"Doctor Devorak, are you well?"

"I'm fine."

I raise my chin to glance over the wall of pipettes and beakers that surrounds me. This is a blatant lie if I ever heard one. His tall body, usually so straight, is hunched and shivering, his auburn hair sticking to his damp forehead. I can't see much with the mask on, but he seems paler than the corpse he's dissecting.

"Julian," I insist. "I think you're sick."

"I'm a doctor. I know I'm sick. I'm just trying to convince myself that ignoring it will make it go away. Now, stop distracting me from my delusions, and back to your task, apprentice."

There you go! Apprentice. I hate it when he blows hot and cold like that. Last night, at the Rowdy Tavern, he was all flirting and jokes, and asked me - not for the first time - to call him by his name. Admittedly, he was rather tipsy. Sleeping less than five hours a night for months while working like a dog during the days tends to lower one's alcohol tolerance. In truth, when he entered the morgue this morning, I believed he was merely hungover. But it seems a little more serious. Not the Plague. I diagnose a simple cold without thinking about it, but even the most benign diseases can be crippling, exhausted as we are. And this self-sacrificing idiot is working harder than anyone.

I don't want to be mad at him but it's infuriating. All that he's achieving is making the rest of us feel bad. He gets up before dawn, spends his whole time in his office, the morgue or the library, covers for me when I fall asleep at my desk… Blast it! Even this job I own to him. He'd been the one arguing to Valdemar that I was capable enough, despite not having any medical training. And now, he's officially responsible for anything I might screw up. But I never asked for all this, and I won't feel guilty!

"Fine," I snap. "Kill yourself at work, for all I care."

He doesn't answer, which means that he's in worse shape than I assumed... or that I truly hurt him. Well… I won't feel guilty for that either. You can't turn on the charm on someone when you feel lonely and give them the cold shoulder the next day. I refrain from biting my lip, as if he would notice. What was I expecting? He always flirts. That's just how he is and that doesn't mean a thing. Maybe he should be more careful of the consequences, but it's not as if we had the time to pay special attention to everyone's feelings at the moment.

"Sorry," I finally sigh. "That was uncalled for."

Am I blushing? Stupid me!

"I… W… What?" he starts, then chuckles: "Oh that. S'okay. Believe it or not, I've heard worse."

Was that to comfort or a rebuke? I have the feeling that I should be slightly offended, but I'm more concerned with the sudden stuttering and slurring.

I hear a rattling noise in the inner courtyard, like someone struggling to find their way in a bunch of keys. There's a delay before Julian nearly jumps.

"Wathat Mazelinka?"

"Who's Mazelinka?"

"She's a… friend. I…" He glances back at the corpse: "Have you seen his spleen? It almost ruptured. Come here and have a look. See how dilated it is? Come in, Maze! The little orange key, with the… the large bow. Or just use the alley and take the main door, it's open. She always has to make things secretive. And they say I'm over-dramatic!"

I try to untangle this monologue, while at the same time finishing my dilution and tying on my own mask. That works as well as expected and I almost drop the beaker.

"Doctor Devorak..."

"... Why the spleen? I've never seen anything like this on the other patients. Maybe a prior trauma… No, he'd been sick for… not sure… days? Never mind, what I mean is he… he lasted long. When would he've had the time to get a beating? Not to mention the absence of bruises."

The rattle goes on.

"Doct…"

"It could be something unrelated, of course, some… some… some chronic disease... Still, I have the feeling that… Oh, for all that's praised and treasured in the Eleven Seas! Orange key, Mazelinka!"

"Doctor Devorak!"

"What?!"

He turns on his heel at last, and several things happen:

His scalpel slips out of his hand.

The door opens.

He sways...

… and falls over.

I hold back a yelp when his head barely misses the second dissecting table and shout:

"Nurses!"

x

Well, now I do feel guilty.

It's been three hours and he hasn't stirred. Just mumbled, in his fevered dreams. Implored someone to wait for something. "Tell me!", "I'm begging you!"... I shiver. From all the times we spent the night in the lab, I was already aware that he talks in his sleep, but never once has he seemed so hopeless.

I knew he was acting strangely. It's not like him to be so irritable. I should have insisted he take a break. But I was too busy sulking.

"Ilya?" Mazelinka whispers, tapping his cheek gently. "Wake up." Julian's head moves to escape the touch, and she presses: "Good. Open your eyes and scold me. You're starting to scare your apprentice."

