrugged. "She's trying to seduce me."

"By looking like shit?"

She opened her eyes to glower but the light from the television burned too much to try for long.

"That's low even coming from you, dude." Dave shifted under her. There was a long pause. "Rose, you okay? You actually look like shit."

"It's just a hangover," she murmured. "It will calm down once the water kicks in."

A hand clasped over her forehead. She glanced up; Dave was holding his other hand to his own forehead for comparison. His brow furrowed. "You're burning up."

She managed a smirk. "Lalondes have dreadful hangovers."

He dropped his hand. "Holy fuck, are you sick?"

She started to shake her head automatically until the words sank in. Nausea, loss of appetite, sore throat, dizziness, and exhaustion packaged in a fever really did sound more like an illness than a hangover. "It... is not impossible."

"You've gotta be shitting me. We're immortals and we somehow still catch colds. We somehow catch colds on a flying rock in the middle of space." Dave leaned his head back and stared at the ceiling. "We have just one-upped every cold that you catch during summer vacation. And what did you do over break, Strider? Well, ma'am, I was busy puking my brains out. In July, Strider? Yes, ma'am, God fucking hates me."

She tried to straighten, but it just made her head swim and she almost fell off the couch. Dave caught her and even Karkat moved forward as if he might have made a dive for her if she was in danger of slamming her head against the floor.

"Is... is this normal?" Karkat inched closer, his eyes wide. "Should you be touching her?"

Dave pulled her into a normal sitting position. "Little late to worry about that."

"Should I get Kanaya?" Karkat's gaze flickered to the door. "I should get Kanaya. Why the fuck didn't any of us study medicine these last two useless as shit years?"

"Relax, dude, it's a cold. Flu at worst. She just needs to rest and get this crap out of her system." Dave rubbed her back and stood, holding a hand out to her. "Can you stand?"

All the weakness of the morning was slamming into her with fifty times its earlier force, but she forced a small nod. She stumbled to her feet, clinging desperately to Dave's sleeve. Forgetting the movie entirely, Dave led her towards the hall. Karkat gave them a wide berth and watched after them with more concern than Rose could remember seeing on him in recent memory.

The hall was even colder than the common room had been. She could only hold back so many violent shivers before she finally leaned in close against Dave.

He paused. "Are you pulling another Freud moment to psychoanalyze me with later, or are you legit looking for comfort here?"

She swallowed and kept her voice at a whisper. "This may be a moment of weakness in which I push aside my pride in order to steal your bodyheat for my own comfort."

He wrapped his arms around her. "Okay then."

It took a full ten minutes to make the short trek back to her room with their arms wrapped around each other, but at least she was warm and relatively not dizzy.

Dave stood by the door as she burrowed into the warmth of her bed, waiting with his arms crossed until she was completely settled in before he spoke. "Do you need anything?"

Unfair answers flickered through her mind -- a jacuzzi, a gallon of vodka, a healthy new body -- but she settled on, "Privacy."

He nodded and tapped the side of his shades. "Well, I'm online if you need me later, okay?"

She mumbled something, not even sure of her own words and fairly certain she was spouting gibberish as she buried her face in a pillow. She felt one last pat on her head before exhaustion closed in on her.

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