Chapter Text
“Pevensie. Hey, Pevensie.”
…
“Pevensie—Ed. Ed, you there? Hey.”
There was a sharp snapping noise not too far from the end of his nose, and Edmund started, jerking fully upright and coming to himself through a haze of dizziness and muzzy thoughts. He was sitting on the very edge of his chair, his trumpet balanced against his thigh, held by the mouthpiece in a white-knuckled grip, and the pain and pressure in his leg from the flared bell told him he had been leaning nearly his full weight against it for who knew how long.
He blinked, trying to stay present, even though actual awareness carried with it an entire ocean’s worth of discomfort, an all-encompassing, burning ache that suffused his body down to its tiniest cell. The dullness of the pain and the heat dragged at him, suffocating, sitting heavily in his joints, and making existence itself a mere grinding endurance. He blinked again, wishing he could simply slip back into the foggy fugue state from which someone had so rudely pulled him. Lion’s mane, why couldn’t his eyes work properly? Everything was fuzzy and doubled and kept slipping in and out of focus.
“Ed, you need to go home. Hey, you hear me, mate?”
Edmund shook his head, or at least he tried. Even the attempt had every stiff muscle in his neck and shoulders shrieking with prickling agony, and he hissed out a shaky breath, shuddering. Aslan, how he hurt. It was like being back on the rack, all stretched out and disjointed, though he almost thought this feeling was worse. At least rescue had halted that particular torture; this felt quite eternal—no beginning and certainly no end. A whimper began to build in his chest, and though he worked at containing it, he wasn’t sure how successful he was going to be in the end. Damn thing was slippery as hell.
“Oi, watch it! Get his horn before he drops it. Rob!”
Hands touched his shoulder, steadying him, and he realized he’d been swaying, a hairsbreadth away from slipping from his seat down to the floor. Well. Maybe then he could just lie there and not have to work so hard at sitting up; why couldn’t these idiots leave him be? Gentle fingers pried his own off of his trumpet and took it away, and without its support, he did start to topple then, folding in on himself with a breathy sigh.
The exclamations from those around him—were those his colleagues? Bandmates? Right. His fellow musicians, co-workers, friends—erupted in volume, and more hands grabbed him, arresting his momentum with what felt like a very rough jerk. At that point, he might have let slip a few choice words questioning their parentage, but since they were in Malay, the still-functioning sliver of his subconscious figured no one would actually understand him.
Someone, though, laughed.
Oh, right. Geoff. Geoff was there. Geoff would understand.
Whoops.
Oh, well.
Then an arm slid beneath his and lifted his own over someone’s shoulders, and he was hoisted up to standing. He fought with all the consciousness left in him to remain upright, even though his legs trembled with the effort. By all that was Holy, he absolutely refused to be carried. He’d had enough of that in his long life, of being toted away on a stretcher, makeshift or otherwise, completely helpless and at the mercy of everyone around him.
“Quite creative there, sir. Haven’t heard that particular insult in a long time. Wasn’t that a favorite of Jalak’s whenever we’d do something boneheaded?”
Edmund licked his chapped lips and tried to summon enough moisture in order to say something above a pained whisper. His head swam, for now that he was vertical and moving, dizziness roared in with a vengeance and settled deep; just steadily putting one foot in front of the other demanded his entire attention. “W-w-we?” A rattling inhale, “Sp-p-eak…for y-y-your…self…”
A chuckle. “Yessir.”
“Should I call Maureen?” Another voice came in then, and Edmund desperately scraped for more wherewithal to voice an objection. They’d better not drag his wife out into this grey, drizzly weather to come collect him—she wouldn’t be able to handle getting him home in this state. She would be toting Ian along with her, for crying out loud; to ask her to tend to two babies while maneuvering them through the tube and the streets and up to their flat was too much.
