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Waxer didn’t think much of it when he and Boil both woke up feeling tired. It made sense—yesterday was a long day.
They made an off-planet delivery to a Twi’lek community on Dalchon for some of Nabat’s craftspeople, and after spending several hours helping unload and strolling around the town, they returned to Nabat late at night. After the long day of traveling, it wasn’t surprising that they would wake up a little tired the next day.
As they went about their morning, feeding Blaster and Pala and going to check on their garden, Waxer felt more and more fatigued. By lunchtime, his head was aching faintly, his nose was running on and off, and he found it increasingly difficult to focus on what he was doing. Boil started coughing around the same time and complained about his muscles aching as if they were sore.
When both of them are still feeling unaccountably terrible in the afternoon, they grab their medkit and boot it up to figure out what’s wrong with them.
“Gaulus fever?” Boil reads from the information screen once the medkit has analyzed their samples.
They’re sitting on the couch, partially because Waxer was starting to feel a little unsteady on his feet by the time Boil got the medkit out. Waxer has heard of Gaulus fever before, though he hasn’t encountered it—he thinks Lienn mentioned having it when she was younger. The little informational snippet from the medkit says that it’s a semi-common virus in the sector, and sometimes appears around Ryloth and the surrounding systems.
Boil keeps reading aloud. “High fever, congestion, muscle aches, dizziness, chills, muscle weakness, severe cough… That kind of sounds like what we’ve got, though I don’t think any of our symptoms are severe.”
“Maybe it doesn’t affect us quite as much?” Waxer hypothesizes. Clones were designed to have highly effective immune systems, and it’s rare for them to get sick from common viruses or other maladies. The only time either of them has really been sick like that was on purpose, when medics exposed them to a bacteria designed to destroy the biochips in their heads. That felt a lot worse than what they have now, but it was also genetically altered to take their robust immunity into account.
“Mm, maybe,” Boil murmurs as he scrolls down to the next section. “It says that it can usually be treated with common painkillers and fever reducers, and usually passes in 3-4 days in otherwise healthy individuals.”
Waxer wrinkles his nose. “Ugh, 3-4 days?” That seems like a long time to be stuck inside. It also means they need to cancel a lot of plans. They were supposed to have Numa over after she’s done with school today, and they were planning to visit Lienn and Gon tomorrow after going into town for market day.
Boil sighs. “Well, at least we stocked the medkit recently, so I think we’ve got plenty of what we’ll need. We should message Nilim.” He stands with the medkit display still in his hand, then abruptly sways, nearly dropping it.
“Boil?!” Waxer grabs his arm to steady him as Boil plops harmlessly back down onto the couch. “Are you okay?”
Blinking rapidly as if he’s not sure what just happened, Boil nods slowly. “Y-yeah, I… just got really dizzy. Like all the blood rushed out of my head or something.” He shuts his eyes tightly for a moment before opening them again. He glances over at Waxer, who must look worried, because Boil smiles and reaches up to squeeze his hand. “I’m okay, though. Just need to… be careful, I think.”
Standing up more slowly, Boil goes down the hall to their bedroom to retrieve his datapad, and Waxer busies himself measuring out the proper doses of medication. They send messages to Nilim, Lienn, and Gon, explaining what happened and apologizing for canceling their plans.
By the time they’re done with their messages and have taken what the medkit prescribed, Waxer is suddenly feeling chilly. He pulls one of the blankets off the back of the couch and wraps it around his shoulders.
Boil sets the datapad down on the end table. “Well, I’m glad we brought all the garden tools back in already.” He covers another cough with his hand. “And I’m really glad we got back late and didn’t get anyone else exposed before we figured it out.”
Waxer just nods, sniffing and reaching for another tissue from the box on the table. The thought of being cooped up inside for several days is annoying, but Waxer would much rather stay in and make sure that none of their friends get sick.
Boil sits down heavily beside him again, and Waxer huddles deeper into his blanket. Despite the fact that they slept late this morning, he really feels like taking a nap, and Boil looks like he wants to do the same.
