You walk into your apartment, tossing your keys over onto the side table. You step in a bit further and kick your shoes off toward the door, waiting just a moment for a whiny protest about your untidiness to come from your asshole of a roommate. When the normal complaint doesn't come you look around the room, expecting him not to be home yet. You are surprised, however, to turn around and see him asleep on your couch.
This may not be strange among most roommates. But you realize that in the half a year that you have shared an apartment with Eridan you have never seen him napping. You blink a bit then roll your eyes and walk over to him, picking up a glass off of the coffee table, checking its contents. Just water. You raise it up, about to splash it on Eridan to wake him up when you get a closer look at him, noticing that his cheeks are slightly pink and he is shivering. You slowly set the drink back down and kneel beside the curled up figure on your couch, slowly reaching out to brush a strand of dark purple hair from his forehead.
You flatten your hand against his forehead and he slowly tries to back away, mumbling in his sleep. Once your hand touches his forehead the second time his eyes flicker open and he whines quietly, swatting at your hand. "Hold still asshole." You frown and hold his other hand then feel his forehead with your free one. "Sol… what are you doing?" His voice is hoarse and he's trying to pull away again, squirming a bit and tugging at your hand.
You sigh quietly, "I just said to hold still." He's obviously running a fever. You're holding onto one of his wrists and you swear it's shaking in your hand. You move your hand from his forehead to his cheek, cupping the side of his face and furrowing your eyebrows in slight worry. Eridan brings his hand up to rest on the back of yours, "Sol. What the fuck are you doin'? Stop..." he slowly trails off. He almost sounds like he's trying to sound mad, and failing miserably.
You roll your eyes a bit and stand up, turning to walks down the hall and into your room. You can hear him shift on the couch, probably to sit up, as you open your closet and reach up to the top of it to get a blanket for him. "Sol? Where are y-" his voice gives out. With the way his voice sounds, it probably hurts for him to talk.
You make your way back to the living room, carrying the blanket in your arms. He stares at you confused for a moment as you walk back to him. "Lay down ED... " He frowns and hesitantly lays back down, looking more than a bit confused. You lay the blanket over him carefully, feeling his forehead once more. He looks so tired, his eyes are half lidded, he's still shivering, and his cheeks are pink from fever.
This time he doesn't pull away, instead bringing his hand up to rest on yours, holding it to his forehead then sliding it to his cheek. His skin is warm and soft, making your fingertips tingle slightly as your cheeks dust over with a faint blush. His electric blue eyes flutter closed for a moment as he holds your hand to the side of his face. You gaze down at him for a moment, studying the freckles that pepper lightly across his cheeks and nose.
You can't help but to feel slightly worried for him. You wonder if he has been sleeping all day, and if he has bothered to get anything to eat at all. For a brief moment you consider taking him to the doctor, and wonder how long it could take for him to get better.
You slowly start to pull your hand away and stand up as his eyes flicker open again. Brilliant blue orbs locked onto your own mismatched eyes. You blink down at him for a moment then dart your eyes away quickly. "Have you eaten today?" you ask, sounding probably more worried than you would have liked to. He thankfully doesn't seem to notice as he sits up a bit, nodding slightly. "I had some soup a little w-while ago."
You let out a small inaudible sigh of relief, "Well um," you fidget a bit, not quite sure how to deal with the situation, "How do you feel?"
He shifts to move further under the covers,"I feel like shit." You can't help but smile a bit, "You look like shit." He rolls his eyes and pulls his hand from the cover to flick you off, making you let out a small chuckle. Eridan slowly pulls his hand back into the covers, curling up a bit then frowning and sitting up.
"What's wrong now, ED?" He stares at you, looking so tired as he mumbles quietly, "You should lay with me Sol."
You gape at him for a moment, perplexed that he would even ask you to do something like this. You can't think of a reason why he would want you to be near him. The two of you are constantly arguing and almost never agree on anything. However, you also can't think of a reason as to why you shouldn't.
So with a bit of hesitation, you move up onto the couch, sitting with your back against the arm of it, and your legs bent a bit, across it. You were under the assumption that Eridan was going to lay beside you, (the couch is wide enough) but are taken aback when he crawls between your legs to lay on his side, resting his head on your chest.
You tense up for a moment as he pulls the blankets up again, snuggling against you and pulling them comfortably around himself. Your hands remain at your sides for a moment, slightly flustered from having him so close.
After a brief moment, you hear him mutter quietly, "Not a fuckin word Sol." You aren't sure why this puts you at ease, but for some reason you feel yourself slowly relaxing against him. After a few minutes you bring your hands up to rest one in between his shoulder blades and the other on the back of his head, absentmindedly playing with his dark black hair.
You breath quietly, "You better not be sick tomorrow. I'm not staying home to baby you, Ampora." You try to sound annoyed as you speak but it still comes off as a bit worried and caring, which makes you cringe slightly.
He tilts his head back to look up at you, eyes half closed from drowsiness and his pale lips turned up into a faint smile. He lets out a quiet "Okay", then rests his head against your chest again.
It's not much longer before you realize he has fallen asleep against you. He's breathing evenly, chest moving up and down slowly as he sleeps. You can't help but continue to card your fingers gently through his soft, dark hair as he holds still. Just as you cant help noticing how perfectly he fits into your arms, or how peaceful he seems in his sleep.
Before you know it, you feel your eyes become heavy, slowly drifting shut. You think for a fleeting moment that you could actually get used to this. Though that thought quickly escapes you as you realize that you will both wake up the next day, complaining and arguing with each other over trivial things.
So you push all thoughts aside, emptying your mind of everything. Everything except the rise and fall of Eridan's chest against yours, holding him protectively as you let his breathing lull you to sleep.
