Flu and You
MASTERLIST || 0.4K
ill!simonriley x ill!reader
He comes down with the flu after a couple days of you having it.
The past few days have blurred together with fever, poor sleep, and the misery of not finding comfort no matter how many pillows are shifted. You’ve barely left the bed, whilst Simon has been everywhere else—bringing soup every hour, setting out paracetamol before you ask, and straightening the blanket each time you kick it off during the night.
He’d been insufferably calm through it all, claiming immunity and not even knocking on wood.
You hear him before you see him—his footsteps heavier, slower, lacking their usual confidence—and when the bedroom door creaks open and you turn your head, it's obvious. A single glance confirms it.
He looks terrible—hair tousled, eyes glassy, his skin showing a grey undertone that isn’t caused by the light. He stands in the doorway as he always does, filling it, but now he looks like a man quietly broken, just beginning to show it.
He crosses the room and sits on the mattress beside you without words, shifting the bed under his weight as he pulls the blanket up to his chin, then exhales a long, suffering breath.
“I’ve caught it,” he says, his voice thick and lower than usual.
“I know.”
He stares at the ceiling. “This is it for me.” His tone is flat. “Tell my family I fought bravely.”
“You’ve had symptoms for about an hour.”
“Tell them I went down swinging.”
“You said you were immune,” you remind him.
“I was.”
“Simon.”
“Briefly immune.” He closes his eyes. “The window has closed.”
You stay silent, and he shifts—closing the small gap between you and nestling against your side with practised ease. His hand finds yours under the blanket, resting there rather than holding.
“If I don’t make it,” he says softly now, with less performative bravado, “at least we’ll go down together.”
Outside, the afternoon remains still and grey, the radiator ticks steadily, and your thumb absent-mindedly moves over his knuckles.
“Been watching you feel terrible for three days,” he murmurs. “Didn’t look so bad from the outside.”
“Much worse from the inside.”
“Yeah.” A long exhale. “Sorry I laughed when you sneezed and fell off the couch.”
“You’re not sorry.”
“Not even a little,” he admits, a faint, fleeting smile at the corner of his mouth. “But I am now. Retroactively. On principle.”
You rest your head against him and close your eyes. He’s warm, a sign the fever is rising, and his breathing slows, indicating he’s losing the battle against sleep. His hand slackens around yours.
“Go to sleep,” you tell him.
He responds with a low sound, somewhere between acknowledgement and surrender, and within minutes, he’s completely asleep.
my baby has moved to her own room now 😋
