"Quelle horreur..."

Mirk paused just outside the front doors of the infirmary, pushing his back up against them to stay under the protection of the roof's narrow overhang and out of the pouring rain. He hadn't thought to bring his cloak with him that morning. It had been lovely outside, sunny and warm for the first week of September. He should have known better. English weather was much more mercurial than what he was accustomed to.

The other healers, though, had been quick to inform Mirk that the weather in the City of Glass was worst of all, always too hot or too cold, all of them cursed to alternately burn or freeze due to the influence of the chaotic magic that powered the City. And the rain in the City, somehow, was even more constant than in the rest of England. After checking to make sure his work bag was buttoned up tight, Mirk hiked it up on his shoulder and plunged out into the downpour.

It was cold. Mirk would have thought it was autumn, had the Earth not still been murmuring late-summer sentiments at him. He was too exhausted to run. His last patient had been particularly worrying, a fighter from the First who had nearly had his arm ripped off at the elbow and was lost in a state of semi-awareness Mirk couldn’t shake him from, no matter what he did. Trying to feel his way through the loss and despair that had wreathed the man’s mind had taken up as much energy as beginning to heal his wounded arm.

Despite his fatigue, Mirk kept his pace brisk, focusing on the close-yet-distant lights of the healers dormitory. While his body remained out in the street, his head was already up in his room, imagining how nice it'd be to huddle under his quilts with a warm mug of tea helped along by a liberal splash of brandy.

Which was how Mirk overlooked the body lying in the middle of the road. The body that he tripped over the legs of, his momentum tumbling him head over heels into a particularly deep puddle. Rubbing at the shoulder he'd landed on, Mirk sat up and peered over at the body. His spinning head made it hard for him to tell if that really was what he'd stumbled over, or if he'd spent too long in the infirmary and was starting to see potential patients everywhere.

It was a body. A large, spindly body, its face obscured by a drenched snarl of long black hair. Mirk didn't need to see its face. The long white fingers twitching at the body's sides were enough for Mirk to tell exactly who it was.

"Messire!"

Mirk scrabbled over to Genesis's side. Digging his fingers into Genesis's arm to get a good grip on him, he heaved the commander over onto his back. It was hard to tell for certain in the dark, but Mirk didn't think Genesis was wounded. His limbs were all at the proper angles, anyway, though his head flopped lifelessly to one side instead of staying forward. Lowering his mental shielding and casting out his senses, Mirk felt for any sparks of pain that might give him some clue as to what was wrong with Genesis. There weren’t any strong enough to escape Genesis’s chaotic magic. Mirk took his face gently in both hands and turned it upright, leaning over him to keep off the rain.

"Oh dear...what's happened to you now...Genesis? Genesis, can you hear me? Blink if you can."

There was no response. Genesis's eyes were open, but they were filmed over black, making it impossible to tell whether they were responsive or not. Mirk leaned in closer, just in time to hear the commander draw a shallow, hissing breath. There were bruises on his face, though they were hard to make out in the gloom, and his long nose seemed out of line. Mirk did his best to clamp down on his worry -- if Genesis had fallen flat on his face in the middle of the street, something had to be wrong, wounds or no wounds. In an attempt to reassure himself, Mirk mumbled an Ave Maria under his breath as he checked Genesis's pulse on his neck.

Faint, steady, but a touch faster than normal. The opposite of what usually happened when he came in injured. Mindful of the bruises, Mirk pressed the back of his hand to Genesis’s forehead. They were the same temperature. He couldn’t remember Genesis ever feeling that warm before.

Mirk wondered how long Genesis had been lying out in the rain. How many passers-by had simply averted their eyes and counted their blessings instead of stopping to help him? How many had stepped right over him? Mirk decided to try to get through to Genesis again, returning his hands to the sides of his face. "Messire? Genesis, I can't read you, you have to tell me what happened."

