sick days

[merryeccentricities]

Joly wakes himself up sneezing. He's momentarily confused to find he's still on the couch, and almost fully dressed-- why wouldn't he be in bed in his own room?

Oh, yes. Because Lesgle's in the bed, and doesn't think he's Lesgle. Well. If that doesn't resolve soon,they'll probably both need to go to the infirmary. Right now...Joly tries to think. It's more complicated than it should be. Right now...there should be tissues here. He'll need to send off for more.


...Or sneeze all over his hands, that's apparently the immediate plan. All right, right now he's going to wash up. And then send for tissues.

Comments

[tire_moi_mes_bottes]

Lesgle is even more confused than Joly when he wakes up. On the one hand, he feels hung over. On the other hand, he's sure he wasn't drinking last night, at least no more than ordinary. On the other other hand, synthehol shouldn't leave a headache no matter how much he'd had. On the other other other hand, what the hell is synthehol and why did he just ask the computer what time it is?

...It's not a hangover, anyway. A little more time with the headache and the stuffy nose and the cough and the misery refreshes his memory of yesterday's godawful cold. He sits up and pulls the blankets around himself and stares in lingering confusion at the ceiling and walls. There's a pile of gadgetry on the table. An insistent voice in his head is telling him to get back to work on contacting the Enterprise, but it's not a useful enough voice to tell him how or why.

[merryeccentricities]

Joly stumbles back into the main room with his eyes mostly shut, but waves amiably anyway. "G'mording...?"

He leaves open the question of who exactly he's greeting.

[tire_moi_mes_bottes]

"Good morning, Joly."

His voices sounds somewhat stilted to his ears. He finds a more casual register. "Hullo. Um. Was I...sick? Yesterday?"

[merryeccentricities]

That's a familiar voice. Still, Joly's smile is cautious. "You were. Do you feel...more yourself?"

[tire_moi_mes_bottes]

"Um. I--ah--ah--ah--"

He gropes frantically for the tissues, and finds them tucked thoughtfully on the nightstand.

"--Um. I'm not sure. Half of me is dreading my next meeting with Bahorel because he's going to make up so many stories about what I was doing. The other half of me--"

Mmmh. He blows his nose instead of finishing the sentence. The other half of him is quietly triumphant now that it remembers which one Bahorel is, and Joly, and Lesgle-called-Bossuet.

"...who do you think you are?"

[merryeccentricities]

Joly grins now. "Hah, Bahorel makes up stories about you anyway. And I--ah-ah--" He starts to sneeze, can't, and settles for making a face. "--I'b sdill Joly. If I stob being Joly, you're dot to led me use by lab. I hab exberimends thad can'd--ugh." He pats through his vest pockets and finds a handkerchief. "I'd albost forgodden I had dis--ah!"

This time he does manage a proper sneeze. It's briefly head clearing. "Anyway, yes. Don't let anyone who isn't Joly into my lab, even if it's me. Er, sort of. And if you're Lesgle again I am taking off my waistcoat at least, it's boiling in here. Or I am. We should take something. Do you feel hot?"

He's already rummaging through the cabinet he's set aside for medication.

[tire_moi_mes_bottes]

"Don't stop at the waistcoat on my account, my dear fellow." His eyebrows creep up, and Lesgle feels almost entirely himself. Joly rummaging about for pills or draughts or god-knows-what, that helps too.

"But how bad do you feel?" He's still a lump of achy, stuffy-headed, too-hot-and-too-cold sadness, eyebrows or no eyebrows, and he has nothing but sympathy for Joly's upcoming misery.

[merryeccentricities]

Sick or no, Joly grins at the Eyebrows. That's definitely Lesgle, then. "I've a fever and a headache and some congesjion. Congestion. I should probably be collecding sambles from both of us, you know, id's a very beculiar condition." Even if it's not going to be fatal, it's still interesting!

[tire_moi_mes_bottes]

Eyebrows again! "What sort of samples do you wadt?"

