Work Text:
The universe was out to get him, Gareki noted, groaning at the pounding in his head. He was due in the Second Ship training room in less than an hour, so, naturally, his body was doing its best to imitate a Karasuna dumpster in the peak of summer.
Gareki grudgingly cast his thoughts back to just a few days prior, when he'd been targeted by Possessors... again . This time the teen had surprisingly managed to escape them on his own, simply unzipping the (Research Tower™) winter coat that their black limbs had grappled onto. Stupidly, his first thought was that he'd been lucky to land in a deep snow drift, as it both softened the impact of his fall and hid him from view of the Varuga. However, it had only taken a brief minute to realise the foolishness of his actions, as he'd been stuck on a mountain in the middle of a blizzard on one of Hirato's 'special field trips' with no Second Ship fighters in sight.
His subsequent futile attempts to fight against the raging weather had caused him to break out into a hot sweat, yet the cold had still been quick to latch onto him. To make a bad situation worse, the howling winds had also seemed determined to steal his voice away every time he tried calling out to Nai.
In the end, Yogi had luckily been able to locate the teen without Nai's help, but not before Gareki had started to lose coordination after ten minutes in the freezing conditions. Azana had initially given him a clean bill of health, but now Gareki was wondering if his impromptu snow trawl had come back to bite him in the ass.
After being involved in so many Varuga attacks, Hirato had eagerly used this latest occasion to goad the teen into regularly sparring with Tsukumo so Gareki could 'work on his reaction times' . Gareki internally cursed the Shitty Four Eyes once more; you only needed to hand him a gun to see that his reflexes were better than most.
Today was meant to be his first training session with Tsukumo, after which he'd already promised to help Nai with his reading and writing. Gareki sagged against the cool tabletop at the thought of doing anything today.
While he certainly didn't want to be smeared across the training mats, if he backed out of sparring with Tsukumo now, that Four Eyes Bastard would surely mock him. And he could just imagine that dumb animal pouting if he called off their 'tutoring' session. All of it was a hassle that made him fondly remember his days of independence, only needing to worry about his own needs and paying Gramps' hospital bills.
Gareki pinched the bridge of his nose to release the building tension, then steeled himself to get through the rest of the day. He'd once had to crawl back to his hideout with a broken leg after a job went wrong, so there was no way he would let a stupid cold take him down. Ignoring the fever at his brow, Gareki yanked on his pullover and left the sanctuary of his room.
Wandering down the corridors, Gareki found himself curious at the stillness of the Second Ship. He had yet to run into a single Sheep-Bot along his route. However, the deathly quiet atmosphere was definitely not spooky in any way!
Reflexively swiping away the pearls of sweat on his brow, Gareki stumbled as a tickle in his throat turned into a series of harsh coughs. After a few moments to catch his breath, he continued towards the training room, only to run into a certain blonde-haired man-child.
"Gareki! Are you on your way to Tsukumo? Oh, but you still need to have breakfast, and the Sheep Bots are all offline for annual maintenance! Hey, I could make you some-"
Gareki cut off Yogi's rambling with a dark glare. Normally he would roll his eyes at the fighter's dramatics, but the teen had very little patience today. His head was pounding enough without a running commentary.
"Not interested." He snapped, although he did find the prospect of no Sheep being around to be an exciting prospect. If he weren't currently feeling like death, he would already be scouting out all of those 'off-limits, baa' areas.
The timing of his sickness again struck Gareki as a sign that the universe was out to get him.
"Oh." Yogi looked on the verge of tears.
Fuck, Gareki couldn't deal with this right now. "Maybe later."
The smile Yogi directed at him was practically radiant. "It's a promise! I'll even make your favourite, pancakes, as a special treat."
Gareki wanted to argue that pancakes were Yogi's favourite, not his, but he really didn't have the energy to waste on a pointless debate and… Honestly, just the thought of putting food in his mouth was enough to make him nauseous.
With a Yogi-shaped disaster now avoided, or at least postponed, Gareki started off once again towards the Second Ship's large training area. He slipped into the room without a fuss and found Tsukumo waiting in the middle of the mats.
Gareki hid his flagging strength behind a smirk. "So, you ready?"
"Show me what you've got," Tsukumo replied calmly, smoothing down the ruffles of her skirt.
