Feverish

NOT A PR0MPT

******

“You need rest.” Hero laid the back of her hand against Villain’s forehead, cringing at the heat which it produced against her own skin. “You’re feverish.”

A grumble was returned, a denial. “I’m fine.”

No, he wasn’t. Maybe his fever was a low-grade one, but that didn’t mean anything, because, in the end, Villain was still sick. He needed medicine, needed water, needed rest. “At least let me get you some soup?”

Another grumble. “Not a fan of soup. Makes me too hot.”

“I think you’re hot without soup,” Hero tried to flirt, but Villain was too out of it to understand. His eyes were closed, and if he were to open them, he’d only be staring at a bare ceiling. “Alright, no soup. What if I got you 7-UP?”

“Do you have Sprite?”

Hero smiled. “Always the villain, aren’t you? Have to have the specifics.”

“I didn’t say I had to have it,” Villain said, out of breath. “Just a preference.”

She knew that- she was only teasing him. “You’re attractive like this,” Hero said.

Villain laughed and followed through with a cough. He asked, “Because I’m sick?”

“No,” she hummed, “helpless.”

Oh. Now, that woke Villain up. His eyes opened in less than a moment, finding Hero’s in an even less amount of time. His cheeks were red, and it wasn’t from the fever. He shuffled beneath his covers, clearing his throat, now looking anywhere that wasn’t Hero.

“I get why you’re a villain,” Hero told him. She slid onto the bed beside him, lifting the covers which Villain tried hiding in. “It’s fun,” she said, “teasing when the other is defenceless. I get it.”

“Give me the stupid blanket,” Villain demanded, voice stronger, yet quieter than it had been before.

“So that you can hide? I don’t think so.” She went as far as to pull the blanket off his cosily warm body.

Protesting, Villain exclaimed, “I’m sick! And cold, and…and…”

“And you’re running out of excuses for me to give the blanket back, when, in reality, I know it’s only because you’re flustering. You’re a villain. You don’t fluster, right?” The corners of Hero’s mouth lifted. This had come up in conversation many a time before when she’d tease him about the way his ears became red hot when she complimented him or sent him a scandalously amused look. “Am I wrong?”

He didn’t- well, actually, he did- like that lilt in her voice, the one that told him so clearly that she was fascinated with this change in demeanour. Once a strong man, now a powerless subject beneath her. She loved it, and Villain could see it dancing in her eyes.

Maybe it wasn’t so bad to be sick, and weak, and helpless. Maybe it’s just what he needed to feel better.

Villain sat up, just barely, with eyes closed, lips parted.

A hand on his chest stopped him. “You’ll do anything I say right now, won’t you?”

Yes, he tried to say, but all that he could use to respond was a nod.

“Good,” she said, “then sleep.”