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gwiiyeoweo · 5 years

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Cor comes down with the flu, and he feels his dignity burn up along with his fever. Noctis helps, until he doesn’t.

Pairing: Cor & Noctis Rating: G

‘Ridiculous.’

The sun shines, the birds sing, the Crownsguard train outside in the tepid spring weather with their grunts and clash of steel. There’s no reports of terrorism, no alerts of Niflheim breaking through the King’s Wall, no little princes going missing or injuring themselves. For once, like an ill-begotten miracle that occurs only once every few centuries, everything's right in the world.

Which makes it all the more infuriating.

‘Absolutely ridiculous.’

Cor sits at his desk, a rare thing as of late when all he’s been doing is running across the borders of Lucis to run missions and manage their military posts. As expected, his time away from his office resulted in the backlog of papers and documents that have turned themselves into piles then into mountains. Granted, they’re not imperative, as they’ve been allowed to catch dust and stains where he’s left them in his desk drawers and filing cabinets, and half of them are saved as digital copies to be accessed through his computer, or phone and tablet should he need to.

But it is not because he is doomed to his office for the rest of this perfectly good spring day that sours him. It is the way his skin feels feverish yet his muscles quake before the onset of hypothermia, how his fingers feel stiff and his joints ache (and not from the scar tissue that tightens his hands). It is the way his lungs fill with cotton and leaves his nose a red burning mess, that same fire clouding and stuffing the front of his brain, and he knows it is not from the spring allergies Gladiolus suffers from. It is the stifling weight of the blanket hugging around his shoulders, pulling both his body and mind down as it pools at the foot of his chair, the once plush leather now feeling like bricks and cement.

Because Cor Leonis, the Immortal, the Marshal, has found his match in the common flu.

He can’t even bother to go for the cup of coffee at the corner of his desk — having long gone cold several hours ago after the first and only sip — because his body, despite spending nearly his entire life training and honing every muscle, feels like dead weight to him. His mind, addled with heat and fog, isn’t much better, but he at least has enough coherency to understand how salty he feels. It’s been years since he’s been struck down with sickness, and the most recent illness he can remember spans at least six years ago, when he and Clarus spent a drunken night raiding Regis’ mini fridge and got food poisoning because no one thought to throw out the king’s expired dairy.

It’s not even winter, for gods’ sakes, and he received his flu shot like the good government official that he is, and yet —

Here he is, slumped over his desk and buried in a thick blanket, fingers barely holding onto a pen when he’s shown unparalleled finesse with his katana. If he could just somehow cut down the virus bombarding his systems like he could through daemons and magitek soldiers, Cor would offer his thanks to the Astrals above and offer them a gift or two at each of their altars.

But alas, he doubts they’d care for him right now, and the only one deserving his gratitude today is Noctis, the first to discover how utterly disgusting Cor had felt this morning.

“Wow, you look like shit. No offense,” Noctis had said, stopping by the office to drop off a folder at Regis’ request. Without so much as a warning, he had reached across the desk to press a cool hand to Cor’s forehead, and the man barely had the will to keep in his sigh of relief at that. Noctis always ran a little cool, something about poor blood circulation keeping his fingers cold or maybe the uncontrolled magics and elements that roiled within. “Hot damn, Cor, you’re burning up — wait, are you… Are you sick?”

And Cor had never entertained that idea until Noctis pointed it out because the concept was — and still is, to be honest — utterly preposterous, but the facts had proven otherwise. The aches, the chills, his throat; the signs had all pointed themselves to the culprit. Noctis had been quick to rummage through the closet, ignoring Cor’s silent look of ‘don’t you dare make a mess’ and shucking some odd books and supplies here and there.

“And just how did you know that was there?” Cor had asked, raising his eyebrows in suspicion at the blanket Noctis held up once he shook the dust off it. He had felt the rasp of his voice grate against his throat, and he had hoped his words didn't come out as awful as they felt. He had received no response except the cheeky grin Noctis sported while he carefully draped it over Cor’s shoulders. Noctis had given him a few sympathetic pats and a sagely nod, as though he were some expert in legendary warriors catching colds, then quietly left him to his devices and paperwork, shutting the door behind him with the most silent of clicks.

It's been half an hour since then, but Cor is immensely grateful for the blanket. The aches have fully nestled themselves now, as if the realization and acceptance was all it took for his body to acknowledge the sickness blooming forth, and he's confident that no more work will be done today. He's barely made a dent in the reports that require his attention and write-offs, not to mention there's reports of his own he needs to type up, but he knows where his limits are and his limits have drawn themselves here.

He wants to get up from his desk and make for his room, skipping the infirmary entirely because his pride does not want to go to the medics and ask for a bottle of flu medicine just to birth gossip of the Immortal being taken down by a little cough and runny nose. The second he braces his arm on the desk to push himself up, he immediately retracts that idea. Because nope, his joints are suddenly raging at him to stop and slink back into his chair.

He does just that, no protest back, and wraps the blanket around him a little tighter, going so far as to tucking his face and arms inside the cocoon. He wonders if he can even make it to the sofa, let alone the door, or if he's doomed to his desk for the foreseeable future.

Just as Cor is about to resign to his fate, he hears his door click open and looks up to see Noctis slinking in. There's a thermos and a mug in his hands.

"Nice look, Marshal," he says, tone entirely too amused and expression likewise.