Genesis's mouth twitched, but no sound escaped. Mirk glanced back at the infirmary, debating whether it'd be better to drag him there or take him somewhere else. Before he'd left, Mirk had put the man with the injured arm in their last empty recovery bed. There were always the overflow cots up in the anatomical theater on the sixth floor, if necessary. However, he doubted Genesis would be pleased to to wake up and find himself in the middle of a room full of dazed infantry fighters still in uniforms that reeked of vomit and rotting blood.

While Mirk had been thinking, Genesis's twitching had turned into something almost like purposeful movement. He was slapping at the cobbles with one hand, as if he was trying to brace himself and sit up. Mirk knew he'd be the one who'd end up tending to the commander anyway, no matter where he took him. Better to take him somewhere comfortable. Then maybe Genesis would stay put long enough for Mirk to get to the bottom of what had happened. And the healers dormitory was just a hair closer. Mirk took hold of Genesis's shoulders, pulling him up into a sitting position.

"All right, messire, let's go inside. Can you get up? Genesis? I don't think I can carry you..."

Mirk had to shoulder most of Genesis's weight in order to haul him back onto his feet. It would have been so much easier to move Genesis if the commander wasn’t so much taller than him. Genesis wasn't that heavy, at least not in comparison to the muscle-bound fighters he helped the aides lug from room to room, but the clumsiness of Genesis's overlong limbs made the commander difficult to maneuver.

As Mirk guided him down the road toward the dormitory, Genesis began to come back to himself. He stumbled along beside Mirk instead of being dragged, blinking owlishly, first giving the ground a puzzled look, then turning an equally confused one in his direction.

"Genesis?" Mirk prompted. "What happened to you? Why aren't you inside?"

After a moment, Genesis’s darkened eyes narrowed into a squint. Then his expression shifted into one Mirk didn't recognize, something between apprehension and one of his odd, defensive, humorless grins. How badly had Genesis hit his head when he'd fallen over? Mirk didn't think he'd ever seen Genesis that addled before. "It's me, Genesis. Mirk. Do you remember?"

Genesis's voice came out in a hoarse croak, difficult to understand, though any response was better than nothing. "Mirk..."

"Yes, that's right. It's me. What were you doing out in the rain? You know you'll get sick if you stay outside for too long in this weather. You really should tell someone you need help before things get this bad, messire. It's much easier for everyone if you come in right away. Or, well, easier for me, anyway."

Mirk was well aware of the fact that he was babbling. Not that it mattered. When Genesis tried to speak again, all that came out were hisses and clicks, his unintelligible native language. Mirk squeezed the commander’s midsection a little, trying to be reassuring. "It's all right. Everything will be all right. Just a little further..."

It took Mirk a few tries to open the dormitory's front door without either dropping Genesis or hitting him in the face with it. Mirk nudged him inside, then propped him up against the far wall of the vestibule. It was a relief to have his weight off his shoulders, but if he couldn't get Genesis moving better on his own, Mirk feared the worst of his troubles were still ahead of him. His room was up on the fourth floor.

After waiting to make sure Genesis wouldn't collapse again if left on his own, Mirk crossed the vestibule and poked at the control board for the enchanted dryer built into the ceiling. Mirk was sure he knew the right combination of runes to tap at to get it to start. And yet, nothing happened. He tried banging it into life. Still nothing. In a last-ditch effort, apologetically crossing himself first, Mirk tried cursing at it. It seemed to be what everyone else in the K'maneda did to get things to work. The dryer above him sparked a bit, but its magic didn't fully engage. Dismissing it with a frustrated wave of his hands, Mirk turned back to Genesis.

Genesis's eyes had gone back to normal. Mirk wished they hadn't. It was easier now for him to tell that the commander couldn't focus them. Could such a slight fever cause that much delirium in someone like Genesis? He couldn't be certain. Just like everything else about him, Genesis's body temperature and what it implied bore little relation to those of normal patients. Sighing, Mirk put an arm around Genesis's waist again and began the arduous process of getting him up to his room.

