Post by infinite on Apr 26, 2011 21:36:51 GMT 10
Title: Sweating Sickness (Part One)
Rating: PG
Word Count: 398
Pairing: Gary/Raoul – Team Moustache Curtains
Round/Fight: 2/C
Summary: Gary and Raoul try to cope as plague spreads.
The boys watched as the city fell around them. They had imagined their way of life as infallible and infinite, stretching to the horizon in all directions. Inherent in life and time. Now, they remembered the Old Ones, and wondered, as the bodies were piled by the roadsides, whether their own time was dying. Whether they would be left standing alone in this city, amidst towers of stone and putrefying, vacant flesh, with no one living to guide them. They were nobles and pages: they’d have to take up the mantle. If they survived. The queen had the sickness. Gary was scared for his Aunt, but so was the rest of Tortall. When his father got sick, Gary forgot about the city, and everything else. His father couldn’t die, he just couldn’t. Gary’s world came to a halt as his father could no longer maintain their training, leaving the pages’ days empty. While the other pages did the work of dying servants, and Jon feared for his mother, Gary visited his father’s sickbed. He watched as a parade of healers came and left, drained and useless. He watched as his mother began to wither, whether from worry or impending sickness he had yet to discover. He could nothing but watch as rivulets of sweat trickled down the landscape of his father’s face. Would they become rivers, drowning him in his own fluids, even as he scorched on the inside?
Gary had forgotten about his friends, until one of them checked on him. It was Raoul who drew him from his father’s sickbed, into the fresh air. Gary gasped it down; he’d had no idea he had been suffocating in that closed room. He drank in Raoul’s presence, unaware also that he had been starving for comfort until Raoul came to give it. Disease had not touched them, yet they ailed under the weight of fear and worry. The plague sapped them of hope, just as it drained the healers of magic, but out in the sun, Gary and Raoul became healers for each other. They weren’t drained but strengthened, and the more they gave, the stronger they became. Though Gary tried hard not to cry, the tears leaked out, as the sweat seeped from the dying. Raoul was never embarrassed by it. He was Giftless, but as he sat with Gary, they were both filled with healing magic.
QC by: journeycat
Rating: PG
Word Count: 398
Pairing: Gary/Raoul – Team Moustache Curtains
Round/Fight: 2/C
Summary: Gary and Raoul try to cope as plague spreads.
The boys watched as the city fell around them. They had imagined their way of life as infallible and infinite, stretching to the horizon in all directions. Inherent in life and time. Now, they remembered the Old Ones, and wondered, as the bodies were piled by the roadsides, whether their own time was dying. Whether they would be left standing alone in this city, amidst towers of stone and putrefying, vacant flesh, with no one living to guide them. They were nobles and pages: they’d have to take up the mantle. If they survived. The queen had the sickness. Gary was scared for his Aunt, but so was the rest of Tortall. When his father got sick, Gary forgot about the city, and everything else. His father couldn’t die, he just couldn’t. Gary’s world came to a halt as his father could no longer maintain their training, leaving the pages’ days empty. While the other pages did the work of dying servants, and Jon feared for his mother, Gary visited his father’s sickbed. He watched as a parade of healers came and left, drained and useless. He watched as his mother began to wither, whether from worry or impending sickness he had yet to discover. He could nothing but watch as rivulets of sweat trickled down the landscape of his father’s face. Would they become rivers, drowning him in his own fluids, even as he scorched on the inside?
Gary had forgotten about his friends, until one of them checked on him. It was Raoul who drew him from his father’s sickbed, into the fresh air. Gary gasped it down; he’d had no idea he had been suffocating in that closed room. He drank in Raoul’s presence, unaware also that he had been starving for comfort until Raoul came to give it. Disease had not touched them, yet they ailed under the weight of fear and worry. The plague sapped them of hope, just as it drained the healers of magic, but out in the sun, Gary and Raoul became healers for each other. They weren’t drained but strengthened, and the more they gave, the stronger they became. Though Gary tried hard not to cry, the tears leaked out, as the sweat seeped from the dying. Raoul was never embarrassed by it. He was Giftless, but as he sat with Gary, they were both filled with healing magic.
QC by: journeycat