Snot burbled out of every orifice on my face. Blowing my nose only seemed to lodge it deeper up the crevices until I feared it clawed its way upwards to rest upon my brain. My life shifted from fire spells, demons, and war reports to bedrest, boredom, and bowls in the blink of an eye. Bowls of every kind filled the table near my grasping fingers. My actual desk was too far away and the nightstand buckled from the weight so my sickbed table was formed from three barrels shoved together. A great blue bowl held broth glutted with chunks of whatever leftover animal flesh the chef could scrape off bone, all of it bobbing on the oily surface. Beside it was another green bowl, slightly smaller but not significantly enough. A putrid scent of decaying fungus and wormwart was mashed into a poultice designed to open up the airflow in my lungs. I only needed to spread it across my chest and try to not gag to death on the scent.
I left both to cool forlornly on the barrels after mixing them up. Miserableness rolled in my lungs, cracking already broken skin along my lips as another cough rattled through my body. Josephine had smiled politely from clear across the room at my predicament and said kindly, "It seems to be going around, I'm afraid. Take some time to heal."
That felt a lifetime ago. Not just a lifetime, but a resurrection, death, and re-resurrection ago. Stained kerchiefs swarmed around my body like an invading army of clouds. The only thing halting their flanking attack was the basin I'd glare into, trying to will myself to, "Get plenty of fluids."
It seemed no problem to the human with a functioning throat, but a droplet of liquid ripped mine into a fiery rage as if someone cast a wall of flame down my yearning tongue. Still, I needed to get better, and my own magic wasn't doing anything but distracting me. I raised a small ladle to my lips and sipped the tepid water. Pain responded to the attempt, always eager to join in the fun. The ladle clattered from my fingers back into the metal pan. Shoving aside the other bowls, I added the basin to my table. The move was too much for the limited space and something had to give. Books clattered to the floor, their spines bouncing off the icy stones.
Gifts from parties interested in my healing. I inched out of the bed, my frozen fingers skimming along the leather covers as I scooped them up. Ah yes, the first was some political intrigue one from Leliana, though she insisted it got better at the back half when the killings began. She especially enjoyed the attention to detail - the 'fifteen pages describing one duchess' dress' kind of attention to detail. The second was one from Dorian, a thin tome that he claimed was biting in its wit against the upper echelons of Tevinter society. It became oh so less funny when I reached the part about the elven slaves buried to their necks like cobblestones so the poor magister's feet didn't get wet from his bathtub overflowing.
Weighing the book in my hand, I wondered how much mana I'd have to expend to combust it instantly. Probably too much to make it worth the effort but it was tempting. Instead, I chucked it beside my bed, satisfied with the smack the book made against the wall. The final tome came courtesy of the Commander. Anyone would probably expect the man who bled regulations and slept in his armor to volunteer up some great war story as dry as toast, but the pages behind the blue and gold cover were all animal yarns. And not harrowing tales of how to escape rampaging dragons, or droll text on the best means of utilizing a ram's carcass. They were quaint, folksy trials & tribulations from some old farmer turned writer who just put down his memoirs as something to do during the winter months and was shocked to find people loved reading them. It was the only one I'd paged through twice now.
Below me, I heard the sounds of my lonely quarters door cracking open, the feet moving up the stairs as soft as snow. Absently, I wadded up my kerchief army then tossed them towards Dorian's book. Let the buffoonish magister deal with that. Snuggling deeper into my quilt, I turned to the stairs to watch a bald head rise to great me.
"Solas?" Saying his name caught the fact in my brain and a blush rose up my pallid cheeks. That was the last person I wanted to see me in this sorry state, though the first I wanted to see.
"Vhenan," he said, his signature mystical smile in place. "There is talk you suffer from an illness."
"More than talk," I snuffled, my voice beaten to a languid and flat tone from the mucus.
"Indeed," he bowed his head from my poor appearance. I hadn't bothered to attend to my hair in two days, a bird's nest becoming a dragon's roost from nights tossing and turning while the snot encouraged insomnia. I didn't have proof, but I could already imagine the flush burning up my nose from the constant wiping and red rimming my eyes. Rather than grimace or turn and flee, he stepped towards my bed, his feet gracefully covering the space I'd trapped with all manner of sick bed accouterments.
I sat up, trying to wiggle out from under the blanket, but Solas caught my hand. His skin was always preternaturally cold, but mine now froze in comparison to his warm grip. His soft smile twisted to compassion at my bedraggled appearance, and he ran a finger along my forehead. I tried to not sigh at the touch, afraid of the pain in my throat and whatever smell a diet of broth and poultices would create. Solas folded primly up at the edge of the bed, his back butting close to my twisted chest.
I struggled up higher and spoke, "You've come because you have a spell to rid me of this cursed thing?"
Solas laughed once, "I am sorry, but I have none."
"All your time in the fade with spirits, and ancient magics, and..." I began, grasping at straws. I'd tried my own feeble healing attempts but the best I could do was fight the symptoms themselves for a few minutes, expending even more of my natural energy for the spell. It only doomed me to take even longer to get better - which was why most healing mages wore a pallor around their baggy eyes. Sagging back onto the pillow, I drew my arms across my chest, a pout lifting up my lip, "We can knit bone, revive stolen breath, but cure one tiny little cold and every mage throws their hands up and abandons hope."