Every flight was a struggle; Genesis tripped again and again and Mirk wasn't strong enough to keep hold of him each time. All he could do was put his body in the way and hope that they wouldn't both fall over and slide down the stairs, all the way back to the bottom. Talking at Genesis didn't seem to be helping the commander focus, but it made Mirk feel a little better. Though Genesis did respond on occasion, it was never in a language Mirk understood.

They struggled up one last stairwell. Then it was down the hall, Genesis weaving this way and that, pulling Mirk along with. His door was locked. Mirk propped Genesis against the wall again until he fumbled it open and slapped on the magelights. Heaving a sigh of relief, Mirk guided Genesis inside.

Genesis's boot caught on the slight step up over the threshold. Mirk lost his hold on him and Genesis fell flat on his face again, not even having the presence of mind to throw out his hands to cushion the blow. Wincing, Mirk nudged Genesis's feet in past the sill and sidled into the room, pulling the door shut behind himself. Mirk thought for a moment about the bottle of brandy in the bottom drawer of his dresser. A gift to himself for another long week spent tending to the sick and injured. Mirk quickly dismissed the idea, dropped his bag beside the door, and got to work.

Mirk tried to do as he was told: distance oneself from the patient, focus on their body, separate the parts from the whole. He could never manage it. Especially not with Genesis, whose complex internal workings and magic only made sense when viewed all together. At least Mirk was accustomed by then to seeing him like that, unconscious, likely to be mistaken for dead by a casual observer. Maybe that was why no one had helped Genesis out in the street. Mirk knelt down beside Genesis and turned him back over, checking his face again. The bruising was worse. And so was the fever. First things first, then. Mirk had to get him out of his wet clothes and into something dry and warm.

That was another thing Mirk had grown oddly accustomed to, laboriously pulling off layer after layer of the clothes Genesis clad himself in like the other fighters did armor. It was worse when Genesis was sopping wet. It made all the buckles and buttons hard to navigate with numb fingers; it stiffened the leather of all the sheaths and scabbards he wore to keep his bewildering and unnecessary array of weaponry always at the ready. By the time Mirk was done, he was left with a pile of things that he knew he should probably pause to fold and stack neatly. But he was too tired and worried to bother with it. As soon as the last layers were stripped off of him, Genesis began to shiver, violently.

"Oh dear...let's see what I have...I'm afraid that I don't have much that might fit you, but there has to be something..." Mirk mumbled to himself, as got back to his feet. His legs had gone numb from kneeling for so long. He braced himself against the top of the dresser and pulled open the top drawer. All the robes he had on hand at the moment were grimy and splattered with blood. He'd been putting off laundry now that he had successfully managed to do it on his own once or twice to Genesis’s grudging satisfaction. The only other thing he had that was robelike was his nightshirt, and that was a bit short even on him. No matter what he did, it shrunk a little more with every washing. It'd be useless on someone as tall as Genesis. Distractedly, Mirk clawed his way out of all of his own wet clothes and pulled on the nightshirt as he continued his search.

Three piece suits with all the trappings, a relic of his past life that he'd salvaged from his mother's ruined carriage but hadn't yet let go of. They were tailored exactly to his own measurements with little room to spare. Impossible. Chemises, also fine, with a good deal of lace. One of those might help, even if it didn't fit exactly right. And the braies might work out the same. Mirk was certain Genesis wouldn't be pleased to wake up wearing someone else's smallclothes, but if he woke up in dirty robes, it would undoubtedly be worse.

Muttering under his breath at his own uselessness, Mirk went about dressing the commander.. As he’d anticipated, the sleeves and the legs were too short. The chemise looked uncomfortably tight about the shoulders and ended over a hand's width above the waist of the braies. But at least everything was big enough around, aside from the shoulders. If Mirk was honest about it, everything else was a bit loose. Evidently, whatever Genesis had been doing to get himself in such a predicament hadn't involved eating. He wasn't as skeletal as he'd been when Mirk had needed to challenge the Death for Genesis's life, but he'd lost much of what he'd regained since then.

