Number 6 becomes Patient 0 [Open/Mingle]

[be_seeing_you]

Who: Number 6 & OPEN
What: As explained in this OOC post Number 6 got the flu as a regain and he's in a sharing mood. This is 100% opt-in.
When: Starting March 6, thru the month of March
Where All over, indicated in starters
Warnings: Sickness, all things that having the flu entails. This is magic flu that is incurable but only lasts for exactly one week. Let's keep it light and not have anyone die, and also please do not have the flu spread into memories, keep it contained to the ship.

For everyone's convenience, feel free to use this post as a mingle. I'm going to turn off tracking so you can post your toplevels here as much as you desire. There's no posting time-limit.




Get comfy in your robe and have a cuppa tea. It's going to be a long week.

Comments

Dimitri | semi-open

[prince_of_beasts]

1. down and out [Dedue]

The headache comes on around mid-day. They've been more frequent since Daisy's attack, and now with these portals opening up -- it's no surprise when Dimitri's head starts to pound. He's been training on the sports deck, in the heat and searing sun; despite his best and continuing efforts to acclimate, he's just not built for this climate. It's no surprise that the combination of migraine, heat, and exertion have him nauseous and dizzy, but it's too soon for him to be shaking, aching, breathless.

He finishes a set, sheathes his sword, and forces his feet into line on his way to the locker room. The breeze chills the sweat that coats his skin, soaking his hair and shirt. He's been out in the sun too long. He'll drink some water, take a break, and then get back to it.

The moment he steps into the shade, shadows and snow swirl across his vision. He stumbles, swaying, bracing his hands on his knees. Half-blinded, he can't make it to a wall to lean on. Okay. Okay, maybe he overdid it. He'll sit down here a moment. Catch his breath. Let the world stop spinning.

He doesn't really register his shoulder hitting the floor. The faux-wood floor is cold under his cheek, solid, a relief to his burning skin. He makes a token effort to push himself up, but his elbow buckles before he can even try. That's okay. The floor is nice. He can lie here a minute.


2. mandatory bedrest [closed to CR; message here or on discord]

Dimitri hates being sick.

Without antibiotics or vaccines, disease as Dimitri knows it is a much more serious prospect. Supposedly that's less the case here, but Dimitri is both unimpressed and concerned to learn that the treatment for a 'virus' isn't much improved from what he knows -- rest, fluids, and waiting it out. A crawling fear accompanies every bout of chills and coughing -- that he'll drown in his own lungs, that he'll lapse into a delirium he won't come out of. It doesn't help the dread to learn that he's not the only one, that this is some sort of outbreak.

He hates lying down. He hates being stuck in bed in one room, barely able to haul himself to the door or into the shower. He hates that all his usual methods of stress relief are cut off. He hates feeling so damned useless. He hates needing so much help.

At least, for once, he can't find a way to hate himself.

Beep beep bitch it's the soup brigade

[saltwaterlungs]

Lucky for Dimitri, at least one person aboard the ship has a body too cold and dead to support any sort of foreign life. Which means Darcy gets to play nursemaid.

"Coucou, just me," Darcy calls as she enters with soup and peppermint tea and a bottle of Sports Beverage tucked into her hoodie pocket.

"Feeling any better?" she asks, setting the tea at his bedside and sitting partway down the bed.

[prince_of_beasts]

"Hhmmnghgn," whines a mound of blankets. Layers reshuffle, revealing Dimitri's face as he takes on the momentous labor of sitting up. His nose twitches. Peppermint? "Thngk," he mumbles, reaching for the thermos with both hands. His chest is still freezing, his head heavy and hot. Thoughts won't come together through the fog.

[saltwaterlungs]

There's stories all throughout French folklore of miracle healers who worked through touch. Darcy feels like a poor substitute as she puts one of her eternally-clammy hands to Dimitri's forehead.

"When I find out who brought a fucking cold aboard I'm gonna kick their ass."

[prince_of_beasts]

Dimitri pushes his head into Darcy's hand. That cold feels good on his fever; Darcy makes an excellent icepack.