“No,” Geoff replied instantly, and Edmund almost sagged with relief. “You absolute muppet, Rob. He can barely walk—how is Maureen supposed to haul his sorry arse home like this? Not to mention she’d have Ian with her, too.” He paused as he readjusted Edmund’s arm around his shoulders. “I’ll take him. We’ve at least an hour before the shows start; I’ll be back by then.”
“Alright,” Rob said amiably. “I’ll keep his horn and music with mine for now. Good luck, mate. Get better, Pevensie, and make sure you stay in bed this time.”
At this point, a derisive scoff would have been the appropriate response, but everything hurt too much, and Edmund was concentrating so hard on moving, he reluctantly let it pass. He just wanted to lie down, but at the same time, he knew being horizontal wouldn’t really alleviate his suffering—he would feel just as terrible lying on the most comfortable of featherbeds as he did standing with shaky knees. Aslan, even his eyes burned, and he could swear they were marinating in an superabundance of hot water.
“Come on, sir,” Geoff said in his ear, sounding at once way too loud and entirely too far away. “Let’s get you into your coat and find your hat. Wouldn’t do to pile pneumonia on top of whatever else you’ve got going on here, eh? Here, wait while I get it.”
“Stop,” Edmund rasped, coming to himself enough as his friend started to lower him to the scruffy brown couch in the band’s green room. “If…I sit…” A rough cough burbled up out of nowhere, tearing its way with serrated edges through his chest, and he couldn’t stop the exhausted groan that crept out on the tail end of it. “…I…w-w-won’t get…up ag-g-gain.”
“Well, if I just let go, you’re going to fall over, Ed,” Geoff said, his voice tight, “And picking you up off the floor is going to be a hell of a lot more difficult than getting you up off the couch. Any bright ideas? You need your coat.”
“N-n-not…going to…f-f-fall,” Edmund said, hoarse. “P-p-p-romise…”
Geoff huffed, and his arm tightened around Edmund’s back. Edmund could feel his friend moving, his head turning as he cast about for a workable solution. “Sorry, sir, but I don’t think you’ve got a choice,” he said finally, and began to maneuver him down again.
“Hey,” a different voice broke in at that point, and Geoff swiveled, pulling on Edmund enough that another low groan rose to the surface and was stifled by gritted teeth. “You need this?”
“Ah,” Geoff made a noise of abject gratitude. “Yes, yes, yes. Drew, you’re an absolute lifesaver. Care to help get it on him?”
What followed was one of the most jumbled and uncomfortable passages of time Edmund could remember in a long while, as first his friends maneuvered him into his patched greatcoat and plopped his black trilby on his head with what Edmund was sure was much more force than necessary—pianist Andrew Knightly’s grin was just a little too broad—and then Geoff half dragged him out the back door into the alley, down the street to the tube station, and from there onto the train.
He collapsed onto the hard seat, noting that he could now add the shakes to his litany of symptoms, and stared dully at his hands in his lap, enduring, trying to remember all the times he’d had to push through sickness and broken bones and crippling wounds and mental trauma and blood and blood and more blood and get the job done (rule a kingdom) regardless. Soft. That’s what he’d gone these days, quite soft. General Oreius would be very disappointed. He could just see the centaur’s unimpressed frown, and the mental image made him frown in response, though he was having difficulty arranging his face properly.
The journey seemed to go on forever, the harsh, glaring overhead lights casting weird shadows and turning their fellow passengers a strange yellow color. The jolting of the train only compounded the consuming ache in his body, and he burned and froze by turns, leaning up against Geoff, who was a steady pillar of strength by his side.
“Hang on, sir,” his friend said, sympathy in his tone that Edmund wasn’t sure he could take from almost anyone else. “We’re nearly there.”
*****************
The knock at the door so startled Maureen as she was guiding a bit of rice cereal into Ian’s open mouth that she jerked in surprise, the gloppy white mess sliding off the spoon and landing with a soft ‘plop’ on her son’s jumper.
“Oh, stars and garters,” she said in dismay, reaching for the already stained cloth which lay handy on the kitchen table. As she dabbed at the mess, Ian began to babble and blew a short raspberry, spraying bits of cereal almost directly in her face.
