Work Text:
He feels like shit. Like really this is the sickest he's felt in his entire life and that's saying something. He can't even count the number of times he's had food poisoning from the crap he eats, and this beats them all out. This is some mutant fucking strain of sickness and he's been sitting here against the wall in the bathroom trying to put together a perfectly apt metaphor to describe it, but it's really slipped out of his hands at this point. At this point Bro controlling the sickness has nothing to do with his hands and everything to do with his beaten-down-and-broken immune system not really cutting it anymore.
Fucking swine flu.
He's past caring what time it is. It's some godawful o'clock in the morning and he's been sitting here for what feels like an entire hour already. He's not even nauseous anymore. Now he's just dizzy as fuck and shivering, his body broken out in cold feverish sweats, and he figures it's just easier to sit here and wait it out. Wait the dizziness out. Cal'll keep him company. He's got him tucked to his chest like a kid's teddy bear, pretty much every blanket in the apartment wrapped around his shoulders and his shivering legs. Fuck, it's cold. It's goddamn May and to Bro it feels like it's near freezing inside.
The nice quiet, obnoxious as hell buzzing of blood through his head is suddenly shattered as Dave throws open his door and crashes into the main room, the door slamming back on its hinges in his wake. The kid goes utterly silent a few steps into the room. Bro listens, swallowing around the disgusting raw mess of his throat, and then Dave isn't so quiet anymore.
"Fuck, Bro, where are you?" he calls breathlessly, his voice near cracking with fear. "I'm not kidding around here, for once would you not materialize out of the goddamn shadows laughing and actually answer me?"
"Dave," he calls. God, he sounds like a strangled bagpipe, all gravel and pain.
Dave responds instantly, his footsteps loud on the carpet as he rushes over those few strides and tears into view, skidding to a halt in the bathroom doorway with all his hackles raised and his right hand twisted up like he's got a sword clutched there.
Bro blinks, the dizziness spinning in his head, and neither of them have their shades on. Dave's eyes lock onto his and they're so damn wide. For a second it looks like he's seeing a ghost, teetering on the fence between terror and rage. His mouth is pulled back into a grimace with his lungs sucking air, and for a second Bro can't help but think, Damn, no wonder they won the game.
It melts out of his posture like wax dripping from a candle; his shoulders dip first and then the tension in his knees, the rest of his bones following fluidly. In the end he stands there awkwardly, a scared kid woken terrified out of a nightmare he's only now remembering isn't real. The right hand clutching his imaginary sword relaxes last, slipping neatly into the pocket of his sweatpants like it had never even happened.
But it had.
"You okay?" Bro asks, partially because he just feels so fucking lousy that he doesn't have the energy to jab at Dave for the outburst, but mostly because he can still see that glint of terror in the kid's eyes and it stings him a little.
Dave seems to flinch at the question. The entire apartment is dark and he stands there in the doorway for a moment staring at the floor with his mouth in an ugly frown. Then he looks up again, catches Bro's eye and says, "I don't know."
"Fucking nightmares?"
"Yeah."
"You wanna tell me about it?"
Dave is all spooked tension like a trapped bird. Neither of them is used to talking like this, talking openly, but it's been a couple months already since the world rebuilt itself and Bro and everything else that was destroyed. A couple of months of normal urban life and Dave is still having nightmares about the game, waking up in the middle of the night muffling screams into his pillow that Bro can always hear through the shitty paper-thin walls.
Dave steps over the floor on eggshells and folds the toilet seat closed to sit down. He doesn't want to talk about it. He doesn't. And his posture is all tied in knots, his arms curled around his chest hugging himself and his eyes everywhere but on Bro. He still has a picture in his head, the dream etched onto his retinas, and it's twisting him up inside like a corkscrew in a dead rat's guts.
"Are you okay?"
The words hang in the air and for a second Bro thinks he spoke them himself, as fever-baked as his brain is. But they're in Dave's voice, worried and uncomfortable because it's been nearly a week since this flu knocked Bro flat on his back and he's still not on the upturn yet. He sniffs and leans his feverish head against the cool grimy wall tile and looks at Dave again. "Thought I was the one askin' you that?"
Dave frowns and his eyes shoot to the doorway. Still guarding his exits. His right hand tenses up again and he has to force it flat, has to force himself to sit there with the dream still coiling paranoia in his bones.
"It's different every time," he says, the words tumbling out with no cadence, no reason, just tumbling. "I mean, it isn't because usually it's the same fucking thing, but it's different too because shit is always different. There was so much crap that went on. I don't even know it all, just that it kept rolling up more and more shit to the shit pile, a fucking dung beetle going to town on the African plains, sucking that shit right up because why not, why wouldn't we want more?"
"Dave."
