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I.
The sun rises on his side of the bed every morning.
Normally, he is perfectly content with this, being an early riser, but his body protests this development. His eyelids are burning from the intrusion, the warmth making his fevered body feel as if it will dry and crack apart like a poorly molded sculpture. Samson grunts, but lacks the strength to roll over and turn his back to the accursed sun.
For once, she is up and about, as quiet as a whisper, save for the low tuneless humming as she lays out her clothes for the day. Samson wants nothing more than to sleep, and while he tries, he knows the instinct to rise with the sun is too deeply entrenched to him as wetness to water. So he waits, his skin aching, the pain growing swift and intricate roots to anchor itself to his body. She comes to him, smiling, the sun framing her in coruscating light as she moves, bending low to place a quick kiss to his wrinkled brow.
“Too early for you to be this damn cheery, princess,” he grates out as she kneels by the bedside, pillowing her chin on her hands to look at him. She doesn’t answer, and he cannot maintain the facade of his disgruntled temperament in the face such compassion. He turns his head away.
“You didn’t drink the draught I made,” she chastises, lifting her head and rising up on her knees, “I suppose I ought to have a look at you.” She gently rests her hands on his chest and Samson notes they are blessedly cool against his fevered skin. He shuts his eyes, and as always, remembers the first time she laid her healer’s hands on him. As he drifts in the memory, the golden warmth of her magic floods him, loosening the roots of pain enough to allow him some comfort.
“That’s…better…” He begrudgingly admits, ignoring her impish grin. Her fingertips walk a path along his lifeline, dark and delicate, leaving in their wake the flood of healing magic that eases him. He knows what she does is merely maintenance.
“It’s cold, now,” he says, indicating the draught on the bedside table, “I’ll drink it. I promise. Just forgot to last night.” She purses her lips, frowns at him, but she says nothing. A touch of her hand has the draught steaming again. As she climbs to her feet, He reaches out to grab her arm, gentle and insistent. There was a time he would not have dared to presume such familiarity. But this is different.
She looks down at him and for a moment everything he wants to say hovers on the tip of his tongue, a tender fledgling bird preparing for its first flight. Instead, the words turn to shards of light that find their way into his eyes. A question hovers in her gaze, and then her smile, sharp and inquisitive, turns tender, and his grip slides down her arm, along the tender bones of her wrist, to her hand, lacing and locking their fingers.
The light is no longer so hard to bear.
II.
“I told you not to kiss me while you were sick.” Hadiza mumbles crossly, but she feels as if every breath she wastes complaining, she loses mucus from her nose. Beneath a pile of heavy blankets, she shivers, and her joints ache, as if the negative space around her is attempting to wedge between them. Whatever he had, he has so generously passed along to her, while he strides about as if he weren’t sick at all.
“You kissed me, sweetling, memory serve,” Samson teases, watching with open amusement as Hadiza fights a sneeze and fails, her body seizing up, preparing for a barrage. When none comes, she sighs with relief, but even that is rife with its own discomfort. Frustrated, she groans and it comes out in the form of a dying croak. Samson laughs, a deep sound from the belly, rough and charming. She makes a face at him, offended and aggravated. Everything hurts and he’s laughing. She can’t even pull enough of her mana to blow ice at him. Even casting hurts! It isn’t fair!
“Don’t be so dramatic,” he says, bringing the heady and strong draught he’d prepared, “it’s just a bug. Tough girl like you? I give it three days. Here, drink this. You’ll be right as rain in no time.”
She turns her head away stubbornly and huffs for good measure. Her attempt to be cross is ruined by a coughing fit, further frustrating her. Samson suppresses his laughter for a moment.
“Don’t be like that,” he laughs, “you’re the one who taught me to make this shit. Tastes like horse piss and iron, but it gets the job done.” Hadiza does not look at him, but he hears a sound that bears an awful resemblance to gagging. Smirking, he reaches to caress her cheek, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear.
“You gotta drink this, or you don’t get better.” He says softly, but there is steel in his voice and Hadiza finally sighs, coughing wetly, and turns to face him with a grunt. Samson does not allow her pitiful gaze to move him; not when it comes to her health. She glances at the bottle in his hand and attempts to take a deep breath through her stuffed nose.
“Ugh. Fine.” She mumbles, and reaches for it. Samson helps her sit up against the cushioning support of the dozens of pillows she’s collected. He notes that sickness changes her considerably. That heady glow beneath her dark skin, the one he attributes to her having swallowed sunlight, is muted, and her skin is as delicate as parchment. Her hair’s luster is also dimmed, tangled and gnarled in places, and there are shadows beneath her eyes, which were bright and watery with fever. She takes the draught in trembling hands, and he steadies them, covering them with his own. Her frown turns into a grateful smile, small and ghostly, as she steels her will and brings the bottle to her dry and cracked lips to drink.
Samson smiles fondly when she makes a wretched sound of disgust, but she drinks it down swiftly, her face contorted in revulsion, but after a few moments, the bitterness fades from her tongue, and she sighs.
“Happy, now?” She asks him, noting his amused smirk, crooked as cracked glass, but soft around the edges as he watches her. She admits to herself that she can’t maintain her composure when he looks at her like that, and her cheeks grow warm as she fights the urge to smile back. Samson cups her face in his hands and leans in to kiss her bitter lips. He feels her relax, feels the bloom of her smile as she returns the kiss, lifting her weakened arms to embrace him. For a moment the world is quiet and far away, and the ache in her joints is reduced to a dull and tolerable annoyance.
“Always, princess.” Samson murmurs to her. And he means it.