Even sick, Gareki was quick on his feet, muscle memory allowing him to dodge the heavily slowed hits that Tsukumo aimed at him without too much trouble. Tsukumo stopped after a while and threw a cord of rope at him. He realised with a start that it was a jump rope, and she briefly explained that he would be practising with the rope to improve the speed of his footwork.
She unsubtly challenged the teen to try and keep pace with her, and Gareki had to fight the urge to blow all his (admittedly meagre) energy on speed when he knew Tsukumo would also be judging him on stamina.
The rhythmic thumping of the jump rope was like a screw being slowly driven further into his skull, but Gareki was stubborn enough to keep going. Time passed in a sickening blur to the teen until Tsukumo threw another sudden blow his way, and Gareki was forced to fall backwards in order to evade the flying fist.
Gareki lay on the ground, chest heaving, while his lungs seized for air. Tsukumo leaned over him with a frown.
"Are you okay? I didn't think this would be too much for you." The sincerity in the girl's voice caused a blazing embarrassment to thrum through his veins.
I expected better.
It was not the first time he'd disappointed someone, but disappointing Tsukumo felt eerily like disappointing Tsubaki. Face flushed and chest burning, Gareki slowly forced himself to stand.
"Uh, I guess I should've had breakfast first." He mumbled as a poor excuse for his awful performance.
Tsukumo seemed earnest when she replied that he should be more careful and requested that he eat something before their next session.
Gareki had to stomp down on his rapid relief when Tsukumo called it a day there. His muscles were aching so badly that he wasn't sure he could actually walk out of the room, let alone continue training.
Despite the fatigue weighing him down, the moment Tsukumo left, Gareki did in fact manage to drag himself across to the small changing rooms. It was still a close call, though, as he began retching into the nearest basin the minute he made it inside.
He dimly wondered between gasping breaths if he could sneak into the medical ward without anyone seeing. Surely no one would miss a few pills from their giant stockpile. Still, given his current state, Gareki was forced to accept there was little chance that he wouldn't be caught and then…
The teen remembered being weak before, stuck on a ship with rope chafing his wrists and a beating around every corner. And while Gareki is mostly sure that the old quack of a doctor, or anyone else, on board of the Second Ship would not use his vulnerable state against him, he can't be certain. Humans were tricky creatures, and Gareki's distrustful attitude was too deeply rooted in his survival instincts to be ignored. Besides, the Second Ship crew had much better things to do than fuss over his annoying cold.
Decision made, Gareki hunched over the sink and indulged in the slight relief provided by splashing cold water over his face. Some of it trickled through his dark locks and ran down his back, sending a shudder up his spine. It was a distinctly strange sensation for his bones to ache with chills while his skin still felt on fire. Wincing, Gareki stripped off his gross, sweaty t-shirt and returned to the training room to collect his pullover that had been haphazardly dumped earlier.
By the time Gareki was back into a presentable state, at least a half hour had to have passed since Tsukumo left. His muscles were still shaking, and a tremor ran through his arms and back as the lingering sweat gave him chills. Each step toward the Ship's library was torture, and he'd had to stop twice when the coughing episodes returned.
Rubbing at his chest, Gareki reached the ajar door and forced a bland expression to his face, willing his muscles to stop shaking.
Nai was sat on the sofa, kicking his legs back and forth as he waited for Gareki.
Red eyes locked onto his own the moment Gareki passed the threshold into the room, and the Niji seemed to light up.
"Gareki!" Nai called out in excitement as if Gareki was his favourite person in the whole world. The teen felt a slight blush rise to his cheeks which he quickly blamed on the fever coursing through his body.
"Hey," Gareki greeted his friend mark? pet? - some days it was hard to tell - starting toward the sofa. He tried to eye the book in the Niji's arms, but his vision was blurred, and he struggled to make out the characters on the front cover. "What have you chosen today?"
Nai launched into his dramatic story of deciding between Seiji the Silly Sheep or Maho the Mad Monkey as Gareki dropped down across from him. Annoyingly, the teen couldn't follow most of the words flying out of Nai's mouth, so he settled for the occasional nod and grunt.
Gareki tried to tone down his abrasiveness when he eventually cut into Nai's rambling to get them started, but there was still a flash of something in the kid's gaze that revealed he hadn't quite managed the neutral tone he was aiming for. A trickle of guilt joined the thrumming pain in his head.