Cor thinks he probably looks the part, all wrapped up to his nose in a blanket, hair perhaps a mess and his face a sad drooping thing. He has a brief notion to untangle himself and flip the bird at the Prince, but that requires effort. Instead, he narrows his eyes and shoots a glare.

Which, doesn't do much but elicit a soft snort from Noctis.

"Not gonna work when you look less like a scary lion and more like a cub." Noctis sets the thermos and mug on the desk, away from the papers and folders organized neatly into hefty stacks. "Made soup and some tea."

Were it Regis instead, Cor would have rejected them in a heartbeat. But he knows that Noctis is capable when he wants to be, proving himself through his various part-time jobs around Insomnia, like his time at the small family-owned diner off Sprohm Avenue. Noctis sometimes likes to show off his skills and lessons, whipping up little recipes he's learned here and there; and while they always pale in comparison to his advisor's concoctions, they have their own merits and charm. At least Noctis could learn how to cook, while Regis would set the entire kitchen on fire by just touching the stove.

"Think you can eat?" Noctis whips out a spoon in a show of blue sparks and taps it against the thermos. "It's Iggy's recipe, dagger quill soup with extra garlic. He said it should knock the flu right outta you."

Cor wrinkles his nose, making no show to untangle himself from his blanket. He enjoys Ignis' cooking when it presents itself, has no doubts about the quality and taste — not like he’ll be able to taste much of anything anyway — but knowing that Ignis knows of his… predicament does not sit well with him. Not that the young man is a gossiper, but somehow news would no doubt make their way to Regis or Clarus, and they’d jump at the opportunity to heckle and tease him like the ravenous jackals they are.

Impatience, it seems, gets the better of Noctis, who already starts peeling away at the blanket, just enough to get an arm out. He unscrews the cap, steam rushing for release; and sure enough, Cor can smell the potent brew of garlic and herbs stewing in the soup — which says something, considering his nose is as congested as Insomnia’s streets at the five o’ clock rush hour. Noctis gives him the dignity of feeding himself, thankfully, and nudges the spoon into Cor’s hand.

“Meds after the soup.” It’s less of an order and more of a fact set in stone that Cor will take the medicine after the soup. Noctis fishes a bottle out of his pocket and sets it down on the desk with a resounding clack as if to drive his words home. He tosses a glance at the mug. “With the tea.”

Cor thinks the tea probably tastes vile, but he’ll hold onto that for when he crosses that road. He takes a spoonful of the soup and tries to stomach it.

“Reduced to this useless pile of limbs.”

Somehow, Noctis had managed to help him out of his seat and to the sofa, leagues more comfortable to his aching body, though the soreness is a constant reminder now. His throat isn’t so bad, but it obviously likes to keep talking to a minimum with how hoarse he sounds.

“You’re surprisingly dramatic when you’re sick, y'know that?”

And it is how Cor has his head perched on Noctis’ lap, the young man patting his chest in a slow tempo with one hand and playing a mobile game with the other. Cor lets himself doze off here and there, the medicine quick to work its way through his system, but actual sleep evades him. He’s comfortable, or as comfortable as a man whose body feels like its freezing in the flames of hell can be, and safe within the walls of the Citadel. To be honest, there may be no place more safe than at the side — or lap — of the Prince, whose weapon mastery and arsenal of infinite weapons and explosive magic could potentially decimate a small army.

But his subconscious did not like being sick and believes falling asleep in such a state means death. So try as he may, Cor is probably not getting much until night rolls around when he can down something far stronger and potent, preferably a bottle strong enough to clear his system of the flu overnight, thank you very much.

He’s lucid again when he hears a phone chime and feels the hand move away; whatever it was, the notification demanded both of Noctis’ hands. “If you’re texting someone about me —”

“I’m texting someone about you.”

Cor groans. There goes his dignity.

“Who.”

“Dad.”

He groans again.

Then hears a camera shutter. He peels open one eye just in time to see Noctis’ phone screen. A selfie.

A selfie of Noctis holding up a peace sign and Cor looking god-awful, wrapped up in a blanket and resting his head on Noctis’ lap.

“Noctis.”

“Yeah?”

“Had it not been for the laws of this land, I would have slaughtered you.”

Noctis chokes in his fit of laughter, and it’s almost enough to make Cor crack a smile. Almost. Because Regis is going to give him hell for this, and he’s already steeling himself for the endless lines of wisecracks.

“Traitorous prince,” Cor mutters, closing his eye and turning his head to the side. Thinking about it won’t stop the pounding in his skull, so he temporarily lets it slide. “No loyalty to your people.”

Noctis, trying to placate him, returns his hand to Cor’s arm and resumes his pats. “Sorry.”

“You’re not.”

“I’m not.”

“This is all your fault,” Noctis wheezes out. He’s in bed — been in bed for the past two days at the Citadel, to soothe his father’s worries by keeping close — and buried under two layers of blankets and soaking through the sheets underneath him. He shoots a dirty look at Cor, who sits in a chair he pulled up to the bedside and swiping down the screen of a tablet.

“Ah, yes,” Cor says in a tone so dry it rivals Leide’s deserts, not even glancing up from the e-mail he’s reading, “revenge is a dish best served cold. Or as a flu.”

“Traitor.”

“I am not sorry.”

#cor leonis #noctis lucis caelum #ff15 #final fantasy xv #i can type

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