faderift | open | love in the time of grippe

The South was miserable, utterly dreadful, and Loki exclaimed this at every possible opportunity to every one of the staff and to his Valet. He was aching, pained, freezing cold, and sweating in a truly ungainly fashion. There was no way to appear disaffected without the use of illusion and the use of illusion tired him faster enough that he degenerated from miserable to disgusting and miserable.

It was a poor trade but, more than once, he had made it.

He couldn't have the staff spreading rumors and, moreover, he absolutely refused to be shuffled away with the common rabble as they engaged in all their hideous illness.

He was different, after all, better than most people. Stronger.

But Gods be damned the South was terrible. He never caught this ridiculous Grippe nonsense where it was livable and warm.

A maid delivered tea to his room, something expensive and garish that he had requested to perk up his mood, and he dismissed her once it was done. The moment she left he considered dismissing his illusion--but, no. After tea.

"Oh what is the point if I can't even taste it?" He asked, voice normal only because he had spelled it that way. Beneath the facade he could hardly breathe and, thus, hardly taste.

“The point, luna mea,” Alexandrie supplies as she glides in through the door scant moments after the maid has departed to stand at his bedside, “is that it aids in your recovery.”

The green shimmer of Loki’s magic traces her fingers as she slips them straight through it to gently straighten by feel alone a little section of the hair that is damp and tangled beneath the perfectly coiffed illusion, turning her hand when she finishes to rest the backs of her fingers against his forehead and frown her concern to feel the fever still burning away.

“Ah, non,“ she murmurs largely to herself, “not broken yet.” Then, to him, “Have you slept?”

"Not hardly," he answers with a bit more waspishness than was due. His sour hum is mitigated, he hopes, by the look of vague apology that he gives her. He will be scolded for the lot of it, but he was currently a miserable wretch and would she not take pity upon him?

"I cannot keep this up in slumber, and I will not have some maid dash off with news that I've been reduced to little more than a snot-dripping invalid."

He takes another dip of tea and grimaces at the lack of anything resembling flavor. How the flavor hadn't turned completely innocuous with the vacuum, he had no idea--it was revolting.

Loki’s snappish reply buys him little more than an upward twitch of her eyebrows—he is currently a miserable wretch and she will take pity on him. Not enough pity to allow him an escape from drinking the tea, however. In fact, Alexandrie will, with patient solicitousness, lift the pot from the tray and refill the cup before settling herself beside him on the edge of the mattress.

“Then I shall bring my work in here, tell Coleus that we are not to be disturbed for the remainder of the day, and keep watch myself,” she says, reaching in an attempt to smooth hair she cannot see back from his forehead. The guess is wrong; her fingertips find only skin there, and she emits a puff of amused air through her nose. “Will that suffice?”

She reaches through the sufrace of the illusion, brushing her fingers across his brow, and his amusement at her mild huff is enough to get something close to smiling out of him. He considers her suggestion and forces himself to drink another cup full of that dreadful tea.

"Well, I cannot imagine anyone else I would trust to the task," Loki tells her, quietly, and the edges of his spell start to fray at his low volume. It isn't hard to make out the stuffy nose when he fails to project.

"And I have never chased a gorgeous woman from my bedroom when she wishes to spend the day here."

She bats her eyelashes coyly at him despite the ponderous clogged sound of his undisguised voice and the brightness in his eyes that had seemed lively revealed as distant and feverish.

He looks dreadful.

“Alas that it shall not be more ardently spent,” Alexandrie sighs in affected mourning, disguising her worry by leaning to press a quick kiss to his hair before getting up to make the arrangements she had suggested.

Coleus naturally having made himself convenient just outside means it is easily done.

On her return, she mercilessly refills the hated tea again—it’s fairly clear that ‘finish the tea’ means pot rather than cup—before setting to feeling out and removing the pins in her hair. It will take a bit longer than usual, as most of her attention is on making sure her resourceful husband doesn’t disappear the tea through other means than drinking it.

