nono

"Can you fly any bloody slower—?!"

"I can't, for the last time, break anymore sound barriers than you can — we are in hyperspace, Zanya!"

"There is — let me, I will fly us back far faster than you will—"

"Whoa, absolutely not, there's nothing else we can do but wait —"

"He does not have time to wait —!"

Malavai is barely conscious enough to register the sounds of his lovers arguing somewhere ahead of him when his eyeballs finally lull back forward from where he'd been stuck in a terrible slideshow of events — and then the inky black that acted more like quicksand to his lopsided senses that he's just now managed to claw himself out of. Really, he's barely lucid to be aware of the way the ship lurches forward between galaxies beneath him, or aware of just how fuzzy everything seems around the edges. His head pounds, his hands are clammy, and his eyes keep crossing ahead of him while he tries to grasp what is going on.

His mouth is dry with the taste of bile on his lips when he tries to swallow. Had he been sick recently? He can't remember, reaching through his memories blindly. Nothing sticks though, fading away just as fast as he tries to latch onto something. All Malavai knows right now is that he shouldn't even begin to try to move, lest he dry heave something up all over the floor with the way his stomach roils. Some part of him says he'd already done that, and he's not exactly looking for a repeat offense.

His skin burns. He's hot, but it's his hand that feels the brunt of it when he does go to test his weight on it. It's the second thing he realizes when he groans, pain shooting up his forearm. Like his bones are screaming at him and his very skin is leaching off his muscles, and he can't stop it. It sears up his right arm when he shifts it ever so slightly, and a cry catches in the back of his throat as he squeezes his eyes shut.

In that hazy moment between seconds, minutes and hours, he's staring up at the worried faces of Zanya and Theron on either side of him when he comes to again. Brows furrowed and lips drawn downwards, they seem to wear the exact same expression for a moment. Terror in hazel and auburn eyes that he recognizes must be for him, and an exhaustion that looks like it runs deep in the tension their shoulders carry. Both of them are still in the same clothes they'd been in the last time he saw them, he thinks.

Theron without his jacket though. He realizes a moment later the usual red overcoat he wears had been thrown over his prone form at some point. He's too hot for it, but can't move to get rid of it.

How long had it been since this had started? Considering the way it seems neither of them had slept, surely it had been some hours. Days perhaps. It wasn't like he was in any real position to be able to tell.

Why were they so worried?

He registers Zanya's palm on his face, brushing away hairs that he can't see. His thumb rubs at the skin on his cheek, so tender it manages to surprise him through the lack of reality he's tethered to right now. Theron's hand wraps around his left when he sits on the edge of the bed, squeezing it carefully. He's without his gloves for once as well, both a good and possibly bad sign. His softer calluses are what anchors him, and he lets himself rely on it.

"You're looking a little worse for wear, Mal," There's mirthless laughter between his words, but at the very least he looks more hopeful when he says it. As if he's taking stock of a bad hair day than whatever this affliction was. A barely there smile that's meant to comfort him is stretched on equally unwilling lips. His eyes are rimmed red, if Malavai strains enough to focus on him. He blinks again, "Can't say I love this look on you."

Malavai tries to return the toothless snark that Theron lobs at him, like he always does, but he can't manage to string the syllables together properly. What comes out is more of a strained garble of letters, something that makes his partner wince when he coughs. Something bitter threatens to come back up with it when he swallows thickly, and Theron's hold only tightens at that.

"We will be back on Odessen soon, love. I just need you to hold on a little longer. Please." Zanya presses his lips together in a thin line, moving to press a kiss to his forehead that Malavai leans into. Were he not on the edge of passing out again, he'd find the behavior ill-fitting of him. Never is Zanya that kind outside of their quarters. But he is indeed barely all the way there, so instead he accepts the affection without question because he is unable to do anything else, "I am sorry that I let this happen to you, but I promise that I will do everything I am able to save you."

It's beyond him why he'd even begin to blame him for this situation, especially when he isn't wholly sure how he got here. Trying to take stock of his own body was rather difficult when he couldn't even sit up. It felt like half his brain has sloughed off into stars knew where while he was asleep. He can breathe, and he can see, but both were difficult. A likely response to an injury of some kind. The fever that makes him shiver against the air circulation, that was more concerning. The burning — indicative of an infection of some kind.

Infection … but by what? Malavai can't answer that. He should be able to, should already have a mission report formulated in the back of his head, but the very last thing he remembers is walking a healthy five paces behind his partners, and then tipping backwards into the durasteel when the world had tilted directly off its axis.

Unbecoming of him, really. It does explain why the back of his head hurts mostly independently of the infection he's nursing.

Between then and now, he just has the vaguest of visions of being carried by someone, picked up and held tight. Conversations he can't parse through. Too many questions. Worried glances between them. Panic, running through both of their voices on a comm channel. The sting of an injection. Kolto? An infinite loop, always one of them being there when he was awake. Not that he's able to confidently say just how many times he was awake.

He opens his mouth again, and choked air comes back out instead when an agonizing bolt of pain tears through his right side. Malavai's chest heaves with every labored breath he takes as a response, as if he's weighed down by something that has every intention of drowning him. His voice is not his own when a sharp cry escapes, his lungs burning with every intake all the while. It feels like his heart is going to escape his rib cage, as if his whole body is going to simply melt off of him, as if he might just boil all of his internal organs right out the way the heat spreads like a wildfire licking his insides.