Oh, damn. Lesgle applies himself to the tissues again, but emerges with a nose still stuffed up. "Add how logg is this supposed to lasd? Ab I goigg to--"

This is terrible and awful and also moderately amusing. (Abusigg, his mind supplies, even though he wasn't saying the word aloud.)

[merryeccentricities]

Joly smiles again. He'd missed those eyebrows. "All sords of thigs. Budd all by samble jars are id by lab, and thad's..." he waves in the general direction of the stairs, "ub there."

Ugh. Stairs. Effort. Not today. Words and moving, also effort. Joly focuses on getting a couple of glasses of lemon-water and the right bottle of pills and sitting on the bed-- such a complicated maneuver, walking! People don't think about the muscles involved! There are so many and he is unpleasantly aware of that!--before trying to add talking back to the plan.

"I dod't dow how log id'll lasd. Id's subbosed to be lige a flu; a few days ad mosd?" He holds out one of the glasses.

[tire_moi_mes_bottes]

"I could go get the...jars..." But the business of scooting over to make room for Joly leaves him lightheaded and limp among the pillows. Lesgle takes his glass of lemon-water feebly.

"Sorry to have brought codtagion and plague upod you, Jolllly."

[merryeccentricities]

Joly's put his own glass down to struggle with the scientific advance of a childproof cap. "Dod't be ridigulous, you're sigg. You aren'd goig in by lab." The cap yields to reason. Joly grins in triumph and takes out two doses.

He hands one dose to Lesgle swallows his own, thinks a moment, and puts his leg over Bossuet's to hook their ankles together. "You stay here." Joly is totally prepared to fight about this, if fighting can be about lying down and waiting for the room to not spin.He tries it. "... I thing the cherubs helb.They're...holdig id steady."

He frowns. There was something else he was supposed to answer. Oh, right. "Id's impordant. To know how we ged sigg. It's--"he waves in explanation, and then regrets it. "helbful."

[tire_moi_mes_bottes]

Oh help, he has been trapped. Lesgle puts up a fierce fight that's suspiciously like caressing Joly's foot with his own.

"What did we just take, and what effects should I atticipate?" It's always worth asking, after you take the pills if not before. "...You're right about the cherubs, though. They're..." He waves a languid hand. "Although. A little alarbig to wake up to unexpectedly."

[merryeccentricities]

Yes, good, ask after taking the pills. Adventure! Joly starts a little laugh that turns into a cough. "It's jusd fever reducer. Id reduces fevers. And, uh, coughs. S'all." Really advanced medicine has so few really exciting side effects.

"You did-- ugh-- you did expegd the cherubs though? Today..?agh." The waistcoat is proving more difficult to get out of than usual. There's probably some sort of fashion...thing...style..that involves fewer buttons? Without being as indecent as bare shirtsleeves? He'll have to ask Bahorel about it later. Very later.

[tire_moi_mes_bottes]

"Let me do that." Lesgle takes a turn struggling with the waistcoat buttons. It's a lot of work. He's sniffling exhaustedly from the effort by the time he's done.

"Well. I was--dot expectig them, exactly. But I very quickly rebebbered theb! --Ugh, exguse be--" Blowing his nose brings temporary relief. "But it's--it's disconcerting. I still half expect to see black sky and stars out the windows."

He flops back down onto the bed.

[merryeccentricities]

"Thag you." Wriggling out of the waistcoat is its own aerobic activity. Joly has to rest twice. "Do you-- gah-- do you remember anythig? Aboud the stars? Thigs you dod't know. Consdellations. Crew. Math..?"

Joly's become not entirely sure the Picard personality was a simple hallucination. Lesgle understood some of the communications technology. And Lesgle's not stupid, and Joly talks about these things, but...still. "Picard" understood some concepts, or seemed to, that Joly's pretty sure he himself doesn't understand. "Hallucination" doesn't cover that.

[tire_moi_mes_bottes]

"Some." He's quiet for a while, with his eyes closed, and then shakes his head. (A gesture he immediately regrets; ow.)

