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Tess gets the flu in early December.
It comes on quickly, and soon enough she’s so sick she can barely get out of bed. Shivering under all their blankets, wrapped in as many layers of clothing as she can stand with the fever burning in her body, she has a cough that rattles her chest and produces greenish yellow phlegm. Joel can only stand helplessly by as she struggles to fight if off, missing cold meds fervently and wishing he could offer her something other than oxycodone and whiskey.
Then, out of the woodwork, one of their newer customers offers a holy grail: Tamiflu, unexpired and unopened. But the amount of ration cards they’re asking for is exorbitant, so Joel asks for a few days’ extension, and picks up as many shifts as physically possible. He burns bodies during the day, sleeps for an hour, then works the graveyard shift in the sewers before coming home, sleeping for an hour or two, and returning to burning bodies.
It's three days of this, Joel practically seeing double when he stood, woozy and exhausted, when he gets enough ration cards. It’ll wipe them out, but he can easily get their stash back up by trading their backlog of oxy with Orion, or forking over some of their bullets to Vanessa. Tommy looks concerned; Joel stumbles their whole way to the meet, blinking heavily and yawning every other word.
“You alright?” he asks, and Joel gives another mighty yawn- he’d come right from the graveyard shift, smelling like the sewers and feeling just as terrible.
“Tess needs the medicine,” is all Joel replies, and Tommy arches an eyebrow. They meet Fuller, the supplier, and the trade goes off without a hitch, thankfully. Tommy keeps Joel upright on the walk home, the older brother blinking sleepily and slurring every other word as they get through the QZ back to his and Tess’s apartment.
“Get some sleep, Joel. I’ll get your shift today covered with Marlene’s help,” Tommy says, and Joel doesn’t even blink at the Firefly woman’s name for once, which speaks to how out of it he is. “Just get Tess better, alright? I’ll check in in a few days.”
Tommy gets him into the apartment and then shuts the door behind him on the way out; Joel has the forethought to look it, and then fills a glass with water and brings it over to Tess with the pills. She blinks sleepy-heavy eyes open, bleary with fever.
“Take this, darlin’,” he murmurs, and gets two pills out of the packaging. “Should feel better in a coupl’a days.”
Tess frowns, and looks at him.
“You look awful,” she comments, and Joel nearly laughs. Her eyes are so sunken in they look nearly black, exhaustion and illness clear in her features, and her skin is clammy and pallid.
“Sure know how to compliment a man, sweetheart,” is all he says, and Tess swallows the pills, eyes sinking shut again. Joel strokes her hair back, listening to her breathing, glad at least that it sounds less strained. He leans in, kissing her forehead, and knows he has to shower before he climbs in bed- he smells like the sewers, and Tess will complain about the sheets stinking for days.
“Can’t smell shit, Joel. Just get in bed before you fall over,” she whispers, half-asleep, and he hides a grin at her reading his mind. He toes out of his boots and removes his jeans and shirt, crawling in behind her; she settles back into his chest, shivering with the lingering fever. He kisses the round of her shoulder and rests his head on her pillow, inhaling the scent of her hair. “Go to sleep.”
“Bossy,” he murmurs, but truthfully he’s halfway there, exhaustion tugging on his bones.
“You know it,” she murmurs, yawning, and twines their fingers together as darkness claims them both.