“Mm, here…” Waxer turns, gesturing at Boil while he pulls his legs up onto the couch and lies back to rest his head on one of their colorful pillows. Boil doesn’t argue, turning so he can lay alongside Waxer. Waxer curls into the warmth of Boil’s chest, closing his eyes. He opens them a moment later as Boil shifts, and when he looks up Boil is tugging the other blanket off the back of the couch to pull over both of them.
“Well, now I know something’s wrong if you’re cold,” Waxer teases. Boil huffs in response, coughs again, and burrows even closer to Waxer.
Waxer wakes up with a start—he’s not sure what woke him up until he hears a worried warble. Turning his head, he sees Candy next to the couch, and when all he does is stare for a moment, Candy bloops questioningly.
“Mmf, yeah, I’m awake…” Waxer tells her. Boil mumbles something indistinct next to him as Waxer squints at the chrono in the kitchen. “What time izzit?”
When Candy replies, Waxer’s shocked to learn that they slept for nearly three hours, and it’s already a little past Pala’s usual dinnertime. He shivers as he extricates himself from the blankets and heads to the kitchen. Candy trails after him, beeping a series of questions while Waxer tries to reassure her that they’re just a little sick and it’s not serious.
“Sorry, little brother… we didn’t mean to sleep that long,” Waxer tells Pala as he dishes out his food. After giving Pala a few pats, Waxer slowly stands up—he already had a bit of dizziness when he got up from the couch—to see Boil pulling some leftover vegetable stir fry out of the conservator.
While Boil is warming up their dinner, Waxer goes to grab the blanket from the couch again and sees notifications lighting up Boil’s datapad screen. They’ve gotten replies from Nilim, Lienn, and Gon, all with variations of how they don’t need to apologize (“Gaulus fever will knock you down worse than a windstorm!” Gon’s message says) and asking if there’s anything they need. Boil was grumbling earlier about not having much fresh food in the house, and they were supposed to go to the market tomorrow to replenish. But they do have some dried foods and a stock of ration packs, so they’re not going to starve. Waxer tells them they’ll be okay—he doesn’t want anyone to get sick because of them.
They eat dinner quietly. At least neither of them have gotten any nausea symptoms, and it’s not like the fever from the bacteria where Waxer didn’t want to eat anything at all. But Waxer still feels like he can’t quite focus, and is still a bit tired and unsteady despite sleeping for several hours.
Boil covers another cough and Waxer blows his nose for the third time since sitting down, wincing at how the skin on his nose is already feeling a little raw. After trying to toss the tissue in the bin and missing, he stabs at a chunk of squash with his fork. Being sick, even not-really-that-bad sick, stinks. There have been times in Waxer’s life where he’s been exhausted, aching all over, and barely able to stay awake, but that was because of exertion or injury. Being sick like this feels like he’s tired for no good reason—even though he knows why, it’s an annoying reason to feel so crummy. He sneezes again and groans, reaching for another tissue.
“Maybe we could try a hot water shower?” Boil asks, his voice sounding raspy to Waxer’s ears. “I’ve heard that it's supposed to help with congestion and stuff.”
They trudge through their usual evening chores, cleaning up the kitchen and taking Pala out and reassuring Candy one more time before she goes into sleep mode for the night. They indulge in a hot water shower, which does indeed clear up Waxer’s congestion enough that he falls asleep almost as soon as they hit the bed.
++++
Waxer hoped that they would feel better the next morning, but his hopes are dashed when he wakes up late feeling achy and weirdly heavy, like his limbs are weighed down by something. Even worse, his nose is still annoyingly snotty and congested. Boil is still asleep next to him, blankets wrapped tightly around his shoulders. Blaster ventured in sometime during the night and curled into a ball on the pillow behind Boil’s head, her fur pressed against the back of Boil’s neck. She probably feels warm, Waxer blearily thinks to himself.
Already feeling his nose running, Waxer sighs. He tries to shift his half-asleep arm without waking Boil up, but fails when the movement triggers a loud sneeze before he can try to hold it in. Boil jerks awake and Blaster looks up, ears twitching in annoyance.
“Sorry,” he murmurs, his voice sounding scratchy to his own ears as he reaches for a tissue from the bedside table.