There was nothing left to do other than to heal his face and try to get Genesis up into bed. Mirk decided to go for the bed first. There would be no sense in healing all the bruises if he ended up accidentally dropping Genesis on his face again. Mirk stood, stretching his back. A wave of exhaustion passed over him, but he forced himself to continue. Though he let himself babble again, a paltry comfort.

"I'm too tired for all this. I'm sorry, messire, I'm just no good at being tidy. You understand. Or, well, I suppose you don't. We'll think of something when you're better."

Mirk tried lifting Genesis under the shoulders first. Though he could get the top half of Genesis's limp, gangly body off the floor, he came up just short of being able to lift him high enough to get him partway onto the bed. Mirk tried again from the other end. He pushed the commander's body over closer to the bed, then tried manhandling his legs onto it. They stayed put. Mirk stepped back and surveyed the results, considering his options. It was useless. And ridiculous.

"I'm so sorry, Genesis...this really isn't very good, is it? I'd try levitating you, but you know I can't get chaotic things up very high. I just...I wish I could do something. But wishes aren't good for much of anything. At least, that's what you always say."

Gathering the dregs of his strength, Mirk tried lifting him under the shoulders again anyway. He got further that time with Genesis's legs already on the bed, but it still wasn't enough. His arms were shaking with the effort, but Mirk kept trying. There was nothing else he could do. Other than let Genesis sleep on the floor.

It happened so quickly it startled Mirk into dropping him -- Genesis came back to himself, just a little, coughing and swinging his legs off the bed. Hissing something to himself, the commander tried to stand up on his own.

"Oh, no, messire, you can't do that! Be careful! Here, stop, let me help, you can't fall over again..."

Genesis did fall over again, once he lapsed back into unconsciousness. Thankfully, he fell sideways, ending up mostly on the bed. A stroke of luck, for once. Mirk looked to the ceiling for a moment, mumbling his thanks to God for finally having a bit of mercy on him, and lifted the rest of Genesis's unresisting body onto the bed. He worked Genesis's body this way and that, until he was more or less straight.

Though, Genesis’s legs still hung a foot or two off the end of it. Mirk scanned his cramped room for something that might help. His trunk, the one he'd scavenged from his mother's carriage. He flipped open the lid and pulled out all the quilts and pillows he'd stuffed in it, keeping a few of the latter to tuck under Genesis's feet as he slid the trunk up flush with the end of the bed. It looked awkward, uncomfortable, but it was the best Mirk had to offer. And better than the cold stone floor.

Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

He wrapped Genesis in all the quilts he'd set aside atop the commander’s barely moving chest, bundling him up tightly, though he left the side closest to the edge of the bed a bit looser, so that he had easy access to his arm if he needed it. At least all the activity had warmed Mirk up some. He wouldn't have to prod at Genesis's injured face with icy fingers in order to heal it. Not that the commander was in much of a position to complain.

Again, Mirk tried to concentrate less on how it always made his heart sink to see Genesis bruised and broken and unconscious and more on what he was doing. First he healed his nose, careful to keep it straight. Then Mirk felt along the rest of the bones of his face, delicately, searching for more breaks. The damage was minimal; only one was cracked, below and to the right of the eye nearest him. It didn't take as much concentration to heal.

All that was left was the slow task of handling the bruises, better done by hand instead of going through the trouble of mixing up a fresh batch of balm that only worked some of the time, even though Mirk was starting to feel ill himself. His extra life-giving potential was running low. Mirk massaged the swelling away, pressing blood back to where it belonged, coaxing the tiny tears in the capillaries closed by feel until no more could escape. As he worked, Mirk found himself rambling again. There was no one to listen; it didn’t matter.

