Dr. S. Klim (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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thecapitol2013-09-26 11:40 am
futilecycle) wrote in thecapitol2013-09-26 11:40 am
Entry tags:
Nothing wants to stay the same. [CLOSED]
Who | Sigma and Howard
What | Sigma gives Howard medicine, bad advice, and Howard gives Sigma the flu.
Where | District 10 Suite, Sigma's room.
When | Before the Aliens plot.
Warnings/Notes | Flu stuff, unhappy cats, probably references to violence.
Sigma's apartment was, as usual, impeccably organized, not so much a living space as storage. It was almost certainly the antithesis of Howard's room: the Doctor's notebooks were sorted and stored, his clothes folded and put away, his bed made without the assistance of an Avox and without a wrinkle. The only evidence that the room was in use at all were the cat toys strewn across the floor, and a single framed headshot of Kyle Sigma kept on the nightstand: a memorial complete with an offering of a single vased flower, lest he let his failure as a parent go unrecognized.
A package of decongestant in hand, Sigma waited for Howard as calmly as he could. From behind the bathroom door Nye howled indignantly, furious to have been locked away from his master and guests - Sigma had easily decided he was more concerned with Nye catching the virus than Howard taking the cat's confinement the wrong way. There was also the matter of Howard's actions in the previous Arena: the boy had killed Neffa, one of the only adult Tributes Sigma had come to trust, and the magician had failed to return. Internally, Sigma was livid, and hoped to keep his temper down so that his anger would not slip through his lips and damage their relationship further. With a battle on the horizon and an illness to contend with, nothing could come of fighting over it now. Perhaps when Howard was better and the date of their next Arena was set, Sigma would consider scolding him.
What | Sigma gives Howard medicine, bad advice, and Howard gives Sigma the flu.
Where | District 10 Suite, Sigma's room.
When | Before the Aliens plot.
Warnings/Notes | Flu stuff, unhappy cats, probably references to violence.
Sigma's apartment was, as usual, impeccably organized, not so much a living space as storage. It was almost certainly the antithesis of Howard's room: the Doctor's notebooks were sorted and stored, his clothes folded and put away, his bed made without the assistance of an Avox and without a wrinkle. The only evidence that the room was in use at all were the cat toys strewn across the floor, and a single framed headshot of Kyle Sigma kept on the nightstand: a memorial complete with an offering of a single vased flower, lest he let his failure as a parent go unrecognized.
A package of decongestant in hand, Sigma waited for Howard as calmly as he could. From behind the bathroom door Nye howled indignantly, furious to have been locked away from his master and guests - Sigma had easily decided he was more concerned with Nye catching the virus than Howard taking the cat's confinement the wrong way. There was also the matter of Howard's actions in the previous Arena: the boy had killed Neffa, one of the only adult Tributes Sigma had come to trust, and the magician had failed to return. Internally, Sigma was livid, and hoped to keep his temper down so that his anger would not slip through his lips and damage their relationship further. With a battle on the horizon and an illness to contend with, nothing could come of fighting over it now. Perhaps when Howard was better and the date of their next Arena was set, Sigma would consider scolding him.
no subject
Sigma wonders, briefly, if he's done Howard any good at all, either. Perhaps if he hasn't, it would not be too late to start.
"...I've kept you up," he announces, rubbing his eye with the back of his hand and clearing away any tears that remain. "You are not going to get any better if we stay up talking."
no subject
He's been taken for a liar so many times that it doesn't really hurt not to be believed any more. He brushes it off - the real hurt comes from feeling as if he's being chased out of Sigma's room. He knows logically he should go back to his room and sleep there, but all that waits for him there is four walls filled with junk and a stuffed rabbit and a tribble. He doesn't want to need company, but he's loath to leave it.
"Fine, fine, I'm leaving." There's a sulking tone that's all too settled into his voice. He sits up in the bed, shoulders jerking as chills pluck at muscles. His body aches everywhere, and when he rubs his hand over his face he realizes just how high a temperature he's running. He stands up and sets off another bout of coughing, then sits back down.
He doesn't have it in him to ask for help, for someone to make sure he gets back to District 1 without passing out in the elevator, so instead he just drops his head into his hands and shivers.
no subject
The boy's exit is interrupted by the coughing fit and Sigma worriedly rushes over to him. He catches him as he takes his seat, a hand on his back supporting him upright in the bed, and reaches to pull the blankets around his shoulders. Howard's hands cover his face and so Sigma holds the sheets around him until the chill has passed.
Sigma sits steeped in regret for a moment before he speaks. "Please, calm down. I was not asking you to leave, I promise." Emotional exhaustion is apparent in his voice now, like an overtired parent who can not relax until their fussing child is at rest. "I only wanted you to fall back to sleep. This could be serious. I am concerned for you..."
It is difficult to even watch him as he shudders. His fingers tighten around Howard protectively as if he could shield him from his illness. Sigma has accepted that this suffering, miserable, shaking ball will be him in not too long, but it is better Howard has him now than never at all. His voice drops to almost a whisper. "...And, thank you. Forgive me for not believing you. It is hard, Howard. It is very, very hard." Sigma looked up from the child and his eyes met a once identical pair on Kyle's photograph. His heart clenches in his chest and he can do nothing but believe Howard was right in order to assuage it.
no subject
In a moment he reaches his fingers out and finds the blanket around his shoulders, tugging at it and pulling it tighter around himself. He takes a deep breath that feels like it's being tugged over gravel. He's nauseated from the coughing, and he licks away a bit of drool that's threatening to drip over the edge of his lip. His nostrils flare as he tries to exhale the chills out.