Boil just shakes his head, rubbing a hand over his eyes. They lie there for several minutes. Boil reaches a hand out of his blanket cocoon to scratch at Blaster’s ears.
After clearing his throat, Boil murmurs, “Mmf… was kinda hoping it might just be gone by this point since we… y’know. ‘Highly effective immune system’ or whatever.”
Waxer lets out a grunt of agreement, pulling a pillow over his head, which is already starting to ache. He forgot how much he hated this.
“Don’ wanna be sick,” he pouts against the pillowcase.
The only response he gets from Boil is a rumbling cough, followed by a raspy, “Me neither.”
After lying in bed feeling sorry for himself for a little longer, Waxer makes himself get up to let Pala out. Boil burrows into the warm spot Waxer left behind, pulling the covers up to his neck while Blaster settles onto the pillow again.
As Waxer pads slowly down the hall after Pala, fuzzy slippers on his feet and blanket wrapped around his shoulders, he glances at their work boots in the hall. He feels irrationally guilty that they can’t get to any of the things they were planning to do—visiting the market, preparing their garden for planting next week, helping Numa finish up that art project she was working on for school. Not that they would be of any use at this point. Waxer has to keep one hand on the wall as he walks up the stairs, and just getting out of bed made him feel dizzy. He immediately sneezes again as he opens the door to let Pala outside, and has to root around the shelves to find a towel he can use.
Wiping his nose, Waxer idly wonders what he can do for breakfast. Boil made—er, heated up—dinner last night, so Waxer should probably figure out breakfast, but just thinking about it is making him tired. He doesn’t want to do anything.
Turning to sit in one of the chairs next to their work table, Waxer blinks at the large basket that he’s quite certain wasn’t there yesterday. It takes him longer than it should to determine that, no, he has not, in fact, seen this basket before. He’s about to investigate when Boil appears at the top of the stairs. His hair is standing up on one side, his nose is a bit red, and he has a blanket slung over his shoulders and a datapad in his hand.
“Hey… I got a message from Gon, he said he came over and… left something for us…” Boil frowns down at the datapad.
But… Gon’s not supposed to come over, so he doesn’t catch what they have. Waxer blinks at Boil, then at the basket, before he puts it together. Gon comes over to check on Blaster when he and Boil are out of town, so he has the access key to their front door.
“Oh, uh… this?”
Boil blinks in similar confusion, then sets the datapad down on the table and opens up the basket. Even through the heaviness in his head, Waxer can faintly smell something delicious.
“Oh…” Boil exhales. “He… made us breakfast.” He stares down at the basket for a moment, his expression both surprised and tender.
When they bring the basket down to their kitchen table, Waxer finds that ‘breakfast’ is a bit of an understatement. Gon crammed the basket full with insulated containers of mushroom egg scramble, crispy tuber hash, sweet onion pancakes, toasted fungebread with jam, and a bottle of tart feen juice. It’s so much better than the cold grain flakes Waxer was thinking of having earlier, and the only thing they need to do is get their plates out and start the caf machine.
Waxer thinks that his blocked nose is probably interfering with his sense of taste a little, but he doesn’t mind much—it’s all nice and hot. Despite how dizzy and tired he obviously is, Boil seems thrilled with the spread. He must’ve been dreading trying to make anything for breakfast as much as Waxer was.
“He said the tart feen juice is the best thing to have when you’re sick,” Boil says, reading from Gon’s message as he takes a sip. Waxer frowns faintly at that—the medkit instructions hadn’t mentioned it. But, Gon has been around for a long time, so he must know something about it. Waxer drinks it down. It’s definitely tart, but not unpleasantly so.
Even though they both seem to feel better after eating, putting away the remaining food and cleaning the few dishes they used is all they manage before they go curl up on the couch, huddled under blankets together and sipping on more of the tart feen juice. They take another dose of medications and spend the rest of the morning re-watching episodes of Numa’s favorite nature documentary that Candy pulls up for them.
