Star Fruit #19, Peppermint #9, Strawberry Banana #25
Author: winebabe
Title: Sick Day
Story: The Gemini Occurrence
Rating: PG
Flavor(s): Star Fruit #19: there's no place like home; Peppermint #9: blanket; Strawberry Banana #25: oversleeping
Topping: Caramel
Word Count: 2497
Summary: 2028; It's hard for Devyn to believe that he's found a new normal; Genevieve can relate.
Notes: Genevieve Kessler/Devyn Lively, Macklin McDaniel. (A self-serving sickfic because I'm total trash for those, and I feel kinda crappy today. Working on finishing up at least one flavor!)
"Baby?" Genevieve gently nudges Devyn's shoulder, and then scoots over on the mattress so she's lying right behind him. "Devyn, wake up," she murmurs in his ear. He sighs, but doesn't respond, so she pushes herself up again and presses a kiss to his temple. "You have class this morning. Finals week, remember?"
"Yeah," Devyn finally says, and rolls over to face her. "Can you start the coffee? I don't want to be late."
She just smiles and leans down to kiss him on the lips. "I already did. Do you want your coffee in bed, or are you going to join me downstairs?"
He reaches out to lazily cup her cheek in one hand, running his thumb across the delicate slope of her cheekbone a few times. "I'll be down in a few minutes. You're the best, you know that?"
Genevieve grins and covers his hand with her own. "Yeah, I know." She kisses him once more and then hops out of bed, still dressed in only her long, pink and white nightdress, but looking infinitely more awake than Devyn feels.
Once she's left the room, Devyn drags himself out of bed and into the bathroom to get ready for the day. No amount of cold water on his face can make him feel more awake, though, and it's apparent in the dark circles under his eyes that he's not in top form. He knows his students won't care; they're all in the same boat, having stressed about and crammed for finals every day for the past week or so, but there's a strange feeling of insecurity about letting Genevieve see him this way.
She's seen worse, and he knows it; their first meeting wasn't exactly smooth, and she witnessed more than enough unsavory effects of the implant while he still had it in. He isn't afraid of her judging him, or even being disgusted by him to any degree. He just wants, for the first time in his life, for things to be perfect. As perfect as they can be.
Devyn eventually dresses himself in a pair of gray dress slacks, his usual white button-up shirt, and then throws on a sweater just for good measure. He can hear Genevieve downstairs in the kitchen, singing along to whatever's playing on the radio, and he can't help but smile to himself. The domestic life wasn't really something he'd ever considered for himself, but he doesn't think he'd ever want to give it up now. He feels more peaceful, like life is easier.
It's laughable, almost, what it took to get them there.
After pulling his phone free from its charging cord, Devyn heads downstairs to join Genevieve. The music he'd heard has been replaced with the podcast that she likes to listen to, and when he walks into the kitchen she reaches out towards him.
"Baby, it's gonna be like 70 degrees today," she tells him, wrapping her arms around his neck when he bends down to hug her. "What are you wearing that sweater for?"
"It's cold in the school," he says, and when she lets go of him he takes the seat next to her, where she's set out his coffee mug. "They've already turned the air conditioning on and I'm pretty sure they have it on full blast at all times."
"Oh. Well aren't you warm right now? You should just bring a hoodie or something to throw on. I think you're going to be too hot."
"I'll be fine," Devyn laughs. "If I get too hot, I can take the sweater off. No big deal." He picks up his mug and takes a gulp of coffee, wincing as the act of swallowing feels like razors against his throat.
Genevieve manages to look up at him at just the right time to catch his pained expression. "What's wrong?"
"I bit the inside of my mouth at dinner last night. The coffee just stung a little; I'm fine, Gen."
"Oh," she says and drops her gaze back to her phone. "You should rinse your mouth with some peroxide."
"Yeah," Devyn agrees, and makes a mental note that he should probably gargle with salt water for his throat before he leaves for work. Genevieve reaches her hand across the table, and he laces their fingers together, smiling as she gives his hand a little squeeze.