And his insides are empty, bereft of any more spite to throw at Sigma. He lets the apology waft in. He lets the concern come in. True, honest to god concern - someone caring if he were to die in his sleep, or need to go to the hospital (it dimly occurs to him that that's a possibility in this place). And he sucks it in and hoards it, this feeling of being cared for when he's spent so many nights knowing not a person in the world would be bothered if he were gone. It's a panacea stronger than any drug.
After a few moments the chills subside a bit, the dizziness giving way to clarity, although his breath is still a shallow scrape and he still feels as if every joint is misplaced.
I know it's hard, he wants to say, believe me, I know. I don't hang out with people who don't got it hard.
Doesn't spend time with people who aren't like him, denying the love they're given out of fear it'll turn out false.
"Sorry. We should go downstairs." His voice is hoarse. "I need to use the bathroom and I don't want to get your cat sick. And I have some sleep medication up there."
no subject
"It is no trouble, Howard. I can let Nye and his box out in the common room for one night, the other Tributes are used to him. Perhaps an Avox could watch him."
Still he offers a way out, if he is not comfortable, patting him on the shoulder reassuringly. "But if you would like, we can go. Sleeping pills might be good for you, now." A dreamless, restful drug-induced sleep was of dire need.
no subject
He all but needs to be carried by the time they get to District One, which is, thankfully, devoid again of serial killers. Alpha and Hyperion's absence is like a pleasant musical note sounding out whenever Howard goes through the common room, but it's barely audible to Howard over the waves of lightheadedness and tremors and aches. His expression bleary when they reach his room, only half-conscious.
The room itself can be smelled slightly from the hallway, and more so once the door is open. Aside from a little cavity at the doorway carved out so that the door can be shut again, the floor is completely covered in hoarded things, in stacked boxes labeled 'flashlights' and 'batteries' and 'wires' and piles of magazines and folded clothing in a hodgepodge of sizes. One corner of the room has a desk covered in broken electronics, and the closet door won't close, jammed as it is by oversized jackets and spare curtain rods and, oddly enough, a toddler's bicycle. The clothing on the floor has stains on it, and there's something crusted and pungent over the side of the trash can, but the clearest source of the smell comes from a large green plastic storage box with 'TO SORT' written on the side in marker - the insides look like the contents of a dumpster.
There's a clear human-sized patch on the bed which Howard stumbles to, and he crawls underneath the sheets, pulling them up over his head. After a moment he gropes around under the bed and retrieves a tattered, disgusting stuffed rabbit he rescued from some Capitol garbage and his Tribble from Wyatt, and starts rummaging around in the nightstand (past Exacto knives and rolls of tape and flattened, smoothed candy wrappers and jewelry he never got around to giving to Eponine) for the pills to help him sleep.
He wants to ask Sigma if he'll stay until he's sleeping, but he can't muster the words, so he just looks at the old doctor, with a little too much uncertainty and vulnerability to be properly po-faced.
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When Howard digs beneath the bed, he wonders if he might pull out a midnight snack that had been salvaged from the dumpster weeks ago, and Sigma finally cringes. But as the stuffed rabbit slides past the threshold of the mattress and onto the bed, Sigma's heart tears like an open wound (and in the darkness, Sigma almost mistakes the Tribble for a kitten). He takes a deep breath in, releasing it slowly, resolving to concentrate only on Howard for now.
Battling against his acquired mysophobia tooth and nail, his fear of catching Howard's flu and dying a slow death, Sigma sits down on the remaining space on the bed. He does not need to hear Howard speak to understand what he needs. With one last hand on Howard's shoulder, Sigma tucks in a loose edge of the sheet under Howard's skin, and then places his hand gently on the rabbit as if to coax it to sleep as well. He thought it might help, for some reason.
"Goodnight."
no subject
And another memory, from the FAYZ. Waking up from fainting on the back porch of the house he and Orc share, riddled with infections in his nose and ears and eyes. Not even having water to clean himself up, just smearing the germs and sweat around when he wipes his face on a towel, when he feels the cut on his forehead from falling down. Hearing Orc snoring and crawling onto the edge of the huge mattress that Orc takes up the majority of, balancing precariously on the side, shivering, not daring to wake his friend. In the morning, only some spots of dried blood from his head wound betray he was there.
He doesn't want to remember either of these things. He groans a little and finds a comfortable pose. The neck around the stuffed rabbit is worn and greyed by being clutched with sweaty palms every night since his second Arena. He shakes out four pills from the medication bottle - the proper dosage is half that - but makes it look like it's merely two with the sleight of hand that's served him well the last few years. He swallows them down dry, although he coughs a bit more.
"Goodnight," he mumbles, breathing deep through his nose. He shivers again, and his free hand closes over Sigma's atop the rabbit's head. His thumb rubs over the veins there, the knuckles. He stares up at the ceiling and almost expects glow-in-the-dark stars. "Thank you."
And he closes his eyes.