Loki let his illusion fall, as he said he would, and felt the strain of it immediately. He was truly disgusting, he felt, sweaty and pale, with damp hair that clung to him and both a redness and sallow, waxy complexion scattered over his face. She poured him more of that awful tea and he regarded it balefully for a time.

Rather than choke down another cup so quickly, he watched as she pulled the pins from her hair and let the carefully coiffed copper tumble down her shoulders.

That she kept a very firm, unbreaking eye on him while she did was...enough to have a small, slightly smug and slightly mischievous smirk spread across his face.

"Do I look so awful you must stare?" He asked sounding every bit as innocent as he had ever attempted to. Gods but he was under her spell, wasn't he? It hadn't even occurred to him to vanish the tea, not after she'd poured it for him. It has clearly occurred to her, though, and this game was better than anything he'd been doing before.

"Quite the opposite," Alexandrie replies, pulling her loosed hair forward over her shoulder and shifting her efforts from pins to the release of the myriad of tiny buttons that close the back of her gown, "I am utterly captivated." A lie—he does look awful enough to make her stare—but only half of one, for she loves him. It made him beautiful when he looked like he'd been dragged in the road all the way from the Tevinter border, and it makes him beautiful now. More so, thanks to the self-satisfied little smirk she'd managed to summon through the dour mien he'd been wearing when she'd arrived.

"...And I have always been so," she appends softly, her hands pausing, the gentle surety of her adoration bared in her gaze for a long moment before she returns to the task.

If she's going to be staying in, she may as well be comfortable.

It is a tender, heartfelt moment that Loki truly savors. Truly. Her open adoration has never once ceased to amaze him (though it is often paired with confusion, he has not indulged that in quite some time) and he watches until she returns to the task of undoing buttons down the length of her spine.

"May I?" He prompts and gestures to her efforts.

Alexandrie’s thought process before she acquiesces is much longer than what customarily greets Loki’s offers to disrobe her. (Although it is difficult to be any shorter than immediacy.) Perhaps it’s absurd to think of slipping free a handful of buttons as taxing in the slightest, but she currently has more than half a mind to cocoon her husband in bedding such that he won’t be able to do anything but rest and then cosset him until even he at his most self-indulgent is weary of her solicitousness.

Eventually her thoughts give way to a grateful look, however, and a shift so that the buttons are within Loki’s easy reach. She can do the rest once she is prepared to settle herself beside him.

Loki thought, for just a moment, that the game was up...but his Alexandrie, his trusting, lovely wife turned her back and presented the buttons that lined her dress. Loki promptly waved the contents of his teacup away and set it aside, empty, on the saucer. His free hands met and began undoing the buttons on her lovely dress...though he was not much faster, taking time as he did to smooth fingers against her spine.

The tick of the cup on the saucer she had expected; after all, his hands were to be otherwise occupied.

What she was not expecting, when she turned her head to look over her shoulder to chide Loki coquettishly for attempting to make her feverish with desire since he had not managed to make her feverish with illness, was to find it empty. The coy look blossoms immediately into outraged amusement, Alexandrie letting her mouth drop open in exaggerated shock before she exclaims "Scélérat! Ah, how my faith is rewarded!"

Loki contrived to look hurt by her accusation, by the wounding cruelty of the name she leveled at him, but it was a thin veneer. He pressed a hand to his chest whilst the other remained dedicated to his task. It would be complete, soon enough.

"By a doting husband?" He asked, in confused offense. "You wound me, my love, with such dreadful names. How will I ever recover from this sickness that plagues me so?"

Finally free of the buttons, Alexandrie rises and turns to loft her brows at her stricken beloved, a soft petulant pout on her lips as she escapes the gown aided by a bit of a wiggle. It’s swiftly followed by numerous petticoats, and all are pushed aside with a foot while she refills the cup (again) with the last of the pot.

“Through the dutiful consumption of the tea so lovingly provided by your doting wife, I should think.” She begins to loosen the corset beneath with practiced fingers.