"I can't wait to have you all to myself this summer. Thank you, for not teaching any summer courses this year. You know, Jude, he never listened when I tried to talk to him about these things. He didn't care." Genevieve doesn't look up from her phone, but Devyn can still tell how uncomfortable she is. She still brings him up sometimes, her late husband, usually to thank Devyn for being nothing like him. It always makes his stomach turn to see how she's still affected by everything Jude had done.
"Of course," he says, with maybe a bit too much passion in his voice, and Genevieve looks up with a faint smile.
"Finish your coffee," she orders quietly. "You're going to be late. Do you want any breakfast to take with you?"
The thought of food just makes his stomach turn more, and Devyn shakes his head. "No, I'll pick something up from the cafe if I need to. But thank you."
"Mhm," Genevieve hums, and gives his hand another squeeze.
Genevieve's right about him being too hot in his sweater, but not for the reason she had thought. Devyn's pretty sure he has a fever by the time he pulls his car into the parking lot, halfway out of his sweater but unwilling to pull it over his head while driving. It's hanging around his neck still, and as soon as he turns the car off and is prepared to pull it off, a violent shiver runs through him. "Damn it," he grumbles, slipping his arms back through the sleeves and slumping back against the driver's seat for a few minutes.
He's not surprised that he's come down with something; some kind of nasty virus had been making the rounds for a few weeks beforehand, and on at least three occasions his classes had been missing nearly a third of the usual student population due to it. Of course, Devyn also hadn't actually expected to catch anything, and had been too busy getting everything together for finals to really think about the possibility. Now, he wishes he had maybe gotten some more sleep, or taken some vitamins.
Devyn makes a quick pit stop at the cafe to buy the largest travel cup of green tea he can get, tips the barista a little more than he'd meant to, and then heads into the campus to drudge through the final days of class before summer break. On the second floor, he passes Mack, who's walking and talking with a female student, and they've barely made it five steps down the hall before Mack turns around and calls out to Devyn.
"Devyn, hey!" Devyn turns around in time to see Mack tell the student to hold on, and then he jogs over to him. "Hey, are you alright? You look awful."
Devyn sighs heavily and raises his tea as though it should answer for him. "I'm fine. Just caught whatever stupid bug's been going around."
Mack cringes. "Man, I heard it's really nasty. You should really go home, call for a sub for your classes."
"Can't," Devyn says and shakes his head. "I promised my students they could make a cheat card, and a sub won't let them use it. I'll be fine."
"Well, good luck," Mack replies. "I'll check up on you later, alright? I'm serious, dude, you look bad. I'm worried."
"I'm a grown man, Mack," Devyn grumbles. "I'll be fine." He doesn't stick around for Mack's inevitable reply, and heads back down the hallway to his assigned classroom.
The first hour of Devyn's three-hour block isn't too bad. He works on some grading while his students work diligently, only occasionally having to answer questions about his wording when someone comes up to his desk. It's quiet, and the air conditioning keeps him from feeling too hot in his sweater, and he almost feels like he'll have no problem surviving the day.
After the first hour, though, everything goes downhill. Once his tea is gone, his throat feels like someone scrubbed it raw with sandpaper, and swallowing his own saliva is almost unbearably painful. His body aches, the chills running through him make him wish he'd piled on more sweaters, and every time he blinks, his eyes struggle to open again. Genevieve sends him a few blocks of text halfway through, and it doesn't make sense no matter how many times he reads it. Eventually, frustrated and miserable, he sends her a text back, telling her to stop texting him. As soon as he hits send, he regrets it, but Genevieve never responds to the apology he sends immediately after.
He'd given a big speech at the beginning of the period, demanding utter peace and quiet during the final, but in the three hour time frame allotted for the test, he's the only one who disturbs the peace. Devyn, out of some masochistic impulse, keeps track of how many times he sneezes--27--and once startles a girl so bad she tosses her pencil halfway across the room. Eventually he gives up on keeping up appearances, and pillows his head in his arms for the rest of the period.
He does, at one point, send a quick text to Mack, begging him to save him, and as soon as the period is over and all the students have cleared out of the room, Mack appears in the doorway. "Oh, Devmo," he murmurs, pulling up a chair next to his friend. "You look like hell."