"I really don't know what happened, messire. You're always so careful about not getting sick. Were you working on something? Did something happen? I suppose you'd rather not tell. But keeping secrets isn't good for you, you know. It's always better to ask for help when you need it. Telling someone else your problems always makes them easier to solve. You know we wouldn't send you away."

All things considered, Genesis probably didn't. Sighing, Mirk smoothed away the last of the bruises and stood back, nudging away the few weak tendrils of shadow that had curled out from under the bed to prod at his bare calves. "Well. That's that. Well. One more thing..."

Mirk returned to his side, pressing the back of his hand to Genesis's forehead for a minute, then checking his pulse on the side of his neck. Stronger, but still too quick for Mirk's liking. And Genesis was too warm, almost warmer than he was now that the commander had been inside a while. Mirk sighed and stepped away again.

"Methinks it might be best to leave well enough alone, messire. Potions only make you more ill half the time, and you’ve never had a fever before. I don’t know the right balance…though, maybe it might be a good idea to have all the components ready for later…"

Mirk turned to walk away, to head out down the hall and knock on doors until he found another healer who was still awake. But an icy cold, shaking hand caught hold of Mirk's wrist, whiplash fast, and stopped him. Confused, Mirk glanced back at Genesis. A second ago, he'd been completely dead to the world. Now he was staring up at the ceiling, intently, his hold on Mirk's wrist growing tighter as he searched for words.

"Cold...s'kkrasn...no...come. Come back."

As quickly as he'd returned to himself, Genesis was gone again, his eyes closing as his hand went limp. Mirk was puzzled, torn. Genesis hated having people close to him. Was the commander simply too sick to care? Or too delirious to realize what he was asking for, so desperate for warmth that the cost no longer mattered? Mirk vacillated between the bed and the door, trying to decide what Genesis had meant when he'd asked for him to come back.

The commander's shivering had grown so severe that it was making the bedframe clack against the wall. Mirk only knew of one way to warm someone who was that far gone without any enchanted items or magic he didn’t possess. And he had a feeling Genesis wouldn't like it. But which was worse: leaving Genesis alone to shiver pathetically through the night, or risk offending the commander's sensibilities?

"Well, it can't hurt...not too much..."

After elbowing off the magelights, Mirk returned to the bed, doing his best to climb over Genesis onto the other side of it without putting any weight on him. Gingerly, he plucked up the edge of the pile of quilts Genesis was buried under and slid underneath them. Whatever trepidation Mirk felt was soon overwhelmed by concern. Genesis's arm was dead cold. He supposed it made sense — no matter how many quilts you put a person under, if they didn't generate much body heat to begin with, even with a fever, they'd never get any warmer. Mirk pressed himself close against Genesis's side, taking hold of his hand, trying to press some heat back into it.

It didn't help much. Making sure to keep Genesis’s hand tucked in tight between them in the hopes that it might eventually warm up, Mirk shifted over closer still, wrapping his arms around Genesis's shivering body. He half expected Genesis to snap out of his delirium and pry himself out of his grasp. Instead, to Mirk's surprise, the commander seemed to relax some, his violent shaking beginning to ease.

Mirk wondered how disgruntled Genesis would be when he came to his senses and found himself in someone else's bed, wearing their clothes and sharing their warmth. Sighing, Mirk allowed his head to rest on Genesis's shoulder. It'd be better not to worry about it. Not yet.

He had been frazzled and exhausted by the time he escaped the infirmary, worn down by hours of having so many emotions pressing against his shields. Of having no choice but to pay witness to endless small tragedies in the often futile hope of being able to avert a few major ones. Mirk was still exhausted, but despite the situation, he felt more and more at ease lying beside Genesis in the dark, the only remaining light cast by the small, dim magelight under his desk.

