Fever
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A.N. I wish I had more time to write again. This was just a rushed, one day thing that I wanted to get off my chest. It's not exactly how I'd do it again if I was affording myself more than just one day in a blue moon to write. But it was fun to do on my day off. So, enjoy :)
...
It was a warm morning, still and quiet in juxtaposition to the hectic day and its plans lying patiently in wait ahead. A dance competition, in itself not unusual. But a rare chance to simultaneously triumph over a small but significant handful of rivals and critics. Taye and her sister. Mo, and his boy-wonder. Emilia and Bodie. There had even been rumours that the Ninjas would show.
They were long overdue it. Too many things had gone wrong this year, things out of either of their control, really. Injuries and family dramas, and at times just horrid luck. They'd missed more chances to perform than they had taken, much more. And rumours were beginning to circulate, implications too personal to be able to just ignore casually. That Lu$h Crew were nothing but a farce hiding a shambled relationship between two ill-fitted characters. It was melodrama to the max, and Aubrey planned to put an end to it indefinitely, today.
So when she'd gotten the text message, she had been surprised, at the absolute least.
It brought her phone to life ten minutes before her alarm was due to set off, but Aubrey was already awake, wide-eyed and staring at the wall, her mind off entirely in a whirlwind of silent, jumbled thoughts. She jumped when her pillow vibrated though, and her stomach did a little flip. It was Angel, it had to be. He'd broken his leg, the family dog had died, the world was ending in a hail of brimstone, God knows but already Aubrey was geared for the worst. The whimsical daydreaming that she had been enveloped in just a moment ago, of dancing solo and screw the rules she'd win it all on her own anyway if that's what it had to take, evaporated like water on a Texas sidewalk in July.
Except the text wasn't from Angel.
"Emergency, please come round…? Feeling sick, Em x :("
She started at the message, hard. Aubrey hadn't spoken to Emilia in over a month. They'd had a fight, of sorts, and it was a tearful and hurt Emilia, looking at her as she had the last time she'd laid eyes on her, that immediately swam to mind. Suddenly she was overwhelmed by memories, and by a soul-crushing guilt.
Aubrey had been hearing rumours grow more and more specific over the summer, about her and Angel. About how Aubrey was cheating on him and how Angel had neither the backbone nor the will to confront Aubrey about it. The almost hilarious thing was that Aubrey and Angel had never started a relationship to begin with. They had flirted, and danced around an initial attraction. But, quite naturally, nothing had ever developed between them. They jostled each other, on stage mainly, almost like they were doing bit-characters. It was supposed to be funny, to bring a bit of personality to their performances and their rep, nothing more than as a tongue-in-cheek hoopla. In retrospect, Aubrey figured it was this that had started the rumours and the backfire. She was becoming very familiar with regret.
Because Aubrey had blamed Emilia instead. Quite specifically, loudly, and publically one night in a bar. They'd all gone out to let off steam together and to catch up, where Lu$h in particular had been largely missing from the scene over the summer due to Angel twisting his ankle, and Aubrey having to go home to visit her at-the-time sick father.
Riptide, Flash4wrd, Hi Def, and Lu$h. Even Dare and MacCoy, though teasingly all night they refused to neither confirm nor deny the rumour that they might be forming to make a much anticipated crew themselves together.
They'd been drinking, dancing, talking, laughing. Emilia had been teasing Bodie, then they'd been play-wresting, Bodie trapping Emilia in a headlock, tousling her hair roughly. She'd been shrieking with laughter, trying to twist and poke him in the side to get him to break his hold. There were no rumours circulating their relationship, Aubrey had reflected, watching sullenly from a table where she sat with Taye in conversation. Everybody knew of Riptide's rock-solid friendship, nobody ever assumed there might be more to it, or anything illicit hiding underneath a false bravado. Because there wasn't. Bodie had garnered nothing but affection and respect since Emilia had brought him into the scene and declared him her crewmate, and although not always the winners, Riptide's cred was strong and admired, their insatiable hunger for competition infamous.
