mardthorn - Tumblr blog

Summary: Cal catches the flu after a mission from Saw. Takes place between Battle Scars and Survivor.

The door to The Mantis slides open and warm air ghosts across his cheeks and makes his nose run, “ACh’HHUh!” He ducks into his shoulder but there’s really no point. There’s nobody there but him.

BD’s beeped “bless you” next to him reminds him otherwise.

“Thagks.” He starts to unlace his boots. There’s already a puddle of water underneath him. He’d been sent on a mission to Dantooine by Saw and it had been miserable. Relentless freezing rain every night of the week he was there. It was something he hadn’t experienced since Bracca. And man, was his body not used to it.

“Heh…heh…it’CHH!!!” He stumbles forward, thinks, screw it, and just wiggles his feet out of the boots without fully untying them.

His footsteps echo and track water through the ship. He gets to the closet, rips the doors open, and cranes up to the top shelf to get a towel.

He had moved the stack of clean towels higher and closer to the heat vent, since he doesn’t have to worry about the rest of the crew being able to reach them. That’s another pro of an empty ship, he guesses. Warm towels. Yay.

“AH’tch-HuH!”

Something falls on his head and crashes to the floor. When he looks at his socked feet, it’s just an old comm. He sniffs and rubs at the spot it hit. That wasn’t going to help his headache.

He turns the comm over in his hands and recognizes the engraving etched on the side. It’s the one he encrypted to have just Merrin and him on the line. It came in handy when he needed something with a little extra security. And, just in case he didn’t want Greeze or Cere to accidentally listen in. Like that one time…

Merrin must have disconnected the matching one a long time ago. He thumbs at the speaker and sits back onto his bed. His head feels hot and his chest hurts. He doesn’t like how he left things with her.

Stupidly, he presses the speaker button. “Hey, uh…”

He regrets it immediately. He has nothing to say. He sniffs. Then thinks, hell, she’s never going to hear it anyway. “Miss you. Hope you’re doing good.” He bites down on his breath as it starts to hitch, “Okay that’s it. Bye.”

He hangs up and BD climbs up on his shoulder. The droid drops something into Cal’s lap–a tissue. Good timing too because, “Hehh!..IHhhiihh…” He sniffs frustrated, “Are you kidgink me?”

BD beeps in sympathy. Cal can’t be anything other than envious that he doesn’t have a nose.

BD reminds him of his wet clothes and the fact he looks terrible.

“Gee, Thangks.” Cal says sarcastically and trudges towards the bathroom. When he looks in the mirror, he has to admit, he does look awful. His eyes and nose are red-rimmed and his wet hair is flat against his face and neck. Every so often a tremor shakes through him, and he grips the sink a little to steady himself.

Slowly, he starts to peel his clothes off and it helps stop the shivering a little.

The shower helps a lot.

He turns the handle as hot as it’ll go and steam rises from the floor. He feels a little pop as some of the pressure in his head releases. Was he really that stuffed up? He sniffs.

Oh, Kriff.

“Geh-heh’TCHOO! T’CH! AKSHHuuh…Ah-Ah!-CHHOO!”

He sniffs and blinks through the water as his head pounds. Once he deems himself stable, he starts scrubbing shampoo through his hair. What an awful day. A typical day, lately. Infiltrate and destroy a data cache. Blowing up a central core should be easy work, if not for the civilian slaves cleaning the halls.

Saw was pissed when he came back with one of them, a Chiss boy looking for his parents.

He rinses off and steps out. He needed to get out from underneath Saw’s boot. Maybe he’d take a few members with him. Bravo seemed to be getting equally sick of Saw’s black and white worldview. He’d be a good crew member, someone to watch his back and help fill up the empty ship.

He sniffs and wipes at the fog on the mirror. He feels better from the shower–but he doesn’t look it. Any gleam of tan he’s gotten from Kashyyyk is gone, overtaken by his pallor. And he swears his dark circles were never this bad.

He finishes drying off, dresses in sweats, and rustles his hair to dry it.

BD greets him with a beep as he exits and Cal playfully flicks some water in the droid’s direction. BD beeps in mock-offense and bounces behind him as he makes his way towards the beds.

He opts to sit on Greez’s old bottom bunk. “Mark it down, another nice thing about having a ship to yourself,” Cal says to no one before breaking off into a coughing fit.

Again, BD reminds him he’s wrong and that he is also here! And that Cal should probably go to sleep because he looks awful.

“Yeah, thanks buddy.” He mumbles and doesn’t bother getting under the covers before he’s dreaming.

–

“Wake up.”

The foreman droid would report him if he was late again. It wasn’t fair to keep Prauf working both their shifts while he was sick. Not to mention, Prauf was out an ice pack and some painkillers because he gave them to Cal. That was too much. He needed to get up and get to work.

“Mmup,” Cal lies. He’s trying, at least, but every time he peels open his eyes, the world careens and he ends up back asleep.

“Cal.”

Something touches his cheek. He realises this is the Mantis. He also realises that nobody else is supposed to be in here.

He jerks back so hard that his head collides with the metal wall behind him with a clang. A blurry vision of Merrin comes into view. She looks pretty upset, not unlike how he saw her last.

“Cal,” She repeats at the same time he croaks, “What are you doing here?”

There’s a minute where they’re just staring at each other. She looks good. He notices she cut her hair.

BD beeps behind her.

“I came because you called,” She says.

He realizes more than her hair is different. Her clothes, her makeup, everything. Overall, she just looks…different. Happier. He should be happy for her.

He shakes himself from his thoughts, “I didn’t call.”

“You left me a message.” She pulls out her matching comm and he can feel his face go red.

“I was just…” He struggles to get his thoughts in order through the haze of embarrassment, “I figured you’d have disconnected it by now.”

