Chapter Text
Iguro has never refused a mission before. He’s slayed demons with a broken ankle (and got lectured for it). He’s slayed demons having eaten nothing for a week. He even went on a mission with pneumonia in the middle of winter one time, which…admittedly, was not one of his better ideas.
So he supposes he shouldn’t really be that surprised when he gets an unwelcome visit from Shinobu twenty minutes after he told the crow to piss off.
“Oh my. It’s worse than I thought,” she says, sounding way more amused than Iguro thinks is appropriate for this situation.
“Have you ever heard of knocking?” Iguro spits.
“Where is your futon?” Shinobu asks, completely ignoring his rhetorical question. “Why are you just lying there on the floor?”
“Go away!”
Instead of going away, Shinobu takes her shoes off and leaves them on the engawa and closes the door behind her, which is, in fact, the exact opposite of what Iguro wanted her to do. “I think I’d better check in on you first,” she hums.
“Well, you did! Hi! I’m alive! Go bother somebody el- HEY!” Kaburamaru slithers out from underneath the blanket Iguro’s shivering under to go and greet Shinobu. Iguro shakily props himself up on his elbows to glare at him. “You traitor,” he hisses. “Get back here!”
Shinobu has the audacity to laugh at him and kneels down to let the snake coil itself around her arm. “I think he likes me, Obanai.”
Iguro wraps his blanket around himself tighter and lies back down with an angry grunt, still violently shivering.
“Well, I can already tell you’re running a fever,” Shinobu says. She pulls out a thermometer from her bag and holds it out to him. “Would you mind taking your temperature so I can see how bad it is?”
Iguro stares at the thermometer like it’s a dead frog. “No.”
“No?” Shinobu says, feigning surprise. “And why not?”
“Give me back Kaburamaru,” Iguro demands. “He was keeping me warm.”
“Reptiles don’t generate body-heat, silly,” Shinobu tells him.
“Give him back anyway!”
“If I give him back will you take your temperature for me?”
“You’re not bribing me with Kaburamaru! That’s not fair! You can’t just let yourself into my house without asking and steal my snake because I’m too sick to stop you and then use him as leverage so you can make me do whatever you want! That’s sick and twisted an-” Iguro abruptly breaks off into a coughing fit, and he curls in on himself as shivers and coughs shake his frame. Kaburamaru drops off of Shinobu’s arm to get to him and flicks his tongue out against the sweaty, pallid skin of Iguro’s face.
Iguro’s body seems to lose some of its tenseness when Kaburamaru returns to his usual spot draped around his neck and shoulders, and one of his hands reaches up to touch him and reassure himself he’s there.
“Alright, settle down,” Shinobu says gently. She kneels down next to him. “Would you like some water?”
“NO!” Iguro yells, like she’d just asked if he would like some arsenic.
“Alright,” Shinobu says, like he had politely declined like a normal person. “You never answered my question earlier, Obanai. Where’s your futon? You seem rather uncomfortable lying on the floor shivering under that thin blanket.”
It’s true: he is very uncomfortable lying on the floor shivering under this thin blanket. But Shinobu seems to be implying that she is going to help him set up his futon and Iguro is having none of that. “No,” he says.
“No? No what?”
“I like the floor.”
“Oh. Alright, then. Are you sure you don’t at least want another blanket?”
Actually, he really does want another blanket. He was actually on his way to get one earlier when he gave up and decided to just go to sleep on the floor. Unfortunately, Shinobu takes his silence as confirmation and stands up again.
“Where are the extra blankets?”
Iguro considers telling her he doesn’t need an extra blanket, but it would really be nice if he had one because he’s so cold. “In that closet on the back wall,” he mumbles, gesturing vaguely.
When Shinobu comes back she drapes a thick wool blanket over Iguro’s shoulders, which is probably just about the most humiliating thing that’s happened to him in recent memory. “There you are,” she sings. “That should feel better.”
Ugh, it’s even more humiliating that it does. He buries his face behind his arm. “Okay,” he says. “You can leave now.”
“Not until we take your temperature,” Shinobu reminds him cheerfully. She hands him the thermometer again.
He smacks it out of her hands. Immediately afterwards he realizes that was probably a rather childish move. It seems to have caught Shinobu off-guard. “No,” he tells her.
“Was that really necessary, Obanai?” she says.
“You already know I have a fever.”
“I wanted to know how high it was so I could determine how much medicine to give you.”
“NO!”
Kaburamaru hisses in agreement with Iguro.
“No, what?”
“I’m not taking anything!”
“And why not?” Shinobu crosses her arms.
Iguro groans and pulls the blankets over his head. “I’m fine,” he mutters. “I don’t need anything, I’ll just sleep it off.”
“Don’t you want to get back to duty as soon as possible?” Shinobu asks.