"Yep, well, I feel like it, too." Devyn doesn't even pull away when Mack reaches out to feel his forehead. "Oh, God, your hand is freezing."
"That's because you're burning up," he sighs. "Devyn, go home, alright? I'll sub for your next final. I checked your calendar; I'll have plenty of time between that and my last final of the day. Go home. I already called Gen."
"You what?" Devyn snaps his head up and groans at the pulsating pain in his skull that follows the sudden movement.
"Dev, come on, do you really think she wouldn't notice? Go home, let her baby you for a few days. What else are you going to do, pretend like everything's fine and you're just skipping work for the hell of it?"
"It's not like I want to get her sick, too!" he exclaims, and Mack laughs.
"Newsflash, man: you've been breathing the same air, and I'm pretty sure there's been some lip action during the incubation period. It's too late to be worried about giving your girlfriend flu cooties."
Devyn sighs and pushes up his glasses to massage the bridge of his nose. "Fine. Fine." He pushes the stack of note cards over to Mack. "This is what their cheat cards can--" He breaks off to bury his face into his elbow and sneeze, and lingers there for a moment while Mack sympathetically pats him on the back.
"Yeah, I got it, dude. Will you go home now?"
"Yeah," Devyn says and sighs again. "Yeah, I'm going."
Devyn pushes open the front door like he's trying to sneak in, still worried about how Genevieve took him snapping at her earlier. The last thing he wants is to fight, especially in his pitiful state, and he's somewhat afraid that he's going to walk in on her crying and going on about how he's just like Jude--or something equally awful to hear. Instead, as soon as he's inside and drops his bag on the floor, Genevieve is at his side, draping a blanket around his shoulders and fussing over him.
"Oh, my poor baby!" she exclaims, pressing the back of one hand against his forehead while she uses the other to pull the blanket closed around him. "Why didn't you tell me you weren't feeling well? I knew something was off this morning, but I didn't want to push and make you angry--"
"Shh, Genevieve," Devyn interrupts, "it's okay. First of all, you're not gonna make me angry, and second of all, I didn't even realize I was this sick this morning."
"Well now we know," Genevieve says, stroking his cheek with her thumb, "and I'm going to take good care of you, don't you worry. Come on, you need to change out of those clothes and get into bed, and I'll bring you tea and medicine and after you take a nap, I'll make you some soup, and-- Devyn? Baby, are you okay?"
"Yeah," he says. He lets out a quiet laugh and shakes his head. "Yeah, I'm just--I'm not used to this."
Genevieve smiles and pats him once on the cheek. "Get used to it."
She holds his hand all the way up the stairs and into their bedroom, and while Devyn goes about changing into more comfortable clothing, Genevieve fluffs up the pillows in their bed and lays out the softest blanket she can find from their closet. "I'll be right back, okay?" she says once he's tucked in bed, and Devyn just shifts awkwardly, rubbing his eye with one hand.
"You don't have to baby me, you know," he says, and Genevieve just smiles.
"Do you want me to?" She combs her fingers through his hair a few times, and watches with satisfaction as his expression melts into one of contentment.
There's a long pause before Devyn reluctantly forces himself to admit, "Yes, I want you to."
"Good," Genevieve replies, pressing a light kiss to his forehead. "Because I wasn't going to stop. Now, don't fall asleep before I get your tea and medicine, okay. You need to take something."
"No promises." Devyn stretches and pulls the blankets up to his chin. "Take a nap with me. There's no point in leaving work early if I don't get to spend all my time with you."
"Alright," she laughs, "as soon as I've taken care of you."
Devyn dutifully drinks his tea and takes the pills that Genevieve brings up for him, and once the end table has been stocked with two tissue boxes and she's taken his temperature (and found, to her satisfaction, that it's not high enough to warrant a doctor visit that day), Genevieve crawls into bed with him and lets him curl up with his arms around her waist and his head on her chest. She gently runs her nails up and down his back, and when she brushes his hair back and kisses him behind his ear, she whispers, "If you sneeze on me, I'm breaking up with you."
Devyn laughs until the moment he does, in fact, have to wrench himself away from her to sneeze into a handful of tissues.