Boil is snoring against Waxer’s shoulder, having fallen asleep with a couple of their blankets wrapped around him like a cocoon, when they get another message. This time it’s from Lienn, who tells them she’ll be dropping off lunch for them. She’s already pre-empted any protests in her message (“I’m not taking no for an answer, roltoli”) and tells them that she’s bringing spicy rycrit stew (“It’s the best thing to have when you’re sick”).
Waxer wakes Boil up when he hears their ground level door open, and then close again a few moments later. After standing up carefully—Waxer’s getting used to putting a hand on the wall or nearby furniture at all times whenever he tries to move—they go upstairs to find a box covered with a towel. Inside are more insulated containers with the stew Lienn mentioned, as well as a mushroom-vegetable pie that they can just warm up in their oven whenever they want to eat. She also included some soup crackers and a box of herbal tea. Between what she brought and Gon’s breakfast basket, Waxer thinks they have enough food to last them for several more days.
Lienn wasn’t kidding about the soup being spicy—it makes both their noses run like crazy. Thankfully, Lienn seemed to think of that and included another box of tissues along with the stew. It’s delicious despite the heat, and afterwards Waxer realizes he can actually breathe through his nose for a while. Waxer sends her a grateful message when they’ve finished eating.
After lunch, they both feel energetic enough to do a few small things—Boil makes their bed, and Waxer takes Pala out to rub oil into some persistent dry patches on his scales. Once that’s done, Waxer wonders if he can at least get some of the seeds sorted out and ready for when they start planting next week, but by the time he takes them off the shelf, he’s feeling dizzy and having trouble focusing on the Ryl labels. He groans in frustration. He wants to be able to do something and not just lie around like a lump all day.
“You okay?” Boil asks, head poking up out of the stairwell.
Waxer sighs, setting the seed packets down on the table and scrubbing a hand over his face. “Mmf, yeah… can’t even do more than one thing without feeling like my head’s in a centrifuge.”
Boil gingerly makes his way up the rest of the stairs. “Yeah… I tried to start some of the laundry we’d been meaning to do, but that didn’t work out well.”
Waxer drops his hand from his face. “What happened?”
“I had to put the basket down before I even got through the hallway, and then Candy chased me away from it,” Boil says with a sheepish shrug.
Waxer snorts, and then immediately sneezes, which somehow sets off a coughing fit. Pala tilts his head in confusion and noses at Waxer’s leg.
“‘M ok, Pala,” Waxer manages to say once he can speak again, laying a hand on the massiff’s scaly head. He realizes that there are no tissues on this level of the house, and with a sigh he follows Boil back downstairs.
They’ve barely gotten to the underground level when Waxer hears his datapad beep with a message notification. After blowing his nose, he picks it up from where he left it on the kitchen table.
“And no chores today!” The message from Lienn reads. “You need to be resting. Everything else can wait.”
Waxer blinks. “Did you tell Lienn that we were doing stuff?”
Boil, who’s pulling one of the blankets from the couch around his shoulders again, shakes his head. When Waxer shows him the message, Boil frowns at it, and then turns to look at where Candy is still next to the abandoned basket of laundry.
“Did you tell on us to Lienn?” Boil asks incredulously.
Candy chimes noncommittally, and then beeps at them sharply.
“Well, yeah, I guess the medkit did say to get lots of rest…” Waxer admits.
Candy interrupts with another sharp beep, rolling to the side so that she pushes the laundry basket against the wall, and then she does an about-face down the hall towards their bedroom. Waxer and Boil look at each other. As much as he’s frustrated, Waxer can’t help but chuckle.
“I guess we’re being put down for a nap,” he says, and Boil’s laugh turns into a cough.
Candy warbles loudly from down the hall.
“Oh yeah…”
Waxer and Boil each grab large mugs of water, the medications they’ve been taking, and a packet of the soup crackers Lienn sent to them before they head towards their bedroom. Candy is waiting next to the doorway, as if she’s about to give them an inspection. She bloops pointedly at them.
“Ok, ok…” Boil says, walking past her into their bedroom.
Waxer chuckles, and he drums his fingers on her head assembly as he goes by.
“Thanks, Candy,” he says. Candy lets out a low little ‘woo’ noise that somehow seems both annoyed and affectionate, and she doesn’t roll away until they’ve closed the bedroom door.