Aubrey had listened to Taye asking her, with genuine sincerity and concern as her friend, if things really were okay between her and Angel. But she'd not been the only one to ask that night.
Eventually, splitting off from each other, Bodie had gone to the bar with the boys, and Emilia had stumbled over to Aubrey and dropped herself down beside the red head at the table. In many ways Emilia was a bane to Aubrey. Where some people found practical jokes and general foolery amusing, even endearing in a person, Aubrey found it personally offensive, and invasive. She was, to a fault, proud, and Emilia found great delight in exploiting that trait. But whether she was oblivious to the internal harm it caused Aubrey, or indeed deliberately found that as amusing, Emilia continued to show that she seemed to enjoy Aubrey's companionship, as a friend. Far more than Aubrey enjoyed her's…
So Aubrey had snapped. Jealous, frustrated, tired, stressed, and more than a little drunk, Aubrey had stood up so abruptly she'd caused Emilia to tip off her seat and crash gracelessly onto the sticky bar floor. Exactly everything of what she'd said to Emilia escaped her, but she knew it had been seething, bitter, and altogether poisonous. She had specifically, and quite vividly she remembered these bits of words now, accused Emilia of "hiding in the closest", being "pathetically ashamed of herself over something nobody cared about anymore", and using Bodie to detract people from this idea, and how did she like it now, now that somebody was talking about her for once?
Emilia had gone deathly still and pale. Almost as if she'd forgotten she was on the floor, wet from her spilled drink, her forearms scuffed from the fall. And so Aubrey left her like that, storming out of the club without even saying to Angel that she was leaving.
Now she was holding her phone, still lit up with Emilia's text, like it was a fragile glass ornament, and if she moved it would shatter in her palm.
Her fingers moved before her brain did, her perfectly manicured nails tapping at a sudden and fervent speed. She'd barely hit 'send' before she was getting out of bed and throwing on clothes.
"Okay? See you soon - $"
…
At first she thought it was just her head pounding suddenly harder, the pain causing her ears to throb with fresh ebbs of hot, feverish blood. She shifted a little under the blankets, vision blurry, nose blocked all the way down to her stomach it felt like, and throat like fire-lit sandpaper. Then it went quiet again, the pounding subsiding, and she quietly began to drift back to sleep.
Another sudden flurry of thuds. Emilia flinched and it sent dizzying white sparks across her vision, but also a flicker of irritation in her temper. She turned on the couch so she was facing the room, and realised with a mixture of relief and exhaustion that someone was at the door. Slowly she rolled off her makeshift bed and, unsteady as an infant, stood.
"Yeah, I'm coming. Hold on…"
Her voice was barely a rusty croak and clear, fresh snot poured gracelessly from her reddened nose.
The knocking was still going even as she crossed the open space and made for the front door. It wasn't so much loud as just everything ached so much. So it was with a shaky hand that she turned the key and pulled the door handle, and tried to smile as she opened the door. But the attempted grin dropped immediately away when she realised who it was.
"Aubrey?"
Despite her voice sounding like dry, running sand, it was also laden with disturbed surprise.
Aubrey herself started when Emilia opened the door. She hadn't entirely been sure what to expect, but she hadn't expected to see Emilia looking this… sick.
"You text me…" she muttered lamely, but the concern was evident in her eyes, impossible to hide. "Also, you look dreadful."
Emilia frowned, and stared hard at the floorboards between them for a second, before realising her mistake.
"Oh… I meant to text Bodie. You guys are next to each other on my phone… must have sent the text to you by accident. Sorry for wasting your time."
With some effort Emilia went to slam the door shut, but Aubrey reached out and stopped it.
"Well I'm here now, and you don't look like you should be left alone, to be quite frank."