"Think th' sickness did that already," he mutters, and takes a sip of his tea. And stalls out, because apparently peppermint is one of the flavors that knocks his teeth out of his skull.

[saltwaterlungs]

Dimitri freezes in place, and Darcy huffs, adjusting her hand on his forehead.

"Blink once if this is the same thing as the cake thing."

[prince_of_beasts]

" 's strong," Dimitri wheezes finally. He's managed not to repeat the complete chocolate cake meltdown, but oof. Peppermint. He takes another sip, because the white-out is preferable to anything else right now. " 's good. Thanks."

He has to set the cup down as another bout of coughing wracks him. It's not the longest, or the worst, but his ribs are already sore and anything aggravates them.

"How's the ship?" he asks. Anything for a distraction.

[saltwaterlungs]

"It's meant to help clear out your sinuses and everything," with a gesture towards her nose just in case he's foggy on what that means. Darcy folds her hands in her lap as he coughs, concerned obviously but also with some exciting news to tell him.

"You know how there's all those cracks in the ship, ehn? I... found one that leads back to Lyon. To just, like, a regular day there. It's up on the sports deck if you... want to come see it with me, when you're better?"

[prince_of_beasts]

It hadn't occurred to Dimitri that they might find their way into their own memories. And it's only a wave of dizziness from the fever that keeps him from bolting to search for Fhirdiad.

Fuck. Fuck --

He swallows a sob. It's not like his face can get much messier. It's been lodged in his mind for some time now, more strongly than ever with the cracks opening up, that he doesn't fully know his fellow passengers -- he only knows them, and they only know him, as captives, stolen from home, family, purpose, from anything familiar, from everything they know and understand.

"I'd like that," he croaks. "I'd like that very much."

1.

[glassaxolotl]

After some time, there is a gasp, and then a hand brushes against Dimitri’s shoulder, turning him so that Dedue can see his face.

“What happened? Can you stand?”

[prince_of_beasts]

"Whzzzmngh." Dimitri blinks. Oh it's Dedue. Dedue is fuzzy for some reason. Dimitri lifts a leaden hand and brushes his knuckles against Dedue's cheek, confirming that it is in fact his own eyes refusing to focus and not that Dedue is dissolving. Or something. "Hi. 'm fine. I was just resti-ing -- oh."

The world lurches again when he levers himself up, and shapes spiral in around his vision. His balance sways, and he freezes to keep from toppling over.

[glassaxolotl]

Arms catch Dimitri before he falls, and he is gently pulled over Dedue’s shoulder.

“I am taking you to the infirmary,” Dedue announces.

[prince_of_beasts]

Wheee, oh did he say that out loud? Dimitri's's happy to flop over Dedue's shoulder, until the sweep of vertigo resolves and he realizes he's been picked up. He squirms, in the fashion of an indignant cat, but he's not committed enough (or energetic enough) to put much effort into it. "I c'n walk," he complains. He could! Maybe. Probably.

[glassaxolotl]

“No, you cannot,” Dedue states in a matter-of-fact tone as he continues walking. His arm is placed under Dimitri’s butt, for support and no other reason.

[prince_of_beasts]

Dimitri whines, but he's too floppy to protest further. A ratchet clicks in his throat, and he breaks into a round of coughing that leaves him dizzy and aching. His bones are freezing -- he can feel ice crystallizing in his joints -- but his skin burns to the touch.

He's just gonna go limp for a bit. That seems comfortable.

[glassaxolotl]

One trip to the infirmary later, and Dedue is knocking on the door to Ossie’s room, arm draped around the waist of a sick Dimitri who is leaning against his side.

When the door opens, Dedue simply states, “He is ill. He does not want to infect Fio.”

[ring_for_giles]

Why have the only times a knock at the door has revealed Dimitri on the other side recently been really rather concerning?

"Of course," Giles says, ushering the pair of them inside "The spare room is still set up, do you need help with him?"

The question of how exactly Dimitri is unwell can come later, no matter how curious Giles is about it.