This is rethought, for the sake of their little game, and she presents her back to Loki again for his aid—although this time she turns her head just enough that she can keep an eye on him in her periphery.

Loki gives her a sly and plaintive look, as though her accusation has cut him to his core, and lowers the cup he had lifted to his lips. He hadn't even entertained the notion of drinking it down, but the sigh he let out was clearly meant to make it seem otherwise.

The cup was set aside and, in response to her challenge, he did not put it beyond her view but rather on the side she'd gazed back over.

"And now I am maligned so, accusations in my sweet wife's voice, and for what reason I ask?"

His fingers find the lines of her lacing and he works the knot from the center as he loosens the cords. He is deft but he takes his time, just waiting for when she will turn her head aside or blink that he might cast a glamour and dispose of that dreadful beverage.

“It is only because she is made near frantic, can hardly bear the terrible worry that consumes her every waking moment as long as the hands that hold her heart tremble with fever.”

And she feigns the opening she thinks he may be watching for, lowering her eyelids with a pained breath through her nose such that she barely maintains vision.

She baits him and, it only to frustrate her efforts, Loki ignores the teacup at his side. He reaches, instead, to smooth a hand against the curve of her chin. The other rests against her lower back, bracing her as he offers her a soft smile.

"Ah, the care and tenderness of my dearest love. How much stronger I feel, already."

He pushes up to brush a kiss against her cheek and, quite clumsily, knocks the teacup and saucer askew as he does so.

She tilts her chin into his hand with a small smile of her own, and for a short but critical moment Alexandrie does indeed close her eyes.

They snap open again in surprise as the cup and saucer clatter, spilling the tea across the table where it runs in little rivulets onto the floor; her head turns toward it on instinct, and his lips land somewhere near her nose.

Her eyes flick to the liquid, back to Loki, and for a moment her expression looks like a building storm. Then it breaks open into indulgent delight, and she turns more fully to allow her to kiss his forehead.

“If you are well enough to play tricks upon me,” she murmurs against the damp heat there, “then you are well enough that I shall allow you to avoid my summoning a replacement pot.” She finishes the unlacing on her own and abandons the corset in the same pile as the rest, free in only the fine cloth of her chemise to wriggle herself back against the pillows and lift her arm to make room for Loki to use her as one.

“For now,” she adds, lest he think he has won entirely.

"Ugh, you're startlingly lovely." An utter non sequitur, croaked, nearly voiceless in the middle for the raise in pitch. "As usual."

By now Leander has been monopolizing Alexandrie's attention for some time, or at least would like to think he is. Realistically, it's more likely she has no other urgent obligations within the warehouse sick bay, but—

No, there's no room here for plausible alternatives. Being allowed to feel more important is vital medicine, which he will take, if only to pass the time until he decides once and for all whether or not expiring in this fashion—tragically wasting away, sweating himself to death with stoic dignity—will inflict more or less pain than something more overtly dramatic.

(Should the former come to pass, the latter will almost certainly take place. Even now they congregate, waiting out his weakness—not buzzards, but spirits.)

"The least you could do is sweat a bit. You're making me look dreadful by proximity."

"Ladies do not sweat," Alexandrie replies with something of the air of the automatic. Her smile twitches slightly, and she holds up the cold damp cloth she'd brought illustratively. "But for the sake of solidarity and your increased morale—" here she dabs her face to give it a light sheen that could perhaps be mistaken for perspiration "—I shall try my very best."

The cloth is put to its intended purpose, then: being swapped for the fever-warmed one that rests on Leander's forehead now.

The replacement is met with a sigh, half relief, half frustration. Of the sheen, he grumbles, "Like spring dew on a lily."

Will it annoy her if he sits up? He's doing it either way, with a hand clasped over his own forehead so her work doesn't go tumbling down his nose and into his lap. With a stiffness he's determined not to feel, and an agility comparable to that of the recently departed King Markus, he rearranges himself—one foot over the cot's edge, then the other—

"This is tedious. I'm getting up."