The commander wasn't a warm bedmate, nor a particularly soft one, but his presence comforted him, somehow. Mirk didn't have to bother with holding up shields until the instant he fell asleep. No matter how upset Genesis got, Mirk knew he'd never be able to feel anything from him besides the occasional flash of pain when Genesis was truly hurting. Most of the other healers found it unnerving. Mirk thought it was a relief.

Genesis was safe. It came at the cost of not being able to understand him, most of the time, but Mirk thought he was getting better at that. Though his odd request that evening had thrown Mirk a little off balance. Perhaps Genesis wasn't as distant as he seemed. Maybe it was just that he didn't know how to ask for closeness without some sort of pretext.

Assured that he was at least doing Genesis the small favor of keeping him warm, even if the commander wouldn't like his methods, Mirk closed his eyes and let himself be lulled to sleep by the slow, slight feel of his breathing.

- - -

Mirk was certain he was dreaming.

His dreams could be vivid like that, so real that he woke up feeling hands and hearing voices that were never there. Usually it only happened in the spring, which his magic was stronger and hard to contain. But it was almost autumn, and the life was fading from the world as everything went dormant for winter. It wasn't even particularly warm even.

...wasn't particularly warm, but wasn't exactly cold either...

It really wasn't warm, at least not strictly in terms of temperature. But the feeling was warm, that lovely degree of closeness where Mirk couldn't be entirely sure where he ended and everything else began. There wasn't any pain. Which meant he had to be dreaming. It was impossible to be that close and not feel pain lurking beneath the surface, buried in some memory yearning to express itself.

And there wasn't anyone left that he could trust to come so close. Maman was dead. And he was alone. And he couldn't let anyone that close, couldn't bear the thought of them understanding what had been done to him, of them seeing the dark things that lived for good in the back of his mind, waiting to roar back to life at the sound of drizzle hissing on stone or the wrong kind of laugh or the sight of that horrible glint in someone's eyes—

No. He was safe. Safe and warm and at peace. He had to be dreaming.

Dream or not, it was still wonderful. Mirk let himself bask in it. Like floating in a saltwater sea warmed by the sun, weightless and formless, every part of him gone except for the one bathed in sublime contentment. No past. No future. Nothing but an omnipresent now, thick and golden and never ending. Mirk hoped some magic would let it go on forever. That he would be able to stay that way. Safe.

He'd spoiled it for himself. The feeling faded away, the connection. Though he still felt warmer than he was accustomed to. The dormitory was always cold.

Even if part of the feeling was gone, Mirk still wasn't willing to throw off the bedclothes and subject himself to the chill of his room yet. He stretched out his limbs instead, trying to ease himself back into the real world slowly rather than shaking it off without savoring any of the afterglow. It was rare that he had good dreams. It'd be better to take full advantage of the gift he'd been given.

Mirk held the stretch to the count of five, then ten. He wasn't so stiff that morning, his arms and legs sure and steady instead of weak and aching. He must have slept hard. Harder than he had since he'd been ill, and even then, he'd been trapped in a vortex of shame and guilt that had never allowed him true peace. Sighing, Mirk let the stretch go, allowing his arm and leg to flop back to where they'd been before.

Which was on top of someone. Mirk thought that'd been part of the dream; it should have vanished with the rest of it. Puzzled, he blinked open his eyes.

His forehead was pressed against a long neck, its skin cool and pale. Underneath his arm and leg, he could feel hard muscle, along with the bones beneath it. His hand was resting on a hem, half on fraying lace and half on more smooth, cold skin. There was a thin arm pinned underneath him.

"...Mirk."

Drawing in a sharp breath, Mirk shoved himself up onto his elbow, shaking off the dregs of sleep. The voice was familiar. The tone didn't fit the situation. It was flat, unemotional. Genesis.

"Oh, you're awake, Gen..."

