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She couldn’t get warm.
That’s what she’d said to Vi, when she’d found Jinx on the floor of Cait’s shower, pruning skin saturated beneath a freezing spray of water. Vi could have kicked herself, because she should’ve seen it coming. It always happened the same way. Jinx would keep insisting she was fine until she wasn’t, and winding up in far worse shape than if she had just admitted to not feeling well in the first place.
“Cold —“ Jinx grunted through chattering teeth, “— couldn’t get warm,” she’d admitted when Vi had asked why the hell she was taking a nap in the shower, after the long minute of heart attack as she'd desperately shook her back awake, because it'd violently reminded her of—
No. She is not doing this right now.
Vi quickly discovered that at some point she’d been sick, the cloying scent of stomach acid lingering stubbornly even though most of the mess had already washed down the drain.
“Goddamit, Jinx, you can’t keep doing this,” Vi hersed, but she’d turned off the water and helped her up off the floor, wrapping her up with two towels in an attempt to stop the shivering. She’d settled Jinx into bed, placed a trash can nearby in case of emergency, coaxed a little water in her, and told her to sleep it off.
“She alright?” Caitlyn asks when she pokes her head into the guestroom as she’s smoothing the blankets over Jinx’s shoulders. “Need anything? Rennie, ibuprofen?”
Vi shook her head. “I think she’ll be fine for a bit—maybe when she wakes up.”
“Alright,” Cait hums, reaching into the room to turn off the light switch. “Call me if you need anything.”
“Actually,” Vi speaks up, just as she was about to leave, “do we have orange juice?”
Jinx hadn’t really been lucid when she’d jolted herself awake and whimpered for Vi to stay, and she’d barely stirred since, content to doze in Vi’s lap while her body struggled against the virus ravaging her weakened system.
Vi combed her fingers through the soft thick strands of ever flowing hair, frowning at the uncomfortable warmth simmering beneath her palm. Jinx hummed at her touch, forehead wrinkling in confusion as she blinked away the grogginess of fever-induced sleep.
“Hey,” Vi managed a small smile, smoothing the unruly bangs curling around her fingers. “How’re you feeling?”
Jinx swallowed with noticeable effort, foggy brain taking longer than usual to process the question. “Been better,” she finally croaked, licking at chapped lips.
Vi nodded, biting her tongue. Understatement of the century. “Can you sit up for a second?”
Jinx immediately paled at the suggestion, eyelids fluttering closed, and she swallowed once more for good measure.
“Jinx, you need to try to drink something,” Vi sighed. She stroked through Jinx’s hair in a gentle rhythm, watching the girl’s throat bob precariously. “Look, if you have some water now, Cait’s bringing home orange juice from the store.”
She shook her head and turned her face into Vi’s stomach. “Don’ want anything,” she murmured drowsily. “Don’t make Cait fuss over me. She’ll never let me live it down.”
“She didn’t even hesitate to go to the store when I asked her if we had juice, y’know,” Vi’s lips quirked up in spite of herself at Jinx’s twinge of petulance. Cait and Jinx has had their fair share of cat-and-mouse over the years, but her wife loved her baby sister whether she likes it or not and they both know it. “At least you’ll have something to get rid of if you need to,” she reasoned. “It won’t hurt so much.”
A hard shiver seized Jinx’s muscles and her fingers clenched in Vi’s shirt. She rubbed a few slow arcs down Jinx’s back, soothing the involuntary muscle spasms. Jinx gave a small grunt of thanks, the noise reverberating in the back of her throat before she went limp again, face smushed in Vi’s lap.
“C’mon,” Vi nudged the plastic straw against Jinx’s cheek. “It’s not a request.”
Jinx groaned, but managed to push up on her elbows, blinking dazedly as she sucked a few tentative sips from the straw of the bottle Vi was holding up to her, then began sucking more vigorously when she realized how thirsty she was. “Take it slow,” Vi chides, but didn’t do much otherwise. When she’d had enough, Jinx pulled away and collapsed back onto her human pillow. Her cheeks inflated with a breathy belch, shoulders hitching as she muffled the noise in the fabric of Vi’s shirt.