I would scoff if she wasn't partly right. For all her poise, her own worry is obvious.

Mazelinka is a plump old woman with clever eyes, and a warm smile that tempers her bluntness. Not what I had in mind when Julian said she was a friend. When I questioned her on how they met, she just said: "On a ship." There are rumors in the clinic that he used to be a pirate, but I never thought much about them. I know, because he told me, that he started his career in the military. How many lives could he have lived? Not to mention that the mere idea of delicate, nonviolent doctor Julian Devorak gutting innocent sailors for a living is laughable.

Mazelinka herself, I muse, looks more like a mischievous granny than a ruthless filibuster.

Julian's eyes open lazily and she smiles:

"Here you go! Ilya? Are you with us?"

"I… yeah?" he croaks. That sounds more like a reflex than a cognizant statement. He seems confused.

"M… Maze? What…"

"I just came to deliver you the herbs you asked for. Had some troubles with that huge bunch of keys you gave me and, when I finally got this lock to obey, I find you sprawled on the floor, nurses running all around, your apprentice desperately swearing that you hadn't caught the Plague. Well… It took a bit of persuasion on my part, but they accepted to carry you to your cot, eventually, and not start spreading rumors. You're lucky I helped, by the way, after how you snapped at me. There were three orange keys, if you must know. But your apprentice convinced me not to go too hard on you."

That's a huge load of words for Julian's fevered brain, but they're meant to ground him, not to make conversation. He nods, mutters something that sounds like "sorry I was snappy" and "work to do"…

"You'll have plenty of time to work when you're back on your feet," she retorts, and takes the wet cloth that rests on his forehead to refresh it in the water basin, on the chair besides the cot.

"'was almost there…" he whispers, but the end of the sentence is lost to us as he drifts back to sleep. Mazelinka carries on with the cloth, running it over his cheeks, behind his neck, and across his long torso. I do my best not to blush at the sight of his wiry, muscular body, hoping that she will not notice. My! Good thing that I'm not a real doctor! As soon as we beat this thing, I'm back to spells and potions. When the old woman has finished, she dips the cloth into the basin once more and lets it rest on Julian's forehead. He winces, and she puts a hand in his hair to stroke it gently.

"So he teaches you the art?" she asks out of the blue.

"The art?" I echo, confused. "Oh, he… Well, yes. But I'm not a doctor, I'm a magician."

She raises an eyebrow. "Really?"

Her surprise says it all. It's public knowledge that Julian dislikes magic, and not only, as gossip would have it, because it frightens him. He loves observation, science, human contact… Perhaps he doesn't comprehend how much magic can work likewise when you master it, but I think he finds the mere idea of helping people using only his bare hands and nature's gifts fascinating. Yet he didn't reject me when I knocked at his door, all those weeks ago. There's not been much time for proper lectures of course, let alone long studies in the library. Still, he shows me, and each move, each comment, he makes in the intention of sharing his knowledge.

Sometimes, I wonder if the reason I like him isn't simply that he's so different from Asra. Extroverted, talkative, so committed to his job that he makes it look like a calling, emotional, sarcastic, nervous… and brave. Not that Asra had ever been a coward, no matter what I might have implied when we parted, but Julian…

Julian stayed.

And I know it's not the same. Julian is a doctor. He had to remain in the city. I'm also very aware that his courage is self-destructive and reckless. As long as there is no cure, leaving Vesuvia before the disease spread and other towns introduced quarantine measures may have been the most sensible thing to do.

Still, we're saving lives. Not those who are ill already, but those close to them. We send them away, we treat them well, in decent isolation conditions. Some never get the symptoms, and the sick… We take care of them till the end. Often, Julian spends entire nights at a child's bedside, telling them stories, joking with them, holding their hands when they draw their last breath… That makes a difference.

"I wanted to help," I tell Mazelinka, eventually. "I couldn't just stay in my shop, reading cards for the desperate. As if we didn't all know the outcome already. I had to do something useful."

"That's very generous. I get what he sees in you."

"What he…?" I stop myself in time, yet don't miss her smirk. Has Julian discussed me with her? How close are they? She acts like a grandmother to him.

I chase away this thought. Even if he did mention me, I very much doubt that he spared the time to elaborate. Usually, he gets so lost in his job that he doesn't see anything that's around him. There's no room for romance in his life.