Emilia was dressed in a pair of torn cotton shorts and a stained vest, both a washed out red colour and too big for her. She'd not had the strength nor the will to put on a bra, and she had only one sock donned. Her mass of hair was down, badly tangled and unwashed, and there was a grubby sweatband askew across her shining forehead. There was no colour in her face but for a hectic red blush across her cheekbones and dark, almost ominous brown smudges under her eyes. Still she managed to fix Aubrey with a dark look, heavy with suspicion and mistrust.
"Watch yourself. You might catch the gay if you come in."
Aubrey's breath hitched in her chest. Everything went very still for a second as a chilling blast of guilt washed over her chest. Emilia spoke with a sneer, but her exhausted eyes showed a feeling of raw hurt and betrayal that seemed as fresh as if it had all happened yesterday.
Then she started coughing.
It came over her all at once, a lung-wrenching fit that forced her to double over and clutch desperately at her sides. Her face screwed up with pain and it was all the prompt Aubrey needed to shut the door behind them and make a move.
"Come on," she spoke gently as she took Emilia's arm with a surprising tenderness and guided her back to the couch. Just before she sat her down, Aubrey swept the sweat-damp blankets that had been piled up on one side onto the floor and grabbed a fresh fleece from the back of one of the other armchairs. She stopped Emilia from lying down, and made her sit forward while the coughing continued. Her eyes watered, and the sides of her mouth frothed slightly with spittle, and Aubrey felt her stomach drop with worry.
But eventually the fit passed, and Emilia went quiet and still.
In the silence Aubrey moved again. She draped the fleece over Emilia's quivering shoulders and felt her forehead. It was warm, but not alarmingly hot. She felt her throat and it was only slightly swollen. Emilia leaned unconsciously into the touch, exhausted and more than a little dizzy from the coughing. She felt like she could sleep for a week, but she was also pained with thirst and cramps.
"Can you… can you bring me some water?" she asked somewhat begrudgingly.
Aubrey's eyebrows lifted, but she jumped up.
"Yes, of course."
Emilia's apartment was primarily just one open space, not huge but ample for a single person. There were separate rooms for her bedroom and bathroom, but the living room and kitchen were differentiated only by linoleum on the floor and the work units. As Aubrey stood at the sink and poured water into the only clean glass she could find, she watched from the corner of her eye Emilia shakily lying back down again, curling into herself weakly.
"Hey," Aubrey called gently as she walked back to the couch. "Come on, you should drink something before you go back to sleep. Okay?"
Emilia barely moved though as Aubrey crouched down in front of her with the water. She hesitated, rocking on her heels nervously. She was reminded of having to visit her dad in hospital over the summer. Seeing such a large and proud figure as her own father trussed up in a hospital bed with wires and machines, and basked in a wan, artificial light so as to make him look that much sicker, had torn her up. More than once she had teetered on the edge of suffering a full nervous breakdown. She'd told no one but Angel about it, and even then she had been sparse on the details of why she was out of town, and had spent two months secretly back at home in relative isolation.
It was not so different facing Emilia now. For all of her bullheadedness and out-and-out rudeness, which Aubrey struggled to entertain on any level, Emilia was a tenacious figure and at the very least one to be admired for her relentless boldness in the world of dance. She was a force of nature, loud and unstoppable and instantly recognisable to so many people. In many ways, the past month had been too quiet without her. And now, to see her lackluster and almost voiceless, it was horribly wrong.
Aubrey set the glass down on the floor, and took a moment to breathe deeply and consider more calmly this girl who once might have been very close to actually becoming her friend.
"Come on," she spoke finally, and Emilia's eyes flickered opened again at her gentle but firm voice. "It'll do you no good to just go back to sleep right now. You need fluids, and food, and clean clothes and fresh sheets to lie on. Quite honestly, you look barbaric at the moment."
Aubrey slid her hand under Emilia's shoulder and carefully forced her to sit back up. Emilia moaned loudly, but Aubrey thought she heard the sound of overacting, and she bit back a smile.