“You okay?” Vi frowned, slowing the back rub.
Jinx nodded, panting through a much wetter burp as the excess air she’d swallowed gurgled back up without her permission. She slipped a hand down between the couch and her stomach, fingers gripping her upset belly, and bare toes curling as an audible cramp ricocheted through her abdomen.
“Jinx? Hey…” Vi massaged her fingers through the mess of sweaty hair, trying to coax a response out of the girl. Jinx jolted with an ominous hiccup, and when she finally raised her head she was breathing heavily through her nose, lips pursed together as a last resort.
“‘M gonna be sick,” she slurred miserably, biting her bottom lip in desperation. She swayed upright, shaking her head and cupping her hand over her mouth just in time to retch into it. Vi sat up with her, hands roving nervously over Jinx’s back as she abruptly lurched over her lap.
“Okay,” Vi breathed, heart pounding like it was trying to jackhammer right out of her chest. “OK. C’mere.” She snatched up the trashcan and positioned the small trash can in Jinx’s lap, leaning the girl over her arm.
Jinx immediately reached up to grip the edges, head dipping low between her shoulders as her next heave echoed inside the metal confines of the trash can. Vi rescued her bangs just before a roiling belch triggered a deep gag.
“Sorry,” Jinx spluttered weakly.
Vi cringed, turning her head away as the sounds of liquid splashing against the plastic lining met her ears, even as her palm moved to rub circles up and down her spine. Jinx shuddered, muscles trembling as her stomach clenched and ushered up a much thicker wave.
“Easy, easy,” Vi coached, hoping Jinx was too distracted to detect the tremor tainting her voice, or the slip-up when she says, “Big breaths, Pow.” She worked to steady her own frantic breathing, inhaling and exhaling deep and slow, trying to encourage Jinx to do the same.
After a few minutes, Jinx was wrung out and reduced to dry heaves, little more than bile spilling past her lips. She burped into the can, panting softly while she drooled, embarrassingly uninhibited by fever.
“You’re okay, hon,” Vi soothed, chin resting between Jinx’s shoulder blades. After a few quiet seconds she asked, “Think you’re finished?”
Jinx responded by pushing away from the offending trashcan and leaning her head back against Vi’s shoulder, chest heaving as she gasped for air. Her hand still hovered over her stomach, rubbing absently in an attempt to quell the lingering queasiness.
“Here,” Vi retrieved the bottle and watched as Jinx’s lips automatically wrapped around the straw and her throat bobbed with several parched gulps. “Slowly. Please .”
Jinx only grunts in response.
“Feel better?” She brushed back the sweat drenched bangs plastered to Jinx’s forehead, trying not to flinch away when Jinx failed to swallow and released a thick belch into the open air, instead.
“Mmm… tired,” Jinx mumbled, head rolling listlessly and lips just close enough to graze the sensitive skin beneath Vi’s earlobe.
Vi couldn’t suppress the shiver that travelled down her spine, automatically tightening her grip around Jinx’s waist. The girl moaned, warm breaths prickling the fine hairs along Vi’s neckline. Vi swallowed hard, easing Jinx back down against the pillows. She was practically asleep in her arms.
Jinx fussed for a few moments before rolling over and nuzzling back into Vi’s lap, one arm looping around her stomach as if she were an oversized goddamn teddy bear.
“Sleep it off,” Vi repeated, patting Jinx’s back, but she couldn’t bring herself to push Jinx away. Instead, she endured the sweaty clothes and the drool and the feverish sleep-talking, because the situation could have gone way worse than it turned out to be. Because this is the most—the most normal sick Jinx had been, as if she'd been any other kid who grew up just fine like any other children, who came down with a bug and slept through it fine instead of screaming her lungs out at the voices and the dreams. And because—she's been missing being a big sister for a very long time.
And in the morning, none of it would matter, because when Jinx emerged from the tangle of her blankets to Caitlyn coaxing her medicine in promise of orange juice and animal crackers, she likely won’t remember a thing.