Title: Sick Day
Story: The Gemini Occurrence
Rating: PG
Flavor(s): Star Fruit #19: there's no place like home; Peppermint #9: blanket; Strawberry Banana #25: oversleeping
Topping: Caramel
Word Count: 2497
Summary: 2028; It's hard for Devyn to believe that he's found a new normal; Genevieve can relate.
Notes: Genevieve Kessler/Devyn Lively, Macklin McDaniel. (A self-serving sickfic because I'm total trash for those, and I feel kinda crappy today. Working on finishing up at least one flavor!)
"Baby?" Genevieve gently nudges Devyn's shoulder, and then scoots over on the mattress so she's lying right behind him. "Devyn, wake up," she murmurs in his ear. He sighs, but doesn't respond, so she pushes herself up again and presses a kiss to his temple. "You have class this morning. Finals week, remember?"
"Yeah," Devyn finally says, and rolls over to face her. "Can you start the coffee? I don't want to be late."
She just smiles and leans down to kiss him on the lips. "I already did. Do you want your coffee in bed, or are you going to join me downstairs?"
He reaches out to lazily cup her cheek in one hand, running his thumb across the delicate slope of her cheekbone a few times. "I'll be down in a few minutes. You're the best, you know that?"
Genevieve grins and covers his hand with her own. "Yeah, I know." She kisses him once more and then hops out of bed, still dressed in only her long, pink and white nightdress, but looking infinitely more awake than Devyn feels.
Once she's left the room, Devyn drags himself out of bed and into the bathroom to get ready for the day. No amount of cold water on his face can make him feel more awake, though, and it's apparent in the dark circles under his eyes that he's not in top form. He knows his students won't care; they're all in the same boat, having stressed about and crammed for finals every day for the past week or so, but there's a strange feeling of insecurity about letting Genevieve see him this way.
She's seen worse, and he knows it; their first meeting wasn't exactly smooth, and she witnessed more than enough unsavory effects of the implant while he still had it in. He isn't afraid of her judging him, or even being disgusted by him to any degree. He just wants, for the first time in his life, for things to be perfect. As perfect as they can be.
Devyn eventually dresses himself in a pair of gray dress slacks, his usual white button-up shirt, and then throws on a sweater just for good measure. He can hear Genevieve downstairs in the kitchen, singing along to whatever's playing on the radio, and he can't help but smile to himself. The domestic life wasn't really something he'd ever considered for himself, but he doesn't think he'd ever want to give it up now. He feels more peaceful, like life is easier.
It's laughable, almost, what it took to get them there.
After pulling his phone free from its charging cord, Devyn heads downstairs to join Genevieve. The music he'd heard has been replaced with the podcast that she likes to listen to, and when he walks into the kitchen she reaches out towards him.
"Baby, it's gonna be like 70 degrees today," she tells him, wrapping her arms around his neck when he bends down to hug her. "What are you wearing that sweater for?"
"It's cold in the school," he says, and when she lets go of him he takes the seat next to her, where she's set out his coffee mug. "They've already turned the air conditioning on and I'm pretty sure they have it on full blast at all times."
"Oh. Well aren't you warm right now? You should just bring a hoodie or something to throw on. I think you're going to be too hot."
"I'll be fine," Devyn laughs. "If I get too hot, I can take the sweater off. No big deal." He picks up his mug and takes a gulp of coffee, wincing as the act of swallowing feels like razors against his throat.
Genevieve manages to look up at him at just the right time to catch his pained expression. "What's wrong?"
"I bit the inside of my mouth at dinner last night. The coffee just stung a little; I'm fine, Gen."
"Oh," she says and drops her gaze back to her phone. "You should rinse your mouth with some peroxide."
"Yeah," Devyn agrees, and makes a mental note that he should probably gargle with salt water for his throat before he leaves for work. Genevieve reaches her hand across the table, and he laces their fingers together, smiling as she gives his hand a little squeeze.