"Are you." Incredulous, but gentle. She'll attempt to stop him, redirect him back to his previously prone position with a press against his shoulder. If he is strong enough to resist her, then she'll offer an arm instead. A short shuffling walk outside, a little fresh air off the sea rather than the stagnant weighty atmosphere of the warehouse might do him well.

If he is not, well then, he belongs in bed.

It's more persistence than strength that keeps him upright versus so heartless a refusal to let him do what he likes. Clammy fingers prying beneath her palm, grasping her forearm, pushing in return.

"I'm not a child," he croaks. "If I can get up to use the privy," which he can, looking like an old man wearing a young man's skin, "I can get up for any other reason. Thank you very much for your concern—" going on with coughs instead of words, each ending in a high wheeze.

(Note that even as he leaves the cot, he has yet to release her arm.)

At length, scowling: "It's a cruelty to confine me to bed for so long. My bones are pressing through my skin." They aren't.

Edited 2020-03-01 04:52 (UTC)

“Pauvre cher,” Alexandrie mourns for him, pressing his hand gently where it holds her arm. She’ll walk him slowly through the room and out to the fresh air with little for conversation besides intermittent wordless murmurs of encouragement when his condition requires a rest, causes a stumble or pause.

It’s ponderous and halting, but eventually: the sea.

“Do say if it becomes too chilly.”

"It's already too chilly."

He's dressed in bedclothes, slippers, fortunately had the presence of mind to drag with him one of the blankets—and they're in full maritime winter. Given his present state, no amount of clothing would be sufficient. Something to look at other than wall or ceiling or makeshift curtain or his own legs and feet beneath the blanket, something to smell other than the sweat and the uniquely unpleasant excrement of the unwell: worth it.

Averesch's sentinel wisp follows them at a delay, hurrying to catch up.

"Sister Sara is going to wring your neck for this."

"Sister Sara cannot reach it," Alexandrie replies pertly, although she does reach with her free hand to pull the blanket a little more snugly around Leander's shoulders.

"And as a Sister, she ought to know well enough that there are parts of us not our bodies that must be treated." She looks out over the sea, its winter waves, the ice that floats closer to the coast making the closer swells ripple and shine like the scales of a great dragon. The air is sharp and cold and clean and perhaps working its fingers balefully into Leander's nose and chest but they will not stay long.

"Are we, as artists, not renewed by beauty that brings with it some suffering?"

Edited 2020-03-03 14:28 (UTC)

The jab at Sister Sara's height, the way it's delivered, clutches in his belly—doesn't make it out as a laugh, but nonetheless appears as a mild shift in expression. Still gamely tagging along, he grasps the blanket to keep it where Alexandrie decides it should be. Colour rising weakly to his cheeks, his ears, to meet the cold, too blotchy for the proper illusion of health. (The beds of his nails are leaning purple. Lips, too, through their pallor.)

"So long as one remains in balance with the other, perhaps. However we might measure that."

"Balance hardly stays still long enough to wait for measure," she replies idly, picking one wave to watch. Another, after it crashes. The lone cloud flying swiftly across the sky. Back to Leander, then, to take an inventory of his seeming. (The nails are not unnoticed. Lips, too. One more moment, and she'll encourage him back inside to bed.)

"No, it doesn't."

Quiet, for a moment, breathing with a conscious steadiness. The wind moves his hair. "I wish it would. Or that I could take the scale in my hands, and... wrench it into some state that better suits me," he coughs twice, clears his throat. Doesn't spit, for the Lady's benefit, though he wants to. "Some deformation. At least then it would be mine."

It's not been long enough since moving into this meant-to-be-shared room for much of anyone to know that it's Athessa's room, which is to say: how the heck does Lexie know where to find this poor grippe-stricken elf?

That's what Athessa would be wondering if her brain wasn't being melted by fever, but for the moment she's blinking blearily awake at the cool touch upon her face, the only part of herself exposed since the rest is firmly and thoroughly bundled in her bedspread.

"Is it daytime?"

open | love in the time of grippe

Whose dodging? What. Slander.

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hello i'm here to be cosseted