"The dream. Shit. I know. I—" he has to stop, has to rub his eyes long and hard and cover his face, get himself under a little more control. Bro waits, his head still spinning, and he fights to stay in the moment.
"The dog," Dave mutters, his voice breathless. "Jack. Whatever. He's there and he has you pinned. And your blood is fucking everywhere, wild cherry red to his endless black, and he's just grinning. Laughing. Fucking unhinged jaw. And he has so many swords, infinite ones, and he just keeps jabbing you. One more sword. One more. And then the fire comes out of the shadows all green and he's controlling it somehow. I don't know. And just. The screams. You never stop screaming and it feels like I'm the one dying."
God. God. Bro closes his eyes as his stomach turns for the hundredth time tonight. He was there. He was there when he died and it wasn't like that, but hearing Dave say it, hearing the picture in the kid's mind, it feels like a kick in the gut. It feels like getting run through a second time, his blood gushing out hot down his back and the agony shooting red fire through him with each breath. Each twist of the blade. He'd trade his own life again for Dave to not have that image burned into his brain. Bro swallows hard, one arm tucking Cal that much closer to his heart, and he looks up at Dave.
"It wasn't like that," he whispers, and the words sound like mourning.
"I know. It's just how it is in my head." Dave shrugs, wanting to talk about anything else but knowing this is something he needs. "It's not always you either, but it usually is."
"The girls?"
"And John."
"Ever you?"
Dave laughs at that, a bark of sour air because there's nothing funny about that at all. "No. I don't get killed. It's just everybody else that dies around me. Fuck, weren't you taking notes? I'm the alpha self. All I'm fucking good for is watching other people die."
"That ain't all you're good at."
"I'm pretty goddamn stellar at it."
"Dave."
Bro cuts the negative tirade off and Dave looks glad for it. He rubs at his face again, his fingers trembling, and he glances at the door. He catches himself checking his exits again, planning his escape route should he need it, and Dave sighs shakily at the floor.
"This is why I was afraid to sleep during the game," he admits, and he catches Bro's eye and holds it for a long moment before breaking it again.
"You always did have pretty vivid nightmares. All that creativity spun up in your brain."
Dave shrugs, doesn't care about back when he was little. Back before the game. That's all old news to him now and he's got his timeline snarled around the game like tangled fishing line. "Did you ever see one of me die?"
For a second Bro's thankful he's sick as a dog. His face is dead bland because of it and the horror that question calls up somehow doesn't wash into his eyes. God, what a question. Because even though Bro himself doesn't wake up screaming, he still dreams of green fire and orange feathers and he wakes up in cold sweats every time. That was Dave. That was Dave, and how is it right that Bro wasn't the one to go down first, his blood all over Jack's sword marking it red against the blackness for Dave to dodge—
"Yeah. The orange one."
He can't look at Dave right now, doesn't trust himself to keep his cool, and when Dave sighs the same scared exhaustion that Bro feels, some of the tension eases out of the air. "Right. Shit, I always forget about him. What kind of an asshole does that make me?"
Bro laughs that sour laugh, but with a touch of humor to it this time. "A pretty big one."
"Awesome."
Dave sits there with his elbows on his knees, his hands knotted up in his hair as he stares at the wall. Bro can see the dream replaying itself ad infinitum in Dave's mind, red blood and green fire and pure hopeless terror on a seamless film loop; the game's cruel ghost to haunt him forever. And his worry is momentarily dashed by a hot burning rage that the kid's not even fourteen yet and he's already got so much trauma in his soul.
Bro at least got to fifteen before he found a baby in the carcass of his record shop and his plans fell to shreds.
"Dave." He says it quietly, his throat like raw pork, and it feels like that's all he can say tonight. Just repeat his name forever. Snap out of it, kiddo.
"It's just all so fucking huge, you know?" he whispers, his voice trembling a little, and that's the most honest Bro's ever heard him since Dave was seven and he decided honesty wasn't cool anymore.
"Yeah." Bro watches him and he must be really baked right now on this cold, because what comes out of his mouth is the very last thing either of them were expecting. "You want a hug?"
Dave stares for a second, his eyebrows jumping in surprise. Bro almost wants to take it back, rewind the tape and act like he never even pressed play. Flu, you know? I know you're not really seven anymore. Too cool for hugs and shit, it's fine. Don't know what I'm saying hopped up on all this cough syrup, man. But Dave doesn't laugh and he doesn't ignore it either. His eyes go distant as he stares through the wall for a minute, actually considering it, and then he lets out the longest ragged sigh.
"I think I do," he admits guiltily. Bro can tell he's wary as hell about it too, because this is just Bro fucking with Dave again, right? That's all this can possibly be?
But weirdly, it's not, and it's as shocking to Bro as it is to Dave. "You sure?"