Waxer’s frustration has melted away into dizzy exhaustion, and his eyelids are already drooping as they take another dose of meds, drink some water, and curl up under a pile of blankets. Boil scrunches up into a ball, pulling the blankets tightly around his body. It’s strange to feel Boil shiver against him when he’s usually a walking furnace. Forcing his heavy arms to curl around Boil, Waxer pulls him to his chest. Boil squirms closer in response, his shivers dissipating as their little cocoon of air within the blankets warms up from their body heat, and it’s the last thing Waxer notices before he drifts off.
++++
Waxer’s not sure if he feels necessarily better when he wakes up, but he does feel less tired. When he lifts his head from the pillow, he sees Boil lying next to him, datapad propped up against his bent knees as he watches a vid on mute. Boil looks over at Waxer as he sits up, reaching for a tissue.
“You okay?” Waxer asks once he’s blown his nose again.
“Yeah,” Boil croaks. He clears his throat and tries again, his voice sounding only slightly less croaky. “Just woke up coughing and couldn’t get back to sleep.”
Squinting at the little chrono on Boil’s datapad, Waxer can see that they slept for a couple of hours, which considering how little they did today and how much they slept last night is astounding. Waxer can’t remember ever sleeping this much without being injured or sedated. He again feels a little guilty that they’ve done so little, but he supposes there’s nothing so urgent that it can’t wait until they feel better. Plus, he’s fairly certain that if he tries to do anything else today, he’ll end up being too tired to actually finish it, and then Candy will throw a fit at them again.
They lounge in bed for a while, watching a few gardening vids that Boil had downloaded, until they finally feel hungry enough to do something about it. Boil steals a pair of Waxer’s fuzzy socks, and with blankets around their shoulders they go into the kitchen to heat up the pie Lienn made for them for dinner.
As they eat, with Boil making little happy noises as he tastes the pie, Waxer feels inexplicably warm–and not from the slight fever. Even though they’ve lived here for years now and have been friends with Lienn and Gon for nearly as long, sometimes their kindness still takes Waxer’s breath away. He and Boil would certainly have gotten by on their own, but Waxer’s still incredibly grateful that their friends are so thoughtful and willing to do all this just to make life easier for them while they’re sick.
They manage to wash and put away the dishes without incident, even though Candy warbles at them to not try cleaning anything else. They’ve just settled on the couch when they get a message from Nilim saying that Numa wants to call them, and asking if they’re up for it.
When they take the call from the holoprojector, it’s just Nilim at first. He asks how they’re doing, reiterating that he can help to keep the talk short with Numa if they’re really not feeling well, though Waxer is more excited about seeing Numa than he’s been about anything else the past couple of days.
“Ah, and I also asked Lienn to send over some citrus herbal tea, did you receive that?” When they nod, he says, “It’s the best thing you can have when you’re sick. Make sure that you have some before you go to sleep tonight, it’ll help.” Waxer has seen Nilim’s stern but gentle parenting with his kids and with Numa, but it’s a little odd to be on the receiving end of it.
Once Nilim seems satisfied that they’re not feeling too poorly, Numa appears on the holoprojector. She asks how they are, and then immediately launches into a story about how her cousin Tann had Gaulus fever once and got to stay home from school and lie in bed all day and eat soup and have tea. They hear Nilim’s voice out of frame remind her of something, and Numa excitedly shows off the nearly-finished art project she’s making for school, a little diorama of a nature scene with a variety of insects she’s made out of painted clay.
The conversation drifts over to their garden, which Numa is always excited to help with.
“When you’re not sick, can we start planting more seeds? You’ll feel better soon so we can plant seeds, right?”
Boil chuckles. “Of course—we’re saving some of them just for you, remember?”
“I’m planting the blue melons!” Numa exclaims.
Waxer smiles wide. “That’s right! It won’t be too long, ok?”
“Uncle Nilim says if you drink the citrus tea, it’ll help you feel better,” Numa adds.
“We definitely will. And you made us feel a lot better just now too, Nu-nu. Thank you.”
Numa beams at them, and Waxer feels another wave of warmth that has nothing to do with fever as they say good night and end the call.