That did the trick. Mirk cringed in anticipation of a scolding. Aside from the fact that he'd been clinging to the commander like a limpet in his sleep, he'd used the one name on him that he detested almost as much as messire. Even though they all called him Gen behind his back, they mostly avoided calling him that to his face. He had a proper name; he expected others to use it, despite its strangeness. Well. K'aekniv and some of the older members of the Seventh could get away with it, but they were all cheerfully indifferent to Genesis's scowling and complaining.

"To be...entirely honest, I would prefer it if you used that one over the...other. If you are determined not to use my proper name." Genesis paused, glancing down at him for a moment. "Though it would appear the other has lost its...original meaning. To an extent."

Mirk shook his head again, just to be certain he wasn't still dreaming. Rather than annoyed, Genesis seemed resigned to the position he was in. He must have been aware of the futility of trying to keep some semblance of proper distance, given the situation. It was either cling to Genesis or cling to the wall, and even though the commander wasn't exactly warm and soft, the wall was still worse.

That aside, Mirk wondered if he had been able to somehow manage to achieve some sort of empathic transference in his sleep that had made Genesis more agreeable than usual. Or maybe Genesis was just too tired to work up a good frown. It was probably that. Giving up on trying to make sense of it, Mirk shrugged. "It's only that you surprised me. I expected to wake up before you, considering how sick you were."

Genesis did frown at the mention of the state he'd been in last night. "How much time has passed?"

Straining to read the roman numerals on the clock on his desk, Mirk did a bit of mental math. "Euh...seven hours. Almost."

The commander shifted as if to get up. Mirk instinctively pressed down on him with the arm he still had draped over his midsection. Genesis stopped. The commander really did have to be sick yet for such a small amount of force to be able to stop him. "No, not yet. Voyons..." Reluctantly lifting his arm, Mirk pressed his hand to Genesis's forehead, then to his cheek. There, at least, they were still nearly the same temperature. "Hmph. You're not going anywhere, messire. Your fever hasn't gone down."

Mirk thought about getting up, but only for a moment. There was no sense in hurrying out of bed if Genesis wasn't protesting his continued presence against his side, was there? The thought made Mirk feel less like he'd done something odd, sleeping beside him rather than making up a bed for himself on the floor. It wasn't odd, Mirk reassured himself. It was sensible. The heat of one body was the best way to temper that of another.

He lowered himself back onto his side, his head inevitably coming to rest on Genesis's shoulder again. There wasn't any room in the small bed for it to go anywhere else without Mirk turning his back to Genesis. Mirk drew the quilts up until they were tucked under Genesis's chin. It left his own head completely buried, but Mirk didn't mind. Despite having been drenched to the bone, the commander still smelled of the soap he religiously scrubbed himself with. Fresh lilies. Before they got strong and sickly sweet. Mirk paused for a time to collect his thoughts, debating where to begin. "What were you doing out in the rain like that? Lying in the middle of the street? You aren't hurt, I checked. But you're not very well either."

After a long spell of silence and a heavy sigh, Genesis replied. "I was...very tired."

"Tired? I know you don't like to sleep, but methinks even you wouldn't let things get that bad. How long were you awake?"

"...seven days."

Mirk grimaced, clucking in disapproval. Just the thought of being awake for that long made him feel ill. "Why?"

"K'aekniv has found...a woman."

"Oh?"

"Thus, I have been...evicted. So to speak."

That, Mirk was willing to admit, was a good enough reason to stay out of one's proper bed. He'd always wondered how Genesis and K'aekniv had managed that through all the years they'd shared a room. Mirk had always assumed it involved an inn and a lot of unintelligible notes and bribe money. "Oh."

Genesis's tone grew more annoyed. "He appears to be fixed on this one."

"So he just threw you out? For a week?" K'aekniv could be single-minded, especially when the prospects of intimate relations were involved, but it wasn't like K'aekniv to be so unkind to Genesis.

"He...did and didn't. He said to give him a week to find the woman some other place to stay. But I am done with this...madness. I had been hoping to obtain...alternate quarters before this all occurred again. However, as you are aware, housing in the City is...scarce."

