#i need to get vicks vaporub so bad i want to breathe i never thought id miss that shit

[limewatt]

i want soup but i don’t have soup and i hate most soup

[takivvatanga]

sick day

“Mum? My head hurts.” Stella coughs as she pads into the lounge on her bare feet, her blanket wrapped around her shoulders, her little face flushed, blue eyes burning bright with fever. She’s stayed home sick today, same as yesterday, same as the day before. 

Whatever illness it is that is making its way around at school, it’s horrid. Neville has it too, apparently. Assire thinks about Mary, about how she must feel having a sick child to look after once again - even though this isn’t bad. Well, it is, but it’s nothing compared to… the horrible thing that happened. Assire remembers Mary’s little boy. Clever and quick and so very full of energy, full of life - until he began to fade, his body slowly but surely giving way to something dark, some insidious decay that got hold of him and would never let him go. 

Assire had kept her distance, hesitant to interfere in another woman’s grief. They barely knew each other, back then. To reach out would have been inappropriate, surely. But Assire can’t help but feel that she let her sister in law down. Better give her a call, later on tonight. See how she is, see how Neville is. Assire might not be able to make up for the missed opportunities of the past, but she has here and now, doesn’t she? Never too late to set things right, do things a little differently. Yes, she’ll do that. She’ll call.  “Mum!” Stella’s voice is thin and reedy, thick with congestion. She sounds much younger than what she is, when she’s unwell. Assire beckons her closer, and Stella doesn’t hesitate, climbing up onto the couch and curling up in her mother’s arms, blanket trailing behind. She coughs again, wipes her runny nose with a crinkled pyjama sleeve. Assire brushes a strand of dark hair out of her daughter’s face. Her skin is hot to touch, a little sticky. How bright her eyes are. Blue as the sky on a clear morning, blue as the ocean on a sunny day. Stella has her father’s eyes. Assire wishes Stella looked more like her, doesn’t realise that she is right there, reflected so clearly in the way Stella frowns, in the way she blinks her eyes in astonishment, in the restlessness in her little hands.   Sometimes I still don’t feel as if you’re truly mine. A part of me. You feel so far away, and at the same time you’re so close.  “Can I get a hot drink?” Stella shifts, pushing her bare feet against the armrest of the couch, pressing closely against her mother’s body. Assire pulls her close, presses her face to the crown of her daughter’s head, inhales deeply. Stella smells like green apples and Vick’s Vaporub, like wax crayons and unwashed pyjamas. She needs a shower, but Assire doesn’t want to force her to have one. Not when she’s unwell like this, not - Assire doesn’t want to force Stella to do anything. No. She wants her to choose, to make up her own mind, to walk her own path without restriction, without limitation. “She needs discipline”, Mary has told her, more times than Assire cares to remember. “She needs to learn how to cope with having rules. I understand what you’re trying to achieve, I really do, but it doesn’t work like that.” But Mary doesn’t understand, and as far as Assire is concerned, things are perfectly fine just the way they are. 