Solas sighed, aware of the illogical predicament. He wasn't immune to the cursed things anymore than I or any other mage was. Which raised the question of why he crossed the quarantine Josephine threw up around my door. She said it was just a little sign asking people to be quiet while the Inquisitor got her rest, but judging by the fact no one had approached my room in days save the sudden appearance of the bowls it must have been in jagged ten foot high lettering with a skull for good measure.
Struggling higher and regretting it as exhaustion gripped my brain, I held onto my head and asked, "Why did you come here, then?"
Those crystal blue eyes softened as he scooted deeper onto the bed, his own shoeless feet dangling off the floor. "I may not have a spell to cure you, but I know something that could help."
"Oh?" I'd tried everything Skyhold could muster short of Blackwall's oh so helpful idea of diving back in the frigid waters that started this whole thing. Puts hairs on your chest and clears the humors. That's nice and all, but I'm an elf, and my humors were just fine the way they were.
Solas shifted and crawled along my bed until he sat beside me, his rigid back pressed against the wall. Even as I watched him with a question on my lips, he scooped an arm around my rattled shoulder and pulled me closer until my head rested upon his chest. One arm reached around to cup my stomach while the other dangled upon my shoulder. His reedy body rose and fell as certain as the sunrise with each deep breath, and that sweater he was never without was softer than all the bedding in Orlais. I snuggled deeper into him, an undiscovered warmth flowing up through his core tempting me to blissful sleep.
Even as I clung tighter, my fingers gripping onto his taut thigh, I had to ask, "Aren't you afraid of catching this too?"
His fingers rose from my shoulder and tried to comb my hair, but nothing short of a bottle of oil, a pitchfork, and prayer was going to do it. "No," he whispered softly, giving up on his attempts and lightly rubbing my arm instead.
"If I get you sick I'll feel terrible," I said aloud.
"Then I shall do everything in my power to not," Solas chuckled softly. His breathing slowed as he tipped his head back against the wall. My own head slipped lower down his chest, burrowing into that thin stomach. There was nothing in Solas that was excess, not in his body nor his words. Every movement, every choice seemed to come after careful deliberation. I wondered sometimes what he'd look like if he fell to debauchery, especially if Varric got his wish, but it seemed an impossible idea. Like the sun transforming into the moon. It wouldn't be Solas.
His fine fingers worked into the crux of my neck, digging into muscles knotted from the night sleeping at awkward angles to capture breath. I almost felt foolish, moaning in pleasure on my sick bed from the machinations of my...we never quite worked that out. He was so quick to throw out platitudes, never to shy away from speaking of what settled in his heart, but out of all our few stolen moments when bodies met, this was our most intimate. I felt stripped bare despite swimming in a nightgown with purple nugs for embroidery.
"You must have done this before," I mused, rolling back into his fingers and gripping tighter to his midsection. His hipbones poked out below my hand like porcelain plates, thin but unbendable.
"Hm..." he murmured, his fingers shifting to my other shoulder burrowed into him. I should move to make it easier on him, but the softness of his sweater had me ensnared. Movement was impossible.
"Walking through the fire of a sick bed, looking upon me in this state, letting me rest my head against you...not many people would do that," I said, my words lapping like waves from the implications lurking in their depths. So many others would rightly turn, leave me to my own battles alone, but Solas ignored the danger - even if the greatest threat was just a few nights of mucus - to sit by my side. Every moment when I thought I understood his curt words, the cold sneer, or logical decisions, he surprised me.
"It is not the first time I've been called on to soothe someone," he answered, his words giving away little, but there was pain in the back - an old one stirred up from his depths.
I tried to sit up, but he rubbed along my arms, his chin bumping into the back of my head as I settled down. "Oh? Did you give succor to other sick elves before joining the Inquisition?" His past wasn't just a shroud but something he passed off as uninteresting and uneventful, measured only as time spent not traversing the fade. But that made him all the more enigmatic, a riddle I'd have to wait to find the answer to.
Solas tipped his head back, a sigh rumbling in his throat. "There are many hurts in the world that need healing. I'm afraid I cannot handle them all."
Now I rose up, my fingers skirting along his cheek. He turned to me, that crystal stare winnowing down to my marrow. "It's all right. Whatever you can't get, I'll pick up the rest."
He chuckled silently and tipped his head, "As you say. There are few in Thedas I'd believe such a bold claim from, but you..." I settled back onto his chest. Solas rolled down with me, his head resting upon the pillow, I resting upon him. "You are something special, Vhenan."
Sleep rose from its vengeful grave - last I'd left it, the Fade projected my Keeper dressed like Corypheus insisting I was late for afternoon tea. I swore off the poultice after that dream, and also checked under the bed just to make certain there were no homicidal white rabbits.
"Solas?" I mumbled, twisting over so I didn't drool onto his white sweater. "Do you intend to remain here?"
He didn't respond for a moment, his fingers working through my knotted hair, trying to soothe it down to shape. When his voice broke it was quiet, a whisper that bore the strength of nations with its promise, "For as long as I can."