Mirk sighed. "And so, instead of asking for help, you wandered around until you nearly drowned yourself in the street."

Though Mirk couldn't see it, he could practically hear the frown that had to be on Genesis's face. "I had not intended for things to go so far."

Mirk drummed his fingers against Genesis's ribcage as he thought. A small part of him noted, with pleased surprise, that even this wasn't enough to annoy the commander into shaking him off. Genesis had to be more troubled about the situation than he was letting on. K'aekniv and Genesis had been friends for decades. Mirk had assumed it was fueled by the usual kind of grudging tolerance one got from Genesis that passed for friendship and that the commander would be glad to be given a good excuse to go his own way. But perhaps he’d judged Genesis too harshly. "I'll go have a talk with Niv. But you're staying here. If that fever turns into a cold, we'll all be miserable for a while, messire."

Genesis's response was more delayed than usual. "I will...find other quarters."

"Where? In the infirmary?"

Mirk felt Genesis shudder. "...elsewhere."

Reluctantly, Mirk pushed back the bedclothes and sat up. If Genesis was dead set on going elsewhere, Mirk supposed he could ask around the infirmary for a place to stay until things had been patched up between the commander and K'aekniv. But why bother? To all external appearances, Genesis seemed content enough bundled in his careworn quilts.

Not that external appearances were always helpful with Genesis. But Mirk thought that his attempts at running off that time had been particularly half-hearted. Genesis was still trying to give him that deadpan look of his, the one that was supposed to imply dissatisfaction, boredom. Mirk didn't find it intimidating. Though it was hard for anyone to be particularly menacing when wrapped in a yellow quilt speckled with tiny blue flowers. Even Genesis. "No, it would be better if you stayed here for now. I need to watch that fever. I don’t know how you react to them. It really does seem to be worse than when you’re injured. Even when you’ve lost half your blood, you never get as delirious as you were last night."

Genesis only sighed instead of trying to get up again. "I see you are...unwilling to listen to reason."

Mirk couldn't resist needling him a little, prodding him in the side and smiling down at him. "Methinks I could say the same to you."

Before Genesis had time to protest, Mirk forced himself fully out from under the blankets. It had been pleasant — Mirk wasn't going to be silly and try to deny that. But it was bound to be ephemeral, just like the dream had been. The whole thing felt like a dream, backwards and too good to be true. Genesis didn't like people touching him even when it was the difference between life and death. He put up with the more gregarious members of the Seventh inflicting gestures of their good will on him, but the whole time he endured it, Genesis looked like he was about to have a fit.

Mirk gingerly slid down the length of the bed and got up, gathering the things he needed to go out — the robes he'd been wearing yesterday, now dry, his bag, Genesis's discarded clothes. He would have to go see K'aekniv anyway, to retrieve enough of the commander's clothes and cleaning supplies to keep him in bed. Even if it meant wearing someone else's smallclothes, Mirk knew Genesis would refuse to wear his old uniform again. Perhaps Mirk could stop on his way there to donate them to the Supply Corps for rags. It seemed a waste to just throw them down the incinerator.

Shuffling into his clogs, Mirk looked back at Genesis. The commander hadn't moved. Once again, Mirk felt an odd yearning in his stomach, begging him to go back to bed. It had been warmer there. Comfortable. Safe.

Mirk dismissed the thought as laziness. He had his shift at the infirmary to go to. Though, considering the situation, he should probably stop to find K'aekniv first, before the half-angel got sent off to some unknown realm to hack at other mercenaries. Danu and Yule would probably be too amused by the tale of Genesis's current woes to fuss much over him arriving late. "I'll be back in a while," Mirk said over his shoulder to Genesis. "You should try to go back to sleep."

"I appear to have no...choice in the matter."

Mirk found himself grinning as he turned the handle of his door.

"Like you always say, messire, there is always a choice. But sometimes it's easier when you just listen."