I'm not sure there's any in mine either

"He was supposed to meet with Valdemar this evening," I say, mostly to change the subject. She frowns and I elaborate: "They have… differing views on scientific research."

Meaning that Julians favors dissecting dead bodies.

"I will take care of that," she decides.

I fail to see how, but Julians mutters something in his sleep, and I move to refresh the cloth.

x

His fever goes down, eventually. It doesn't break, but is sufficiently lowered that Mazelinka agrees to leave me alone with my patient.

"Keep an eye on him," she says, and gestures to the little stove in the corner. "My tea is ready. Give him some when he wakes up. If he asks, tell him that I went to Valdemar and he has nothing to worry about."

"What will you do?"

She winks and pats the pouch at her belt. A strong smell of herbs fills the air.

"I have my ways."

It's my turn to frown. She must sense my suspicions, because she amends: "I won't alter his memories or his feelings. Just mess a bit with his perception of time."

I nod unenthusiastically. It is an age of compromises. I can feel that we are closer to finding a cure as ever, and we need Valdemar on our side to pursue our research. For some reason, I trust Mazelinka to get to the powerful, freaking terrifying courtier and protect us from them.

She's gone for half an hour when Julian's eyes flutter open again. It takes a moment for his clear-ish gaze to settle on me.

"Hi there," I say.

"Maze?"

"No, it's me, Doctor Devorak. Your apprentice."

He blinks furiously, a bit like when he's had too much to drink, and I refrain from chuckling.

"Oh," he goes eventually. "That's fine. You're nice too."

"Well, how sweet of you to notice."

An awkward silence threatens to settle, and I reach for the cloth. By reflex, he raises his own hand in the same direction and our fingers brush. I take his without thinking.

"It's all right," I say. "Just changing your compress."

He nods, and I release his hand to take the thing off his forehead. When I move it back into place, he closes his eyes before reopening them immediately.

"Mazelinka was there?"

"Yes. Don't worry, she went to Valdemar and…"

"What?"

He tries to sit and sways, almost falling from the cot. I manage to catch him in time but he doesn't lie back.

"Doctor Devorak," I admonish him. "You have to rest."

I'm not surprised that he fears for his friend, but the intensity of his reaction is unsettling, even by his own standards.

"She can't…" he starts, then seems to change his mind: "I can't wait for more… no... I… That's not it!"

"What's not it?"

"It… it… I was almost… He told me!"

"Who told you what?"

I'm not convinced it's a bright idea to play along, but, with his… uneasiness regarding anything magic, I won't threaten to sedate him.

Yet.

Besides, he looks so lost I don't have the heart to argue.

"I… I was almost there! He told me but I couldn't hear and… and I ran but I… I don't know what to do!"

"You were dreaming..."

"No! I… I… I'm not sure," he finally yields, his eyes a bit sharper. I take advantage of a respite that I guess will be brief:

"Doctor Devorak. You should lie down. You've been delirious for three hours and..."

I bite my lip. Stupid! Reminding him of time lost seems like a perfect way to send him back into another frenzy. But he merely blinks, exhaustion taking over, and lets my hand guide him down to the mattress.

"I don't feel so good."

I sigh, and start stroking his hair like Mazelinka had. Maybe I'm overstepping, but the movement does soothe him. He closes his eyes.

There's half a minute of silence before he opens them again and I brace myself for the next battle, but he only mutters: "You can call me Julian, you know.".

"Right. Julian. Mazelinka made some tea for you. Think I can go get it without you trying to escape?"

He snorts with - I believe - some of his usual humor. I make it to the stove, pour some infusion into a bowl and come back quickly, the heat burning my fingers through the clay. My precautions are pointless, though. When I reach his side, he's pretty out of it. I wait patiently for the tea to cool down, before shaking his shoulder to rouse him.

"Mmm… What?"

"Your medicine. Drink, and you can go back to sleep."

He complies obligingly, and let his head slump back into the pillow.

"You know…" he sighs. "I think I'm sick."

I find myself smiling:

"It's OK, Julian, I'll take care of you. Don't worry. I had a good teacher."

THE END.

x

So, basically, I wanted to try my hand on some pure, slightly overindulgent, H/C fic. I've been playing The Arcana game for some time, and poor Julian is really the kind of character you want to comfort, isn't he?
I might write another story about his pirate days. We'll see :)