An old journal post from the CTC Patreon. Takes place prior to Book 3.

Book 3 lost save file 8: Sick day

“Welcome back!”

Lillium stepped through the doorway. He was starting to get used to being greeted like that whenever he returned now. It sent a pleasant feeling up his spine nowadays, once he got over how unusual it was.

Today, the cheeriness grated his mind.

“Hi,” he groaned weakly. 

As he kicked off his boots he saw Iris frown at him, concern building in his face. Then he felt a hand on his head.

“You’re paler than usual and you’re burning up,” his roommate murmured, “What happened?”

He sighed. “Just work. Must be because I had to deal with more people than usual–” He cut off the boy’s retort before he could start. “Not that way. I mean the mind-control way.”

“Then… then you’re wilting!” Iris exclaimed. “I’ve read about it before! When you use too much of your powers you can–” Oh no, he was fussing.

“I know what wilting is! I’m fine!” He stood up, and immediately regretted it when the world started spinning. It took everything for him to head into the kitchen without falling. Why were the two boiling pots?

Iris continued hovering, but he started cooking anyways. The cacio e pepe wasn’t the best he’d ever made, but it sufficed.

His migraine only worsened, though, even with a heated bath. Iris watched him like a hawk as he climbed up into his bunker– as if daring him to fall over to prove his point. Well, he didn’t give him the satisfaction, because he definitely wasn’t wilting. He didn't wilt, he hadn't wilted since he was a child, and he certainly–

The second he tried to lie down he threw up all over his mattress and promptly passed out.

Okay. So in truth, maybe he had been overworking himself, two missions back to back where he had to use his eyes on dozens of people.

He’d done this before, with little side effect. but it seems he’d grown soft living with iris.

It should have bothered him. It was more alarming that it didn’t.

“You’re right about the wilting, but what do you want me to do about it?” That wasn’t Iris, but it was a familiar voice nonetheless. Throaty and old, stern from years of experience of scolding at many careless demiflora. “We can only let him rest and keep him hydrated for the next few days and he’ll be right as rain.”

“There’s no medicine?” There was his roommate.

He sniffed the air. It was clean, sterile. Iris must have cleaned the vomit.

“Kid, if there was it would have been tamped down by the government already, and circulating in black markets for absurdly high prices.” He knew who it was now– old Finnigan. He’d been brought to him several times when he was younger, still new to Goose Lake Valley. It was his clinic that Dan would drop him off at, where Finnigan would have a heart attack about the countless untreated diseases and injuries Lillium had. He hadn’t needed to see him in a long while, not for treatment, at least.

“I’m not surprised he’s wilting, I’m just surprised it took this long.” He could just hear him shaking his head, probably taking off his glasses to rub at his eyes. “Never knew how to take a break, this one.”

There were more murmurs as the two climbed down. Good, he needed the silence.

In the distant peripheral of his hearing, though– he could sense Finnigan’s voice grow softer, thawing from distrust he only just realized was there.

“Take care of him, boy.”

He couldn’t hear Iris’s response, but he could imagine it all the same as the door closed with his consciousness.

He announced his return to the world of the living with a groan. Immediately Iris was at his side, half dressed.

“Lillium! How’re you feeling?”

“Better,” he said, getting up and regretting it when the world spun again. He grew irritated, he already stayed in bed for a whole day! Still, he began descending the ladder.

“What’re you doing?” He exclaimed. “What if you fall?”

“I need to use the bathroom.”

“Oh, right!” Then he looked him over, contemplative. “Hm, what if I built a funnel or tube that—“

The look he shot Iris was enough to silence him.

After he finally managed to relieve himself and do the barest minimum of washing up, he trudged out of the bathroom. To his surprise, Iris had set up a bed where the couch was. 

A very comfortable looking bed, calling out to him like a siren luring sailors to sea. It was a testament to his state of being that he didn’t even question Iris before throwing himself down onto it.

“Don’t worry, I’ll turn it back into a couch once you’re better,” Iris explained anyway. “This way you don’t have to climb up and down.” He paused, looking at odds with himself. At last he bent down and murmured, patting Lillium’s arm. “I need to go to training today, but I’ll get Heather to look after you, okay?”

“No, anyone but her,” he said, or tried to. He sounded more like a dying animal. Iris left eventually, leaving him to drift off again.

“Wakey wakey, loser!”

He blearily opened his eyes. Sunny peered over him, all sharp teeth on display. He was immediately horrified.

“What’re you doing here?”

“Well, Iris told Heather to take care of you, and then she told me to take care of you!” They said, looking rather proud as they pumped a fist onto their chest. “Because I ‘don’t have a job’ or something.”

The mutant demiflora proceeded to ramble for hours on end, keeping him company. He swore his migraine worsened. Whenever he managed to drift asleep, he was sure he could still hear Sunny talk about the time they ate a whole car tire.

At the very least they fed him– properly. An alarm rang, no doubt Iris’s doing judging by the whimsical little chime and cuckoo bird that sprang out of the clock to fly around the room. Sunny immediately went to get a thermos, carefully feeding him the chicken noodle soup within.

Sunny never played around when it came to food.

He understood perfectly well. They came from a world where every scrap was scarce, and they were used to fighting for said scraps.

Perhaps that was why he tolerated the rascal so much.

Eventually he drifted off again.

He was briefly awoken later (he wasn’t sure when, he was losing track of time). There was something, something resting on his head. It was a hand, he realized.

Hands to check that he wasn’t running hot. Hands to check that he wasn’t dead cold. Hands that wanted to comfort him.

He knew these hands.

“Mom…” He murmured. The hand stilled. It moved away but he instinctively rolled his head over to follow it.

“Stay.”

The hand didn’t return to his head, but he felt them trail down his arm, until they intertwined with his hands. He fell asleep again.

The next time he woke, he knew it was morning. He yawned, and his brain did not threaten to split open at that simple action.

“Hey.”

He turned, pleased to find that the world didn't spin anymore. Iris was peering at him from the doorwar, smiling. He wasn’t dressed yet.

“Don’t you have training?”

He laughed. “I have the day off, silly.” Oh right, it was Saturday. That meant he’d been out for three days. He sighed at that thought. He’d missed so much.

Lillium was pulled out of his thoughts when a bowl was shoved under his nose.

“Here, drink this.” Iris said.

“Stew for breakfast?” He asked, incredulously, but he picked it up anyway. He could do that now, at least. He brought it up to his nose first, sniffing it. Chicken broth, potatoes, carrots, and cream. He took a perfect bite, or slurp.

“It’s good,” he said, pleasantly surprised. “You made this?”

“I’ve been paying attention, you know! It’s hard not to learn a thing or two from you.”

He felt it, that strange warmth in his cheeks, and it wasn’t from wilting.

“Thanks,” he said, rather awkwardly. “For everything.”

His migraine had stopped, but he found that walking to the bathroom and back was still a pain. He grew tired easily, and he was sure that if he stayed on his feet, the nausea would return. So back into the bed he went, where Iris tucked him in like a fretting mother.

He should have protested, he wasn’t a child, and he still had jobs to do.

And yet.

He hadn't been able to afford being sick for years. Perhaps this was his body’s way of telling itself that everything was alright, he could finally rest, that he was safe.

There were hands here to catch him.

And so Lillium slept.