Who: Alecto and Remus. What: Grounder sickness plot. When: See above. Where: Chateau Lupin. Rating/Warnings: There is blood. Status: Complete.
When it had first started, Alecto was sure that she was just overreacting. Yes, she felt like she was dying, but she’d never been good at being sick, so she always turned it into a lot more of a dramatic situation than was strictly necessary. Only now she was pretty sure she was dying. Mostly because she was bleeding from her eyes and she’d collapsed and basically had to crawl all the way to the place she was now. She should have listened when people told her to go home. She should have done something other than just drink water and ignore it. But she couldn’t go home either. Not when she was probably dying and the girls could get sick. She had a feeling that existed somewhere on the list of things that would look like she wasn’t taking other people into consideration. Then again, being mostly collapsed in front of Remus’ apartment complex was probably not helping to prove that she thought about other people much. She just hadn’t really thought about where else to go. And now her pants, knees, and hands, were messed up and she was bleeding even more than she’d been before.
She was trying to decide if she should say anything or text him. Part of her really wanted to ask him for help, but part of her felt guilty about putting his life in danger. So she had to make a decision. It was a few minutes before she let out a sigh and started to drag herself away from the building, feeling a hint of frustration and something else that she couldn’t quite place. She was going to have to get a cab. But first she had to rest against this car until she had the energy to do that.
Which was when the car alarm went off and she scrambled forward, which led to falling forward and scraping her cheek on the sidewalk. Maybe she’d just stay here till she died. That was fine, right?
Remus had decided to slip out to get supplies, before Orange County got quarantined from whatever the hell this was. By good fortune, he was blessedly unaffected. Maybe it was the werewolf genetics, which would be cool, but not something he’d willing put to the test. It would suck to be the sole survivor in a county wide possible zombie apocalypse.
He stepped out of his car just in time to hear another’s alarm went off, which was nothing. It happened all the time. It was annoying as hell, but there you go. He ignored it and kept walking, until something caught his eye. Someone, he should say. Most people probably would’ve hesitated, but Remus instinctively moved forward. Whoever it was needed help, probably a hospital, and his phone was already out but - Well. Shit.
“Alecto - “ A hospital probably wouldn’t help. Orange County weirdness wasn’t like that. The good news was that it would go away soon, the bad news was what if it wasn’t soon enough? He adjusted his bag of groceries (junk food), and reached to help carefully pick her up. “Can you walk? Come on - We’ll get you inside and I’ll. Clean you up.” Somehow.
“Don’t,” she started. It was a weak argument considering she hadn’t even bothered to fight him when he reached over to help her. “You shouldn’t. Can’t go home. Tiny people live there. Amycus…” She had to focus on walking right now, but she really did want to explain. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled. She didn’t want Remus to get sick because of her, but she was glad that someone seemed worried...even if that wasn’t fair for her to think. Amycus just didn’t show worried well. She knew that because she didn’t show worried well either. Rebekah was worried. Rebekah showed emotions all the time. Which was weird. But also probably normal.
Stairs were terrible, Alecto decided, but Remus wasn’t. Because he was in danger of eye bleeding and he was helping her. Though, others had offered to help, but that was before the eye bleeds. She was going to blame this on the fever later. This entire thought process. Clearly the deliria brought on by a high fever and eye bleeds.
“Can’t be much worse than my bones changing around every month,” he said, by way of telling her to shut up and come inside. In a way, it was meant to be funny, like it might somehow lighten the mood, but Remus realized it wasn’t very funny at all. The stairs were slow going but they managed eventually. Once he resigned himself to the fact he’d just have to buy new bedding (and it didn’t take long for him to make that decision), he led Alecto to his bed and helped her down on it. He had a brief moment of fear where he noticed how untidy his room was.
She probably wasn’t going to care.
“Just, um. Wait a moment and I’ll get some towels.” He was going to have to buy new towels, too. There was no way any amount of Googling was going to teach him how to clean all this up - until it dawned on him that he was, quite literally, magic. Ironically, healing magic wasn’t something he ever really seemed to learn, but he could get the towels to come to him and he could magic them clean for re-use. The blood was cleaned away as much as it could be, a bandaid was applied to the freshly scraped cheek. Remus felt very helpless. “Do you need some water? Something? Fluids probably. Fluids always help.” And garlic?
Normally the thought of his bones doing anything unusual wouldn’t have bothered her, but apparently today was a very strange day where it made her feel ill. “This...not werewolf…” She was pretty sure it wasn’t anything that she knew about. She felt gross and weak and tired and her body hurt. It was like the flu but with blood.
