“No. In my head.” Micah tapped it with a finger. “He thought there was something wrong with me, because of how I am.”
“Smart and hot and a little twitchy? Ain’t nothing wrong with that, believe me.”
Micah shook his head. “Sick because of how I get—like how I was when I found you in the cave. I’ve always been that way.”
Sasha tilted his head. “What, brave?”
Micah blinked, and then—oh, fuck, his eyes were filling up. “You really think that. I could barely say your name, and you think— You’re wrong. I’m scared of everything.”
“Thought it was like, crowds and stuff.” Sasha frowned. “I mean, if it was easy for you to come find me, then it wouldn’t have been brave. But you did it anyway, so what’s the problem?”
“Take Viv her drink.” Micah’s voice was strangled, but a rush of his dominance made Sasha straighten his shoulders a bit and reach out, accepting the steaming mug. “Tell her I put the honey in.”
“You whip that dominance out way less than you should, boss,” Sasha said. “Hey, eat something, yeah? Probably gonna need you to make more of these.”
Micah nodded silently.
Sasha took Viv her drink and helped her sip the whole thing, relaying the information about the honey even though he probably didn’t need to. She did stop shivering as much, and Sasha beamed at her as he put the empty mug on the table by the bed. “He’ll make you more of these, I bet. Also, did you know he didn’t think we were friends?”
“He can probably hear you,” Viv said, bundling back up under her blankets. “And I don’t think… that’s what he meant.”
She was asleep before he could ask her to clarify.
Sasha went about the rest of his chores, and as he usually did when Viv was down with a fever, that meant he cleaned the house, cooked, and washed the clothes she inevitably needed laundered after she got sick in them. He washed the bedding, too, since he knew she hated lying on dirty linens that she’d sweated into.
But this time, it wasn’t just him doing the work.
Micah made her witch drinks and a sachet of herbs and flowers that he said would help her sleep better. He consulted his books and made more weird shit at the stove that smelled like something Sasha would rather eat mud off the bottom of his boot than consume, but he always added honey or maple sugar and instructed Sasha take it to Viv. He made salts to put in the bathwater that he said would disperse in the steam and help her breathe. He drew more chalk circles and heated the bathwater with his magic so Viv didn’t have to expend energy to. At a certain point, Sasha realized Micah was washing the dishes, too.
And that’s not all he did. He took his book to Viv and read to her while Sasha did the laundry, and he did more laundry so Sasha could read from another book at night. He was the first one up in the morning, and after one particularly bad night when Viv couldn’t sleep and coughed up blood while her fever raged, Sasha stumbled into the kitchen, bleary-eyed and exhausted, to find Micah had madehima drink, too. It perked him up and eased his headache, but it didn’t lessen the fear that overtook him when he saw how badly off his wife was, how the sickness still had her in its grip and hadn’t let go.
Sasha found himself unable to sleep, dread a cold chill in his heart, his veins. He loved her so much. He couldn’t lose her. She was better than… anyone. Better than he deserved, probably, a big brawler who lost trinkets beating up people in the pits while she—
“Stop,” Viv muttered, cracking an eye open. “I can feel you worrying. Go bother Micah. Give me the bed. You take up too much room, and I’m hot.” She gave him a weak shove and a slight smile. “Go get him to settle you down.”
“He might not be awake,” Sasha protested, getting up. She’d done this a time or two, kicked him out when the fever went into the phase where she was always sweating.
“He is,” Viv mumbled, waving a hand.
That was a good sign, really, the sweating. It usually meant the end of her episode was near, and that, of course, was what they wanted. Retying the drawstring of his sleep pants, Sasha went into the other room, intending to sleep on the sofa, and saw that—as usual—Viv was right: Micah was awake.
He wasn’t just awake. He was working. Cutting petals off flowers and pushing them into the tiny cloth bags Viv made, grinding things to bits in the mortar and pestle, doing all sorts of things to make up his tinctures and medicines and witch drinks. There were clothes hanging to dry in front of the fire: laundry that Sasha hadn’t gotten around to washing.
Micah looked up as Sasha entered, and his look of concentration turned into worry. “Do you— Is she okay?”
“Yeah. Just hot, and I’m a fire on my own, so. Needed the bed.” Sasha yawned, then glanced around. “Been busy, boss.”
“Just getting… some things done,” Micah mumbled. “Seemed like maybe it would help.”
“It is. It’s a good sign that she’s hot, means she’s sweating it out.” Sasha thought about what she’d said, how Micah should settle him. “She had an idea. Maybe let me run this by you real quick.”
“Is it from the book?”
Sasha grinned and waggled his eyebrows. “Not that book. A different book. Asexyone.”
“What?”
He laughed. “She’s on the mend, Micah. Always is, when she kicks me out. Wants her space, you know, get that sprawl on.”