“Darling, eeugh!” she exclaimed, and her son giggled and waved his arms, immensely pleased with the results of his culinary experiment. “Mummy can’t go answer the door looking like she has the plague,” she said to him fondly, cleaning the splotches of cereal from both of them and standing. She untied the strip of scrap fabric she used to keep him from sliding down out of his chair and hoisted him up onto her hip as whoever was waiting knocked again, insistent and louder this time.
“Heavenly day, I’m coming, I’m coming,” she muttered, going down the hall and toeing aside Ian’s discarded blanket and soft ball along the way. “Sure, and I don’t know who would be interrupting at dinnertime. Someone with no manners, that’s certain.”
When she opened the door, a jolt of surprise went through her to see Geoff standing there grimly supporting her husband, who was absolutely whey-faced and trembling visibly. His head lolled back against his friend’s shoulder, and he tried to smile at her, though it came out as more of a pained grimace. “Edmund?” she asked, shocked, reaching out with her free hand and glancing at his friend. “What’s wrong?”
“Nng…” Edmund tried, apologetic, and the roughness of his voice sounded like it hurt. Maureen winced in sympathy. “…Hi, Mo. … Ill.”
“You don’t say, Eddie,” she responded wryly, though worry crawled through her at seeing her normally unflappable and unstoppable husband looking as though he had at least one toe, if not several, through death’s door. Ian began to chatter “da-da-da-da” and reached for his father, chubby fingers splayed.
“No, no,” Maureen said, turning him partially away, “Da’s not well, darling.”
“That’s an understatement,” Geoff said, turning so he could edge them through the doorway. “He about fell out of his chair at rehearsal. Didn’t look so great when he got there today, really. That should have been our first clue, but he insisted he was fine, and no one wanted to argue.”
“Was…fine,” Edmund rasped, and Geoff snorted. Maureen sighed as she let the way down the hall to their bedroom, crouching laboriously to pick up the blanket and ball to take with them. Ian twisted around over her shoulder to stare behind at the unusual sight of his father being helped to do anything, his eyes wide.
Once into the room, she put on the lamp and lowered Ian to stand, where he tottered for a moment before steadying. “Mumymumy,” he said, reaching, “Ba. Ba.” She handed him his blanket and the soft ball, and he cuddled both to his face before trying to climb up onto the bed.
“No, darling,” Maureen said, moving him back out of the way as Geoff maneuvered Edmund into the room and helped him sit down on the edge of the mattress. “Thank you, Geoff.”
“Of course,” the tall young man said, taking off his friend’s hat with a flourish and then starting to help him out of his greatcoat. “Couldn’t ask you to try to get him home by yourself.”
Maureen took the coat when it was finally liberated, as well as the hat, and placed them over the cedar chest at the foot of the bed, glancing back to see Edmund wince, jaw clenched, as Geoff began to ease him out of his tuxedo jacket. He was so pale, nearly paper white, and she could see him shivering, tight little rippling shudders as if he was fighting desperately to control his body’s rebellion and losing. Exhaustion was in the boneless set of his slumped shoulders, and since he would never normally allow someone to give him assistance as Geoff was, she knew this illness was something beyond the normal sniffles. Trepidation knotted the pit of her stomach. In all their marriage thus far, he had only been sick once or twice, and never this horribly.
She had suspected he wasn’t feeling well that morning, as he had slept much longer than usual and emerged for breakfast bleary-eyed and grouchy, which was somewhat out of the ordinary. He could be taciturn at times—rarely snappish and never deliberately cruel, but this morning he had bordered on both. Even Ian hadn’t been able to shake his bad mood, and Maureen had done her best to go about her business matter-of-factly without taking it to heart, figuring his oversleeping was the cause of his irritability and hoping it was nothing more.
When he’d gathered his instruments and music and prepared to leave for work, she’d wondered if he didn’t feel a bit warm, but as Geoff had said, sometimes quarreling with him was more trouble than it was worth. Like talking to a brick wall, albeit one who could argue circles around you with ease, and so she’d kissed him, held Ian up for a good-bye, and seen him out the door.