[Ossie]

[prince_of_beasts]

A few days in, Dimitri's on the mend, or at least in a milder patch. Enough for his mind to start gnawing on itself again, without any way to distract it. He's kept up text conversations with some of the others shipside, but it's not enough to really occupy him. He has a small stack of books from the library, but asking Dedue even for that felt like an overreach.

Desperate for some fresh air, he pulls the comforter around his shoulders and shuffles out to the rose garden. The crisp chill of Autumn rattles against his fever, but he'll take it for the sake of open space and grass under his feet.

He shouldn't be surprised to find Ossie there; he considers heading back inside to avoid a scolding, but ... something itches at the back of his mind. Instead, he clears his throat. It takes an extra cough or two to rally his voice, a muted, tinny rasp. "Ossie? Can I t-talk to you about something?"

[ossie_oswald]

Ossie's out, as he often is, tending to the garden in a floppy sunhat, with his usual button-up undone and shucked off, still tucked into his trousers. He pauses his pruning when he hears Dimitri speak, and his immediate response of trying to usher the fellow back inside like a mother hen with a chick is thankfully stopped by the contents of what Dimitri says.

"Of course, naturally, whatever's on your mind, dear boy," he sets aside his pruning scissors and removes the hat, his hair underneath still perfect and neat as always. He gestures to the garden seating, taking up his usual seat. He won't stop Dimitri from being outside, but he doesn't want the poor thing on his feet.

[prince_of_beasts]

Dimitri slides into the garden seat gratefully. He may be mending, but he's still wobbly on his feet (and he doesn't actually mind the mother-henning as much from Ossie, but that's beside the point).

"It's a-about ... the attack, some weeks ago. When Dedue and I were hurt?" He glances up; it's an ugly topic, and not one he wants to launch into without a little warning.

[ossie_oswald]

Record scratch.

"What about it?"

[prince_of_beasts]

It's not like there's a good way to launch into this. Still, Dimitri hunches a little tighter into the comforter.

Actually this was a terrible idea. Actually he shouldn't talk about it. Actually Ossie's going to tell him he's fucked up irrevocably and deserves to die alone, that if ge can't be a king he could at least be a mastiff and he's not even good at that --

Dimitri sneezes, and pulls out a tissue to blow his nose.

Right. Okay. Got that over with.

" ... the passenger who attacked us," he says, muffled under the tissue, "prioritized Dedue as a target. When I realized that -- and that she was clearly superhuman -- I told him to run." He swallows. "And when he refused, I made it an order."

He balls the tissue up, not really wanting to just put it on the table (ew) but unsure what else to do with it. "I -- we have talked about it, and he says he's forgiven me and that we should move past it, but it still ... it's been troubling me."

[ossie_oswald]

"I understand why it would be," Ossie hasn't given Giles an order since before their ordeal, but he'd be lying if he said he didn't worry about the power balance of their relationship the same way a hypochondriac fears to look under the covers in case they've broken out in the bubonic plague. He doesn't offer a hand out in comfort, because the last thing he wants is to get sick, but his look is sympathetic.

"What would you like me to do for you? A listening ear, absolution, chastising- I'd offer you a hug, but I don't think that would be a good idea presently, wot."

[prince_of_beasts]

Dimitri giggles wetly, more of a hiccup. "I don't think you could s-say anything worse to me than I've already said to myself. And I don't think hearing it from someone else would help." (Aw, he's making so much progress.) "B-but I do still ... I do still feel guilt. I -- " He swallows. "I don't know that I won't do the same thing again. If it had been a choice, or an error of judgment, I could make that promise, but ... I was panicked. And I don't ... trust myself not to panic in the same way again."

[ossie_oswald]

That is progress, and his pride should be evident in the little crease around his eyes, but Dimitri still needs counseling, so he doesn't say anything more than that.

"He is a tremendously sore spot for you, I imagine, I would be more worried if you didn't panic under the circs. I suppose my only question to you is... what can you change to ensure that you aren't in a position to do it again?"