"I can't wait to have you all to myself this summer. Thank you, for not teaching any summer courses this year. You know, Jude, he never listened when I tried to talk to him about these things. He didn't care." Genevieve doesn't look up from her phone, but Devyn can still tell how uncomfortable she is. She still brings him up sometimes, her late husband, usually to thank Devyn for being nothing like him. It always makes his stomach turn to see how she's still affected by everything Jude had done.
"Of course," he says, with maybe a bit too much passion in his voice, and Genevieve looks up with a faint smile.
"Finish your coffee," she orders quietly. "You're going to be late. Do you want any breakfast to take with you?"
The thought of food just makes his stomach turn more, and Devyn shakes his head. "No, I'll pick something up from the cafe if I need to. But thank you."
"Mhm," Genevieve hums, and gives his hand another squeeze.
Genevieve's right about him being too hot in his sweater, but not for the reason she had thought. Devyn's pretty sure he has a fever by the time he pulls his car into the parking lot, halfway out of his sweater but unwilling to pull it over his head while driving. It's hanging around his neck still, and as soon as he turns the car off and is prepared to pull it off, a violent shiver runs through him. "Damn it," he grumbles, slipping his arms back through the sleeves and slumping back against the driver's seat for a few minutes.
He's not surprised that he's come down with something; some kind of nasty virus had been making the rounds for a few weeks beforehand, and on at least three occasions his classes had been missing nearly a third of the usual student population due to it. Of course, Devyn also hadn't actually expected to catch anything, and had been too busy getting everything together for finals to really think about the possibility. Now, he wishes he had maybe gotten some more sleep, or taken some vitamins.
Devyn makes a quick pit stop at the cafe to buy the largest travel cup of green tea he can get, tips the barista a little more than he'd meant to, and then heads into the campus to drudge through the final days of class before summer break. On the second floor, he passes Mack, who's walking and talking with a female student, and they've barely made it five steps down the hall before Mack turns around and calls out to Devyn.
"Devyn, hey!" Devyn turns around in time to see Mack tell the student to hold on, and then he jogs over to him. "Hey, are you alright? You look awful."
Devyn sighs heavily and raises his tea as though it should answer for him. "I'm fine. Just caught whatever stupid bug's been going around."
Mack cringes. "Man, I heard it's really nasty. You should really go home, call for a sub for your classes."
"Can't," Devyn says and shakes his head. "I promised my students they could make a cheat card, and a sub won't let them use it. I'll be fine."
"Well, good luck," Mack replies. "I'll check up on you later, alright? I'm serious, dude, you look bad. I'm worried."
"I'm a grown man, Mack," Devyn grumbles. "I'll be fine." He doesn't stick around for Mack's inevitable reply, and heads back down the hallway to his assigned classroom.
The first hour of Devyn's three-hour block isn't too bad. He works on some grading while his students work diligently, only occasionally having to answer questions about his wording when someone comes up to his desk. It's quiet, and the air conditioning keeps him from feeling too hot in his sweater, and he almost feels like he'll have no problem surviving the day.
After the first hour, though, everything goes downhill. Once his tea is gone, his throat feels like someone scrubbed it raw with sandpaper, and swallowing his own saliva is almost unbearably painful. His body aches, the chills running through him make him wish he'd piled on more sweaters, and every time he blinks, his eyes struggle to open again. Genevieve sends him a few blocks of text halfway through, and it doesn't make sense no matter how many times he reads it. Eventually, frustrated and miserable, he sends her a text back, telling her to stop texting him. As soon as he hits send, he regrets it, but Genevieve never responds to the apology he sends immediately after.
He'd given a big speech at the beginning of the period, demanding utter peace and quiet during the final, but in the three hour time frame allotted for the test, he's the only one who disturbs the peace. Devyn, out of some masochistic impulse, keeps track of how many times he sneezes--27--and once startles a girl so bad she tosses her pencil halfway across the room. Eventually he gives up on keeping up appearances, and pillows his head in his arms for the rest of the period.
He does, at one point, send a quick text to Mack, begging him to save him, and as soon as the period is over and all the students have cleared out of the room, Mack appears in the doorway. "Oh, Devmo," he murmurs, pulling up a chair next to his friend. "You look like hell."
