Pre-slash.

Theme provided by: Kioko Yasu

Rating: G

035. Fever

Seifer lived on his own, his adoptive parents having sent him to Twilight Town after he'd nearly gotten killed fighting in his home city of Traverse. They still had to work in the city, deciding it was just easier to set him up in an apartment after he'd manage to convince them he could handle living alone. He was sixteen after all, he didn't need anyone holding his hand. His old friends had moved to the same place just a year prior, so he wasn't completely alone in the new town.

But despite his connection with his posse, he was still the only one responsible for himself, and as such there was no one around to tell him he should stay home from school if he was sick. He wasn't necessarily a good student, but he skipped when he actually had something to do, and today was not one of those days. Both Fuu and Rai were absent, along with close to half of most of his classes, apparently the flu was particularly virulent this year. Hayner, of course, was in perfect health and all too chipper for the bully's tastes. If he didn't feel so dizzy he would have punched the sandy-blond on principle.

He knew at some point he had started running a fever, because by the end of the day he had his chills nearly timed. Sitting down on a bench in the Sandlot to catch his breath, still having half a mile to go before he got home, he sighed. Leave it to a microscopic non-living thing to weaken him to the point where he struggled to walk. He could handle a guy twice his size easily, but not a flood of viruses in his blood stream and the immune response to them. It was a fascinating perpetual irony about multicellular life in general. Closing his eyes for just a moment, he slipped away.

When he woke up, his mouth was dry, his head ached, and he was in his bed. Confused, he sat up, discovering it was noon and judging by the sounds from outside his room, he wasn't alone. Standing unsteadily, he walked out towards his kitchen, finding none other than Hayner Dincht in his kitchen making soup. Blinking, certain he was having a fever dream, he stood there for several seconds before the younger blond turned to find him.

"You're still alive. It's Thursday, by the way, you've been in and out for almost two whole days," he explained simply, face betraying no knowledge of how ridiculous him even being here was.

"So, what, you carried me home and decided to play nurse?" He asked, incredulous.

"More like dragged, you're pretty heavy. Also stupid, showing up to school as sick as you were. Fuu and Rai are in similar condition, so they couldn't take care of you, and I wasn't about to just leave you here to die. You were pretty delirious from fever for twelve hours before it finally broke, I'd be surprised if you remember being awake then. My mom called me in today."

"Even if you felt an obligation to help me because I was sick, I thought you hated me, why would you stay here with me after my fever broke?"

"Why on earth would you think I hated you? Just because we fight doesn't mean we hate each other, hell, sometimes I'd call us friends. How are you feeling now, hungry?"

"Yeah, actually. I still don't get you though."

They ate in relative silence, Seifer honestly not knowing what to say. It was absurd for anyone to go this far for a person they barely knew, even more so when he considered how little he had done to help the other in the past. Saving him from a few nasty fights was hardly on the same level as taking care of the scarred man for almost two days. Ignoring it lest he worsen his headache, he let the smaller teen shove him back towards his bedroom once they were done eating. Smirking, the larger of the two dragged him into the bed with him, holding him down until he stopped struggling. If he knew Hayner, the other hadn't slept much if at all since they'd gotten here.

"If you don't rest you'll just get sick too, chickie."

"You're going to get your germs on me, weirdo," he huffed half-heartedly.

"Considering half the student body is sick and you've been taking care of me besides, pretty damn late for that. Only thing you can do now is get enough sleep to fight it off."

He settled down and curled up slightly in Seifer's arms, and though the bully didn't originally intend to sleep quite like this, he found he didn't really mind. Exhausted, it was easy for him to drift back off.

Hayner left the next morning once he was sure the blue-eyed teen was well enough to survive on his own. They didn't talk about the whole incident again, at least not specifically, but things were much more amiable between them. And when the tan skater was home sick the next week, it didn't surprise anyone when Seifer showed up at his house to return the favor. It was pretty much his fault the other was sick, after all.