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MC was laying face down on her pillow. The scent of lavender encased her head, the sensation of buoyancy kept her from knowing if her body was actually moving at times. She had drawn all the curtains and turned off anything that made a noise. Every electronic was unplugged and yet it wasn’t dark enough and it wasn’t quiet enough.
She had only been getting migraines the last half of the year. At first she thought it was some type of hormonal change, then she thought it might be dietary. Finally, she asked Li Shen and his tests were inconclusive. He assured her it was nothing to worry about and that they would seek further answers should the migraines persist. In the meanwhile, he had prescribed some medicine for her. The first time she took them she found herself violently ill. A side effect they both agreed outweighed the current levels of pain her migraines put her in.
Li Shen was sitting outside the bedroom door, quietly reading and keeping an ear out should MC need him for anything. He didn’t like not being able to help her, to heal her, but he also knew how illogical it was to expect answers and solutions immediately. He was dedicated to her and her wellbeing. Which is why he found himself reading homeopathic articles and publications to cross reference against his access to medical texts in the hopes that he could find some solid overlap that might help MC more than the current pharmaceutical options could.
He was about to send another text to Valko when his phone lit up. It was the front door’s bell, which Li Shen had set to silent and rerouted to his phone instead of MC’s to keep her from getting a surge of pain over a sudden noise or lit screen.
He quickly crossed the hallway and living room, slid the locks into neutral, and welcomed Valko inside.
“Thank you for agreeing to come over on such short notice.”
“Of course. Anything for you two,” Valko whispered as he removed his suit jacket and reached behind Li Shen for a hanger.
“One of the methods I’ve been reading about involves blood flow. Primarily, cooling down the area in pain while warming up a separate area. The contrast gets the blood to flow and can eventually disperse the migraine.”
Valko placed his briefcase under his hanging suit jacket and swapped his freshly polished dress shoes for slippers. “Okay, you cool her off and I warm her up. At the same time. She’s game?”
“Quite. We tried a cold compress on her neck and dipping her feet into a hot bath, but the effects were short lived. I suspect there is something of a placebo effect that also needs to take place. A necessary distraction to lower the last subconscious defense.”
Valko removed his phone from his freshly pressed dress pants and turned it on silent before setting it on the table by the front door. Li Shen reached past Valko this time and locked the door before leading him to MC’s bedroom door. Li Shen dimmed the lights in the hallway before slowly opening MC’s bedroom door. It took him a minute until his eyes adjusted, but Vako’s could see MC curled up under a thin sheet immediately. His heart felt a sudden pang of sadness and knew Li Shen must also feel pain seeing her like this.
Once they were both inside, Li Shen softly closed the door and walked over to the bed, laying a hand on MC’s back, rubbing it in a small circle, until she rolled over and reached out to him. Her movements were fluid, yet disjointed. He almost expected to see strings puppeting her limbs as she silently lifted her torso enough to rest her head on Li Shen’s chest. The effort must have been too much or done too quickly, because as soon as she relaxed again, her left hand grasped her skull, thumb digging into the underside of her occipital while the rest of her fingers pressed against her temporal.
Li Shen’s left hand linked into her own, massaging between her grasp. His right hand spanned her frontal and parietal areas and massaged them as well. Li Shen could barely see where Valko was, but he indicated where Valko needed to be by pulling up the bedsheet enough that MC’s bare feet were revealed.
Speaking as softly as he could, Li Shen bent his neck down to keep his lips beside MC’s ear, “Valko’s going to treat you to a foot massage. Won’t that be nice?”
A soft puff of air escaped through her nose in response which drew a small smile from both gentlemen's lips.
Valko noticed Li Shen’s breathing slowed down and became very shallow. He had seen his friend use his Evol less and less over the years, but it was always with incredible calm and intention.
The scent of lavender was masking most of the other smells in MC’s bedroom and after a long day of meetings and press conferences, the scent was making Valko a little drowsy. He knelt at the side of the bed and reached onto the mattress to take MC’s feet into his hands. As he started to massage the arches of her feet he felt himself relax and he let his lupine ears emerge. His dress pants tightened as his tail rustled around, but he’d have to unbuckle his belt before there was enough slack for it to flit free.
Valko’s body temperature naturally ran incredibly warm. In just a couple minutes of massaging MC’s feet they felt as warm as him. He let his mind drift, but his ears picked up an odd sound. He closed his eyes and focused on what it was. He shifted his head and ears in methodical angles until his right ears were in alignment with the bottom of MC’s feet. Slowly he leaned in and placed a foot to each of his right ears.
“Huff, cut it out,” MC murmured as her left hand dropped from her head and lamely swatted at Valko’s head, missing him entirely.
“Wait a sec. I swear I hear something, Puff.”
“In the soles of her feet?” Li Shen inquired. His tone was of genuine interest. Had anyone else done such a thing to his Sparkle’s feet, he might have sounded incredulous, but after so much research and work beside Valko, he trusted whatever methods his friend might be able to bring to the situation.
“Yeah. Like…your blood rushing…which is what we want, but there’s something else.”
“Would you be alright if I scheduled you for some blood tests tomorrow morning,” Li Shen asked MC tenderly, brushing her hair back and continuing to massage her scalp.
“Mhmmm,” she sighed as her left foot, the one pulled against Valko’s furry ear, twitched, the sensation of his fur unintentionally tickling her. She stifled a giggled and then flinched from the pain.
“Sorry, sorry, Puff” Valko whispered as he lowered her feet and resumed massaging them. “CBC with a differential,” he delivered to Li Shen who nodded and continued.
“Iron panel and homocysteine as well.”
“And a diet Coke,” MC joked as she cuddled into Li Shen deeper, unintentionally pulling Valko up onto the bed as he held onto her feet while she readjusted. “I thi–ah–I think the worst of it has passed. I’m not dizzy anymore.” She reached up to her head and tennderly pulled Li Shen’s right hand down to her lips to kiss the back of his hand. “Thank you, Shen-Shen, but I’m getting a little too cold now.”
Li Shen’s demeanor shifted as his breathing resumed a regular rhythm. He sunk downward into the bed and gave her a kiss on her forehead before sliding off the side and retrieving his phone from his pocket. “You’ll be in warm hands with Valko while I call Akso.” He quickly exited, using as much of his body to block the dim light from the hallway before closing the door behind him.
Valko saw the comforter abandoned in a heap on the other side of the bed. He scooped it up and draped it over MC, tucking her in and sitting at the foot of the mattress to resume massaging her feet.
“Huff, my feet are fine. I just need to stop thinking about my head.”
The bed shook briefly as Valko perked up and then stood up. In two seconds he had his belt off and MC felt his thick, plush tail softly batting at her hands. “Go on then. I know you zone out when you’re petting my tail, Puff.”
A very quiet chuckle danced around the dark room, lighting up every wall and corner to Valko’s eyes. He wanted so desperately to bounce onto the bed with her when he heard that chuckle. He wanted to turn it into a giggle and then a laugh. But he knew the chuckle alone probably hurt her and that what she really needed right now was rest and distraction. So, he settled for a cuddle. He kept a respectable distance between their bodies as he reclined on top of the comforter behind her and let her stroke his tail.
When Li Shen came back into the room, he knew immediately that not only was MC asleep, but Valko had fallen asleep too. Between the scent of lavender and counting how many times MC ran her fingers through his tail, Valko stood no chance at staying awake in his home away from home.