Alecto couldn’t say she paid attention to the state of Remus’ room. If she had, she probably wouldn’t have cared. Messy happened. Right now, her eyes were a little too bloody for her to notice anything.”Sorry about the blood.” She didn’t do much but curl up once he’d cleaned her face, pretty sure that it was going to get bloody again soon. “I’ll replace it.” When she asked about fluids, Alecto noticed that she was thirsty. Had she always been or was that just now? “Yes. Something. I don’t care what.” She just wanted to feel better. She wished she could think clearly enough to remember if there was magic she could do for this.
Okay. Yes. Fluids. Remus just sort of nodded absently and hustled into his small kitchen to get literally everything he could. He filled a large glass with water, then also found some juice in his fridge and filled a smaller glass with that. Before Remus carried those back to Alecto, he figured it might be worth trying to put together something for her to eat. Fortunately he had some of that packaged chicken noodle soup powder from when he was having pre-werewolf sickness. She probably wouldn’t be able to keep it down, but he started boiling the water for it anyway.
“Here. I’ll put these on the bedside table for you,” he said. Both glasses were set down and he lingered, unsure if he should sit or stand or … What. “Do you - I can stay with you, if you want. Or I can let you try and rest.” He really didn’t want to stray too far, even if just to sit on his couch.
Alecto was pretty sure that eating was out of the question, but she was so thirsty. She needed to drink something and keep her eyes from bleeding. She could only really do one of those things. Remus’ ...Remus-ness was making her more tired than she was. She could tell he was worried, but she didn’t want it to be so obvious. “You’re...weird.” She carefully pushed herself up. “Being weird.” It was a correction, but not one she explained. “Have to...stay calm. I’m only bleeding...from my eyes.” She reached over for the cup, feeling stupidly weak as she did and trying not to spill it on herself.
“You can stay...but don’t be weird.” Which was very helpful, naturally. She felt shaky when she was returning the cup to the table. It nearly fell, but she managed to slide it on. “I hate this,” she muttered.
“Sorry.” Remus didn’t know how to not be weird right now. His worry was manifesting itself into bumbling, and, yeah, it was probably weird to be coddling a girl he was just newly dating. Was it weird to think of her like that? He mentally slapped himself and began to try and channel dream-Remus. Dream-Remus was always very calm and collected about things. He’d also lived through a lot more than real-Remus.
“I’ll do my best.” Once Alecto had drained the cup, Remus went to go fill it and put the soup packet in the boiling water. He poured out a cup of soup and brought that, along with the new water and a text book, into the bedroom. Dutifully he sat at his desk to try and study and not be weird. “This might sound ridiculous, but you’re going to be all right. I know you will be. It’s just going to suck for a bit is all.”
Alecto was trying to remind herself that people got worried sometimes, but she was never very good at being sick or looking anything other than the way she wanted to look in front of other people. It was difficult to be the weak person in the equation. She didn’t like it in the slightest. “I’m fine.” She wasn’t, but she’d pretend she was until she couldn’t anymore, which was closer than she really thought.
When he brought more water and soup in, Alecto scooted herself so she was closer to the table. “You’re...probably right.” She wiped at her eyes, making a face at the blood on her hands. “But these clothes will not.” She attempted a weak laugh before she took a small sip of the water, only tipping the cup a little to avoid having to lift it immediately. She eyed the soup cup for a minute, sticking her finger in it to see if it was too hop to drink. It was. So she laid back down and curled up again.
Remus cracked a smile. At the very least, Alecto was still herself. That had to mean she wasn’t too far gone yet, right? She was sick but not enough that she couldn’t try to crack jokes. That relieved him a little. “Of course you’re fine. Just try to rest a bit. I’ll do my best to be quiet and completely normal.”
He gave her a nod and turned back around at his desk, opening up his book and his notebook. He only managed to copy out a few notes at a time in between glancing over at Alecto, to make sure somehow she hadn’t gotten worse in a matter seconds.
Alecto wasn’t really sure how to rest when someone was watching her, but she decided to treat it like she did Amycus when he’d made her angry and she was ignoring him while he stared at her. Only with less annoyance and a lot more wooziness. “Sorry about your bed.” Because she knew it was going to be a mess later. “At least you’re not a vampire.” Another joke. “You might try to eat my face.”
But she closed her eyes and kicked her shoes off before crawling carefully under the covers. “If I do die, though. I need a viking funeral. Maybe a funeral pyre. Because reasons.” All of her words were half mumble, half slurred nonsense, but she was trying.