"Hey, if you can read this whole book on your own, then I'll get the cat to make you his special pancakes." Gareki offered, both as an excuse for him to sit here doing nothing and to make up for his earlier slip-up. Of course, Nai didn't need to know that Yogi was already planning to make pancakes.
The Niji lit up again at the prospect of a reward and excitedly began telling Gareki a stilted tale about a silly sheep. Gareki let his face go blank in the meantime, the heat of the fever swamping his thoughts into one hazy blur of ' keep it together, idiot! '. He was dimly aware of Nai's voice echoing around the room, occasionally loud enough to make his head twinge whenever the boy got overexcited.
Sometimes Gareki would catch onto a word that he was almost certain would not be in a kids book about sheep, but he lacked the mental capacity to correct Nai's mistakes.
"-reki?"
"Uh, hm?" Gareki blinked slowly, pushing through his brain fog to direct his focus at the Niji. Nai was frowning at him.
"Your breathing sounds funny."
"Well, of course. I trained with Tsukumo earlier, remember?" Gareki lied easily, relieved to see the concern on Nai's face fade away.
"Oh, I see. So, can we work on my writing now? I wanted to write a letter to Nyanperona!"
Gareki latched onto the exhausted sigh before it could leave his lips and forced out a casual, "Ugh, who cares about writing to a dumb cat?"
A lick of fire ignited in Nai as he began reeling off all the ways in which Nyanperona was amazing. Gareki used the kid's distraction to subtly rub at his sore chest and shove his creeping aches and pains into the recesses of his mind. Then, after promising himself a nap as soon as he'd dealt with Nai and Yogi, Gareki forced his brain to actually work while Nai talked.
Another hour passed before Gareki found himself outside of the kitchen. Luckily, he'd managed to get Nai to go on ahead of him, allowing him a short opportunity to duck into one of the bathrooms and retch once more. He'd felt the sensation building up for the last twenty minutes, along with a constant niggle at the back of his throat, and once again reached a bathroom just before he reached his limit.
At this point, Gareki was pretty sure his fever was spiking. His whole body felt detached, and his breaths had been coming out in ragged puffs during his brief bathroom respite. The teen was also carefully ignoring the presence of blood that had flecked the white sink earlier. Instead, he reminded himself that he would be free to sleep for the rest of the day once he'd made it through lunch with Yogi.
He could hold on a little longer.
Gareki was brought back to the present by distressed voices coming from the other side of the kitchen door. Cautiously stepping inside, he was faced with Yogi and Nai covered in a thick dusting of white flour. Tsukumo was also standing in the room, although well away from the two child disasters. Gareki levelled the pair with a blank stare that promised he would in no way be helping to clean up their mess.
He stiffly moved across the room to lean against a non-floured surface. Black dots danced in his vision for a few moments, and he ran a hand through his hair to hide his subtle swipe at the sweat on his brow.
Gareki felt a pair of eyes drilling into him, but Nai soon stole everyone's attention.
"You're burning Nyanperona's ears, Yogi!" The Niji shouted.
"Huh! Oh no, poor Nyan-chan.” Yogi cried in response, loudly crashing through the kitchen drawer in a desperate attempt to find a spatula.
Unexpectedly, Gareki realised their voices were growing distant, as if everyone was walking away from him. The teen wanted to look around in confusion, but his head was suddenly too heavy to lift, and a wave of dizziness struck him so hard that he had to clench his eyes shut against the spinning room. A strange pressure had a hold of him, and without any warning, Gareki was pulled to the side.
Hands were under his shoulders, and a girl's voice broke through the roar of blood in his ears.
Tsukumo sounded upset, which was strange because that was an emotion generally reserved for Yogi and Nai. Gareki tried to make out her face above him, but everything was grey and blurry. He opened his mouth to reassure her, but a thick band tight against his chest stopped him from pulling in a full breath. The continued lack of oxygen tipped the teen back over the edge into unconsciousness.
Gareki eventually came to with a haggard wheeze. His eyes snapped open, and it took a moment for him to realise that the corridors really were blurring around him. Slumped against a warm, broad back, Gareki quickly realised that a firm grip on his thighs was stopping him from falling as he flew through the halls. The short golden curls brushing against his own black locks were the final clue to identify who was carrying him.