"Here…" She sat herself next to Emilia and handed her the water. Shakily and wordlessly Emilia took it and drank, at first with small, painful sips, but then more rapidly and greedily. Aubrey snatched the glass back and frowned.
"You'll make yourself sick! Take it easy."
Emilia wiped the back of her hand across her mouth slowly and scowled.
"What would you care?" she challenged with sudden vigor in her rehydrated voice, as she took the water back and drank again. Aubrey looked at the floor with a frustrated frown.
"Emilia… Look, I'm sorry. I am, I'm so… profoundly mortified at what I said. It was disgusting. And cruel, and although it's no excuse, I only said it because… well because I was jealous, to be quite frank."
Emilia leant down and put the glass on the floor, but as she went to sit back up and face Aubrey with a round of a few choice words, a sudden wave of nausea overpowered her, and she stood up rapidly instead.
"Ihavetohurl!" she slurred and hobbled to the bathroom as fast as her aching body would go. A moment later and Aubrey could hear her retching. For a second she sat awkwardly alone on the couch, and then she followed.
She stood hesitantly at the bathroom door at first, combing her fingers through her immaculate auburn fringe and watching the curve of Emilia's back hitch up and down as she coughed into the toilet, gripping it desperately. But compassion and worry overtook her coyness as a fresh wave of nausea and cramps gripped Emilia and she made a desperate whimpering noise as her stomach twisted and lurched. Aubrey came to her knees as well on the cold bathroom floor and rested a hand calmly on Emilia's back, stroking her spine steadily as another wave of sickness took hold. With her other hand she swept back Emilia's hair, and took off her sweatband. She used it to tie back her endless waves of chocolate brown hair, and then went back to stroking her spine.
It took some time, but slowly the cramps from drinking the water too fast passed, leaving Emilia empty but somewhat relieved. She rested her forehead on her arms, which were hugging the bowl, now more exhausted than even before. Aubrey's touch though sent a comforting warmth through her which lulled her temper and her anxiety at once.
She was barely aware of it until she was on her feet, but Aubrey had slung her arm over her shoulders and was encouraging her to walk back into the living room, leaving the mess of the toilet behind them for now.
She eased Emilia back down onto the couch and this time didn't try to move her when she curled into herself and closed her eyes. She was still warm and clammy, gleaming with sweat and trembling with bone-deep exhaustion. Aubrey took the fleece again and draped it over her shoulders. She took off the one errant sock that Emilia had on before tucking her feet in. And as gently as she could, she lifted her head so she could put a soft pillow underneath it, to save her neck. Emilia muttered, but did not say anything comprehensible. Gradually the trembling calmed, as unconsciousness swept powerfully over her.
Aubrey perched on her knees again, at Emilia's head. For a moment she hesitated and did nothing, but then, almost of its own accord, her hand lifted and hovered just in front of her face. She tucked a stray lock of fringe behind Emilia's ear, and very softly, almost warily, stroked her cheek. Emilia mumbled again, frowning slightly, but then relaxed and sighed. Aubrey cupped her cheek entirely and rubbed her thumb across the feverish red mark on her cheekbone.
There was an hour until the dancers had to register for their number and place in the competition today. Aubrey was only a half hour drive from Emilia's place to the venue. And suddenly it occurred to her that Riptide would have to forfeit… But all of this information was nothing but a dull buzz of thought in the very back of her mind, as a concern overtook her, reasoning that she couldn't leave Emilia alone like this. That she had to phone Bodie to warn him not to register, lest a forfeit make them look like idiots, or compromise their integrity.
Emilia drew a deep breath and let out a languid sigh. Already a little colour was coming back into her face, and her skin had cooled down. And Aubrey could do nothing but settle herself on the floor, her back resting against the couch, her shoulder next to Emilia's slumbering face.
She pulled her phone from her pocket and started to call Bodie. After that, she would order in pizza, and figure out how to work Emilia's TV… But she felt cautious optimistic that she had done more to mend her broke relationships than turning up at any competition could ever manage for her.
...
Fin