[flashback] sick day

[2goodarms]

A decade isn't enough time for illnesses to evolve from their pre-freeze state. So many of them start the same way they always have: with a chill. A lot of times, people don't even know they're sick. What's feeling a little colder than usual, needing to curl up a little tighter under your allotted blanket?

So Curtis doesn't know, for a good forty-eight hours, until the shivering doesn't quit even after Gilliam loans him two more blankets. As soon as Tanya feels his forehead, he's whisked away to the very back of the Tail, stumbling a little as the train heaves along the tracks. Everything's tilted just a little too far off-kilter, and weaves just a little too sharply whenever they go over a bump. He's grateful when he finally has a chance to sit down.

...Actually, maybe he'll lie down for a bit. Yeah. Just a couple minutes.

Comments

[hate_gettin_older]

He isn't sure what she means, but he nods anyway. "Right."

And adds, on impulse: "And thanks. For helping him too. Both of you."

[snowpiercer_npcs]

"'Course," says Macgregor. "We're all stuck in this shit together, you know?"

He glances to Curtis. It's hard to tell if, sick as he is, he's tracking the conversation, but he does manage to focus on Macgregor for a second.

[hate_gettin_older]

As does Edgar -- more than he usually focuses on anybody.

It's not as though Macgregor has said anything but a simple and obvious truth, and yet somehow the way he says it ... well, it sounds truer, dumb as that seems. Deeper. More important somehow.

He nods, solemnly, trying to sound adult when he says "Yeah."

[snowpiercer_npcs]

Macgregor holds Curtis's gaze a moment longer, then looks up at Edgar. People squeeze around them, casting mildly irritated glances at the way they've parked themselves in the middle of the floor, but nobody says anything. Not with how Macgregor reacted to Reese; not with how Curtis looks right now.

He reaches out to pat Edgar on the shoulder.

[hate_gettin_older]

Edgar draws in breath, holds himself a little straighter.

Somehow he knows this is a moment that isn't going to come again.

[snowpiercer_npcs]

"Wanna sit here and eat your dinner?"

Because let's be honest: Curtis isn't going to move back to the infirmary any time soon, much as Evie may want it.

[hate_gettin_older]

"Yeah," he says again, quieter than he means to, and folds down to sit next to Curtis.

Hunger's woken up in him; he saved his protein block from last night in case they needed to trade it to somebody for help, and his belly is jabbing him with reminders of its emptiness, and he tears into the gummy protein without another word.