“I’ll make you some tea, alright?” Assire stirs. Stella clings to her. “No, Mum! Don’t get up!” Assire sighs, relents, settles back into the couch, tugging at the edges of Stella’s blanket. “No hot drink, then.” “But I’m thirsty”, Stella whines, in her sick-little-kid voice. “Can I just have some of yours?” “No, sweetheart. That’s black tea. It’s not for kids. And it’s gone cold anyhow, see?” She picks up her cup - with its chipped rim and its fading print of cavorting cats, her favourite - and presents it to her daughter. Stella holds it tightly, with both hands, the remnants of bright pink polish still noticeable on her little nails. Stella has lovely hands. Nothing like Assire’s own, their skin thin and sallow, already flecked like those of a much older woman, the nails bitten down almost to the quick. Stella’s hands are slim with long fingers, her nails fast-growing, strong, perfectly shaped. The hands of an artist or a musician, a clockmaker or a surgeon. What will she grow up to do with those hands? Assire worries about Stella. Stella still cannot read. She only pretends, guessing the words based on the letters she can make out, relying on her memory to replicate the texts of her story books. At Stella’s age, Assire had been reading fluently for quite some time. As a matter of fact, she cannot recall ever not being able to read. Not like there was much reading material available when she was small. She’d read street signs instead, street signs and work rosters and every now and again that rare treat of a discarded newspaper that the wind had carried over the fences of the compound. FLASH SALE DON’T MISS OUT! Weekend Weather Unemployment at Record Levels Stella sniffs at the dark liquid in the cup, pulls a face, glances up at her mother with her bright blue eyes. The little girl takes a sip, erupts in a violent coughing fit.  “It’s gross, Mum!” “I told you.” “I want a hot drink! Hot chocolate or milk with honey in it!” “Well, you’ll have to wait for me to make it then.” Another cough, smaller this time but twice as phlegmy. Stella spits into her pyjama sleeve.  “Alright. Can I play on your computer while I wait?” “No, sweetheart. Now let me get that drink for you, yeah?” “I don’t want a drink no more. I want a story instead. Can I have a story, Mum?”  Stella looks up at her mother with pleading eyes. As much as she sometimes resents her inability to be normal, like other mothers, her stories are the best. As far back as Stella can remember, Assire’s tales have taken her on a journey, deep into the centre of the earth or far beyond the skies, into other worlds, murky dreamscapes where nothing is ever quite as it seems.  “Any more”, Assire corrects her daughter sternly. “Speak properly please, Stella.” The little girl sighs, rolls her eyes. “You sound like auntie Mary! She always tells me to talk properly too. I don’t know why it’s so important. You know what I mean anyway.”  “You’ll understand someday. It’s complicated.” “You always say that when you don’t know how to explain something.”

Assire bites her lip, taken aback by the accuracy of her daughter’s observation. This is a discussion she is nowhere near prepared to enter into right now. “A story then. Alright. Are you comfortable?” Stella wriggles under her blanket, inching even closer, settling down to rest her head in her mother’s lap, her restless little hands tugging at the tassels on Assire’s scarf. She loves her fiercely, in this moment, with her messy hair and her sticky skin and her febrile eyes, in her unwashed pyjamas with her unbrushed teeth. Don’t grow up, she thinks. Or at least, don’t grow up too fast. “Am now.” Stella coughs again. Assire pushes a strand of hair out of her daughter’s face. “Let’s see. A story. Well, a long time ago, or maybe somewhere in the far distant future, far above in the High Wilderness Beyond The Skies, there was a girl. Only she wasn’t an ordinary girl. You see, instead of being born, she was made.” “Made? You mean she wasn’t a real girl?” “Oh, she was. She was just...where other people are made of skin and flesh and bone, she’d been put together from bronzewood and ivory and copper and steel and instead of a beating heart there was a clockwork contraption in her chest.” “Was she brave?” “She was. She was incredibly brave, actually. She-” “She was never afraid!” “No. She was afraid all the time. Of a lot of things.” “Then she wasn’t brave.” “She was. Because you see, being brave doesn’t mean never being afraid. Because if you’re never scared, that would make it easy to be brave, wouldn’t it now? But being brave isn’t supposed to be easy. It gets easier, though. What being brave means is being afraid and doing the right thing anyway.” Stella doesn’t reply. Assire can tell by the way she wrinkles her nose, by the way she purses her lips, that she is thinking very seriously about this. Good. Remember that, Stella. Remember that it is alright to be afraid. Because we’re all afraid, in our own way, and anyone who says they aren’t, well, they’re lying. “What did she do, in the Skies?” “She was a traveller. An explorer. She met a great many people on her journey, and if any of them were in need of help, she did whatever she could for them. Until one day…” Stella listens intently as Assire spins her tale, but soon her eyelids grow heavy, her curious questions and interjections become less frequent. Assire lowers her voice, little by little, and soon Stella’s breathing becomes slow and even, every now and again disrupted by a small cough. Assire begins to hum, deep and low in her throat, a strange melody that she cannot recall ever learning, but she has sung it to Stella for as long as she can remember. Stella’s Song, they call it. It’s something they share just between the two of them. She’ll be too old for it soon, just like she’ll be too old for bedtime stories. Assire wishes she could stop time, to keep her daughter here, like this, curled up in her lap, blissfully oblivious to life and all its hardships, its temptations, its wrong turns. Innocent. Where will you go, Stella? Who will you become? The thought fascinates and terrifies her at the same time. “We’ll just have to find out, won’t we?”, she whispers as she straightens out the blanket that covers the sleeping child. “We’ll have to find out.”