He snaps a glance out of the corner of his eyes, dragging a hand through his hair to mask his nerves. "Look, this is embarrassing enough. You really gonna make me ask?"
Bro laughs and he is so dizzy right now, his head spinning with surprise as well as the vertigo. It takes a bit for him to heave himself up off the damp tile floor, one hand pressed to the wall for balance and all the blankets piling down around his knees, but he does get up. Kneels there. Throws one feverish arm around Dave's shoulders and hugs him so hard. Because it's been years since he last got to and sometimes he misses crushing the kid to his chest so much it stings.
Dave's hands just kind of settle against his shoulders and damn he is so bad at this. Kid needs hug lessons if he ever wants a girlfriend. Behind Dave's back where he can't see it, Bro has to let himself smile.
He pulls away a second later, sinking down into his blankets again a dizzy, shivering mess. His head is pounding, the nausea curling in his stomach like a hagfish, and he pulls the blankets back up over his shoulders with clammy, feverish hands. God, it's cold and he feels like so much shit. Part of him just wants to curl up right here on the floor but that would probably freak Dave out pretty hard. He leans against the wall instead.
"Take something for that damn fever," Dave says quietly, watching him with worried eyes. He doesn't look nearly as spooked from the dream, though, and Bro is glad for that.
"If I could keep it down."
"Seriously, how are you still cold with all those blankets? You only left me one."
"Fucking swine flu," Bro mutters, tucking Cal next to his chest again now that he has the blankets situated.
He feels kind of guilty actually, because for most of this week it's been Dave taking care of him instead of the other way around. It's been Bro asleep on the futon for hours on end, Dave leaving him cold Chinese and cold pizza and cold heated-from-the-can Campbell's soup to scarf down and then heave up an hour later. It's been Dave walking to the pharmacy and buying probably meth-lab-illegal quantities of cough syrup and aspirin; taking all of Bro's clothes to the laundry mat to wash after he'd sweated his fever into his entire wardrobe, even the shitty acrylic reindeer sweater he'd bought for that ironic gag party last Christmas and never expected to wear again.
Bro leans there against the cold bathroom wall, trying to keep his head from spinning the nausea too far out of control, and Dave watches him all the while, just sitting there silent. He's worried. They're both worried, honestly, but Bro hates making Dave worry because that's supposed to be his job, not Dave's.
Dave frowns and presses a hand to Bro's forehead. "Damn, you're hot."
"Smokin'. You know the ladies love me," he drawls, and it would be funny if his throat didn't feel like a rat's nest.
Dave just rolls his eyes and stands up, hands back in his pockets. He watches Bro for a moment as he tries on his problem solver face and Bro doesn't know why he keeps trying to fix this. You don't fix getting sick. You stick it out and suffer and you tell everybody else to stop freaking out because eventually the damn fever will break and it'll all go back to normal again. Eventually.
It's just so fucking cold, though. Someone swapped his blood for Freon in his sleep or something.
"C'mon, get up," Dave says, grabbing his hand and pulling.
Bro rolls with it even though he's still fighting his vertigo, and he gets up shakily and leans a hand on the sink to keep himself from just slumping back down again. "You got a plan here?"
"Yeah, I got a plan. C'mon," he mutters, shoving his hands back down into his pockets and heading toward his room. Bro follows slowly, hand pressed to the wall with every step as he holds his blankets on with the other. And when Dave opens the door to his room and waves Bro inside, it finally dawns on him what's happening.
They've been living in shitty apartments Dave's entire life, never enough blankets or cough syrup or even decent nutrition to keep a kid healthy. So yeah, Dave's been sick a lot. He's had fevers a lot, and every single time Bro had curled up with him to keep him warm, to keep him company, to keep him from freaking out in delirious confusion. Now Dave's trying to return the favor and Bro can't even help the smile from sliding over his face.
"Heh," he murmurs, going inside. "You're a good kid, Dave."
"Yeah, yeah, I got one condition to this shit. You tell my friends I let you snuggle up with me and I'll take Cal and hide him where you'll never find him. He will be so fucking gone not even Jade's dog will be able to sniff him out."
Bro laughs. "Sure thing." Speaking of Cal, he dumps him out on the floor in the hallway, ignoring Dave's raised eyebrow that he'd been hugging the puppet like a lifeline.
He sinks down on the bed and he's still halfway to freezing but it feels good to lay flat. Stills his head and his stomach and makes thinking so much easier. He can feel the remnants of Dave's body heat in the one thin blanket on the bed, and Dave grabs the thing and spreads it out on top of the mass of covers Bro's already wrapped in before slipping underneath and pressing his warm back to Bro's.
"Get better, okay?" he murmurs, glancing back over his shoulder.
Bro gives him a smile and nods. "Promise."
"Good."