"I do--I rebember my ship, I rebember my crew. Wodderful people. Dr. Crusher. Geordi LaForge. Data. Um. Math, yes. Astrophysics. Not long ago I was--well, I was shot, and my heart stopped. An artificial heart. Q--an alien, possessed of extraordinary powers--showed me what my life would have been if I--"

Lesgle breaks off abruptly and covers his face with his hands. "--Damn it, Joly, I'm souding like him again. Kick be in the shid. Addyway, I dew quite a lot about astrophysics."

[merryeccentricities]

Lesgle does sound like Picard again for a moment, a stranger in a familiar mask, and Joly pulls back reflexively.

But it's only for a moment, and then Lesgle is Lesgle again, unmistakeably so, head cold and all. Joly skips kicking him in shin in favor of curling up against him and pulling the blanket tighter around them both. "I'b sorry! Sorry, I shouldn't hab asked so soon." He reaches up to take one of Bossuet's hands and laughs a little. "You'd bedder nod change bag now,id would be very awgward."

[tire_moi_mes_bottes]

He presses Joly's hand a little tighter than necessary. "Bah. I wadt to rebember it all because it was abazig. But just dow I thig I had better practice being Bossuet."

Which is a distressing thing to admit. Even more distressing is the certainty he'd felt that Bossuet--Joly--Bahorel--Enjolras--all of them were fictional characters. Characters he'd had opinions about, some of them, though Bossuet and Joly hadn't been as memorable as others.

He wraps himself tightly around Joly. There, make it really awkward to change back.

"Mmmbph. I propose stayig in bed ad dot travelig amog addy stars at all. --Oh. Say. Jolllly, we could try agaid to figure out the tele-whatsit."

[merryeccentricities]

"Mmm. Budd then we'd hab to move." Which seems like a horrible idea. They have blankets and not-moving right here, it's a good arrangement.

Although the cats seem to disapprove, judging by the way at least one of them is standing directly on his head. And probably that buzzing noise is the beetle wanting out,and not just happening in his own head. "Fide. We'll ged the...poindy condroller...thig. Hag od, I'll ged ub."

...In a minute. He'll get up in a minute.

[tire_moi_mes_bottes]

"Do you wodt."

Laigle illustrates his point by nudging Joly's shoulder a little more firmly into the mattress. Staying put. "I'b a, an officer in the Udited Federatiod of Bladets, and you are a civiliad. I will go on the away missiod."

Oh, hell.

With a fair amount of coughing and snorfling and groaning, Bossuet gets to his feet, and putters around for a few minutes, giving the beetle another bowl of fiddlehead ferns and collecting another box of paper tissues before coming back with the remote. Which he hands to Joly.

"...I'b promotig you to sciedce officer. You do the...just...bake it so."

[merryeccentricities]

Joly makes a sound of general objection against the whole world of Doing Things when Lesgle gets up. "You're dot ad obbicer. You can'd gib be orders. We're a rebublig." It's a stirring protest, no doubt, and the fact that he says it into the mattress doesn't change its sincerity. But he still takes the remote when Lesgle gets back.

He hasn't really studied it since they moved in. It didn't work, and that's mildly interesting, but there's been more interesting things to consider, and it's not as though they expect to have TV. But right now this might be the most challenging thing he's capable of considering. So consider it he does, turning the remote over and around, poking at buttons and sliding around panels.

And then he starts giggling. It's a snorfling kind of giggle, but he can't stop.

With great deliberation, he slides the batteries out and turns them around. The television goes on with its electric un-sound, and a field of waving grain fills the screen.

[tire_moi_mes_bottes]

"What. What?" Joly is giggling, and he doesn't know why, which is...a fairly usual turn of events, really, and Lesgle responds to it in the usual way, by prodding Joly's knee insistently with his toe. "What? Did you--oh God."

There's something on the edges of his consciousness.

"Did you just...did you...did you reverse the polarity?"

[merryeccentricities]

That does it; Joly's down. He falls back on the mattress, waving the remote in the air, and laughing too hard to breathe, which is admittedly not that hard in his current state.