[littlemissgeek8]

This was brought about as a result of multiple things, including getting sick myself recently and the wonderful anonymous mention that Tommy has a pretty gnarly scar on his chest. So, I knocked out about 2,600 words of fic to go along with the picture I drew today. XD Enjoy!

“He’s not here today, if that’s what you’re looking for.”

Deborah Kim turned her attention from the interior of the gas station to the young lady working the pump. “Not here? Why not?” It wasn’t like Tommy to miss work, at least not in the few weeks she’d known him. That’s why she made a habit of stopping by after her own work was done, because she’d at least get a chance to say hi on a semi-regular basis.

The young lady-- Julie, going by the name on her uniform-- shrugged. “I dunno, he’s just out today. I think someone said he called in sick?” She twirled a piece of dyed blonde hair around her finger. “Probably got Frank’s cold, he was out the other day too.”

Deborah drummed her fingers on the steering wheel and sighed. “We were supposed to go out tonight,” she said softly. So much for those plans.

“And he didn’t call you?” Julie sounded skeptical as she hung the nozzle back up on the pump.

“I’ve been working,” Deborah explained, pulling her purse onto her lap and taking out her wallet. “Maybe I’ll stop by his house instead and see how he’s doing.”

 “Good luck. I don’t know how you stand it-- I mean, sure he’s cute, but it’s gotta be like dating a tall, blond tombstone, right?” Deborah shook her head as she counted out the money on her lap. It would take far too long to put her feelings into words, or even explain how she’d met Tommy. Even if they’d only been together a few weeks, Deborah knew there was a much sweeter person behind the quiet, distant exterior Tommy projected. She paid for the gas with a polite smile before starting her car and driving off in the direction of the grocery store. There were a few things she needed to pick up before she could pay him a visit.

The road up to the Jarvis house was long and dusty. Deborah had only driven up it herself once or twice; most of the times she’d visited Tommy had been driving. It was a lovely drive, at least, even if she’d gotten a little lost at one point. The woods didn’t look nearly so threatening in the daytime, with the sun filtering down through the green leaves, bathing the world in warm summer sunlight. Finally the cabin rolled into view and she parked in front, marvelling again at how pretty the house was. It would have been an expensive cabin for sure if it had been up to Tommy to buy it, but from what she’d picked up from him and the short time she’d spent with his sister, it was the house he’d grown up in.

Deborah fished a few plastic bags out of the passenger seat, then walked up the steps to the front porch. Her hands were clammy as she stepped up to the front door. Hesitantly she knocked, the sound echoing around her on the porch. A few minutes passed with no response. Deborah peered inside the house through the large glass window in the door. The downstairs was dark, and she couldn’t see any movement inside. Again she knocked, harder this time, and waited for a response.

Nothing.

For a moment she debated just going home. Tommy might not even be home, after all… but his truck was in the driveway, taunting her as she turned to leave. Besides, she’d even made a trip to the store for this, she’d come too far to chicken out. Tommy’s sister Trish had mentioned a second key hidden nearby, so Deborah glanced around the porch for likely spots. There was a welcome mat right under her feet which could easily hide a key. As she bent down to look, she braced her hand on the doorknob which promptly turned under her weight, sending the door swinging inwards.

She nearly lost her balance, but righted herself before she ended up splayed out on the floor. Figures he forgot to lock up again, she muttered to herself. That was a habit he desperately needed to break, even if few people came up to the woods she couldn’t trust that they wouldn’t come across problems. Or bears.

The downstairs was as abandoned and dim as she’d thought from outside, but when she looked up the stairs she could see a light in the hallway above. Cautiously she walked up the steep wooden stairs, sticking close to the side next to the walls. There wasn’t any railing on the other side and the last thing she needed was tripping off the side of a flight of stairs today. The stairs opened onto a short hallway on the second floor, with several doors opening onto it, but the lights were off in the hallway too. However, on the side of the hallway opposite where the stairs came up, there was an open door spilling light into the dim room, and Deborah could hear the faint bloopy sounds of computerized music.

