Work Text:
May 2024
“Dude, I’m telling you, I’m not sick.”
Ben glares, disbelief written all over his face.
“Really! I’m fine, I just... don’t wanna get out of bed.”
“You’re lying,” Ben says in a sing-song voice, and Kenji scowls. “Don’t give me that look, it’ll be easier on both of us if you j— just tell me if you’re sick.”
“I’m fine,” Kenji says petulantly, hating how he sounds like a toddler.
“Are you sick?”
And Ben has him there — because Kenji can’t lie to him. He really can’t. He can spin webs of lies for anyone else, and he would in a heartbeat if his conscience would let him, but he can’t lie to Ben. (Not since Kenji promised he’d be fine if he could just get him to the airfield in time.)
“Don’t worry about me,” Kenji settles on. He can’t stomach lying (or any food, it feels like), and this half-truth half-plea is at least easier to swallow.
“That’s n— not an answer,” Ben says firmly.
“God, Ben, just drop it!”
Kenji regrets the words the moment they come out of his mouth. Hell— he regretted them before they were even on his tongue. The sight of Ben’s face falling breaks Kenji’s heart in two, and he feels even worse than he already did.
Ben’s face hardens. “So you’re fine?”
“Yep.” Kenji nods. The motion makes stars swirl in his vision, and he blinks them out of his eyes.
“One hundred percent?”
“And not a percentage number thingamajig less,” Kenji says with too much confidence.
“Then get out of bed. Right now.”
“Seriously?”
“As a heart attack.” Ben gives a grim smile. “Now get out of bed, and prove that you’re fine.”
Kenji does, and immediately blacks out.
He wakes up, a few seconds later, to Ben screaming.
“Kenji? Kenji! Oh my God, please wake up!”
“I... Igotouttabed,” he slurs, using all his strength to crane his neck up to meet Ben’s worried gaze.
“No, you— idiot! That’s not what you were supposed to do!” Ben cries.
“Huh?”
“You were, um, supposed to whine and go ‘okay, fine, you got me, I’m sick’,” Ben says, in what Kenji thinks is a terrible and very insulting approximation of his voice, “And lie back in, um, in bed and rest. Like a normal person!”
“Sheesh, you could’ve said that,” Kenji says. He still sounds drunk, like he’s moving his tongue through molasses.
“And now you’re stuck on the floor, and I can’t— can’t move you,” Ben says, looking resentfully at his legs. Kenji knows Ben’s usually proud to be disabled, but the few times it stops him protecting and caring for people in the way Kenji knows he so desperately craves to, quite frankly, sucks. No better way of saying it.
“Darius!” Ben calls. “Yaz!”
“Call... Sammy,” Kenji mumbles into the floor. “She’s strong. Yaz is puny. I can beat her in a fistfight. Can’t beat Sammy. She’s stronger.”
“Well I’m pretty sure Yaz usually tops, so what do you know,” Ben says, then snaps his head up as Yaz walks in.
Kenji can almost hear her disapproving look. “What’s the dingus done this time?”
“Got out— got out of bed when he’s sick.”
“Sick with what?”
“Fever,” Kenji says, his words practically gluing together. “I get dizzy when I’m sick.”
Yaz grumbles, but gently rolls Kenji onto his back, where he is suddenly face to face with two worried pairs of eyes, and he actually almost throws up. The bile scrapes sharply at his throat, and he tries to swallow it down — key word: tries. Coughs wrack his body, and Yaz crouches behind him, hooking her hands under his armpits and dragging his torso upright so he doesn’t choke. Ben leans as close as he can, rubbing Kenji’s shoulder, telling him, “breathe, just breathe, you’re okay, just breathe,” and finally, it’s all out of his system.
Kenji clears his throat, shivering like some sad, stray dog, and croaks out, “sorry.”
“Kenji, shut up,” Ben says.
Kenji glowers, but Yaz goes, “Ben’s right, Kenj, you don’t need to be sorry for being sick. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
And it’s the right words, but the wrong mind, the wrong person to deserve this kindness, and Kenji grabs the bedsheets and hoists himself upright before anyone can pity him further by helping him.
Yaz is as helpful as she can be, fetching ginger ale, saltines, and a clean shirt, which Kenji begrudgingly accepts. Ben puts on a respirator mask and stays by his side, no matter how many times Kenji tells him not to risk his already shitty immune system (“my immune system is fine, thank you very much. I’m just... cautious, that’s all.”). He’d never forgive himself if he was the reason he had to watch Ben get sick (and suffer again) (all because of him) (because he couldn’t do enough).
But the way Ben looks at him, all worried like that, is torture enough.
.o0o.
Despite Kenji insisting otherwise — he’s contagious, he could make Ben sick, and he really doesn’t want that — Ben stays by his side. The windows wide open, a HEPA air filter whirring, and Ben’s hand in Kenji’s dry from hand sanitiser, but still by his side.
Meanwhile, Kenji is on strict bedrest for now, and slowly getting sick of the taste of saltine crackers and his own breath. He never likes staying in bed all day, not since Nublar when the laziness was dragged out of him by dinosaur teeth. Being sick was a gamble whether a dinosaur would choose today to attack the camp, and every camper rushed through their illness like it was a bomb defusing. Even now, years later, Kenji can’t shake the instinct to panic, to rest as hard as he can when he can, push through everything else, and hope that’s enough.
