this is fafa

A darts to the corner of the room and snatches a fluffy quilt off the chair, draping it over B’s curled up form and tucking it round their body. “Just one more, okay? I don’t want your fever too high.”

B swallows hard and nods their thanks, tugging the warm layer closer. A nods back, and their hands gently move up and down B’s blanketed back and shoulders, trying to ease their misery.

“Th-thank you.” B manages a shaky smile and leans into the soft touch. “You’re th-the best.”

A holds back tears as they smile back, leaning down to press a kiss to B’s feverish forehead. “I do try my best.”

It had all happened so fast. All week, B had been battling a cold and a chest cough that they just couldn’t seem to shake. One rainy night, B came home soaked to the skin, shivering, and unable to stop coughing. A took one look at their pale, peaked face and sent them off toward a hot shower, and then to bed.

Later that night, B stumbled into A’s room and crawled into bed with them.

“I can’t get warmed up,” they whimpered, curling in a ball as A hugged them. Even as they shook and clung to A, A couldn’t help but notice the unnatural heat that radiated from their body. By dawn, B was feverishly tossing and turning. A slid out from the covers to get a thermometer, and a short while later, the fever was confirmed.

B spent the next day huddled in bed, shuffling only to the bathroom and back like a ghostly, blanketed specter, with a gasping cough that sounded like rattling chains. They alternate between sweating through their layers and kicking off their covers, to clutching multiple blankets to their body as they shudder with chills.

The day after that, they start coughing up blood. That’s when A got so scared that they’d scooped B out of bed and carried them to straight to the car, so they could speed to urgent care.

Pneumonia had been the doctor’s official diagnosis, conveyed in a brusque manner as B curled up on the paper-covered examination table, wrapped in A’s coat and too weak to even lift their own head. While B had started on a round of antibiotics, it would be a couple days before they started feeling better. Until then, it would be constant cycles of feverish chills, achy muscles, and chest-rattling coughs. But they wouldn’t be alone through it - and they wouldn’t have to go to the hospital unless things took another bad turn.

A had done their best to make them comfortable after they’d gotten home that afternoon - dressed them in warm pajamas and an oversized sweatshirt, tucked them in tightly, plied them with doses of their medicine, eased cool sips of water through cracked lips. But B’s still huddled in a ball, coughing up a lung, shivering under the blankets, wincing at the slightest movement of their body. “It hurts,” is all they manage to whimper.

A knew how miserable this could be. They’d had pneumonia a couple years ago, and their was nothing worse than feeling chilled down to your aching bones, curling up under blankets that couldn’t warm you, teeth chattering so hard you were scared they’d break, wondering if you could freeze to death even as you burned with fever.

In the dim bedroom light, A sees a small tear leak from the corner of B’s eye. A reaches out to smooth the blankets again. “Try and sleep, sweetheart.”

“C-can’t. T-t-too c-cold.” They cough painfully into the crook of their elbow and wrap their arms around themselves. The shivers come in violent waves, rippling through them every few seconds, preventing them from relaxing into the rest they so desperately need.

It’s just too much to watch them shiver with no relief. So A climbs under the covers with them, wrapping warm arms around B’s trembling form like they did before, gently rubbing their hands up and down their shivering body. B tugs weakly at A’s shirt, trying to pull them as close as possible to absorb any body heat they can, small, sniffling sobs punctuating their weak coughs.

“Shhhh. I’ve got you.” Their hands gently smooth their rumpled sweatshirt, pulling B’s head onto their chest. For a couple hours, B slips into a tenuous sleep - but it doesn’t last. In the middle of the night they begin whimpering, their fist tightening into A’s sweatshirt. The fever’s got their mind now, trapping them in twisted, terrible dreams that have become their reality. A had dozed off and on, but it’s when B’s mumbles turn to sharp cries that they snap awake. They blearily stare at the clock - it’s 2 a.m. and B is thrashing wildly, twisted and trapped in the blankets that once were their comfort.

“B!” A gently shakes their shoulders and B’s eyes snap open as they gasp - which triggers another coughing fit. B’s coughing, and gasping, and fighting for breath, and all A can do is rub their back to try and help them relax so they can breathe, damn it. Their skin is burning, they’re too hot, it’s too much, oh god their fever’s spiking-

B starts mumbling incoherently, saying something about a dog holding a knife and plums in a grocery store, and it’d be funny if they weren’t burning up and out of their mind and scaring A half out of theirs.

A jumps out of bed and pulls all but one of the covers off B, who’s sobs get louder as they grasp wildly at their last blanket. A doesn’t have time to placate them - instead, they run to the bathroom and soak every towel and washcloth they have, tossing them in the bathtub. They run back to the room and scoop B out of bed, carrying them and laying them into the tub.

With cloths dripping wet, and begin wrapping them all over B’s body - their neck, their forehead, their chest, under their arms and legs.

The cool towels must feel like a shock to their system because B tries to wriggle away, but A gently holds them down, shushing them, brushing their hair off their forehead. “Hey. Hey there.” They lightly tap B’s cheek to get them to look at them. “You’re with me, okay? You’re alright. We just gotta get you cooled off. Stay with me, okay?”

B’s lips quiver. “Cold.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Just for a little bit, okay? Then we can get you dried off and back in bed. I promise.”

For the next hour, A feverishly works to keep B cool in the tub, tirelessly rewetting the towels, changing them out, pressing kisses to B’s forehead every so often. It’s exhausting, but eventually, B’s breathing evens, and a check of the thermometer shows that their fever is out of the danger zone.

B’s eyes aren’t really focused on anything as A hoists them out of the tub and changes them out of their damp clothes into dry pajamas, then tucks a single blanket around their body. B reflexively curls up in it, looking so small and sad that A can’t bear it.

“How can I make it better, love?” They seat themselves on the bed and gently trace their hair off their forehead.

“Hold me. Just hold me, please.” And so A slips back into their place, pulling a blanket around themselves and wrapping their arms around B’s shoulders as they slip back into an exhausted sleep.

A blinks awake in the soft blue light of early dawn to find B already awake, looking at them. Their face looks so tired, but there’s a light in their eyes that’s been missing for the past week.

“Hey,” B whispers softly, a small smile on their face.

A feels something like relief bubbling up in their chest, and they’re almost too choked up to get out more than a “hey” back. They lay a hand on B’s forehead - no fever, for the time being “Rough night, huh?”

B nods, eyes closing slowly, then opening again. The restlessness of the fever has been replaced with a bone-deep tiredness that’s evident in their every movement, and they move their forehead to rest on A’s shoulder. A rests their chin on B’s head.