"Hawke. You have a fever."
"It's a fever, Fenris, I'm not dying of the plague."
"You absolutely cannot go to the store."
"I have surgical masks!" Hawke argued. "And I'll stay six feet away from anyone else!"
"No. Not even over my dead body," Fenris said, grabbing the thermometer out of the bathroom cabinet. Hawke sat on the edge of the bathtub behind him, waiting impatiently for her temperature to be taken (again- for the third time that day. Fenris was nothing if not a dutiful nurse).
Fenris put the thermometer under her tongue and waited for the beep, looking at the results with a low grunt. "It looks like your fever is going down, but you're absolutely not going anywhere until this goes away."
Hawke had known going to the bar was a bad idea, especially with the pandemic everywhere, but Varric had insisted on one last night together before the Hanged Man closed. "Just the usual crew!" he had said. "It'll be perfectly safe! We'll have a quarantine party."
Well, now Hawke and Merrill had both come down with fevers and a cough. Fenris, who hadn't gone out of his dedication to social distancing, had harrumphed as usual and told Hawke it was a bad idea. "Kirkwall is one of the cities with the highest infection rates, Hawke," he had said. And he had been right. Poor overworked Anders hadn't gone either- his clinic was stuffed to the brim with patients who had coughed once and wanted to be tested out of an overabundance of caution.
Hawke sighed. "We don't really need anything anyway, I just wanted to leave the house." She got up from the edge of the bathtub and hugged Fenris from behind, putting her chin on his shoulder. "Isabela said Merrill is getting better, too. Maybe we can have them over? Just those two? It's not like I can get Merrill any sicker."
"Not a chance," Fenris said without missing a beat, shrugging his way out of the hug. He washed the thermometer and put it back in the cabinet. "And tell Isabela to stop dropping off toilet paper. I don't know where she keeps getting it from, but we have plenty."
Hawke coughed into her elbow. She tried to cough delicately, like tuberculosis patients in Victorian books, but what came out sounded like the hacking noise an aging smoker would make. Fenris looked at her with worry in his eyes. "You're going back to bed," he said- a command, not a request. Hawke saluted him.
"Sir yes sir," she said, coughing again. She walked into the bedroom and put a hand on her head dramatically.
"Oh dear sir, I fear I have contracted the plague! I will not be long for this world," she said, playing up her Fereldan accent. She was trying to go for the 'damsel in distress' angle but sounded more like her old backcountry neighbors.
"Is this your idea of roleplay?" Fenris asked, a rare smile quirking at his mouth.
"Why, do you like it? I can play up the coughing if that's what you're into."
"I would really be into you laying down and napping, Hawke."
Just then a knock sounded at the door.
"If that's Isabela with more toilet paper, I'm banning her from ever coming back," Fenris said. Hawke dutifully laid down and tried to get some rest while Fenris walked into the living room to answer the door.
Fenris reached the door when a voice sounded out.
"It's just me!" Varric yelled from the other side. "Just coming to check on you! You don't even have to open the door, Broody."
"What do you want?" Fenris yelled back.
"Just bringing some food and gossip! Rivaini said Merrill is getting better, but apparently Isabela's coming down with a fever too. They told me to ask if it's okay if they stay with you for a while."
"Yes, it is!" Hawke yelled from the bedroom at the same time Fenris said "No, it is not okay." Varric audibly paused outside the door.
"Just text them when you've decided," Varric yelled. "I'm dropping off some soup for Hawke, too. If you get better soon, I might even let you read the novel I'm working on." Fenris waited for Varric to leave before opening the door and picking up the Tupperware of chicken noodle soup left on the doorstep.
Hawke was already behind him as he turned around. For someone as clumsy as she was, the woman could be incredibly quiet when she wanted to be.
"We have to let them stay," she said. "I don't want them alone while they're both sick."
"Where would they stay?" Fenris asked. "We don't have a guest bedroom, Hawke. This apartment is too small."
Hawke winced at the reminder. All the family money left over when her mother had passed was going towards her brother Carver's college at the moment, and neither of them brought in much income from their odd jobs.
"They can sleep on the couches or something," Hawke said. "We'll figure it out. I can't leave them alone when they're both sick, Fenris." Fenris considered this for a second, still holding the container of soup. Hawke took it from him and walked into the kitchen to put the Tupperware in the fridge. It was full of takeout leftovers and Jell-O shots (leftovers from the quarantine party) but Hawke made room.
"Fine," Fenris yelled from the living room. "But only if you take a nap. And tell them to bring their own food."
Hawke walked back into the living room to blow him an air kiss.
"You're the best!" she said, plopping herself down on the couch. "I'll text Isabela and let her know. Now put on a sitcom and let's nap."