Iguro grumbles to himself. “I’m sure I’ll be fine by tomorrow either way.”
“I’m not so sure. Can you tell me what other symptoms you’re having besides fever, cough, and fatigue?”
“I’m not fatigued,” Iguro insists. He is still lying on the floor because he was too tired to get his futon out.
“I’m asking because there’s a flu going around and I’m wondering if that’s what you have.”
A flu.
Oh, he knew it was the flu. He doesn’t know why Shinobu saying it makes his stomach ache more than it already did.
He had the flu once before, when he was a child. It’s not an experience he likes to ponder.
Iguro strokes Kaburamaru’s head with his index finger to calm himself down a little.
“Obanai, I’m not asking difficult questions. You’re just being stubborn. The sooner you cooperate with me, the sooner you get to rest.”
“Kocho, please just go away…”
“All I’m asking for is a list of symptoms. You’re making things far more difficult than they need to be.”
“I already said I don’t want your help! Just leave me alone!”
“I heard you,” says Shinobu. “If you’re really so impaired that you can’t put into words why you feel sick, I don’t feel like leaving you alone is a good idea.”
Iguro removes the blankets from over his head so he can scowl at her. “You think you’re so funny—”
“I’m not laughing. Do you have a headache?”
He scowls at her a moment more before ducking back underneath the blankets. After a moment of hesitation, he mutters, “Yeah.”
“Does your throat hurt?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you have a runny nose?”
“Yeah,” Iguro says through gritted teeth.
“How about nausea or vomiting?”
“Um.” He pauses here, touches his nose to Kaburamaru’s. “No vomiting.”
“So you feel nauseous?”
“...A bit.”
It’s more than a bit. His stomach has been churning painfully since he woke up and it’s the reason he hasn’t tried to move from the floor. He’s been trying very hard not to think about it, because if he lingers too long on it he knows he’s going to start panicking and that’s just going to make things worse.
“Have you had anything to eat or drink today?”
“No.”
Obviously not. He’s not putting anything in his mouth. Not even anything he’s not going to swallow, hence his refusal to check his temperature. He’s sure sticking a thermometer underneath his tongue would have made him gag.
“When did you start feeling sick?”
“Around noon yesterday, I guess.”
“Have you had anything to eat or drink since then?”
“No.”
“I think you should have some water.”
“No.”
“You’re dehydrated. You need to drink something.”
“Go away!”
“Do you want to take something for the nausea?”
“...Huh?” he pokes his head out from underneath the blankets.
“I have some anti-nausea medicine with me, do you want to take it?”
Iguro stares at her for a moment. He pulls the blankets over his nose. “Does it…actually work?” he mumbles. “What if it just makes it worse?”
“It works,” Shinobu assures him. “Pretty quickly, too. You should feel better within ten or fifteen minutes.”
Iguro contemplates this for a moment. “Are you…” he says. “Are you absolutely sure? What if I throw up before the medicine has a chance to work?”
“If I say something works, I mean it works,” Shinobu says.
Iguro is quiet.
“Do you want me to give it to you?”
He nods.
Shinobu doesn’t tease him about this being the first time he’s ever willingly taken medicine, doesn’t ask him any more questions. She hands him a vial. Iguro shakily sits up and moves the blankets again so he’s underneath them, so Shinobu won’t see his mouth when he removes the bandages.
It’s not a large dose. It’s just one mouthful; it’s manageable enough. He hands the vial back to her once he’s wrapped the bandages around his mouth again and come out of his blanket cave.
“Alright,” she says. “I suppose it’s best I just let you sleep for now. I’ll come and check in on you in a couple hours. Or maybe, if I’m too busy, I’ll have Kanroji do it.” Iguro isn’t good at reading facial expressions on the best of days but he’s fairly certain she’s smirking at him mockingly.
“Wh- no!” Iguro sputters. “I don’t want her to see me like this!”
“You’re not the only one sick with the flu, and I don’t normally do house calls. I’m sure Kanroji wouldn’t mind stopping by for a bit to make sure you’re taking care of yourself. In fact, she might have better luck getting you to cooperate than I would. I think I’ll let her know. I’ll send her over with the medicine you refused to take…”
“Kocho, you wouldn’t-”
She just laughs and scratches Kaburamaru under the chin before she stands up. “I hope you feel better soon, Obanai.”
He nods. When her back is turned he mumbles out a tiny, barely perceptible, “Thank you.”
Shinobu turns around again with a raised eyebrow. “Hm? What was that?”
“I…I said fuck you!” Iguro sputters.
“Ah, you must have. I could have sworn you were thanking me.” Shinobu tuts. “Well, believe it or not I have a couple patients back at the hospital who are even less agreeable than you are, so thank you for giving me an excuse to get away from them for a bit.”
Despite himself, Iguro finds himself smiling a little. “Any time.”