“I have messages sent to my new one.”

“Oh,” he mumbles. He might have considered that if his head wasn’t under 5 tons of pressure and angst. He runs a hand through his hair self-consciously. Merrin has seen him bleeding on the dessert floor before. Why is he feeling so…weird about her seeing him like this?

He needs something to do with his hands.

“Well, you’re here so, let me make you tea or something…” He trails off as he gets to his feet and Merrin steps behind him.

When they reach the kitchen, he pulls the kettle from the cupboard and starts filling it with water, “How have you bee-HIH-TCHH!” Kriff, that caught him by surprise. He drops the kettle in the sink to cover his mouth with his elbow, “Mph’SHHH!!”

He blinks his eyes open and sees Merrin already taking over. She finishes filling the kettle and sets it on the flame.

“Thangks.” He pulls a tissue from his pocket, blows his nose, and takes a seat at the table, “Sorry, I was trying to ask, how have you been?”

“Good.” Luckily, he left the tea leaves in their original spot in the cabinet. She finds them easily and tosses them into the top of the kettle.

A shiver crawls across Cal’s shoulders and he clenches his fist to stop it. The toaster on the counter shifts to the left from the residual energy and it makes a little scraping noise.

Merrin’s eyes snap to the toaster. Then, back at him.

He smiles sheepishly.

She briskly crosses the small distance between them and puts her hand on his forehead. Her fingers are cool and he can’t help but lean into them. Nobody has touched him like this since…well, since Merrin left. He’s been too angry to touch since Merrin left.

“You’re warm”

“You run colder than me, you know that.” But they both know she’s right, “I’ll take some meds.”

“I’ll get them.”

“Moved them to the nightstand closest to closest to the cockpit.

Merrin leaves and he can feel himself droop a little. The adrenaline from seeing her is starting to fade, replaced by a dreamy haze.

“You usually don’t get like this.” Merrin’s voice jolts him back awake.

“No,” he says too quickly. He forces himself to relax and leans back, “It happens.”

“Is it your connection to the force?” She hands him two little pills and he uses the tea to knock them back.

“...I don’t know, maybe.”

“Is it because you’re upset with us?”

He rolls his shoulders and takes a deep breath before answering. He looks up at her and he’s tired. Dank Farrik, he’s tired, “I really don’t know.”

She seems to accept that answer and pushes one of the hot mugs in his direction. He grasps onto it and lets it burn his palms. The steam wafts in his direction. He sniffs, already pulling out another tissue. Sneezing clears his head but, at the same time, makes it feel like it’s going to pop. He thinks he fully understands the phrase, “A blessing and a curse,” now.

“MpHt’SHH!” He snaps forward into his lap and decides it’s safer to stay there, “Huhh’RSHHH! Uuhh-G’PHH!!”

He feels Merrin’s hands on his shoulders guide him back up into a sitting position. The world spins and he blinks to get it to stop.

“How about you, Cal? How are you doing?” She asks him.

“Oh, you kndow,” He shrugs and shoots her a sideways smile, “Fandtastic,” He turns away from her and blows his nose and hears her graciously laugh a little.

“I meant not including your current situation,” She says,

“Yeah, sorry, I know. Uh, It’s good. I’m working. A lot.”

“So I hear.”

He takes a long sip of his tea. It’s faintly sweet and the heat washes away the ache in his throat a little.

“How is it?”

“Better than I could have made.”

“Of course.” She smiles wryly.

Another shiver starts at the back of his neck. This time, he bites his lip to suppress it and the cabinet behind Merrin flies open and slams shut.

She doesn’t look back. She probably felt it coming in the force.

He realizes there’s probably no use hiding it. “Sorry.” He says, dumbly.

“You should go back to bed.”

“Yeah, maybe.” He blinks slowly and allows himself another long look at Merrin. Her hair, her face markings, the way she is looking at him…”But you won’t be here when I wake up.”

She smiles sadly. “No.”

He nods, drains the last of his tea, and gets to his feet. Merrin takes his elbow. They walk back to the bunks and Cal can pretend that Merrin is just going to sleep in the one above him. Or the same one. What? He mentally kicks himself. Where did that thought come from?

He starts to get into the bed but Merrin holds out an arm to stop him. She lifts the blankets and motions for him to continue. “You have the chills, I can feel it.” She rolls her eyes.

“I said I was sorry.” He gives a half-laugh-half-wheeze and gets under the covers. The warmth threatens to carry him under right then and there.

Merrin decides to go the extra mile and tuck him in–which makes him wheeze laugh again.

“You didnt have to come. I didnt say I was in trouble.”

“I know.”

She leans in and stops inches from his face. He suddenly feels like this is his last chance-like he's going to die otherwise. He closes the gap and presses his lips against hers.

When he pulls away, he thinks to say, “For luck. Bye, Merrin.”

“Thanks, Cal.”

The last thing he thinks before he falls asleep is how monumentally stupid that was and how much of an idiot he is. The worst part is, he doesn’t feel an ounce of regret.

BD’s beeped “bless you” next to him reminds him otherwise.

“Thagks.” He starts to unlace his boots. There’s already a puddle of water underneath him. He’d been sent on a mission to Dantooine by Saw and it had been miserable. Relentless freezing rain every night of the week he was there. It was something he hadn’t experienced since Bracca. And man, was his body not used to it.

“Heh…heh…it’CHH!!!” He stumbles forward, thinks, screw it, and just wiggles his feet out of the boots without fully untying them.

His footsteps echo and track water through the ship. He gets to the closet, rips the doors open, and cranes up to the top shelf to get a towel.

He had moved the stack of clean towels higher and closer to the heat vent, since he didn't have to worry about the rest of the crew being able to reach them. That’s another pro of an empty ship, he guesses. Warm towels. Yay.