"Yep, well, I feel like it, too." Devyn doesn't even pull away when Mack reaches out to feel his forehead. "Oh, God, your hand is freezing."
"That's because you're burning up," he sighs. "Devyn, go home, alright? I'll sub for your next final. I checked your calendar; I'll have plenty of time between that and my last final of the day. Go home. I already called Gen."
"You what?" Devyn snaps his head up and groans at the pulsating pain in his skull that follows the sudden movement.
"Dev, come on, do you really think she wouldn't notice? Go home, let her baby you for a few days. What else are you going to do, pretend like everything's fine and you're just skipping work for the hell of it?"
"It's not like I want to get her sick, too!" he exclaims, and Mack laughs.
"Newsflash, man: you've been breathing the same air, and I'm pretty sure there's been some lip action during the incubation period. It's too late to be worried about giving your girlfriend flu cooties."
Devyn sighs and pushes up his glasses to massage the bridge of his nose. "Fine. Fine." He pushes the stack of note cards over to Mack. "This is what their cheat cards can--" He breaks off to bury his face into his elbow and sneeze, and lingers there for a moment while Mack sympathetically pats him on the back.
"Yeah, I got it, dude. Will you go home now?"
"Yeah," Devyn says and sighs again. "Yeah, I'm going."
Devyn pushes open the front door like he's trying to sneak in, still worried about how Genevieve took him snapping at her earlier. The last thing he wants is to fight, especially in his pitiful state, and he's somewhat afraid that he's going to walk in on her crying and going on about how he's just like Jude--or something equally awful to hear. Instead, as soon as he's inside and drops his bag on the floor, Genevieve is at his side, draping a blanket around his shoulders and fussing over him.
"Oh, my poor baby!" she exclaims, pressing the back of one hand against his forehead while she uses the other to pull the blanket closed around him. "Why didn't you tell me you weren't feeling well? I knew something was off this morning, but I didn't want to push and make you angry--"
"Shh, Genevieve," Devyn interrupts, "it's okay. First of all, you're not gonna make me angry, and second of all, I didn't even realize I was this sick this morning."
"Well now we know," Genevieve says, stroking his cheek with her thumb, "and I'm going to take good care of you, don't you worry. Come on, you need to change out of those clothes and get into bed, and I'll bring you tea and medicine and after you take a nap, I'll make you some soup, and-- Devyn? Baby, are you okay?"
"Yeah," he says. He lets out a quiet laugh and shakes his head. "Yeah, I'm just--I'm not used to this."
Genevieve smiles and pats him once on the cheek. "Get used to it."
She holds his hand all the way up the stairs and into their bedroom, and while Devyn goes about changing into more comfortable clothing, Genevieve fluffs up the pillows in their bed and lays out the softest blanket she can find from their closet. "I'll be right back, okay?" she says once he's tucked in bed, and Devyn just shifts awkwardly, rubbing his eye with one hand.
"You don't have to baby me, you know," he says, and Genevieve just smiles.
"Do you want me to?" She combs her fingers through his hair a few times, and watches with satisfaction as his expression melts into one of contentment.
There's a long pause before Devyn reluctantly forces himself to admit, "Yes, I want you to."
"Good," Genevieve replies, pressing a light kiss to his forehead. "Because I wasn't going to stop. Now, don't fall asleep before I get your tea and medicine, okay. You need to take something."
"No promises." Devyn stretches and pulls the blankets up to his chin. "Take a nap with me. There's no point in leaving work early if I don't get to spend all my time with you."
"Alright," she laughs, "as soon as I've taken care of you."
Devyn dutifully drinks his tea and takes the pills that Genevieve brings up for him, and once the end table has been stocked with two tissue boxes and she's taken his temperature (and found, to her satisfaction, that it's not high enough to warrant a doctor visit that day), Genevieve crawls into bed with him and lets him curl up with his arms around her waist and his head on her chest. She gently runs her nails up and down his back, and when she brushes his hair back and kisses him behind his ear, she whispers, "If you sneeze on me, I'm breaking up with you."
Devyn laughs until the moment he does, in fact, have to wrench himself away from her to sneeze into a handful of tissues.