A/N: *showers thank you's and gives a chocobo to each reviewers*: Drink. Juice, Nymphadora17, chiharu-tanaka, omegarulesall, Difficile, and Puggles Master.

Well, I started writing this prompt ages ago, before I ever wrote Penelo getting sick and Vaan watching over her way back…whenever I posted that one. But I figured since I wrote a sick Penelo one, I might as well finish the sick Vaan one. ;) This one's very different, though. Sick Penelo was very serious, and sick Vaan is…well, not. ;)

Prompt #46 - Care

"Just where do you think you're going?" Penelo demanded as Vaan tried to stealthily creep past the door to the tiny study in their apartment. She set down her pen, leaving a half-finished letter to Larsa on the small desk, and stood.

Vaan was standing--barely--against the wall, gripping the doorframe to the study with shaky hands. "Uhhh…out?" he mumbled, his voice thick and hoarse. He blinked at her with bleary eyes.

"Vaan, you are a mess. You shouldn't even be out of bed." Penelo looped her arm around his waist, grimacing when she felt how hot his skin was. The heat seeped through his clothing and she was sure she was going to break out in a sweat just at his touch.

"I'm fine, Penelo," he grumbled, stumbling over his own feet and nearly knocking her into the wall.

"You're sick."

"I'm not sick."

"Then what's wrong with you?"

"I'm just…uh…"

"See, you can't even come up with some stupid comeback. You're really sick." Penelo managed to get him to their bed and didn't even have to push him onto it. All she did was let go, and he collapsed in a heap on it, his legs dangling off the side of the bed.

"Vaan," Penelo groaned, hefting his legs up onto the bed, "you have to stay here until you're better."

"But I'm just fine, Penelo," he mumbled indistinctly, his eyes already closing. "Just gotta make some lediverlies."

"Some what?"

Vaan frowned and looked confused. "What?"

"I think you were trying to say 'deliveries.' You can't even talk properly. Go to sleep. No one wants us delivering anything when you'd pass out and crash. I don't want you delivering anything when you'd pass out and crash, especially since, you know, I'm your navigator. I kind of like being alive."

Vaan was sprawled across the entire bed, and didn't look like he'd be moving any time soon. He had probably used up all his energy just trying to make it down the hall, for whatever he thought he was doing. He certainly wasn't coherent.

"Mmm…Penelo…" Vaan said, swallowing thickly, straining to keep his eyelids open.

"Yes?" she asked patiently, leaning over him.

"You're really pretty."

"Thank you."

"I mean, really, really pretty." He managed to pry one eye open and was staring at her feverishly. "You…look good in green."

Penelo's eyebrows shot up and she looked down at her clothes. "I'm not wearing green." She bit her lip and frowned at him worriedly. She brushed her fingers over his forehead, murmuring a Cure spell as she did so. It wouldn't get rid of his illness--Cure spells couldn't get rid of a cold or virus, but it could, at least, ease any aches he might have. "Try to get some sleep, Vaan? For me?"

"Mm-kay."

Penelo waited until his eyes drifted closed, and then crept quietly out of the room. She was halfway down the hall when she heard a low singing coming from the bedroom. She stopped to listen and heard Vaan's attempt to sing a popular tune. He actually had a very decent voice, but he only knew about a quarter of the lyrics, so he just threw in a bunch of ridiculous nonsense to fill in all the missing parts. She heard him sing something about dancing chocobos and a drunk moogle.

Shaking her head, she continued onto the study and slid back into the chair. She picked up the pen and continued writing to Larsa, but her mind was on Vaan and she kept an ear out for him. She had just finished and was signing her name when she caught sight of Vaan lurching past the door again. It didn't look like he was even attempting to sneak, but more like he was bouncing from one wall to the next as he tried to keep his balance.

Penelo stood quickly to her feet and ran into the hallway, but didn't get there before Vaan crashed face-first into the floor.

"Vaan!" She dropped to her knees beside him.

He groaned and rolled over. His eyes were half-closed and still completely glazed with fever. "Owww…" he mumbled.

"Vaan, can't you even stay in bed for one day?" Penelo tried to heave him to his feet, but he wasn't helping and she couldn't lift him. "Come on."

"Mm, no." Vaan smiled at her, a very dazed, silly sort of smile. "How about you come down here with me?" He waved his arms at her, possibly in an attempt to grab her, but he missed wildly. He frowned and squinted. "Where'd you go?"

"Oh, Vaan." If she hadn't been so worried about him, she would have burst out laughing. "If I come back to the bed with you for a little while, will you promise to stay there? Or am I going to have to start casting Immobilize on you?"

"Okay." But he was still smiling that funny smile, and he lay back on the floor and closed his eyes.

It took Penelo a minute to wake him up enough to drag him back to his feet, and then just as difficult to get him back to the bed. Once she had him lying down properly again, she sat next to him, leaning against her pillow. Vaan rolled over enough to put his head on her legs, and then he was falling asleep again.

Penelo sighed and ran her fingers rhythmically through his hair until she was certain he was deeply asleep. Then she slipped carefully out of the bed, gently kissed him on his hot forehead, and crept out of the room. She went back to the study and distractedly rolled up the finished letter, ready to be mailed out as soon as Vaan was better.

:--:--:

Several days later, Larsa looked up from Penelo's latest letter with a strange look on his face. The first part of it made perfect sense, but the last part was a bit jumbled and had several very odd phrases in it. He glanced at Basch, then at the letter, before handing it silently to the knight. "Perhaps you can make some sense of this?"

Basch began to read it, and his eyebrows went up. "'Vaan and I are planning to go see a drunk moogle.'"

"Indeed."

Basch continued to read it. "'We should be stopping by Archades sometime soon, and I can't wait to see the renovations in Old Archades. I hope your chocobos are dancing well.'" Then understanding dawned on his face and he nodded. As if it explained everything, he said, "Ah. She said Vaan is sick." He handed the letter back to Larsa and smiled slightly.

Larsa stared at Basch, then at the letter, and then shook his head slightly. Getting a fresh sheet of paper, he began writing.

Dear Penelo...

:--:--:

"Is that a letter from Larsa?" Vaan asked as Penelo returned from her errands and sat down at the table with a letter in hand. He grabbed a starfruit and plopped down across the table from her.

"Yes." Penelo opened it, but she hadn't even started to read it when Vaan snatched it out of her hands. "Hey!"

"Ah, you know you were going to let me read it anyway. He's my friend, too." Vaan took a bite of the fruit and dripped juice on the parchment. "Oops." He swallowed and cleared his throat. "'Dear Penelo, I hope your drunk moogle friend is well'--what?"

"What?" Penelo exclaimed at the exact same moment, and she grabbed it back from Vaan. She quickly skimmed the letter and then she dropped it on the table and groaned. "Vaan! It was--your song! The dancing chocobos and the drunk moogle and--I must have been putting bits of it into the letter I was writing!"

"What are you talking about?"

Penelo was trying to decide whether she should be irritated at herself or just laugh. She had a sudden flash of the look of bafflement that had probably been on Larsa's face upon reading her letter and burst into giggles. Before Vaan could do more than get out a confused, "Penelo, what--" she had stood up and gone over to him, flinging her arms around his head and dropping a kiss onto the top of it. "This is all your fault. I can't think straight when you're sick and delirious." She peeked at the letter and laughed some more. "Consider it a mark of how much I love you."

And she left him sitting at the table, wondering what a drunk moogle had to do with how much she loved him and muttering, "I didn't know chocobos could dance!"