Now she draped his jacket over the discarded outerwear and returned to his side, placing her palm against his forehead as he leaned into her heavily, his arms coming up to wrap around her waist. “Oh, Eddie,” she said softly, the feverish heat of his whole body burning into her. He was so hot, she wondered that her skin wasn’t scorched with the contact. As soon as she could, she needed to take his temperature.
“Da-da-da,” said Ian as he came, trailing his blanket, to careen into Edmund’s legs and reach up.
“Mmnf…” he murmured, putting a hand on his son’s head and weakly ruffling his dark hair. “Anak…ana…man…”
“Ian,” Maureen began helplessly, and then Geoff took one of her son’s pudgy hands.
“Come on, sport,” he said, “Let’s you and me go play with your blocks for a bit, alright? Let your mum take care of your dad.”
“Don’t you need to get back?” Maureen asked, confused, and Geoff nodded, stooping a bit as he led a protesting Ian towards the door.
“Pretty soon, yeah,” he said, “but I can spare another minute or two so you can get him in bed. Ian, it’s alright, old chum, you’ll be alright. And so’ll your dad—I’ve never known a more cross-grained bloke in all my days. He’ll beat it just for spite.”
Edmund, who had buried his face in Maureen’s torso the moment Ian moved away, roused enough at this teasing remark to growl, a gravelly vocalization that reverberated through her. Geoff chuckled, and then the two of them were gone, leaving husband and wife alone. For the space of a moment there was silence, broken only by Edmund’s slow, labored breathing.
“Oh, my darling,” she said, smoothing his hair and carding her fingers through it. He hummed brokenly and nuzzled into her stomach, and she dropped a kiss on the top of his head. “Here, you need to get into bed. Can you manage to sit for just a few more minutes?”
“Yes,” he said, and then coughed, a jagged sound muffled by the arm he brought up to contain it. “Ughh…ow….” he complained after, nothing but misery in his tone, and slumped against her again.
Heart constricting, Maureen sat down beside him and began to undo his bowtie, coiling it in a slippery pile on the nightstand. Next she turned her attention to the buttons on his shirt, and she’d gotten most of the way down and was starting to untuck the tails when he huffed out what she thought was supposed to be mirth.
“C..ou…ouldn’t….w-ai-ait…nmmngh…ggg…agh…” He had to pause for a minute and swallow hard. “…me…undressed, eh?” he finished, and winked at her, swaying a bit before he clenched his jaw and went ramrod straight with a grunt of effort.
Maureen laughed. Leave it to her husband to turn anything into some sort of innuendo. “You’re right,” she said, finishing the job with the shirt and tossing it to the growing pile of clothing on the cedar chest. “You’re quite irresistible when you’re nearly combusting with fever.”
As if to punctuate her words, Edmund shivered violently, exposed at last to the chill of the room. His teeth chattered in spite of his efforts to clamp down and gooseflesh pimpled his bare arms. The moment of levity passed as though it had never been, and Maureen clicked her tongue. “Steady on, Mr. Pevensie, we’re almost finished. Here, let me get your shoes, and then you can lay down.”
It was another good ten minutes of wrangling and being interrupted by the occasional agonizing cough before she managed to get him finally divested of outer clothing and thoroughly bundled beneath the sheets and quilt of the bed. “Oohhhh…As-as-aslan,” he whispered, sinking into the pillow and weakly pulling the edges of the blankets tight around his chin, “than-you, Mo. S-so-sosssorr-rr-ry.”
“Edmund, you mustn’t apologize,” Maureen said, stroking his hair. “Just rest. I’ll see Geoff out and settle Ian and then be back with aspirin and a thermometer.”
He nodded, eyes closed, his dark lashes standing out in stark contrast against his pale face, and after bending to press a kiss against his burning cheek, Maureen hurried out of the room.