short TUA thing with sick Klaus (Klaus/Dave)

[Sitruuna]

The focus of this story is kinda all over the place like... sure, it's on the illness but also it's kinda just on... Klaus' ponderings.
Includes some tlc, fever stuff, some coughing... that's it, mostly.
CV for mentions of drugs and drug use. It's not a major thing but this is Klaus we are talking about and also a story that takes place during a very... drug-heavy war. So. It's there.
 

~¤~

 

What ever Klaus had imagined for himself in the long hours of the nights he had spent lying awake unable to sleep, or on the days he could hardly get himself to get up thanks to whatever he had done the previous night, none of it had included a trip to the past and finding a lover in the middle of a war. None of it had included trips with said lover to random towns somewhere in Vietnam during downtime or walking the streets while joking and sharing a joint as if there wasn’t a war around them. That was, of course, logical - he couldn’t have predicted any of the events that had happened after their father’s death. It was an extraordinary thing, sort of marvelous, and if it was grim or inappropriate to think that considering the war and all, Klaus didn’t care.

Dave finished putting on his clothes and turned around. Klaus was lying on Dave’s cot still only half-dressed, and had been watching closely as Dave changed. He smiled when their eyes met, and his whole body filled with warmth when Dave smiled back. In a tent full of squadmates that was the extent of it. Klaus wouldn’t have cared what the others thought, what the army thought, what the society thought - he had been the odd one for a long time and he had got his share of attention of all kinds. What was an acceptable kind of relationship between two squadmates wasn’t much of a concern for him, but he knew toning it down most of the time was the best option for both of them. It wasn’t like the others could have missed the looks and the lingering, unnecessary touches, or how Klaus still slipped next to Dave in the middle of the night, and their silent acceptance or willful ignorance wasn’t something Klaus or Dave wanted to risk. Out in the night was different. At the bars in the towns they didn’t really care who saw them. They may have acted like they weren’t in the middle of a war in otherways, but they still were aware this all might end in a tragedy.

“What are you thinking about?” Dave asked him. His face was still drawn in a beautiful, beautiful smile, and Klaus couldn’t help mouthing him a silent “you” in return. He felt kind of surreal in that moment, more aware of the absurdity of the situation than usual. He would have assumed he was closer to a state of soberness than usually had he not felt oddly heavy and light simultaneously and had his head felt any clearer. He was coming down from his latest dose, though, that he knew. The withdrawal would soon set in, if it hadn’t already. He did feel sort of like crap.

Dave seemed to notice something was off and Klaus tried to up his game of pretense. Dave knew of his issues - he had told him soon after they’d started spending time together - but Klaus still felt uncomfortably vulnerable about it. Dave’s brows furrowed as he took in Klaus’ appearance.

“Are you all right?” Dave asked after a moment. Klaus just shrugged. Maybe Dave would understand what it meant.

Dave looked over his shoulder to see who all were in the tent. Klaus assumed he decided the crowd present was “safe” since he sat down on the edge of the cot and brushed his fingers through Klaus’ hair. Klaus closed his eyes and leaned into the touch just the slightest.

“You look feverish Klaus”, he said. “And you feel really warm.”

Klaus hummed but didn’t say anything. He didn’t think he had a fever but it would make sense. It would explain some of how he was feeling and it wasn’t rare to run a little hot when detoxing. If he was feverish he assumed that was the cause.

“Do you feel sick?”

Dave’s voice was quiet and so tender Klaus couldn’t not react. He opened his eyes and looked at Dave’s worried expression. They had gone through this once before and while Klaus thought Dave was overreacting, he did understand the worry. Maybe a month into his time in the past Klaus had caught something and, thanks to the local supply of weed and the army’s supply of easily accessible pills of all kinds, he had hardly noticed his own symptoms until they were in the middle of moving camp and he collapsed on the road. He’d definitely given Dave a scare. Klaus tried to focus on how he felt aside from the heaviness and the fogginess in his mind, but the latter didn’t really help with awareness. His throat felt odd, he supposed, and he was sort of achy but achiness in his situation didn’t tell much. So he shrugged.

“All right”, Dave said. Klaus could almost see the resolve in Dave’s eyes as he seemingly switched roles from “concerned boyfriend” to “a soldier trying to assess a potentially sick or injured fellow soldier’s well being”. Klaus was fine with the change in approach - he wouldn’t have trusted his judgement either.

“Do you feel pain or discomfort anywhere? Aches? Any congestion?”

“Pain and discomfort are a given, dearest. Where do I not ache?” Klaus responded. He was surprised to hear the roughness of his own voice. He hadn’t actually said a word yet on that morning which, he now realised, was odd on its own. He didn’t need to answer the question on congestion either; he may not have been all that aware of it before he started talking, but the words resonated oddly in his nose, and his voice was unusually dull and nasal.

“You sound sick”, Dave noted and the frown from before returned. “How’s your throat? Your chest? Can you give me a cough?”

Klaus skipped the first two questions, taking in a deep breath instead. It in itself triggered an itch in his throat and when he tried to cough it turned into a fit. There was a touch of productivity to the coughs, the kind that most definitely would develop further and lead to fits much wetter and worse than this one. All things considered, Klaus couldn’t really understand how he hadn’t noticed any of this without Dave’s prodding. Maybe he was less sober than he had thought. Dave sighed.

“Tell me something Klaus”, he said, brushing his hand through Klaus’ hair again. “How did you survive until we met with such great bodily self-awareness?”

Klaus closed his eyes again and put his hand on top of Dave’s, moving it on his cheek as he turned on his side. He almost responded “I didn’t”, but chose to stay silent.
 

[Feo]

😊