She’d never been in Tommy’s room before, but she supposed that must be it. The clamminess had returned to her hands as she softly walked over to his door-- what if he was upset that she’d come over? Was she somehow invading his privacy this way? But at the same time a knot of worry had settled into her stomach that if he was sick enough to not go to work, he must be really bad. The thought of stepping into his room without permission was terrifying, honestly, so instead she reached her hand in and knocked lightly on his open door.

Almost immediately there was a loud cry and a great deal of thrashing about, followed by the music abruptly cutting out. “W-who…?” Tommy’s voice called hoarsely, before dissolving into harsh sounding coughs. Throwing caution to the wind, Deborah poked her head in, clutching the plastic bags she was carrying to her chest.

“I’m sorry, the front door was open. They said you didn’t come into work today and I was worried…” Tommy seemed to be half-off his bed in the far corner of the room, the blankets tangled up around his legs. His face was flushed from coughing, and his hair was mussed where it wasn’t plastered to the sweat on his forehead. Finally he stopped coughing and stared at her with tired, unfocused eyes from behind a pair of glasses she’d never seen him wear before. For a moment it looked like he was going to speak, but instead he gestured her over before sinking back against a mountain of pillows on his bed.

His room was cluttered, with a few tables by the door and a shelf by the wall, half full of books with dusty figurines crowded to one side. Several latex masks were hung on hooks on the wall, or tossed on the corner of one of the tables. Across from his bed he had a small television set up, with a slightly battered looking NES next to it, one of the controllers resting on the bed near him. An empty glass sat on the little side table beside him. Deborah pulled over a chair and sat down nearby. “I figured it had to be bad if you didn’t come into work. Are you doing okay?”

Tommy shrugged. “Haven’t thrown up in about three hours, so better than I was.” His voice was already soft naturally, but now there was a rattle to it that set Deborah’s teeth on edge. He reached for the glass beside him, but pulled his hand back with a frown when he noticed it was empty.

“Do you need more water? I can get you some,” Deborah offered. “Have you taken any medicine? How’s your temperature?”

“I can get water,” Tommy insisted, but Deborah shook her head.

“You almost fell out of bed a minute ago, Tommy. You’re staying put.” She picked up the glass and walked to the door.

“Bathroom’s across the hall, the tap water’s fine,” Tommy’s voice called as she left. She smiled, opening the door to the bathroom and filling the glass with water from the sink. Then, she opened up the medicine cabinet and poked around until she found a thermometer and a bottle of acetaminophen. The glass of water she handed to Tommy when she got back to his room, before sitting down and taking out a small box from one of the plastic bags at her feet. Inside were several sets of plastic surgical gloves, one of which she put on then she switched on the thermometer.

“When you’re done I want to take your temperature,” she said holding it out to him. Tommy frowned, clearly reluctant, but he put the glass back on the table and popped the end of the thermometer into his mouth. When it beeped, he handed it back to her. 99.8, the digital face read. Deborah switched it off. “High, but not dire, I think you’ll live.” Tommy gave her a small, tight smile. “How do you feel otherwise?”

It took a while for him to respond; when she’d put on the gloves she’d seen something flicker in his eyes. Probably too much like his time in the asylum, she thought. Finally he spoke. “Well, I ache all over and my nose keeps running but it’s too stuffy to breathe through. I haven’t taken any medicine since… nine am?”

“Any nausea?” He shrugged, then gave a small nod. Deborah poured a dose of acetaminophen into her hand and handed it and the glass to him. “That’s for the aches and fever, and I brought some Vicks VapoRub in case you were congested. I’ll need to spread it on your chest… I-if you don’t mind, that is.” A bright red flush crossed her cheeks. Internally she chided herself for being so foolish-- it was a purely medical procedure, but it was just so embarrassing nonetheless.

Tommy took the medicine, then looked at her with one raised eyebrow. “Um, okay?” He was only wearing a button-down shirt over his boxers, and she noticed now it wasn’t even buttoned as he pulled it open. A strong smell of eucalyptus spread through the room as she opened the little blue jar and scooped out some of the ointment with her fingers. She leaned forward to spread it on his chest, but her hand stopped before it reached him.