“How’re you feeling?” Ben asks, giving his hand a squeeze.
Kenji’s head rolls to the side, coming face to face with Ben’s concerned eyes. “Shit.”
“I’m sorry, honey.” Another squeeze. Kenji craves a kiss — Ben’s lips fitting perfectly between the groves of his knuckles, the warm tickle of his breath on his skin — but he’d never make Ben risk his health coming into contact with him.
More silence drips by, before Ben says, “I’m sorry I snapped at you, Kenj.”
“No, no— don’t... do that.” Kenji shakes his head as much as he can manage. “You’re not the one who should apologise. I was just being a stubborn dick.”
“Yeah.” Ben chuckles lightly. “You kinda were.”
“I know.”
Ben sighs softly, before saying, “I still love you, okay? That hasn’t changed. I only snapped at you because I was worried.”
“I get it,” Kenji says. “I worry about you too.”
“Well, you shouldn’t,” Ben says lightly, but his eyes cloud over with sorrow. Worrying is as full time a job as caring, and Kenji will happily shoulder that weight for Ben. He loves him like a reflex, something he doesn’t even have to think about before he’s lifting him out of his wheelchair and into bed, or kissing his head when it aches, or easing shampoo into Ben’s hair when he’s too exhausted to do it himself.
“Will you forgive me if I do it anyway?”
Ben gives him a look he can’t decipher, but says, “Yeah. Okay. You’re forgiven.”
The moment turns weird and stiff, so Ben presses his hand to Kenji’s forehead. “You’re burning up. Shall I get you a— a— um... a cold flannel or something?”
Kenji’s about to say nah, I’m fine, don’t even worry about it — the words almost trip off his tongue like second nature — but he forces his lips to make the words, “Yes please.”
Ben wheels out of the room, and Kenji’s stomach ache returns tenfold, his guts twisting inside him, which feels... odd. Like physical and mental feelings are swirling into one mass in his stomach his organs can’t digest. He knows the power of the mind over body, he’s seen it in every climb he does, where he pushes himself higher, higher, higher, only allowing the pain to turn into anger that fuels him. But it also backfires on him, where any emotion can rot him from the inside out, make him crumble, like the lazy, weak man his father always—
Guilt. He finally names the feeling. (He’s getting better at that, and has half a mind to let Yaz know. She’d be proud of him.) It comes out of nowhere, but now it’s here, it makes more sense than ever.
Maybe the memories of being on Nublar wasn’t the only thing making Kenji panicked about being confined to a bed. If he blurs his eyes, and imagines the cosy, intimate ceiling cringing away from him in all its mighty, marble glory, he could be at his dad— his father’s old house, wondering if he’ll come and see him. Wondering if he cares enough to drag himself away from his very important work to fulfil the horrible task of making sure his son was okay. It’s just a flu, though, why should he care? He knows Kenji will be fine, and it was a bitter truth Kenji accepted too.
Maybe that’s why Kenji never really cared about getting sick. Maybe he was never brave enough to.
When Ben comes back, Kenji says, voice slurred, “I fucking hate my father.”
“I hate him too, honey,” Ben says softly, brushing back Kenji’s fringe so he can lay the cold, damp flannel straight on his skin. The relief is instantaneous, and Kenji longs to melt into the way Ben’s hand lingers on the top of his head, his nails scratching through his hair and bringing waves of pleasure. “What made— made you think of him?”
“He— he didn’t give a shit. When I got sick.” The words tumble carelessly out of him. “He didn’t care. ‘N when he came, he acted like it was sooo difficult to give a shit.”
Ben frowns pitifully, making a soft noise of sympathy and continuing to pet Kenji’s hair. Through his blurred, darkened web of eyelashes, he can see Ben’s eyes flashing in anger, and that is soothing in an entirely different way. Knowing Ben will do everything in his power to make Kenji feel safe and protected. Knowing he cares that deeply, almost like an instinct. Like a reflex.
“He was wrong,” Ben says eventually. “Wrong not to care about you. You de— deserve to be loved. Okay? Don’t ever forget that. If I and the rest of the camp fam, um... deserve it, so do you.”
And Kenji does believe him. He really does. After all this time, all this therapy, he did not come this far not to believe him. But something gets stuck in between, and he gets out, “I... I think I— my body doesn’t want to believe it.” Kenji shifts and wriggles around in his bed. “Mmph. Feel weird.”
“That’s probably the sickness, hon,” Ben says fondly, softly, wrapping his other hand around Kenji’s, and strokes his thumb over the bumps and scars on his skin like he’s cartographer of a land so beautiful, he longs to commit it to memory. “You just rest up, okay? Take a nap, then later we can have a nice... a nice warm bath. How does that ss— sound?”
“Mmhm... sounds good.” Kenji’s eyes flutter shut, and the last thing he sees before he falls asleep is Ben gazing down at him, holding all the love in the world in his deep, blue eyes...