Chapter Text
He woke up a few hours later feeling worse than he had before. His throat was dry and his lips were swollen, that same heat from before wracking his body. He hadn’t moved, though someone had tossed a blanket over him and placed his head on a pillow. He had to admit, for the wilderness and dirt it was pretty comfortable.
He slowly cracked open his eyes, immediately shutting them once he was bombarded with harsh sunlight. He winced, drawing the attention of his companions.
“Kinich! You’re awake, how are you feeling?” It was Mualani who spoke up first.
He didn’t particularly feel like answering, but he would much rather force himself to speak than give Mualani a chance to smother him. “Fine.”
The looks the other five gave him were not amused. His voice was gravelly and it hurt to talk, just one sign that he was not, in fact, fine.
He sat up, pushing his headband out of his vision. “What time is it?”
Before anyone could respond to him, the sudden movement from him sitting up caused his stomach to jolt. He quickly scrambled to his feet, to the shock of his companions, and staggered over to some nearby bushes and emptied his stomach.
What came up was mostly bile and stomach acid, turning the pain in his throat from soreness to downright stabbing. Tears were brought to his eyes as anything he had gotten into him in the past 24 hours was violently ejected into the bushes, shouts of concern behind him.
Sometime when he was vomiting he felt a gentle hand on his back rubbing soothingly.
Eventually his stomach stopped disposing of its contents and he got a moment to catch his breath. The panicked chatter behind him turned to background noise as he turned his head to the side to face Chasca, whom he now realized had been rubbing his back.
She gave him a deadpan look mirroring his usual expression. “‘Fine,’ huh?”
He glared with as much bite as he could muster. “Fine enough.”
She shook her head and helped him stand, Kinich heavily leaning against her shoulder. “You’ve been asleep for almost a full day; guess now we know why.”
He had to do a double take at that. “A day.”
She nodded, “Yep.”
It was then that he noticed the chatter around him had ceased. He gazed up from where Chasca was supporting him to look at everyone else.
Xilonen stepped forward. “Bed rest for you, come on.”
She marched toward them and, before he could make any move to protest, swiftly picked up Kinich in a bridal carry.
“First of all, put me down. Second, where am I supposed to be on bed rest at?”
The woman holding him tilted her head in thought. “Hm.”
Kinich lightly shoved at her chest. “My house is being used as refuge and yours are all probably either destroyed or the same, I’ll be fine out here.”
Ororon spoke up. “Perhaps we can go back to the inn?”
Kinich shot him another glare, being tired enough to showcase an unusual amount of emotion.
“I’ll be fine on my own, you all have to go help your own tribes, anyway, right?”
Mualani gave a cheeky smile. “Being war heroes has some perks, im sure nobody will mind if we take care of a sick colleague instead, right?”
If it were possible for him to pale any further he would’ve. “You all suck.”
*****
He really didn’t deserve the level of care his five companions were giving him.
They had not only carried him all the way back to the inn, but then gotten him a change of clothes, tossed him through a bath, and then practically tucked him into bed while Iansan went and made soup. Kinich couldn’t possibly pay them back for all of this care.
The inn’s room had multiple beds, so they decided to sleep in shifts. Xilonen, Chasca, and Iansan were currently all tangled up in a heap on one bed while Ororon meditated in the corner and Mualani helped him sit up to eat the soup Iansan had made.
“I don’t need you to feed me.” Kinich took the spoon with a shaky grasp. “I can eat just fine.”
Mualani let him shakily feed himself the soup, unusually quiet. After it was half gone and he was too full to eat more, putting it off to the side, she grasped one of his hands in her own to get his attention.
“What..” she hesitated, “what exactly happened, in the war?”
He froze at that, and he could even hear Ororon in the corner take a sharp breath.
“I mean,” she hurriedly whispered, “I’m just worried. This wouldn’t happen to you in any normal battle.”
There was a long silence between those who stood awake before Kinich gathered up the courage to speak again.
“This wasn’t a normal war, ‘Lani. You didn’t see the bloodshed I did.”
She leaned forward and hugged him tight. “It must have been so scary for you, huh? I can’t imagine doing as much as you did, fighting, calculating casualties, running around the entire nation.. out of us all, you’re the one who deserves the title of hero most.”
He didn’t say anything, just closed his eyes and leaned into the hug. He really deserved none of them.
Ororon spoke then, nearly startling the still hugging two. “It doesn’t matter if you think you need to,” he started, “you don’t have to earn us. That’s the problem, isn’t it?”
Kinich stiffened, eyes squeezing shut. Mualani held him closer, stroking a hand through his hair.
Ororon walked to his other side, sitting on the bed next to Kinich. “It may have been the plan that brought us together,” he shot a pointed look at the three girls cuddled on the other bed, “and it may be your sickness driving us to this room, but what’s making us stay is our care for you.”
Kinich didn’t meet his eyes, so he kept going. “Trust me, I’ve learned by now that pushing people away and being alone doesn’t do good.”
Kinich didn’t respond, but he reached a hand in Ororon’s direction. Ororon took it into his own, so that Kinich was now in physical contact with both him and Mualani.
Maybe it was the illness, or maybe he had just been alone for so long that being loved like this was making him weak, but he almost shed a few tears as he sat there thinking to himself, ‘I love them so much, they deserve so much more than me.’
*****
Waking up in the morning proved to be a much better experience than the day before. His throat was no longer dry, he didn’t feel as tired, and overall he just felt better. However, when he tried to get up he found that he couldn’t.
Opening his eyes, he could see that he was cuddled into Mualani’s chest. Iansan was most likely the one spread out over his legs, meaning Xilonen was curled at his feet, Chasca resting her head on Xilonen’s stomach, and Ororon was off to the side, hand still intertwined with Kinich’s own.
He loved them so much already.