"Yogi?" Gareki huffed out, his breath coming in laboured short gasps.
The grip under his thighs tightened at the sound. “Shh- just hold on Gareki.”
Gareki was at least aware enough to be embarrassed by how easily he accepted the other's reassurance, relaxing into the fighter's hold. He distracted himself by diligently sucking air into his starving lungs and tried to pull together an intelligent thought despite the distracting hot and cold flushes overwhelming his body.
He must have lost more time because Gareki next opened his eyes in the infirmary. The teen struggled upright, swaying for a moment before a wrinkled hand pushed him back down.
"Wha' hap'nd?" Gareki croaked, his mouth dry and throat ravaged.
The old quack doctor's eyes were tight as they darted along Gareki's body in an assessing manner. "You collapsed, giving your friends quite the scare, you brat."
The indignation at being called a brat was enough to rouse Gareki into full consciousness.
"Shit," he muttered, leaning an arm across his eyes to block out the light of the room.
Now he was more aware, Gareki felt the full force of his stabbing headache return. His features twisted into a grimace as a shudder rolled through him, and familiar nausea pressed upwards.
The elderly doctor must have recognised the signs because he had a cardboard bowl shoved into Gareki's hands a second before the surge of bile crawled its way up his throat.
Warm hands rubbed his back, and Gareki had to check he wasn't hallucinating when he realised who they belonged to. It seemed unnatural to witness Yogi looking at him with the mature concern of a twenty-one-year-old rather than the child-like explosive crying the teen was used to. The fighter's eyes were red-rimmed, however, so Gareki argued with himself that it was possible Yogi was simply out of tears.
Although that didn't explain the sombre tone of his voice. "Gareki, why didn't you say you were sick?"
"I…" Gareki closed his eyes against Yogi's intense gaze and quiet voice. "I had it under control, it just didn't seem important."
Gareki eventually glanced around the rest of the room, spotting the old quack at the computer terminal but no one else in the room. Guessing what the teen was thinking, Yogi explained that Tsukumo was with Nai.
"He's really upset. We all are, but Nai was getting really stressed, so Tsukumo's taken him to your room to rest."
Gareki gave a grunt of acknowledgement.
Yogi's touch disappeared for a moment before returning with a water bottle. Gareki's arms shook as he pushed himself up enough to swallow the cool liquid. After a few sips, he returned to lying on his back, and a blanket was carefully pulled up over his shoulders.
The teen couldn't stop a hum of relief rolling off his tongue when a damp cloth was draped across his sweaty brow.
"The healer has already given you some pain relief," Yogi noted, his voice soothingly low. Gareki then realised that an IV line had been inserted in the crook of his elbow; it was attached to a bag of fluids on a metal stand.
Gareki blinked his eyes open (when had he shut them?) at the feeling of a thermometer being pressed to his ear.
There was a rapid series of beeping, and before Gareki could insist that he was fine, the old quack was huffing and grumbling about stupid, stubborn brats. Finally, Yogi asked the same question Gareki had been thinking of.
"How bad is it?"
The doctor grumbled under his breath before giving Yogi his attention.
"His temperature is far too high." The man answered, as if Gareki wasn't also in the room with them, "I'll have to let Hirato know we need to head over to the Research Tower."
"Don't!" Gareki objected, his mouth opening before his brain had fully processed what he was doing. The heat of shame flushed along his cheeks once again. "Tch, I've survived worse than this. I'll be fine."
"Gareki, shut up."
Gareki froze at the anger in the blonde's voice. "Wh-"
Yogi interrupted by throwing his arms around Gareki in a hug. "Gareki, you're not alone anymore, so if you're unwell, you should say something."
"Training with Tsukumo, helping Nai, and even eating pancakes with me; it all could have waited until you were better."
You're not alone anymore. We're not going anywhere.
Gareki struggled to wrap his head around the concepts.
He felt hot tears dripping onto his shoulder and couldn't stop a tired twist of his lips at the return of his overly emotional Yogi.
"I may be an idiot, but you should still try relying on this idiot every now and then, yeah?"
Gareki allowed some of his weight to lean back against the blonde, not quite returning the hug but not moving away either. He let out an amused huff, "Yeah, okay... idiot."