Slim: Book 6

In Sickness and In Health

My dreams were replays of my father coming home and giving me smoky hugs. Deja vu glittered along with the marbles in the carpet, but rarely did anything new come to me. It was probably the only memory I had of him, besides the funeral.

And I dreamed of that too: walls of black and white stripes. The incense burning a sharp reminder to me of his fiery scent. Dad didn't smoke. Nor was he a fire fighter.

No. My father had been the average run of the mill police officer. He even still had the nickname 'rookie' by his other co-workers, as he hadn't yet to complete his first year in the field.

I woke up burning with regret that I hadn't asked my mother more.

The throbbing headache and the belly deep cough put a damper on that and woke Naru, who was surprisingly still naked under the covers. He reached a hand over to my forehead.

"That's definitely warmish," he muttered, then put a hand to his mouth to cover a cough. Smiling, I reached over to feel his own forehead, but my hand was so warm I couldn't much tell the difference.

"Look at us sickies," I said.

"Guess that's to be suspected." He gave a louder cough, made a little noise of fatigue, and curled his arm back under the covers, where it found its way over to my waist. I hadn't bothered dressing the night before either. His head followed as he hid away from the sunlight creeping through the blinds of his-now our-bedroom and tucked his head up beneath my breasts.

"I dreamed of my dad all night," I told him, feeling out his head to run my fingers through his messy hair.

"Those kinds of dreams?" he asked, voice muffled under the blankets and humming against my breast bone.

"With how insistent they were, hard to think they're anything else, especially given how random all this is." I tried to hold in a cough so my diaphragm wouldn't beat Naru's head off. I tried to tell him about the memory and my thoughts of fire, but I didn't know how much he heard as he started doing things under there that were very nonconstructive to intelligent conversation.

Yeah, we both felt like crap. But apparently not bad enough to stop from being frisky.

We came out coughing and dressed in sweats and big t-shirts to find Lin sitting at the couch, sipping a cup of coffee. While my feverish face just got hotter (we hadn't been exactly quiet), Naru looked unsurprised, which was unexpected coming from the guy who had just about freaked out whenever I said the word 'sex' when we had started dating. Maybe he didn't think Lin heard anything or knew something I didn't.

"I asked him to stay," he told me.

I gave him my best glare of 'and you didn't tell me before you seduced me?'

"And good thing," said Lin in his usual flat, quiet way. "Something tried to get in last night. It didn't leave until the storm broke up, which was sometime after sunrise."

"That's not encouraging," said Naru, who shuffled to the kitchen to open up the cupboard above the fridge. Achy, and feeling just a tad bit nauseous, I went to curl up in the sitting chair, but Lin stood up and pointed me to the couch. He even slid into the sitting chair before I could to make sure his offer would be taken. I sighed, and curled up there instead, shivering. I was of half a mind just to go back to bed.

"Most supernatural activities cease come sunrise, right?" I asked.

"How astute of you," said Naru dryly.

"Hey, you better be treating me like the queen of Sheba, I am your wife and you just brought me back from a god awful honeymoon."

"Well, your highness," a glass of grape juice and a bottle of pills appeared in front of my face, held by Naru from behind the couch. "I have brought your tonic and wine."