There was a white, slightly jagged scar slicing its way across his chest, right up his breastbone towards his neck. The nervousness in her heart turned to worry at the sight-- that was an injury that was intended to kill. Tommy glanced at her, then down at his chest. “Oh,” was all he said.

“It looks like it hurt,” said Deborah softly, as she began spreading the ointment across his chest.

“It did.” He’d clammed up again, his pale blueish-gray eyes growing cold. It was clearly something from his past he didn’t want to remember, and it wasn’t something Deborah wanted to push on. The curiosity gnawed at the back of her mind, but it was Tommy’s story and he’d tell it when he was ready to. She finished with the ointment and closed the little jar, the silence hanging between them like a fog.

Finally she forced herself to speak. “Have you eaten? I brought soup? It’s just canned but it won’t take long to heat up, and I- I brought stuff to make ginger tea to help settle your stomach…” The tension in Tommy’s shoulders melted away and he smiled faintly at her.

“That sounds good, thanks.” Deborah clasped her hands together in her lap, rocking back and forth a little. A big smile crossed her face in response.

“I-I’ll go get that ready then! I’m sure I can figure out your stove!” She stood up quickly, almost knocking the chair over, and gathered up the bags to carry downstairs. The sounds of 8-bit music echoed down the hallway as she left the room.

“Be careful it’s hot. Um, both of them are hot,” Deborah said, indicating the bowl of chicken noodle soup she’d placed next to him and the mug of ginger tea she’d made. “I wasn’t sure how you’d like the tea prepared so I only put in one spoonful of sugar, but I can add more if you need it.” Tommy put down the controller to take the bowl, blowing on the spoon to cool it off. He sipped at it and winced.

“Yeah, it’s hot.” He put the bowl back on the table to cool for a bit. Deborah sat down next to him with a bowl of her own. For a moment the heavy silence came back while they waited, before Tommy sighed. “I got that scar a few years ago, when I was over at Pinehurst.” He shifted slightly, staring off into the distance. “There was an… incident. And, as a result, a local paramedic started killing people he thought was responsible, but making it look like Jason had come back. We fought--” Tommy rubbed the side of his hand along the scar on his chest, “--and I got a machete to the chest in the process.” He glanced over at Deborah who was staring at him, eyes wide and mouth agape. “I lived and he didn’t. But it was a hard part in my life and I don’t like reliving it much.”

Deborah bit her lip. “I--I’m sorry, you didn’t have to tell me.”

“It’s okay,” Tommy said softly. “It hurt less to talk about it than I thought it would. And I wanted you to know. I’ve only ever told Trish about it before now.” A smile crossed his lips, a more genuinely peaceful one than she’d seen the whole time she’d known him.

Deborah smiled back at him. “Well, thanks for trusting me with that, then! It… it means a lot.” She played with the spoon in her hand, meeting his eyes for just a moment or two before lowering them again. “So... um… what were you playing?”

Tommy looked at her, raising one eyebrow. “Um, Super Mario Bros. Look… I’m sorry about our date tonight, Deb. I didn’t mean to--”

“--No, this is fine, really! I like helping, and I’d feel really bad if you had to be stuck home alone all night when you’re sick like this!” She rocked back and forth in her seat a little as she spoke. “So… do you want a player two? You can laugh at how many times I die?”

Tommy chuckled, before coughing a few times again. As he caught his breath, he pointed over to the NES on the table. “The soup needs to cool off anyway, second controller’s over there. Reset the cartridge while you’re up, please?” Deborah grinned and stood up to grab the second controller and reset the game. As she sat down, Tommy reached out to take her hand, meeting her eyes for a moment. “Deborah? Thanks,” he said softly.

She squeezed his hand a little in return. “Anytime, Tommy. Now, I’m gonna kick your butt at Mario!”

Tommy pulled his hand back and picked up his controller. “Have you ever played before?”

“How hard can it be?” Deborah asked with a grin. And as soon as her turn came around, she ran directly into the first Goomba and died immediately, while Tommy laughed himself into another coughing fit next to her. Unphased at her digital demise, Deborah glanced over at Tommy with a smile. She hadn’t known him very long, in all honestly, but this was the first time she’d heard him laugh that hard since she’d met him. It wasn’t exactly the date she’d been expecting that day, but it was the best one she’d ever had.