Why is he so hot?

Logic. His body responding to being invaded by a pathogen of some kind.

Which one though? It had to have been man-made, surely. He hadn't encountered any zoological specimans as of late. And it hadn't affected either Zanya or Theron clearly.

He's of no help to that question as that wave of pain crests and crashes, having half a mind to bite down on his bottom lip hard enough to break the skin, unable to completely contain the near scream his body responds with.

He, somehow, mentally apologizes to Theron for holding onto him as if his life depends on it in the middle of all of it. Given, he may not have the actual strength to cause any lasting damage, but he does still commend him for barely reacting to it beside his eyes widening with dread.

"Shit — Zan, he's going to need another dose."

"I — should we — we still have another four hours —"

"I don't think that's going to matter, we need to slow it down before —"

Malavai eyes start to slip close while he watches the burst of activity in front of him, a smear frame of red and black that accompanies the sound of multiple things hitting the floor. They're both gone for a moment between heavy blinks, then they're close all over again. He's minutely aware of the click of something before a needle is shoved into his better arm as the inferno threatens to reach his heart, but he's in enough agony it barely registers as being pain by any meaning of the word.

"No, no, nonono, Malavai Quinn you had best stay awake —" Zanya's hand again, this time on his chin to tilt towards him. He forces his eyes back open at that request, meeting his lover's that are both too close and too far away for him to make sense of. His voice sounds so shrill yet so quiet at the same time. But he is more than sure of himself, "You do not get to sleep, not now."

"… It … hurts."

It's the only thing he manages to say when the forefront of that attack fades, leaving him with the same amount of not-at-all dull throbbing in his entire arm now. It's getting worse. He doesn't know what it is, but he's sure that it's bad. Bad enough that both Theron and Zanya are panicking enough to be treating him like he's on death's door.

Inwardly the thought does make him chuckle. Usually it was one or the other. Zanya's white knuckled grip on a desk somewhere or Theron wearing a hole into the floor pacing while he looked on. Never both. Mostly because it was usually the opposite partner being the one they would lose sleep over. It looks weird. As if it's multiplied in a way it shouldn't.

It was grave then. Unfortunate.

Still, he supposes there were worse places to be eaten alive by an infection from. Being with them was a blessing at least.

Zanya's eyes crinkle at the corners before he drops to the floor to rest on one of his knees, his head bowed forward to hold his forehead against Malavai's hand clasped between both of his, "I know, I know, I know. I am sorry. I can not …"

"Don't force it. You're just going to exhaust yourself more," Theron runs a hand through his hair, clearly stressed the way he gets his fingers caught in it. A ragged breath spills out of him, "It's spreading faster than we can stop it. I don't even know how many stims we can give him now before …"

"Just — I can not lose him like this," The words are starting to slur together, but his voice remains, balming over Malavai's ears. His hands shake around his, and he watches as Theron mentally counts the syringes in his hands. Not many, considering how quick he does it. Malavai begins to wonder just how many times they'd done this. They're clearly staving off the worst, but there were limits to these things. He frustratingly can't think of those limits right then, when Zanya turns back to him, "If only I could just — tear this out of you, I would. I would have taken that hit for you. A million times over. And I can not because of that fucker —"

It does eventually make sense to him. What he means, after he rolls it around in his skull. He can't heal like the other force users on Odessen. Something about Valkorian. He thinks. Remembers? The momentary clarity slips away as fast as it'd returned. Part of him feels terrible that Zanya takes on that guilt like he always does. Surely this wasn't his fault. He highly doubts it at least. Not that he can say that much right now. Hopefully he would have the opportunity to absolve him of it.

His next blink takes too long. He feels almost too stuck in that in between again, and though he loathes to admit such a thing when rationality is fleeting, he fears he's been left alone. He can't see them anymore.

" … Zanya …" Names, his own attempt to tether himself down to the small space that he can't recognize right then, "…Theron …"

The colors are far too bright when he returns again. Black creeps in on the corners of his vision, and he is starting to scare. And Malavai never scares. He usually was too rational for that. Even this sick it feels weird on him.

They're there, nonetheless. He barely makes out the terribly colorful blobs next to him, but the panic recedes slightly once he processes their presences, when whatever stim they'd given him sets in. He is surely dying. There was no other explanation by now, and the logical side of his mind is allowing that to become closer to reality. How rare it was for him to be the one in mortal peril, usually it was him in Theron's place. Or Zanya's.

He doesn't like the idea that he might have to start a punch card to the medbay in the same manner they have.

His odds aren't great. That much is very clear. Hours out to Odessen and he cannot fathom surviving much more of this. Not consciously at least. But putting him under would add too much uncertainty to a variable situation he still doesn't get. As much he as he loves them, neither of them were trained for that sort of thing either.

That didn't bode well for the rings hidden among his things in their quarters. Something told him he was not going to get an adequate refund if he wasn't there to claim it himself.

But they're here. And that's enough for that second. A kiss to his cheek, the smell of Theron's cologne that clings onto him regardless of where he goes. He's far less annoyed than he usually would be that it sticks to him now, "We're here, Mal. Promise we aren't going anywhere. We've got you."